भूत्वा पौल्कसकात् प्रपद्य रजकानाभाष्य पौराणिकान्
गानस्थानमुपेत्य चाशुकरणानालिङ्ग्य नत्वा कवीन् |
वेश्यासद्मनि संप्रविश्य च गता वैद्यस्य पाणिग्रहं
भूयो हन्त ! सुवर्णकारसदने सानन्दमास्ते मृषा ||
Naḍimiṇṭi Maṅgaleśvara-śāstri wanted to get some gold jewellery made for his daughter’s marriage and faced a lot of problems with his goldsmith. After having completed the marriage ceremony with some difficulties, he wanted to get a golden idol of his beloved God, Sri Dakṣiṇāmūrti tested for purity. He approached the same goldsmith to get the idol checked. Once he received the idol, the goldsmith kept procrastinating and kept Śāstri waiting. He had even embezzled pure gold from the idol and had cheated Śāstri. Saddened by this, Śāstri called for a meeting of the village council (pañcāyat) and got his case resolved. He came up with this verse, extempore, during the meeting:
“Being low-born, having served washermen, conversed with mythologists, reached out to the singers, embraced village accountants, prostrated before poets, roamed around the houses of prostitutes, married doctors and finally, my goodness, the lady called ‘falsehood’ has happily taken residence in the house of the goldsmith”
The profundity and the satire in this verse make it relevant even to this day.
Adapted from Kannada by Arjun Bharadwaj
(The original article is from the anthology Kavitegondu Kathe)
