Without this Fag there was Almost No Marathi cinema

On March 23, 2008, I watched Mel Brook’s “To Be or Not To Be” (1983).

While watching James Haake as Sasha, I remembered brilliance of Ganpat Patil गणपत पाटील.

Next day Mr. Patil came visiting, on the front page of morning newspaper. He passed way on March 23, 2008 at Kolhapur कोल्हापूर.

Master Vinayak मास्टर विनायक onwards, Marathi cinema has given India some of the finest comic actors. Mr. Patil was one of the very best. He was a unique gift to Marathi cinema because Hindi cinema never had such a talented fag.

Ganpat Patil turned some of the most mundane scenes into the most hilarious ones by a gesture here and a dialogue there.

Leading men of Marathi cinema must be petrified by Mr. Patil's on-screen ability to make fun of any of them with so little effort.

I always envied his easy access to leading ladies of Marathi cinema. On screen, he slept next to them or slipped under the pallu of their sari without making anyone feel awkward! I thought it was all very sexy without being vulgar.

Mel Brooks says in “To Be or Not To Be”: “Without Jews, fags, and gypsies, there is no theater.”

Although in real life he was no fag, without Ganpat Patil it was as if there was no Marathi cinema.


(Picture courtesy- Pudhari पुढारी March 24, 2008)

I wish Painting is All Winston Churchill Did

The Asian Age March 21, 2008 reported:

“UK kids say Churchill was 1st man on moon!:
…Nearly three quarters of children between 4 to 10 years cannot even identify the moon in the night sky, let alone any stars or planets…(and say) Sir Winston Churchill, the UK Prime Minister during the second world war, was the first man to walk on the moon…”

I don’t see Churchill on moon but surely see him in hell.

Amartya Sen wrote in Economic & Political Weekly February 16-22, 2008:

“…Winston Churchill’s famous remark that the Bengal famine of 1943 was caused by the tendency of people there to breed like rabbits belongs to this general tradition of blaming the colonial victim. This had a profound effect in crucially delaying famine relief in that disastrous and easily preventable famine. The demands of cultural nationalism merge well with the asymmetry of power and can have quite devastating effects…”

(India was hardly alone. Sample cruelty of Britain towards Ireland:

"Charles Edward Trevelyan, the head of the treasury in London during the famines, who had a huge role in the making of public policy in Ireland, even took the liberty of speculating: “There is scarcely a woman of the peasant class in the West of Ireland whose culinary art exceeds the boiling of a potato”. There, it seems, we see the birth of a putatively great explanation of a famine – people starved because the Irish peasant woman could not cook beyond boiling a potato!"

It is estimated that between 500,000 and 1.5 million people died as a result of the famine.

"The famines of the 1840s also changed the nature of Ireland in a decisive way. It led to a level of emigration – even under the most terrible conditions of voyage – that has hardly been seen anywhere else in the world. The Irish population even today is very substantially smaller than it was more than 160 years ago, in 1845, when the famine began.")

Although Churchill once said: “One of our great aims is the delivery on German towns of the largest possible quantity of bombs per night”, he still had some concern left for Germans as exemplified in para below.

“…Even Churchill came to regret the extent of the bombing, in March 1945 writing to the RAF’s head saying that ”the terror bombing must stop” and remonstrating over the destruction of Dresden…”

But for Indians, he only had scorn. “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

Considering that he also said: ”I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.”, Bengalis should be considered lucky that they were killed by famine and not by Agent Yellow!

I really wish Churchill indeed did only paintings….


Artist: Charles E. Martin 6 February 1954

Not Just Graffiti but Reality?

Unless this is a prank, this picture would make most people numb.

Outlook March 24, 2008 “Saving Vidarbha”



Banner written in Marathi reads “With houses, cattle and entire fields, this village is for sale” at Dorli village in Wardha, Maharashtra

How Democracies Can Elect Hitler and Defeat Mahatma Phule महात्मा फुले

Indians are proud of their democracy. They feel it facilitates social mobility in a caste ridden society and is the least flawed of all forms of governance.

I agree with this assessment.

Ian Kershaw wrote on February 3, 2008:

“How democracy produced a monster: Could something like it happen again? That is invariably the first question that comes to mind when recalling that Hitler was given power in Germany 75 years ago last week.

