Kalidasa – Kavee kee Shastradnya

An article in Marathi by Prof R R Kelkar entitled “Kalidasa – Kavee kee Shastradnya” was published in the Marathi newspaper “Sakal” from Pune on 23 June 2009.

Click here to read

Kalidasa: The Poet with a Scientist’s Mind

“Meghadoot”, meaning the Cloud Messenger, is a Sanskrit poem of 120 stanzas or slokas, composed by the poet Kalidasa. Briefly, the poem is about a yaksha, who is banished from Alakapuri, takes refuge in Ramgiri, shares his sorrow with a cloud, and requests the cloud to go and tell his beloved in Alakapuri that he is safe. However, Kalidasa has developed this simple theme into a great literary masterpiece of unparalleled beauty. Even after a passage of 1600 years since it was written, Meghadoot continues to captivate the minds of its readers. Rabindranath Tagore, Madhav Julian, Kusumagraj, Shanta Shelke, and many literary stalwarts have translated Meghadoot from Sanskrit into other Indian languages. Kalidasa’s descriptions are so picturesque, that artists have been inspired to paint Meghadoot sloka by sloka. Its translations into several foreign languages have been posted on the internet.

It is said that a poet can see what even the sun does not. There are no limits to a poet’s imagination. Meghadoot, however, stands a class apart from other great poetry, as Kalidasa’s flight of fantasy transcends into the realm of real science which we know today as meteorology. It would be futile to conjecture how or from whom Kalidasa might have acquired his scientific knowledge. Perhaps nature herself was his teacher!

The very first sloka of Meghadoot paints before us a picture of a yaksha, meaning a servant, exiled from his home in Alakapuri, now living in a far away place called Ramgiri, lonely, broken-hearted and worn out, pained by the separation from his beloved. He is counting the remaining days of his sentence. And on the first day of the month of Ashadha, he suddenly notices a cloud, standing alone atop the mountain peak of Ramgiri (“Ashadhasya prathama divase”…sloka 1.1).

Historians are in general agreement that the town presently called Ramtek, near Nagpur, is the location of Kalidasa’s Ramgiri, while Alakapuri might have been in north India somewhere in the Himalayan foothills. It is important to note that the average date of the arrival of the monsoon over the Ramtek region in 400 A. D. was indeed the same as it is today. This is a reassuring fact, particularly in the context of climate change and the doubts that are being expressed about the changes in the monsoon patterns.

Now imagine that Kalidasa’s solitary cloud is standing proudly over the mountain top, overlooking the region around it, announcing the arrival of the monsoon rains to a population that has been suffering from the scorching heat of the prolonged summer. This cloud is spearheading the monsoon front, making sure that the way ahead is clear for the advance of the monsoon. The yaksha looks at this cloud which has such a heavy responsibility (1.3) and pleads with him to undertake an additional task of carrying a message to his beloved (1.4).

The yaksha knows that the cloud is made up of four ingredients: water, wind, electricity and smoke (“Dhoomra jyoti salila marutam sannipatah kva meghah…” 1.5). He is well aware of the different forms of clouds (1.6). Moreover, he also knows that the northern town of Alakapuri, where his beloved is, lies in the path of the monsoon clouds (“Gantavya te vasatiralaka…” 1.7). Today it is known that smoke consists of two types of carbon, organic and black, of which the former helps in cloud formation and the latter absorbs heat. The role of black carbon in global warming is however not yet fully understood. It is mindboggling that Kalidasa should have known about cloud processes in such detail in his times.

In today’s satellite era, it is possible to monitor globally the growth, movement and dissipation of clouds. The average life time of a typical monsoon cloud is at best a few hours. When Kalidasa’s yaksha asked the cloud to go with his message all the way from Ramgiri in central India to Alakapuri in the Himalayan foothills, he seems to be quite aware of this fact. He was sure that one single cloud would not be able to sustain itself along this long journey. So he finds a scientific solution to the problem. He advises the cloud to rest awhile over the several rivers that would have to be crossed on the way and get rejuvenated (“Neetva neelam salilavasanam muktarodhonitambam…” 1.43). The rivers mentioned are Vetravati (1.24), Shipra (1.31), Gambhira (1.42), Ganga (1.53) and others. It is obvious that Kalidasa envisaged a process in which the evaporation from the surface of these large rivers would help in cloud formation and development. Kalidasa’s poetic fantasy and scientific logic go hand in hand to help fulfill the yaksha’s desire. Little research has however been done since Kalidasa’s times till today on how the monsoon is influenced by the rivers that crisscross the Indian subcontinent.

