Hear, hear!!
About a week ago, when Prof. Katta G. Murthy referred to extinction
of bilogical/botanical species, and wondered aloud if "velagapanDu"
is still being cultivated in AP, I sent him the following note.
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I share your concern on the gratuitous, irresponsible, thoughtless
extinction of the species, all in the name of progress. I would
extend this a bit further, and bemoan the trend towards an instinctive
distrust of Sanskrit, classical literature, chandO-baddha poetry,...
Much like bilogical species, I consider these as literary species,
which we discard at away, not knowing when might need them, not
knowing that we might need them even now.
I am reminded of a story told of dhanwantari, the sage who is the
"father" of AyurvEda. He asks his students, as a test, to go to the
forest, and bring him a plant, a root, a leaf, or somesuch thing
that does not have medicinal value. Each brings something, but one
student comes back saying he could'nt find anything that doesn't
have some medicinal value.
We seem to be operating from a point of immediately visible, quick-fix
type of short term goals, and unbeknownst to us, digging our own
graves. Well maybe not ours, but certainly that of the posterity.
Ramakrishna
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At that time I wondered (swagatamlO) if such an opinion would be looked
at as some "cAdastapu opinion". It gives me great pleasure to see that
young generation X'ers (is sudhAkar one, as I am assuming him to be?
what is gen X, after all? Inquiring minds want to know) share this
opinion. This made my day.
Ramakrishna