Sunil Khilnani:
"Our great private institutions - above all, the media - have made themselves unable to engage in fundamental debates (What kind of society do we wish to be Who should we reward, and why) . Private wealth is unwilling to direct its energies and resources to trying to bring about such a desired society (philanthropy is a good deed - but it is not a step towards changing the world: whatever it makes up for in reflecting well on the giver, it loses in its lack of social ambition - however big the gift in monetary terms). And as a citizenry, we are marked by an underwhelming sense of intellectual ambition in trying to understand the generational and planetary consequences of our present ways of life - of the collective, long-term consequences of our individual, short-term choices. So, even as we can celebrate a greater flourishing of the ambitions of individual Indians, we face the collapse of a collective Indian ambition. Our task and our challenge now is to renew and reinvigorate that complex will to power and goodness that brought modern India into being: the ambition to find a political form that combines freedom with a just social order - and that can so realise one of the most remarkable - and ambitious - national moral imaginations of modern times."
Michael Crichton
"A lot of people complain that television lacks focus. But that's the nature of the medium. Television's not about information at all. Information is active, engaging. Television is passive. Information is disinterested, objective. Television is emotional. It's entertainment. Whatever he says, however he acts, in truth Martin has absolutely no interest in you, or your company, or your airplanes. He's paid to exercise his one reliable talent: provoking people, getting them to make an emotional outburst, to lose their temper, to say something outrageous. He doesn't really want to know about airplanes. He wants a media moment. If you understand that, you can deal with him."
On April 18 2010 afternoon, CNN-IBN anchor preposterously asked Arundhati Roy: "Why does India love to hate you?".
Ms. Roy should have said: Next question, please.
In any case, Ms. Anchor did not get media moment from Ms. Roy.
I have still not read any of her books but I loved Ms. Roy when I first saw her "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones", 1989. And I love her today.
In fact, she now looks even more beautiful than ever.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Mr. Aamir Khan, We ALL are a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies
Kundan Shah when asked by Hindustan Times if a script like 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' would find a financier: "...Maybe if a star backs a project, it may be possible but my experience is that all of them without exception are highly illiterate." (February 7 2010)
Naseeruddin Shah: "I've lost the hope of seeing a truly great film being made in this country, at least in my lifetime." (March 20, 2010)
Susan Sontag: "...To be sure, there was always a conflict between cinema as an industry and cinema as an art, cinema as routine and cinema as experiment. But the conflict was not such as to make impossible the making of wonderful films, sometimes within and sometimes outside of mainstream cinema. Now the balance has tipped decisively in favor of cinema as an industry. The great cinema of the 1960's and 1970's has been thoroughly repudiated..."
They say "3 idiots" is the biggest hit in the history of Hindi films. Maybe it is.
Aamir Khan, a star, aggressively promoted it using 'innovative' methods.
In December 2009, in temple town of Mahabalipuram, a tour guide took Mr. Khan by surprise when he admitted to never even having heard of the actor.
I have always found Mr. Khan, a narcissist, an average actor who happens to be very successful.
He never mentions luck while talking about his success.
It's always his hard work, his body, his scalp, his dedication, his patriotism, his intelligence, his creativity, his wife, his family, his vision...
See the episode at Mahabalipuram here.
I was quite amused by it and thought it was very ironic.
Mahabalipuram, that appears on this blog here, dwarfs every one. Occasionally even the neighbouring Bay of Bengal!
Reviewing "The Earth After Us : What legacy will humans leave in the rocks?" by Jan Zalasiewicz, Robin McKie says:
“… the planet's constantly shifting geology will, inevitably, crush and bury every one of our greatest creations, our skyscrapers, motorways, bridges, churches and temples. Tectonic trashing, then, is to be the fate of most of humanity's handiwork.
Not all will be lost, however. Odd clues will emerge when seismic activity will push up a slice of petrified city. "Here there will be metres-thick layers of rubble, of outlines of tunnels and pipes, of giant middens of rubble and waste." That, then, will be our legacy. It is not much of a memorial. Indeed, by contrast, Ozymandias did well with a couple of headless trunks of stone.”
