India: A Flex-Printed Nation! Rather than a Painted One

Neal Lawson:

"And the thing about outdoor advertising is that you can't not look and you can't escape. Surely we should be able to say enough is enough. The freedom from unwanted and damaging advertising should trump the freedom to sell. If outdoor adverts were banned, our towns and cities would be transformed. We would see more of the sky and our urban landscape. And our minds would have that bit more space for ideas, plans, love or just to daydream. Some sites could be used for great public art, information and inspiring poems and quotes. Not just another airbrushed perfect body meant to make us feel inadequate." (Guardian, April 20 2012)

Balkrishna Vaidya, Bill board painter from Mumbai:
"I will be remembered abroad not here."

Roland Barthes:

“Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no "erogenous zones" (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance.”

Jeet Heer:

"...A cultural conservative in the European tradition, Eksteins takes a dim view of modern art, seeing it as emblematic of disorder, madness, despair, an idolatry that replaces religion with the cult of the artist, sensationalism and the loss of faith in older and more humane traditions....

...Solar Dance is perhaps best read in conjunction with Hugh Kenner’s classic 1968 book The Counterfeiters, which also examines the connection between modernism and forgery. Unlike Eksteins, Kenner celebrates the modernists for their inventive exuberance and sees the impulse to forge as a strategy for keeping alive human agency in the age of mechanical reproduction..."

(review of 'Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age' By Modris Eksteins, February 3 2012)

"keeping alive human agency in the age of mechanical reproduction"?

That's what bill board painters do in India.

In my childhood at Miraj (मिरज ) we used to know a few of them. Sharad Apte (शरद आपटे), my father's student, was one such. I have spent hours watching Mr. Apte and others like him work. My father was fond of getting a new nameplate- that was screwed to our door- made every time he or my mother got a new degree...B.A.(English), M.A.(English), M.A. (Sociology)...CPED, B.A., M.A...Even today in his house a nameplate hangs that has all our names and degrees...

I have already mentioned fascinating marriage-halls/temples 'wall-art' of anonymous Miraj artists here. And there is a brilliant example of creativity of India's anon artists during elections.

Flex printing technology is killing board painters but luckily shutters and trucks and some walls still need them.

In a TV documentary called "Painted Nation" filmmaker Cyrus Sundar Singh takes an affectionate look at India's vanishing street art, its gifted creators, and its once-powerful place in the national culture.

I saw it on Jan 26 2012 on Discovery channel.

When I first visited Mount Road in 1980's riding PTC bus no. 23C what hit me most were Chennai’s huge cinematic billboards.

And if I have to choose one image it was of Silk Smitha from the poster of Moondram Pirai, 1982. The late Ms. Smitha has now gone viral with "The Dirty Picture", 2011...it's as if the whole of India is now watching her billboard.

(Was this done using Flex? Raquel Welch in "One Million Years B.C.", 1966)

I for once understood why some cine-stars become larger-than-life.

Preminda Jacob writes:

"...Mr. Vedachellam—a billboard artist and entrepreneur—explained to me that his film industry clientele routinely attempted to circumvent censorship by protesting to the authorities that the provocative still photographs featured on billboards were simply taken from film footage already cleared by the censors. The police commissioner’s canny rejoinder to the publicity agents’ appeals, Mr. Vedachellam recalled, was to remind them that these questionable stills appeared on the cinema screen for only a few seconds so viewers would soon forget them, or may not even have quite “seen” them at all. Freezing and enlarging such images, he argued, was a different matter altogether. And displaying them prominently on major thoroughfares would likely result in costly traffic jams and additional accidents. The police routinely censored these images by pasting pieces of white paper over offending portions of the billboards..."

Hand-painted billboards—once heavily used to promote big hits—loom outside artist Balkrishna Vaidya's studio in Mumbai.

Courtesy: William Albert Allard, National Geographic Magazine,

Painted Nation claims: ...hand-painted signs have given way to digital images imprinted on vinyl posters. Instead of selling soap and shampoo to ordinary folk, billboards now pitch cars, cell phones and other luxury goods for India's burgeoning middle class.

I looked around and found that it was absolutely true.

Picture courtesy: Truck Art india mike...Look at the buxom lady...she is giving Ms. Raquel Welch run for her money...

Poster artist Rajan painting shutter-Blue God Krishna. © 2005 Salaam Shalom Productions Inc.

Two More Most Memorable Hunting Scenes in Literature

April 1 2012 is Rama Navami (राम नवमी), birth anniversary of an idea, of a hero, of manhood

On December 2 2011, in Guardian, John Mullan has written about 10 of the most memorable hunting scenes in literature.

He asks: Can you suggest more?

I wish to suggest two.

1. A great epic 'Ramayana' is borne out of a hunting scene:

"Sage Valmiki goes to River Tamasa for a bath and sees a couple of birds, of which a hunter kills one. Valmiki unintentionally utters a poem, which is rich in grammar and new in metre, of which he is very much confused as to why such a poem has come from his tongue. Brahma, the presiding deity of letters appears and ordains Valmiki to author Ramayana, excellent epic of Rama, for which purpose alone he gave such divine meter and grammar to him."

मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठाम्त्व ।
मगमः शाश्वतीः समाः ।
यत् क्रौङ्च मिथुनात् एक ।
मवधीः काम मोहितम् ॥१-२-१५॥

("Oh! Ill-fated Hunter, by which reason you have killed one male bird of the couple, when it is in its lustful passion, thereby you will get an ever-lasting reputation for ages to come...")

This is the verse where this epic, Ramayana is said to have triggered off.

Artist: Bhavanrao Shrinivasrao, alias Balasaheb Pandit Pant Pratinidhi, B.A., Chief of Aundh (भवानराव श्रीनिवासराव पंतप्रतिनिधी)

courtesy: 'The Picture Ramayana', 1916

(for more such pictures visit 'Kamat's Potpourri' here.)

