मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि 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: "… . . 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Monday, October 01, 2007

Our Globe- Not Guaranteed Against American Sacred Cows and their Pee

Over last Saturday/ Sunday (September 29/30 2007), I watched -J. Robert Oppenheimer’s biopic on History Channel. It was very disturbing. It showed few American scientists celebrating the “success” of Atom bombs.

JRO knew Sanskrit well and is shown quoting from Bhagavad-Gita- "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -when he sees the first nuclear explosion "Trinity". Oh how I wish he read Buddha and Bhakti literature after Gita and never joined Manhattan Project!

Don Quixote says: “And had the luck, with much ado, To live a fool, and yet die wise.” but how about we making some attempt to live wise!

American empire’s desire to reshape the world manifests itself in many ways. Atom Bomb, like current Iraq war, was just one of them. Neither the first, nor the last.

Another such attempt was San Francisco Conference, formally known as United Nations Conference on International Organization (April 25–June 26, 1945)- an international meeting that established the United Nations. Forty five nations, including the four sponsors, were originally invited to the San Francisco Conference: nations which had declared war on Germany and Japan and had subscribed to the United Nations Declaration.

American President Harry Truman attended the conference. He flew in there on his plane "The Sacred Cow".

Poet B S Mardhekar बा. सी. मर्ढेकर wrote following untitled poem included in his book “मर्ढेकरांची कविता“ (Mardhekar’s Poetry, Mauj Prakashan 1959-1977).

सुखदुःखांचे गळे कापुनी
मळे पिकविले वर्षांनी तरि,
रवंथ काढी कुढ़या मनाची
जुनाच भाकड़-कडबा हा वरि.

कुड़ीकुड़ींतिल भाव लाळला;
आचळ धरिती पातळ आशा;
अधू मनाची दुडकी कुठवर-
जमेल तर ही जिथवर भाषा,

-अणि पांगल्या गाई जगभर
गोमूत्रानें पावन अंबर!
Critic M V Dhond (म वा धोंड) has written a masterly book “तरीहि येतो वास फुलांना" (Rajhans Prakashan 1999) appreciating handful of Mardhekar’s poems.

He since then has written few more essays-most of them have appeared in Lalit Diwali numbers- analysing few more poems of Mardhekar.

Dhond called me some time in 2003 and asked me if I knew this poem. I did. How did I find it? I liked it, particularly the last two lines. Did I understand it? I had no clue! Then I requested him to include every poem of Mardhekar in the next edition of his book because I now didn't seem to understand even those poems that I thought I had understood earlier!

He explained to me what Mardhekar probably meant. Mardhekar is making fun of America’s President astride “Sacred Cow” and their latest instrument - San Francisco Conference- to reshape (manipulate?) the world.

I congratulated Dhond on his impeccable timing because US had invaded Iraq that year, again by brazenly manipulating UN. We all now know how brazen and with what consequences!

I did some googling and sent Dhond some info relevant to the subject. Showing large and kind heart, he has mentioned me in the essay. Please see his letter to me on the subject at the end of this post. Feel his humility.

Lalit Diwali 2003 has that essay-”Gomutrane Pavan Ambar!” (Cow’s urine sanctifying the sky).

Artist: Robert J Day The New Yorker May 5, 1945



M V Dhond's letter to me on September 8, 2003