“…we still dig up plenty of 100-million-year-old dinosaur bones today. However, those ancient animals thrived for tens of millions of years. By contrast, Homo sapiens has lasted around 100,000. By that reckoning, we are a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies.” (The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009)
Sadly even Mahabalipuram may do only as well as Ozymandias.
('Ozymandias', 1818 is an example of how a great work of art persists.
In last few years, I have seen it being quoted by scientists like Jared Diamond in 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed', 2005 and Richard Dawkins in 'The Ancestor's Tale', 2004.)
‘Own up, Narcissus, you’re responsible for this graffiti, aren’t you?’
Artist: Richard Jolley (rgj), Spectator
Naseeruddin Shah: "I've lost the hope of seeing a truly great film being made in this country, at least in my lifetime." (March 20, 2010)
Susan Sontag: "...To be sure, there was always a conflict between cinema as an industry and cinema as an art, cinema as routine and cinema as experiment. But the conflict was not such as to make impossible the making of wonderful films, sometimes within and sometimes outside of mainstream cinema. Now the balance has tipped decisively in favor of cinema as an industry. The great cinema of the 1960's and 1970's has been thoroughly repudiated..."
They say "3 idiots" is the biggest hit in the history of Hindi films. Maybe it is.
Aamir Khan, a star, aggressively promoted it using 'innovative' methods.
In December 2009, in temple town of Mahabalipuram, a tour guide took Mr. Khan by surprise when he admitted to never even having heard of the actor.
I have always found Mr. Khan, a narcissist, an average actor who happens to be very successful.
He never mentions luck while talking about his success.
It's always his hard work, his body, his scalp, his dedication, his patriotism, his intelligence, his creativity, his wife, his family, his vision...
See the episode at Mahabalipuram here.
I was quite amused by it and thought it was very ironic.
Mahabalipuram, that appears on this blog here, dwarfs every one. Occasionally even the neighbouring Bay of Bengal!
Reviewing "The Earth After Us : What legacy will humans leave in the rocks?" by Jan Zalasiewicz, Robin McKie says:
“… the planet's constantly shifting geology will, inevitably, crush and bury every one of our greatest creations, our skyscrapers, motorways, bridges, churches and temples. Tectonic trashing, then, is to be the fate of most of humanity's handiwork.
Not all will be lost, however. Odd clues will emerge when seismic activity will push up a slice of petrified city. "Here there will be metres-thick layers of rubble, of outlines of tunnels and pipes, of giant middens of rubble and waste." That, then, will be our legacy. It is not much of a memorial. Indeed, by contrast, Ozymandias did well with a couple of headless trunks of stone.”
“…we still dig up plenty of 100-million-year-old dinosaur bones today. However, those ancient animals thrived for tens of millions of years. By contrast, Homo sapiens has lasted around 100,000. By that reckoning, we are a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies.” (The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009)
Sadly even Mahabalipuram may do only as well as Ozymandias.
('Ozymandias', 1818 is an example of how a great work of art persists.
In last few years, I have seen it being quoted by scientists like Jared Diamond in 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed', 2005 and Richard Dawkins in 'The Ancestor's Tale', 2004.)
‘Own up, Narcissus, you’re responsible for this graffiti, aren’t you?’
Artist: Richard Jolley (rgj), Spectator
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Renuka Shahane & Archana Joglekar, Try Mirabai Not Positivity on Your Patients
Renuka Shahane (रेणुका शहाणे) is (was?) hosting a reality TV program in Marathi 'Yala Jeevan Aise Nav' (याला जीवन ऐसे नाव).
I saw its promos.
Ms. Shahane is famous for her smile. She in fact is the pioneer of its Indian-TV version. Remember 'Surabhi', the program she co-hosted on Doordarshan?
Today Ms. Shahane promotes positive thinking. She feels it is panacea. Whatever is your problem, she has the answer: "Be Positive".
The other day I briefly saw Archana Joglekar (अर्चना जोगळेकर) on Marathi TV. She too was talking about the power of positive thinking. She asked viewers to embrace 'positivity'.
