Harold Robbins, Henry Miller-All They Talk is Sex, Sex, Sex

Andrew Wilson has written a book on Harold Robbins “The Man Who Invented Sex” reviewed by TOM CARSON for NYT October 21, 2007.

“…If you’ve ever wondered just when quality literature and commercial fiction parted ways for good with a shudder, call him Harold Rubicon… The real pity is that, stamina aside, Robbins was talentless, and he made his preferred subject matter radioactive for more gifted novelists for a number of years…”

I have read just one book of Robbins-“ A Stone for Danny Fisher” but I have read a lot more of Henry Miller, whose writing became a cult.

Khushwant Singh pretends that he is obsessed with sex and may like the title-"Man Who Invented Sex"-for his future obit, in his favourite Outlook magazine. But it’s just a put-on. His writing is always sensuous but never pornographic.

In the end, for me Miller and Robbins will be remembered only for titillation.

Graham Greene: “…All the same pornography has no place in a serious book…It’s not the posture of people in bed which reveals their characters. You don’t advance the story by giving details of their favourite positions. You merely attract the reader’s attention towards very trivial points.

People who read Henry Miller, for example, expect to come upon this or that pornographic scene. It is not the characters that interest them but their own arousal. So they read on even more quickly, hoping to come across the next pornographic passage…I’ve nothing against pornographic books as such, but don’t let us call them literature.” (“The Other Man- Conversations with Graham Greene” by Marie-Francoise Allain, 1981)


Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker 12 June 1948

After Getting Shot Through Eye, Buddha Still Smiles

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN (NYT October 13, 2007) commenting on attempts to destroy famous art says:

“…Thanks to its historic authority, the aura of Picasso’s “Guernica” has become like a bubble or halo that psychologically separates it from the gazing mobs, never mind that there’s no longer a glass wall. Standing before it, you can almost imagine that it has, historically speaking, passed beyond harm — that to attack it now would only make the picture a martyr, that it’s indestructible…”

Destruction of art always brings to my mind felling of the Bamyan Buddhas.

I have never been to Afghanistan but have often imagined what the sight must have been in Bamyan valley on a glorious winter morning few centuries ago. Perhaps a lot like Gomateshwara of Shravanabelgola, Karnataka who seems to be staring at us all the time, as you drive towards or away from him or even much later. He is here, there and every where.

Times of India wrote a great editorial on March 5, 2001 on the Taliban act.

“The Buddha would have been amused at the headlines describing the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statue by the Taliban. The Buddha cannot be blasted nor can he be bombarded. To mistake the likeness of the Buddha made by human hands and not to take part in a communion with the essence of the Buddha is to miss the message of impermanence, non-spirit and suffering of the Mighty Intellect.

The artist who visualised the Bamiyan Buddha would have first invoked, as per tradition, the moods of friendliness, compassion, sympathy and impartiality. He would not be driven by considerations of self-expression nor ideas of connoisseurship and aestheticism. The state of mind and the importance of the idea itself was all important.

All these virtues are sadly amiss in the hearts and minds of those who are breaking ancient monuments in Afghanistan as well as those who seem to be protesting about such vandalism.

In the Divyavadana, Upagupta asks Mara, who has the power of assuming shapes at will, to take the likeness of the Buddha. Upagupta bows in reverence to this figure, which shocks Mara. Upagupta says that he is not worshipping Mara but the person represented by Mara:"Just as people venerating earthen images of the undying angels do not revere the clay as such, but the immortals represented therein."

The least that can be said about the events in Afghanistan is that these are the triumph of the slave mentality, the main characteristic of which is the spirit of revenge. The ideal typical slave is incapable of forgetting, unable to love, admire or respect. Such individuals constantly impute wrong to others and perpetually blame the whole world for real and imagined wrongs. They cannot give or create.

