(मी मिरजेला रहात असताना , १९६१-१९८१, 'चढणे ' हा शब्द 'संभोग करणे' या क्रियापदाला समानार्थी शब्द म्हणून वापरला जात असे.)
Poem no# 21 from "Mardhekarnchi Kavita" (मर्ढेकरांची कविता), 1959:
"पिपांत मेले ओल्या उंदिर;
माना पडल्या, मुरगळल्याविण;
ओठांवरती ओठ मिळाले;
माना पडल्या, आसक्तीविण.
गरिब बिचारे बिळांत जगले,
पिपांत मेले उचकी देउन;
दिवस सांडला घाऱ्या डोळीं
गात्रलिंग अन् धुवून घेउन.
जगायची पण सक्ती आहे;
मरायची पण सक्ती आहे.
उदासतेला जहरी डोळे,
काचेचे पण;
मधाळ पोळें
ओठांवरती जमलें तेंही
बेकलाइटी, बेकलाइटी!
ओठांवरती ओठ लागले;
पिपांत उंदिर न्हाले ! न्हाले !"
पूर्वी दिल्याप्रमाणे विलास सारंग (Vilas Sarang) ह्या कवितेचा अनुवाद असा करतात:
"Inside the waterlogged drum, the mice are dead,
Their necks hang, wrung by nobody.
The necks hang, and lips meet lips
Without desire.
Poor bastards lived in holes,
And, with a hiccup, died in the drum.
Day spilled into gray eyes,
rinsed their limbs and genitals.
Living is obligatory;
so, too, is dying.
Melancholy has disquieting eyes;
they are glass ones, though.
Even the honeycomb
brimming on their lips
is merely foam rubber!
Lips nuzzling lips:
O the mice are douched in the drum!
the mice are douched!"
मर्ढेकरांची ही कविता वाचून ज्या माणसांवरती हे रूपक केले आहे त्यांच्या बरोबरीने उंदरांची पण दया येते... पण खरे उंदीर असे जगतात का?
ऑक्टोबर २०१७मध्ये LRB मध्ये Sean Wilsey यांचा न्यूयॉर्क शहरातील उंदरांवरचा लेख वाचला : "Some of them can read"
मर्ढेकर म्हणतात :
"... ओठांवरती ओठ मिळाले;
माना पडल्या, आसक्तीविण...."
LRB लेख सांगतो:
"...A third of the world’s food supply is consumed or destroyed by rats. Rats have eaten cadavers in the New York City coroner’s office. Rats have attacked and killed homeless people sleeping on the streets of Manhattan. There are more rodents currently infected with plague in North America (mostly in rural western states: Wyoming, Montana, Colorado) than there were in Europe at the time of the Black Death. Whenever we see a rat, it’s a weak rat, forced into the open to look for food; the strong ones stay out of sight. Brown rats survived nuclear testing in the Pacific by staying deep down in their burrows. There have always been rats in the White House.... A ‘dominant male rat may mate with up to twenty female rats in just six hours,’ Sullivan says.
त्यामुळे आसक्ती नाही असे म्हणणे धाडसाचे होईल! (दुसरी गोष्ट पहा homosexuality ही बिलकुल unnatural नाही.)
"गरिब बिचारे बिळांत जगले,
पिपांत मेले उचकी देउन;
जगायची पण सक्ती आहे;
मरायची पण सक्ती आहे...."
खरे उंदीर:
"... ‘Rats that survive to the age of four are the wisest and the most cynical beasts on earth,’ an exterminator told Mitchell sixty years ago. ‘A trap means nothing to them, no matter how skilfully set. They just kick it around until it snaps; then they eat the bait. And they can detect poisoned bait a yard off. I believe some of them can read.’..."
हे सगळे वाचून वाटते मर्ढेकरांनी चुकीचा प्राणी निवडला! म्हणजे कोरडे उंदीर ओल्या पिपात किंवा ओले उंदीर कोरड्या पिपात मेले असतील, पण त्यांची अवस्था माणसांसारखी दयनीय नसावी. गरिब बिचारे तर ते नक्कीच नाहीत.
Artist : Zachary Kanin, The New Yorker, June 29 2015
Poem no# 21 from "Mardhekarnchi Kavita" (मर्ढेकरांची कविता), 1959:
"पिपांत मेले ओल्या उंदिर;
माना पडल्या, मुरगळल्याविण;
ओठांवरती ओठ मिळाले;
माना पडल्या, आसक्तीविण.
गरिब बिचारे बिळांत जगले,
पिपांत मेले उचकी देउन;
दिवस सांडला घाऱ्या डोळीं
गात्रलिंग अन् धुवून घेउन.
