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."

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Damayanti, Of Ravi Varma and Paul Delvaux

Raja Ravi Varma's Damayanti (featuring below left) always brings memories of Datta Mandir of Miraj. The temple displayed many images of his paintings based on the themes from Indian mythology.

"Damayanti was a princess of Vidarbha Kingdom. She was of such beauty and grace that even gods could not stop from admiring her. She fell in love with Nala simply from hearing about his virtues and accomplishments from a golden swan..." (Wikipedia)

To be honest, Varma's this painting doesn't do justice to the beauty of Damayanti. (In fact, I was never infatuated by his portraits of women. Diminutive, they all look slightly old in their nine-yard, pallu-covering-their-entire-bosom sarees.)

This is what swan said to Damayanti:"...Among men there no one like him. O Fair-faced One, if yon were only his wife! We have seen gods, Gandharvas,! snakes, und demons, but never a creature which was Nala's equal. You are the jewel of women; Nala is the most excellent of men. If you were to marry each other, your union would be the most distinguished in all the earth."

I came to know of Paul Delvaux while reading about J G Ballard. I find Delvaux's images of nude women most haunting, disturbing but attractive at the same time.

"...The young Delvaux took music lessons, studied Greek and Latin, and absorbed the fiction of Jules Verne and the poetry of Homer. All of his work was to be influenced by these readings, starting with his earliest drawings showing mythological scenes..." (Wikipedia)

Look at the picture below on the right. It's called "Leda" (1948). She's not Damayanti.

Or is she?

Where is Delvaux's Damayanti looking? What did the swan tell her?

World is a small place.




<-Artist: Ravi Varma
->Artist: Paul Delvaux
Posted by at

2 comments:

Yogesh Jayant Khandke said...

I new him when my dad read his poems to my daughter.

When he died, a few of his poems were all over the papers. I could not control myself, I translated and sent the following to all I knew. One called it brutal another powerful.

Narhar Kurandkar, once remarked that a man's usefulness should end with his life.

He disagreed, his eyes show, his corpse educates.

My heart, turn into stone

This path cannot be avoided!

Without food, without rags,
Without sense; without honour.
These souls they shiver,
Don't look! Sew your eyes!
Look not at the wretched lives;
Your nightmares haunt will they;
Breath in your lungs will choke I say,
Forget them, control alone,
My heart, turn into stone!

This path cannot be avoided!

Don't listen to them scream,
Your throat a dry stream,
Your hands ears cover,
Words they won't pass over.
I tell you pour lead in them,
Take care, take care, you may turn insane!
How much crying will it take?
How much withering will it take?
How much squeezing will it take?
The wails - listen to none;
My heart, turn into stone.

This path cannot be avoided!

On it the creatures of the night,
On the path left and right.
In the darkness they're dancing;
Brandishing black teeth they're grinning;
They say, "Dare,
sell your soul, take your fare!
Man is zero, gold the hero;
Honour always, honour the hero,
Such hymns will frighten, yet,
Heart! turn into stone, don't regret.

From today turn into stone;
Without you not a bit left undone;
Do tears on your cheek,
Quench the thirst of the meek?
Is your sighing,
Breath for the dying?
Will your distress,
Cause joy to them caress?
That is the trouble my heart,
Give it a thought.
Give it a thought, drown into laughter
My heart, turn into stone thereafter!

This path cannot be avoided!
This filth cannot be avoided
This revulsion cannot be avoided
Will come a day will come a time,
Filth will turn to gold fine!

The crumbs of injustice will rise,
Turn to ghosts these guys.
In to spikes will turn this gold,
Impale with it the entire fold.
Hear the hooves hear the thunder,
Today the red dust clouds yonder
Following rides the one,
The sculptor of this stone!
Such luck, such a lot
Turn to stone my heart!


yogesh_khandke(at)yahoo.com

April 11, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Aniruddha G. Kulkarni said...

Thanks Mr. Yogesh for your multiple comments on my various posts.

I guess your above comment is on Vinda.

I will try replying to your comments as we go along.

Let me start with one here.

Nana Phadanvis was just like today's average politician. All he cared was self preservation at any cost. Read Vasudev Shastri Khare's biography of him.

Thanks for your careful reading of my posts.

April 12, 2010 at 8:46 AM

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