In other words, there are Taliban-like organisations, individuals and symptoms within India which are as intolerant and brutal as their counterparts in Afghanistan. The sangh parivar for long has represented and actively promoted this negative strand in Indian society. Acharya Giriraj Kishore's reaction to the happenings in Afghanistan is indicative of the cult of hatred and mindless recriminations that the sangh parivar has promoted. Where were these self-righteous guardians of Indian heritage when the Babri Masjid was destroyed? If the statues in Bamiyan are `our' heritage, then so is the Babri Masjid. Instead, the Taliban and the sangh parivar have sought to divide the world into `us' and `them', between `friend' and `foe'. What is common to both is a very literal interpretation of Islam and Hinduism, without remotely understanding the essence of either faith.

Also, the sad state of our museums and monuments suggests that our concern for heritage is extremely superficial. What the Taliban has done in a couple of days is being systematically done slowly and steadily for the past fifty years…”


A fresco of Buddha defaced by a bullet at a temple in central Tibet

Some Times It’s Good to Hush Up During Fall

Fall season started in US on September 23.

Falls there are very beautiful. I particularly found the one of Washington DC, on the banks of Potomac, very haunting.

Celebrated spy Kim Philby says in his autobiography “My Silent War” (1968): “…The sumac was still in flower and gave me a foretaste of the famous fall, one of the few glories of America which Americans have never exaggerated because exaggeration is impossible”

In India Shishir Ritu will start on December 22 this year.

In introduction to B S Mardhekar’s first poetry book “शिशिरागम” ("Shishir's Arrival", first published by the poet at his own cost! Now part of collection -Mardhekar's Poems), S B Ranade says:

“झाङाने टाकले, हिमतुषारांनी गोंजारले, गारांनी झोङपले अणि उत्तरवार्यानें गिरक्या खात उन्हातान्हांत सोडले. आता पुन्हा तोच उत्तरवारा त्या पानांचे शुष्क सांगाडे एकत्र करीत करीत तेथे आला अणि म्हणाला- “

Mardhekar(बा. सी. मर्ढेकर) himself says in opening poem:

सूरकशाचे वातावरणी?
सळसळ पानांची? वा झरणी
खळखळ, ओहोटीचे पाणी?
किलबिल शिशिरी केविलवाणी?

कुणास ठाउक! डोळ्या पाणी
व्यर्थ आणतां; नच गार्हाणी
अर्थ; हासुनी वाचा सजणी.
भास! -- जरी हो खुपल्यावाणी.

and little later

शिशिरर्तुच्या पुनरागमे,
एकेक पान गळावया
कां लागतां मज येतसे
न कळे उगाच रडावया.



(click on the picture above to get its larger view)

Pune Roads, What a Silly Place to Walk?

Times of India on October 15, 2007 reports “Oldies walking on danger path”.

This blog first visited vulture culture of Pune motorists here.

I have been to many cities of India and the world but I have never met people as rude as motorists in Pune.

When I first went to Mumbai and attempted crossing the road at Opera House, I was overwhelmed but not scared. Cars were helping me cross and not trying to crush me to asphaltic death.

At Pune even on small roads, I feel scared as drivers seem to be rushing towards me. They follow me if I run. They seem to enjoy my panic. They make me sick.

Few years ago an old woman grabbed my hand at Deccan Gymkhana to ask my help to cross the road.

I see no hope for Pune’s old and poor unless some drastic measure are undertaken. Today the only way to beat Pune motorist is to become one!

TOI’s Gitesh Shelke reports :
“…These three accidents are not isolated cases as the city continues to register an increasing number of accidents involving senior citizens, ranging from minor injuries to fatal.

Statistics available with the city traffic police revealed that in the year 2005 as many as 24 senior citizens were killed, 19 were seriously injured and 61 sustained minor injuries in various accidents. The number of fatal accidents increased to 32 in 2006. This year so far 18 serious accidents has been registered while 61 minor accidents were reported.

This year, as many as 14 senior citizens were killed on the road, 12 sustained serious injuries while 46 sustained minor injuries in various road accidents by the end of June.