With the world now facing such great instability, the question seems more obvious than ever.

Hitler came to power in a democracy with a highly liberal constitution, and in part by using democratic freedoms to undermine and then destroy democracy itself…

…These distant events still have echoes today. In Europe, in the wake of increased immigration, most countries have experienced some revival of neo-fascist movements. Not so long ago, Serbian nationalism, inflamed by President Slobodan Milosevic, set off war and ethnic cleansing within the Continent…”

Marathi daily Pudhari पुढारी reported on March 19, 2008:

“125 years ago on March 19, 1883, two of the greatest Indians ever, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule महात्मा ज्योतिबा फुले (1827-1890) and Gopal Hari Deshmukh aka Lokhitwadi गोपाळ हरी देशमुख लोकहितवादी (1823-1892)- were trounced by conservatives in local elections.

In Vetal Peth वेताळ पेठ, Phule got zero votes and in Bhavai Peth भवानी पेठ he got just two votes, including his own vote. Keeping him company, in Shukravar Peth शुक्रवार पेठ, Lokhitwadi got zero votes.”

Pudhari claimed that today Phule would surely get elected because his agenda of social reforms is now universally accepted etc. (Btw- No such claim was made on behalf of Lokhitwadi.)

In deeply divided on caste lines of today's Maharashtra, I am not sure about Phule's electoral prospects but Lokhitwadi would surely be defeated in year 2008!


Artist: Frank Modell The New Yorker 12 January 1957

Tragedy and Comedy are NOT two Different Planets but Windows

Inspired by Anton Chekhov, Israeli author Amos Oz told Newsweek March 3, 2008:

"...I no longer believe that tragedy and comedy are two different planets. They are just two different windows from which we can view the same landscape of our lives..."

Never to know one's mother must be the only tragedy greater than never to know one's father.

G A Kulkarni जी ए कुलकर्णी wrote in 1977:
"
तीर्थरूप आबांस,
डोळे उघडून उठून बसत मी तुम्हाला नीट
पाहण्यापूर्वीच तुमची पावले उंबऱ्याबाहेर
पडली होती."

(Respected Father,
Before I opened eyes while sitting up to have a good look at you, your feet had crossed the threshold)

This moved me but I what liked more was…

Mel Brooks:

“I can’t tell you what sadness, what pain it is to me never to have known my father…If only I could look at him, touch his face, see if he had eyebrows!”


Artist: Dana Fradon The New Yorker 1 May 1965

Earth’s Love Song of Kusumagraj कुसुमाग्रज Is Prophetic

On March 11, 2008, DENNIS OVERBYE wrote for NYT “Kissing the Earth Goodbye in About 7.59 Billion Years.”

“If nature is left to its own devices, about 7.59 billion years from now Earth will be dragged from its orbit by an engorged red Sun and spiral to a rapid vaporous death…

… Earth’s basic problem is that the Sun will gradually get larger and more luminous as it goes through life, according to widely held theories of stellar evolution. In its first 4.5 billion years, according to the models, the Sun has already grown about 40 percent brighter.

Over the coming eons, life on Earth will become muggier and more uncomfortable and finally impossible...

… About a billion years from now, the Sun will be 10 percent brighter. Oceans on Earth will boil away. The Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel in its core about 5.5 billion years from now and start burning hydrogen in the surrounding layers. As a result, the core will shrink and the outer layers will rapidly expand as the Sun transforms itself into a red giant…

… As a result, the red giant version of the Sun — at its maximum — will be 256 times as big across as the star is today and 2,730 times as luminous…”

This article brought to my mind a Marathi poem.

V V Shirwadkar वि वा शिरवाडकर aka Kusumagraj कुसुमाग्रज wrote पृथ्वीचे प्रेमगीत “Earth’s Love Song” in the first half of 20th century ( विशाखा Vishakha 1942).

I had this poem to study in school (9th standard?). I liked it on the first reading.

I remember a little embarrassment of our Marathi teacher (Mr. Ligade?) reading out to the whole class carnal desires of mother earth!

One of its stanza reads as follows:

गमे की तुझ्या रुद्र रूपात जावे
मिळोनी गळा घालुनीया गळा
तुझ्या लाल ओठांतली आग प्यावी.
मिठीने तुझ्या तीव्र व्हाव्या कळा.

