Ugra Kshepakaha Kandukam Vegena Kshipati. Pattikadharaha Avama Bhage Praharati. Chatushkam Praptam!
Here’s the translation: “The fast bowler bowls with great speed. The batsman strikes on the offside. Four runs!”
Over 800 students had registered from all over Tamil Nadu for the cricket commentary competition in Sanskrit organised by the Chinmaya Mission, Chennai. Despite an extremely rainy day in October, students from Chennai and other parts of the State turned up for the preliminary rounds of the contest. Thirty were selected for the semi-finals.
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Six finalists battled it out last Sunday.
The contest was to look at a silent footage of an international cricket match and give a commentary in spoken Sanskrit. Difficult as it may sound, the students enthralled the audience with their fluency. In the second round of the contest, questions were asked from a Chinmaya Mission publication of cricket terms: to give a few examples, shankutrayam (stumps), shankurdhwam (bails), dhavana gatam (run out) and prishta griheetham (caught behind).
Arun Venkatesh S. from Tirunelveli outshone the other finalists, winnng the competition. As a apart of the prize, he will travel to Melbourne World Cup Finals in March, 2015 with an attender. The second and the third prizes were won by Manishankar R. of Tirunelveli and Sowmiya Krishnan from Chennai. They will go on a sponsored trip to the Himalayas.
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While commenting on the participants’ performance, M.V. Mohan, full-time volunteer, Samskrita Bharati, expressed his amazement at the beauty the language lent to cricket commentary where even quotes from Kalidasa and Vyasa found a place. Sanskrit is an ancient language and cricket is a modern game. Bringing the two together marks a harmony between the old and the new, he said.
Congratulating the participants, R. Ramachandran, Controller of Examinations, Vivekananda College and Vice-President, Samskrita Bharati, said that we have heard of games in Sanskrit. This is the first time Sanskrit has expressed itself most eloquently in the game of cricket and termed it a historic event.
Swami Mitrananda, Acharya of the Chinmaya Heritage Centre, Chennai had initiated this concept as part of Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda’s birthday celebrations on May 8, earlier this year. It was inaugurated a week later by former cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth.