"...तिच्या (कमळीच्या) अंगावर चढल्यावर चोळीचा खण आतून एकदम आखूड होत असे की काय कुणास ठाऊक, पण त्याचे लाल इरकली काठ दंडात अगदी रुतून जात व पाठ बरीच उघडी राहत असे. तिच्याकडे पहिले की वाटे, हिचे रक्त आता अगदी उकळायला आले आहे व ते आता काही फार वेळ दम धरणार नाही. ती एकटी असली तरी दहाजण आपल्याकडे पाहत आहेत अशाच तऱ्हेने तिचे अंग हले..."
('कवठे', पृष्ठ १८२, 'पिंगळावेळ', १९७७)
“...While I was staying in Moorea there was a native girl who used to paddle across the lagoon most mornings in her canoe. She did a certain amount of work about the place, but most of her time she spent with a ukulele across her knees, humming Polynesian tunes, telling us Polynesian legends. It is of her that I think when I try to picture Loti’s Rarahu. She was simple and friendly and affectionate. In the accepted sense she was not beautiful. She would have looked ugly in a photograph or in European dress. But when she danced, or sang, or swam she achieved a perfect harmony with that setting of palm trees and golden sand. She belonged there. And it was exquisite to watch het swimming under the water; the brown arms and shoulders, the scarlet and yellow pareo, the long black hair floating behind her like a comet’s fan. Here was the eternal Rarahu. And this, I told myself, was the Polynesia that existed before traders and missionaries came to tamper with it....”
Lynd Ward's wood engraving for Alec Waugh's 'Hot Countries', 1930
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