(“Feel like in your fierce beauty
I should merge by necking
Drink fire of your red lips.
Should feel acute pain by your embrace. “)

This is no more poet's fantasy. We think this all will happen!

The robots or cockroaches or whoever that is running the Earth in a billion years will know.


Artist: Charles Addams The New Yorker 25 July 1983

All You Hear is Hema Malini. It’s as though Manorama Never Lived.

Hindi film actor Manorama died: reported The Times of India February 17, 2008.

In sad circumstances. Alone. Apparently she had no house to stay before it was arranged. No one knows her only daughter’s whereabouts.

This is almost a pattern when it comes to Hindi film personalities, particularly character actors, of yesteryears.

She gave us so much of pleasure.

Other day I watched tearjerker Dus Lakh (1966) for a while. It has a scene when Manorama walks over to the table where Pran and Om Prakash are sitting. Moving her arched thumb towards Om Prakash, she asks Pran: “Who is this joker?”

I couldn’t stop laughing for a while.

1972 was a golden year for her.

Block buster, “Seeta Aur Geeta” is the most popular movie in our household largely because of Manorama. And “Bombay To Goa” where Manorama stood her ground admirably is arguably the greatest gathering of comic actors in Hindi film history.

Sorry Manorama, we were not grateful enough and life –not you- is a bitch anyway. Make lots of faces at us.



Artist: Alain The New Yorker 20 January 1934

Pune Bikers, Get Life Expectancy Dial Installed!

The Times of India front page headline on March 7, 2008:

“Death lurks on city roads. 418 killed in 2007. Fatalities high on highway stretches.”

Pune for sure is still not as bad as Kolkata of yesteryears or Bangaluru (Bangalore) of today. But it may get there.

These days I get most scared by 'wrong-side' traffic. Those who are driving on wrong side, drive at their usual speed and honk vigorously! When I give them semi-amused look, they look quizzed.

Meanwhile, here is a suggestion captured well in following picture...(I wonder how we calibrate those dials for Pune.)


Artist: Robert Thompson, The Spectator

Dreams of India Must Remain Open-Defecation-Free and Hunger-Free

Marathi daily Sakal सकाळ reported on March 8, 2008:
“…60% Indians earn less than Rs. 20 or less per day and more than 660 million Indians live below poverty line…In Maharashtra 26% urban population and 70.4% rural population live below poverty line…”

Times of India reported on March 9, 2008:

“…Satara is on its way to becoming one of the first “open defecation free” (ODF) districts in the country…”

(see a related post here: Shitting In Public, Not a Cell Phone- Image of India .)

Times of India reported on March 9, 2008:

“…Indians are stingy…people who spend several thousand rupees on eating out but do not help impoverished…most of the time people donate money only if it is connected to aid religious purposes…”

(currently the most visible effort to collect donations at Pune is for a temple.)

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar admitted in Times of India March 9, 2008
“…India has enjoyed 8-9% GDP growth for four years but the boom has bypassed many rural areas…”

NYT Editorial on March 3, 2008:
“The world’s food situation is bleak, and shortsighted policies in the United States and other wealthy countries — which are diverting crops to environmentally dubious biofuels — bear much of the blame… Prices have gone so high that the World Food Program, which aims to feed 73 million people this year, said it might have to reduce rations or the number of people it will help… “

And finally Moisés Naím- editor in chief of Foreign Policy- wondered:

"Can the World Afford a Middle Class? Yes, but it will be awfully expensive" Foreign Policy, 28 February 2008.

Perhaps the thinking is if Indians and Chinese don't breed any further, no need to feed extra mouths and arranging closed places to defecate!

Problem of the Night Before i-pill

Watching TV in India with kids is getting trickier by the day.

You may avoid programming having steamy sex scenes of human beings (can’t avoid those of animals though thanks to NG and Animal Planet) but what about ad spots during even live coverage of cricket matches?

For a while now, we have been watching an advertisement of i-pill, a single-pill emergency contraceptive.

I think availability of such a pill as an over the counter drug would have made R D Karve र धों कर्वे very happy.

Now even Karve would have no solution for a problem below!


Artist: Marisa Acocella Marchetto The New Yorker 26 July 1999