Monday, August 30, 2021

नाईलेच गङ्गे यमुने चैव गोदावरी सरस्वति । ...Extraordiary Powers of River Nile



गङ्गेच यमुने चैव गोदावरी सरस्वति

नर्मदा सिन्धु कावेरी जलेऽस्मिन् संनिधिं कुरु
(O Holy Rivers Nile, Ganga and Yamuna, and also Godavari, Saraswati,

Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri; Please be Present in this Water Near Me (and make it Holy).)

मी या श्लोकाला नाईल जोडेन. 
नाईलेच गङ्गे यमुने चैव गोदावरी सरस्वति

नर्मदा सिन्धु कावेरी जलेऽस्मिन् संनिधिं कुरु
(O Holy Rivers Nile, Ganga and Yamuna, and also Godavari, Saraswati,
Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri; Please be Present in this Water Near Me (and make it Holy).)

नाईल नदीचे महत्व माहीत होते. पण खालील वाचून माझे अज्ञान किती खोल आहे याची जाणीव झाली. 

 स्टेसी शिफ (Stacy Schiff) त्यांच्या प्रत्येक पानावर आनंद देणाऱ्या 'Cleopatra: A Life', मध्ये लिहतात :
“...Up the Nile Cleopatra and Caesar sailed in their “floating palace,” the wind at their backs. On shore the date trees hung thick with fruit, the palm fronds slightly faded. Beyond the river lay a sea of golden grain; in the trees the bananas glinted yellow. The apricots, grapes, figs, and mulberries were nearly ripe. It was peach season; above their heads, the pigeons visibly paired off. Everything about the landscape before Caesar and Cleopatra reinforced the myths of Egypt’s abundance and the river’s magical faculties. Renowned throughout the ancient world, the Nile was said to flow with gold; extraordinary powers were ascribed to it. Its water was believed to boil at half the temperature of other waters. Its river creatures attained staggering proportions. Ptolemy II had sent his daughter cases of Nile water when she married into the Syrian royal family, to ensure her fertility. (She was already thirty. It worked.) Egyptian women were known for more efficient pregnancies; it took them less time to produce a baby. They were said as well to have an elevated rate of giving birth to twins, often quadruplets. Goats—which bore two kids elsewhere—were said to bear five in Egypt, pigeons to produce twelve broods rather than ten. The male skull was thought to be stronger in Egypt, where baldness (and comb-overs like Caesar’s) were rare. The Nile was believed to have spontaneously generated life; one thing Cleopatra and Caesar did not see were the river creatures of legend, half-mice, half-dirt. Nor presumably did they find serpents with grass sprouting on their backs, or people who lived under turtle shells the size of boats. What they did make out among the tufted papyrus thickets and the lotus plants were herons and storks, hippopotami and eighteen-foot-long crocodiles, an inexhaustible supply of fish, a rarity in Rome. The ancient historians were mistaken about the primordial details, wholly accurate on the subject of Egypt’s fecundity. Cleopatra’s home was the most productive agricultural land in the Mediterranean, the one in which crops appeared to plant and water themselves.”

एवढ माहात्म्य मी गंगेचं सुद्धा कधी ऐकल नाही, पुराणात सुद्धा वाचल नाही कुठल्या नदीबद्दल. 

Its water was believed to boil at half the temperature of other waters. 

Its river creatures attained staggering proportions. 

Ptolemy II had sent his daughter cases of Nile water when she married into the Syrian royal family, to ensure her fertility. (She was already thirty. It worked.) Egyptian women were known for more efficient pregnancies; it took them less time to produce a baby. They were said as well to have an elevated rate of giving birth to twins, often quadruplets. Goats—which bore two kids elsewhere—were said to bear five in Egypt, pigeons to produce twelve broods rather than ten. 

The male skull was thought to be stronger in Egypt, where baldness (and comb-overs like Caesar’s) were rare. 

The Nile was believed to have spontaneously generated life;
 Artist: Sidney Harris, The New Yorker, March 1991

Friday, August 27, 2021

सळसळ पानांची ? वा झरणी...Let's All Rustle!

"सूर कशाचे वातावरणी ?
सळसळ पानांची ? वा झरणी
खळखळ, ओहोटीचे पाणी ?
किलबिल शिशिरी केविलवाणी ?

कुणास ठाऊक ! डोळ्यां पाणी
व्यर्थ आणतां; नच गाऱ्हाणी
अर्थ; हासुनी  वाचा सजणी.
भास ! --जरी हो खुपल्यावाणी. "

(बा सी मर्ढेकर, मर्ढेकरांची कविता , पृष्ठ ३, १९५९ / १९७७)


Artist: Bliss / Martin

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

भारतीय खेलजगतातील एक सर्वोच्च आनंदाच्या क्षणाला आज पन्नास वर्षे झाली...India Beat England in England@50

२४ ऑगस्ट १९७१ च्या आधी आम्ही मिरजेहून मावशीकडे कोल्हापुरात गेलो होतो पण तो दिवस अजून स्पष्ट आठवतोय... किती वर्षे तो विजय मी चघळला असेल... 