2. Passing away of Krishna in Mausala Parva of Mahabharata:

"After his brother had thus departed from the (human) world, Vasudeva of celestial vision, who was fully acquainted with the end of all things, wandered for some time in that lonely forest thoughtfully. Endued with great energy he then sat down on the bare earth. He had thought before this of everything that had been fore-shadowed by the words uttered by Gandhari in former days. He also recollected the words that Durvasas had spoken at the time his body was smeared by that Rishi with the remnant of the Payasa he had eaten (while a guest at Krishna’s house). The high-souled one, thinking of the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas, as also of the previous slaughter of the Kurus, concluded that the hour (for his own departure from the world) had come. He then restrained his senses (in Yoga). Conversant with the truth of every topic, Vasudeva, though he was the Supreme Deity, wished to die, for dispelling all doubts and establishing a certainty of results (in the matter of human existence), simply for upholding the three worlds and for making the words of Atri’s son true. Having restrained all his senses, speech, and mind, Krishna laid himself down in high Yoga.

"A fierce hunter of the name of Jara then came there, desirous of deer. The hunter, mistaking Keshava, who was stretched on the earth in high Yoga, for a deer, pierced him at the heel with a shaft and quickly came to that spot for capturing his prey. Coming up, Jara beheld a man dressed in yellow robes, rapt in Yoga and endued with many arms. Regarding himself an offender, and filled with fear, he touched the feet of Keshava. The high-souled one comforted him and then ascended upwards, filling the entire welkin with splendour..."

I still remember the picture that accompanied this story in Chandoba ('चांदोबा') dated early 1970's.

As a kid, as I read this story, I couldn't imagine how Krishna's foot was mistaken for a deer. I still can't!


Artist: ???, Original Publication: ??? (Amar Chitra Katha?)
courtesy: http://www.sanjayhumania.com

p.s.

In Marathi (मराठी) language if you wish to say that "there is no point in something" / "something is meaningless", you might say : "There is no Ram in it." ("त्यात राम नाही.").

Whatever else they may say, no one can claim that there is no Ram in this blog!

In Purdah: Poverty and Pachyderm

George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant":

"We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes."

Film: Shikar, 1968, Voice: Asha Bhosle, Music Director :Shankar-Jaikishan:

"Parde Mein Rehene Do, Pardaa Na Uthaao
Pardaa Jo Uth Gayaa To Bhed Khul Jaayegaa
Allaah Merii Taubaa, Allaah Merii Taubaa"

India's election commission's decision to cover elephant statues in UP ahead of polls drew worldwide attention. Including cartoonists.

Time magazine has a photo essay.

Courtesy: Daniel Berehulak / AP, Time magazine

It was fascinating. You can cover a woman. Indeed her statue. But elephants?

Cover no cover, voters voted out the ruling party BSP.

Artist: Sudhir Tailang, The Asian Age, March 2012

India's planning commission was watching this. It felt: If they did it to elephants and Ms. Mayawati (whose statue is standing on left in the cartoon above), we could do it to poverty.

Indian government is claiming seven-percentage-points reduction in the national incidence of poverty between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Poverty lines on which these estimates are based: a per capita daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively.

For a family of four the figure is `2,700 a month in rural India, and `3,420 a month in urban India for subsistence survival. Within this amount, India's planners think, they should be able to take care of food, clothing, shelter, health and education!

Artist: Sudhir Tailang, The Asian Age, March 2012

Mr. Tailang could also show how Montek Singh Ahluwalia, current Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India is making the statue of poverty vanish in one single stroke of statistics.

Two pictures, above, of Mr. Tailang prove, once again, how he probably is the best political cartoonist in contemporary India. On the brink of entering the class of past masters like K. Shankar Pillai, Abu Abraham and R K Laxman.

Sisyphus Stone is a Cube and Not a Sphere? Extreme Sisyphus!

George Orwell
'Politics vs. Literature — An examination of Gulliver's travels':

"But the most essential thing in Swift is his inability to believe that life — ordinary life on the solid earth, and not some rationalized, deodorized version of it — could be made worth living. Of course, no honest person claims that happiness is now a normal condition among adult human beings; but perhaps it could be made normal, and it is upon this question that all serious political controversy really turns."

Business Standard, March 3 2012:

"Indian men are among the most dissatisfied people at work across the globe, according to a report by Accenture, ‘The Path Forward’. The research report stated that as much as 72 per cent of men in India are not satisfied with their jobs. Brazil tops the list with a figure of 74 per cent men dissatisfied with their jobs."

John Gray:

"...Progress condemns idleness. The work needed to deliver humanity is vast. Indeed it is limitless, since as one plateau of achievement is reached another looms up. Of course this is only a mirage; but the worst of progress is not that it is an illusion. It is that it is endless.

In Greek myth, Sisyphus struggles to roll a stone to the top of a hill so it will then roll down the other side. Robert Graves tells his story thus:

He has never yet succeeded in doing so. As soon as he has almost reached the summit, he is forced back by the weight of the shameless stone, which bounces to the very bottom once more; where he wearily retrieves it and must begin all over again, though sweat bathes his limbs, and a cloud of dust rises above his head.

For the ancients, unending labour was the mark of a slave. The labours of Sisyphus are a punishment. In working for progress we submit to a labour no less servile..."

a self-dooming Sisyphus with a power tool?

the cover of 'The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard to Be Happy' by Michael Foley

The latest trigger to publish the post came from GREG SMITH's op-ed in The New York Times "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" on March 14 2012.

Mr. Smith says:

"Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement...Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence...I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all..."


Artist: Stuart Carlson, July 16 2009

Mr. Smith is mistaken. It's not about shortcuts at all. It's about the journey itself...fundamental nature of our labour.

(By the way, this is what Joe Nelson who left his job as a vice president of Goldman Sachs in December 2011 to start a company that sells condoms in 95 different sizes had to say this about Mr. Smith's op-ed:

"I think it's a little low quality to be honest. My immediate take was that the guy failed to make MD (again) and the bonus/non-bonus cheque cashed 2 weeks ago -- so sour grapes if you like. What a way to go! If the op-ed was signed off 'XYZ, Partner at Gs' I would have taken a lot more notice.”)

This is what Charles Duhigg writes in 'The Power of Habit':

"...If you can identify the right cue and reward—and if you can create a sense of craving—you can establish almost any habit.
“Consumers need some kind of signal that a product is working,” Tracy Sinclair, who was a brand manager for Oral- B and Crest Kids Toothpaste, told me. “We can make toothpaste taste like anything—blueberries, green tea—and as long as it has a cool tingle, people feel like their mouth is clean. The tingling doesn’t make the toothpaste work any better. It just convinces people it’s doing the job.”..."

(Slate.com, Feb. 28, 2012)

And after this India's the best and the brightest will continue to join FMCG transnational giants becoming their world oral-care chiefs, located in London and Singapore and New York.