I bet if you watch Marathi TV everyday, you will get a large dose of positive thinking, kind of Jamalgota for your mental constipation.
(See an earlier post on the subject here.)
I wish both the fine ladies read either 'Bright-sided /How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America' by Barbara Ehrenreich or Lucy Ellmann's review of it:
"...Positive types aren't just misled, they're mean...
...The pitiless message to the powerless from all these motivational speakers, megachurch preachers, self-help gurus and other assorted selfishness-sellers is that sad sacks get what they deserve.
Promoting the idea that happiness is within your grasp is in the interests of corporations trying to bamboozle an overworked and underpaid workforce...
...Informing the uneducated and unmedicated that their plight is all their own fault is followed up by instructions for making anything you desire – from a new TV screen to a trip to Mexico – "materialise" through mind control. The censorship of negative opinion combines perfectly with the American policy of each man for himself in the best of all possible worlds.
This is the philosophy that gave us the smart bomb, the space programme, sub-prime mortgages, plenty of psychopaths and Sarah Palin. Every dumb American idea we've all had to stomach and die for can be attributed to this devotion to fantasy and self-satisfaction...
...Americans aren't happy, they're just trained to look as if they are. It's fake orgasm on a grand scale, and we're almost deafened by the din..." (The Guardian, Saturday 9 January 2010)
During the interview in February 2010, Ms. Joglekar talked about how her mother- Asha Joglekar, a classical dancer herself,- once completely ignored whatever Archana and her students were doing in class and instead immersed herself in a book on/by Mirabai.
Wise choice. I am sure junior Ms. Joglekar didn't mind the snub because of her 'positivity'.
But the message I got from senior Ms. Joglekar: Mirabai helps even in dance.
Artist: Colin Wheeler, Spectator
I saw its promos.
Ms. Shahane is famous for her smile. She in fact is the pioneer of its Indian-TV version. Remember 'Surabhi', the program she co-hosted on Doordarshan?
Today Ms. Shahane promotes positive thinking. She feels it is panacea. Whatever is your problem, she has the answer: "Be Positive".
The other day I briefly saw Archana Joglekar (अर्चना जोगळेकर) on Marathi TV. She too was talking about the power of positive thinking. She asked viewers to embrace 'positivity'.
I bet if you watch Marathi TV everyday, you will get a large dose of positive thinking, kind of Jamalgota for your mental constipation.
(See an earlier post on the subject here.)
I wish both the fine ladies read either 'Bright-sided /How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America' by Barbara Ehrenreich or Lucy Ellmann's review of it:
"...Positive types aren't just misled, they're mean...
...The pitiless message to the powerless from all these motivational speakers, megachurch preachers, self-help gurus and other assorted selfishness-sellers is that sad sacks get what they deserve.
Promoting the idea that happiness is within your grasp is in the interests of corporations trying to bamboozle an overworked and underpaid workforce...
...Informing the uneducated and unmedicated that their plight is all their own fault is followed up by instructions for making anything you desire – from a new TV screen to a trip to Mexico – "materialise" through mind control. The censorship of negative opinion combines perfectly with the American policy of each man for himself in the best of all possible worlds.
This is the philosophy that gave us the smart bomb, the space programme, sub-prime mortgages, plenty of psychopaths and Sarah Palin. Every dumb American idea we've all had to stomach and die for can be attributed to this devotion to fantasy and self-satisfaction...
...Americans aren't happy, they're just trained to look as if they are. It's fake orgasm on a grand scale, and we're almost deafened by the din..." (The Guardian, Saturday 9 January 2010)
During the interview in February 2010, Ms. Joglekar talked about how her mother- Asha Joglekar, a classical dancer herself,- once completely ignored whatever Archana and her students were doing in class and instead immersed herself in a book on/by Mirabai.
Wise choice. I am sure junior Ms. Joglekar didn't mind the snub because of her 'positivity'.
But the message I got from senior Ms. Joglekar: Mirabai helps even in dance.
