Looking at Cartoons, Getting Along

I Wish Shrikant Moghe Played Sakharam Binder

2012-01-26T09:00:00.005+05:30

I got to see a fair bit of Shrikant Moghe (श्रीकांत मोघे) on TV in Jan 2012 because he was the president of the 92nd Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Sammelan (अखिल भारतीय मराठी नाट्यसंमेलन) that was held at Sangli (सांगली).

(btw- There is no entry in his name in English Wikipedia and just header entry in Marathi Wikipedia as on Jan 24 2012 9:16 AM. Even his entry in The Internet Movie Database is moth eaten.)

I wish he wrote an autobiography.

On TV, he was not allowed to even complete some of the sentences, let alone topics!

For instance, he was narrating how he once asked Vijay Tendulkar (विजय तेंडुलकर) if there were only "Sakharam Binder" (सखाराम बाईंडर), "Gidhade" (गिधाडे)-both Teldulkar's plays- to one's life.

Now, instead of letting Mr. Moghe complete what could have been a very interesting response, the "expert" interjected with "Purush" (पुरुष).

Now "Purush" is NOT Tendulkar'a play. It is of Jaywant Dalvi (जयवंत दळवी). But the 'expert' forced Moghe to say "Purush" and in the process killed the original point.

I have never seen Moghe on stage. I have only watched video clips of some of his stage performances.

I have always felt that he has been an under achiever considering his talent.

My father- who has seen them both on live stage- used to rate Nilu Phule's (नीळू फुले) performance in 'Binder' and Moghe's performance in Vasant Kanetkar's (वसंत कानेटकर) 'Lekure Udanda Jahali' (लेकुरे उदंड जाहली) equally highly.

I have seen Nilu Phule's enthralling (and deeply disturbing) 'Binder' at Sahitya Sangh Mandir, Girgaon (साहित्य संघ मंदिर, गिरगाव) and therfore can imagine Moghe's acting prowess.

I would have liked seeing Moghe play Sakharam Binder or Bérenger in Eugène Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros'. My guess: He would have been quite competent if not good.

I have always enjoyed watching him in Marathi black & white cinema. Even his small role of lecherous politician-minister 'Anandrao' (आनंदराव) in 'Simhasan' (सिंहासन), 1980 has left a lasting impression on me.

Here is another example.

Eyes that are groomed on today's pervasive anorexia might be offended but look closer and you will be taken in by Moghe's infectious smile.

[Uma (उमा)-on whom I had a bit of a crush- and Shrikant Moghe 'singing' one of the best songs I have heard: 'Swapnat Rangle Mee' (स्वप्नात रंगले मी) from director Kamlakar Torne's (कमलाकर तोरणे) Marathi film 'Aamhi Jato Amuchya Gava' (आम्ही जातो अमुच्या गावा), 1968.

Music director- Sudhir Phadke (सुधीर फडके), Voice: Asha Bhosle (आशा भोसले), Sudhir Phadke

courtesy: Eros International]

Returning to Mr. Moghe's question to Mr. Tendulkar, I wish to say that there is to life both 'Sakharam Binder' and 'Tujhe Ahe Tujapashi' (तुझे आहे तुजपाशी).

And are they very different to begin with?

To revisit P L Deshpande's (पु ल देशपांडे) play 'Tujhe Ahe Tujapashi', Moghe's role in which became a huge success, from my earlier post:

"काकाजी: जाऊ द्या यार. जंगलात तर दोनच वेळा. दिवस आणि रात्र. भूक लागली की जेवायची वेळ आणि थकलो की झोपायची.

आचार्य : म्हणजे मी समजत होतो , की हा वाडा चोवीसच वर्षे मागे आहे. पण नाही , अगदी आदिमानवाच्याच काळात आहे. जंगलात राहणार्या आदिमानवानं त्यानंतर काही प्रगति केल्याचं ह्या वाड्याच्या कानावर आलेलं दिसत नाही.

काकाजी: कुणाला ठाऊक काय केलंय ते? प्रगति की अधोगति !"

(Kakaji: Let it be friend. In jungle there are just two times. When hungry it's eating time and when tired sleeping one.

Acharya: I was thinking this house was behind the times by twenty-four years. But no, it's in prehistorical period. Looks like it has not heard any progress the primitive man has made since.

Kakakji: Wonder what is it? Progress or degeneration!)

Doubts over progress or degeneration? Sakharam Binder (and Vijay Tendulkar) would nod in approval!

Lucky us, some of them find Édouard Manet's fingers!

2012-01-23T09:00:00.007+05:30

Today January 23 2012 is 180th birth anniversary of Édouard Manet

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN:

Manet’s message? That the whole modern world is dangerous, shifty and strange. The camera is just a byproduct and symptom of this altered condition. We must struggle for comprehension; art can help, up to a point. But the old bearings don’t moor us. We’re on our own.

(The New York Times, May 16, 2011)

Édouard Manet:

I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.

When I put my hands in my pocket I find no fingers, not even my own because I understand so little of the subject of drawing and painting!

It was my weakest subject from kindergarten to the end of second year of engineering. I was so horrified by engineering drawing that I seriously thought of ditching engineering until the late Bam-sir (बाम-सर) came along to rescue me. Also, my younger brother helped me with biology journal of 12th and many journals of engineering.

It's a marvel of Indian higher education system that a person so weak in the subject of drawing gets away with calling himself a mechanical engineer!

When I reached IIT-Madras, it was a big relief to see all academic building blocks marked as "sciences" e.g. "mechanical sciences" except civil which was marked "civil engineering".

Had I arrived at the right place?

And yet I keep chasing pictures, drawings, paintings...all visual arts. Why won't I when the world has artists like Édouard Manet?

Look at the following picture.

I haven't seen more beautiful and funnier picture than this all my life.

Look at the man, his both hands, middle-finger of his left, his right-hand grip on the glass. Follow his eyes. Look at his bow-tie, his sideburn, his moustache...

Is he listening to the lady at all? Is he seducing her? The lady seems to be charmed. I keep wondering what he would do next...will he kiss her lightly on the lips?...

Look at the waiter. What is he looking at or waiting for?

When I see this picture, a lot of quality pictures of 20th century, including some great cartoons, don't surprise me. Manet anticipates them.

Manet has said: Conciseness in art is essential and a refinement. The concise man makes one think; the verbose bores. Always work towards conciseness.

And what else are cartoons if not conciseness?

Artist: Édouard Manet, 'Chez le père Lathuille' ('The Garden of Pere Lathuille'), 1879

Location: The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai, Belgium

Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Do a lot of today's artists find his fingers every time they put their hands in their pockets?

Stan is Dead and Gone. Sachin is NOW!

2012-01-16T09:00:00.001+05:30

Michael Crichton:

"...Jennifer had no interest in the past; she was one of the new generation that understood that gripping television was now, events happening now, a flow of images in a perpetual unending electronic present. Context by its very nature required something more than now, and her interest did not go beyond now. Nor, she thought, did anyone else's. The past was dead and gone. Who cared what you ate yesterday? What you did yesterday? What was immediate and compelling was now.

And television at its best was now..."

('Airframe', 1996)

Not just television is NOW but so is India's larget selling English language newspaper: The Times of India is the most widely read English language newspaper (7.3 million).

This image appeared in The Times of India and The Asian Age on Jan 2 2012:

courtesy: AFP

As I looked at the picture, I noticed both Sachin Tendulkar and the well-sculpted shapely figure, that is pulling a ball rather ferociously, in the background.

The Asian Age caption does tell us a little about the cricketer- Stan McCabe- whose statue it is.

But The Times of India?

"IDOLS AT PLAY: Sachin Tendulkar arrives for net practice at Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday. The India-Australia match that begins on Tuesday will be the 100th Test at SCG, and the first between the two teams at the ground since Monkeygate."

What a pity!

For them Monkeygate is more important than McCabe.

I learnt about the late Mr. McCabe long time ago as a kid. "A short, stocky right-hander, he was described by Wisden as "one of Australia's greatest and most enterprising batsmen" and by his captain Don Bradman as one of the great batsmen of the game."

During the 1938 Ashes Tour of England, at first test at Trent Bridge, he scrored 232 in 235 minutes with 34 boundaries and one six, "an innings during which Bradman summoned his players not to miss a ball, as "they would never see anything like it again." Bradman later said that McCabe "held us all spellbound", and it was reported that the Australian captain trembled while watching the innings. While McCabe was at the crease, his partners contributed a total of only 58 runs, meaning that he had outscored them by a ratio of 4:1. Upon his return to the pavilion Bradman greeted him with the words: "If I could play an innings like that, I'd be a proud man, Stan". This has also been reported as Bradman saying " I wish I could bat like that". Bradman later wrote that "Towards the end [of McCabe's innings] I could scarcely watch the play. My eyes filled as I drank in the glory of his shots"..."

I worry a lot more about our media than our cricket.

i for Imaginary Numbers and Ishavasya-Vritti

2012-01-12T09:00:00.007+05:30

Today Jan 12 2012 is 347th death anniversary of Pierre de Fermat.

G H Hardy:

"Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. "Immortality" may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."

Alexander Waugh:

"...Mathematics, in which physicists vest unwarranted confidence, is far too blunt a tool. It worked for Newton, Maxwell and Einstein because they found equations that accurately described the classical world. But with the discovery, in the early 20th century, of quantum mechanics, everything changed. Subatomic particles do not behave like large visible objects. One cannot measure a particle’s position and its velocity at the same time; the arrow of time cannot be observed in particle interactions; and (so Hawking believes) for a particle to travel between two points it has to take every ‘possible path’ between them simultaneously. The number of possible paths from A to B is, he claims, infinite. If this is correct, then it becomes a feature of the quantum world that all history, and all possible histories, also take place simultaneously.

How can mathematics, however sophisticated, be up to the task of dealing with this? Numbers, after all, were created by humans to describe things in the observed world. They are adjectival. How can one ascribe a number to a particle, or to its position, or its velocity if, while travelling from A to B, it is said to be in an infinite number of places simultaneously?..."

Robin McKie:

"Grigori Perelman, arguably the world's greatest mathematician, worked out a solution to one of the seven great unsolved mathematical problems, the Poincaré conjecture, in 2002. It was a magnificent achievement. Honours, cash, offers of world lecture tours and lucrative teaching posts were hurled at the Russian theorist. But Perelman turned down the lot, including the Fields medal, the mathematical world's equivalent of a Nobel prize, and a million dollars in prize money that the Clay Institute wanted to give him for his work. Since then, he has announced he has given up the study of mathematics altogether and has cut off communications with all journalists and nearly all his friends."

Shiv Visvanathan:

"One misses the celebration of science today. Science acquired its creativity through play and it is the playfulness of science that created a Jagadish Chandra Bose, a Raman, a Ramanujan or Chandrasekhar. Science as playfulness has to come back as cultural form to childhood and the universities. Science has to be enjoyable...

...Try an experiment. Make a list of our top scientists and read their speeches. Pick the best and you will see that our scientists have little understanding of the nature of science. Just try it with a sample of speeches from the Indian Science Congress. The illiteracy of our scientists and our politicians about science seems to be co-produced." (The Asian Age, Jan 12 2012)

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared 2012 as the 'National Mathematical year' as a tribute to Srinivasa Ramanujan. He also voiced concern over the "badly inadequate" number of competent mathematicians in the country.

त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर:

"ज्या वर्गांत भास्कराचार्यांसारखा बृहस्पति असतो, त्या वर्गांत दुसर्या कोणा तरी मुलाचा दुसरा नंबर लागतच असतो. पण त्यावरून त्यांस पहिल्या व दुसर्या नंबरचे विद्यार्थी ठरविणें योग्य नाहीं..."

("The class that has got a Bṛhaspati (guru of the gods) like Bhāskarāchārya, also has a boy who ranks second. But it incorrect that they be rated numer one and two students...")

(from: 'Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar Nivadak Lekh Sangraha', Aggregator-H V Mote, Introduction- G D Khanolkar, 1977)

('त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर निवडक लेख संग्रह', संग्राहक-ह. वि. मोटे, परिचय-गं. दे. खानोलकर, १९७७)

I quote this because I find it very interesting how a historian like Shejwalkar invokes a mathematician like Bhāskarāchārya while comparing Nanasaheb Peshwa (1721-1761) (नानासाहेब पेशवा)- student claiming to be second in an imaginary class- to Shivaji (1630-1680) (शिवाजी) who is first.

Mathematics always brings to my mind one of the best books I have ever read: Simon Singh's 'Fermat's Last Theorem' (1997).

The author says in the preface:

"The story of Fermat’s Last Theorem is inextricably linked with the history of mathematics, touching on all the major themes of number theory. It provides a unique insight into what drives mathematics and, perhaps more important, what inspires mathematicians. The Last Theorem is at the heart of an intriguing saga of courage, skullduggery, cunning, and tragedy, involving all the greatest heroes of mathematics.

Ferrmat’s Last Theorem has its origins in the mathematics of ancient Greece, two thousand years before Pierre de Fermat constructed the problem in the form we know it today. Hence, it links the foundations of mathematics created by Pythagoras to the most sophisticated ideas in modern mathematics.”

For me the book becomes classy because it is as much about mathematicians as mathematics.

It quotes German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz on the imaginary number:

"The imaginary number is a fine and wonderful recourse of the divine spirit, almost an amphibian between being and non-being."

I first learnt about imaginary numbers in 1975. I was stunned: so math is not just about real. Although, I soon figured out how to deal with them and it was fun, how does one comprehend this 'imaginary' stuff?

I wish I was told about this quote of Leibniz then...Divine spirit, being and non-being...'saguna'(सगुण), 'nirguna' (निर्गुण), amphibian invoking my favourite frogs...

No wonder Vinoba Bhave (विनोबा भावे) is as much fascinated by imaginary numbers (i.e. mathematics) as 'Ishavasya-Vritti'. (Read a related post here.)

Google Doodle Honouring Pierre de Fermat

Carl Zimmer has just published a book "Science Ink" which explores the stories of people who have put equations, formulas, or other science-related images permanently on their body.

WSJ has reviewed it here.

In this India's national mathematical year, here is a suggestion:

'In the early 1900s, a group of mathematicians turned set theory, first proposed by Georg Cantor in the 1870s, into a series of logical statements from which all of mathematics could be derived. The results include the "Zermelo-Fraenkel with Choice axioms," and inspired this enthusiast to take permanent note of the achievement on both arms. '

courtesy: Sterling Publishing

What if 'Ghashiram Kotwal', a Political Satire, became Funnier Instead of Darker...

2012-01-07T09:00:00.014+05:30

Today Jan 7 2012 is 84th Birth Anniversary of Vijay Tendulkar (विजय तेंडुलकर).

Anton Chekhov:
“You must write shorter, to make it as short as possible.”

Sadanand Rege on the quality of dialogues written by Vijay Tendulkar:

"...म्हणजे एक पात्र जे बोलते आणि दुसरे जे बोलते...त्याच्या मध्ये शेकडो वाक्ये जी येतात ती वाक्ये ते लिहीत नाहीत. इतर नाटककार एक वाक्याकडून दुसर्या वाक्याकडे शंभर वाक्यांची शिडी घेऊन जातात..."

("...means what one character says and another character says...the hundreds of sentences that come in between, he doesn't write them. Other playwrights go from one sentence to another with a ladder of hundred sentences...")

['अशर गंधर्व 'सदानंद रेगे ', प्र. श्री. नेरुरकर ('Akshar Gandharva' by P S Nerurkar), 1987]

Samuel Beckett:
“I went to Godot last night for the first time in a long time. Well played, but how I dislike that play now. Full house every night, it’s a disease”.

Vaclav Havel:
"Recall the gigantic Nazi congresses, torchlight processions, the inflammatory speeches by Hitler and Goebbels, and the cult of German mythology. We could hardly find a more monstrous abuse of politics’ theatrical aspect. And today – even in Europe – rulers use theatrical tools to arouse the kind of blind nationalism that leads to war, ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, and genocide.
So where is the boundary between legitimate respect for national identity and symbols, and the devilish music of pied pipers, dark magicians, and mesmerizers? Where do passionate speeches end and demagogy begin? How can we recognize the point beyond which expression of the need for collective experience and integrating rituals becomes evil manipulation and an assault on human freedom?
Here is where we see the huge difference between theatre as art and the theatrical dimension of politics. A mad theatrical performance by a group of fanatics is part of cultural pluralism, and, as such, helps to expand the realm of freedom without posing a threat to anyone. A mad performance by a fanatical politician can plunge millions into endless calamity."

Carl Hiaasen:
Everybody my age worries about that. But the hardest thing for me, for anybody who writes satire or any kind of contemporary fiction, is to invent a scenario that doesn't eventually come true. Almost everything you write now, no matter how outrageous, comes true, and if you're writing satire you don't want to be behind the curve but ahead of it.

Daniel Henninger:
“With fakery everywhere—some of it amusing, some of it not funny—people's ability to know where things fall on the spectrum between fact and falsity becomes so compromised that they retreat into a shell of cynicism about everything…The antidote of choice for many of us in a suspect world is irony and satire. The Onion, Jon Stewart or "Saturday Night Live" end up closer to the truth than the original material…”

Vijay Tendulkar's 'Ghashiram Kotwal' (घाशीराम कोतवाल) was first staged almost 40 years ago.

As I have said earlier, in 1980's, I watched it thrice. Once at NCPA, Mumbai (एन सी पी ए, मुंबई ) and twice at Kalidas Kalamandir, Nashik (कालिदास कलामंदिर , नाशिक) .

Although I love the play and its performance- largely because of music director Bhaskar Chandavarkar (भास्कर चंदावरकर) and choreographer Krishnadev Mulgund (कृष्णदेव मुळगुंद )- I wish Tendulkar went further teasing his targets.

The play is funny only in parts. When I look at the booklet containing the play's 'scenewise synopsis', running into thirty-nine subheads, I see that less than half are funny.

picture courtesy: Theatre Academy, Pune

I read Vasudevshastri Khare's (वासुदेवशास्त्री खरे) rather sympathetic biography of Nana Fadnavis, "nana phadanvees yanche charitra" (नाना फडनवीस यांचे चरित्र), first published July 1892, after I had seen the play and I realised Nana in real life was not that omniscient and hardly in control - often scared- many times in the last decade of 18th century, the period portrayed in the play.

I find Khare's book in many places funnier than Tendulkar's. I wonder if Tendulkar knew the lacuna of his work and hence always gushed about the master of the art of satire: Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे). (Go back to the quote of Sadanand Rege at the top of this post...Ladder...Did Sarwate's ladder make a thousand sentences to vanish compared to his hundred?.)

If parts of Khare's book are dramatised, I am sure, it would even trump something as classy as 'Raag Darbari'.

I wish 'Ghashiram' became riotously funny.

Here is an example of how funny a satire can get:

Caption: 'les biens viennent tous ensemble' ('all good things come along together')

Artist: Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin (1721-86)

courtesy: Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust)

Colin Jones and Emily Richardson have written an essay 'Madame de Pompadour: The Other Cheek' for 'History Today' Volume: 61 Issue: 11 2011:

"...A woman dressed in a cardinal’s robes is squatting on the back of a chair, positioning her exposed behind so that she can defecate into the gaping mouth of a sleeping cleric. A dove hovers close by, bearing a winged cardinal’s hat.

This obscene 18th-century image (shown above) displays a kind of French humour – crude, anti-clerical – that forms part of a long, Rabelaisian tradition. Yet what makes it both astonishingly bold and also highly unusual in its substance and context is that it represents Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721-64), Louis XV’s mistress, and her political client, the Abbé (soon to be Cardinal) Bernis.

The caption reads ‘les biens viennent tous ensemble’ – ‘all good things come along together’. Text and image evoke the moment in December 1758 when Bernis received his promotion to the rank of cardinal, which was intended to give him eminent authority within the royal council. Yet at the same moment that the good news came through from Rome, the king dismissed Bernis and sent him into exile – allegedly under Machiavellian instruction from Bernis’ hitherto patron, Pompadour herself. There is no disputing where power lies in this picture: the arse of Madame de Pompadour..."

"...The Pompadour drawings surprise on several levels. Such fierce visual political satire was, first of all, extremely unusual in France before 1789, when the Revolution opened the floodgates. The Ancien Régime lacked the vibrant, rumbustious tradition of political satire that England – with its Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson and the rest – enjoyed at much the same time. It is true that many writings sought to ‘desacralize’ the monarchy by highlighting the sexual high jinks and failings of the royal body. During the final years of the Ancien Régime a pornographic visual and textual genre would develop that mocked Louis XVI for his alleged impotence and Marie-Antoinette for her supposed sexual voraciousness. But this was exceptional and much less widely diffused before 1789 than historians sometimes maintain..."

"...Pompadour had turned her toilette ritual into a mechanism of power and Charles-Germain displayed in a number of other drawings his deep disapproval of her claims to play a political role..."

Reading an Epic after the 'Good Guys' have Won

2012-01-03T09:00:00.011+05:30

Today Jan 3 2012 is 6th death anniversary of my mother. For me, her life is an epic.

Samuel Beckett:

“I keep watching my mother’s eyes, never so blue, so stupefied, so heartrending, eyes of an endless childhood, that of old age. Let us get there rather earlier, while there are still refusals we can make. I think these are the first eyes that I have seen. I have no wish to see any others, I have all I need for loving and weeping, I know now what is going to close, and open inside me...”

The spirit of Oscar Wilde:

Homer, there are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it.
("Father Knows Worst",18th episode of the 20th season of 'The Simpsons')

Norman Mailer:

"The only thing wrong with this Army is it never lost a war."
('The Naked and the Dead')

Anthony West's aunt on Lawrence of Arabia:

“It’s the problem all heroes have to cope with—when you’ve made your gesture you’ve got the rest of your life to live.”
(Newsweek, November 4 2010)

I often read Ramayana and Mahabharata in my childhood (even today if I come across them I can't ignore them). Numerous versions of them. In Marathi.

Despite this, these days, I often feel, I know so little about them. The other day I was reading Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya's (चिंतामण विनायक वैद्य) 'Sanskrut Vangmayacha Itihas' (संस्कृत वाड;मयाचा इतिहास ), 1922.

It says: "ऋतूंची वर्णने रामयणाइतकी सुंदर दुसर्या कोठेही नाहीत...वर्षाऋतूचे वर्णन वाचीत असता आपण पावसात उभे असून पावसाच्या धारा आपल्या अंगावर पडत आहेत की काय असा भास होतो ..."

(Nowhere will you find descriptions of seasons as beautiful as in Ramayana...While reading description of rainy season one feels like we are standing in the rain and rain is falling on us.)

Pity, I have so far totally missed out on this 'shower' because I have never paid any attention to this aspect of the epic!