George Orwell:

"Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course--but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout--in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him."

But to labour as Sisyphus does is perhaps our fate.

Sisyphus supposedly rolled a round boulder like this:


Artist: Marcell Jankovics, 1974

What if it is cubical and not spherical?

Extreme Sisyphus!


Artist: Mick Stevens, The New Yorker, December 2011

Coming SciFi: Much-Less-Waterworld

Chandran Nair, FT, March 6 2012:

Across Asia capitalism does not need replacing but must be reshaped if it is to meet the needs of all its people. There must be constraints on consumption, with externalities priced in and, where necessary, with curbs on certain resources. Only then can economies run in ways that ensure everyone has fair access to the resources they need. This can ensure everyone has a future beyond the 21st century.

MATT RIDLEY

All forecasts miss their mark. After all, a book written 200 years ago imagining today's energy needs would discuss coal, but oil, gas and even electricity would not feature in the index. Most of the discussion would probably be devoted to the looming problem of hay scarcity.

James Harkin

Good advice for the budding forecaster is not to try to fix things that are necessarily in flux. Avoid talk of time bombs, and steer clear of predicting the end of anything – wars, resources and certainly not history. And try not to peer too far into the future, or you’re very likely to fall flat on your face.

I don't know what next hour will bring in. Let alone tomorrow or next century.

But I am going to make one forecast: A lot of Indians will continue to struggle for water (पाणी) in year 2112. More so than they today.

Cory Doctorow says: "science fiction writers don't predict the future (except accidentally), but if they're very good, they may manage to predict the present."

James Lovegrove says: "Contrary to received opinion, science fiction’s preoccupation has always been the here and now. Its far-flung planets and future timelines are merely a way to analyse the contemporary. In this respect, it is the most politically engaged of all literary genres. Motifs that may appear trashy to the uninitiated - space exploration, extraterrestrials, futuristic technology - can in fact be surprisingly sophisticated tools for dissecting and examining the world as it is."

My favourite the late Mr. Handelsman puts it even better:

"The first requirement of science fiction is credibility. And yet, Mr. Zoxplep, here you've invented a race of creatures who systematically destroy their own environment."

Artist: J B Handelsman, The New Yorker, 4 Sept 1971

A good Marathi science fiction is waiting to be written that has earthly water at its heart. There is "Less Per Capita Waterworld" ahead of us before "Waterworld", 1995!

(Another waiting scifi, inspired by J G Ballard's 'Crash', is "Death on the Wrong Side / Pune Road Odyssey 2012". More on this later.)

In 2011 it rained copiously in Pune. We soaked in the beauty of overflowing of Katraj (कात्रज) lake from our flat on many days. And yet Pune is struggling for water in March 2012 itself.

Such struggle always brings to my mind summer of 1983 at IIT, Madras. There was such a scarcity of water on the campus that students used to go from hostel to hostel looking for it.

I said: This gives one more excuse to these "The Best and the Brightest", would-be masters-of-the-universe to migrate out of India! (Year 1983 was one of the toughest to get US student visa. Still they escaped in hordes. I remember one BB / MOU joining IIM-Calcutta only to lie in wait to get the ultimate visa little later.)

Then you could spot many deer on the campus including just below my room at the hostel named after mighty river Brahmaputra. They were so desperate for water and food that they almost ate anything. Their favourite was Surf washing powder carton box!

True to its name, my hostel always used to have some water!

In 1989-92, I saw a lot of poverty on the footpaths of Kolkata but I always thought that in one aspect they- atleast those on Hazra road- were luckier than their counterparts in most parts of urban India: abundance of water. Going to Hooghly river front and seeing that mighty flowing river in summer- compared to dry river beds of most Maharashtra rivers- always brought a lot of solace.

I once wrote to Amitav Ghosh after reading his 'The Hungry Tide', 2005 that I liked it more because there's so much river water in it than inscrutable Irrawaddy dolphins in them!

Look at the smiling kid in following lovely picture.

He is wearing a tie, now, after/before the school, tucked away on his back so that it does not hinder him in his work. He probably goes to an English medium school. With a bit of luck, when he grows up, he will get a job in India's sunrise industries.

There is a spring in his step. What is he doing? He is running with empty water vessels to fetch some water. I am going to call him Panini (पाणिनि)! It's a pun on word पाणी (water)...Someone who has no water or Someone in quest of water.

100 years from now, whatever else happens, you will find many Panini's in Pune.

'A school boy with a Tie, Panini of 21st Century, Rajaram Patil Wadi, Kharadi, Pune'

courtesy: Artist- Mandar Deshpande, The Times of India, March 3 2012

p.s.

Michael Dirda's review of J.-H. Rosny aine's ‘Three Science Fiction Novellas: From Prehistory to the End of Mankind’ April 5, 2012:

"...When “The Death of the Earth” begins, the seismic shocks are increasing in intensity and water is growing scarcer and scarcer. But one man, Targ, refuses to surrender to the general lassitude and dreams of a renewal of civilization..."

The Asia Age, March 23 2012:

"India has the world’s largest water infrastructure, but the poorest water delivery system in the world. On World Water Day 2012, water experts are demanding a dramatic revamp of the present water management strategy..."

SCOTT BRADFIELD, The New York Times, March 23 2012:

"For Ballard, who died in 2009 at the age of 78, the true horrors of our collective future don’t concern what might happen hundreds of years from now in a spaceship; rather, they reverberate in the very ordinary now-ness of freeway overpasses, sports stadiums, high-rise apartment complexes and gated communities."

...and water filling stations, city roads...

Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai? Heart or Onions, Silicone, Wonderbra...?

Naomi Wolf:

"So, a new generation of women will not have access to critical government studies that would otherwise confirm the overwhelming evidence of the health problems associated with silicone implants. Why is it always women who are treated as guinea pigs and their bodies like lab rats'? I guess because there is a cultural assumption, which, in effect, the UK government deployed last week in public, that women deserve no accountability, especially if you can blame the issue on their "vanity"."

The Daily Mail, UK Feb 17 2012:

"after almost fifty years since her death, Marilyn Monroe has been named the Top Beach Body Of All Time.

The Hollywood actress beat ultra-slim stars including Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Miranda Kerr to the title, suggesting that the nation's obsession with size zero might be on the decline...