The yaksha thereafter lays down the itinerary of the cloud. He wants the cloud to visit places like Vidisha, Ujjayini and Devgiri, which have great beauty and with which he has strong emotional bonds. He describes them in picturesque detail and entices the cloud to see them. But here again the scientist prevails over the poet and he says that the monsoon winds will surely carry the cloud to the destination (“Mandam mandam nudati pavanaschanukulam yatha twam…” 1.10). The monsoon winds will slowly turn westwards (“Kinchit paschadvraja laghugatirbhuya evottarena…” 1.16). The yaksha is acquainted with the circuitous route of the monsoon and he repeatedly cautions that the cloud must always keep moving to the north (“Vakra pantha yadapi bhavatah prasthitasyottarasham…” 1.27).

At many places, the yaksha tells the cloud to gain height in order to move faster, again suggesting that Kalidasa was aware of the fact that the monsoon winds gathered strength with height, while phenomena such as the tropical easterly jet and the low level jet were discovered by meteorologists only in the last century.

We do not yet have a precise definition of a typical monsoon cloud. But monsoon clouds over northern India are taller than those over peninsular India and are associated with thunder and lightning. At the end of the poem, the yaksha wishes that the cloud and his beloved, the lightning, may never get separated (“Ma bhudevam kshanamapi cha te vidyuta viprayogah…” 2.55).

Kalidasa’s Meghadootam is not only a poem of great beauty but an accurate scientific statement about the monsoon clouds and winds. What Kalidasa wrote about the monsoon 1600 years ago, can be said to be scientifically sound by today’s standards. In some respects, Kalidasa remains ahead of the scientists of the twentyfirst century and they can learn from him and draw inspiration for doing further research in the monsoon.

Prof. R. R. Kelkar
Kalidasa Day, 23 June 2009

Kalidasa’s Meghadoot and Monsoon Meteorology

I had delivered a lecture at the Marathi Department of the University of Pune on 9 February 2009 in which I had presented a meteorologist’s view of the poetic fantasies of fourth century Sanskrit poet Kalidasa in his ‘Meghadoot’ and the modern day Marathi monsoon poems of Mangesh Padgaonkar.

Abhijit Ghorpade who attended my lecture, has reviewed and paraphrased my talk in an article in the Marathi newapaper ‘Loksatta’ published from Pune on 22 February 2009.

Click here to read the article.

R. R. Kelkar

O Worship the King

This hymn written by Robert Grant in 1833 is based on Psalm 104 (see the related post “Praising God for His Creation”

O worship the King
All glorious above;
O gratefully sing
His power and his love:
Our Shield and Defender,
The Ancient of days,
Pavilioned in splendour,
And girded with praise.

O tell of his might,
O sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light,
Whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath
The deep thunder-clouds form,
And dark is his path
On the wings of the storm.

This earth, with its store
Of wonders untold,
Almighty, thy power
Hath founded of old:
Hath stablished it fast
By a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast,
Like a mantle, the sea.

Thy bountiful care
What tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air,
It shines in the light;
It streams from the hills,
It descends to the plain,
And sweetly distils
In the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust,
And feeble as frail,
In thee do we trust,
Nor find thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender!
How firm to the end!
Our Maker, Defender,
Redeemer, and Friend.

O measureless Might,
Ineffable Love,
While angels delight
To hymn thee above,
Thy humbler creation,
Though feeble their lays,
With true adoration
Shall sing to thy praise.

Marathi Article on Winter Weather

An article by R R Kelkar on the weather of the winter season over India has appeared in the Marathi newspaper Sakal on 21 November 2007. Click here to read. It covers topics like western disturbances, snow, winter rains, fog, cold waves, etc.

The Weather-cock

The poet-philosopher-artist, Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), was born in northern Lebanon. His parents migrated to the United States of America in 1895 and he grew up in the Syrian community in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts. Kahlil Gibran’s literary masterpiece, The Prophet (1923), which he illustrated with his own mystical drawings, is an expression of the deepest human impulses. Another very renowned work of his, Jesus the Son of Man (1928), is an inspired and unorthodox portrayal of Christ’s essential character.

