मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि 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: "… . . 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Sunday, August 24, 2014

अरुण कोलटकर...Leaving Jejuri Behind Without a Coconut in Your Hand

This year, 2014, is 10th Death Anniversary year of poet Arun Kolatkar (अरुण कोलटकर). We lost him on September 25 2004. He died about a km away from where I then lived.


Tim Harford, FT, August 21 2014:

"...One thing that need not worry anyone, though, is the prospect of an inflation target of 4 per cent. It will not happen. That is particularly true in the place where the world economy most needs more inflation: in the eurozone. The German folk memory of hyperinflation in 1923 is just too strong. That economic catastrophe, which helped lay the foundations for Nazism and ruin much of the 20th century, continues to resonate today..."

Tomorrow August 25 2014 is Somvati Amavasya (सोमवती अमावस्या), Shravan's (श्रावण) last day. It's the day that will be celebrated big, with a fair, at Jejuri, a seat of deity Khandoba (खंडोबा). This year among hundreds of thousands of believers, there is a faithless.

Raging food inflation!


Marathi daily Loksatta reported on August 22 2014:

"खंडोबा भाविकांचा खोबरे-भंडारा उधळण्यात आखडता हात" (Devotees of Khandoba hesitate to splurge coconut-turmeric)

It's because both the things have become expensive. According to the report, they used to be sold together around Rs. 60 a kilo and  now cost Rs. 240-280 a kilo.

This blog has entries on how inflation hurts literature  on December 27 2007 and December 24 2009.  Now it's the turn of faith!

Khandoba/ Jejuri always remind me of Kolatkar's poetry. Being a man with great sense of humour and a gifted poet, I wonder how he would have incorporated this development in his poetry.

After reading the news item, I went through his book to find out if he has referred to coconut and turmeric in the book.

I couldn't find turmeric but there is yellow on the cover and in the poem called 'The Butterfly' and coconut appears in 'Between Jejuri and the Railway Station':

'You've left the town behind, with a coconut in your hand..."

Have you, this time?



courtesy: Pras, 2001

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