...Debenhams, which commissioned the survey, now predicts a trend towards the fuller figure and last season it reported a 58 per cent increase in sales of bust-boosting bikinis.

Sasha Nagalingham, a spokesperson for the store said: 'With the average cup size of the list going from a C to a D in just one year, they are proof that a voluptuous figure is even more desirable that ever before."

Thomas Biggs:

"The breasts are...an external symbol of a woman's gender, and we need and want that affirmation,"

Edwina Ings-Chambers:

"...At one conference, Alex Kuczynski recalls a sales rep explaining that women prefer the breast implants that look the most rounded, the most unrealistic: ”’I don’t know why, but they like the fake shape,’ the salesman says, bouncing a breast implant in his hand. It makes gentle thwack-thwack noises as it lands, bonds briefly with his sweaty palm, and lifts up with a slight sucking noise.”..."

EMILY BAZELON:

"Naomi Wolf argued that because appearance matters so much for their success — in work, love and almost everything else — women were sacrificing the gains of feminist liberation on the altar of breast implants and doomed diets."

Laurie Essig:

"This year one of the most popular gifts for many young women is a bra that makes your breasts look two cup sizes bigger by pushing them up and out and together at the same time. The bra, which costs about $60, is, my teenaged daughter assures me, something that will change her life.

Why, I ask my daughter, are she and her friends so obsessed with the size and the shape of their breasts? Does it really make them feel like better people to push and pull and pad their breasts into a shape that resembles Pamela Anderson’s first set of implants?
Why, my daughter asks, would I think that she and her friends are somehow free of being judged on their appearance? Why do people always assume that things are better for women just because they have the vote or go to college? It’s clear that there is so much more pressure on young women—especially girls like her—than ever."

The late Dev Anand was asked in year 2008: "You always used to cast beautiful actresses. Who among the present lot do you find beautiful?"

He answered: "Nobody really. All the girls today are too bold. Take a look at two of their pictures and there is nothing more left to see. A girl is beautiful only if she is innocent and vulnerable. Hasn't all that innocence and vulnerability evaporated? They wear coloured contact lenses. God, if I was acting in today's films and had to kiss an actress on her eyes, I would be turned off."

My favourite Hindi film journalist the late Devyani Chaubal (1942-1995) (देवयानी चौबळ)- and we have not had any one even close to her since- once wrote, rather naughtily and in jest, that Raj Kapoor cried in an emotional scene in Dastan (1950) because his leading lady Suraiya had stuffed her blouse with onions!

I guess silicone is not pungent at all and hence today's male actors need lots of glycerine.

It is half a century since silicone breast enlargement became available. It's still the most popular cosmetic-surgery procedure in the US and the UK.


Breasts marked for plastic surgery

courtesy: Stockbyte/Getty Images, Guardian, January 11 2012

India is very prominent on that world map.

The Times of India on January 15 2012:

"...a survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) points out that there were 51,000 breast augmentation surgeries in India in 2010, the seventh highest in the world. The cost of implanting a pair of silicone gel cups in India could go up to Rs 1.3 lakh, depending on the hospital and surgeon involved and the quality of the product. The ISAPS survey adds that while the average surgeon’s fee for breast implants is $3,629 in the US, in India it’s a competitive $2,405.

Kira Cochrane, Guardian, Jan 11 2012:

"...The 50-year history of breast implants had begun, a history of controversy and success. What no one knew back then was just how phenomenally popular breast augmentation surgery would become – the last available figures from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show it was the most popular form of cosmetic surgery in the US in 2010, with 318,123 augmentations performed...It's estimated between 5 and 10 million women worldwide have had the surgery, many for cosmetic reasons..."

It's almost like worldwide epidemic.

And things have not always gone smooth...There have been complications...such as faulty implants.

Artist: Geoff Thompson, The Spectator, January 2012

Kusumagraj, My Family, is Now 100!

Tomorrow Feb 27 2012 is 100th Birth Anniversary of Kusumagraj (कुसुमाग्रज) aka Vishnu Vāman Shirwādkar (विष्णु वामन शिरवाडकर)

William Shakespeare 'King Lear':

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

Paul Feyerabend:

“My life has been the result of accidents, not of goals and principles. My intellectual wok forms only an insignificant part of it. Love and personal understanding are much more important. Leading intellectuals with their zeal for objectivity kill those personal elements. They are criminals, not the liberators of mankind”

Woody Allen:

"Look at these people jogging...trying to stave off the inevitable decay of the body. It's so sad what people go through...with their stationary bike and their exercise...Oh, look at this one. Poor thing. She has to tote all that fat around. She should pull it on a dolly. Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the answer..."

('Hannah and Her Sisters', 1986)

Kusumagraj was and still is like my family. I can't put distance between him and me.

Arguably there are better Marathi poets than him in 20th century: Arun Kolatkar, Sadanand Rege, B S Mardhekar, Dilip Chitre, Balkavi, Keshavsut, Namdeo Dhasal (अरुण कोलटकर, सदानंद रेगे, बा. सी. मर्ढेकर, दिलीप चित्रे, बालकवी, केशवसुत, नामदेव ढसाळ), but as a poet-playwright combo he remains unsurpassed.

My father left Sangli (सांगली) to take up a job in Nashik (नाशिक) c1974. Soon after, he was acquainted with Kusumagraj. Since then, not a week went by, whenever I lived with my parents, Kusumagraj- whom we called Tatyasaheb (तात्यासाहेब)- didn't come up in a discussion.

Often not as a littérateur but a great human being who lived his own life- to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau- someone who marched to his own different drummer.

My father has written probably the first biography of Mother Teresa in Marathi, titled 'प्रेम सेवा शरण' ('Love, Service, Surrender'). Before its publication, he wrote to P L Deshpande (पु ल देशपांडे) requesting him to write the foreword. However, he also mentioned in the letter that if Pu La were to decline the request, Tatyasaheb would write one anyway!

There was no need for that 'threat'. Pu La promptly turned down the request! (I have read that letter.) As foretold, Tatyasaheb wrote a sweet foreword!

My father used to write leaders for Marathi daily 'Gavkari' (गावकरी) for a number of years. Often he received impromptu appreciation of many of them from Tatyasaheb. And it was more than that...it was affection. (an aside: As mentioned earlier on this blog, Jaywant Dalvi had pilloried my father for his first social novel but when, for Gavkari, my father reviewed Dalvi's book- a collection of his such critical and humorous articles-in glowing terms, Dalvi wrote back in appreciation.)

