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, February 10, 2015

दुर्गा भागवत @105: Terrorism and Sacrilege

 Today February 10 2015 is 105th Birth Anniversary of Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत)

Of all the writings on the terrorist act at Charlie Hebdo offices, so far I have liked the best what cartoonist Joe Sacco has drawn and Tim Parks has said.

courtesy: Joe Sacco (the artist) and The Guardian

Tim Parks writes:

"...At this point, and notwithstanding a profound sense of horror for the evil and stupidity of the terrorist attack on the magazine’s offices, one has to wonder about Charlie Hebdo’s pride in constantly dubbing themselves a “Journal Irresponsable.” The current edition of the paper shows Muhammad in such a way that his white turban looks like two balls and his long pink face a penis. The Prophet is being dubbed a prick. He holds a Je suis Charlie placard and announces that all is forgiven..."

This depiction of the prophet is highly deplorable.

I am wondering how the late Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत) would have responded to the terrorist act and the sacrilege.

She would be the first to condemn the heinous act and any attempt to curb the freedom of expression. But she would have been equally quick to protest the sacrilege by Charlie Hebdo.

There are numerous examples of how she stood for the freedom of expression. How would she have protested the insult of another religion? Here is an example:

"...आकाशातून जाणार्‍या मारुतीच्या शेपटीवर बसलेली सीता कशासाठी चितारायची ? आणि तीदेखील विवस्त्र अवस्थेतील ? धार्मिक प्रवृत्तीच्या लोकांना राग येईल; नाही तर काय होईल ? मुळात (म फि) हुसेन यांनी वाचलेल नाही हे स्पष्ट दिसतं. कारण रामायणात मारुती सीतेला घेऊन जातो असं कुठेही नाही… हे संदर्भ लक्षात न घेता हिंदू देवतांची उघडीवाघडी चित्र काढण ही गोष्ट आक्षेपार्हच समजली पाहिजे. अशा चित्रांनी धार्मिक प्रवृत्तीच्या लोकांचा भावना दुखावणही स्वाभाविकच आहे. एवढंच नाही; मी तर म्हणेन की, धार्मिक प्रवृत्तीच्या मुसलमान माणसालाही दुसर्‍या धर्मातील देवतांची अशी विटंबना केलेली आवडणार नाही."

“…why should Seeta sitting on the tail of Lord Maruti flying across the sky be drawn? And that too naked one? Obviously religious people will get angry, won’t they? Basically (M F) Husain has not read Ramayana is obvious because no where in Ramayana, Maruti carries Seeta.… Without considering this context, drawing revealing pictures of Hindu goddesses has to be considered objectionable. Such pictures are naturally going to hurt the sentiments of religious people. Not just that even a religious Muslim may not like this insult of gods of other religions."

(Source- ऐसपैस गप्पा : दुर्गाबाईंशी लेखक प्रतिभा रानडे “Aispais Gappa: Durgabainshi” by Pratibha Ranade, 1998)