बालकृष्ण मार्तण्ड दाभाडे यांचा मध्ययुगीन भारतीय चित्रकलेवरील लेख...B M Dabhade's Article on Medieval Indian Drawing Art

वाङ्मय शोभा मासिकातील जानेवारी १९४७ च्या अंकातील  बालकृष्ण मार्तण्ड दाभाडे यांचा 'मध्ययुगीन भारतांतील चित्रलेखन' हा लेख पाहून माझे त्या विषयातील अज्ञान दूर होऊन प्रचंड आनंद झाला...

तो लेख मी कोणतीही टिप्पणी न करता इथे देत आहे... 

तुम्ही कधी डेसी आणि डेका मेट्रिक पद्धतीत वापरले का? Have You Ever Used Deci and Deca of the International System of Units (SI)

भारताने सोबतच्या जाहिरातीत (वाङ्मय शोभा ऑक्टोबर १९५८) दाखवल्याप्रमाणे  मेट्रिक पद्धत ऑक्टोबर १९५८ साली स्वीकारली.

मी १९६५ साली मिरजेच्या भारत भूषण या मराठी शाळेत पाहिलीत गेलो आणि पुढील दोन-तीन वर्षांत आमच्या कडून मेट्रिक पद्धत  घोटून घेतली गेली , मी स्वतः मैल, फूट, इंच, यार्ड, फर्लांग वगैरे शब्द तुरळक प्रमाणात तो पर्यंत आणि नंतरही वापरले होते/ आहेत  (आजही आपण फूट, इंच वापरतोच)... 

आम्हाला घोकायचे गाणे होते मिली-सेंटी-डेसी -मीटर- डेका- हेकटो -किलोमीटर ...अंकगणितात पण हे सगळे यायचे... 

पण मी त्यातील  डेसी, डेका अंतरासाठी, वजनासाठी, आकारमानासाठी  ना कधी वापरले आहे , ना वापरल्याचे ऐकले आहे!

 

चाऊ एन लाय आणि आमचे बालपण...Dragon Chou En-Lai and His Tragic Death

१९६२च्या आधीचा माझा जन्म, माझ्या रस्त्यावरील खेळत्या वयात- ज्यावेळी अजून आमच्या मिरजेच्या घरासमोरील रस्ता डांबरी सुद्धा झाला नव्हता- चीन युद्धाची आठवण कायम असे....आम्ही चिनी लोकांबद्दल ते झुरळे आणि पाली खातात असे कायम म्हणत असू... अर्थात तो आमचा चीनला "हरवण्याचा" लटका प्रयत्न असे... 

हे बहुदा १९६५, ६६ सातपर्यंत चालले असावे... 

नंतर माझा चीनचा असा संबंध आम्ही अप्पर आसाम मध्ये रहात असताना (१९८९-१९९२) काळात आला... चिनी सेना  ज्या छबुआ गावापर्यंत १९६२  साली पोचली होती, त्या गावातून आम्ही अनेकवेळा प्रवास केला... 

माझ्या लहानपणी  चाऊ एन लाय हे नाव आणि हिंदी-चिनी भाई भाई घोषणा अगदी घरोघरी पोचले होते.... 

Zhou Enlai: a life, 2024 हे पुस्तक २०२४ साली पाहण्यात आले आणि मी उत्सुकतेने त्यातील भारतावर केलेले भाष्य शोधू लागलो ...

"...Zhou’s trip to India had failed. He had never felt so powerless. He realized that the border disputes were far more complicated than he had perceived. Moreover, his intuition told him that the optimal moment for resolving the border dispute with India was likely gone forever. On several later occasions, he said that Nehru was the “most arrogant” person and the person “most difficult to deal with” he had encountered in his career.^...

^...despite its total victory on the battlefield, China had taken the initiative to stop operations and unilaterally retreat to twenty kilometers behind the Line of Actual Control that stood before Nehru adopted the “forward policy.” This was unprecedented in world history. However, not only Western countries, such as the United States and Britain, but also many Asian and African countries had accused China of resorting to the use of force. The key here was that India’s implementation of the “forward policy” had been carried out in a series of small and unannounced moves. Despite China’s repeated protests, the mainstream international media almost never reported these moves. By comparison, China’s large-scale counteroffensive was so big that it immediately caught the world’s attention. Nehru thus was able to present India as the victim on the international scene. Furthermore, Nehru had long been an influential fighter for anticolonialism, a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and an advocate of democracy. Consequently, India easily won the sympathy of countries friendly to both India and China, which was beyond Zhou’s expectations....