Like my father, there were countless others from many walks of life who too were constantly appreciated and encouraged by Tatyasaheb.

I first met him on Seemant Poojan (सीमान्त पूजन) day of my sister's wedding- evening of Aug 20 1990. As soon as he arrived, almost everyone in the hall, including my sister's would-be in-laws, gathered around him and started touching his feet. Me too. Since early childhood, I had always loved his transcendental song :"सर्वात्मका सर्वेश्वरा, गंगाधरा शिवसुंदरा । जे जे जगी जगते तया, माझे म्हणा करुणाकरा ॥" sung by Jitendra Abhisheki (जितेंद्र अभिषेकी). That song kind of started playing in my head.

I can never know how Sant Eknath (संत एकनाथ) looked in person but after that day I could imagine better.

Tatyasaheb looked cool. And so was he. He lived simple life. He never did self-promotion. Never conducted commercial programmes of his poetry-singing (काव्य-गायन).

He was constantly gheraoed by his devotees and fans, from late morning to late night but he never stopped being himself. He was never lonely but always alone. Never patronising.

Sadanand Rege (सदानंद रेगे) writes: (as of September 1981) Kusumagraj had not accepted any government award. (btw- He was never really welloff.)

We just celebrated 200th birth anniversary of Charles Dickens. Quite a bit of what George Orwell has said about Dickens can be said about Kusumagraj.

"...In every page of his work one can see a consciousness that society is wrong somewhere at the root. It is when one asks ‘Which root?’ that one begins to grasp his position. The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work...There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature’..."

Hailing Kusumagraj as 'poet of humanism', V S Khandekar (वि स खांडेकर), who like Tatyasaheb received the Jnanpith award, wrote in 1942:

"...विषमता, पिळवणूक, गांजणूक आणि अन्याय यांच्याविषयीची बहुजनसमाजाची चीड कुसुमाग्रजांनी अत्यंत उत्कट आणि सुंदर स्वरूपात आपल्या काव्यातून व्यक्त केली आहे..."

(...Anger of the larger society against inequality, exploitation and injuctice has been expressed poignantly and elegantly by Kusumgraj in his poems...)

Of course, this was done in Marathi by saint-poets centuries ago but it was Dickensian alright when one considers average urban Indian life since the start of industrialisation, urbanisation and colonisation.

However, David Waller writes of the tragic story of Dickens’ final years:

"...during the year 1858...Dickens, like a grotesque figure in one of his novels, was at this time consumed with unrequited desire for the fair-haired, blue-eyed 19-year-old actress Nelly Ternan. Driven by uncontrollable passions, he walled his wife out of his bedroom and ultimately his life. He became the consummate Dickensian hypocrite, deploying lies, anger and emotional blackmail to get his way, while insisting on his righteousness.

‘The spectacle of a man famous for his goodness and his attachment to domestic virtues suddenly losing his moral compass is dismaying,’ notes Tomalin, with understatement. She deftly chronicles Dickens’ moral and physical decline as he abandoned his wife, home and many family members and friends to pursue and ultimately seduce Nelly..."

('Charles Dickens: A Life', History Today, Nov 15 2011)

As far as I know, Tatyasaheb could not be anything like this even in one's nightmare.

I first came across Kusumagraj's poem in 4th standard 1968-69. I think it was "Kranteecha jayjaykar" (क्रांतीचा-जयजयकार), 1939. (I think it was accompanied by a colour plate, so rare in textbooks then). After that, I remember him from 9th standard. We had a passage- "Konihi konach nasat" ("कोणीही कोणाच नसत") from his play "Natasamrat" ("नटसम्राट") and his poem "Pruthveeche Premgeet" ("पृथ्वीचे प्रेमगीत"). The poem from 'Vishakha' has following lines:

"गमे की तुझ्या रुद्र रूपात जावे
मिळोनी गळा घालुनीया गळा
तुझ्या लाल ओठातली आग प्यावी.
मीठीने तुझ्या तीव्र व्हाव्या कळा."

("Feel like in your fierce beauty
I should merge by necking
I feel like drinking fire off you red lips.
Let your embrace bring acute ache.")

Now these lines used to be very awkward for a teacher in a coed class full of 13-year olds!

Artist: Dinanath Dalal (दीनानाथ दलाल), cover of Kusumagraj's 'Vishakha', 1942, The Jnanpith Award winning book in 1987

I often try read Shakespeare but I get frustrated soon because I don't seem to understand him. Reading Shirwadkar's play 'Natsamrat'- inspired by medley of Shakespeare's plays- is closest I have come to understand the bard a little bit. Natasamrat in fact is a very ambitious project. Shirwadkar has tried to project tragic lives of some of the greats of first half of 20th century Marathi stage onto 'King Lear'. (For example, you can truly begin to understand Balgandharva (बालगंधर्व) only through a great stage tragedy and not some costume drama).

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4:

"OTHELLO: I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me; Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESDEMONA: Here, my lord.
OTHELLO: That which I gave you.
DESDEMONA: I have it not about me.
OTHELLO: Not?
DESDEMONA: No, faith, my lord.
OTHELLO: That's a fault. That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
That's a fault. That handkerchief
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father's eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me;
And bid me..."

Natasamrat, Act I:

"अप्पा: (ओरडतो) हातरूमाल! सरकार! साधासुधा हातरूमाल नाही तो मिसर देशातील एका मंत्रिकाने तयार केला होता तो स्वतःच्या हातानं, माझ्या आईने मरतेवेळी तो मला दिला आणि सांगितलं -"

When I saw Dr. Shreeram Lagoo's (श्रीराम लागू) Othello 'jump' enacting the above at Sahitya Sangh Mandir, Girgaon (साहित्यसंघ मंदिर, गिरगाव) in 1980's, I missed my heartbeat.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players." or "All the world's a tent. And all the men and women merely clowns"?

Artist: Robert Kraus (1925–2001), The New Yorker, July 20 1963

But the best of Kusumagraj for me had already come, once again in text books, in second half of 1970's: his poem "Swapnachee Samaptee" (स्वप्नाची समाप्ती).

"ध्येय, प्रेम, आशा यांची
होतसे का कधी पूर्ती
वेड्यापरी पूजातो या
आम्ही भंगणाऱ्या मूर्ती !...

Ideals, love, hope
Are they ever achieved
But we still worship these
brittle idols !...