Artist: Colin Wheeler, Spectator
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Damayanti, Of Ravi Varma and Paul Delvaux
Raja Ravi Varma's Damayanti (featuring below left) always brings memories of Datta Mandir of Miraj. The temple displayed many images of his paintings based on the themes from Indian mythology.
"Damayanti was a princess of Vidarbha Kingdom. She was of such beauty and grace that even gods could not stop from admiring her. She fell in love with Nala simply from hearing about his virtues and accomplishments from a golden swan..." (Wikipedia)
To be honest, Varma's this painting doesn't do justice to the beauty of Damayanti. (In fact, I was never infatuated by his portraits of women. Diminutive, they all look slightly old in their nine-yard, pallu-covering-their-entire-bosom sarees.)
This is what swan said to Damayanti:"...Among men there no one like him. O Fair-faced One, if yon were only his wife! We have seen gods, Gandharvas,! snakes, und demons, but never a creature which was Nala's equal. You are the jewel of women; Nala is the most excellent of men. If you were to marry each other, your union would be the most distinguished in all the earth."
I came to know of Paul Delvaux while reading about J G Ballard. I find Delvaux's images of nude women most haunting, disturbing but attractive at the same time.
"...The young Delvaux took music lessons, studied Greek and Latin, and absorbed the fiction of Jules Verne and the poetry of Homer. All of his work was to be influenced by these readings, starting with his earliest drawings showing mythological scenes..." (Wikipedia)
Look at the picture below on the right. It's called "Leda" (1948). She's not Damayanti.
Or is she?
Where is Delvaux's Damayanti looking? What did the swan tell her?
World is a small place.
<-Artist: Ravi Varma
->Artist: Paul Delvaux
"Damayanti was a princess of Vidarbha Kingdom. She was of such beauty and grace that even gods could not stop from admiring her. She fell in love with Nala simply from hearing about his virtues and accomplishments from a golden swan..." (Wikipedia)
To be honest, Varma's this painting doesn't do justice to the beauty of Damayanti. (In fact, I was never infatuated by his portraits of women. Diminutive, they all look slightly old in their nine-yard, pallu-covering-their-entire-bosom sarees.)
This is what swan said to Damayanti:"...Among men there no one like him. O Fair-faced One, if yon were only his wife! We have seen gods, Gandharvas,! snakes, und demons, but never a creature which was Nala's equal. You are the jewel of women; Nala is the most excellent of men. If you were to marry each other, your union would be the most distinguished in all the earth."
I came to know of Paul Delvaux while reading about J G Ballard. I find Delvaux's images of nude women most haunting, disturbing but attractive at the same time.
"...The young Delvaux took music lessons, studied Greek and Latin, and absorbed the fiction of Jules Verne and the poetry of Homer. All of his work was to be influenced by these readings, starting with his earliest drawings showing mythological scenes..." (Wikipedia)
Look at the picture below on the right. It's called "Leda" (1948). She's not Damayanti.
Or is she?
Where is Delvaux's Damayanti looking? What did the swan tell her?
World is a small place.
<-Artist: Ravi Varma
->Artist: Paul Delvaux
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Because We all are similar in our Vulgar and Prurient and Dumb Interests
David Foster Wallace (1962–2008):
"TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests."
I hope the late Mr. Wallace is correct in that middle-class Indians like me still have "refined and aesthetic and noble interests".
Artist: Sudhir Tailang, The Asian Age, April 6 2010
"TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests."
I hope the late Mr. Wallace is correct in that middle-class Indians like me still have "refined and aesthetic and noble interests".
Artist: Sudhir Tailang, The Asian Age, April 6 2010
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Bloody Trail: Building Railway through the Western Ghats
Andrew Odlyzko:
"The British Railway Mania of the 1840s was by many measures the greatest technology mania in history, and its collapse was one of the greatest financial crashes..."
I really like following Marathi song describing a train journey through Khandala ghat between Mumbai and Pune:
Hirvya hirvya rangachi jhadi ghanadaat, sango chedva dista kaso khandalyacho ghat...