...When almost the whole world condemned China after the outbreak of the Sino-Indian War, Moscow’s attitude was exceptional. Keeping Khrushchev’s promise to the Chinese ambassador Liu Xiao, the Soviet government changed its previous stance of neutrality and stood explicitly on China’s side. In a memo to Beijing on October 22, Moscow stated that the Soviet Union endorsed China’s position on the war. More specifically, regarding the “McMahon Line,” Moscow declared that it “supports China’s stand, that is, it is not an established borderline, but a legacy of the tragic historical past.”..."

 २०२४ साली जग बदलेले आहे, आज ते  भारताच्या मागे ठामपणे उभे राहील का?

चाऊ एन लाय यांचे शेवटचे दिवस माओ यांच्या मुळे अत्यंत वाईट गेले, वाचा Jung Chang & Jon Halliday यांचे पुस्तक "Mao: The Unknown Story" , 2005.

"IN MID-MAY 1972, shortly after Nixon’s visit, it was discovered that Chou En-lai had cancer of the bladder. Under Mao, even a life-threatening illness was not just a medical matter. Mao controlled when and how his Politburo members could receive treatment. The doctors had to report first to Mao. They requested immediate surgery for Chou, stressing that the cancer was at an early stage, and that prompt action could cure it.

On 31 May, Mao decreed: “First: keep it secret, and don’t tell the premier or [his wife]. Second: no examination. Third: no surgery …”

Mao’s pretexts for vetoing treatment were that Chou was “old” (he was seventy-four), had “heart trouble,” and that surgery was “useless.” But Mao himself was seventy-eight, and had worse heart problems, yet surgeons and anesthetists were on stand-by for him...

...The doctors’ entreaty to Mao for proper surgery met with a brutal reply on 9 May 1974: “Operations are ruled out for now. Absolutely no room for argument.” Mao intended to let the tumor eat Chou to death unimpeded. Chou himself then practically begged, via the four top leaders designated by Mao to supervise his medical “care.” At this point, Mao reluctantly gave his consent: “Let him see Tun Razak and then we’ll talk about it.” Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, was due at the end of the month, and Chou went into the hospital on 1 June—after he had signed the communiqué establishing diplomatic relations with Malaysia. It was only now that he was allowed his first proper operation, two years after his cancer had been diagnosed. This delay made sure that he died nineteen months later, and before Mao...."

 

हा जीएंच्या स्वामीतील गोपीचंद कोण ?...Gopichand in G A Kulkarni's Swami

जीएंच्या 'स्वामी' मध्ये हे वाक्य वाचून कुतूहल फार वाढले..."... त्या दिवशी तो आंघोळीसाठी जात असता स्वतःशी म्हणाला, आज तू अगदी गोपीचंद स्नान कर. का, तर आज तुझा वाढदिवस आहे !..." (पृष्ठ ४६, पिंगळावेळ, १९७७)

हा गोपीचंद कोण? मला अजिबात माहित नव्हते. 

जुलै २०२४ मध्ये त्याच्या बद्दल सविस्तर माहिती पहिल्यांदा मराठी पुस्तकात वाचली. 

 पृष्ठ ७४, 'संस्कृतीच्या प्रांगणात', १९६९-२०१२, लेखक - पं महादेवशास्त्री जोशी (१९०६-१९९२)

I Forgive You, Bumpty

 "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Cartoonstock.com had a caption contest in July 2024 for following picture.

 Mick Stevens is the artist who had his own caption: "I've pretty much had it with walls"

 Look at the brilliance of caption winner Zack Windheim. 

I liked his caption better than the original caption. (He has changed Dumpty to Bumpty.). Humpty couldn't be pit together but still shows great heart!

The Final Effect of Simenon’s Work is Not Depressing, but Liberating

 मराठीत Georges Simenon (१९०३-१९८९) यांचे एकतरी पुस्तक अनुवादित झाले आहे का याबद्दल मी साशंक आहे पण मला ते फार आवडतात... 

त्यांचे मी संपूर्ण असे एकच पुस्तक वाचलंय : १९६१ साली प्रसिद्ध झालेले "The Train"... पण मी ते वाचत गेलो आणि पुस्तकमय झालो...त्यानंतर त्या पुस्तकावर आधारित एक उत्तम सिनेमा सुद्धा पहिला... 