...काढ सखे, गळ्यातील
तुझे चांदण्याचे हात
क्षितिजाच्या पलीकडे
उभे दिवसाचे दूत....

...girl-friend remove your star-laden hands
from around my neck
emissaries of the day
are standing beyond horizon....

...होते म्हणून स्वप्न एक
एक रात्र पाहिलेले
होते म्हणून वेड एक
एक रात्र राहिलेले....

...there was a dream
Dreamt for a night
there was a folly
that lasted for a night...

...ओततील आग जगी
दूत त्याचे लक्षावधी
उजेडात दिसू वेडे
आणि ठरू अपराधी.

...His million emissaries
will pour fire over the world
Will be seen crazy in daylight
and judged guilty."

(from 'विशाखा' 'Vishakha', 1942).

He wrote this poem in 1936 when he was just 24. World had seen one world war and was on the brink of another.

Reminds me of following words of W H Auden's poem titled 'SEPTEMBER 1, 1939':

"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night"

[The poem ends with this line: "We must love one another or die.”. In a brilliant essay titled 'Does Love Survive Loss?' on May 28 2012, Ron Rosenbaum writes: "Auden rethought his line—“We must love one another or die”—almost immediately. Indeed he turned violently against it, tried to ban, or vanish it. Called the poem in which it appeared “trash.” Said he “loathed” it.

Now compare Auden's closing with that of Kusumagraj. I think it still sounds as great as it did in 1936.]

Was young Kusumagraj already dismayed by the world? Had he lost his faith in love, ideals and hope?

I don't know but when he became our family above all he gave us affection and courtesy. And as for the poem, I find it one of the most moving poems of 20th century Marathi.

Raja Shivaji, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Manifestation of Shakti Saushthav

Today Feb 19 2012 is three hundred and eighty second birth anniversary of Shivaji Maharaj (शिवाजी महाराज)

The Times of India February 19 2012:
"At 425,000 barrels a day, Iran is India's second biggest crude oil supplier. And India is one of the largest foreign investors in Iran's oil and gas industry. The bilateral oil trade is worth $12 billion annually."

 
A.G. NOORANI, Frontline, March 23 2012:
"After 1947 the links with Central Asia weakened. Right now they are extinct.".

Aakar Patel:
"I have always thought of Faiz as a difficult writer for Indians because of his classical vocabulary. When I complained about this, the great Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin wrote to me to say that he found it difficult to believe that Indians couldn’t even understand basic Persian words that had been around since the time of Mir."
 

Wikipedia:
"Although Mirza Ghalib himself was far prouder of his poetic achievements in Persian, he is today more famous for his Urdu ghazals."

त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर:
"पर्शिअन  संस्कृतीची  अभिजात  बाजू  शिवाजीने नेमकी हेरली होती अन् आपल्या राजकीय जीवनात आणली होती ." [as quoted by Vidhyadhar Pundalik (विद्याधर'पुंडलीक ) in Sarojini Vaidya (सरोजिनी वैद्य) edited  'Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar: Vyaktitva aani kartrutva (1895-1963) {'त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर: व्यक्तित्व आणि कर्तृत्व  (१८९५-१९६३)}]

How important was once Farsi/Persian in India? Short answer- as important as English today is! (Read little more on this subject here.)

Ghalib is the greatest Urdu poet ever but he would have liked to achieve that status in Persian/Farsi!

Setu Madhavrao Pagdi (सेतु माधवराव पगडी) quotes Ghalib himself on the subject in his excellent book "Mirza Ghalib Aani Tyachya Urdua Gazala", 1958 ('मिर्ज़ा ग़ालिब आणि त्याच्या उर्दू गज़ला'):

"फारसी बीन ताबबीनी नक्शहाये रंगारंग
बगुज़्रर अज़ मजमुए उर्दुके बरंगे मन अस्त"

("if you wish to experience the real juice of my poetry then read my Farsi poetry; why read juiceless Urdu poetry")

However, during Ghalib's own lifetime (1797-1869), Urdu's importance at Mughal court was on ascendency as Farsi's importance steadily declined.

'Shivaji His Life And Times' a new and much-awaited English book on Shivaji's life written by historian Gajanan Bhaskar Mehendale (गजानन भास्कर मेहेंदळे) was recently published.

For me, it's too expensive- anything more than 'Bata' Rs. 999 usually is- for my budget but my young friend and fellow Mirajite Nikhil Bellarykar (निखिल बेल्लारीकर) has already bought it and has enthusiastically given me his take on it after partial reading of it. I will not disclose that take now but will wait for his final version.

My current experience with most 20th century Marathi writing on Shivaji's life is the lack of adequate language skills among authors.

I am fascinated by many aspects of Shivaji's life but above all his command of languages.

I was first impressed with his Marathi language skills, in his order-letters (आज्ञापत्रे), addressed to army, that were included in our school text books.

I have of course learnt a lot about the subject from D G Godse's (द ग गोडसे) books. I know Godse's books always have some speculative elements but I like his boldness and creativity in putting forward hypotheses. [Read "D.G. Godse Yanchi Kalamimansa" Editor; Sarojini Vaidya, Vasant Patankar (Marathi), 1997 ("द. ग. गोडसे यांची कलामीमांसा" संपादक: सरोजिनी वैद्य, वसंत पाटणकर)]

Paul Krugman expects good historian "...to be a person unafraid of offering theories as well as facts, and therefore of saying things that might turn out to be wrong."

Godse wrote a 24 pages long essay titled '...इं कसरा मुहाफिजते वतन ख़ुद लाज़िम' ('...For me, (my) land’s defence (is) self indispensable') (In Marathi: 'मला (माझ्या) वतनाचे संरक्षण स्वयं आवश्यक (आहे)'), now part of his book “Shakti Saushthav”,1972 ('शक्ति सौष्ठव').

The essay is about a famous Farsi letter sent by Shivaji-maharaj (scribe-Munshi Nil Prabhu) (मुन्शी नील प्रभु) to Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb circa 1664-65. (The original letter apparently as of 1972 was in the library of Royal Asiatic Society, London but the essay is based on a true copy of it.)

Shivaji's irresistible personality, says Godse, is reflected in the letter. They clearly are his words and not that of his clerk, however smart he might have been.

start of the letter

Godse proves how badly the letter had been translated until then by a number of historians like Jadunath Sarkar, Riyasatkar Sardesai (रियासतकार सरदेसाई), Babasaheb Purandare (बाबासाहेब पुरंदरे). He argues that they had deprived us of a great thing of beauty.

