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."

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Fate, Destiny or Luck of Girish Wagh and Vasudev Deshpande

Indians tend to use the word "fate" very often. They seldom use "destiny" or simple "luck". Marathi author G A Kulkarni जी ए कुलकर्णी, deeply influenced by Greek culture preferred "destiny" नियती.

I am more comfortable with the word "luck", toss of coin.

In January 2008, media and the world at large hailed the launch of Tata's Nano. Ratan Tata very generously gave large credit of this success to Girish Wagh.

I am sure Wagh deserves all his success but does he know that he also is very lucky?

41 years ago in 1967, in the middle of what Surjit Bhalla calls India's "rotten age period (1960 to 1980) of declining growth and increasing poverty", a young man Vasudev Deshpande helped design "Meera Mini Car" for now defunct "Meera Automobile & Engineering Industries Pvt Ltd" based in small town of Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur district. See few relevant pictures below.

India's automobile industry history has almost forgot Deshpande.

History is replete with such examples. When we hail new heroes and their achievements, it also is time to reflect on who all went before them.

Nicholas Taleb:

“Heroes won and lost battles in a manner that was totally independent of their own valor; their fate depended upon totally external forces, generally the explicit agency of scheming gods (not devoid of nepotism). Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.”

Vasudev Deshpande will remain a hero to me.



Please note Numberplate




Vasudev Deshpande explaining features to a minister
Posted by at

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it - a number of people have designed/made cars. Should we be saluting all of them as "heroes"? What's so special about the Meera? Was it cheaper than the Nano, with a comparable efficiency level?

January 24, 2008 at 3:55 AM
Anil P said...

This is indeed very interesting. Isn't Reva 'small' enough too?

Any further details on Vasudev Deshpande, pictures etc?

January 24, 2008 at 7:30 AM
Aniruddha G. Kulkarni said...

ZRS,

I agree.

If designing automobile is not special for you, none of them is a hero to you.

But for me they are. I don't like any automobile but I know how complex they are.

In any case, the main point of the post wasn't heralding a new hero but pointing out the role "luck" plays.

January 24, 2008 at 8:39 AM
Aniruddha G. Kulkarni said...

Anil P,

as per your desire, I have appended Deshpande's picture.

January 24, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Abhishek Shrotri said...

Hello Mr.Aniruddha G. Kulkarni!
Read all the data about the car. I need to talk to you in detail about this. Can you please contact me at vsshrotri@gmail.com

January 6, 2013 at 8:52 PM
Aniruddha G. Kulkarni said...

Thanks Mr. Shrotri for your feedback.

I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

best,


January 6, 2013 at 9:03 PM

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