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."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Vasant Sarwate Celebrates Birthday with a Dazzling New Book

On February 3, 2008- his 82nd birthday- a new book of Vasant Sarwate was published: "रेषालेखक वसंत सरवटे" ,संपादन: दिलीप माजगावकर / मधुकर धर्मापुरीकर, राजहंस प्रकाशन, 2009 (“Line-writer Vasant Sarwate” edited by Dileep Majgaonkar / Madhukar Dharmapurikar).

Read more about the event here.

It’s beautifully produced and attractively priced- just Rs. 125.

Suhas Palshikar in his brilliant Marathi essay for “Samaj Prabodhan Patrika April-June 2008” asked:

“गरिबांना भुक्कड सुविधा पुरवणं आपल्या लोकशाहीला कसं परवडतं?

(How can Our Democracy Afford to Provide Third-rate Services to the Poor?)

Well, Sarwate has raised and answered such questions related to Indian democracy from 1947-2009.

Most of the pictures are eternal. They just prove once again why Sarwate is arguably the greatest creative artist Marathi language produced in 20th century. (btw-His nearest competition: Laxmibai Tilak, Shripad Krishna Kolhatkar, C V Joshi, Arun Kolatkar, Acharya Atre, Master Vinayak, Kumar Gandharva (लक्ष्मीबाई टिळक, श्रीपाद कृष्ण कोल्हटकर, चि वि जोशी, अरुण कोलटकर, आचार्य अत्रे, मास्टर विनायक, कुमार गंधर्व)).

In Marathi intellectual world, there is little appreciation of visual arts, let alone that of subtle art of cartooning.

Even the title of this book is biased towards writers and blurbs on the back cover- both Vinda Karandikar विंदा करंदीकर and S P Bhagwat श्री पु भागवत disappointing with their platitudes- don't do any justice to Sarwate's talent. (I know how tender S P Bhagwat gets appreciating B S Mardhekar's बा सी मर्ढेकर poetry.)

Why don't these guys remember Ajanta or Halebidu or Jagte Raho or The Simpsons watching Sarwate's pictures?

Maybe सदानंद रेगे Sadanand Rege would have with a poem titled: "सरवटे गोंधळ घालतात- नाथांचा आणि लाथांचा!" (Here I remember his poems on Keshavsut's केशवसुत death and D G Godse's द ग गोडसे visit to Mastani's grave.)

A O Scott observes: "...I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to “The Simpsons.”"

Clearly a new paradigm needs to emerge in Marathi criticism to fully appreciate the art of Vasant Sarwate.

In a masterly essay on James Thurber, Paul Johnson writes: "...A score of his published cartoons are masterly, and five in the highest class in history. When I contemplate them, I sometimes feel that after a lifetime of studying and practising art, I know nothing about it..."

Surely, I know nothing about it but I hope Sarwate soon gets his own Paul Johnson.


"...I feel miserable by this arson. Our bright secular tradition has once again been blackened..err..I mean, bright secular tradition has been blackened..."

Artist: Vasant Sarwate वसंत सरवटे, 1970, First Published in Manoos माणूस Weekly
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