Kalidas or bust

It may not be the best way to go about finding out how a person once looked, but the Kalidas Academy in Ujjain seems to have hit upon a novel idea.

It may not be the best way to go about finding out how a person once looked, but the Kalidas Academy in Ujjain seems to have hit upon a novel idea. If there's no visual description of the person, read his or her writings. It all started when the Chinese authorities wanted a bust of Sanskrit poet-dramatist Kalidas to be installed in the proposed Shanghai Theatre Street to promote cultural awareness. They got in touch with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Unfortunately, since Natwar Singh was no longer there to hold forth about how the 4th/5th century poet exactly looked like, the matter was passed on to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

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The ICCR, not having access to the Amar Chitra Katha picture-bio of Kalidas, requested the Madhya Pradesh government to shed some light. Which is where the Kalidas Academy got into action. A panel of experts was formed, whose job was to psychoanalyse the poet's works. The findings, they smartly figured, would bring forth the elusive face. No one really knows whether police sketch artists were members of the panel. But it turns out that after much detailed readings of the poet's Meghadutam, Ritusamhara and Abhijnanashakuntalam, as well as poring over historical anecdotes about the man, the experts came to the same conclusion: that Kalidas was a damn good-looking guy. Based on that detailed description, a bust was made, approved by the worthy sages of the ICCR Sculpture Committee, and sent to China.