Another example is a scene from Mahabharata when Kunti abandons her firstborn Karna, setting him afloat in a box on a river. Very few of us read her original heart-wrenching song in Sanskrit or our native:

शिवास्ते सन्तु पन्थानो मा च ते परिपन्थिनः।
आगताश्च तथा पुत्र भवन्त्यद्रोहचेतसः ।।
पातु त्वां वरुणो राजा सलिले सलिलेश्वरः।
अन्तरिक्षेऽन्तरिक्षस्थः पवनः सर्वगस्तथा ।।
पिता त्वां पातु सर्वत्र तपनस्तपतांवरः।
येन दत्तोसि मे पुत्र दिव्येन विधिना किल ।।
आदित्या वसवो रुद्राः साध्या विश्वे च देवताः।
मरुतश्च सहेन्द्रेण दिशश्च सदिदीश्वराः ।।
रक्षन्तु त्वां सुराः सर्वे समेषु विषमेषु च।
वेत्स्यामि त्वांविदेशेपि कवचेनाभिसूचितम् ।।
धन्यस्ते पुत्र जनरको देवो भानुर्विभावसुः।
स्त्वां द्रक्ष्यति दिव्येन चक्षुषा वाहिनीगतम् ।।
धन्या सा प्रमदा या त्वां पुत्रत्वे कल्पयिष्यति।
यस्यास्त्वं तृषितः पुत्र स्तनं पास्यसि देवज ।।
कोनु स्वप्नस्तया दृष्टो या त्वामादित्यवर्चसम्।
दिव्यवर्मसमायुक्तं दिव्यकृण्डलभूषितम् ।।
पद्मायतविशालाक्षं पद्मताम्रदलोज्ज्वलम्।
सुललाटं सुकेशान्तं पुत्रत्वे कल्पयिष्यति ।।
धन्या द्रक्ष्यन्ति पुत्र त्वां भूमौ संसर्पमाणकम्।
अव्यक्तकलवाक्यानि वदन्तं रेणुगुण्ठितम् ।।
धन्या द्रक्ष्यन्ति पुत्र त्वां पुनर्यौवनगोचरम्।
हिमवद्वनसंभूतं सिंहं केसरिणं यथा ।।

(May all thy paths be auspicious! May no one obstruct thy way! And, O son, may all that come across thee have their hearts divested of hostility towards thee: And may that lord of waters, Varuna. protect thee in water! And may the deity that rangeth the skies completely protect thee in the sky. And may, O son, that best of those that impart heat, viz., Surya, thy father, and from whom I have obtained thee as ordained by Destiny, protect thee everywhere! And may the Adityas and the Vasus, the Rudras and the Sadhyas, the Viswadevas and the Maruts, and the cardinal points with the great Indra and the regents presiding over them, and, indeed, all the celestials, protect thee in every place! Even in foreign lands I shall be able to recognise thee by this mail of thine! Surely, thy sire, O son, the divine Surya possessed of the wealth of splendour, is blessed, for he will with his celestial sight behold thee going down the current! Blessed also is that lady who will, O thou that are begotten by a god, take thee for her son, and who will give thee suck when thou art thirsty! And what a lucky dream hath been dreamt by her that will adopt thee for her son, thee that is endued with solar splendour, and furnished with celestial mail, and adorned with celestial ear-rings, thee that hast expansive eyes resembling lotuses, a complexion bright as burnished copper or lotus leaves, a fair forehead, and hair ending in beautiful curls! O son, she that will behold thee crawl on the ground, begrimed with dust, and sweetly uttering inarticulate words, is surely blessed! And she also, O son, that will behold thee arrive at thy youthful prime like maned lion born in Himalayan forests, is surely blessed!)

For us, The Ramayana even came without any language because we were lucky to have a copy of pictorial Ramayana that was acquired by my father's father in the princely state of Aundh (औंध).

It had pictures painted by Bhavanrao Shrinivas alias Balasaheb Pandit Pant Pratinidhi (भवानराव श्रीनिवास उर्फ बाळासाहेब पंडित पंत प्रतिनिधी), ruler of Aundh, who till today is referred quite affectionately by my father as 'Maharaj'(महाराज).

I still remember every picture from it. Each of them was like a song to me. (When I occasionally see a bunch of ladies from our families, enjoying together a siesta, it recalls Hanuman-Meets-Sita-in-Ashokvan picture from the book!)

Hanuman Watches Lanka Burn, c 1911 (This picture was intriguing even then because Hanuman is not exulting after setting Ravan's Lanka on fire.)

Artist: Balasaheb Pandit Pant Pratinidhi
(for more such pictures visit 'Kamat's Potpourri' here.)

Reading/ viewing the epics or listening to them from my mother, at dinner time, the umpteenth time, was always a thrill.

Until of course we reached the end of the battles.

Now what? Battle has been won. What do 'good guys' do NOW?

There were no satisfactory answers forthcoming from my mother, my brain or the pages of the epics.

A weird feeling prevailed over me.

Why?

When I recently read Arthur Schopenhauer, I felt I understood it.

"...Every epic and dramatic poem can only represent a struggle, an effort, a fight for happiness; never enduring and complete happiness itself. It conducts its heroes through a thousand dangers and difficulties to the goal; as soon as this is reached it hastens to let the curtain fall; for now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show that the glittering goal in which the hero expected to find happiness had only disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was no better off than before..."

Artist: Barney Tobey, The New Yorker, Sept 6 1958

p.s. They win and hence they become good guys or because they are good guys, they win?

Will 2012 Be As Lame As 2011?

2011-12-30T09:00:00.002+05:30

John Crowley:

"Where Orwell’s ('1984') imagined world is shabby and cheap and nasty, and Huxley’s ('Brave New World') brightly colored and silly, Zamyatin’s (‘We’) is filled with an unsettling radiant joy, right through to its terrible ending. It has what Milan Kundera perceived in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot: “the comical absence of the comical.” Instead of perspicacity and authority, which in the predicting of the future are fatuous, there is beauty and strangeness, the qualities of art, which sees clearly and predicts nothing, at least on purpose. These are the qualities of all the greatest fictional representations of the future, books that, after the initial shock they carry has faded, can reappear not as tales about our shared future nor salutary warnings for the present they were written in but simply as works of disinterested passion, no more (and no less) a realistic rendering of this world or any world now or to come than is The Tempest or The Four Zoas.

Time, W. H. Auden said, is intolerant and forgetful, but “worships language and forgives/Everyone by whom it lives.” Time will leave my new and no doubt baselessly optimistic Totalitopia behind; it was being left behind even as I wrote it down. As a prediction it might bewilder or bore, but as a work of art in language—if it were as easy to turn it into a work of art as it was to think it up—it might survive its vicissitudes in the turbulence of time and emerge sometime downstream as a valuable inheritance from the past, all its inadequate dreams and fears washed away. Meanwhile the real world then, no matter what, will be as racked with pain and insufficiency as any human world at any time. It just won’t be racked by the same old pains and insufficiencies; it will be strange. It is forever unknowably strange, its strangeness not the strangeness of fiction or of any art or any guess but absolute. That’s its nature. Of course holding the mirror up to nature is what Hamlet insisted all playing, or pretending, must do; but—as Lewis Carroll knew—the image in a mirror, scary or amusing or enlightening, is always reversed.."

I find cartoonist Zachary Kanin, in his trade, is of the best in the world today.

See one of my favourite cartoons by him here.

See Mr. Kanin's '2012 FORECAST' here. Every picture there is a gem.

Here are the two I liked most:

(notice: tag of "breaking news", sun, earth...)

A Wish for Stray Dogs this Christmas

2011-12-25T09:00:00.004+05:30

Charles Dickens:

“Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!”

DAVID BERREBY:

...Dehumanization — representing people to be lesser, non¬human creatures, as when police officers label crimes against criminals as “N.H.I.” (“No Humans Involved”), or when Muammar el-Qaddafi calls his critics “stray dogs” — isn’t just shabby rhetoric. Dehumanization is a mind-set, as Smith writes, that “decommissions” our “moral inhibitions” about mistreating fellow human beings. Encased in law and custom, this psychological process has often licensed slavery, genocide and countless other cruelties.

(review of 'Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others' by David Livingstone Smith, NYT, March 4 2011)

Jenny Diski:

“All the animals I knew in the early years of my life were stuffed.”

I like stray dogs. Most times. Each has a distinct personality and if you care to spend some time, their lives are miserable but interesting.

Almost every morning, a stray bitch waits for me to feed her biscuits as I return home from my walk. If she isn't there, I miss something.

I still remember the late morning in 1970's when, as I got ready to go to school that opened at 12:10 PM, I was informed by friends that our favourite stray 'Vakadmani' (वाकडमानी) was dead, poisoned by municipal staff.

I went and saw her foaming at mouth, slightly bloated body. I was devastated and remained so for a number of days. I would not feel that bad again until Shreedhar Joglekar-sir's (श्रीधर जोगळेकर) death a few years later. As I filed past Joglekar Sir's body in c 1978, Vakadmani was on my mind.

I almost never feel proud of what I have done in my life but one thing I feel good about is I never threw stones at strays and chameleons when it was fashionable among kids in Miraj.

But the strays have certainly become a bit of menace for many people in Pune and elsewhere in India.

I never venture out of my house on foot in dark because of strays.

The Times of India reported on Dec 23 2011:

"Mumbai: Despite taking steps to curb the stray dog menace in the city, there seems to be a steady increase in the instances of dog bites...

... in a decade's time, the dog bite cases have mounted from 53,051 to 77,484 in 2010..."

I hope we find a way for strays and humans to coexist without biting and killing.

Artist: Dana Summers, December 2011

Mario Miranda: Of Margao's Stinking Fish and Distortions Suiting the Mood of Feverish Anarchy

2011-12-24T09:00:00.003+05:30

Mario Miranda:"I’m a keen observer of people. They are generally doing something they should not be doing.”

Oh, isn't it the story of all of us: generally doing something we should not be doing?

Wikipedia claims MM considered Ronald Searle (b 1920) his mentor.

Matt J's classy blog dedicated to Mr. Searle's art says:

"a Searle picture is certainly unmistakeable. The human figures are bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes that are often shifty or bewildered – their distortions and wispy lines suiting the mood of feverish anarchy. They are drawings whose skill is perhaps concealed in a feeling of rapidity, an impression that they were quickly set down."

Mr. Searle himself has been influenced by great Saul Steinberg (who isn't?).

Look at the following classic:

'Homage au Steinberg'

on the left is Saul Steinberg on a pedestal, standing like Napoleon Bonaparte, and on the right a figure with "bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes"!

Do you see figures that are "bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes" in MM's picture above?

Book based on Mr. Miranda's diary of year 1951 has been just published: 'THE LIFE OF MARIO: 1951', Author: Mario de Miranda, Editor: Gerard da Cunha.

It has this wonderful picture:

Notice those cats- tails up- chasing the stench!

The only Indian sportsperson Chinese will fear in London 2012 is Saina Nehwal

2011-12-19T08:55:00.007+05:30

Just like Cricket, I have played only gulli Badminton. But I find the sport exhilarating.

I keep following it on NEO Sports. In 2011, I must have seen all the BWF World Superseries tournaments.

I know it has been an indifferent year for India's Saina Nehwal.

But on the afternoon of Dec 18, 2011, for me, Saina made up for all that. On her way to the final, she had beaten Wang Xin and Tine Baun with some fuel to spare.

Sure she lost to the final match to Wang Yihan, a true champion herself, 18-21, 21-13, 21-13, but the way she played the match tells me what she is made up of.

When the camera focussed on Saina's face from the other side of the net and closed in on her face, her eyes- probably like Mahabharata's Arjuna-or even better, like a tigress from Nallamala forest- told me how determined she was to win it.

And she almost did the way first game went.

In 2012 London Olympics, China will most likely top the medals table. India will get by with a couple of medals of any colour.

In sports, China probably never considers India as their competition. But the only Indian sportsperson Chinese will fear in London 2012 is Saina Nehwal. They know she can beat the best of them in their sport on their turf.

Picture courtesy: http://www.bwfbadminton.org

India's Lingering Love Affair with Correction Fluid

2011-12-18T09:00:00.002+05:30

Gilbert Adair:

For centuries the pen remained the supreme guarantor of legal, contractual, epistolary and literary authenticity. Then, during the last century, this role was gradually reassigned to the more “objective” typewriter. In fact, so central was the typewriter to the pursuit of literary Truth that there came a time when, for most American novelists, you simply weren’t a writer unless you had one.

Jonah Lehrer:

In 1916, T. S. Eliot wrote to a friend about his recent experiments with composing poetry on the typewriter. The machine “makes for lucidity,” he said, “but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.” A few years later, Eliot presented Ezra Pound with a first draft of “The Waste Land.” Some of it had been composed on the typewriter.

Great Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter.

Andrew Sulliavn wrote on June 15, 2008:

"Many of those terse aphorisms and impenetrable reveries were banged out on an 1882 Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. And a friend of his at the time noticed a change in the German philosopher’s style as soon as he moved from longhand to type. “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote. Nietzsche replied: “You are right. Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”.."

Artist: John M Price, The New Yorker, 9 March 1940

It's Nietzsche who said: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

Cartoon caption could read: Good Lord! I have killed you!

Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times September 1, 2011:

"...The factories that make the machines may be going silent, but India's typewriter culture remains defiantly alive, fighting on bravely against that omnipresent upstart, the computer...

...India's lingering love affair with correction fluid and carbon paper befits a country that often seems caught in two centuries, where high-tech companies and an ambitious space program coexist with human-powered rickshaws and feudal village life...

...Typing was all but compulsory for any woman who wanted a job, said Geeta Meshran, 53, who banged away for 22 years in the Mumbai government's typing pool. Efficiency wasn't always paramount there. "I often worked as slowly as possible, so I wouldn't have to retype the page," she said...

..."Typewriters were a real symbol of Indian life. Just consider how many laws and birth certificates came from its keys," said Abhishek Jain, who at age 13 set a world record in 1991 typing 117 words a minute on a Godrej manual...

..."The computer is lifeless, but there's a sheer joy in manual typing," said Jain, the record-holder. "It's a kind of music..."

As stated above, was typing all but compulsory for any woman who wanted a job?

I say not just a job but also a marriage.

Artist: Vasant Sarwate वसंत सरवटे

(Source- “Khada Maraycha Jhala Tar….!”, Mauj Prakashan, 1963)

Original caption in Marathi: "कॉलेजमध्ये नांव घातलंस म्हणतेस? यंदाहि कुठं जमलं नाही वाटतं.." (“You say you have enrolled in a college? Couldn’t arrange the marriage this year too eh...”)

Enrollment in a college could be replaced with enrollment in a typing class- English and Marathi both!

India's lingering love affair with correction fluid?

The Times Of India on Sept 2 2011:

"Whitener inhaling addiction on the rise among minors: Somnath Deshkar TNN

Pune: Fourteen-year-old Manish (name changed) stabbed his father with a kitchen knife recently and was sent to juvenile custody. What makes this stray case of juvenile crime all the more complicated is that Manish is addicted to sniffing whitener, a cheaper and potentially dangerous way to get high.
According to experts, there are close to 8,000 children in the city who are addicted to substances such as whitener, ink remover, thinner, shoe polish and vulcanising solution..."

To be honest, I like smells of whitener, ink remover, thinner, shoe polish, vulcanising solution, petrol, benzene...But I didn't know I could get high on them.

(When I joined a chemical MNC in 1984, the whole plant 'reeked' of benzene, I never complained!)

Can part of Nietzsche's genius (or madness) be explained by correction fluid?!

"I see you have a degree in shorthand."

Artist: Johnny Hart (1931 – 2007)

Did Mario de Miranda ever get to sit in the Bulb?

2011-12-12T12:35:00.005+05:30

Whenever I got a chance, I read "The Illustrated Weekly of India" in 1970's as a schoolboy. My father either got them from where he worked or from 'raddi' (रद्दी) at M/s Chougule grocery store at Miraj (मिरज).

I still remember its coverage of India's victorious cricket tour of England in 1971. Raju Bharatan wrote the story that had some luscious pictures of England's green-top wickets where English fast bowler John Price knocked out stumps of a couple of India's batsmen and Eknath Solkar (एकनाथ सोलकर) took some breathtaking catches at forward shortleg.

I knew Khushwant Singh was TIWI's editor in 1970's but I never read his column then. However, I always stopped by and gazed at Mario's illustration on the "Editor's Page"...a pile of books, a bottle of scotch, and a girlie magazine...It was so funny and yet intriguing...

I never sought them but I kept coming across Mr. Mario's pictures. When they were big and complex, I read them like a matrix- first by rows -left to right and then by columns- top to bottom. I didn't want to miss out any detail. It was like reading the frontpage of a newspaper.

I never considered him a great cartoonist like Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे), Abu Abraham and R K Laxman- his contemporaries- but he never failed to make me smile.

English 'Ralph Darnell' is NOT scarce. Marathi 'Plaseecha Ranasangram' of D B Mokashi is!

2011-12-11T09:00:00.004+05:30

Curtis White:

"We know that the major players are positioning themselves for a very uncertain future, but there are really only two major players, Amazon and Google. Everyone else is trying to figure out the best way to go bankrupt or to become something else, not publishers, God knows, but “content providers” for whatever word vessels the future will offer. From their point of view, the book was just a “platform” that had its day but it’s done now, and so what?" (October 21 2011)

Mike Dash:

"For me, it’s the history that exists beyond the margins and the textbooks and what we normally consider to be history"

(FiveBooks Interviews, December 7 2011)

Once in six months or so I visit 'Varada Prakashan' (वरदा प्रकाशन) in Pune to buy books.

Last time I was there, in August 2011, one of the books I bought was:

"Plaseecha Ranasangram" Author: Colonel Meadows Taylor, Narrator Di Ba Mokashi, August 1974 ("प्लासीचा रणसंग्राम", लेखक: कर्नल मेडोज टेलर, निवेदक: दि बा मोकाशी)

The book is based on 'Ralph Darnell' by Meadows Taylor, 1865.

Mr. Taylor became very famous for his book 'Confessions of a Thug', 1839. The book became a best seller in 19th century Britain. (More on it at the end of this post.)

That book was translated into Marathi as 'Thagachee Jabanee' (ठगाची जबानी ) by Prof Va Shi Apte (वा शि आपटे ). It made waves even in Marathi, running into two editions. Mokashi mentions in his preface how he as a kid enjoyed reading it.

I did not know who Colonel Meadows Taylor was but I have always liked whatever DBM has written. 'Plaseecha Ranasangram' was no exception.

Among other things, the book informs us the extent to which the British empire was built on deception in this country...Robert Clive constantly reminding me of Tony Blair.

On the back cover of Marathi book, publisher says:

"...मूळ कादंबरी 'राल्फ डार्नेल' अत्यंत दुर्मिळ आहे ..."

(...The original book 'Ralph Darnell' is very scarce...)

Not really.

Thanks to the internet- Google Books, Archive.org- 'Ralph Darnell' is not scarce any more. But what is scarce is Mokashi's Marathi book!

I wonder whether Varada Prakashan will reprint it once the current print of 1995 is sold out.

I was looking for six volumes of Rajaram shastri Bhagwat's (राजरामशास्त्री भागवत) literature edited by Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत) published by Varada. Mr. Bhave told me how it took decades for them to sell out the last edition of R Bhagwat's literature and that it was very unlikely that he would publish them again.

The late D B Mokashi is one of the best Marathi writers of 20th century and many of his books are not available in bookshops and almost none of them is availabe in softcopy format.

I have already argued here that Marathi and the other Indian languages need Google books far more than the English and others.

My conviction is now even stronger.

from : Confessions of a Thug

p.s.

Mike Dash, the author of 'Thug' 2005, quoted at the top of this post, says this about 'Confessions of a Thug' by Meadows Taylor:

"...These early accounts influenced the way in which Thuggee was perceived, both in India and elsewhere. They were expanded on in a hugely successful contemporary novel entitled Confessions of a Thug written by Meadows Taylor, a British officer based in Hyderabad. Taylor turned his own experiences of the anti-Thug campaign into what was widely acclaimed as the greatest ‘chiller’ of its day, and his protagonist (a murderer named Ameer Ali, whose ‘confession’ was based on the deposition of a real Thug) was more ruthless, more successful and more free from the pangs of conscience than even the killers whose confessions had peppered the first historical accounts. Ali’s ‘guiltless confessions of multiple murder’ were – a reviewer in the Literary Gazette declared – ‘enough to freeze the blood in our veins’, and Taylor himself was flattered to hear that the young Queen Victoria herself was so impatient to read his final chapters that she could not wait for the pages to be bound, asking that the running sheets to be sent directly to her as they came off the press..."

Dev Anand mightn't Agree but there is More Sunshine in the Fall of a Leaf

2011-12-06T09:00:00.010+05:30

George Orwell:

"Like every other writer, Shakespeare will be forgotten sooner or later..."

('Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool', 1947)

Dev Anand in 1999:

"When Pakistan was formed, we laughed at that time — Lahore and Bombay are one, how can this be — but it happened.

So who knows, as long as there are humans in this world, miracles are possible.”

Mohan Churiwala, Mr. Anand's closest associate:

"He hugged Nanda and wept inconsolably

After a special screening of Hum Dono (Rangeen), Nanda, a recluse, went to meet him at his office.When the door opened, she looked at him said “Devsaab, pehchana?” Devsaab came towards her, hugged her and started weeping. Nanda left in a few minutes and asked me outside, “Why did he get so emotional?” Later, she told me that they were meeting each other after 48 years, after 1963. Tears kept flowing down his cheeks even after Nanda had left." (The Times of India, December 18 2011)

A. O. SCOTT wrote on November 18 2011 in The New York Times:

"...But there is also something about cinema’s essentially modern character that makes it vulnerable to fears of obsolescence. The camera has an uncanny ability to capture the world as it is, to seize events as they happen, and also to conjure visions of the future. But by the time the image reaches the eyes of the viewer, it belongs to the past, taking on the status of something retrieved. As for those bold projections of what is to come, they have a habit of looking quaint as soon as they arrive.
Nostalgia, in other words, is built into moviegoing, which is why moviegoing itself has been, almost from the beginning, the object of nostalgia..."

If so I wonder why Mr. Dev Anand never liked to talk about past or even remember it. After all his art is deeply rooted in nostalgia!

I have really enjoyed and still enjoy watching some of his films:

Tere Mere Sapne (1971), Johny Mera Naam (1970), Jewel Thief (1967), Guide (1965), Tere Ghar Ke Samne (1963), Hum Dono (1961), Bombai Ka Baboo (1960), Kala Bazar (1960), Kalapani (1958), Nau Do Gyarah (1956), Paying Guest (1956), C.I.D. (1956), Taxi Driver (1954) and above all Baazi (1951). (Think of it, 'just' 14 films.)

