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."

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Urmila, Three Salutes to You...Or Is It? उर्मिले, त्रिवार वंदन तुला?

Today April 8 2014 is Shriram Navami

I don't know much about Urmila, Laxman's wife in Ramayana.

But generally, I had heard some good things about her. 

The following wonderful song in Marathi, for instance,  written by Raja Mangalvedhekar ( राजा मंगळवेढेकर), composed by Prabhakar Jog ( प्रभाकर जोग), sung by Ram Phatak (राम फाटक) praises her.

You may listen to it here

"उर्मिले, त्रिवार वंदन तुला !

त्यजुनि राजसुख जरी जानकी
वनात गेली प्रभु-सांगाती
राजमंदिरी तूच साहिल्या वियोगातल्या कळा !

सतत साउलीसम रामाला
भ्राता लक्ष्मण कृतार्थ झाला
तुझ्या मनातिल मुक्या भावना, कधी न तो उमगला !

अंधारातिल तू ज्योतीसम
आयु वेचिले अपुले कण कण
सुख-तृप्‍तीचा कधि न तुला गे वाराही लाभला !

राम-जानकी वियोगातुनी
घडले रामायण हे भुवनी
तुझी तपस्या, तुझा त्याग परि नच लोकी ठसला !

थोरचरित तू, दूर राहुनी
सुगंध भरला तू रामायणि
उपेक्षाच परि तुझ्या कपाळी न्याय जगी आगळा !"

Imagine my shock when I saw the following picture.


"Indian Mythology has it's very own Sleeping Beauty!"

 Art by Saboo Achu

courtesy: The Amar Chitra Katha Studio page on FB

 Apart from the fact that she doesn't look all that beautiful, Urmila slept for 14 years!

She took all the sleep of Lakshmana so that he could remain awake and ever attentive to Rama and Sita’s needs. Even if that is so, she should have been awake for at least 8 hours of the day.

The song says:

 "तुझ्या मनातिल मुक्या भावना, कधी न तो उमगला !"

(He never understood your unspoken feelings)...How couldn't he have? He surely would have asked why she slept for that long...Was she feeling that unwell?

The song further says:

 "अंधारातिल तू ज्योतीसम
आयु वेचिले अपुले कण कण
सुख-तृप्‍तीचा कधि न तुला गे वाराही लाभला !"

(You pecked flame-like bright spots of your life in darkness...you never enjoyed breeze of bliss...)

Sure if you sleep for 14 years, it's all darkness around you.

तुझी तपस्या, तुझा त्याग परि नच लोकी ठसला !

(Your penance, your sacrifice did not register on collective memory of the people.)

How can it if you disappear, for 14 years, from people's sight?