Page:Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets.djvu/100

Rh and his memory was so bad, that he forgot in the evenings every syllable of what he had learnt in the morning. This state of stupidity in our poet continued, till he was thirty years of age, at which time (it is related of him that) he was one day sitting in his house, pouring over a Sanscrit book, and could not con his lesson for the life of him, notwithstanding all his endeavours; his sister-in-law, who was close to him pounding rice, burst out into a loud laugh at his vain labour, and looking archly at him, exclaimed in the Sanscrit dialect "Musalah Kesalayate," my pestle will bud," by which she implied, that the pestle she held in her hand, would blossom before her brother-in-law would be able to learn Sancrit. Stung to the quick at the reproach and mockery of a woman, Paddi Bhat hastened out of the house, and made the best of his way to a man in the neighbourhood, who was esteemed as a prophet, and to whom the poet's elder brother, by name Mallinath ministered: he took up bis abode with this holy man for some time, and it so happened, that one day Mallinath went