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."

Monday, July 11, 2011

Two Women. Two Faiths. Two Prayers.

Today, July 11 2011, is 'Ashadhi Ekadashi' (आषाढी एकादशी).

M V Dhond (म वा धोंड) quotes this beautiful couplet (ओवी) of an anonymous woman worshipper (भक्त ) of Lord Vitthal (विठ्ठल) in his book "Aisa Vitevar Dev Kothe!" (ऐसा विटेवर देव कोठें!), 2001.

पंढरीसी जाता । दुपार टळली ।
विठ्ठलपूजेची जाई । ओट्यात फुलली ॥

(While going to Pandharee, afternoon passed,
The Jai I had collected to worship Vitthal, blossomed in my ocha.)

[There is some confusion about the word 'ota' (ओटा) here. I have presumed that it is actually 'ocha' ओचा. ota means veranda. ocha means a small pocket-like space created in a nine-yard-saree. Women would keep small things in their ocha. I have seen my mother's mother do it. Therefore, I have taken that line as 'Ochyat phulali' (ओच्यात फुलली. )]

This lady wants to offer the flowers of Jai to her lord. To fulfil her wish, she has collected the buds in the morning and kept them aside in her saree's ocha.

But she is so busy with the household work that she just can't make it to the temple in time and the buds blossom in her saree-pocket and their fragrance reminds her that she has missed it.

Probably one more time.

If you try, like me, you too will smell fragrance of that Jai!

Like Dhond, I too feel that this small, just eight-words, poem is as good as the best of Tukaram (तुकाराम) or Dnyaneshwar (ज्ञानेश्वर). It sums up Bhakti (भक्ति) of India's- especially poor and downtrodden- women, their Karma yoga.

Read about another devotee working at grindstone:

सरले दलन। पुन्हा घेते पायली।
लाख तुळस वाहिली। विठ्ठलाला॥

(finished this lot of grinding, I take another lot,
offer one hundred thousand Tulsi, to Vitthala.)

The back breaking grinding is Bhakti, is Karmayoga, is prayer, is worship...

In fact, Dhond wonders if Dnyaneshwar cut his teeth among such devotees. It's very likely.

Now look at another prayer in another place involving another faith.


Artist: André François (आंद्रे फ्रांस्वा) [I received this picture from Madhukar Dharmapurikar (मधुकर धर्मापुरीकर)]

The lady finishes praying and comes out of church. But it's raining. She probably has no covered carriage or umbrella. Now what does she do?

She doesn't waste any time. She returns to her prayer!

Apart from being very beautifully drawn, it's funny and yet very moving.
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