जगायची पण सक्ती आहे;
मरायची पण सक्ती आहे.
उदासतेला जहरी डोळे,
काचेचे पण;
मधाळ पोळें
ओठांवरती जमलें तेंही
बेकलाइटी, बेकलाइटी!
ओठांवरती ओठ लागले;
पिपांत उंदिर न्हाले ! न्हाले !"
पूर्वी दिल्याप्रमाणे विलास सारंग (Vilas Sarang) ह्या कवितेचा अनुवाद असा करतात:
"Inside the waterlogged drum, the mice are dead,
Their necks hang, wrung by nobody.
The necks hang, and lips meet lips
Without desire.
Poor bastards lived in holes,
And, with a hiccup, died in the drum.
Day spilled into gray eyes,
rinsed their limbs and genitals.
Living is obligatory;
so, too, is dying.
Melancholy has disquieting eyes;
they are glass ones, though.
Even the honeycomb
brimming on their lips
is merely foam rubber!
Lips nuzzling lips:
O the mice are douched in the drum!
the mice are douched!"
मर्ढेकरांची ही कविता वाचून ज्या माणसांवरती हे रूपक केले आहे त्यांच्या बरोबरीने उंदरांची पण दया येते... पण खरे उंदीर असे जगतात का?
ऑक्टोबर २०१७मध्ये LRB मध्ये Sean Wilsey यांचा न्यूयॉर्क शहरातील उंदरांवरचा लेख वाचला : "Some of them can read"
मर्ढेकर म्हणतात :
"... ओठांवरती ओठ मिळाले;
माना पडल्या, आसक्तीविण...."
LRB लेख सांगतो:
"...A third of the world’s food supply is consumed or destroyed by rats. Rats have eaten cadavers in the New York City coroner’s office. Rats have attacked and killed homeless people sleeping on the streets of Manhattan. There are more rodents currently infected with plague in North America (mostly in rural western states: Wyoming, Montana, Colorado) than there were in Europe at the time of the Black Death. Whenever we see a rat, it’s a weak rat, forced into the open to look for food; the strong ones stay out of sight. Brown rats survived nuclear testing in the Pacific by staying deep down in their burrows. There have always been rats in the White House.... A ‘dominant male rat may mate with up to twenty female rats in just six hours,’ Sullivan says.
Male rats exiled from their nest by more aggressive male rats will also live in all-male rat colonies and have sex with the other male rats. The gestation period of a pregnant female rat is 21 days, the average litter between eight to ten pups. And a female rat can become pregnant immediately after giving birth. If there is a healthy amount of garbage for the rats to eat, then a female rat will produce up to 12 litters of 20 rats each a year. One rat’s nest can turn into a rat colony of 50 rats in six months. One pair of rats has the potential of 15,000 descendants in a year.As Mitchell more concisely puts it, ‘rats are almost as fecund as germs.’..."
त्यामुळे आसक्ती नाही असे म्हणणे धाडसाचे होईल! (दुसरी गोष्ट पहा homosexuality ही बिलकुल unnatural नाही.)
"गरिब बिचारे बिळांत जगले,
पिपांत मेले उचकी देउन;
जगायची पण सक्ती आहे;
मरायची पण सक्ती आहे...."
खरे उंदीर:
"... ‘Rats that survive to the age of four are the wisest and the most cynical beasts on earth,’ an exterminator told Mitchell sixty years ago. ‘A trap means nothing to them, no matter how skilfully set. They just kick it around until it snaps; then they eat the bait. And they can detect poisoned bait a yard off. I believe some of them can read.’..."
Joseph Mitchell: “The brown rat is hostile to other kinds;
it usually attacks them on sight. It kills them by biting their throats or by
clawing them to pieces, and, if hungry, it eats them . . . All rats are
vandals, but the brown is the most ruthless . . . Now and then, in live-poultry
markets, a lust for blood seems to take hold of the brown rat. One night, in
the poultry part of old Gansevoort Market, alongside the Hudson, a burrow of
them bit the throats of over three hundred broilers and ate less than a dozen.
Before this part of the market was abandoned, in 1942, the rats practically had
charge of it. Some of them nested in the drawers of desks. When the drawers
were pulled open, they leaped out, snarling.”
हे सगळे वाचून वाटते मर्ढेकरांनी चुकीचा प्राणी निवडला! म्हणजे कोरडे उंदीर ओल्या पिपात किंवा ओले उंदीर कोरड्या पिपात मेले असतील, पण त्यांची अवस्था माणसांसारखी दयनीय नसावी. गरिब बिचारे तर ते नक्कीच नाहीत.
“We gave cocaine to some and not to others and now there’s a full-on drug war.”
Artist : Zachary Kanin, The New Yorker, June 29 2015