Illustrated Weekly of India मध्ये त्या दौऱ्यावरचे राजू भारतन यांचे लेख आणि इंग्लंड मधल्या ग्रीन टॉप मैदानांची सोबतची रंगीत छायाचित्रे अजून आठवतात 

त्यावेळी बहिष्कृत दक्षिण आफ्रिका सोडला तर इंग्लंड चा संघ हा टेस्ट क्रिकेट मध्ये सगळ्यात बलवान होता आणि त्या संघाला भारताने हरवले होते


courtesy : ESPN Cricinfo

Monday, August 23, 2021

हंसा वाडकर , ५० वर्षे झाली...Hansa Wadkar, 50th Death Anniversary

कलाकार: रघुवीर मुळगावकर

सौजन्य : श्री. मुळगावकर यांच्या कार्याचे कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स, वाङ्मय शोभा ऑक्टोबर १९५३, बुकगंगा.कॉम

#HansaWadkar 

#RaghuvirMulgaonkar

 


 

Saturday, August 21, 2021

ज्या वर्षी माझी आई जन्माला आली ... Karl Schlögel's 'Moscow, 1937' and Anant Kanekar's 'Dhukyatun Lal Taryakade'

माझ्या आईचा जन्म ऑक्टोबर १९३७चा.

पुढील काही भाग माझ्या सप्टेंबर १९ २०१६ च्या पोस्ट मधील : 

कै. अनंत काणेकर Anant Kanekar (१९०५-१९८०) हे तत्कालीन मराठी साहित्यातील अत्यंत वजनदार नाव. खांडेकर, फडके, काणेकर वगैरे... १९५७ सालच्या अखिल भारतीय मराठी साहित्यसंमेलनाचे अध्यक्ष... १९६३च्या मराठी नाट्यसंमेलनाचे अध्यक्ष...पद्मश्री... मराठी विश्वकोश मंडळ सदस्य...त्यांचे काही लघुनिबंध (साधारण दर्जाचे) माझ्या शाळेतील क्रमिक पुस्तकात सुद्धा वाचलेले...

... तसेच दुसरे मोठे नाव कै. शं वा किर्लोस्कर (१८९७-१९७५), साक्षेपी द्रष्टे संपादक, पुरोगामी, लेखक, व्यंगचित्रकार...

२०१६ सालच्या एका 'ललित'च्या अंकात  काणेकरांच्या 'धुक्यांतून लाल ताऱ्याकडे', फेब्रुवारी १९४० चे संक्षिप्त परिक्षण वाचले. ते पुस्तक विकत घेऊन बरेच वाचले.

पुस्तकाचे शीर्षक सरळ सरळ एडगर स्नो यांच्या अत्यंत गाजलेल्या 'रेड स्टार ओव्हर चायना', १९३७ ची आठवण करून देते.

पुस्तकाला प्रस्तावना आहे शं वा किर्लोस्करांची, ज्यांच्या संपादीत 'किर्लोस्कर' मासिकात, पुस्तक १९३७ साली  लेखमालिकारूपात पूर्वप्रसिद्ध झाले होते.

शंवाकि प्रस्तावनेत काय म्हणतात ते पहा:


काणेकर रशियात खूप कमी काळ होते: ३१ में १९३७- ११ जून १९३७. 
 
पृष्ठ १०० ते १५७ मध्ये ते वर्णन आले आहे. बरेच काही लिहण्यासारखे आहे त्याबद्दल पण फक्त एकाच गोष्टीबद्दल लिहतोय.
 
एका म्युझियमबद्दल काणेकर लिहतात:
 

काणेकर जोसेफ स्टालिन ला देव म्हणतायत!

Karl Schlögel, ‘Moscow, 1937’, 2008:

“…It is not possible to talk about Russia in the twentieth century, and even present-day post-Soviet Russia, without coming up against the caesura invoked by the term ‘1937’. All lines of inquiry in my previous writings – whether they focused on St Petersburg as a laboratory of modernity, the Russian experience of exile in Berlin between the wars, or the rebirth of Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union – somehow or other and at some point or other inevitably led back to the time and place of the radical and irreversible rupture in the third decade of the twentieth century…

…However, Moscow in 1937 is one of the key settings of European history. It is not situated somewhere or other but on a fault line of European civilization. The dead of 1937 are the contemporaries of a ‘century of extremes’ that knows no frontiers. This is why Moscow in 1937 must form part of our mental processes when we inquire into the meaning of the twentieth century for European civilization….

…. In the minds of millions of Soviet citizens the ‘accursed year 1937’ was a synonym for countless human tragedies. 1937 and 1938 are significant death dates. Human lives were abruptly cut short in 1937.1 It sent shock waves through the entire nation that could be felt far beyond its frontiers. In a single year some 2 million people were arrested, approaching 700,000 were murdered and almost 1.3 million were deported to camps and labour colonies. That was a hitherto inconceivable increase in suffering even in a country that had already experienced huge losses of life. In the First World War and the subsequent Civil War, Russia had lost around 15 million people and up to another 8 million from starvation arising from the collectivization process. But the numbers of those arrested, sentenced and shot in 1937–8 represented a quantum leap, an excess piled on excess.

What makes the year 1937 so terrible, however, is not merely the number of victims. Few of those who were persecuted and killed knew why they had been singled out for this fate. The allegations and accusations were incredible and fantastic, and even more fantastic was the fact that the accused repeated and reproduced them in their confessions. This was the case with prominent revolutionary leaders, statesmen and diplomats known the world over, as well as technical experts and managers sorely needed by the country to help with reconstruction. They were all supposed to have conspired to organize uprisings and assassinations, built up spy networks and been involved in wrecking activities in factories, mines or research institutes. But, within a short time, those who had carried out the sentences found themselves in the dock and were transformed from active participants into victims. The central question that scholars have focused on to this day, and will probably continue to focus on, is why all these events took place, what was their underlying rationale. But in the past attention has concentrated on the trials of the prominent leaders belonging to the ‘old guard’, whereas now, ever since the publication of the documents relating to the so-called mass operations during 1937 and 1938, it has become evident that the Great Terror was directed primarily against ordinary people who did not belong to the Party, but who were singled out on the basis of social and ethnic criteria and systematically butchered…”


 Artist: Helen E. Hokinson, The New Yorker, 15 Aug 1942