Champaklal Speaks

Traditional Learning and Champaklal

As you know, every Brahmin must learn certain rituals after his upanayana [sacred-thread ceremony]. My father taught me sandhya [worship at dawn, noon and dusk] but I was never interested in this ritual. My elder brother, Sunderlal, who was brought up under the same sanskaras was just the opposite. My father sent us both to a well-known pundit for coaching. This pundit was very particular in the matter of pronunciation. Now, when it came to pronouncing the alphabets स (s), श (ś), and ष (ș). Sunderlal learnt it in one day, but I could not do so even after a week. So Punditji was very displeased. I too felt very uneasy. He was taking a lot of trouble but, I don't know why, I simply could not pronounce them correctly, especially the last one, ष (ș). I did not know what to do.

Our town Patan is an ancient place with many poles [localities]. Generally, at the entrance of each of them there is a large gate, often with a watchman or two. The watchman at the gate of the pole in which our punditji lived, used to keep a pack of donkeys. Now hear what happened.

I had told Sunderlal that I was tired of our punditji. All the same we would start off from home with pothi [text-book] in hand. I would sit at the gate and wait there for about four hours till my brother came back after his studies, then we returned home together. A month passed this way. One day something unexpected happened. Usually punditji did not go out of his pole. But that day he came to the gate and saw me. I did not know it. On going back he asked my brother: “What? Champaklal is grazing donkeys there?” My brother kept quiet. Later, punditji reported the matter to my father, but he, unique in many ways, did not say anything.

My father provided all facilities for our education but never imposed anything. Thus from childhood he fostered my love for drawing and painting. In 1914, he sent me to Ahmedabad to take the first-grade examinations in drawing, and in 1915 the examinations for the next grade called the intermediate examination. I passed in both. My maternal uncle Shankarlal Bhanabhai Vyas also took the same examinations with me.²