Suresh Bhoomkar, assistant commissioner of police (ACP, traffic), said that fatalities involving senior citizens usually take place while either crossing the roads or driving two/four-wheelers or while travelling in public or private vehicles.

However, records showed that majority of the citizens have been killed while crossing or walking on the roads. Sangramsinh Nishandar, ACP, traffic, pointed out that motorists, especially two-wheeler riders were insensitive towards the elderly…”

When Pune motorists watch a pedestrian crossing, they say “What a Silly Place to Walk”.


Artist: Anatol Kovarsky The New Yorker 10 May 1947

Females are always cheaper. Even on Durgashtami.

Times of India’s Kounteya Sinha reported on October 12, 2007:
“…Over 40% of women in a nationwide survey reported being beaten by their husbands at some point of time. More shockingly, around 54% of the women surveyed thought that such violence was justified on one ground or the other.

According to India’s most comprehensive National Family Health Survey-III, which interviewed 1.25 lakh women in 28 states and the national capital during 2005-06, 41% of women justified wife beating if it was because they showed disrespect towards their in-laws while 35% women were OK with being brutally assaulted by their husbands if they neglected household chores or their children.

Not surprisingly then, 51% of the 75,000 men interviewed didn’t find anything wrong with assaulting their wives. “

Older the civilization, more the hypocrisy? I feel so as we celebrate Durgashtami today.


Artist: Perry Barlow The New Yorker 5 June 1948

Lost in Translation: Shivaji, Tolstoy and Hemingway.

Newsweek October 15, 2007 reports that two new English translations of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace “ are being published.

Malcolm Jones says: “Over its lifetime, the book has become a yardstick for quality—and sometimes just a yardstick. "As long as 'War and Peace' ..." is a comparison understood even by people who have never cracked its covers”.

“War and Peace” is arguably the greatest novel ever written.

Sane-guruji has spoken at length about enriching Marathi by getting world’s best in it through translation. He himself translated a few great books into Marathi (See at the bottom of this post selection of his translation work). But Marathi has remained quite poor when you count the number of great books it still doesn’t have.

I bought “War and Peace” (translator not named, Jainco Publishers, New Delhi) in July 2007, cracked its covers alright but never went beyond page two! I remember writer Sunita Deshpande सुनीता देशपांडे writing to another writer G A Kulkarni जी ए कुलकर्णी in a letter that she finished reading it. It sounded more like a relief than a celebration! I think G A himself never read it! His tastes in literature were often arcane.

Translators of two versions are now fighting over quality of their translation. One says: "… all the previous translations left things out and got things wrong.”
Translation is quite a tricky art.

Vilas Sarang has written at length how poorly P L Deshpande translated Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” into Marathi. Pu La should have known better as he himself, quite delightfully, has spoken about difficulties of translating many words and concepts from Marathi into English.

The best example of importance of quality of translation has come from D G Godse द ग गोडसे. He wrote an essay “...For me, (my) land’s defence (is) self-essential” (....इं कसरा मुहफिजते वतन ख़ुद लाज़िम) now part of his book “Shakti Saushthav” (Popular Prakashan 1972).

The essay is about a famous letter in Farsi sent by Shivaji (scribe-Nil Prabhu Munshi) to Aurangzeb circa 1664-65.

Godse proves how badly it has been translated by number of historians like Jadunath Sarkar, Riyasatkar Sardesai, Babasaheb Purandare. They have failed us. They deprived us of a great thing of beauty. The letter has such literary qualities that it needed great sensitivity and deep knowledge of Farsi to be translated. Some Farsi experts even claim that Shivaji has quoted few lines from old Farsi poetry, most likely from Shahnama.

With the help of Farsi experts, Godse then attempts a translation of the letter from Farsi into Marathi.

When I read it, my respect for Shivaji went up several notches. He indeed is a worthy successor of Ashok and Akbar.

