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 23, 2015

विशुद्ध आनंददायक असा खेळ...World Cup Philosophy

Today August 23 2015 is 97th Birth Anniversary of  Vinda Karandikar (विंदा करंदीकर).

विंदा करंदीकर: 

"…  पण हे लिखाण करताना माझ्या या दुसऱ्या बालपणात मी एक विशुद्ध आनंददायक  असा खेळ  आहे एवढेच मी समाजत होतो… "
 (माझे मनोगत, अष्टदर्शने, 2003)

This post is largely based on my earlier post dated March 15 2010.

When I finished reading -‘Ashtadarshane’ (अष्टदर्शने), 2003, I wrote a letter to Lalit (ललित) and sent a copy of that to (now) the late Vinda Karandikar.

Lalit published it and Vinda wrote back thanking me for it.




This is what I had said in the letter.

In Marathi, the late M P Rege (मे. पुं. रेगे) has written a lot on the subject of philosophy using formal prose. It sounds tough even for the writer, let alone reader!

But writing on philosophy, in any other form, is even tougher for the writer.

Particularly, if one wishes to deploy quality humor or poetry. The way Woody Allen does in English.

But for the reader, it's easier.

Unfortunately, in Marathi, I have hardly come across such writings.

I remember one example from P L Deshpande's (पु ल देशपांडे) book.

Pu La imagines that the famous argument between sage Vasishta and sage Vishwamitra- 'Who is Brahmin?' (One: Brahmin knows Brahma, The other: the one who knows Brahma is Brahmin)- took place while both were chewing betel leaf (paans)! Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे) has drawn a beautiful illustration for it.

It reminded me of Mel Brooks' quote:

"Nietzsche whispers to you: ‘Without audacity there is no greatness.’ Freud whispers to you: ‘Why must there be greatness?’ That fight’s still going on. And you don’t understand either one, because they’re both whispering in German."

Frankly, other than Charvak-darshan (चार्वाक), there is little information in Vinda's book that is not there in Will Durant's 'The story of philosophy' (1926). However, Vinda's usage of abhang (अभंग) format to write on the subject of philosophy was at the edge of innovation.

Vinda had good sense of humour as is obvious from many of his poems. Vasant Sarwate too vouches for it.

I hope, some day, his 'Ashtadarshane' ushers in Marathi's Woody Allen.

In the moth of June 2015, I came across an excellent example (one of the best really) of how creatively philosophers and their philosophy can be presented.



 World Cup Philosophy: Germany vs France

Courtesy: Existential Comics

There are four such frames on the website. The above one is the second frame. One of the picture is reproduced below:


"Camus has convinced several of the Germans that the game is fundamentally absurd. And there is no inherent difference between winning and losing. They are just lying on the pitch in despair."

Or see the one below:


 "However, not much action since then, as the Germans seem to be mostly content to kick the ball back and forth endlessly."....and one of the dribblers is Kant!


Every picture is a gem and teaches as well as amuses a lot.