हिरव्या हिरव्या रंगाची, झाडि घनदाट
सांग् गो चेड्वा दिस्तां कसो, खंडळ्याचो घाट
हिरव्याहिरव्या झाडीत हिरवीहिरवी पानां,
हिरव्याहिरव्या पानांत वारो गाता गानां
पुना-बाँबे हीच गो तुझ्या, सासरची वाट
खंडाळ्याच्या घाटात हवा थंडगार,
थंडिमधे लालि चढे गालि गुलजार
तोऱ्यामध्ये होऊ नको, उगी अशी ताठ
बोगद्यात गाडी जाता होई अंधार,
अंधारात प्रीत घेता प्रीतिचो आधार
इंजिनाच्या मागे जाती, डबे मागोमाग
[गीत - रमेश अणावकर, संगीत - सूरज, स्वर - शारदा, जयवंत कुलकर्णी व इतर चित्रपट - ती मी नव्हेच , १९७०]
Train has featured on these pages many times before. And why not? They were some of the brightest spots in my childhood.
Although I saw Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” (1955) much later, we lived the famous scene of the film- children coming face to face with the train- many times.
Our favourite place to while away time was Miraj junction’s shunting yard. I still smell the rich cocktail of steam and coal fire.
I never knew that Miraj station once used to have a liquor bar. I learnt about its existence from Vishram Bedekar's (विश्राम बेडेकर) autobiography "Ek Jhad Ani Don Pakshi", 1987 (एक झाड आणि दोन पक्षी). These Englishmen sure knew how to live in style!
And even today I think like 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)
I have still not pardoned George Fernandes for organising 1974 railway strike in India that lasted for twenty days (May 8- May 27).
In that summer, courtesy our neighbour Sharakka Joshi's daughter Shobha Kulkarni, we had planned to travel to many parts of North Karnataka serviced by South Central Railway.
Instead we got stuck in Almatti, a dam town, where Shobha's husband Suresh of Indian Railways was posted. (We still managed to visit beautiful pink Badami Cave Temples though.)
There hasn't been a railway strike of that kind in India since!
The Times of India reported on January 17 2010: "The razor-sharp mind feared by successive governments since the 60's lies in disarray, hobbled by a debilitating illness. An unconventional defence minister during a career largely spent on Opposition benches, George Fernandes presents a frail and defenceless picture, perhaps quite unaware of the family battle raging around him..."
Maybe I should condone Mr. Fernandes now.
Matthew Engel has reviewed "Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World" by Christian Wolmar for Guardian November 29 2009.
He says:
"...It is easy to forget just what the train did to and for the planet. No invention – forget the internet, not even a contender – has ever transformed the way the world travelled, worked, thought, fought, ate, drank, made love – you name it – the way this one did...
...The narrative takes on its most epic quality in the United States; its most stupid in Australia (where the different states set about building a charming variety of gauges without a thought about what would happen when you tried to link them up); and its most brutal in India, where maybe 25,000 workers died building the line through the Western Ghats alone..."
Lest we forget. Disaster struck not just British investors.
courtesy : Bettmann/CORBIS, WSJ Feb 27 2010
An illustration of the race on Aug. 25, 1830, between a horse-drawn mill car and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Tom Thumb steam engine—the first used on a commercial track in America. Horse power won when the engine broke down.
Remember 'Naya Daur' (1957)?
"The British Railway Mania of the 1840s was by many measures the greatest technology mania in history, and its collapse was one of the greatest financial crashes..."
I really like following Marathi song describing a train journey through Khandala ghat between Mumbai and Pune:
Hirvya hirvya rangachi jhadi ghanadaat, sango chedva dista kaso khandalyacho ghat...
