मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Friday, December 21, 2007

What is the Name of Your Stuffed Toy Tiger, Shoaib Akhtar?

"What is the Name of Your Stuffed Toy Tiger, Shoaib Akhtar? Shoaib Akhtar?"

Read above on lines of the famous dialogue from blockbuster Hindi film Sholay (1975):

“तुम्हारा नाम क्या है बसंती? What is your name, Basanti?”.

November 16, 2007, Hindustan Times reported: “Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has expressed a desire to meet Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who is in a jail in Pune.”

He may be interested in meeting Deepika Padukone too.

Cricket will increasingly meet Hindi film industry. Cricket will just be an entertainment, in not too distant future.

It’s hardly competitive anymore. Compared to the past, Pakistan, Wes Indies, England (81 all out against SL on Dec 20!), New Zealand cricket are in decline. It leaves only Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa in South Africa and India in fray.

Rajan Bala lamented in Asian Age November 26, 2007: “So sad that Pak cricket has lost its competitive edge.”

“If one were to say that Pakistan cricket is going the West Indies way - into a sharp decline - it would certainly rankle across the border. But ask former captain, the magnificent Imran Khan, and he would tell you that it was always coming and that too because the country's domestic cricket has always been in the doldrums…”

In the past, playing Pakistan was next only to playing fiery West Indies.

I remember watching on television Pakistan –India test match played on December 23-28, 1982 at Karachi. In Indian second innings, Imran Khan bowled an unplayable spell. India were at 102 for 1 to be bowled out in 197. G R Viswanath and Sandip Patil- both out on ducks- looked as of they didn’t see Imran’s deliveries. Or think of "death in the afternoon" for Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar on Shoaib's deliveries at Kolkata in 1999...

But as an entertainment, cricket has a big role to play.

Michael Crichton (Timeline):
"In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.”

As I write part of this post on December 12, 2007, Pakistan and India are playing a dreary test match at Bangalore on a “pata” (stone) wicket where so-called Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akhtar has made no impression.

He is busy showing his soft side, a la Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets".


courtesy: AFP; Shoaib Akhtar reveals his softer side, India v Pakistan, 3rd Test, Bangalore, 4th day, December 11, 2007

Yes, he is on cricket ground. Looks well-built like Keith Miller. But he doesn't bowl. He's stuffed.



Artist: Lee Lorenz The New Yorker 15 September 1980
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