मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च 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: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

Gandhi, Jinnah and a Nervous Foot Rash

Today October 2 2019 is 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi

कै श्री म माटे , वाङ्मय  शोभा, सप्टेंबर १९४४

Jad Adams:
"...While Wavell thought both leaders were ‘obstinate, intransigent, crafty old men,’ he at least felt they could achieve something. But his conclusion was: ‘The two great mountains have met and not even a mouse has emerged.’ Wavell analysed the differences between them: Jinnah wanted Pakistan first and independence afterwards, ‘while Gandhi wants independence first with some kind of self-determination for Muslims to be granted by a provisional government which would be predominantly Hindu.’ Jinnah simply did not believe that a Hindu-majority government would grant any significant level of Muslim self-determination. He was betting on getting Pakistan from the British before they left.

They were unable to continue their meetings, which had anyway become less than cordial, in January 1945 because both were ill, Jinnah with pleurisy. If Gandhi was often distinguished by putting this whole body into the national struggle, Jinnah was no less so: he maintained a glassy outward persona while his body was racked with disease; every public appearance took an effort of will.

Jinnah unwound enough to mention to Gandhi that he was troubled by a nervous rash on one foot. Gandhi knelt on the floor and insisted he remove Jinnah’s shoes and socks, then held the affected part, saying: ‘I know what will heal you. I will send it tomorrow morning.’ He sent a box of healing earth, which Jinnah accepted with his usual good manners, declaring he had already seen improvement, but in fact he made no more use of that than of anything else Gandhi had to offer...."
('Gandhi: The True Man Behind Modern India',  2011)

I came across the following well known picture dated 1939, capturing a moment as Gandhi was leaving Jinnah's house.

Instead if we were to imagine it dated 1944- 1945, considering what Mr. Mate and Mr. Adams are saying in the quotes above....


"Jinnahji, my brother: don't be shy, let me check your rash...."
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