It was in his early 20s, when Nityananda Misra stumbled upon a copy of Panini’s Ashtadhyayi, a treatise on Sanskrit grammar. As a child, he did study the ancient language in school. But finding this book at the Gangaram’s Book Bureau in Bengaluru – he was living there as a student at IIM-B – was somehow different. It kickstarted a whole new preoccupation for the investment banker, who is currently based in Mumbai.
Earlier this year, Bloomsbury published Misra’s latest book, Kumbha: The Traditionally Modern Mela , in the lead up to the recently concluded Kumbha Mela in Prayagraj. In this conversation, he talks about the coming together of art, literature and culture at the various Kumbhas, and about why and how language is an important carrier of culture.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
You’re an investment banker. What about the Sanskrit language interested you?
As a child, I was very good at mathematics. In algebra especially, you do your equations through a step-by-step derivation to prove something. In Sanskrit, derivation of words is very similar. You start with a root, and you apply prefixes and suffixes, with certain rules. For example, to say 'son of Kunti', you add a suffix that makes the ‘Ku’ into a “Kau’. The resulting word, Kaunteya can therefore mean Yudishtir, Bhima, or Arjuna. The grammar especially, comprising around 4,000 rules by Panini, is all mathematical in nature. There are deep programming concepts here too: general rules and exceptions, and how to control or supersede a rule. It was really my love for mathematics that got me into words.
Coming to your book, there are parts where you talk of how the Kumbh is all-inclusive, not only with its attendees, but also with the arts that find space here. But arguments can be made as to how there’s a fine line between inclusiveness and hegemonising.
In the context of Kumbh specifically, you’re invited to the mela, you’re not forced to go to it. And if you do go to it, you're not required to be a Hindu or to convert. You can be a part of it, experience it, and you can go back without changing your thought process, philosophy, or religion. I believe it could be said that it was hegemonising if this inclusivity made people 'more Hindu', but that’s not the case.
In the larger scheme of things, it’s like how grama devatas – local deities you can find in every corner of India – are invoked with "graamadevatabhyo namah" in mantras. It’s a way of saying we respect everybody's deities. It’s not an attempt to hegemonise. It's just that you're welcome to be there, to take part, and just experience.
You talk about living-cultures in the artistic traditions of the Kumbh. Can you recall your experiences with some of these?
Almost every shivir in the Kumbh holds Kathas. There are the folk Ram Leela and Krishna Leelas traditions too. There is a whole lot of live musicians — harmonium artists, tabla artists, but none famous. These everyday artists are an essential part of the festival, which people don't really notice or write about afterwards, but these are the people that enliven the experience. Without the music, all the Katha programmes would be lifeless. It's a selfless service in art too, I think. These artists don't get paid very well or get any limelight. With the philosophy of paropkara (altruism), they help others realise that higher feeling of bhakti, of devotion, and that's it.
Another highlight — although I didn't get a chance to meet them — are baala vyaasas. These are eight- or 10-year-old children who perform Katha from the Ramayana or the Bhagavata Purana with music, reciting verses, explaining them, and singing. These very young children have memorized the Bhagavata Purana or the Ramcharitamanas.
People usually focus on the sadhus or the akharas in the Kumbh, but this is such a big festival of art, music, literature which people may miss. This is something you can only experience first-hand.
Taking off from your mention of the baala vyaasas – on the one hand, you look at language critically and mathematically, but on the other, there's the big contemporary dilemma of oral tradition getting diluted into rote learning.
Yes, I think that unfortunately the case in recent times. One of the aspects of the Kumbh, traditionally, would be for people to have a Shastrartha.
Historically, it was a space where you would have these intellectual discussions about the shaastras, but that tradition unfortunately is not that strong these days.
In the book, I mention Prananatha – he was the direct disciple of Guru Devachandra, the founder of the Pranami Sampradaya — who has a Shastrartha with all the six schools of philosophy (Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa, Vedanta) at the Haridwar Kumbha Mela.
There were some attempts I believe to revive it. In 2010, the Dalai Lama and Swami Sharanananda participated in a shastrartha on Sankhya philosophy. But what I'd really like to see is Vaakyaartha Sadas. The Sringeri Mutt for example has an annual Mahaganapati Vakyartha Vidwat Sabha, where they invite scholars from different schools of philosophy for a discussion. One of these powerful mutts could perhaps start such a revival at the Kumbh Mela.
Having said that, I want to note that there is a lot philosophy in the Kumbh’s existing katha programmes, with the likes of Avadeshananda Giri or the Puri Shankaracharya Nischalananda Saraswati, or even at times Murari Bapu. Just that it’s not in the style of a discussion, it is more a pravachan or discourse.
You also draw a distinction between the English phrase "well-read" and the Sanskrit phrase "bahu-shruta" meaning one who has heard much. That begs the question: how we define ourselves as a society hinging itself on the languages we speak, read, or think in? In the Indian context, therefore, is this creating a fracture in our identities between being “bahu-shruta” and well-read?
(Laughs) Yes, there is, and I'm not sure if we can reverse it. With formal education, there's so much focus on writing and reading, and not so much on learning. Somewhere, we have lost the ways of the past, where knowledge was imparted orally. But I do hear of some schools experimenting with new methods. For instance, sometime back my children were in a school where there was there's no homework in the initial years, and learning was through student-teacher interaction only.
But as to your second point: For a lot of children growing up in metro cities, English seems to be their only language. The only time children in areas like South Bombay speak Marathi or Hindi is when they communicate with their domestic help. So then they end up in a situation where they only think in English. That, to me, is like losing a culture itself.
English is a great language, and it's a language of the world and of science and technology, but as Bhartendu Harishchandra said in the 19th Century, if you don't know your own languages, or the language of your folks and ancestors, there'll always be something deficient or missing in you.
So, is there a threat to Indian languages?
I wouldn’t say a threat, but a concern that they’re losing space. A lot of times two people who do share an Indian language, still end up speaking to each other in English. Notice also the increase in English-oriented names and dialogues in popular cinema. We all ought to have collective ownership and responsibility in preserving them — Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, everything.
Otherwise, we may lose them in a generation or two. Just like we want to preserve Ajanta and Ellora or the temples of the South, we have to preserve language too. It is living heritage.