हिरव्या हिरव्या रंगाची, झाडि घनदाट
सांग् गो चेड्वा दिस्तां कसो, खंडळ्याचो घाट
हिरव्याहिरव्या झाडीत हिरवीहिरवी पानां,
हिरव्याहिरव्या पानांत वारो गाता गानां
पुना-बाँबे हीच गो तुझ्या, सासरची वाट
खंडाळ्याच्या घाटात हवा थंडगार,
थंडिमधे लालि चढे गालि गुलजार
तोऱ्यामध्ये होऊ नको, उगी अशी ताठ
बोगद्यात गाडी जाता होई अंधार,
अंधारात प्रीत घेता प्रीतिचो आधार
इंजिनाच्या मागे जाती, डबे मागोमाग
[गीत - रमेश अणावकर, संगीत - सूरज, स्वर - शारदा, जयवंत कुलकर्णी व इतर चित्रपट - ती मी नव्हेच , १९७०]
Train has featured on these pages many times before. And why not? They were some of the brightest spots in my childhood.
Although I saw Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” (1955) much later, we lived the famous scene of the film- children coming face to face with the train- many times.
Our favourite place to while away time was Miraj junction’s shunting yard. I still smell the rich cocktail of steam and coal fire.
I never knew that Miraj station once used to have a liquor bar. I learnt about its existence from Vishram Bedekar's (विश्राम बेडेकर) autobiography "Ek Jhad Ani Don Pakshi", 1987 (एक झाड आणि दोन पक्षी). These Englishmen sure knew how to live in style!
And even today I think like 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)
I have still not pardoned George Fernandes for organising 1974 railway strike in India that lasted for twenty days (May 8- May 27).
In that summer, courtesy our neighbour Sharakka Joshi's daughter Shobha Kulkarni, we had planned to travel to many parts of North Karnataka serviced by South Central Railway.
Instead we got stuck in Almatti, a dam town, where Shobha's husband Suresh of Indian Railways was posted. (We still managed to visit beautiful pink Badami Cave Temples though.)
There hasn't been a railway strike of that kind in India since!
The Times of India reported on January 17 2010: "The razor-sharp mind feared by successive governments since the 60's lies in disarray, hobbled by a debilitating illness. An unconventional defence minister during a career largely spent on Opposition benches, George Fernandes presents a frail and defenceless picture, perhaps quite unaware of the family battle raging around him..."
Maybe I should condone Mr. Fernandes now.
Matthew Engel has reviewed "Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World" by Christian Wolmar for Guardian November 29 2009.
He says:
"...It is easy to forget just what the train did to and for the planet. No invention – forget the internet, not even a contender – has ever transformed the way the world travelled, worked, thought, fought, ate, drank, made love – you name it – the way this one did...
...The narrative takes on its most epic quality in the United States; its most stupid in Australia (where the different states set about building a charming variety of gauges without a thought about what would happen when you tried to link them up); and its most brutal in India, where maybe 25,000 workers died building the line through the Western Ghats alone..."
Lest we forget. Disaster struck not just British investors.
courtesy : Bettmann/CORBIS, WSJ Feb 27 2010
An illustration of the race on Aug. 25, 1830, between a horse-drawn mill car and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Tom Thumb steam engine—the first used on a commercial track in America. Horse power won when the engine broke down.
Remember 'Naya Daur' (1957)?
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Where Cricket Bowlers Gallop through their own Intestines
The Free Dictionary: "match: One that is able to compete equally with another"
The Times of India, March 29 2010:
"...India's Sports Minister M S Gill said the rules of cricket had been changed by the IPL, and acquiesced by the BCCI, by way of giving batsman advantage over bowlers to promote entertainment, allowing mongoose bat and shortening boundaries, all to earn profit."What the IPL is doing, the bowler is only the victim and the bat -- now you have a mongoose bat (and) I look forward to a cobra bat. The boundaries have been shortened ... the whole thing is to entertain the masses. And the bowler is just an instrument for this promotion. IPL is fundamentally business..."
This reminded me of Ernest Hemingway's book “Death in the Afternoon”, 1932 which was about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting.
Cricket bowlers today in limited-overs cricket are like horses from the book.
They were not expected to leave the bull-ring alive. The bull’s horns usually gored the horses’ sides and stomachs and they were often tossed in the air or flipped over. Hemingway describes as ‘comic’ the occasions where horses galloped through their own intestines. (They say this practice in bullfight has changed since then.)
So Mr. Gill this is comic and not trajic and, in any case, can you really argue with popular tastes of the day?