And then he goes on to translate it himself with the help of Farsi experts. (by the way Farsi/Persian is not an alien language to even someone like me because it was regularly taught at Miraj High School as an optional language, the way Sanskrit was, when I was a student there. I still remember teacher's name- Mr. Pathan. And also the fact that sadly only Muslim students used to opt for it.)

The letter has such literary qualities that it needed great sensitivity and deep knowledge of Farsi to translate it.

Godse claims: Some Farsi experts say that Shivaji, in the letter, has quoted a few lines from old Farsi poetry, most likely from Shahnameh.

A page from a Shahnama manuscript, from around 1425

Over the past year or so, I got to know a little bit about Shahnameh. (I plan to buy 'Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings' by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Dick Davis, Azar Nafisi some day in future.)

As per Wikipedia, Shah-nama (Persian: شاهنامه) is: "a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD...the Shahnameh tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of (Greater) Iran from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century..."

Peter Brown writes about the book in The New York Times, December 8, 2011 'On the Magic Carpet of the Met':

"...It should not be dismissed as an elegant fairy tale. The deeds of shahs from centuries before Islam were treated as timeless paradigms for just rule. The message of the Shahnama was all the more powerful because it spoke about a dream time before the coming of Muhammad. The ideals in it stood for something wider than the wish of the believers of one religion alone. They summed up the natural, almost cosmic, yearning of humanity as a whole for order, peace, and justice. When a painter produced a copy of Firdausi’s Book of Kings for the court of the Mongol ruler of Iran—the Ilkhanid Abu Sa‘id (ruled 1317–1335)—he showed the burial of one of the primeval kings of Iran, preceded by a stallion bearing a reversed saddle in the style of a Mongol funeral. In doing this, the artist did more than add a touch of local color. He was attempting to hold a newly Islamized ruler of uncertain temper to codes of justice that were rooted in the depths of time..."

I thought the quote above explains Shivaji's genius in quoting from 'Shahnama—the Book of Kings'.

Was Shivaji reminding the Emperor Aurangzeb- then arguably the most powerful ruler in the world and religious fanatic- about the world before Islam- "a dream time before the coming of Muhammad", "the ideals that stood for something wider than the wish of the believers of one religion alone" and "the natural, almost cosmic, yearning of humanity as a whole for order, peace, and justice"?

If so, I am stunned by the gravitas, finesse and sheer audacity of a 35-year old native Marathi speaker.

I just wonder what would have been spoken when the letter was read out to the emperor.

Some of the best writing on Shivaji has been done by Samarth Ramdas (समर्थ रामदास). This is how Samarth remembered Shivaji to Shivaji's son:

"शिवरायांचे आठवावे रूप |
शिवरायांचा आठवावा प्रताप |
शिवरायांचा आठवावा साक्षेप | भुमंडळी |
शिवरायांचे कैसे बोलणे |
शिवरायांचे कैसे चालाणे |
शिवरायांची सलगी देणे | कैसी असे |"

The bold line above says: How Shivaji spoke...Not just Marathi but also Farsi!

[p.s. Shivaji has used the word 'watan' (वतन) five times in the letter. It indeed is such a moving word. Just think of the Hindi songs having it:

Aye Mere Pyare Watan (ऐ मेरे प्यारे वतन ऐ मेरे बिछड़े चमन तुझ पे दिल कुर्बान),
Ae watan ae watan humko teri qasam (ऐ वतन ऐ वतन हमको तेरी क़सम)
Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo (ऐ मेरे वतन के लोगों)
Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo (अब तुम्हारे हवाले वतन साथियो)]

Artist: D G Godse, Cover of his “Shakti Saushthav”,('शक्ति सौष्ठव')

'Shakti' (शक्ति)- a noun in Sanskrit-- translates as power, strength, force, energy, potency, vigour, impetus...

'Saushthav' (सौष्ठव)- a noun in Sanskrit translates as swiftness, elegance, charm, elegancy, excellence, skilfulness, posture of body...

Combine one word each from 'Shakti' and 'Saushthav' and you have a beauty on hand- for instance charm of vigour or swiftness of force or elegance of strength...

Now, look at the picture. Isn't it a wonderful embodiment of “Shakti Saushthav”?

Godse argues in his gem of a book that the 17th century Maharashtra- its Marathi literature including Bhakti, its architecture, its sculptures, its folk art, its music, its most beloved ruler- was principally characterised by 'Shakti Saushthav'...Godse-sir, I remain in an eternal debt.

p.s Nikhil Bellarykar informs me that historian Gajanan Mehendale dismisses that the letter discussed here is not authentic. This does not much change Godse's basic contentions: Likely expertise of Shivaji in the language of diplomacy of his period- Farsi and manifestation of 'Shakti Saushthav' in 17th century Maharashtra.

I Sort of Like Pawar(s), Thackeray(s), Chavan, Rane(s), Patil, Munde(s), Bhujbal(s)........

Dr. B R Ambedkar (डॉ.भी रा आंबेडकर ):

“Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic...

On the 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality...

..How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril...”

Frank Rich:

"Elections are supposed to resolve conflicts in a great democracy, but our next one will not. The elites will face off against the elites to a standoff..."

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India quoted in 'Business Standard' April 13, 2011:

“If you spend more than [Rs ] two crore to contest an election to become an MLA, you will surely earn [Rs ] 20 crore because you have to pay back … Elections unfortunately have become the biggest area of corruption.”

Keith Hopkins:

"Gladiatorial shows also provided an arena for popular participation in politics. Cicero explicitly recognised this towards the end of the Republic: 'the judgement and wishes of the Roman people about public affairs can be most clearly expressed in three places: public assemblies, elections, and at plays or gladiatorial shows'."

Ingmar Bergman:

"I've a strong impression our world is about to go under. Our political systems are deeply compromised and have no further uses. Our social behavior patterns, interior and exterior, have proved a fiasco. The tragic thing is, we neither can nor want, nor have the strength, to alter our course. It's too late for revolutions, and deep down inside ourselves we no longer even believe in their positive effects. Just around the corner an insect world is waiting - and one day it's going to roll over our ultra-individualized existence. Otherwise, I'm a respectable Social Democrat".

