Sumathi Sataka - Its relevance for modern living

Sumathi Sataka is a set of 100 four line poems written in Telugu around 800 years back. The poems were widely quoted even by commoners in their day to day conversations up to 60s and 70s. With the growing importance of English language studies over the past 3-4 decades, very few popular poems are now part of the language studies in the lower classes for students. Naturally most of the poems are not known to the current generations. This is a small attempt to introduce these poems to the current generation and their relevance to the current society.

Each of the poems end with a word "SUMATHI" which is generally known as makuta (header). Sumathi can be broken into two parts su - good, mathi - mind / nature. That is good nature / good minded. Sataka means hundred. This book contains one hundred (it will be 108 actually) poems in Telugu which deal with the happenings in the society which are compared to some examples which are again from the common happenings. The third line of the poem sometimes contain a common sense solution to avoid the effects for the happenings mentioned earlier.

We will examine some of the most popular poems initially and go on to the others

The original poem in Telugu (rewritten in English script) is

"Akkaraku raani chuttamu

Mokkina varameeni velpu, moharamuna

daa nekkina baarani gurram

grakkuna viduwandavalayu gadara Sumathi"

The literal meaning of the above poem is

"One should stay away from or leave

A relative who cannot come to your rescue in need

A god who does not give a boon after worship

A horse which cannot run during a war"

Does the above poem relevant to the current?? I believe so.

The first line of the poem which talks about a relative who does not help you or come to your rescue in troubles. A relative (not friend) is part of the family. If the family members does not stand by one another then there is no point in continuing the relationship. Helping in in Indian thinking includes physical, financial and through guidance. A person who is not on socially acceptable path will initially be counselled by the close relatives. Similarly there may be requirement of physical involvement in organizing functions etc.

The second line talks about a god who does not give a boon even when worshipped should be left alone. In modern day context, we do not have any gods. There is another meaning for this a ruler is a god for the commoners. A ruler who does not help after electing to power should be divested of such power. One needs to understand that this should happen in the commonly acceptable way. For example, if a modern day elected government is engaged in wide spread corruption and laws which go against the citizens should be voted out of the power in the next elections (as we do not have the power to vote them out earlier than that). There are many examples for this from modern society from many countries.

The third line talks about leaving a horse which cannot run faster in a battle. If a horse is not quick in battle then it will be fatal for the rider and can result in his getting severely injured or in death. In a modern society one needs to upgrade the skills regularly and be agile to spot the opportunities and take them. A person whose skills are not up to date will be left behind in the career race. If we look at the change in the nature of clerical jobs over the period of time during the last 40 years we can clearly see the difference. Initially the skills required for a clerk were that the person should be able to read and write, passed high school and with a smattering of English. They were desk-bound updating the details in big ledgers. Now this job is out of fashion. The same person is now known as a data entry operator who should be able to enter the data into a computer with good English knowledge (unfortunately language skills are pathetic in India). A clerk who joined in mid eighties and who could not upgrade to computers need to leave the job or only will be assigned odd jobs which are unimportant. That is one needs to constantly upgrade the skills. This applies not only to individuals, this applies to corporates as well. Nokia is a best example. When every other company has started manufacturing the smart mobile phones, Nokia delayed entering into this market even though they were the world market leaders in mobile phones. Ultimately this resulted in them going out of reckoning from them No 1 position.

One can see from above that these four lines from a poem which was supposedly written 800 years back is still relevant to the modern society.