The following excerpt is taken from Gibran’s collection of parables in The Forerunner (1920): 

The Weather-cock 

Said the weather-cock to the wind, “How tedious and monotonous are you! Can you not blow any other way but in my face? You disturb my God-given stability.” And the wind did not answer. It only laughed in space.  

Marathi Article on Monsoon

An article on the Indian southwest monsoon written by Prof. R. R. Kelkar was published in the Marathi newspaper ‘Sakal’ in its Pune edition of 20 June 2007. It covers various aspects such as onset and advance of the monsoon, rainfall variability, monsoon trough, breaks, monsoon lows and depressions, and association of the monsoon with Indian music and culture. Click here to read.

Mahalanobis, Tagore and Alipore

Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893-1972) and the Indian Statistical Institute that he founded in 1931, are names that are inseparable from the history of the development of statistics in India.

The first statistical work of P. C. Mahalanobis was in anthropometry. It was entitled ‘Anthropological Observations on Anglo-Indians of Calcutta, Part I: Male Stature’, and it was published in the Records of the Indian Museum in 1922. At that time, the Director General of the India Meteorological Department was Dr Gilbert Walker, who himself had been deeply involved in the application of statistical correlation techniques for the purpose of long range forecasting of Indian monsoon rainfall. The work of Mahalanobis attracted Walker’s attention and he read it with keen interest, so much so that Walker offered him a job in IMD. Mahalanobis accepted the offer and served as a part time Meteorologist at the Alipore Observatory in Calcutta (now Kolkata) from 1922 to 1926. At the same time, he continued to work as a professor of physics at the Presidency College, Calcutta.

Coinciding with Mahalanobis’s tenure as a professional meteorologist, there were disastrous flood events, first in north Bengal in 1922 and then in Orissa in 1926. After the 1922 floods, engineers had recommended the raising of embankments to prevent future floods. But Mahalanobis, after analysing the pattern of rainfall statistics for the previous 50 years, suggested instead an efficient drainage system as the real solution to the problem of flooding. The Hirakud and Damodar river valley projects were subsequently designed on statistical considerations evolved by Mahalanobis.

Mahalanobis had found his love for statistics early in his life, and when it was a little-known subject. Surprisingly, among the few people who encouraged him to pursue it was the poet Rabindranath Tagore, with whom Mahalanobis was to later develop a special and lasting relationship. Mahalanobis was the General Secretary of Tagore’s Viswa Bharati University at Shantniketan for several years. The statistician-turned-meteorologist Prasanta Chandra and his wife, Nirmal Kumari, known affectionately as Rani Mahalanobis, regularly played hosts to Tagore at their official residence on the first floor of the Alipore Observatory building. Tagore had a room for himself, but he preferred the shade of the giant banyan tree that it overlooked, under which he sat and penned his literary masterpieces. It was in the fitness of things, that Tagore, who is sometimes called the Monsoon Poet, drew his inspiration from clouds and rain in the campus of a meteorological observatory! Tagore’s room at Alipore has now been converted into a small museum which houses some of his memorabilia and the banyan tree continues to stand at the hallowed spot in homage to his memory.   

(This post has been written by me on the basis of print and internet sources. It could be in need of some corrections. – R. R. Kelkar)

A Prayer in the Time of Rain

Robert Louis Stevenson is remembered for his great literary works, poetry and novels of adventure (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886, Treasure Island  1883, A Child’s Garden of Verses 1885). Very different from these are his Prayers Written at Vailima, the place where he died of a brain haemorrhage on December 3, 1894. Here is an extract from these Prayers:

We thank Thee, Lord, for the glory of the late days and the excellent face of thy sun.

We thank Thee for good news received. We thank Thee for the pleasures we have enjoyed and for those we have been able to confer.

And now, when the clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down.

Let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but, like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness.

If there be in front of us any painful duty, strengthen us with the grace of courage; if any act of mercy, teach us tenderness and patience.

Universal Brotherhood

Praised be my Lord God with all His creatures, and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light. Fair is he and shines with a very great splendour.

Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, which He has set clear and lovely in heaven.

Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for the air and cloud, calms, and all weather by which He upholds life in all creatures.

Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who serves us and is humble, precious and clean.

Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, who sustains us and keeps us, and brings forth diverse fruits and flowers.

Praise and bless the Lord, give thanks unto Him, and serve Him with great humility.

-after Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226 A.D.)