Loss was entirely mine that the letter was not taught to me in my school. It’s my poverty that I still don’t read Farsi. How can I even attempt to fully appreciate the work of Shivaji unless every historian shows sensitivity of Godse?


Artist: Barney Tobey The New Yorker 20 Apr 1963

(Newspaper strike in US began on Dec 8, 1962 and lasted for 114 days. Obviously people like me cannot finish "War and Peace" in those many days!)

Selection of Sane-guruji's translation work: Meek Heritage,The Mayor of Casterbridge, Leo Tolstoy: Resurrection, The Black Tulip, Les Miserables, The Cloister and the Hearth,Tolstoy-What Is Art?, The Story of Philosophy

Charming Saxophone of Pandit Coltrane and Manohari Singh

From October 14, 2007 onwards, Manohari Singh, number one Saxophonist in the world of Hindi film music, has been speaking to Vividh Bharati on his art.

I remember vividly posters of Dev Anand’s Guide displayed all over Miraj circa 1965. It was exhibited at Deval talkies. I wanted to watch the film. My father flatly refused. Quite rightly so because Guide has nothing to offer to a five/six year old boy!

But why did I want to watch it? Its songs, particularly “Gata Rahe Mera Dil”. Manohari Singh has famously played sax in it.I guess I started liking Jazz instruments because of artists like Singh

You can hear Manohari’s sax when you listen to many famous songs like – “Bedardi Balma Tujh Ko” (Arju), unforgettable “Zindagi Bhar Nahin Bhoolegi Woh Barsat Ki Rat” (Barsat Ki Rat), “Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai” (Kati Patang), “Tere Mere Sapne Ab Ek Rang” (Guide), “Hai duniya usiki, zamaana usika” (Kashmir Ki Kali) etc.

Led by C Ramchandra and R D Burman, some great Jazz-inspired music has been created in Hindi film industry.

This was not unprecedented. Great Tyagaraja composed a raga after listening to western band at the Thanjavur Maratha court of 18th Century. (Source- RGK of Times of India)

Then one day in 1984, I heard John Coltrane’s album “Blue Train” at Rhythm House, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.

In December 2002, I wrote on Amazon.com about the experience:
“I bought this album in Mumbai, India way back in 1984. I had then not heard much about Coltrane. I was and still not into any form of western music. But I like Indian classical Music. And Coltrane moved me beyond my wildest imagination. Even today when I hear "I'm old fashioned", tears come to my eyes. For me,he is Pandit Coltrane!”

The Economist (Sep 8 2006) said:” Ask any fan or critic to nominate the most influential jazz figures of the past 50 years and two names will invariably come up: John Coltrane, saxophonist extraordinary, and Miles Davis, trumpeter…

Coltrane was a man on a mission. During his time with Davis, he confronted and defeated his addictive demons, a victory he attributed to “a spiritual awakening” that prompted a lifelong commitment “to play music that would make people happy”. Not just make them happy, in fact, but elevate them to another plane. For Coltrane, music became more than mere entertainment. It was also the means by which he pursued an ecstatic personal quest, every time he played.

His spiritual hunger was matched by exhaustive practice. He sometimes literally fell asleep with his horn in his hands, and his knowledge of harmony, scales and modes was encyclopedic.”

Snake charmer below is supposed to be using PUNGI for the job. Pungi is nothing but a double clarinet with the difference being the mouthpieces of the Indian instrument is concealed in a large gourd.

Surely Coltrane’s sax would work the charm!

Artist: Otto Soglow The New Yorker 28 Oct 1939

We’re in Luck. Here’s one Who Loves India and Speaks Hindustani.

Acquiring and dishing out perspective on an alien country is extremely difficult and time consuming. Many Chinese, Arabs and Europeans did it before the dawn of 20th century but since then it hasn’t been easy.

This blog has already expressed gratitude towards masters like Paul Theroux, J K Galbraith, William Dalrymple and to large extent V S Naipaul for their perspective on India and Indians.

