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, December 14, 2010

Paresh Mokashi is Wrong. Very Wrong.

परेश मोकाशी (दिग्दर्शक, 'हरिश्‍चंद्राची फॅक्टरी'):"...भारत हा एक कथांचा देश आहे. इथे शब्दमाध्यम प्रभावी आहे. दृश्य संस्कृती पुरेशी विकसित झालेली नाही..."(ललित, 2010 दिवाळी)

Paresh Mokashi (Director, 'Harishchandrachi Factory'): "...India is a nation of stories. Here medium of word is very effective. Visual culture is not sufficiently developed here..." (Lalit, Diwali, 2010)

Who told this to Mr. Mokashi, a young promising talent from Maharashtra and grandson of a true great D B Mokashi (दि बा मोकाशी)?

This could be true of culture of most people he meets or hears or reads. But this is grossly misleading when he implies a subcontinent's culture over a period of almost 3000 years.

India's visual culture has been as rich as its "word culture". In fact, in a few centuries at least, it was probably richer.

To fully appreciate how developed visual culture in India was, read Frontline's majestic 25-part series on Indian art, starting with the issue Aug. 11-24 2007.

I have with me, all twenty five issues of Frontline and reading them has left no doubt in my mind that no other nation on this planet has had more developed visual culture than India for most part of the known history.

What about Maharashtra or the Western India?

“Does Maharashtra have its Own Distinct Culture?” was the title of an essay by Prof S M Mate (श्री म माटे) in 1954. A debate raged on the subject, joined by the likes of sculptor V P Karmarkar (विनायक पांडुरंग करमरकर), K Narayan Kale (के नारायण काळे), Irawati Karve (इरावती कर्वे), H.D Sankaliya (हंसमुख धीरजलाल सांकलिया).

D G Godse (द ग गोडसे) joined the battle err debate- any debate in Marathi sounds like a battle!- with his essay-‘Shilpi Maharashtra’ (शिल्पी महाराष्ट्र)- first published in ‘Chhand’ छंद (May-June 1955), now included in his book “Samande Talash”, 1981 (समंदे तलाश).

Godse’s verdict- Yes, natives largely created the art you see in Maharashtra. He asks “why 90% of all Indian carvings are in Maharashtra?” and explains this abundance ”…. this is not just because of the ruling dynasties of Maharashtra –Shalivahan, Vakatak, Chalukya, Rashtrakut-but also because of patronage of art by ordinary people”. (What Godse means by 'ordinary' is non royal: traders and businessmen.)

Frontline says: “In western India, the 2nd century B.C. ushered in one of the greatest periods of the art of India and the entire art of Buddhism. Over a period of about 1,000 years, more than 1,200 caves were hewn out of the mountains of the Western Ghats, not very far from the coast of present-day Maharashtra. They were profusely sculpted and painted in the Buddhist traditions. Leaving behind the cares and confusions of the material world, the devotee came to these splendid havens of contemplation…”

Sure, Mr. Mokashi, we may have turned picture-blind in recent centuries. But it doesn't mean that the disease is congenital!

And talking of visual culture, I haven’t seen more attractive woman than the almost 2000-year old beauty in the picture below:



MITHUNAS, CAVE 3, Kanheri, 2nd century A.D.
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