त्यांनी जवळजवळ ५०० पुस्तके लिहली आहेत... 

त्यांच्या बद्दल मी अलीकडे बरेच वाचले आहे... 

जॉन ग्रे यांनी त्यांच्यावर न्यू स्टेट्समन मध्ये २०१६ साली  लेख लिहला आहे... 

"... Simenon is sometimes read as a writer who offers no hope. It is true that he holds out no prospect of redemption, whether for his characters or for humankind. Yet there is nothing in Simenon’s work of the horror at the human condition that is expressed in some of the stories of Guy de Maupassant – in other respects a comparable writer. Those of Simenon’s protagonists who are not destroyed in the course of attempting to escape their lives return rid of their illusions and readier to enjoy what the world has to offer.

The final effect of Simenon’s work is not depressing, but liberating. Before he left his life behind, M Monde “was a man who, for a long time, had endured man’s estate without being conscious of it, as others endure an illness of which they are unaware. He had always been a man living among other men and like them he had struggled, jostling among the crowd, now feebly and now resolutely, without knowing whither he was going.” When he finds his way back to his family and business, he is more relaxed. “He was part of life, as flexible and fluid as life itself.” M Monde may be the man Simenon wanted to be, and in some degree did become: “a man who had laid all ghosts, lost all shadows, and who stared you in the eyes with cold serenity”."

Julian Barnes यांनी लंडन रिव्यू ऑफ बुक्स मध्ये  Simenon यांच्यावर मार्च १९८३ च्या अंकात लेख लिहला होता:

"... Georges Simenon did three things compulsively in his life: he wrote fiction (about 220 novels under his own name, plus 200 pseudonymous novellas); he went to bed with women (ten thousand at his first public estimate, later amended to ‘tens of thousands’); and he dictated his memoirs (20 volumes were published, with fans repeatedly begging him to stop)...

...Here is a typical sexual encounter from the Twenties, at the time of the writer’s engagement to his first wife:

With Simenon, early one morning, lying awake in the Hotel Berthe, the need was so great that when he heard a chambermaid outside in the hallway cleaning the guests’ shoes, he got up, opened the door, lifted the girl’s skirt and possessed her on the spot – while she was brushing away. She did not even stop what she was doing but merely said: ‘Oh Monsieur!’

Now skip two marriages, 40 years and nine thousand-odd other women, and catch the truth-seeker’s first sexual encounter with Teresa, his present housekeeper-companion:

A month after she started work at Echandens, I unexpectedly walked into a room and found her bending over a table that she was polishing. The sight was too much for me. I advanced upon her, feverishly pulled down her knickers and penetrated her ... Teresa did not play the coquette. She had an orgasm as violent as mine, still bent over the table, with a duster or chamois leather in her hand ... We did not even look at each other. I just walked out of the room and locked myself in my office.." 

Georges Simenon by  artist :Jacques de Loustal (1956-)

Edward Penfield's Great Cover in March 1898

 इतके देखणे मुखपृष्ठ मी आजवर क्वचितच पाहिले आहे .... 

Wikipedia : "Edward Penfield (June 2, 1866 – February 8, 1925) was an American illustrator in the era known as the "Golden Age of American Illustration" and he is considered the father of the American poster. His work has been included in almost every major book on American Illustration or the history of the poster. He is also a major figure in the evolution of graphic design...."

विंदांना जाऊन आज पंधरा वर्षे झाली...Vinda and Wittgenstein...Philosophy ought really to be written only as poetry

मी जुलै २७ २०२४ रोजी वाचले : 

"... First,​ this book is not just a work of philosophy, it is a work of art. (In a notebook from the early 1930s Wittgenstein wrote: ‘Philosophy ought really to be written only as poetry.’) All three translators are sensitive to this. Booth writes in his preface: ‘We are in the realm of craft, shape and, now and then, possibly even song.’ And Jan Zwicky, in her introduction to Booth’s translation, details the way the stress and play of vowel sounds in the final proposition of the book give it a certain musicality (‘Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen’)..." 

(A. W. Morre, 'A Tove on the Table', LRB, Aug 1 2024) 

Philosophy ought really to be written only as poetry

म्हणून विंदांचे शेवटचे महत्वाचे  पुस्तक 'अष्टदर्शने', २००३ आहे काय?