Following happened in US of A less than 111 years ago:
"...On Sunday afternoon, 23 April 1899, more than two thousand white Georgians, some of then arriving on a special excursion train, assembled near the town of Newman to witness the execution of Sam Hose, a black Georgian. Whole families turned up to watch. Parents sent notes to school asking teachers to excuse their children. Postcards were sent to those who could not attend the spectacle, and photographs were taken to preserve it in memory.
After learning of the death of her husband at one such occasion, Mary Turner – a black woman in her eighth month of pregnancy – swore to find those responsible and have them punished. A mob assembled and determined to teach her a lesson. After tying her ankles together they hung her from a tree upside down. While she was still alive her abdomen was cut open with a knife. The infant fell from her womb and its head was crushed by a member of the crowd. Then, as hundreds of bullets were fired into her body, Mary Turner was killed.
Were the smiling children who were photographed watching such events gnawed by remorse for the rest of their days? Or did they recall them with nostalgia and quiet satisfaction?..." (John Gray, 'Straw Dogs', 2002)
Artist: Reginald Marsh, The New Yorker, 8 Sept 1934
The Times of India, March 29 2010:
"...India's Sports Minister M S Gill said the rules of cricket had been changed by the IPL, and acquiesced by the BCCI, by way of giving batsman advantage over bowlers to promote entertainment, allowing mongoose bat and shortening boundaries, all to earn profit."What the IPL is doing, the bowler is only the victim and the bat -- now you have a mongoose bat (and) I look forward to a cobra bat. The boundaries have been shortened ... the whole thing is to entertain the masses. And the bowler is just an instrument for this promotion. IPL is fundamentally business..."
This reminded me of Ernest Hemingway's book “Death in the Afternoon”, 1932 which was about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting.
Cricket bowlers today in limited-overs cricket are like horses from the book.
They were not expected to leave the bull-ring alive. The bull’s horns usually gored the horses’ sides and stomachs and they were often tossed in the air or flipped over. Hemingway describes as ‘comic’ the occasions where horses galloped through their own intestines. (They say this practice in bullfight has changed since then.)
So Mr. Gill this is comic and not trajic and, in any case, can you really argue with popular tastes of the day?
Following happened in US of A less than 111 years ago:
"...On Sunday afternoon, 23 April 1899, more than two thousand white Georgians, some of then arriving on a special excursion train, assembled near the town of Newman to witness the execution of Sam Hose, a black Georgian. Whole families turned up to watch. Parents sent notes to school asking teachers to excuse their children. Postcards were sent to those who could not attend the spectacle, and photographs were taken to preserve it in memory.
After learning of the death of her husband at one such occasion, Mary Turner – a black woman in her eighth month of pregnancy – swore to find those responsible and have them punished. A mob assembled and determined to teach her a lesson. After tying her ankles together they hung her from a tree upside down. While she was still alive her abdomen was cut open with a knife. The infant fell from her womb and its head was crushed by a member of the crowd. Then, as hundreds of bullets were fired into her body, Mary Turner was killed.
Were the smiling children who were photographed watching such events gnawed by remorse for the rest of their days? Or did they recall them with nostalgia and quiet satisfaction?..." (John Gray, 'Straw Dogs', 2002)
Artist: Reginald Marsh, The New Yorker, 8 Sept 1934
Monday, March 29, 2010
तो पहा! तो पहा!! अमिताभ बच्चन! अमिताभ बच्चन!!
If you followed only Marathi e-media to keep tabs on "akhil bharatiya marathi sahitya sammelan" (अखिल भारतीय मराठी साहित्य संमेलन) held in Pune on March 26-28 2010, you would not be wrong to conclude that it was all about if Ashok Chavan and Amitabh Bachchan shared a dais or not or if very-busy-in-IPL Sachin Tendulkar attended the meet or not.
I can assure you it was surely more than that.
As I was coming out of Sammelan on Sunday morning, a young couple carrying a toddler, looking at my books, asked me anxiously where the book exhibition was. They didn't want to miss out on that! When I assured them that it was not going away for a while, they smiled ear-to-ear.