Like ‘Godfather’ or ‘Casablanca’ or 'Jagte Raho', I can watch a part of 'Baazi' every day.

Seldom in the history of Hindi films more talent came together to make a film than this Navketan venture:

Directed by Guru Dutt
Produced by Dev Anand
Written by Balraj Sahni (screenplay, story, dialogue)
Lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi
Starring Dev Anand, Geeta Bali
Music by S. D. Burman
Sung by Geeta Dutt

Bhaichand Patel writes in The Asian Age, Dec 4 2011:

"...Balraj Sahni, a classmate of Chetan in Lahore, was roped in to write the script, plagiarised from the Hollywood film Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Geeta Bali was to play one of the two lead female roles. The other went to someone fresh out of college, Kalpana Kartik (real name Mona Singha) who was related to Chetan’s wife. She later became Mrs Dev Anand. One of Baazi’s strongest attractions was its catchy music composed by S.D. Burman and sung beautifully by Geeta Roy, soon to become Mrs Guru Dutt. Neither of these two marriages worked, but let us not go into that!
Baazi’s story centres on a seedy gambling club and one of its patrons, played by Dev Anand. It was a dark film made in the film noir style borrowed largely from Warner Brothers’ productions starring, most times, Humphrey Bogart. This short-lived trend in our cinema had begun earlier with Gyan Mukherjee’s Sangram, with Ashok Kumar playing a gangster, and continued with films like Jaal, Aar Paar and CID..."

But for me his finest performance was on TV- his interview on “Rendezvous with Simi Garewal”. I was deeply moved the way he described his relationship with his mother and the hurt caused by her death before he came to Bombay. I thought in a way he never got over his loss. He still missed his mother and he probably never found the real love.

The last Dev Anand starred or directed film I watched was Des Pardes (1978). So for me, even before his death, he had been a memory for almost 33 years.

I don't know what Mr. Anand thought of immortality. But about him, there was a lot of talk about positive thinking, living in the present, fitness regime, frugal eating, company of young people, health checkups in London, working in one's 80's etc.

Considering all this, he would be disappointed with number 88.

I guess he would also agree with Woody Allen's views expressed in : "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." or "Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I’d prefer to live on in my apartment.”

In Mr. Anand's case: "in my Bandra penthouse".

For immortality, American futurist Ray Kurzweil proposes not resurrecting the body but instead shedding it altogether and uploading minds into cyberspace. Had the technology been available, I wonder Mr. Anand would have signed up for the program?

I also wonder what he would have thought of John Gray's views on such efforts:

"Freezing our bodies or uploading our minds into a supercomputer will not deliver us from ourselves. Wars and revolutions will disturb our frozen remains, while death will stalk us in cyberspace – also a realm of mortal conflict. Science enlarges what humans can do. It cannot reprieve them from being what they are."

I would like to remember Mr. Anand as a guy who portrayed many enjoyable moments of what we are.

Following cartoon of Sudhir Tailang has appeared in The Asian Age on Dec 5 2011.

I like Mr. Tailang's imagination but I just hope Mr. Anand is making a film from 1950's or 1960's or 1970's. It will be that much better if he gets his younger brother Vijay / Goldie to direct it and he goes in front of the camera. If not, it will be a film made in heaven to be shown in hell as a punishment!

Where did Primal Couple of Paradise go to Stool?

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000+05:30

I read Nicholas Lezard's review of "A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary" by Voltaire, translated by John Fletcher in Guardian, November 15 2011.

It says:

"...In the essay with the marvellous title "All Is Good" he cites a Syrian creation myth which tells how the primal couple, dwelling in Paradise, decide to eat cake instead of ambrosia and, suddenly needing to "go to the stool" (this is an earthy book) are directed by an angel to a tiny planet which is "the privy for the entire universe". "They went there and never came back," writes Voltaire, "and since then the world has been the way it is.""

On that not-so-tiny-planet, where exactly did they go?

No prizes for guessing...20 00 N, 77 00 E...region now called India.

The Times of India had this on October 2 2011:

"With India accounting for 58 per cent of all open defecations in the world, the government on Sunday sought active involvement of all parties concerned including women panchayat representatives to sensitise the people in creating awareness about public hygiene.

"On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, I would like to mention one such case which is a shame on all of us. No other country in the world where about 60 per cent women have to go to the field for open defecation," rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said in a function organised by the Hunger Project..."

The Telegrpah of Calcutta reported on Nov 14 2011:

"Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today described India as the “dirtiest and filthiest” country in the world where people with mobile phones go out to answer the “call of nature”...

...“Today, if you go to many parts of India, you have women with a mobile phone going out to answer the call of nature. I mean it is paradoxical,” the minister, who also holds charge of sanitation, said at an event here.

"You have a mobile phone and you don't have a toilet. When you have a toilet, you don't use the toilet... (but) use it as a godown."...”

I understand the minister's frustration but I don't understand when he says it is "paradoxical".

Does he mean one should not use mobile while defecating or if one owns a mobile one should not defecate in open?

Has there been a study why people, especially in rural India, prefer to defecate in open even when they have access to a toilet? Is it because it probably requires less water? Why do 60% Indian women go to the field for defecation?

I asked my wife if she had a view. She said: Maybe they want to get away from their oppressive life for a short time.

Courtesy: Photograph: Garry Weaser for the Guardian

Guardian Books Blog says:

"...No writer owned the arena of toilet reading more than Henry Miller. He read truly great books on the lavatory, and maintained that some, Ulysses for instance, could not be fully appreciated elsewhere. The environment was one that enriched substantial works – extracted their flavour, as he put it – while lesser books and magazines suffered. He singled out Atlantic Monthly.

Miller went so far as to recommend toilets for individual authors. To enjoy Rabelais, he advised a plain country toilet, "a little outhouse in the corn patch, with a crescent sliver of light coming through the door". Better still, he said, take a friend along, to sit with you for half an hour of minor bliss..."

Do some of 'those' Indians seek 'minor bliss' when they defecate in open by choice?

As a kid, I have done it a few times. And I feel, there is some merit in 'minor bliss' theory!

Creative Commons- J C Bose and V K Rajwade

2011-11-30T09:00:00.021+05:30

Today Nov 30 2011 is 153rd Birth Anniversary of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose.

WSJ November 30 2011:

"To accelerate research breakthroughs on brain diseases, the Allen Institute puts all its data online for use without fees."

I knew so little about Jagadish Chandra Bose before I read Stefany Anne Golberg's article "If You Pick Us, Do We Not Bleed?" dated Nov 22 2011.

She says:

"...He was the first person from the Indian subcontinent to receive a U.S. patent, and is considered one of the fathers of radio science, alongside such notables as Tesla, Marconi, and Popov...For Bose, thinking of life as a unity wasn’t just about theories — it had real world implications. Though patents were granted to Bose, he never sought them out for personal gain, preferring that his inventions be "open to all the world to adopt for practical and money-making purposes."..."

This reminds me of Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade (विश्वनाथ काशिनाथ राजवाडे).

There have been some very moving obituaries written in Marathi.

Bal Gangandhar Tilak (बाळ गंगाधर टिळक) wrote quite a few. Pralhad Keshav Atre (प्रल्हाद केशव अत्रे) was a master of the art.

But the best obit I have read in Marathi- and one of the best in any language- is by T S Shejwalkar (त्र्यं. शं. शेजवलकर) writing on V K Rajwade's death.

Three years after Rajwade's death, in December 1929, Shejwalkar invokes Robert Browning's "A Grammarian's Funeral" for it.

Shejwalkar quotes this from Browning peom:

"He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment.
He ventured neck or nothing-heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
Hence with life's pale lure!"
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit. "

and goes on to say:

"...By which yardstick will you compare (Ramakrishna Gopal) Bhandarkar, who never avoided the writing of even the most profitable textbooks, with Rajwade who printed on his books "no rights are reserved"?..."

["...सर्वांत जास्त फायदेशीर अश्या शालोपयोगी क्रमिक पुस्तकांचे लेखन हि न टाळणारे (रामकृष्ण गोपाळ) भांडारकर, "कोणताही हक्क राखून ठेवलेला नाही" असे आपल्या पुस्तकांवर लिहिणार्या राजवाड्यांशीँ कोणत्या मापाने तुलणार?..."]

from: 'Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar Nivadak Lekh Sangraha', Aggregator-H V Mote, Introduction- G D Khanolkar, 1977

('त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर निवडक लेख संग्रह', संग्राहक-ह. वि. मोटे, परिचय-गं. दे. खानोलकर, १९७७)

Aren't likes of Bose and Rajwade harbinger of contemporary movements like Creative Commons CC0 — “No Rights Reserved”?

"CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law."

What is the difference between 'creative commons' and copyright? Here is an artist's naughty answer:

"creative commons vs copyright"

Artist: Marcelo Braga

A Compliment that Marie might have received from Pierre!

2011-11-27T09:00:00.011+05:30

When I read Kiran Karnik's article in the The Times of India on Nov 10 2011, it was hard to believe that Indian government of the day was almost toppled in the name of U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement in year 2008:

"Despite repeating 'Open Sesame' many times over for three years, the door that was to usher us into the nuclear club remains tightly shut. No genie to grant our wishes magically appears even after endless rubbing of the lamp. Were we taken for a ride and sold a dud lamp?...There is now a sea change in the global nuclear scenario. Following the tsunami-induced problems in Fukushima, there is worldwide concern about nuclear safety......It is now clear that the benefits of signing the nuclear deal no longer exist and the gains are, at best, minimal. Yet, the cost - especially in terms of strategic space and manoeuvrability - remains high..."

And the subject of 'nuclear' led me to tragic Curie family. And Marie in particular.

November 7 2011 was 144th birth anniversary of great Marie Skłodowska Curie.

Google honoured Ms. Curie with following doodle on the occasion:

Robin McKie:

To Einstein, she was 'as cold as a herring'; much of the French scientific establishment detested her; and she was reviled for her 'wanton' antics. Yet Marie Curie was also a loyal wife, a distraught widow, a passionate lover, and a patriot. For good measure, she won two Nobel Prizes...

...In the end, however, Marie was done down by her offspring. Radium - 'her child', as she called the element that she kept by her bed to watch its baleful glow - had battered her body with its emanations for more than 30 years. At 66, her fingers were blackened and cracked; she was nearly blind; suffered from tinnitus; was plagued by headaches and on 3 July 1934 died of aplastic pernicious anaemia, doubtless caused by radium radiation.

Brenda Maddox:

Hndsight is the bane of biography. Feminism is one of the most distorting of lenses. To see Marie Curie forced to sit among the audience in Stockholm while her husband, Pierre, gave the lecture following their joint receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1903 is infuriating.

If Marie was treated like this what chance my great-grandmothers stood in year 1903?

Or even Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi (आनंदी गोपाळ जोशी), the first Indian woman- along with Kadambini Ganguly- to obtain a medical degree through training in Western medicine, did in year 1886.

And here is an artist's imagination of a compliment Ms. Curie might have received one of those days:

'Pierre Curie pays Marie a compliment.'

Artist: Richard Jolley (RGJ), The Spectator, UK

D'Oliveira Helped me Understand Our Own Dalit's Pain Just a Little Better

2011-11-22T09:00:00.005+05:30

Wikipedia:

"People responsible for the disposal of night soil are considered untouchables in India."

Vic Marks:

"In Peter Oborne's excellent book Basil D'Oliveira. Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story the author tells us how D'Oliveira was invited to lunch by Nelson Mandela a few years ago after a coaching trip to South Africa. Oborne describes their parting. "At the end Mandela rose from his chair and hugged D'Oliveira. "Thanks for coming, Basil", he said. "You must go home now. You've done your bit.""

Christophe Jaffrelot:

We also have to admit that on behalf of this vision he (M K Gandhi) was not prepared to let Dalits emancipate themselves the way Ambedkar wanted to emancipate them because he equated that emancipation strategy with separatism.

For the Ambedkarites, this is probably a cause of resentment that remains the strongest. They do not believe in Harijanism, which they find patronising.

Jean Dreze, Amartya Sen:

"...the fact that not even one of the 315 editors and other leading members of the printed and electronic media in Delhi surveyed recently by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies belonged to a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe, and that at the other end, 90 per cent belonged to a small coterie of upper castes that make up only 16 per cent of the population, obviously does not help to ensure that the concerns of Dalits and adivasis are adequately represented in public debates." (Outlook, Nov 14 2011)

If my 17-year old cricket loving son asks: 'Who the hell was Basil D'Oliveira?', he should be pardoned.

The Times of India on November 20 2011 covered Mr. D'Oliveira death by giving more than half a page. (Remember, the same newspaper is hardly covering one of the best test cricket matches currently taking place between two strong teams in D'Oliveira's South Africa!)

South African test cricket team playing a test match against visiting Australian team wore black armbands on Nov 19 2011.

Why?

I knew very little about Basil D'Oliveira before year 1968. Although, I knew his name, he was not a prominent player like M C Cowdrey, G Boycott, J Snow in the English team. And then D'Oliveira affair happened.

It was extensively covered in Marathi newspaper 'Maharashtra Times' (महाराष्ट्र टाइम्स) on its sports page. I read every single word. I still remember mild pleasure I felt when the English cricket team's tour to SA was cancelled.

Not that I understood apartheid fully even then. It was also confusing because Mr. D'Oliveira looked white in pictures! I would not hear about a man called Nelson Mandela for a few more years.

But it was clear apartheid was something as horrible as our own untouchability. At that time in Miraj I used to see every day a female municipal employee carrying night soil on the head.

Saying no to D'Oliveira was like preventing that female municipal employee from entering Hindu temple's sanctum sanctorum. Or our own kitchens.

It was unfair. But did I really understand the pain of D'Oliveira or a Dalit?

I like to think D'Oliveira affair sensitised me at least a little bit to that pain. The pain of discovery- perhaps expressed in following moving picture- that Band-Aids of every flesh colour are still NOT available!

Artist: William O'Brian, The New Yorker, May 10 1963

p.s. This is the second appearance of this wonderful cartoon on this blog. For the first instance, read this.

Jhansi Ki Rani: Of Godse and Goya

2011-11-19T09:00:00.009+05:30

Today November 19 2011 is 176th birth anniversary of Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi

Kathryn Harrison:

We don’t need narratives that rationalize human experience so much as those that enlarge it with the breath of mystery. For as long as we look to heroes for inspiration, to leaders whose vision lifts them above our limited perspective, who cherish their values above their earthly lives, the story of Joan of Arc will remain one we remember, and celebrate.

Mark Twain on Joan of Arc:

“I studied that girl, Joan of Arc, for 12 years, and it never seemed to me that the artists and the writers gave us a true picture of her. They drew a picture of a peasant. . . . But they always missed the face — the divine soul, the pure character...All the rules fail in this girl’s case. In the world’s history she stands alone — quite alone."

No, Mr. Twain. She does NOT stand alone. India's Rani Lakshmi Bai stands shoulder to shoulder with her.

Artist: Unknown to me

(Does the strapped kid look 12 years old?)

Jhansi's Rani has always been around since I was a kid.

Be it B R Tambe's (भा. रा. तांबे) moving poem:

'रे हिंदबांधवा, थांब या स्थळी । अश्रु दोन ढाळी ॥
ती पराक्रमाची ज्योत मावळे । इथे झांशीवाली ॥'

or Pratibha Ranade's (प्रतिभा रानडे) sensitive and scholarly portrayal 'Zashichi Rani Laxmibai' (झांशीची राणी लक्ष्मीबाई), June 2003 .

But I have always felt a touch of sadness around her. It was never like seeing pictures of Shivaji and his lieutenants.

After I read Godse Bhataji aka Vishnubhat Godse (गोडसे भटजी / विष्णुभट गोडसे)'s classic 'Maza pravas' (माझा प्रवास), 1883, the feeling became even darker because Godse's description of the empire's cruelty inflicted on Jhansi, after its fall, is heart wrenching. (Read a related post on this here.)

Godse's description of his meetings with the Rani are also very vivid and moving.

This is how Godse describes the Rani's escape with her 12-year old son tied to her back:

"बाईसाहेब स्वतः पांढरे घोड्यावर स्वार जाहाली. घोडा तो सुमार अडीच हजार रुपये किमतीचा खंदा होता. त्याजवर आपण बसून आंगावर पायजमा वगैरे सर्वपुरुष पोषाग होताच. टाकीण बूट घातले होते व सर्वांगास तारांचे कवच घातले होते, बराबर अर्ध एक पैसा सुद्धा घेतला नव्हता. फक्त रुप्याचा पेला पदरी बांधून ठेविला होता. कम्बरेस ज्यम्बा वगैरे हतेरे होती. खाकेत तलवार लाविली होती आणि रेसिमकाठी धोतरानी पाठीसी बारा वर्षाचा मुलगा दत्तक घेतलेला बांधून जय शंकर शब्द करून किल्ल्या खाली स्वारी उतरली..."

Artist: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

COURTESY: INSTITUTO CERVANTES, NEW DELHI and Frontline Oct. 07, 2011

"YSON TAN FIERAS": In his portrayal of women caught in conflict, Goya shows women as victims of invaders, and also as guerilla fighters. Here, a woman guerilla fighter who has tied her child around her shoulders while fighting....Much like Lakshmibai.

She is Goya's Jhansi Ki Rani!

Peter Roebuck: Regret comes over us for the Life Unled

2011-11-15T09:00:00.003+05:30

Peter Roebuck:

"Nothing is sadder than the extinguishing of a young life. Besides the loss itself, and the pain that follows, the premature ending of a life serves as shock, reminds of the fragility and foolishness of our existences. When Princess Di died, her country temporarily became a better place. When David Hookes departed, the sorrow reached beyond his immediate circle and into the masses. Partly, it is the loss of a friend. Partly, it is the realisation that we have been wasting our lives upon nonsense.

Not that it lasts. Still we complain about traffic wardens and shampoo bottles that will not open, and the weather, and the neighbours and taxes and noise and the rest of it. And then a child dies, or a friend is suddenly removed, or a familiar face vanishes, whereupon regret comes over us for the life unled."

('Departures' from 'IT TAKES ALL SORTS', 2005)

Albert Camus:

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer..."

('The Myth of Sisyphus')

I do not like most Cricket writers today.

But the late Peter Roebuck did NOT belong there. He was up there with two fellow Australians: Jack Fingleton- writer of such classics like 'Cricket Crisis', 'Brightly Fades the Don', 'The Ashes Crown the Year'- and Ian Chappell.

I lap up their every word.

As I have said earlier, one of the few bright spots in India's Sportstar was Mr. Roebuck's occasional column.

PR will be remembered for many things. But I will remember him especially for his reporting of third day of second test between India and Australia played at Melbourne Cricket Ground on 26-30 December 1999.

It was a debut series of then fiery and fit Brett Lee.

PR writes:

"This was a day to remember, a day on which Brett Lee made a startling first appearance in his country's colors and Sachin Tendulkar stood alone at the crease defying formidable odds with courage and skill.

It was a glorious confrontation between old and new, mighty and promising, an expression of the great gifts of the game, the brilliance of batsmanship, the excitement of pace and the powers needed to reach the gods. Meanwhile, a superb leg-spinner also bowled with artistry and cunning as he pursued his own landmark. It wasn't a day to have stayed in bed. There haven't been many better...

...Meanwhile, Tendulkar stood firm like St Paul's Cathedral in the Blitz. Any fool can score runs against tame bowling. Anyone can impress in easy circumstances. Like a true champion, Tendulkar rises in the tightest corners. He, too, had to keep an eye on Lee's yorkers and took evasive action as the speedster flung down a bumper. It was a tremendous struggle between them, as the master craftsman fought tooth and nail, while the gregarious youngster streamed into bowl and ended a metre or two from his adversary.

Tendulkar alone could resist the force of this fierce assault. He seemed to be playing in a different match from anyone else except Sourav Ganguly, for whom Lee reserved the fastest ball of the day. Unaffected by the wickets tumbling around him, and realising the need to push the score along, Tendulkar moved from caution to aggression as he launched a breathtaking attack on the Australian bowling.

Eight long years ago, he appeared in this land as a teenager with superb skills and enough spirit to fuel an entire team. Now he has reappeared as a man bearing responsibility and carrying it lightly, for he does not allow any situation to be his master.

When Tendulkar reached his 100, the entire crowd rose in acclamation. His dismissal, caught on the boundary, brought the crowd to its feet a second time.
It had been the perfect day. The visiting champion had scored a century. And a new fast bowler had arrived on the scene."

Today, almost 12 years later, we have very different Messers Tendulkar and Lee from what are described here. Once I adored them, now I don't like watching either of them. And now Mr. Roebuck too has departed.

Peter Roebuck:

"...Yet it is the vulnerability that is interesting. Impregnability is an act. Kerry O’Keeffe’s recent autobiography was appreciated because he described his hard times and his failings. It was an act of courage, not a sales pitch. Writing those sorts of books is not about self-expression but self-examination. Everything else belongs in a comic book."

('Dealing with life' from 'IT TAKES ALL SORTS', 2005)

Grotesque Looking Gangs of India: Vasant Sarwate Lalit Diwali 2011

2011-11-13T09:00:00.006+05:30

William Butler Yeats:

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
('The Second Coming')

This is what historian Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade (विश्वनाथ काशिनाथ राजवाडे) said almost a century ago:

"तात्पर्य, हिंदुस्थानांत होऊन गेलेली सर्व सरकारे मूठभर अल्पसंख्यांकांची आहेत व ह्या मूठभर अल्पसंख्यांकांचे सरकार त्यांच्याच सारख्या इतर मूठभर परंतु समबल किंवा वरचढबल अल्पसंख्यांक सरकारच्या ऊर्फ टोळीच्या हातून नाश पावते. त्यात गावकर्यांचा हात शपथेला सुद्धा नसतो."

(In summary, all the governments of Hindusthan have been of handful minorities and these administrations of handful minorities are destroyed by equally or more powerful minority governments or gangs. The people don't play their hand even for taking oath.)

['Maharashtra va Uttarkokanachee vasahat' (महाराष्ट्र व उत्तरकोंकणची वसाहत) from 'The Mahikavati Bakhar' (महिकावतीची बखर), 1924]

The first word that entered my mind when I saw Vasant Sarwate's (वसंत सरवटे) picture below was 'gangs' (टोळ्या) mentioned in Rajwade quote.

Gangs of corrupt politicians, crooked bureaucrats, robber baron businessmen, bakelite celebrities, crony capitalists, fundamentalists of all hue, terrorists, cacophonic media...

