Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre: 'He won't let anyone in the family feel old or retired'

Dr Madhukar Anant Mehendales elder son Pradip says he is inspired by his fathers joie de vivre for life and learning PicMandar TannuIndian currency notes and official documents flash the inscribed motto Satyameva Jayate Truth Alone Triumphs The catchphrase however is not true to the context in which the maxim is used in the Mundaka Upanishad Contrary to the popular paraphrase satya here means the final inescapable truth and nothing but that that a seer or rishi attainsIt is not surprising that this truth was underlined by Dr Madhukar Anant Mehendale a Vedic scholar and the recipient of the Sahitya Akademis Bhasha Samman He won the award recently for his contribution to classical and medieval literature with special reference to Sanskrit Prakrit Rigveda Nirukta MahAumlu00c2u0081bhAumlu00c2u0081rata and the AvestAumlu00c2u0081Dr Mehendale is known for intellectual pursuits that few can undertake He has upturned popular idioms and questioned flawed but deeprooted beliefs analyzed texts to assess trends not to forget his original observation that Sanskrit poetry carries copious descriptions of a womanrsquos anatomy but invariably leaves out the nose He has identified parallels in seemingly dissimilar scriptures like the Hindu Rigveda and Zoroastrian religious text AvestaDr Mehendale is known for intellectual pursuits that few can undertake including identifying parallels in seemingly dissimilar scriptures like the Rigveda and the AvestaaWhile dissecting the Mahabharata he called Draupadis vastraharan a hyped tale He explains in his 45minute biographical documentary titled Dr Madhukar Anant Mehendale that the Pandavas lost a crucial game of dice against the Kuaravas and with it they lost their right to wear the Uttariya vastra or upper garment Dushasana asked them to take off the upper robes Draupadi being their wife must have been asked to follow suit which does not suggest that she was stripped as portrayed in pop artAnd so there is a joke that does the rounds of the Mehandale residence in Punes Kothrud neighbourhood If you ask Appa the meaning of a proper noun his answer will not be instant but an exhaustive cyclostyle note on the words origin popular usage its reference in the scriptures and contextual undertonesAlthough Dr Mehendale at 99 is not the active person he was until a year ago mdash known to use public transport until he was 97 mdashhe is intellectually available and open for interaction as was evident when the media sought him out after the Sahitya Akademi honor To this writers question on how he feels to be turning 100 his answer is succinct People say age is a figure But it is more than a numeral I see age as a collection of experiences accumulations of all that you have lived in diverse phasesDiversity is abundant in Dr Mehendales life which began on February 14 1918 in Harsud Madhya Pradesh He schooled in Baroda and Indore studied at Mumbais Wilson College and his doctoral research thesis Historical Grammar of Inscriptional Prakrits was completed at Punes Deccan College PostGraduate and Research Institute He taught at Basaveshwar College in Bagalkot and later at SB Garda College in Navsari He was invited to the Goumlttingen University in Germany back in the early fifties to complete the unfinished work of German scholar Heinrich Luders on Prakrit inscriptionsDespite the peripatetic life Dr Mehendale has been a Punekar at heart He guided research students and edited the Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles at Deccan College right up till the eighties where his late wife Kusum a Gandhian worked as a librarianIn fact after retirement Dr Mehendale worked for 25 years at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute as the indefatigable Chief Editor of the Cultural Index of the Mahabharata As his daughterinlaw Rohini Mehendale 66 says no one in the family is allowed to feel old or retired He keeps us young and reminds us that there is a lot still to be accomplished She recently wrote Mee Ek Sanik Patni Myself A Soldiers Wife a book in which she acknowledged Dr Mehendales inspiring presence at homeHer husband and Dr Mehendales son Pradip 71 is retired Army colonel who says Appa has an interesting reading routine for himself mdash a certain stotra or shloka chalked out for a certain day a particular scripture for a particular season Its not that he is an overtly religious person but he likes to connect with people and practicesInterestingly ever since senior Mehendale has been unable to walk in his locality he has replaced it with an evening stroll on his wheelchair And the bite of a pani puri and a sip of sugarcane juice while he is at it continueSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext You can reach her at sumedharaikargmailcom