I once again remember William Leith's words:
"...India’s media is heading for ad-backed celebrity hell faster, and more comprehensively, than ours (British)..."
I can assure you it was surely more than that.
As I was coming out of Sammelan on Sunday morning, a young couple carrying a toddler, looking at my books, asked me anxiously where the book exhibition was. They didn't want to miss out on that! When I assured them that it was not going away for a while, they smiled ear-to-ear.
I once again remember William Leith's words:
"...India’s media is heading for ad-backed celebrity hell faster, and more comprehensively, than ours (British)..."
तो पहा! तो पहा!! अमिताभ बच्चन! अमिताभ बच्चन!!
(Look there! Look there!! Amitabh Bachchan! Amitabh Bachchan!!)
Artist: Vasant Sarwate(वसंत सरवटे), 1974
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Was Hole Always a Hole?
We lived in Kolkata and the east for almost three years. I know the city reasonably well. Therefore, watching the recent fire on TV was painful.
"On March 23 2010, in Kolkata, the blaze that swept through three floors of a 150-year-old multi-storeyed building here claimed at least 16 lives with fire brigade personnel recovering 10 charred bodies from the sixth floor of the ill-fated structure late tonight, officials said...
..."It's not possible to say whether they were male or female. They were charred beyond recognition," they said..."
B S Mardhekar (बा.सी.मर्ढेकर) wrote
"...
पहा विचारुनि त्यांना कसली
मैथुनांत रे असते झिंग;
दाखवितिल ते भोंक रिकामें
जिथें असावें मांसल लिंग.
..."
[Poem no 56 from 'Kanhee Kavita' (कांही कविता)]
(Ask them what high
exists in copulation;
they will show an empty hole
where once was a fleshy penis)
"On March 23 2010, in Kolkata, the blaze that swept through three floors of a 150-year-old multi-storeyed building here claimed at least 16 lives with fire brigade personnel recovering 10 charred bodies from the sixth floor of the ill-fated structure late tonight, officials said...
..."It's not possible to say whether they were male or female. They were charred beyond recognition," they said..."
B S Mardhekar (बा.सी.मर्ढेकर) wrote
"...
पहा विचारुनि त्यांना कसली
मैथुनांत रे असते झिंग;
दाखवितिल ते भोंक रिकामें
जिथें असावें मांसल लिंग.
..."
[Poem no 56 from 'Kanhee Kavita' (कांही कविता)]
(Ask them what high
exists in copulation;
they will show an empty hole
where once was a fleshy penis)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Sahitya Sammelan Visits were Worth it!
Yesterday, March 26, I bought 13 books of Vinoba Bhave (विनोबा भावे) at the book exhibition of "akhil bharatiya marathi sahitya sammelan" (अखिल भारतीय मराठी साहित्य संमेलन).
If you are interested please contact following address:
Parandham Prakashan, Pavnar, Dist: Vardha PIN 442 111 Phone: 07152-288040 and 9822565574
(परंधाम प्रकाशन , पवनार , जिल्हा: वर्धा )
I also got a number of difficult-to-lay-your-hands-on books of different authors- most of them now dead- at Venus Prakashan (व्हीनस प्रकाशन).
count on day 1: 29.
p.s.
count on day 3: 30 [including rare books like Bahurupi (बहुरूपी) by Chintamanrao Kolhatkar (चिंतामणराव कोल्हटकर) ,1957]
Net net : 59!
So after all sammelan visits were worth it.
If you are interested please contact following address:
Parandham Prakashan, Pavnar, Dist: Vardha PIN 442 111 Phone: 07152-288040 and 9822565574
(परंधाम प्रकाशन , पवनार , जिल्हा: वर्धा )
I also got a number of difficult-to-lay-your-hands-on books of different authors- most of them now dead- at Venus Prakashan (व्हीनस प्रकाशन).
count on day 1: 29.
p.s.
count on day 3: 30 [including rare books like Bahurupi (बहुरूपी) by Chintamanrao Kolhatkar (चिंतामणराव कोल्हटकर) ,1957]
Net net : 59!
So after all sammelan visits were worth it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)