When I reentered with a curious mind
Let’s try and chant this one more time, said my mother.
na yasya deva rishayah padam vidur jantuh punah ko ‘rhati gantum iritum
yatha natasyakritibhir vicheshtato duratyayanukramanah sa mavatu
I tried repeating after her but it was an exercise in futility. These Sanskrit shlokas were so hard to pronounce that my tongue was flailing about uselessly. I longed to be somewhere else. After a few tries, my mother lost her temper.
“What is wrong with you? Can’t you just hear what I am saying and repeat? You are not even trying. I am so ashamed of you! To think that you belong to a family of Sanskrit scholars and can’t even learn how to recite the simple Gajendra Moksha!”
That was it. I could not take any more of the routine. There was absolutely no need for me to sit with my mother and undergo this torture, I reasoned. After all, it was not a part of my school curriculum. It made no difference if I learned the Gajendra Moksha or not. I walked away defiantly.
“Come back!”
“No! You are mean! I cannot learn this. I am good at Science, Math, English, History, and everything else in school. Why should I learn this stuff? It’s not important. Let me finish my homework.”