Today I wish to add Phillips Talbot to the list. A G Noorani, golden hand at Frontline, has introduced him to me and my world is much richer for this.

“…There was nothing inevitable about Partition. On January 10, 1940, Talbot wrote: “The Muslim League and the Congress are pulling in opposite directions, leaving the British to keep the peace. And the League’s solution for the impasse? To carve India up into a Hindu country and a Muslim country, or at least into two federations within the gossamer net of a confederation. The trouble is that the Muslims themselves – to say nothing of other interests – haven’t yet agreed on any scheme which makes partition practical.” Jinnah’s letter to the London weekly Time and Tide (January 19, 1940) spoke of “two nations who both must share the governance of their common motherland” so that “India may take its place amongst the great nations of the world” (emphasis added throughout.) That implies not partition but power-sharing in a united India which, despite his two-nation theory, he wished to rank among the “great nations of the world”…

Communal elements in the Congress needed no help from the League. Nehru noted in his Autobiography in 1936 that “many a Congressman was a communalist under his nationalist garb” (page 136). That included men who came to wield power at the Centre and in the States. Patel, Pant, Sampurnanand and Tandon, Ravi Shankar Shukla, B.C. Roy and Morarji Desai besides others. Rajaji provided a sterling exception until his death.

India is undergoing a Hinduistic resurgence. A political generation dominated by the Pakistan issue has stimulated what I suppose may be the most vigorous wave of sheer Hinduism since Buddhism was ejected from India. To take one small example: despite high-level statements of impartiality, the United Provinces has adopted Hindi, the Sanskrit derivative closely associated with Hinduism, as its official language instead of the mixed Hindustani of Sanskritic-Persian origins which Muslims prefer and which Gandhi recommended. Muslims in various Indian provinces are drastically on the defensive; many Hindus act as if they had entered the promised land. (An equal but opposite condition exists in Pakistan.) Politically the Congress remains the dominant organisation in India, and one-party rule seems indicated so long as the present veteran leadership keeps its grip. The Congress retains some of its old conglomerate character, but Hinduistic and bloated financial interests are extremely influential despite Nehru’s resistance.

One of the most dangerous features of continued controversy between India and Pakistan is the prospect that communal organisations of fascist character may thrive on the disputes .

Corruption in public life is gross. Large-scale bribery and refusal to pay income tax are phenomena of the final war years of the British period when contracts and the operation of various controls involved millions of rupees. This is an economic factor that the new government has inherited. Important members of the Congress as well as businessmen are involved.

Generally speaking, Indians’ nerves are raw. Every issue tends to produce a crisis. An oversensitive nationalistic spirit is visible. Public irresponsibility surges ahead of government action. Again, a similar condition exists in Pakistan. Neither Dominion government, therefore, is able to guarantee implementation of its promises to the other.

To think of India as a starving, bankrupt, primitive and uncivilised country seems to me to be as narrow as to speak of America as a country only of ironclad Darktowns, Lower East Side New Yorks, and Near West Side Chicagos. The other side of the medal is that India is living up to her brilliant intellectual heritage. She has been called the mother of philosophy, and the debt of her children in other lands has been put by Max Muller in words marked more by fervour than moderation. But the important point today is that the attainment of a world point of view is a serious subject of thought and discussion in India among circles whose counterparts in America ordinarily quibble over the relative merits of Cubs and Giants. Economists working with or separately from British economists have developed an approach to national problems which is sound, progressive and forward-looking. Literature in Bengali, Urdu and other languages includes modern works that authorities who judge by world standards call significant; certainly Tagore and Iqbal could hardly be called provincial figures. In science too the country is holding up her head, pointing among her sons to three Nobel Prize winners and to a challenge to Einsteinism, which I do not pretend to understand, that has been accepted by academies of at least three countries. India has contributed professors to Oxford and American universities, editors to London publishers, religious leaders to the world. But those are her bright individuals. Among the less select circle of ordinary educated people there is breadth of culture that is sometimes missed by outsiders because it is not all in English. Few in our country know Greek and Aramaic as some of these people know Arabic and others Sanskrit. Few can recite Latin poetry with the delight that these people find in Persian couplets and the Ramayana. But even more general than that, the conversational level among educated Indians is high. Their interests are broad and their tongues usually adept at expression. They are cultured.”