Rajwade wrote the quoted lines when India was not free.

Democracy was supposed to change that. The group in white attire carrying a flag in Sarwate's picture on the right reminds me of that hope, that promise, that 'tryst with destiny'.

UK's Financial Times is not a Left Wing paper.

Edward Luce is their Washington bureau chief. Earlier he was their South Asia Bureau Chief based at New Delhi. He is the author of 'In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India' (2006).

He writes about American democracy in November 2011:

"A driver is stuck in a jam in Washington. A man knocks on his window: “Terrorists have kidnapped Congress, and they’re asking for $100m otherwise they’ll burn them with gasoline,” the man says. “We’re going from car to car to get donations.” What are people giving on average, asks the driver? “Oh, about a gallon,” comes the reply.

Mischievous though it is, the joke received a good reception when it was recently circulated to an email list of Washington insiders – a group of retired diplomats and academics. It is difficult to imagine Bob Hope delivering such a gag. In today’s climate, no amount of contempt seems too much for the country’s once highly trusted democratic institutions."

And one can argue that Indian democracy is in worse shape than American. No amount of contempt seems too much for the country’s once highly trusted democratic institutions.

As venerable Martin Wolf (of FT again) says: As inequality rises, the sense that we are equal as citizens weakens. In the end, democracy is sold to the highest bidder. That has happened often before in the history of republics.

Another thing that came to my mind on seeing Sarwate's cover was a famous song from Raj Kapoor's 'Awaara' (1951)- 'Mujhko chahiye bahar'...Its imaginary hell represented by flames and grotesque statues and a desperate cry of Manna Dey- voice of pathos seeking hope- 'Mujhko ye narak na chahiye; mujhko phool, mujhko geet, mujhko preet chahiye...Mujhko chahiye bahar'.

I still remember how disturbed I felt watching the sequence first time on big screen in 1970's. I needed some balm which came with serene 'ghar aaya mera pardesi'.

Director: Raj Kapoor; Cinematography: Radhu Karmakar; Art Direction: M.R. Achrekar; Set Decoration: K. Damodar

Artist: Vasant Sarwate, Lalit (ललित), November-December 2011

(I see one light violet colour face wearing bindi/pendant. I feel it represents a gang of bakelite celebrities.)

Sarwate himself says about the picture that, while drawing it, his own cover of Sahitya Academy Award winning collection of poems of Mangesh Padgaonkar's (मंगेश पाडगांवकर) 'Salam' (सलाम),1980- salute- was on his mind.

I know 'Salam'. I have heard Padgaonkar reciting it from the stage of Balgandharva Natyagraha (बालगंधर्व नाटय़गृह) in Miraj (मिरज). I liked it OK.

But when my overwhelming feeling is of deep fear, almost terror, only when I recover from it slightly, I may raise my hand in salute (salam), for survival!

Click on the respective year to see Sarwate's past covers of Lalit Diwali 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.

click on the above to get a larger view of part of Rajwade's original article

['Rajwade Lekhsangrah' (राजवाडे लेखसंग्रह) editor: Tarkateerth Lakshman-shastri Joshi (संपादक: तर्कतीर्थ लक्ष्मणशास्त्री जोशी), 1958]

Chairman, Press Council of India: I have a poor opinion of most media people

2011-11-11T09:00:00.008+05:30

Jean Dreze, Amartya Sen:

"...India’s recent development experience includes both spectacular success as well as massive failure. The growth record is very impressive, and provides an important basis for all-round development, not least by generating more public revenue (about four times as much today, in real terms, as in 1990). But there has also been a failure to ensure that rapid growth translates into better living conditions for the Indian people. It is not that they have not improved at all, but the pace of improvement has been very slow—even slower than in Bangladesh or Nepal. There is probably no other example in the history of world development of an economy growing so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of broad-based social progress.

There is no mystery in this contrast, or in the limited reach of India’s development efforts. Both reflect the nature of policy priorities in this period. But as we have argued, these priorities can change through democratic engagement—as has already happened to some extent in specific states. However, this requires a radical broadening of public discussion in India to development-related matters—rather than keeping it confined to simple comparisons of the growth of the gnp, and naive admiration (implicit or explicit) of the high living standards of a relatively small part of the population. An exaggerated concentration on the lives of the minority of the better-off, fed strongly by media interest, gives an unreal picture of the rosiness of what is happening to Indians in general, and stifles public dialogue of other issues. Imaginative democratic practice, we have argued, is essential for broadening and enhancing India’s development achievements."

Nicholas Taleb

"....journalism may be the greatest plague we face today- as the world becomes more and more complicated and our minds are trained for more and more simplification".

“To be competent, a journalist should view matters like a historian, and play down the value of information he is providing…Not only is it difficult for the journalist to think more like a historian, but it is, alas, the historian who is becoming more like the journalist.”

Carl Sagan

“The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudo-science and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. “

Kanti Bajpai, The Times of India, October 14, 2011:

"But seriously, most Indian television news is a disgrace. Production is shocking, the viewer is assailed by 'breaking news', and there is almost nothing about the news behind the news. Investigative reporting usually consists of a reporter in the 'field' - the field being a major Indian city - waving a piece of paper around claiming that he has got access to a top secret internal government memorandum. If you look at the eyes of the reporter and the anchor, you cannot help the feeling that neither of them knows very much or cares very much about the issue. Television is largely theatre, and it is theatre they are determined to deliver."

It was great fun reading Press Council of India's chairman Justice Markandey Katju's views on Indian journalists in The Times of India Nov 1 2011.

"The general rut is very low and I have a poor opinion of most media people. Frankly, I don’t think they have much knowledge of economic theory or political science or literature or philosophy. I don’t think they have studied all this...

...Indian media is very often playing an anti-people role. It often diverts the attention of the people from the real problems which are basically economic. 80 per cent people are living in horrible poverty, unemployment, facing price rise, health care (problems).”

I feel sorry for Mr. Katju because he seems to be overlooking a golden rule: this business of journalism is about pure entertainment.

As Nicholas Taleb says:

“Most journalists do not take things too seriously. After all, this business of journalism is about pure entertainment, not a search for truth, particularly when it comes to radio and television. The trick is to stay away from those who do not seem to know that they are just entertainers and actually believe that they are thinkers.”

Some hope is implied in Mr. Taleb's statement for newspapers. Like in this quote of Isaac Chotiner: Newspapers have changed considerably in the past two centuries. They currently stand as one of the very few barriers to a media universe that is comprised of almost nothing but outbursts and opinions.

But some of the newspapers I see regularly are nothing but "outbursts and opinions" wrapped in commercial advertisements.

As far as television news: ALESSANDRA STANLEY- "In today’s television news market, that cable network and its stars are like the financiers they cover: media short-sellers trading shamelessly on publicity, good or bad, so long as it drives up ratings. There isn’t enough regulation on Wall Street, and there’s hardly any accountability on cable news: it’s a 24-hour star system in which opinions — and showmanship — matter more than facts."

But what about some of those high profile TV anchors interviewing national and international political/business leaders, sportspersons, writers, film-stars and other celebrities?

Taleb: “The interview is illustrative of the destructive aspect of the media, in catering to our heavily warped common sense and biases… (Interviewer) might even be someone of the utmost intellectual integrity, his profession, however, is merely to sound smart and intelligent to the hordes. ”

Artist: James Stevenson, The New Yorker, July 21 1980

Will we ever get as lucky as the gentleman in the picture above? "No news tonight." If we do, I won't be interested in knowing 'why'.

I agree with diagnosis but disagree with the medicine Mr. Katju has in mind and I quote:

" He also said he had written to the PM demanding that the Press Council be given “more teeth’’. Only last month, Katju had said in another TV interview that he would not shy away from using the “danda” to rein in erring journalists."

'Danda' won't work. It reminds me of 'The Emergency'. People's education may work. In the long run.

Artist: Sudhir Tailang, The Asian Age, November 2 2011

Dileep Pardeshi- When Marathi Language Teacher was a Hero to Middle Class

2011-11-06T09:00:00.007+05:30

Anon:

"Can't believe we officially have 7 billion people on Earth...yet the top news is Kim Kardashian's marriage"

Stephen Marche:

"Celebrities are not appendages of our society anymore; they are the basis of our communal lives. Literature and architecture, art and politics, are at most sidelights—small, ancient alleyways down which fewer and fewer minds wander. Pop culture has long since left the word culture behind to become the primary way we understand the world."

Pauline Kael:

“When we championed trash culture, we had no idea it would become the only culture.”

Marathi writer Dileep Pardeshi (दिलीप परदेशी) died recently.

He taught higher Marathi at division A on ground floor of Class 12th Science at Willingdon College, Sangli in year 1976-77.

I was in division B on first floor and I don't remember who taught Marathi to us because I bunked most Marathi periods! But I used to hear about his teaching from my friends in division A. Almost no one bunked his class.

Today I miss Pardeshi-sir and so should all those who love Marathi literature because he certainly created love for Mararthi literature among his pupils, many of them just 16-year old studying science and aiming to become engineers and doctors.

As I write this, he reminds me of a long-lost era when a 'mere' teacher of Marathi language was a hero to a large number of middle class students.

And the fact that he dressed stylishly and, if I remember correctly, kept fairly long hair added to his appeal.

A lot of his students, including many pretty girls, from classes 12th to Master of Arts doted on him. (And boy, didn't we feel jealous?)

Does this happen these days in our ad-backed celebrity hell also known as Marathi urban midddle-class popular culture? I doubt.

I have not read his single book in entirety and never thought much of him as a writer. I never tried to meet him even after I (probably) topped the college in Marathi that year beating 12th arts students.

He was a great fan of G A Kulkarni (जी ए कुलकर्णी). (Who wasn't then?)

Here is a letter by him to G A:

courtesy: "Priya Jee E Sa. Na. Vi. Vi.", 1994 (प्रिय जी. ए. स. न. वि. वि.) edited by G A Kulkarni's cousin-sister Ms. Nanda Paithankar (नंदा पैठणकर)

Henry aka गुणाकार...oops गुणाकर

2011-11-04T09:00:00.005+05:30

Today November 4 2011 is 63rd Death Anniversary of Carl Anderson, creator of Henry aka गुणाकर.

I have already expressed my love for Phantom (comics) here.

A side attraction of those comics books was one page comics of Henry. In Marathi (मराठी), it was titled as 'Gunakar' (गुणाकर). It used to be printed at the beginning or at the end of the main comics.

Until recently I couldn't figure out how Henry became 'Gunakar' in Marathi. Confusion was even more when I used to read it as 'Gunakaar'(गुणाकार) meaning multiplication in Marathi!

If indeed it were to be 'Gunakaar' (गुणाकार), the English word should have been Asterix!

Artists: René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo

Now, I understand that 'गुणाकर' in Hindi means very gifted ('अत्यंत गुणी').

Because Henry is mute, there was nothing much to translate!

Art Baxter says about Henry:

"One never sought out the HENRY strip on the funny pages (when it was still on the funny pages that is). It was read after the favorites. It was read simply because it was there. The fact is, it was never good but it wasn't terrible either. Yet, we were compelled to see what the bald headed, ass-faced boy was up to that day."

I agree. I read it after the main story of 'The Phantom' or 'Mandrake the Magician' or 'Flash Gordon'.

"Henry is autonomous in the SATURDAY EVENING POST strips. HENRY would not pick up a regular cast of characters, all with no proper names, only titles: the mother, the dog, the bully, the little girl, until it became a William Randolph Hurst comic strip. The SEP HENRY is similar in many ways to the LITTLE RASCAL/OUR GANG comedies of the same era. That is children free from the tyranny of an adult presence (mostly). Children navigating the world as best they can with the knowledge and experience they currently possess. Sometimes they get things right, often get things wrong, and frequently come up with solutions to problems unique to their limited experience. Necessity is the mother of invention with funny surprising results."

Henry is carrying a case of milk bottles on his head. "Sometimes they get things right". Henry has because milk after all builds strong teeth, bones and muscles.

Does this make Henry very gifted 'गुणाकर'?

But if he drops the case...he "often gets things wrong."

Forty Heads of Henry

Diamond Jubilee of S D Phadnis's Spell- Mohini

2011-11-02T09:00:00.005+05:30

George Orwell:

"In reality there is no kind of evidence or argument by which one can show that Shakespeare, or any other writer, is 'good' ... Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion."

It is hard to believe that we are celebrating diamond jubilee of 86-year old S D Phadnis (शि. द. फडणीस) designed covers of Diwali number of visionary Anant Antarkar (अनंत अंतरकर) founded Marathi magazine Mohini (मोहिनी).

cover of Mohini Diwali 2011 (The posting of this art is for scholarly and educational purposes. Please visit http://www.sdphadnis.com/)

He first did it in year 1952 and he has done it every year since!

Norman Rockwell, whose influence I clearly see on Phadnis's art, during his 50-year career with The Saturday Evening Post, painted more than 300 covers.

Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे), SDP's close friend, has done every cover of Marathi magazine Lalit's (ललित) Diwali number since 1964.

Sarwate writes on characteristics of SDP's art in 1990:

"जरुर तेवढाच तपशील, चित्रातून म्हणायच आहे ते पाहिल्या बरोबर, बिनचूकपणे पाहणार्याच्या ध्यानात येईल अशी चित्रातील मांडणी आणि डोळ्यास आल्हाद देईल अशी रंगरचना"

(Only necessary details, composition of the drawing done in a manner one grasps accurately what is indended to be convyed as soon as one sees it and colour composition that pleases the eye")

Specifically on Mohini covers by SDP, Sarwate wrote in 1970:

"रंग हे फङणीसांच्या चित्रांच एक महत्वाचं अंग आहे हे त्यांची 'मोहिनी'वरील चित्रं पाहणार्याच्या सहज लक्षात येईल. आल्हाददायक रंगसंगती त्यांच्या चित्रांना स्वप्नमय, तरल स्वरुप देण्यास फार मोठी मदत करतात."

(Colour is an important component of his pictures is pretty obvious to those who look at his pictures on the covers of 'Mohini'. Pleasing colour compositions help big give his pictures dreamlike, subtle quality.)

This is how Sarwate draws his friend at work:

['Sahapravasee' (सहप्रवासी), 2005]

Notice how well Sarwate has captured the above qualities of Shi Da's drawings in picture-in-picture.

See my previous post on Shi Da here.

George Orwell has also said: "If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia?… I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and…toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable."

To Orwell's list of 'trees, fishes, butterflies and…toads', I would add Shi Da Phadnis's pictures.

I still love them as much as I first saw them as a kid. If 'a peaceful and decent future' materialises, it will be a bonus!

And I hope I will continue to enjoy the sight of anyone combing his/her hair looking into a scooter's mirror and not just of that couple with sunny smiles from Mohini Diwali 2011's cover.

Bhau Padhye, A Mavali: Loveable Rogue or Lumpenproletariat?

2011-10-30T09:00:00.020+05:30

Today October 30 2011 is the 15th death anniversary of Bhau Padhye (भाऊ पाध्ये).

Kathryn Schulz:

"...the lazy man’s “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” is “Fuck this shit.”...In The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson argues that okay is “the quintessential Americanism” and “the most grammatically versatile of words.” Okay. But surely it has a rival—or a compatriot—in fuck. Wherever it originated (the jury is out), the F-word has flourished in our adolescent American soil. And pace Bryson, its grammatical versatility cannot be topped: You can use it as noun, verb, adverb, adjective, or interjection, not to mention in any mood whatsoever, from exultation to rage..."

('Ode to a Four-Letter Word/ And I don’t mean "okay."')

Jason Flores-Williams:

“Hipster culture today is harmless culture. And that’s an epic tragedy because being hip used to mean that you were heroic and dangerous. That you waged war on soullessness and greed through art and resistance. Being hip meant that you wanted upheaval in society. Being hip meant you were intense lower class, not detached upper class. Being hip meant being revolutionary.”

दुर्गा भागवत: "'लेखकराव' म्हणून इतरांना नावं ठेवणारे स्वतःच लेखकराव होवून बसले"

[Durga Bhagwat: Those who teased others as "establishment-writers" themselves became establishment-writers (insiders)]

The one guy who never became one- Bhau Padhye.

(Contrast this with, from another field, some one like Mr. Sunil Gavaskar, once an enfant terrible of Indian cricket, is now the establishment.)

The title of this post contains a Marathi word मवाली ('Mavali'). Mavali translates as rogue/ hooligan/ hoodlum/ ruffian. One meaning of 'rogue' is 'something or someone different from what is normal or expected'. Indeed, if anyone, Bhau was different.

Recently I came across following.

Economic and Political Weekly dated July 31 2011 has an essay by Juned Shaikh: "Translating Marx: Mavali, Dalit and the Making of Mumbai’s Working Class, 1928-1935"

'The Communist Manifesto' was translated into Marathi as 'Kamyunista Jahirnama' (कम्युनिस्ट जाहीरनामा) in Meerut jail in 1930-31 by Gangadhar Adhikari (गंगाधर अधिकारी) a scientist who had completed his PhD in chemistry from Berlin University in 1926.

The Jahirnama’s classified people in the city of Mumbai into the categories of such as kamgaar, Mavali and dalit.

"Adhikari used the term “mavali” to signify the lumpenproletariat. Mavali, a moniker for people from the hilly regions of western Maharashtra in the Bombay Presidency, signified categories of people prone to create law and order problems for the colonial police. In his explication of key words to the Marathi edition of the Manifesto that was published along with the Jahirnama, Adhikari characterised the Mavali as a class below the working class, who were “paupers” and lived in the city’s slums...Destitute and unemployed workers, paupers, and the lumpenproletariat are a step below the kamgaar varga on the social ladder...

He translated a passage from Das Capital to explain this point further:

"उद्योगधंद्यातून काढून टाकलेले लोक मोठ्यावस्तीच्या शहरातून गर्दी करुन राहतात; व गुंड, दादालोक, मवाली म्ह्णून प्रसिद्धीस येतात. उत्पादन क्रियेची व यांची कायमची फारकत झाली असते; असे लोक अर्थातच पैशा करीता वाटेल त्या प्रतिगामी पक्षाला स्वताला विकण्यास मागे पुढे पहात नाहीत. (The paupers who have been fired from work live in crowded slums in cities and become famous as criminals- (mavali). They have been permanently separated from the means of production and therefore these people do not think twice before selling themselves to counter-revolutionary forces for money).

Mavali indeed is a very complex term.

My affection for Bhau Padhye has been expressed a few times on this blog. One such instance is here.

Recently I read Mr. Narayan Bandekar's (नारायण बांदेकर) interview of Mr. Padhye here.

Agreeing with his high-profile and vocal critic Acharya Atre (आचार्य अत्रे), Bhau admits he is a rogue (मवाली).

"'वासूनाक्या'वरील आचार्य अत्र्यांच्या लेखात मला 'मवाली' म्हटलं व भटकळांनी बदनामीचा खटला करण्यास मला मदत करण्याचं आश्वासन दिलं. पण मला वाटलं, आचार्य अत्र्यांनी मला ही बेस्ट पदवी दिली. माझी वास्तव जीवनातील प्रतिमा का आली कुणास ठाऊक- मी घर उघड्यावर टाकलं नाही एवढ्यावरून-? बाकी सगळं केलं, (म्हणजे बाई, बाटली वगैरे!) मला वाटतं- माझा चष्मा, शोशन्नाचं सामाजिक कार्य आणि समाजवादी बॅकग्राउंड यामुळं ही गफलत झाली असावी. तुम्ही विश्वास ठेवा किंवा ठेवू नका, पण कॉलेज जीवनात काही मुलींनी मला खरोखरच 'मवाली' ठरवलं होतं!"

(Acharya Atre called me a rogue in his article on 'Vasunaka' and Bhatkal promised help to file a lawsuit for libel. But I thought, Acharya Atre has really given me a very good title. I don't know why my image in real life was formed- just because I never abandoned the house- did everything else, (means alcohol, women etc!) I think - my glasses, Shoshanna's social work and socialist background- they created mixup. You believe it or not, but in college life some girls indeed concluded that I was a rogue!")

Now this 'rogue' quality of Bhau is captured so beautifully in following 'cool' picture- spiky hair- more like Havells : Shock Laga ad- on head, wrinkles on forehead, beedi dangling from mouth, glasses, his horizontal stripe little short shirt exposing his crotch, hands in pockets, slightly bent right knee, a bunch of chest hair, and don't-give-a-damn attitude...

(Bhau would have surely liked my reference to Havells ad! For him life was sum total of all that happened around him. There was nothing higher or lower.)

Artist: Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे) from 'Nivadak Thanthanpal' (निवडक ठणठणपाळ ),1969

ERIN MCKEAN has said: "We like to think that human languages should be more like computer-programming languages: logical, orderly, efficient and goal-oriented. But they are more like our own DNA: complicated and full of junk information but at the same time gloriously mutable, able (for good or ill) to give rise to new living forms." (WSJ, August 10 2011)

Bhau played his part in the process of Marathi's mutation and while doing it, I think, he never sold himself to counter-revolutionary forces for money. He always remained orthogonal. And many Marathi lovers are luckier for it.

प्रलयकाळी टीरेक्स जाती। तेथे पर्गाटोरियस वाचती ॥Tyrannosaurus Rex goes, Purgatorius lives.

2011-10-27T09:51:00.009+05:30

I have been watching Animal Armageddon on Animal Planet this month, October 2011.

First of all it is very humbling. You watch, 65 million years ago, a small mammal Purgatorius, our ancestor, hanging on to her dear life and you realise what all you need to worship in animal kingdom beyond elephants, snakes and cows.

Second I imagine if the likes of Dnyaneshwar (ज्ञानेश्वर), Tukaram (तुकाराम) and Shakespeare knew these extinct animal kingdoms and their annihilation, their imagery would have been even more colourful.

For instance, this is how Tukaram describes the importance of being small (and humble):

तुका म्हणे बरवे जाण| व्हावे ल्हानाहून ल्हान|| महापुरे झाडे जाती| तेथे लव्हाळे वाचती||

(Tuka says become smaller than small. In a deluge trees are washed out but grass survives.)

Tyrannosaurus Rex goes, Purgatorius lives.

As I watched the documentary television miniseries, I realised that, with luck, I would dodge an animal armageddon in my lifetime.

But yesterday, on Laxmi Pujan day, as I heard and saw crackers being burst so savagely around me, I felt many birds and animals must feel that this indeed was the armageddon of their life.

Deep down, even I can't escape that feeling.

My ancestor Purgatorius

Picture courtesy: Wikipedia

p.s. 'प्रलयकाळी' (cataclysm / universal devastation) is one of my favourite Marathi words. Why? Read this.

