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."

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Solving a Differential Equation to Get Madhubala’s Smile

Times of India November 28 2007: “Worth a million dollars: The formula for that perfect smile”

Report describes how to get a perfect smile.

“…right size and width of each tooth, right curve, colour and shape of the teeth, and the overall width of the mouth are the factors which together contribute to a lovable smile.

… whiteness of the teeth should match the whites of the eyes, else the smile will stand out too much and detract from the rest of the face.

…the ideal width of a smile should not be less than half the width of the face, and both upper and lower lips should be symmetrical each side of the mid-line of the face.

… the top row of teeth should be dominant, while very little should be seen of the bottom row.

… all the teeth on display should be straight, and there should not appear any signs of restoration work.

… the teeth’s size should decrease from front to back.

While the width of the central teeth should be 80 per cent of their height, the laterals should be 61.8 per cent the size of the bigger teeth.
The visibility of gums should be as little as possible to avoid a horsy smile...
“.

Now, these specs surely need a differential equation to be solved.

So can you create a great smile by solving an equation? Is it ever possible to re-create the most infectious smile of 20th century: Madhubala’s?


How silly!

Her smile was certainly not because of expensive cosmetic dentistry. Nor it was just a genetic lottery. It was in great measure due to her effort to get along with her difficult circumstances and sadness in her soul.

Unlike the gent below, we thank god that Madhubala,like Agatha, learned to smile at misfortune!


Artist: Perry Barlow The New Yorker 20 June 1936