Today Feb 16 2012 is the election day in municipal corporations of Mumbai and nine other civic bodies.

My wife probably won't vote. She wants a button on the EVM that says "None of the above."

Here is a Marathi article by cartoonist Mangesh Tendulkar (मंगेश तेंडुलकर) why my wife might be right.

courtesy: Pudhari (पुढारी), February 2012, Pune edition

(click on the image above to view readable version)

Please visit http://epaper.pudhari.com

I have already voted

Although, unlike my wife, I wish there were an option "All of the above" because, like the man in following cartoon, I sort of like them all.

They all come on TV (some of them never seem to leave!)...Not just that...

"Oh, how I wish I was like them! I haven't got any horns, more's the pity! A smooth brow looks so ugly. I need one or two horns to give my sagging face a lift. Perhaps one will grow and I needn't be ashamed any more - then I could go and join them. But it will never grow!..." (Eugene Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros')

And I like to think I'm a 'respectable social democrat'.

Artist: James Stevenson, The New Yorker, 21 May 1960

King Parikshit, Charles Darwin: Ultimately the Worms will Not be Cheated

Today Feb 12 2012 is 203rd birth anniversary of Charles Darwin

The New York Times leader on September 5, 2011:

"How Many Leaves on the Tree of Life?...a recent study led by scientists at Dalhousie University, concludes that there are about 8.7 million species on Earth...And that 8.7 million? It doesn’t include the species of bacteria, which may number in the millions. It is the bare truth to say that no matter how much we think we know about life on Earth, we know almost nothing."

Adam Kirsch:

Yet at the very heart of Darwinism is the principle that there is no such thing as “levels” or “supersession”; as Darwin adjured himself in one of his marginalia, “Never use the word higher or lower.” Human beings are in no biological sense higher than cockroaches; we have simply evolved a different adaptive strategy.

In the same way, regarded simply as a strategy for survival, no human polity is higher or lower than another, only (momentarily) more or less successful.
(Spring 2011)

CHARLES C. MANN (WSJ, Aug 6 2011):

"Before Europeans arrived, the upper Midwest, New England and all of Canada had no earthworms—they had been wiped out in the last Ice Age.
In worm-free woodlands, leaves pile up in drifts on the forest floor. Trees and shrubs in wormless places depend on litter for food. When earthworms arrive, they quickly consume the leaf litter, packing the nutrients deep in the soil in the form of castings (worm excrement). Suddenly, the plants can no longer feed themselves; their fine, surface-level root systems are in the wrong place. Wild sarsaparilla, wild oats, Solomon's seal and a host of understory plants die off; grass-like species such as Pennsylvania sedge take over. Sugar maples almost stop growing, and ash seedlings start to thrive.
Spread today by farmers, gardeners and anglers, earthworms are obsessive underground engineers, and they are now remaking swathes of Minnesota, Alberta and Ontario. Nobody knows what will happen next in what ecologists see as a gigantic, unplanned, centuries-long experiment."

Stephen Jay Gould wrote a brilliant essay to commemorate 100th death anniversary of Charles Darwin in 1982.

It's titled : ‘WORM FOR A CENTURY, AND ALL SEASONS’

He wrires:

"...Trifles may matter in nature, but they are unconventional subjects for last books.

Most eminent graybeards sum up their life’s thought and offer a few pompous suggestions for reconstituting the future. Charles Darwin wrote about worms—The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms, With Observations on Their Habits (1881)...

...What better than worms: the most ordinary, commonplace, and humble objects of our daily observation and dismissal. If they, working constantly beneath our notice, can form much of our soil and shape our landscape, then what event of magnitude cannot arise from the summation of small effects. Darwin had not abandoned evolution for earthworms; rather, he was using worms to illustrate the general method that had validated evolution as well. Nature’s mills, like God’s, grind both slowly and exceedingly small...

...We who lack an appreciation of history and have so little feel for the aggregated importance of small but continuous change scarcely realize that the very ground is being swept from beneath our feet; it is alive and constantly churning...

...The pleasure of reading Darwin’s worm book lies not only in recognizing its larger point but also in the charm of detail that Darwin provides about worms themselves...

...Here we also find an overt and an underlying theme, in this case leaves and burrows versus the evolution of instinct and intelligence, Darwin’s concern with establishing a usable defi nition of intelligence, and his discovery (under that defi nition) that intelligence pervades ‘lower’ animals as well. All great science is a fruitful marriage of detail and generality, exultation and explanation. Both Darwin and his beloved worms left no stone unturned....

...Then I came to the very last paragraph, and I shook with the joy of insight. Clever old man; he knew full well. In his last words, he looked back to his beginning, compared those worms with his fi rst corals, and completed his life’s work in both the large and the small:

The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures...

...A year after publishing his worm book, Darwin died on 19 April 1882. He wished to be buried in the soil of his adopted village, where he would have made a final and corporeal gift to his beloved worms. But the sentiments (and politicking) of fellow scientists and men of learning secured a guarded place for his body within the well-mortared floor of Westminster Abbey. Ultimately the worms will not be cheated, for there is no permanence in history, even for cathedrals..."

(The Oxford Book of MODERN SCIENCE WRITING, RICHARD DAWKINS, 2008)

Parikshit (Sanskrit: परिक्षित्), grandson of great Arjuna, was once the mightiest king in mythological India. He was cursed to die bitten by a snake.

(this is why he was cursed by Shamika-rishi's- in meditation above- son)
courtesy: Amar Chitra Katha and blog http://jayarama.wordpress.com

To escape it, he built a magnificent new palace. It was raised on a single tall pillar, and the base of the pillar was inside a moat. Many warriors and Brahmanas skilled in the art of repelling snakes were placed around the palace to protect the King. The King spent all the time in this palace, surrounded by Brahmanas learned in the Vedas.

Takshaka wanted to avenge the wrongs of the Pandavas committed upon his race- snake people- Nagas.

Takshaka transformed himself into a worm and entered a fruit that were being carried for the king. King chose exactly the same fruit that Takshaka was present in. He took one bite, then the insect came out of the fruit. In an instant, Takshaka assumed his form as a great serpent. He then entwined himself around the hapless king, and sunk his great fangs in Parikshit's neck. As was to be expected, the King fell down dead, charred by the potency of the snake's venom.

Well-mortared floor of a cathedral or a palace on a single tall pillar, worms will not be cheated.Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, July 2 1960