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, February 16, 2010

Could Toyota Learn from Sarah Palin?

I am always appalled the way native Marathi speakers mock and tease Marathi spoken by non-natives. It's vulgar.

The Times of India reported on 1 February 2010:

"..."Just because one can write, read and speak Marathi does not entitle him to local jobs...For getting jobs in Mumbai, one has to be a Marathi by birth. Just knowledge of reading and writing the language will not do," Raj Thackeray said at a party meeting at Shanmukhanandaq hall in Matunga area.

Raj also criticised party members for distributing Marathi alphabet books to north Indian taxi drivers last week.

"Think over the type of protest you were undertaking. Who told you to teach them Marathi," Raj said..."

So now we are not even amused. We frown (and attempt to lynch?) if you speak Marathi despite being not borne in Maharashtra!

However I must admit that I was shocked to see the efforts of Toyota president Akio Toyoda speaking English at a press conference on Feb 5 2010.

He said: "Believe me, Toyota’s car is safety. But we will try to increase our product better.”

I agree with David Pilling when he says:

"...It would normally be unforgivable to mock someone’s difficulties in English. But the fact that Mr Toyoda, who earned an MBA in the US, had not been drilled in a word-perfect English apology says much about Toyota’s sub-quality response to its recall crisis. In Japan, the apology, like ikebana and haiku, is an art form. Yet as recently as last Friday, when the Toyota chief made his tangled mea culpa, the company was still failing to address the concerns of its customers, 70 per cent of whom live outside Japan..." (FT, Feb 10 2010)

Recently Sarah Palin, a Presidential hopeful, who had been shown reading notes from her hand at a question and answers session, was mocked in US.

But I guess Ms. Palin did better than Akio Toyoda.


Artist: Mike Luckovich
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