This last point is after my heart: “breadth of culture that is sometimes missed by outsiders because it is not all in English”. It’s missed even by the insiders these days because they are not paying enough attention to the knowledge available in native languages of India.

My placard in the picture below would read- Yankee, Come Back soon!

Artist: Mischa Richter The New Yorker 13 Aug 1960

Why Aren’t There UFO’s Over Urban India?

I was shocked and saddened to read in Times of India September 9, 2007: “Today's hot fad: Rewind to your previous lives”

“Scared of flying? Maybe you died in an aircrash 300 years ago. Can’t perform in bed? You might have suffered abuse in a previous birth. In a country where the concept of reincarnation is as old as life itself, it isn’t surprising that past life regression therapy (PLRT) has become the hottest treatment for upwardly mobile Indians demanding answers to all their life’s problems…”

On reading Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World”, brilliant egotist Richard Dawkins exclaimed:”I wish I had written the book”.

Yes, I wish Dawkins wrote his books more like Sagan.

I acquired the book in 2003, six years after its publication. I have since then read it almost every week. No one writes better prose in English than Sagan. He is George Orwell of science writing.

Sagan says: “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. “

But he is not just skeptical.

“Both skepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education."

This book should be a text in our schools from grade five onwards. Newspapers should serialize the book and once finished, they should start all over again!

I wonder why those millions of upwardly mobile Indians who are taken in by pseudo-science (rebirth, astrology, godmen etc. etc.) and superstition don’t sight UFO’s. If world’s ‘greatest democracy’ has hundreds of UFO sightings every year, why shouldn’t world’s ‘largest democracy’ have matching numbers?

Is it because of dense air pollution in urban India?

Artist: James Thurber The New Yorker 11 Sept 1948

Girls, Now Who Is Going To Read Me Sherlock Holmes Tonight?

Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत ‘pardoned’ Indira Gandhi- against whose tyranny she fought tooth and nail- because lndira composed a passable poem on Henry David Thoreau! (source- Pratibha Ranade's excellent biography of Durga Bhagwat)

Similarly, I tend to pardon the British Empire somewhat because it gave us Sherlock Holmes. So many stories of Holmes have India in them. Portrayed rather lovingly.

I read Sherlock Holmes in Marathi first and fell in love with this eccentric genius. Later in early 1980’s when I saw Jeremy Brett playing Holmes on TV, I started imitating him! My wife says I still do, eccentric part of it!

Two new books on Arthur Conan Doyle are recently released (September 2007).

The Economist says: “…The Sherlock Holmes stories continue to exercise extraordinary power. The writing is never more than efficient but the setting remains perennial: the comfortable, carpeted, fire-lit Baker Street sitting room shared by Holmes and Watson, the paradoxically womblike world of a Victorian bachelor set above an anarchic underworld full of violence and immorality. Doyle's literary masterstroke was dividing the story between Holmes and Watson. It was a device the writer used frequently but never as effectively as here…”

Quite shockingly FT says:”… But please note: Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson”, P.G. Wodehouse did. “

And The Spectator says: “…Why were the Holmes books so popular that the last autocratic Sultan of Turkey, a man with a thousand concubines, used to have them read aloud to him in translation in what spare time was left? …What did they have that a thousand women above the Bosphorus could not supply? I read this book through without getting an answer.”

Now when you see the picture below, don’t read speech balloon given by Carl Rose first but instead read title of this blog-post.

Artist: Carl Rose The New Yorker 4 Dec 1948