In Praise of Street sweepers

2011-10-26T09:00:00.003+05:30

Today is Lakshmi Pujan, Ashwin Amavasya Shake 1933 (लक्ष्मी पूजन, आश्विन अमावस्या, शके १९३३)

Wikipedia: Lakshmi Pooja, or the worship of the goddess of wealth, is the main event on Diwali in North and West India. It is extremely important to keep the house spotlessly clean and pure on Diwali. Goddess Lakshmi likes cleanliness, and she will visit the cleanest house first. This is also the reason why the broom is worshiped on this day with offerings of haldi and kumkum (turmeric and vermilion).

R S Sharma:

"Buddhism did not deprecate manual labour. In a second-century sculpture from Bodh-Gaya, the Buddha is depicted ploughing with oxen."

('India's Ancient Past', 2005)

Martin Luther King Jr., 1954:

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well."

P L Deshpande (पु ल देशपांडे):

"उषा: तुम्हांला सगळ्याचाच मझा वाटतो.

काकाजी: पहिलं नीट म्हणजे बराबर मझा दिसतो. इंदूर स्टेशनात एकदा एक भंगी दोन लंब्या झाडू घेऊन कचरा काढीत होता. उषा, अरे ऐश्या झाडू फिरवीत होता, की तुझ्या सतीशला बॅट देखील फिरवता येणार नाही तशी."

("Usha: You think everything is fun.

Kakaji: If you look carefully, you notice fun alright. At Indore station once a street-sweeper was sweeping using two long brooms. Usha, the way he was brandishing broom, your Satish won't be able to wave a (cricket) bat.")

['Tujhe Ahe Tujapashi', 1957 (तुझें आहे तुजपाशीं)]

(If you like Pu La's Kakaji, you may want to read this.)

Artist: Eldon Dedini (1921-2006), The New Yorker, October 7 1961

चाफा मात्र फुलतच राहतो, Champak Goes On and On: Lyrical, Tragic, and Comic

2011-10-18T09:00:00.013+05:30

चाफा मात्र फुलतच राहतो, Champak Goes On and On: Lyrical, Tragic, and Comic

Today Oct 18 2011 is 8th death anniversary of my Tai Mavashi (ताई -मावशी ). And I lost my second mavashi- Kumud (कुमुद)- on October 1 2011...Now, including my mother and their mother, all four of them, I like to think, are together. Wherever.

Once I wanted to escort these three Bhate (भाटे ) sisters on a jaunt to Mahad (महाड), their beloved native town, instead I accompanied each of them to crematorium...This is growing up!

कवी गोविंद (1874-1926) (Kavi Govind)

सुंदर मी होणार, आतां सुंदर मी होणार!
सुंदर मी होणार । हो। मरणानें जगणार।...

...जुनी इंद्रिये, जुना पिसारा.. सर्व सर्व झडणार हो..
नव्या तनुचे, नव्या शक्तीचे.. पंख मला फुटणार हो..
सुंदर मी होणार.

There is so much hope in the poet's words above...Death will remake him, get rid of his disability and make him beautiful all over again...easily one of the most memorable poems in 20th century Marathi.

After seeing my Tai-mavashi for the last time at Kolhapur (कोल्हापुर) crematorium on the banks of Panchganga (पंचगंगा), I looked at the evening sky...

It had never looked that beautiful.

What was I doing at that goddamn crematorium instead of looking at pretty girls of Kolhapur at Rankala (रंकाळा) and Mahadwar (महाद्वार ) road, or making plans of which movies to see, or where to eat outside: what we always did while visiting her in the past, when R D Burman song "Yeh shyam mastani" (ये शाम मस्तानी) from 'Kati Patang',1970 never stopped playing?

Sure, death might have made my mavashi more beautiful- it wasn't obvious though- but what about the sky in real life that was even more beautiful than usual after her death? Evening was still graceful (ये शाम मस्तानी) but now in a creepy way.

Can we reconcile this?

Not Mark Twain. He thinks it's a mockery:

“I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother—her incomparable mother!—five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! … Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night—and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here—writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery."

Not C T Khanolkar (चिं.त्र्यं.खानोलकर) either:

आणि आकाशाकडे बघून त्याने गर्जना केली :
बाप्पा तुला क्षमा नाही
वाड्यावरची माणसे दोंदे वाढवतात
माझ्या काश्याचे पाय जातात
चाफा मात्र फुलतच राहतो

[I have quoted these lines of CTK as I recall them from, I think, a दीपावली (Deepawali) magazine's diwali number from 1970's. Errors if any are regretted.]

Maybe George Santayana:

“Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence."

Artist: Helen E Hokinson (1893-1949), The New Yorker, March 15 1941

Champak like begonia goes on and on...

A E Housman:

“For Nature, heartless, witless Nature
Will neither know nor care”

Sexual Repression, Awaaz Diwali ank, Donald McGill and George Orwell

2011-10-11T09:00:00.003+05:30

Michel Foucault:

"If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression. A person who holds forth in such language places himself to a certain extent outside the reach of power; he upsets established law; he somehow anticipates the coming freedom." ('The History of Sexuality', Volume I, 1976)

Germaine Greer:

… in the 21st century pornography is as ubiquitous as religion once was. Its sadomasochistic stock in trade is still the same. No sexual revolution will happen until the role of penetration as a mechanism of domination is obliterated, until it makes no sense to snarl at anyone: "Get fucked", until "fucked" does not mean "ruined".
Sexual culture is so protean that we can hardly generalise about it; parents' attitudes are different from their children's and their children's attitudes may be different from one another's; kids in one school bus will be shocked and horrified at what is going on in another. Sex is simultaneously suppressed and commoditised. Its expression is both covert and blatant. Nowadays, masturbation is supposed to be good for us and yet "wanker" is a word of withering abuse. When sex is a duty, it palls; when it is absolutely forbidden, it becomes unbearably exciting.

'Woman Carrying Load' Artist: Unknown Indian, Period: 6000 BC or later Location: Bhimbetka rock shelters, Near Bhopal, MP (courtesy: 'Prehistory' by Irfan Habib, 2001)

दुर्गा भागवत:

"गोंड लोकांच्या मध्ये मी काम करीत होते, तेंव्हा त्या गोंड बायका मला म्हणायच्या की, गोंड बायका चोळी घालत नाहीत म्हणून त्यांची वक्षःस्थळं भरदार असतात. शहरी बायकां सारखी विसविशीत नसतात. तुमची सीता आमच्या गोंडवनात आली. तिनं आमच्यासारखी चोळी टाकली. तिची वक्षःस्थळं भरदार झाली. आवडली आमच्या रावणाला. पळवली तिला...त्यात काय?...अशी त्या गोंड बायकांची कथा. मला हसूच आलं."

[Durga Bhagwat: When I was working among Gonds, those Gond women used to say to me that Gond women didn't wear Choli (blouse) and hence their breasts were firm. Not soft like urban women. Your Seeta arrived in Gondwana. Like us she stopped using Choli. Her breasts became firm. Our Ravana liked her. He abducted her...what big deal?...this is the story of those Gond women. It made me laugh."]

[“Aispais Gappa: Durgabainshi” by Pratibha Ranade ("ऐसपैस गप्पा : दुर्गाबाईंशी" लेखक: प्रतिभा रानडे), 1998, page-50]

Artist: Donald McGill (1875–1962)

George Orwell was not sure if Donald McGill was a real person or simply a trade name but he wrote a memorable essay on him in 1941.

Mr. McGill was a British graphic artist who drew funny pictures featuring attractive young women, fat old ladies, drunken middle aged men.

In short, he was a cartoonist.

Poor Mr. McGill was prosecuted in 1954 on the charge of breaking the 'Obscene Publications Act 1857' where he was found guilty and made to pay fine and costs. 21 of his cards were either banned or withdrawn from sale. There was a kind witch-hunt against him, and it was all so sad.

[By the way, such a law in India too has played havoc with artistic freedom, harassing artists like B S Mardhekar (बा. सी. मर्ढेकर).

My father's first social novel 'Dhoka! Hamrasta Pudhe Aahe' (धोका! हमरस्ता पुढे आहे)- written at the age of just 25- was dubbed 'obscene' but, unlike Mardhekar, he wasn't prosecuted. D K Bedekar (दि. के. बेडेकर) was one among few who stood by him, Jaywant Dalvi (जयवंत दळवी)was one among many who attacked him. But the incident scared off my father- he was almost broke and had a young family to support- from exploring creative, daring themes in his future work.]

Orwell writes on McGill's portrayal of attractive young women:

"...Here one comes back to the outstanding, all-important feature of comic post cards — their obscenity. It is by this that everyone remembers them, and it is also central to their purpose, though not in a way that is immediately obvious.

A recurrent, almost dominant motif in comic post cards is the woman with the stuck-out behind. In perhaps half of them, or more than half, even when the point of the joke has nothing to do with sex, the same female figure appears, a plump ‘voluptuous’ figure with the dress clinging to it as tightly as another skin and with breasts or buttocks grossly over-emphasized according to which way it is turned. There can be no doubt that these pictures lift the lid off a very widespread repression, natural enough in a country whose women when young tend to be slim to the point of skimpiness. But at the same time the McGill post card — and this applies to all other post cards in this genre — is not intended as pornography but, a subtler thing, as a skit on pornography. The Hottentot figures of the women are caricatures of the Englishman's secret ideal, not portraits of it. When one examines McGill's post cards more closely, one notices that his brand of humour only has a meaning in relation to a fairly strict moral code...."

Orwell doesn't want these pictures to vanish because he says once their kind of humour used to be integral to the literature but because serious literature now has no place for it, we need it stand-alone.

"...Their existence, the fact that people want them, is symptomatically important. Like the music halls, they are a sort of saturnalia, a harmless rebellion against virtue. They express only one tendency in the human mind, but a tendency which is always there and will find its own outlet, like water...

...In the past the mood of the comic post card could enter into the central stream of literature, and jokes barely different from McGill's could casually be uttered between the murders in Shakespeare's tragedies. That is no longer possible, and a whole category of humour, integral to our literature till 1800 or thereabouts, has dwindled down to these ill-drawn post cards, leading a barely legal existence in cheap stationers' windows..."

Orwell considers them "ill-drawn".

I don't.

Now go back to the picture of Donald McGill above.

Indeed, they are wonderful!... I mean lady's pearls...I mean McGill's pictures!

The picture reminds me of a very popular Marathi magazine 'Awaaz'(आवाज) that has been published every Diwali since its inception in 1951.

It was founded and edited first by Mr. Madhukar Patkar (मधुकर पाटकर) and, after his death in 1996, by his son Mr. Suhas Patkar (सुहास पाटकर). (Mr. Suhas too is no more. He died in October 2010.)

I must have seen the magazine first time in 1970's.

I liked it only for its naughty 'window-pictures' featuring women with "breasts or buttocks grossly over-emphasized". I don't think I ever read a single article or short-story from the magazine.

After reading Orwell, I wonder if Awaaz's pictures at one time "lifted the lid off a very widespread repression" in a middle-class Maharashtrian society where sex had always been repressed since Victorian era, and that the Awaaz's pictures were "not intended as pornography but, a subtler thing, as a skit on pornography", and that this "brand of humour only has a meaning in relation to a fairly strict moral code."

And hence today when- thanks to internet- pornography is widely and almost freely available, when sexual mores are changing fast and nudity is widespread, has Awaaz art lost its calling?

Also, the operative word 'at one time' in previous para is important because Awaaz does not mean or will mean anything to my 17-year-old native Marathi speaking son and most of his 'Marathi' friends.

The artist who created Awaaz art for a long time was Mr. Chandrashekhar Patki (c 1933-2008) (चंदशेखर पत्की).

I read that Mr. Patki used to like the art of Henry Boltinoff (1914–2001), Bill Wenzel (1918–1987)- a master of drawing a voluptuous, sexy, innocent girl-, Mario Miranda but was never influenced by them. I wonder if Patki saw McGill's pictures.

Sadly, for this post, I couldn't get hold of Patki's big colour window-picture from his heydays. But see the one below and you will get an idea of his art.

Caption- Man's wife to her female domestic: "Doctor has asked him to take rest. Therefore, you need not come for eight days!"

Now a picture of one of Patki's favourite Mr. Wenzel

caption: "Hmmm...with a neighbour like that, I'm sure I can get you an extra $2000!"

Artist: Bill Wenzel

I can easily see this Wenzel's picture getting printed in Awaaz Diwali 2011 as a 'window-picture'- that is you don't see the lady below her shoulders until you turn the page- with a caption in Marathi that may run something like this:

"हं...अशी शेजारीण, मग काय आणखी वीस लाख मिळवून देतो तुमच्या बंगल्याला!"

Steve Jobs- from Bazzar to Cathedral, from Kabir to Michelangelo

2011-10-09T09:00:00.015+05:30

Kabir:

कबिरा खड़ा बाजार में सबकी मांगे खैर
ना काहू से दोस्ती ना काहू से बैर
ना काहू से बैर ज्ञान की अलख जगावे
भूला भटका जो होय राह ताही बतलावे
बीच सड़क के मांहि झूठ को फोड़े भंडा
बिन पैसे बिन दाम ज्ञान का मारै डंडा

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra:

"Kabir's a disruptive voice which stands in opposition to everything you cherish and hold dear, from your worldly possessions to religious beliefs. Kabir might not have been a nice man to know..."

Robert Skidelsky:

"Jeffrey Sachs's diagnosis of America's ills understates the deleterious effect of globalisation. He doesn't question the economics or morality of offshoring American production abroad, regardless of its consequences for American jobs or real wages, simply saying that the winners should compensate the losers. Not only has this not happened, but it is increasingly unlikely to happen, because globalisation has greatly increased the political clout of the winners. Since the 1980s owners of capital have enjoyed not just a big rise in pre-tax earnings, but a substantial cut in tax rates, taking inequality back to levels last seen before the first world war."

Mike Daisey:

"Apple’s rise to power in our time directly paralleled the transformation of global manufacturing. As recently as 10 years ago Apple’s computers were assembled in the United States, but today they are built in southern China under appalling labor conditions. Apple, like the vast majority of the electronics industry, skirts labor laws by subcontracting all its manufacturing to companies like Foxconn, a firm made infamous for suicides at its plants, a worker dying after working a 34-hour shift, widespread beatings, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to meet high quotas set by tech companies like Apple...

...Mr. Jobs’s magic has its costs. We can admire the design perfection and business acumen while acknowledging the truth: with Apple’s immense resources at his command he could have revolutionized the industry to make devices more humanely and more openly, and chose not to. If we view him unsparingly, without nostalgia, we would see a great man whose genius in design, showmanship and stewardship of the tech world will not be seen again in our lifetime. We would also see a man who in the end failed to “think different,” in the deepest way, about the human needs of both his users and his workers. "

(The New York Times, October 6 2011)

Vaclav Smil:

"Some 130 years after Edison’s remarkable creation of the electricity system, there still remains no doubt about the fundamental and truly epochal nature of his contributions: the world without electricity has become unimaginable. I bet that 130 years from now our successors will not be able to say the same about Apple’s sleek electronic devices assembled from somebody else’s components and providing services that are not fundamentally different from those offered by competitors. I have no doubt that the world without iPhone or iPad would be perfectly fine."

Mourning over Mr. Job's death turned little hysterical in Indian media. Reminded me of Princess Diana's death.

Rod Liddle:

"This is the generation (born between 1955 and 1985), which has bequeathed to the world reality television, the cult of the celebrity, first-person confessional journalism and the mass hysterical emoting at the funerals of people they have never met, let alone known. I suppose, if we were to grope for a reason, we might say that it was the first generation for a very long time which lived without the depredations of war and thus the prospect of imminent death; which threw off the notion of a higher authority than itself and was schooled in the art of self-expression rather than the acquisition of knowledge."

I have already thanked Mr. Jobs for PC with GUI and 'Toy Story'. That apart, what kind of change, if any, Mr. Jobs brought to our lives?

To begin with, reading Mr. Liddle's words above and Mr. Job's own thoughts- quoted in previous post- on death, he made us think about 'the prospect of imminent death' at least for a day.

Let us now turn to materialistic aspects of change.

Peter Thiel:

"The economic decoupling of computers from everything else leads to more questions than answers, and barely hints at the strange future where today’s trends simply continue. Would supercomputers become powerful engines for the miraculous creation of wholly new forms of economic value, or would they simply become powerful weapons for reshuffling existing structures — for Nature, red in tooth and claw? More simply, how does one measure the difference between progress and mere change? How much is there of each?"

Mr. Thiel's article should really be an eye-opener for many.

David Brooks says: "A person born in 1900 began with horse-drawn buggies and died with men walking on the Moon..."

All my grandparents (and my wife's) were borne around 1900 and had that ride but for my generation it has been far less exciting.

I feel most of what Mr. Jobs did since his return to Apple was 'mere change'. And that's why I find it ridiculous when people compare him to Thomas Alva Edison.

Thiel: "The era of globalization improved living standards by making labor and goods cheaper, but also hurt living standards through increased competition for limited resources. Free-trade advocates tend to think that the first effect dominates the second."

I don't.

I have expressed on this blog my increasing inability to connect to young strangers, or even not so strangers, in urban India because their ears are always stuffed.

And I hold Mr. Jobs partly responsible for this.

Dr Aric Sigman argues that the growth of electronic media – computers, iPods, mobile phones, video games – as "the most significant contributing factor to society's growing physical estrangement"

or Roger Scruton:

"...Michael Bull draws on the “cultural theory” of Horkheimer and Adorno to argue that, thanks to the iPod, urban space has in many ways ceased to be public space and has become fragmented and privatized, each person retreating into his own inviolable sphere and losing his dependency upon and interest in his fellows. This process not only alienates people from each other, it enables people to retain control over their sensations, and so shut out the world of chance, risk, and change..."

What made Mr. Jobs?

David Brooks says in The New York Times, Oct 6 2011 :

"...Look at the Steve Jobs obituaries. Over the course of his life, he combined three asynchronous idea spaces — the counterculture of the 1960s, the culture of early computer geeks and the culture of corporate America. There was LSD, “The Whole Earth Catalogue” and spiritual exploration in India. There were also nerdy hours devoted to trying to build a box to make free phone calls...The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing..."

The counterculture. Do we have it today?

Susan Sontag said: We live in a culture committed to unifying greeds…..everyone on the planet feeding at the same trough of standardized entertainment and fantasies of eros and violence….How one wishes that some of its (the iconoclastic spirit of the 1960s) boldness, its optimism, its disdain for commerce had survived……

Here is one of us trying rather pathetically to 'escape' our culture...

Artist: Stuart Carlson

I read Mr. N R Narayana Murthy has called Mr. Jobs “Michelangelo of the computer era”. It made me chuckle.

I associate Michelangelo with a cathedral and I once saw in Mr. Jobs iconoclastic Kabir who is associated with bazaar, far away from a cathedral.

Steve Jobs- Indeed Death is the Single Best Invention of Life

2011-10-06T09:45:00.005+05:30

Steve Jobs:

“(death) is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

Ken Auletta :

"...he was a great, transformative, and historical figure."

(The New Yorker, October 5 2011)

Clancy Martin:

If contemporary god-builders — seeking to stave off death with blue-green algae, Bikram yoga and cryogenics — are more crass and materialistic than those in Gray’s story, ultimately they fail to appreciate the same point: that life seems to get much of its meaning from the fact that it ends.

MIKE DAISEY, one of the great solo storytellers of contemporary theater, when asked "What do you think of Mr. Jobs as an artist?" by CATHERINE RAMPELL:

"Well I think that Steve Jobs’s tremendously effective as an artist in that sense. However, it’s deeply unfortunate that he sold out his ideals.

This is someone who had an opportunity to transform the world with these devices and then did. He started as someone whose devices were forged out of piracy, and today it’s the most locked-down computer company in the world. As a capitalist I’m sure that it’s very attractive. But if we’re talking about him as an artist, I’d say that he completely lost track of his ideals."

(The New York Times, Sept. 30 2011)

I am grateful to Mr. Jobs for a PC having graphical user interface and Toy Story (1995)

But clearly US President Barack Obama went overboard when he said: "...he changed the way each of us sees the world."....What does he mean by "each of us"?

The New York Times, Sept. 30 2011 claimed: Neuroscience suggests that Apple's smartphone activates the part of the brain associated with feelings of love and compassion.

If this is true, I wonder if it is good or bad for humanity.

There has been some great humour created at the cost of the late Mr. Jobs.

The funniest of them is the episode of The Simpsons "Mypods and Boomsticks", 7th episode of 20th season first aired on November 30, 2008.

When Lisa Simpson complains to Mr. Jobs about the stiff bill and pleads for a concession, Mr. Jobs replies: “People think our slogan is 'Think Differently' but our real slogan is 'No Refunds'.”

It will be an interesting execrise to discover "people think" slogans vis-a-vis real slogans for many other products and institutions.

Here is an obituary cartoon created by Ted Rall before Mr. Jobs passed away. Warning: It is not hagiographic.

Artist: Ted Rall

Courtesy: Apple.com

p.s. I converted this image from original PNG (200kb) to JPEG (37kb)!

Romancing Railways. Buster Keaton style.

2011-10-04T09:00:00.016+05:30

Today October 4 2011 is 116th birth anniversary of Buster Keaton.

Paul Theroux:

"Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it."

(The Great Railway Bazaar, 1975)

The New York Times, Sept. 30 2011:

Neuroscience suggests that Apple's smartphone activates the part of the brain associated with feelings of love and compassion.

Joseph Heller:

"if you are sane enough to ask to be declared unfit to fly on dangerous missions, then you are fit to fly".

DAVID BROOKS, The NYT, Oct 6 2011:

we travel at the same speeds as we did a half-century ago, whether on the ground or in the air. We rely on the same basic energy sources. Warren Buffett made a $44 billion investment in 2009. It was in a railroad that carries coal.

One of the greatest film scenes is surely from Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” (1955): children coming face to face with a train.

But is there a film as good, even better, as Pather Panchali where trains and railways have a major role to play, where they are there almost all the time on the screen?

There is. And I was lucky to see it on Sept 29 2011 on UTV World Movies.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

It's a silent film: The General, 1926. It's available on YouTube here.

Great Orson Welles has said:

"'The General' is the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."

I agree with Mr. Welles completely. In a way, 'The General' anticipates everything funny that has been created for screen since then.

My 17-year old son watched it for a while and was stunned by the stunts performed by the hero: Buster Keaton playing the character of Johnnie Gray.

I was intrigued by the way Johnnie works so smoothly around his beloved train steam-engine "General", the way a mahout works with his beloved but huge tusker.

The film is not just about steam-engines and wagons but also about tracks, communication cables, water refills, fuel etc.

Johnnie is upset not just because his fiancee Annabelle Lee (played by Marion Mack) has been kidnapped, albeit inadvertently, by the North but that they have also taken his "General".

[I too once loved steam-engines that frequented Miraj station. They certainly activated the part of my brain associated with feelings of love and compassion. One of them quite aptly called 'Genda' (गेंडा) (Rhinoceros).]

I also liked the way film makes subtle fun of the American civil war or any war in general. Its inherent contradictions.

For instance, as Johnnie enters "Southern" territory riding General and escorting Annabelle and waves at a soldier, he is fired at because he is still wearing Union uniform. So only the colour of clothing decides foe or friend!

Or Johnnie wants to enlist only to win over his girl.

Walter Kirn argues:

"...Joseph Heller's Catch-22 appeared, abruptly downgrading war's special status as an existential crucible and also, unwittingly, beginning the process of rendering four-star male novelists irrelevant. The book treats war on a par with business or politics (to Heller they were very much the same), portraying it as a system for alienating people from their own interests and estranging them from their instincts. Protocol replaces principle, figures plucked from thin air supplant hard facts, and reason becomes rigamarole." (Slate, August 2 2011)

Watching 'The General', I feel the downgrading process started in 1926.

Was this film released in India in 1920's? Did any of my grand-parents see it?

Did Shripad Krushna Kolhatkar (श्रीपाद कृष्ण कोल्हटकर), C V Joshi (चिं वि जोशी) and R K Narayan see it? If yes, did it influence their art in any manner?

The civil war is forcing Johnnie to separate from his beloved General. At the end of the film, as Johnnie and Annabelle say final goodbye to us, we see they both are seating on one of General's many body-parts, kissing passionately, but Lieutenant Johnnie is being forced to return the salutes of passing soldiers with his right arm!

(In the picture above, Johnnie is sitting to the left of Annabelle. But then it becomes difficult to kiss and return the saulte. He then comes to her right...)

Comedians at Lunch: W C Fields, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Groucho Marx

Artist: Albert "Al" Hirschfeld (1903-2003), Published: May 1 2000

This must be one hell of a lunch!

Courtesy: Al Hirschfeld Foundation. Please visit http://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/splash/

CATE LINEBERRY, The New York Times October 4 2011:

"Men weren't the only ones being killed on Civil War battlefields - thousands of boys fought and died alongside them."

Boys, like Griffith Thomas who joined the 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery as a musician at 16, enlisted with dreams of adventure, but soon realized the severity of camp life — and the terrors of the battlefield. Young drummers were especially targeted by the enemy because their drumbeats communicated orders on the chaotic battlefield.

Credit: Wisconsin Veterans Museum

Navratris in the New York city!

2011-10-01T09:00:00.001+05:30

The Times of India, October 2005:

“Solved: Post-Navratri abortion: It's a revolution of sorts. Social researchers waiting to dish out those cliched surveys on abortion rates after Navratris in Gujarat, are in for some disappointment. Because revellers, especially girls, are shedding inhibitions and walking up to the neighbourhood chemist asking for condoms.

And invading the market are the Cobras, Draculas, Skinless Skin — all brands of condoms from China. With the nine nights of revelry having peaked over the week-end gone by, chemists are confessing that condom sales are up by up to 50 per cent…”

WILLIAM MCGOWAN:

"'Safe, legal and rare" has long been the pro-choice mantra, but these days it applies less and less to the reality of abortion. In New York City, officials reported this year that 41% of pregnancies end in abortion—double the national rate. In the black community, the figure is 60%..."

(WSJ, July 29 2011)

'Double the national rate' means 20.5% of all US pregnancies are aborted.

WSJ article further says:

"Numbers like these motivate the Sisters of Life, a small order of nuns celebrating its 20th anniversary this summer. The sisters take traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but they also take a fourth vow "to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.""

I wonder what percentage of total pregnancies get terminated in India but I am sure it's not comparable to US rate at all. Especially if you take out terminations on account of female foeticides in India.

As a nation, middle-class India has come a long way in the field of fertility.

As a kid I knew a few instances- like in Father of the Bride Part II- where mother and daughter or mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were pregnant at the same time in a middle-class Brahmin household.

Did it demonstrate to the world virility of the senior male member in that household? Or was it a declaration of the lack of alternate entertainment avenues?

Mark Twain has said about Indian people: "It is a curious people. With them, all life seems to be sacred except human life." (Following the Equator; a Journey Around the World, 1897)

I feel Mr. Twain was wrong partially.

Human life too was sacred if it was male!

Artist: Garrett Price (1896-1979), The New Yorker, August 19 1933

Banning Books- These Indians are crazy!

2011-09-27T09:08:00.008+05:30

Wikipedia on Obelix:

"His catchphrase is: "Ils sont fous ces romains", which translates into "These Romans are crazy!", although he considers many other nationalities to be just as strange."

The Times of India (Ambarish Mishra, TNN Sep 26, 2011):

"...Akthar's autobiography was to be released at a function in Mumbai on Saturday. However, the event was cancelled even as the 'Rawalpindi Express' gave interviews to the electronic media about the book.

Akhtar has lashed out against his own team members in the book and is understood to have made remarks about the Indian batting master, who he claimed was afraid of his bowling as the delivery speed was over 150 kph..."

How low have we got on tolerance?

One cricket player is making some comments on another player's cricketing abilities- neither casting aspersions on his character/ integrity nor intruding into his private life- and we don't want that book to be even released, let alone respond to it sensibly or just ignore it.

But why am I surprised? Our history is littered with this.

A G Noorani said in Economic & Political Weekly December 1, 2007 :

"Book banning is a civilised form of the vice of book-burning which is a sure symptom of fascism. India has a formidable record of book banning. As with much else, independent India simply took over the habits of the British raj."

According to the late Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत) Indians burnt down Bhasa’a (भास) play 'Pratima' (प्रतिमा)- one of the greatest Indian plays- because they didn’t like it!

'Pratima’ is based on the life of Lord Rama.

“But people didn’t like it and they burnt it. After passage of hundreds of years someone discovered it and hence we have it…"

[Source- 'Easy Conversations: With Durgabai' by Pratibha Ranade, 1998 (ऐसपैस गप्पा : दुर्गाबाईंशी, लेखक: प्रतिभा रानडे)]

Website DailyLit is conducting a survey, asking its readers 'VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BANNED BOOK'.

Some of the options there:

"-Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (a classic)
-Henry David Thoreau's On the Duty of Civil Obedience (get inspired)
-Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (learn first hand why it's controversial)
-Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (I can't believe that was banned)
-And then there's The Bible (need I say more)."

My vote went to "The Arabian Nights".

Artists: René Goscinny, Albert Uderzo

‘An excellent weekend, thank you. We went to a literary festival. I burned many books.’

Spectator, September 2009

Paris and London pauperised George Orwell! The way Mumbai did to Arun Kolatkar! And who to Buddha?

2011-09-25T09:00:00.019+05:30

पॅरिस आणि लंडननी भिकेस लावलं. जॉर्ज ओरवेलना! जस मुंबईन लावल अरुण कोलटकरना! आणि कोणी बुद्धाला?

विष्णुस्मृति:
श्रद्धा च नो मा व्यगमद्बहु देयं च नोऽस्त्विति । । ७३.२८ । ।
तथास्त्विति ब्रूयुः । । ७३.२९ । ।
अन्नं च नो बहु भवेदतिथींश्च लभेमहि ।
याचितारश्च नः सन्तु मा च याचिष्म कंचन । । ७३.३० । ।

[May faith not depart from us, and may we have plenty to bestow on the poor.
29. They shall answer, 'Thus let it be.'
30. (The second half of the benediction shall be, as follows), "May we have plenty of food, and may we receive guests. May others come to beg of us, and may not we be obliged to beg of any one.']

Today September 25 2011 is 7th death anniversary of Arun Kolatkar (अरुण कोलटकर), arguably the greatest Marathi poet of 20th century.

(Read about Kolatkar's first death anniversary here.)

George Orwell:

I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.

JOHANN HARI while reviewing 'THREE FAMINES / Starvation and Politics' by Thomas Keneally for The New York Times Sept 16 2011 says:

"...though Keneally almost always gives us a God’s-eye view of the famines, rather than zooming in to provide us with the individual stories of the victims. It’s odd that he actually witnessed the Ethiopian famine of the late ’80s, but chooses not to provide any sense of what it looked or sounded or smelled like. It’s an unpleasant irony to say of a book about famine that it leaves you hungry for more, but this one does."

Wish George Orwell were there! The guy above all with an acute sense of smell. Sample this: "It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you should forget that they exist;..." ('The Road to Wigan Pier', 1937)

I recently finished reading his "Down and Out in Paris and London", 1933 for the first time.

Cathartic.

I realised how timid and cowardly I am to experience this world, to go out on a limb.

And sadly so are most writers and artists. (Or is that since they lack the expression, they avoid the experience?)

The book reminded me of Kolatkar's Marathi poem:

"मुंबईनं भिकेस लावलं
कल्याणला गुळ खाल्ला
ज्या गावाला नाव नव्हतं
पण एक धबधबा होता
तिथं एक ब्लँकेट विकलं
अन पोटभर पाणी प्यालो

पिंपळाची पानं चघळत
नाशकापर्यंत आलो
तिथं तुकाराम विकला
अन वर खिमापाव खाल्ला
जेव्हा आग्रारोड सोडला
तेव्हा एक चप्पल तुटलं...

...न मागता मिळालेली
कांदाभाकर खाऊन ऊठलो
ढुंगणाखालची हॅवरसॅक
उचलून पाठीवर घेतली
मग दोन मैल विचार केला
अन परतायचं ठरवलं"

['Arun Kolatkarchya Kavita' (अरुण कोलटकरच्या कविता), 1977/2003, Page:92]

[Translated into English by Kolatkar himself

‘The Turnaround’

Bombay made me a beggar.
Kalyan gave me a lump of jaggery to suck.
In a small village that had a waterfall
but no name
my blanket found a buyer
and I feasted on plain ordinary water.

I arrived in Nasik with
peepul leaves between my teeth.
There I sold my Tukaram
to buy some bread and mince...

(Now follows my effort)
and ate some bread and minced meat
when I left Agra-road
footwear broke
...

...
then got up after eating
unasked-for bread & onion
bore the haversack on the back
after pulling it from the bottom
then thought for two miles
and decided to return]

(I like almost all poems of Kolatkar but this probably is the best for me.)

Kolatkar's imagery is as vivid as that of Orwell. His experience as authentic. His expression as incisive.

'Orwell' keeps pawning his clothes in Paris to survive. 'Kolatkar' sells first his blanket, later his Tukaram and then he starts begging.

Orwell says towards the end of the book:

"The English are a conscience-ridden race, with a strong sense of the sinfulness of poverty."

On the other hand, begging had been an accepted way of life in India. There is no sinfulness in poverty and no shame in begging. The great Buddha advised his followers to beg for food during early part of the day to get fresh stuff!

Ram Jethmalani:

“India ’s beggary laws are a throwback to the centuries-old European vagrancy laws, which instead of addressing the socio-economic issues make the poor criminally responsible for their position.”

Orwell keeps referring to these draconian laws in his book.

Although the poem is great, I wish Kolatkar also wrote prose. Telling us about what he experienced and who he met in Mumbai.

For instance read Orwell's description of Bozo, an invalid tramp, a screever—that is, a pavement artist:

"Bozo limped slowly, with a queer crablike gait, half sideways, dragging his smashed foot behind him. He carried a stick in each hand and slung his box of colours over his shoulder. As we were crossing the bridge he stopped in one of the alcoves to rest. He fell silent for a minute or two, and to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the stars. He touched my arm and pointed to the sky with his stick.
‘Say, will you look at Aldebaran! Look at the colour. Like a—great blood orange!’
From the way he spoke he might have been an art critic in a picture gallery. I was astonished. I confessed that I did not know which Aldebaran was—indeed, I had never even noticed that the stars were of different colours. Bozo began to give me some elementary hints on astronomy, pointing out-the chief constellations. He seemed concerned at my ignorance. I said to him, surprised:
‘You seem to know a lot about stars.’
‘Not a great lot. I know a bit, though. I got two letters from the Astronomer Royal thanking me for writing about meteors. Now and again I go out at night and watch for meteors. The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes.’
‘What a good idea! I should never have thought of it.’
‘Well, you got to take an interest in something. It don’t follow that because a man’s on the road he can’t think of anything but tea-and-two-slices.’
‘But isn’t it very hard to take an interest in things—things like stars—living this life?’
‘Screeving, you mean? Not necessarily. It don’t need turn you into a bloody rabbit—that is, not if you set your mind to it.’
‘It seems to have that effect on most people.’
‘Of course. Look at Paddy—a tea-swilling old moocher, only fit to scrounge for fag-ends. That’s the way most of them go. I despise them. But you don’t NEED to get like that. If you’ve got any education, it don’t matter to you if you’re on the road for the rest of your life.’
‘Well, I’ve found just the contrary,’ I said. ‘It seems to me that when you take a man’s money away he’s fit for nothing from that moment.’
‘No, not necessarily. If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can still keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, ‘I’m a free man in HERE‘‘—he tapped his forehead—‘and you’re all right.’
Bozo talked further in the same strain, and I listened with attention. He seemed a very unusual screever, and he was, moreover, the first person I had heard maintain that poverty did not matter...

...He had managed to keep his brain intact and alert, and so nothing could make him succumb to poverty. He might be ragged and cold, or even starving, but so long as he could read, think, and watch for meteors, he was, as he said, free in his own mind.
He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man."

Artist: Stan Hunt, The New Yorker, 12 May 1962

Artist: Unknown, Location: Ajanta, Period: 200 BCE- 600 CE

At Miraj, this beautifully moving picture hung in our house framed on the front/door-facing wall of ground floor. I saw it a few times every day and was never tired of it. Thank you, Tata.

The Buddha had carefully avoided begging for food at his home, since this might have been seen as a continuing attachment to the world. Yashodhara sent a message complaining that in doing so he was depriving the members of his own household the opportunity to gain religious merit by feeding him--an opportunity that he was giving to everyone else. If he were really being impartial, she argued, he would visit their house as well, and thus give them too the opportunity to build their merit. The Buddha was persuaded by this argument, and came to receive alms from them. (Courtesy: carthage.edu)

M A K Pataudi- Prince of Cricket before it was Consumed by Commerce

2011-09-23T10:37:00.013+05:30

Rajan Bala:

"Tiger, without doubt, was the most striking figure in his time in Indian cricket. Also, he was one who thought far ahead of his times. And I learnt a lot that is valuable about men and matters from him, for which I shall always be grateful."

('All the Beautiful Boys', 1990)

John Parker:

“……It said a great deal for Smith that he did not allow the misfortune to throw him off balance. Bowling more carefully, he delivered the rest of the over to the order. Five balls went down, each of them swinging into the batsman. Three of them Troughton was able to leave alone, as they swung across his body and down the leg side, making Deacon leap and stretch to stop them from going for byes. True, Troughton played carefully, once going right up on his toes to bring the ball down on to the pitch in front of him with the straightest of the bats, dropping his wrists and slackening the fingers round the bat handle. The seventh, aimed straight at the middle stump had Troughton driving across the line trying to work it away to mid-wicket. It moved off the pitch again, but this time in the other direction, touching the outside edge of the bat as it went and winging its way chest high to Gauvinier at first slip- a straightforward, finger-tingling slip catch. He flung the ball high in delight- for himself, for Norman, for the ball, for the catch, for the score and for the sheer joy of cricket”

(“The Village Cricket Match”, 1977 from cricket anthology “The Joy of Cricket” Selected and Edited by John Bright-Holmes)

For a kid like me in 1960's, M A K Pataudi was as big as M S Dhoni today.

Film 'Aradhana' starring Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna was released on November 7, 1969 and became a huge hit. Its songs were chart toppers. One of them: 'rup tera mastana pyar mera deewana'.(रूप तेरा मस्ताना, प्यार मेरा दीवाना)

Before that India, led by Pataudi, had lost the Nagpur test match to New Zealand in October 1969. Chasing 277, India were bundled out in 109 in fourth innings.

It was a national calamity. There were rumours that our cricketers were too drunk to walk on cricket field on the last day of the match October 8. Another rumour was that Nawab of Pataudi jnr, India's captain, was too busy wooing Sharmila Tagore to concentrate on cricket. (He made 7 and 28 in the match.)

We angry kids sang a spoof of the 'Aradhana' song mentioned above making fun of his damaged eye. It was cruel.

It must have been lowest point in his cricketing career.

I did not read anything positive on Pataudi in Marathi press for a long time after that.

But he would bounce back soon. India beat strong Australian team in Delhi in Nov- December 1969. I still remember the day. I also remember the bulletin board at Miraj High School next day which displayed cuttings from many newspapers celebrating Indian victory. Pictures of G R Viswanath and Ajit Wadekar, two not-out batsmen at the crease, were prominent among them.

My joy knew no bounds.

Pataudi married Sharmila Tagore on December 27, 1969.

Thanks to the decisive vote of the chairman of selection committee the late Vijay Merchant, Ajit Wadekar was chosen as the captain of legendary Indian cricket team that toured West Indies, England in 1971 and beat them both.

Pataudi had pulled out of the tours saying:

"...If I had made more runs against Australia I could not have been touched. But I like Ajit, the new captain, he is a good lad and I wish him all the luck. He is a fine player too. I cannot go to the West Indies, even if I am asked to, because I am not in the good form. I do not want to be a liability to the team and to the new captain. My presence will put a strain on him."

There was no bitterness in Pataudi, not just about Wadekar, but also Merchant:

"No, I cannot think he had any motive when he voted against me. He must have been convinced that as a batsman I was not pulling my weight in the side and that is good enough to drop any player. It does not matter whether the player is the captain."

Indian government abolished privy purses, a payment made to the royal families of erstwhile princely states of British India, in 1971. Pataudi was thrashed in the Lok Sabha elections of 1971 when he contested it to protest the abolition.

Pataudi always played aggressive brand of cricket. His bowlers always bowled to get wickets. B S Bedi, E A S Prasanna often flighted deliveries- such a rare sight these days- inviting the best of the breed to try their luck driving them.

For him, cricket, until he stopped playing, was never commerce. (He of course made good money on cricket, including IPL, after he retired.)

Last time I saw him was on TV while giving away 'Pataudi Trophy 2011' to the English team on Aug 22 2011. He and his trophy were initially ignored by the English team. Sunil Gavaskar was almost in tears describing it. I wonder how Pataudi felt about it.

In all probability he was not as worked up as Mr. Gavaskar! Remember, he was original Mr. Cool.

Hemant Kenkre tells a story in The Asian Age Sept 24 2011:

"...His tactics to turn a lost cause around were on display at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata in 1974-75 when he connived with the spinners to beat Clive Lloyd’s mighty West Indies after being two down in the series.

Apart from Vishy’s brilliant 139 the match is known for the spells of Bishen Bedi and B.S. Chandrashekhar who put batsmen of the calibre of Roy Fredricks, Gordon Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharan, Vivian Richards and Lloyd on the back foot. While Bedi and Chandra were among the wickets, Tiger’s main weapon was Erapalli Prasanna who went wicketless bowling 25 overs for a measly 42 runs and put tremendous pressure on the world’s most attacking batsmen.

I was privileged to be present in Vishy’s hotel room immediately after the team had returned victorious with half a day to spare. Tiger walked in with his customary nonchalance, congratulated Vishy and declared Prasanna as the Man of the Match.

Having said that, he asked the players present in the room if they “wanted to go to the races”..."

I bet had we lost the match, Pataudi would have still asked "if they wanted to go to the races".

Life for him was much, much larger than cricket.

courtesy: Photo: S&G and Barratts/EMPICS Sport

Our Sharakka Joshi, Kittur Chennamma and their Kannada

2011-09-20T09:00:00.006+05:30

As a blue-blooded Western-Maharashtrian I know so little about Marathwada (मराठवाडा)- region that produced Dnyaneshwar (ज्ञानेश्वर), Eknath (एकनाथ) and where Ajanta Caves are located- and Vidarbha (विदर्भ), land of Bhavabhuti (भवभूति)!

It's like a Marathi saying "सिटीपोस्टा पलीकडे पुणे नाही आणि पुण्यापलीकडे महाराष्ट्र नाही!" (There is no Pune beyond City-post and no Maharashtra beyond Pune!).

However, I know a bit about many other parts of India and my most favourite region is North Karnataka, erstwhile 'Bombay Karnataka'.

And it is not just about some of the finest artistic talent of India it produced-Annasaheb Kirloskar, Bhimsen Joshi- I like his spoken Marathi as much as his singing, Kumar Gandharva, Gangubai Hangal, Mallikarjun Mansur, Basavaraj Rajaguru, Sawai Gandharva, G A Kulkarni, Setu Madhavrao Pagdi, Girish Karnad...or places like Badami and Gol Gumbaz...

For sure, it has a lot to do with Sharakka Joshi (शारक्का जोशी), our neighbour in Miraj (मिरज), who pampered us with excellent idlis, dosas, a kind of dadpe-pohe (दडपे-पोहे) and appe (अप्पे), mande (मांडे ) and kadabu (कडबू )...(I didn't much like her Chitranna though)... Not to mention their family's delightful Kannada-Marathi. (When I started reading Gurunath Abaji Kulkarni 'GA', I was already familiar with the format of his language because Sharakka's husband- Gurunath- used to speak the same!)

But probably deeper reason for my affection is well summed up by the late Shankarrao Kirloskar (शंकरराव किर्लोस्कर) writing a letter on his last days in Ghataprabha in Karnataka, away from Pune and Marathi:

"...लोकांचा स्वभाव आपल्याकडच्या पेक्षा सौम्य त्यामुळे मला अगदी घरच्या सारखे वाटते." (...people's nature is milder than our people's and hence I feel totally at home.)

['एक संपादक... / एक लेखिका...' संपादक:डॉ अंजली सोमण, 2009]

As a 13-year old, I was exposed to this 'mildness'.

I have already written about our family's trip in 1974 to North Karnataka here. As trains shut down, we were forced to take state transport buses. As expected the buses became overloaded. There sure was some pushing and shoving but the most common Kannada phrase we heard from our co-passengers was 'Swalp-sari' (स्वल्प-सरी) "move just a little". Almost poetic, like in Japan!

We learnt a few words of Kannada interacting with Sharakka's extended family. In 1981, I thought I was familiar with the language.

Later in the year at IIT Madras hostel 'Alaknanda', when I first heard a bunch of Karnataka guys conversing in Kannada, I was confident that I would get a sense of their topic of discussion.

I did not understand a word! Likely reason: They were from Mysore-Karnataka and were speaking in Mysore-Kannada.

Frontline (September 09, 2011) has published an interview with M.K. Raghavendra, film critic, researcher and author.

It made tragi-comic reading for me.

"...Old Mysore includes Bangalore, Mysore, Kolar, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Shimoga and Hassan but not parts like Bellary and Coorg. The subject matter of Kannada films and the heroes of Kannada popular cinema are always people who come from Old Mysore. It is not possible for a Kannada film hero to have a romance with someone from Raichur or Gulbarga...

...Look at a more recent super-hit film, Mungaru Male [2006]. I think the Kannada hero does not marry the Kodava heroine simply because Coorg is not part of Old Mysore. There were other reasons given in the film, but they were simply unconvincing. It's very similar to Aamir Khan not marrying the white heroine in Rang De Basanti [2006]. You cannot have a romance between somebody from the nation and someone from outside because the nation draws a line around itself.

Similarly, Kannada has to draw a line around the region which is of Old Mysore. Since it draws this line, someone from Coorg will be outside the nation...

...Linguistic reorganisation did not create language unity in the way it was anticipated. I think it is fairly evident in Andhra Pradesh as well when you discuss Telangana. This means that language identity is not as stable as it is made out to be. After all, why is a commercial industry obliged to enlarge the territory of the Kannada nation? But linguistic reorganisation did intend to do this. The demand for linguistic reorganisation did not come from Mysore but from other territories that lay outside Mysore.

Look at the political leaders in Karnataka. Most of them come from Old Mysore. And look at the state of development, north Karnataka is backward when compared with Old Mysore. Even a film like Schoolmaster (1958) – an early classic which challenged caste identity – could not enlarge the Kannada nation..."

Courtesy: THE HINDU ARCHIVES and The Frontline

This beautiful picture is of B. SAROJA DEVI as Kittur Chennamma.

Wiki informs: "Chennamma was born in Kakati, a small village in the wealthy kingdom of Kittur, which stood around 5 km north of Belgaum in Karnataka."

Chennamma, a great Indian whose statue stands at the Indian Parliament Complex in New Delhi, surely spoke North Karnataka dialect of Kannada, the one spoken by our Sharakka, her family and many of the fellow great Indians named in this post.

Most likely she knew some Marathi because she was married to Raja Mallasarja of the Desai marathas family that ruled Kittur which had large number of Marathi-speaking subjects and Kittur was part of Maratha empire for a while.

Rani Chennamma, Artist: unknown, Courtesy: Blog Journeys across Karnataka

So what language do we hear in the movie 'Kittur Chennamma', 1962?

According to M.K. Raghavendra: "...Old Mysore has usurped Kannada cinema, and there is no such pan-Kannada feeling if you look at Kannada cinema. I'll give you a couple of examples to argue my position. Look at Kittur Chennamma [1962], a film about Chennamma, a freedom fighter who led a rebellion against the British in 1824. She came from somewhere near Belgaum, but if you look at the film, you have Chennamma who speaks [the] Mysore [dialect of] Kannada but the treacherous ministers who betray her to the British speak Belgaum Kannada."

(Frontline, August 27-September 09, 2011)

(An anonymous reader of this blog has disputed this claim of Mr. Raghavendra in October 2011. Please read a comment below.)

I am sure Sharakka, 'ordinary' homemaker, watched the film. I wonder if she noticed this glaring contradiction, if there existed one.

And even if she did, I guess, she was too cultured, too tolerant to mention it. A blue-blooded North Kannadiga!

'The Sacred Cow' of B S Mardhekar Crashed 50 years ago this weekend

2011-09-17T13:10:00.007+05:30

Dag Hammarskjöld:

It is better for the UN to lose the support of the US because it is faithful to law and principles, than to survive as an agent whose activities are geared to political purposes never avowed or laid down by the major organs of the UN.

The New York Times Sept 16 2011 has the article 'Learning From Hammarskjold' by BRIAN URQUHART here.

"THE second secretary general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, died 50 years ago this weekend on a mission to the Congo, when his plane crashed on its landing approach to Ndola, now in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. In his eight years at the United Nations, he brought vitality to the world organization and established its secretary general as a major player in global affairs."

That unfortunate plane- "The Sacred Cow"- earlier used by American President Harry Truman, had featured in Marathi poet B S Mardhekar (बा. सी. मर्ढेकर)'s following poem before its demise in 1961:

सुखदुःखांचे गळे कापुनी
मळे पिकविले वर्षांनी तरि,
रवंथ काढी कुढ़या मनाची
जुनाच भाकड़-कडबा हा वरि.

कुड़ीकुड़ींतिल भाव लाळला;
आचळ धरिती पातळ आशा;
अधू मनाची दुडकी कुठवर-
जमेल तर ही जिथवर भाषा,

-अणि पांगल्या गाई जगभर
गोमुत्राने पावन अंबर!

I have translated these two lines as:

...And cows spread across the world
Cow’s urine sanctifying the sky!

Read my earlier post dated Oct 1 2007 on this here.

Mardhekar would not know this sacred cow's death because he had died in 1956.

Mardhekar was being sarcastic about American leadership in establishing San Francisco, international meeting that established the United Nations.

It's ironic that 'The Sacred Cow' was used in its final days by a guy who, some claim, brought vitality to the United Nations and established its secretary general as a major player in global affairs.

p.s. Was it an accident or murder? Read 'Who Killed Hammarskjöld?' here.

If Anant Pai features, can Vasant Sarwate be far behind?

2011-09-17T07:51:00.004+05:30

On Feb 3 2010, I asked on this blog: When will Google Feature Vasant Sarwate Doodle?

I think I was being realistic.

Today Sept 17 2011, Google doodle features Anant Pai on his 82nd birth anniversary.

Read my tribute to Pai-uncle dated Feb 25 2011 here.

Courtesy: Google Inc.

Gautam Rajadhyaksha, A Plastic Surgeon without a Scalpel!

2011-09-13T13:34:00.011+05:30

Henri Cartier-Bresson:

“The most difficult for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt”

For last few years, I kept seeing Gautam Rajadhyaksha (गौतम राजाध्यक्ष) quite regularly on TV.

I always thought many (not all) of his subjects went to him (or invited him) to appear more beautiful than they actually felt they were- he was a kind of 'plastic surgeon without a scalpel' for them - or to make a statement to the world that they had now 'arrived'.

They succeeded big time.

He praised most of his high profile subjects. But when Mr. Rajadhyaksha spoke about the late Nutan (नूतन), it was quite different.

I remember reading his statement that you don't require a 'camera angle' for a face like Nutan's. No 'surgery' required there. What praise! No one, I guess, described Nutan's beauty more poignantly than this.

I also remember him describing the shoot of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan together- when they were supposed to be warring- when all three of them had good fun together.

But looking at Mr. Rajadhyaksha's body of work at the time of his death, I am not sure if he did full justice to his talent.

I have not yet thrown away a few past issues of 'Filmfare' magazine because they feature Mr. Rajadhyaksha's work on his celebrity subjects. Most photo-portraits done by him are hagiographic. And there is not a single image that will haunt me for the rest of my life unlike a couple of images below. They are all glossies in the end. In and out.

"Camus's good looks and sex appeal, wearing a trench coat with upturned collar and the ever-present dangling cigarette"
Artist: Henri Cartier-Bresson

I always thought Mr. Rajadhyaksha's work was commerce first and then art.

I have already quoted Vasant Sarwate writing on Dinanath Dalal:

"...it can be deduced from his writings that despite huge popular and commercial success Dalal wasn't very happy internally...he wanted to pursue only classical art by giving up commercial art entirely...he couldn't quite do it but because of this burning desire his commercial art undoubtedly was touched by class...And it is a great fortune of Marathi literature and art."

Although we too feel fortunate to have enjoyed Mr. Rajadhyaksha's work, did he feel like Mr. Dalal?

Truman Capote once described Mr. Cartier-Bresson who was a big influence on Satyajit Ray as:

"dancing along the pavement like an agitated dragonfly, three Leicas swinging from straps around his neck, a fourth one hugged to his eye: click-click-click (the camera seems a part of his own body) clicking away with joyous intensity . . . "

Mr. Cartier-Bresson photographed artists, writers, politicians, actors, from Matisse and Picasso to Marilyn Monroe; John F Kennedy to Che Guevara; Sartre, Bellow and Pound. Yet many of his photographs have nothing to do with famous people or world events. His gift was to find in everyday situations – a child throwing a ball, a man jumping a puddle – serendipitous visual connections that came together to express something of the experience of being alive. (Liz Jobey, The Guardian)

Did Mr. Rajadhyaksha point his camera at "everyday situations"? Imagine him shooting teeming masses of Mumbai. Would he have left behind a treasure trove like the one by Mr. Cartier-Bresson?

Artist: Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art

Shanghai, 1948, shows people storming a bank for gold in the days before the Communist forces arrived.

And Slowly We Got Back to Hating Everyone after Second 9/11...

2011-09-11T09:00:00.016+05:30

John Gray:

"...the only genuine historical law is a law of irony."

Noam Chomsky:

“the first 9/11”: September 11, 1973, when the United States succeeded in its intensive efforts to overthrow the democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile with a military coup that placed General Pinochet’s ghastly regime in office. The dictatorship then installed the Chicago Boys—economists trained at the University of Chicago—to reshape Chile’s economy. Consider the economic destruction, the torture and kidnappings, and multiply the numbers killed by 25 to yield per capita equivalents, and you will see just how much more devastating the first 9/11 was.

Pankaj Mishra:

More than 30,000 people, nearly 10 times the number of those killed on 9/11, have died, and many centres of folk Islam destroyed, in terrorism-related attacks in Pakistan during the last decade of the war on terror. Yet Pakistan, a country with 170 million people, is little more than a shadowy battleground in the western imagination, a security and strategic imperative rather than an actual place with flesh-and-blood human beings and long histories.

AHMED RASHID:

"PERHAPS the greatest promise made after Sept. 11 by President George W. Bush and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, was that the West would no longer tolerate failed and failing states or extremism. Today there are more failed states than ever; Al Qaeda’s message has spread to Europe, Africa and the American mainland; and every religion and culture is producing its own extremists, whether in sympathy with Islamism or in reaction to it (witness the recent massacre in Norway)." (NYT, Sept 10 2011)

Like many other tragic events in my life, I vividly remember what I was doing when we saw first pictures of second 9/11 (of 2001) attacks on CNN.

First I thought it was an advertisement knowing Hollywood's penchant for disasters. It was surreal.

It kind of prepared us- TV viewers- for Mumbai attacks of 11/26.

TV was a big player in making 9/11 what it became.

And yet, on 9/11, there was no YouTube video, Facebook page, Twitter feed. Cellphone cameras did not exist.

Was it a good thing or bad?

DAVID FRIEND in WSJ on August 29 2011:

"In retrospect, one can only imagine how the assaults of 9/11 might have been absorbed and magnified in the age of the smartphone, WiFi and streaming video. How might the attacks have further traumatized us had the technology existed to allow real-time visualizations of the deaths of thousands of innocents? How differently might the international community have reacted—or might historians have judged the actions of al Qaeda—had workers, trapped inside the World Trade Center, used the cameras on their hand-held devices and computers to record scenes of atrocity and carnage, then beamed those photos and videos to their families?
Instead of a panoramic view of mass murder, witnessed from a distance, would we have seen individual lives extinguished one by one, and irrefutably, in the here and now? And to what end? How, one wonders, would we have handled such images, given the breadth of the horror and the unspeakable depth of the loss?"

This is very valid because even today it is eerie to watch reconstruction of events in a film like United 93. I get sick to my stomach thinking what if I were on that plane. Would I be an activist or just thinking alone about all those who gave me so much without expecting anything in return?

But life went on. Athough some of us didn't come across any weird jackets, we re-started laughing soon after 9/11.

Artist: Leo Cullum, The New Yorker, October 1 2001

(For more pictures of the late Mr. Cullum, visit http://www.cartoonbank.com/)

Bob Mankoff says about this picture:

"With the publication of Leo’s cartoon, our cartoonists could all exhale, catch their breaths, and try to do what they do best, make people laugh, not as a distraction from the times, but as a comic reframing to make them more tolerable."

Not much after Sept 11 2001, however, I knew this would not change anything very significantly. As always many people and businesses profited from this tragedy.

Woody Allen said it best:

"As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11 - it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral - not important. History is the same thing over and over again”

Frank Rich of The New York Times went even further:

"...We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, “the day that changed everything,” was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.

Indeed, if we go back to late 2001, the most revealing news story may have been unfolding not in New York but Houston — the site of the Enron scandal. That energy company convinced financial titans, the press and countless investors that it was a business deity. It did so even though very few of its worshipers knew what its business was. Enron is the template for the decade of successful ruses that followed, Tiger’s included...."

And soon we were back to normal- hating everyone.

Artist: Bruce Eric Kaplan, The New Yorker, November 12 2001

(For more pictures of Mr. Kaplan, visit http://www.cartoonbank.com/)

Now twin towers are gone but we have towers of books on 9/11.

Courtesy: The Spectator, UK, Artist: ?????

Robert Mankoff of The New Yorker brought tears to my eyes in Sept 2011 while answering "Is there one image or scene that evokes that day (9/11) for you?":

"When I couldn’t get into the city, I went to see my mother in Queens. She was very old and very sick and dying, drifting between sleep and a drugged wakefulness. She had no idea what had happened. I turned the TV on and the buildings just kept falling over and over again. I explained how the towers had been destroyed, and this is what she said: “Thank God no one got hurt.” Ah, as if."

We may continue to avoid those buildings that "just keep falling over and over again" but when James Thurber observed that we couldn't escape "the inevitable doom that waits in the skies", he did not mean enormous, fuel-laden, crashing jumbo jets of 9/11!

Celebrating Birthdays to make the City Uglier

2011-09-07T09:00:00.003+05:30

The Times of India, September 5 2011, Pune edition, Front page:

"Garbage has been piling up around the city for some time now and the situation has only aggravated during the ongoing Ganesh festival..."

There are many ugly aspects of urban Pune.

The ugliest of course is overflowing and stinking large garbage heaps located on the main streets of Pune suburbs.

The second most ugliest is: banners erected to observe birthdays of local leaders.

Birthday celebration still remains an alien concept to me. In my childhood, birthday was such a personal and quiet affair. Only Lord Rama's, Lord Krishna's and King Shivaji's birth anniversaries were celebrated with festivity.

I wonder who the first Indian leader- other than former princely rulers- or celebrity was to celebrate his/her birthday under public glare. Didn't they feel shy?

Courtesy: Pudhari (पुढारी), April 14 2011

Why do Maharashtra's Cartoonists Spare their Targets? Naji al-Ali, Ali Farzat...

2011-09-03T09:00:00.002+05:30

Monica Osborne:

Germans may not have been aware of every aspect of Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews and eliminate political dissenters, but they had an acute understanding of the diabolical nature of his vision, and instead of acting against it they sometimes laughed about it.

(review of 'Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany' by Rudolph Herzog)

I often feel that activists (and international celebrities) like Arundhati Roy are lucky when it comes to freedom of expression in India because the Indian state makes sure that they are not touched by anyone. They also are financially secure if not wealthy by Indian standards.

But when it comes to common man, he has to constantly look over his shoulder to write or say something that may ruffle feathers of fundamentalists of all hue in Maharashtra.

I am sure a few of Maharashtra's cartoonists feel the same way. They would have taken on these forces if they felt secured. The mock would have run amok. They would have drawn their targets panzers...err pants down.

On July 26 2009, I wrote about legendary Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali here who was shot dead on August 29, 1987.

Now The New York Times reports "Political Cartoonist Whose Work Skewered Assad Is Brutally Beaten in Syria":

"BEIRUT, Lebanon — Masked gunmen severely beat Syria’s best-known political cartoonist on Thursday, breaking his hand and leaving him to bleed on the side of a road in Damascus, activists said.

The attack came days after the artist, Ali Farzat, published a cartoon showing President Bashar al-Assad hitching a ride out of town with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, who was toppled from power this week..." (August 26, 2011)

The Guardian had rightly asked in July 2002:

"Favoured by Syria's new president (President Bashar al-Assad), Ali Farzat, leading cartoonist and popular newspaper publisher, seemed to have a licence to mock. Can it last?"

In India, many political and social activists have been attacked or even killed but luckily for cartoonists they seem to have been spared so far. Also, as said earlier, cartoonists too play safe.

I had not seen the work of Mr. Farzat. I saw it on Guardian's website.

The pictures are absolutely wonderful. Even those which I don't fully understand.

See one of them below.

On tele, 'Mushy Love in the time of Torture'? Look at the right foot and the right hand of the captive. They lie severed on the ground!

Absolutely gut-wrenching. Brings home the power of the cartoon as a medium.

Artist: Ali Farzat

From 'Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany' by Rudolph Herzog:

Jokes told by German Jews-

How many types of Jews are there? Two: optimists and pessimists. All the pessimists are in exile, and the optimists are in concentration camps.

The Gestapo is about to shoot some Jews when the commanding officer walks up to one of them and growls, “You almost look Aryan, so I’ll give you a chance. I wear a glass eye, but it’s not easy to tell. If you can guess which eye it is, I’ll let you go.” Immediately, the Jew answered, “The left one!” “How did you know?” asks the Gestapo commander. “It looks so human.”

Monica Osborne:

The Holocaust is a tale, among other things, of the most staggering breakdowns of ethical responsibility. Neighbors turned on neighbors, and people closed their eyes to atrocities committed on a daily basis—evil was everyday and commonplace, an idea that is critical to Herzog’s premise, which is that the jokes told in Nazi Germany by ordinary citizens reveal the extent to which they were also responsible for the terrors committed by Nazis on behalf of the state. Herzog is accurate in his assessment that when we laugh at Hitler, we “dismiss the metaphysical, demonic capabilities accorded to him by postwar apologists” and others who would have us believe that Hitler’s capacity for evil was not human. Laughing at Hitler might have been a way back to ethical responsibility, because inherent in the laugh is an acknowledgment of just how frightening the human capacity for evil can be.

गंगाराम चिंतामण तांबट: The Hidden Marathi Artist In A British Archive

2011-08-31T09:00:00.008+05:30

ROBERTA SMITH:

Art historians rarely rest, and the world is generally a better place for their exertions. Scholars of the great painting traditions of India, for example, have taken knowledge of their subject to new levels in the past few decades, with their assiduous combing of documents, deciphering of inscriptions and scrutinizing of artworks.

Their immediate aim has been to name the names of Indian artists and identify their creations, pinning down as never before who did what, where and when. Their motive has been to dispel the long-held view, especially in the West, that these often small, transcendent works were made by unlauded artisans toiling away in monasteries and imperial workshops. (Putting Names to the Greats of Indian Art, Sept 29 2011)

On September 23 2007, I wrote "Perhaps Beautiful but Surely A Fraud: Thomas Daniell’s Painting of Peshwa Court."

I wish to revisit that post.

D G Godse (द ग गोडसे) informs us that Sir Charles Warre Malet, British ambassador to Peshwa's Pune court, has praised Gangaram Chintaman Navgire-Tambat's (गंगाराम चिंतामण नवगिरे-तांबट) work and some of Gangaram’s work apparently is still preserved in Malet’s estate.

['Ek Darbar Chitra ani Charitra' (एक दरबारचित्र आणि चरित्र) included in his book ‘Samande Talash’,1981 (समंदे तलाश)]

Tambat's work is preserved alright but NOT in Malet's estate anymore.

Tambat must be first Marathi artist (painter) whose work has been clearly attributed to him. We must thank 'wily' Sir Malet- who was one of the architects of eventual demise of the Maratha empire at the hands of the British- for this.

Yale University has organised a seminar "Gangaram Chintaman Tambat: The Hidden Indian Artist in a British Archive" on October 12, 2011 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM Speaker/Performer: Holly Shaffer.

It's an opening lecture for the exhibition "Adapting the Eye." Visit image sheet of the exhibition here.

"...Adapting the Eye explores the complex and multifaceted networks of British and Indian professional and amateur artists, patrons, and scholars in British India in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and their drive to create and organize knowledge for both aesthetic and political purposes...

...A pivotal figure in this rich cultural interchange was the highly accomplished Indian draftsman and sculptor Gangaram Tambat, who drew on both indigenous and European artistic conventions; his remarkable hybrid drawings are juxtaposed with works by British artists, including William Hodges, William and Thomas Daniell, Robert Mabon, and James Wales."

I wish to reproduce two pictures of Mr. Navgire-Tambat courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon collection. These drawings on paper were commissioned by Malet and the British artist James Wales.

How many better drawn Rhinos have you seen? Me none.

(A Rhinoceros in the Peshwa’s Menagerie at Poona, Nov. 1790, 1790, watercolor and gouache, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.)

If you have been to an old-style gyms - तालीम or व्यायामशाळा in Maharashtra, I am sure you know how good this is.

(Three Jeyties Exercising, ca. 1792, watercolor and black ink on paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.)

There are two more drawings of Mr. Tambat in the image sheet:

1> View of Parbati, the Hill near Poona occupied by the Temples at which the Peshwa frequently Worships, 1795, watercolor and graphite with pen and brown ink on paper.

Luckily for us we can still recognise Parvati in this drawing. But for how long?

2> The Temple at Ekvera, ca. 1793, grey washes, watercolor and chalk on six joined sheets of paper.

This is a wonderful drawing, inviting me to the temple one more time, to come and observe it closely, with the help of Mr. Tambat's eyes.

This is all great but the question that bothers me is: When will Pune university hold the exhibition of Pune's own son Gangaram Chintaman Tambat?

When Indian People would like a word with their Members of Parliament...

2011-08-29T09:00:00.008+05:30

Indian lawmakers keep talking about people... how they are their sole representatives etc.

Well, Indian people decided to meet them in Delhi in August 2011.

Brilliant J B Handelsman, creator of UK Punch's 'Freaky Fables', about whom I have already written, in January 2010, here has captured that moment...Talk of prescience of cartooonists.

Focus your attention on the senator's face...is he scared?

Artist:(the late) J B Handelsman (1922-2007), The New Yorker, October 19 1998

का अण्णा हवासा पण अक्का 'नकोशी'? Why desire Anna but Akka 'Nakoshi'?

2011-08-27T09:00:00.001+05:30

Raina Lipsitz:

Today, we don't make movies about women that are even worth fighting about. Whenever I'm dispirited by the crassly sexist ethos that governs Hollywood (as well as television, politics, and the corporate world) today, I think of "Thelma and Louise" and remember a time, not so long ago, when women were allowed to be human, if only in the movies.

Both words Anna and Akka have entered Marathi lexicon from her elder sisters - Dravidian languages- Tamil, Kannada, Telugu.

1> My mother (1937-2006) a person with a very liberal outlook in most social matters was really pleased, even proud, when my sister, my brother and I all had a male child as first born.

2> My wife pointed out to me long time ago that many middle-class couples she knew, majority of them Brahmin, living in India, had only one child if it was male and two children if their first child was a female!

(By the way my sister, my brother and I continue to have only one child!)

On the front page of The Times of India August 24 2011, following two news items of appeared:

1> "Parents rush to name their newborn after Anna: Anna’s magic has given birth to a new trend in Madhya Pradesh. At least 22 newborn children born in MP’s Damoh district between August 16 to 22 have been named after the Gandhian campaigner in one district alone..."

2> "GENDER BIAS:
In fact, ‘Nakoshi’, or a similar-meaning ‘Nakusa’, are the names of as many as 222 girls aged up to 16 as identified by the district health administration in the villages of Satara. The department, which is continuing with its task of identifying such girls, has begun the process of renaming them...

,,,“Most of these girls were the second or third girl child in the family, when all their parents were hankering after was a boy,” said Satara district health officer Bhagwan Pawar. “What’s more, most of the parents seem to have no qualms about having named these girls ‘Nakoshi’ or ‘Nakusa’, saying the names only expressed what they felt when the child was born.”
Speaking to TOI, the mother of a girl named ‘Nakoshi’ said: “We longed for a male child. When our fifth child also turned out to be a girl, we named her Nakoshi,” she said nonchalantly...

,,, As per the provisional figures of the 2011 census, Maharashtra’s child sex ratio declined to 883 in 2011 from 913 in 2001 — a sharp fall of 30 points. The child sex ratio in Satara district is 881"

I wish Anna were a lady with a name 'Akka' (अक्का). Maybe people would have named their Nakoshi as Akka.

Learning from Sant Janabai & Simone Weil: Restoring Dignity to Menial Labour

2011-08-24T09:00:00.004+05:30

Today Aug 24 2011 is 68th death anniversary of Simone Weil.

I had to know who Ms Weil was when I read her this quote some time ago: “All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.”- reminiscent of कालमूलमिदं सर्व भावाभावौ सुखासुखे॥ (महाभारत १/१/२४७) [Mahabharat 1/1/247: Living and death, happiness and sadness all originate in time.]

Simone Weil, pictured above, believed that the only antidote available to the sickness of the modern world caused by up-rootedness is a social order grounded in physical labour. Read a memorable essay by Peter Foges here.

Great Bhakti poet Janabai (c 13/14th century), a Dalit, worked all her life as a maid, doing all kind of menial work.

I don't know if Janabai would agree with Ms. Weil or not but she used to unite with her Lord Vitthal while doing her work and not while praying. In fact, she felt it was her Vitthal who was doing all her work.

This is what Janabai said:

झाडलोट करी जनी । केर भरी चक्रपाणी ॥१॥
पाटी घेऊनियां शिरीं । नेऊनियां टाकी दुरी ॥२॥
ऐसा भक्तिसी भुलला । नीच कामें करुं लागला ॥३॥
जनी ह्मणे विठोबाला । काय उतराई होऊं तुला ॥४॥

[When Jani swept the floor, her Lord (Chakrapani) gathered up the dirt.
Carried the basket over his head, to dump it in the distance.
infatuated by the devotion, started doing lowly work.
Jani says to (Lord) Vithoba, how do I thank you enough.]

"दळिता कांडिता । तुज गाईन अनंता ॥१॥
न विसंबे क्षणभरी । तुझे नाम ग मुरारी ॥२॥
नित्य हाचि कारभार । मुखी हरि निरंतर ॥३॥
मायबाप बंधुबहिणी । तू बा सखा चक्रपाणी ॥४॥
लक्ष लागले चरणासी । म्हणे नामयाची दासी ॥५॥"

(As I mill and pound the grain । I sing your name the Infinite ॥1॥
I don't pause even for a moment । as I chant your name Murari ॥2॥
I make this my daily task । Hari on my tongue incessantly ॥3॥
You are mother-father brother-sister । you are my friend Chakrapani ॥4॥
My attention is focused on your feet । says the maidservant of Namdev ॥5॥)

"Weil herself was preternaturally a worker by brain, not by hand. Small, myopic, physically awkward and weak, it is difficult to think of anyone less suited to toil in a factory, workshop or field."

We don't know about physical qualities of Janabai. Maybe even she too was "small, myopic, physically awkward and weak". But that didn't stop her from embracing her daily backbreaking routine as a kind of communion with her god.

"Weils's uncompromising attitudes, disheveled physical appearance, monotonous voice and lack of almost all conventional social grace did her few favors, but she eventually managed to find employment in a steel plant, an experience that proved physically, emotionally and spiritually shattering. It seared her like a branding iron."

For Janabai, my guess is, such an experience would have been "physically, emotionally shattering" but not "spiritually".

“What a factory ought to be” Weil wrote to a friend, “is a place where one makes hard painful but joyous contact with real life. Not the gloomy place it is.”

I don't know if Janabai has called her workplace "gloomy". And even if she had felt it to be gloomy, she would have called upon Vitthal to help her as she does here:

'' सुंदर माझे जाते गे । फिरे ते बहु टेके गे।
ओव्या गाऊ कौतुके । तू ये रे बा विठ्ठला ।।
जीवशीव दोन्ही खुंटे । प्रपंचाचे नेटे गे।
लावुनि पाची बोटे गे। तू ये रे बा विठ्ठला।।''

(My lovely grindstone, how sweetly it spins
as I sing your praise, Come to me, Vitthala

Twin poles of World and Spirit, are the smooth wooden handles
my five fingers grasp by turns, Come to me, Vitthala)

"At the same time the spiritual Simone was becoming increasingly mystical and Christian —she drew close to the Catholic Church in her later years, but resisted the final baptismal step. This led her to crave release from academia and the abstract life of the mind and lose herself in obedience. Like early medieval mystics, Saint Teresa of Avila or Saint John of the Cross, she prayed that her individuality be obliterated by the necessities of toil, that her intelligence might be extinguished through punishing physical fatigue. At times she turned for solace and inspiration to the Bhagavad-Gita and other sacred Hindu texts. (Did she read Janabai?) These notions—anathema to left-wing French intellectuals then and now—became her vocation. Like Leo Tolstoy, she saw a connection between physical fatigue and spirituality, and hoped, however foolishly, to have a religious experience on the factory floor. “Physical work” she wrote in her best known book Gravity and Grace, “makes us experience in the most exhausting manner, the phenomenon of finality.” Workers, she wrote, “need poetry more than bread, and religion alone can be the source of it.”

Perhaps the purest expression of Weil’s mystical notion of the sanctity of physical labor comes at the end of her essay “La Condition Ouvrière,” published, as were most of her writings, long after her death. “If man’s vocation is to achieve pure joy through suffering, manual workers are better placed than all others to accomplish it in the truest way.”..."

Peter Foges says Weil "hoped, however foolishly, to have a religious experience on the factory floor".

I don't think it was foolish at all. Going by Janabai's experience, Weil was on the right track.
Artist: Lee Lorenz, The New Yorker, October 30 1971

Was Mahatma a Pioneer in the Art of Media Manipulation?

2011-08-23T09:00:00.002+05:30

Pankaj Mishra:

"Gandhi’s greatest contribution to the arsenal of political activism, however, is his theory and practice of bringing together great masses of highly motivated and disciplined protesters in public spaces. Here his spiritual beliefs were crucial: the assumption, in particular, that, regardless of the regime people lived under—democracy or dictatorship, capitalist or socialist—they always possessed a freedom of conscience, an inner capacity to make moral choices in everyday life. As his mass campaigns often proved, and the recent Arab uprisings have affirmed, such strongly self-aware individuals acting cooperatively in the spotlight of the world media could come to wield an astonishing amount of moral authority—the “authentic, enduring power” of people that, as Hannah Arendt wrote in her analysis of the Prague Spring of 1968, a repressive regime or government could neither create nor suppress through the use of terror, and before which it must eventually surrender."

(May 2 2011, The New Yorker)

Some people say Anna Hazare is a product of Indian electronic media...they say he manipulates media or media manipulate him... Or both.

As Pankaj Mishra argues, 'the spotlight of the world media' was central to Mahatma's activism. And so is to Anna Hazare's.

Before I go to media aspect, let me discuss Mr. Mishra's 'disciplined protesters in public spaces'.

Joseph Lelyveld writing on Quit India movement of 1942:

"...Gandhi's last campaign hadn't achieved anything like his standard of nonviolent discipline...By the end of the year, nearly one thousand persons had been killed in clashes with the police...Indian nonviolence had always been imperfect, "limited in both numbers and quality," he coolly told American correspondent- that is, in the availability of trained satyagrahis who could be relied on to make the requisite self-sacrifice- but "it has infused life into the people which was absent before." He isn't threatening or justifying violence, but assuming for the moment the position of a detached observer, a realist, he seems to be suggesting that this time it couldn't be ruled out. This Gandhi sounds like the pre-Mahatma of 1913 who warned the South African authorities he might lose control of his movement."

('Great Soul Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India', 2011, page 287)

Now to media.

Lelyveld on Gandhi's days in Noakhali 1946:

"...A pioneer in the art of press manipulation, Gandhi insisted the journalists file not on the words that had actually come out of his mouth but on versions he "authorized" after his own sometimes heavy editing of the transcripts..." (ibid, page 298)

On this blog, I have written about P L Deshpande's (पु ल देशपांडे) very poular play 'Tujhe Ahe Tujapashi', 1957 (तुझें आहे तुजपाशीं). There is a character of Acharya facing off with character of Kakaji.

Acharya in the play pauses to say something 'profound' so that his followers get a chance to take out their notebooks and pencils to note it down. He even repeats it for their convenience!

I was told that Acharya was not a caricature of Gandhiji but some of Gandhi's followers.

I am not so sure after reading Lelyveld.

Rereading Vasant Sarwate at Ramlila Maidan in August 2011

2011-08-22T08:17:00.008+05:30

Indian government until August 22 2011 to the supporters of The Jan Lokpal Bill and middle-class people in general...

caption:

मी लोकशाहीचा कट्टा पुरस्कर्ता आहे. मग त्यासाठी सर्वच्या सर्व जनतेविरुद्ध लढा द्यावा लागला, तरी बेहत्तर, मी माझी भूमिका जरासुद्धा बदलणार नाही, सांगून ठेवतो!..."

(I am an ardent supporter of democracy. And for that if I have to fight the entire populace, I could not care less, I will not change my stance even one bit, I am telling you!...")

Artist: Vasant Sarwate first published in 1969, (वसंत सरवटे)

[courtesy: 'Reshalekhak Vasant Sarwate' (रेषालेखक वसंत सरवटे) edited by Dileep Majgaonkar / Madhukar Dharmapurikar (दिलीप माजगावकर / मधुकर धर्मापुरीकर ), 2009]

This was published in one of the best Marathi periodicals- despite its soft(?) Hindutva bent- of all time - 'Manoos' (माणूस).

Political cartoons of Sarwate that were published in Manoos from 1969-1972 tell us more about Indian democracy as practised in Maharashtra than any history book. Particularly see his cartoon on hunting expedition of the then chief minister Vasantrao Naik (वसंतराव नाईक).

This collection proves how in the field of political cartoons Sarwate is equal to the likes of Abu Abraham and R K Laxman. And if you add the rest of his repertoire to it, he is better than both.

We at Miraj used to get Manoos for a long time by post. I used to pounce on it. I still remember many things from it- Sadanand Borse's (सदानंद बोरसे) reviews of films for instance. My father and my brother both were handsome contributors to its contents over a number of years.

Like almost all good Marathi periodicals, it died long time ago...

What if Anna Hazare were to be an Army Deserter

2011-08-21T08:42:00.004+05:30

K.N. PANIKKAR:

"Indian democracy has evolved an institutional structure on the basis of the principles and prescriptions laid down in the Constitution. But there is a wide gulf between precept and practice. Democracy as practised by the state and society is far removed from the ideal form of democracy in which equalities – political, cultural and economic – are continuously negotiated. The gulf between the concept and practice may not be fully bridged ever, but it could be reduced through continuous public reasoning and dialogue. Amartya Sen has argued that the availability of a most perfect institutional structure need not necessarily ensure the success of democracy. The success would largely depend upon the intervention of human agency for using the available opportunities.

What democracy does in India is only a caricature of what democracy really is."

(Frontline, Aug. 13-26, 2011)

The Times of India, August 21 2011:

"...The RTI reply from Dakshin ASC records (South) dated August 3 puts the record straight that Anna "never deserted" the Army, and that he was "honourably" discharged from the armed forces on completion of the 12 years of his service..."

What if he deserted army? What has it to do with the movement he has started now? Is deserting army a mistake? And even if it is, did not Mahatma Gandhi constantly make mistakes if not blunders and tried to learn from them?

According to Wiki:

"During the First World War, Bertrand Russell was one of a very small number of intellectuals engaged in pacifist activities, and, in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act. A later conviction resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison. Russell was released from prison in September 1918."

Adam Hochschild has written a book 'To End All Wars: How the First World War Divided Britain' on these 'pacifist activities'.

Maurice Walsh:

"...Hochschild's book is not another lament for a lost generation, a mere backward look at the folly and waste of war. He sets out to restore to this story those who at the time proclaimed the fighting to be madness, in the face of mass conformity moulded by one of the greatest propaganda campaigns in history...".

Adam Hochschild:

"...during this greatest crisis of his generation, loved his country deeply but believed from the very first moments that the war was an appalling mistake.

Part of Russell’s intellectual bravery lay in his willingness to confront that last set of conflicting loyalties. He described himself poignantly in the autumn of 1914 as being “tortured by patriotism. . . . I desired the defeat of Germany as ardently as any retired colonel. Love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion I possess, and in appearing to set it aside at such a moment, I was making a very difficult renunciation.” What left him even more anguished was realizing that “anticipation of carnage was delightful to something like ninety per cent of the population. . . . As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled me. As a man of thwarted parental feeling, the massacre of the young wrung my heart.” Over the four years to come, he never yielded in his belief that “this war is trivial, for all its vastness. No great principle is at stake, no great human purpose is involved on either side. . . . The English and French say they are fighting in defence of democracy, but they do not wish their words to be heard in Petrograd or Calcutta.”..."

Artist: Alan Dunn, The New Yorker, June 11 1966

If we don't put our democracy in order, we will hear even erstwhile law-abiding citizens saying: I don't obey the law even if I do agree with it.

Can Anna Hazare be compared to Mahatma Gandhi? How clean a smell he manages to leave behind!

2011-08-20T09:00:00.009+05:30

A favourite repost of Anna Hazare's detractors is - He is no Gandhi. (Someone writes he is not a patch on Jayaprakash Narayan.)

Maybe he is not. But are they so sure?

I have now read most of Joseph Lelyveld's 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India', 2011.

And the overwhelming feeling I constantly got while reading the book: how human Gandhi was. Hardly a saint for sure if I compare him to the saints I know Kabir, Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Namdev...He was a politician and social activist.

Was Gandhi successful in what he set out to achieve in personal and public life?

It's hard to judge his personal life. Although reading the section of Lelyveld's book on his 'experiments in brahmacharya' (pages 303-308), I feel his personal life was tormented.

And public life?

Mahatma Gandhi: "India has still to attain social, moral and economic independence in terms of its 700,000 villages as distinguished from its cities."

Lelyveld: "...India has now been free and independent for about four months. And the leading shaper of that independence unsettled and despairing...No single catastrophe served as catalyst for his decision to start seventeenth and final fast on January 13 (1948). In the days running up to the fast, he'd been forcefully struck by several indications that matters were on a downward slide. First he received a detailed account of rampant corruption at all levels of the newly empowered Congress movement in the Andhra region of southeastern India...Announcing the fast at his prayer meeting on January 12, the Mahatma mentioned the insecurity of Muslim and the Congress's corruption..." (page 337-338)

Andrew Roberts: "...of the four great campaigns of Gandhi's life—for Hindu-Muslim unity, against importing British textiles, for ending Untouchability and for getting the British off the subcontinent—only the last succeeded, and that simply because the near-bankrupt British led by the anti-imperialist Clement Attlee desperately wanted to leave India anyhow after a debilitating world war."

Why do I then like a billion others still admire Gandhi? Why do I hang my head in shame that his killer was a Maharashtrian Brahmin like me?

George Orwell:

“One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind! “

(This essay of George Orwell, Peter Davison speculates, could have been influenced by Balraj Sahni who worked with Gandhiji in 1938 and with Orwell at the BBC. Orwell brought Mr. Sahni and his future wife, Damyanti, together.

From 'George Orwell, A Life in Letters', 2010)

Anna Hazare too is a politician and social activist and so far he has managed to leave behind only clean smell!

Artist: Mischa Richter, The New Yorker, Apr 23 1960

Marathi Anna Hazare's Hindi: Let us march against Corruption

2011-08-18T08:07:00.009+05:30

David Ogilvy:

When Aeschines spoke, they said, “How well he speaks.” But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, “Let us march against Philip.”..."

In 1991, there were three candidates in fray to become the 9th Prime Minister of India: P. V. Narasimha Rao, Sharad Pawar, and Madhavrao Scindia.

I remember 'India Today' quoting a Congress source saying that the best Marathi speaking among them would become the Prime Minister! (All three of them spoke fluent Marathi.)

Mr. Rao won the race.

Just for the record: the late Mr. Rao has translated Marathi classic H N Apte's (ह. ना. आपटे) 'Pan Lakshat Kon Gheto' (पण लक्षात कोण घेतो) into Telugu.

People admire Anna Hazare for various things. I admire him first for speaking Hindi so effectively. The last Marathi person speaking Hindi so effectively on national stage was probably the late Pramod Mahajan.

This is not unprecedented. Read 'exploits' of another 'simpleton' Marathi, Saint Namdev (CE 1270-1350), who has been hailed by Vinoba Bhave as the first great classical writer in Hindi ('पहिला अभिजात उत्तम लेखक') here.

I wonder how effective Hindi B G Tilak and Dr B R Ambedkar, two of the most popular Marathi speaking national leaders, spoke.

The other day Mr. Hazare said: "the Prime Minister is just echoing Kapil Sibbal" in Hindi something like this: "प्राइम मिनिस्टर कपिल सिब्बल की री ओढ़ रहे है." Oh, it was so delightful!

Sharad Yadav once said in Lok Sabha that the President of India Pratibha Patil should have made her address in Hindi instead of English.

His rationale: Not some jingoism but "When Marathi people speak Hindi, it is so sweet." (My son says Mr. Yadav won't say this if he hears my Hindi!)

Read Shivaji-maharaj's likely expertise of Farsi language here. Had he got the opportunity to speak at the court of Mughal, would he have moved them with his command of Persian?

On this blog, I have already quoted Ramachandra Guha reviewing "The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity" by Amartya Sen for 'The Economic and Political Weekly':

"...All works of history must necessarily be selective; still, reading Sen’s book, a younger reader may come away thinking that, apart from the splendid aberration of Rabindranath Tagore, there were no Indian intellectuals or arguers between the age of Akbar and the age of Hindutva.

I wonder – is Sen’s neglect of what I have called the proximate argumentative tradition linked somewhat to the characteristic insularity of the Bengali intellectual? The typical “bhadralok” scholar travels a straight line between Kolkata and some point to the west: this might be London or, by way of variation, Paris or Moscow or Havana or New York.

But his interest in other parts of India is pretty nearly non-existent. In this respect his Bengali cosmopolitanism is also a Bengali parochialism.

Thus one member of the species has written that “Bengal was the site of the most profound response to the colonial encounter”, and that the province’s capital city, Calcutta, “was the crucible of Indian nationalist politics, and the home…of modern Indian liberal consciousness itself”.

Writing from neutral Bangalore, I would instead award the honour to the state of Maharashtra (as is now is).

Consider a few names: Ranade, Gokhale, Phule, Agarkar, Ambedkar.

Now consider a few more: Tarabai Shinde, V R Shinde, D D Karve, Shahu Maharaj.

If one sees “liberal consciousness” as being composed of individual rights, caste reform, and gender equality, then I think the contributions of these Marathi-speakers rate rather higher than those of their (admittedly more loquacious) Bengali counterparts..."

An 'ordinary' Marathi person, like many of the names quoted above, is once again likely to make it big on the national stage. He has begun well. He has proven that language is no barrier. Whether he succeeds or not, we shall find out in good time.

Would M N Srinivas be a happy man today?

2011-08-17T08:47:00.008+05:30

T. J. Jackson Lears in "Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920" (2009):

"A great deal of waste, fraud and corruption went into the making of the modern American economy.”

George Santayana

"...of course there is no probability that a reaction against material progress should set in in the near future, since as yet the tide of commercialism and population continues everywhere to rise; but does any thoughtful man suppose that these tendencies will be eternal and that the present experiment in civilisation is the last the world will see?

If social democracy, however, refused to diminish labour and wealth and proposed rather to accelerate material progress and keep every furnace at full blast, it would come face to face with a serious problem. By whom would the product be enjoyed? By those who created it? What sort of pleasures, arts, and sciences would those grimy workmen have time and energy for after a day of hot and unremitting exertion?"

I am thoroughly incompetent to judge a lot of that goes on around me in the world of politics. But I try to follow wise people who I think were/are saner.

M N Srinivas (1916–1999), one of the greatest social scientists India produced:

"To recapitulate, in-discussing changing values in India today my approach has been that of an empirically-minded sociologist. But I am also a citizen, and an individual with my own preferences, values, if you like.

On the institutional side, I think that people's movements are essential to set right the many ills that infest the body social of which body politic is a vital part. People's movements are indispensable to lessen corruption in Indian public life, to see that development plans do not destroy the environment, to ensure gender equality, to promote decentralisation of power, and to combat growing consumerism. People's movements are needed particularly to teach elected representatives that real power in a democracy rests with the people, and that errant, corrupt or perverse governments will not be tolerated.

The tendency to autocracy is so deep at the state and lower levels that periodical elections are not enough to curb autocracy. People's movements might provide the necessary curb but they need time to be built up given the fact that the electorate is poor, uneducated and local leaders are bribable. Perhaps institutions
such as recall may be necessary to make leaders more responsive to public opinion..."

(first published Economic and Political Weekly, May 8 1993- Now part of 'Social Change in Modern India', Orient Black Swan, 2010)

On a lighter note: When I heard that Anna Hazare had refused to leave Tihar jail on August 16 2011, I was reminded of this very funny cartoon which has already appeared on this blog here.

Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, April 6 1963