Cartoon Or A Powder Keg?

Kancha Ilaiah:

"...After Ambedkar joined Nehru’s Cabinet, he was also seen as one who compromised himself for power. After he resigned from the Cabinet in 1953, and after he embraced Buddhism three years later, his image and status transformed quite dramatically. And after the Mandal movement of 1990, Ambedkar’s stature assumed messianic proportions. The present Ambedkar is not a negotiator with Nehru or Gandhi. Rather, as a messiah of the large army of the oppressed people of this country, he’s quite different from Gandhi and Nehru...

...What Mr Yadav and Mr Palshikar refuse to recognise is that Ambedkar was not just a writer of Indian Constitution, not just a nationalist leader, and not just a theoretician, but he was a prophetic figure who revived Buddhism that was driven out of India by a whole range of social forces over a period of several centuries. Thus, in every Buddha Vihar today he sits along with Buddha.
The icon of the oppressed community cannot be compared with a god or goddess of the oppressors. Nor can the protest against the Ambedkar cartoon be seen at par with the Hindutva protest against the Goddess Saraswati cartoon drawn by M.F. Hussain...

...Shankar Pillai’s cartoons were friendly jokes for the upper-caste English-educated elite of the post-Independence ruling class, but certainly not for the dalit/Other backward Classes/adivasi population..."

(The Asian Age, May 22 2012)


Another political cartoon, this time drawn by great K Shankar Pillai (1902-1989) in 1940's, is in the news.

Once again for wrong reasons. BTW- When this is being discussed on TV or radio, hardly any one mentions Shankar's name!

Many years ago, my father had acquired a commemorative volume of Shankar's pictures. I must have spent hours browsing it over many days. I still remember a few pictures from that.

The one I remember most is:

Shankar riding a donkey/pony a la Don Quixote, loaded with his 'weaponry', is leaving cartooning for good and politicians of all hue are bidding goodbye to him with mixed feelings. I think the caption was something like "parting...but not without sorrow". It was wonderful...moving.

It was this picture:



I remember many pictures on the subject of: "After Nehru Who?" from that book. His affection for Nehru was very apparent.

Should Shankar's political cartoon have been used in a school text?

My Answer: NO. It was an error of judgement.

Why?

1> My son has just given exam for Class 12 and he tells me how all subjects are taught without any nuances in his school. He feels the controversial picture would have been found offending by a few of his classmates. He doesn't think his teachers could have been to able to 'explain' it.

In such an environment, a political cartoon can become a powder keg.

2> India's widespread 'visual' illiteracy. There are a number of posts on the subject on this blog. Most notably this one.

When people send me an occasional comment on the posts from this blog, they seldom mention the picture and this blog is above all about pictures, visuals!

After reading Prof. Suhas Palshikar's (सुहास पळशीकर) brilliant essay in Samaj Prabodhan Patrika April-June 2008 (समाज प्रबोधन पत्रिका), I wrote this post and informed Prof. Palshikar about it. He responded immediately with very encouraging words but did NOT say anything on John Tenniel's brilliant moving cartoon there! Maybe he was very busy.

So people are either indifferent to a visual or go ballistic looking at one.

I can go on ad nauseam!

Therefore, unless we improve this literacy, we shouldn't use political cartoons in texts.

3> There is no exact word for cartoon in Marathi. It's called either 'vyangchitra' (व्यंगचित्र) or 'hasyachitra'(हास्यचित्र). Both these words are slight misnomers. Every time Marathi people see a cartoon they think they need to laugh at the drawn personalities or a scene. Most don't think there is any other purpose to a cartoon.

4> Although the cartoon was first published in the late 1940's, it was 'reissued' c 2006 and is being 'seen' today in 2012. Remember, no one objected to this cartoon before it came in NCERT text.

However a political cartoon works strictly in a context.

A year after independence, Indians might be in a 'hurry' to see it being turned into the Republic and Shankar is showing that eagerness by depicting crowd in the cartoon containing ordinary men, women and children of the newly independent nation.

However, in 2012, we appreciate, in words of Pranab Mukherjee, "how Ambedkar oversaw the writing of one of the world's lengthiest constitutions" in record low time.

Context has clearly changed. Are India's 17-year old's mature enough or trained enough to look at a picture in their text along with its full historical context?

A lot of things transpired between the Congress and Dr. B R Ambedkar after the cartoon was published.

For instance, N. Ram writes:

"He (Dr. Ambedkar) was emphatically opposed to Gandhism and to the Congress ideology, although on some social issues he shared common points with Jawaharlal Nehru – who badly let down his Minister of Law on the Hindu Code Bill in the early 1950s...Dr Ambedkar can be considered as a founder of non-Congressism and anti-Congressism in Indian politics..."

(Frontline, January 15 2010)

Ex-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Ms. Mayawati:

“…In fact, the Congress played a very dirty game with Dr Ambedkar when its leaders tried to foil the election of Dr Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly by giving away a part of Bengal (that had elected Dr Ambedkar) to Pakistan. By doing so, Dr Ambedkar would have ended up as member of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. However, when Dr Ambedkar apprised the British of this gameplan, they (British) asked the Congress to include Dr Ambedkar in the Indian Constituent Assembly and finally the Congress had to agree…”

(The Asian Age, April 15, 2008)

If this is so- and I condemn even the slightest violence committed in this regard- isn't it offensive for followers of Dr. Ambedkar to see him being 'driven'- even in jest- by J L Nehru, and that too as a part of a nation-wide textbook? (If you see the cartoon carefully, you will notice that Nehru is about to whip the snail and NOT Dr. Ambedkar. But interpretations may vary.)

Perhaps great Shankar himself wouldn't have drawn this cartoon in 1950's considering above and his own perceived closeness to India's first Prime Minister.

p.s.

This is what I read on June 15 2012:

"...Arjun Dev (ex-Professor of History in the NCERT) felt that it was a pity that much of the discussion that had taken place had, in fact, prevented a rational and objective discussion on the usefulness of this particular textbook as suitable educational material. He wondered whether the preponderance of cartoons in a textbook as ‘aids' really helped promote interest in the subject and make for a better critical comprehension.

“This particular textbook suffers from ‘overkill', with many cartoons making little sense in the absence of any reference to the context in which they were drawn. There are no dates anywhere, which would in some cases be of some use in even ‘understanding' a cartoon, even finding in it something ‘funny' or humorous. There is a cartoon on page 7 of the book in which Nehru has two faces, one facing a group of persons in dhotis and kurtas sitting on the ground shouting Vande Mataram and the other facing a group of ‘decently' clothed and ‘educated'-looking persons, most of them sitting properly in chairs playing musical instruments and singing Jana Gana Mana with a few standing behind them (the one standing resembles Maulana Azad and the one sitting, Ambedkar). The text tells the reader: ‘Here is Nehru trying to balance between different visions and ideologies. Can you identify what these different groups stand for?' Can you?” Arjun Dev asked..."

(T.K. RAJALAKSHMI, 'Chorus of unreason', Frontline, Jun. 02-15, 2012)

Saadat Hasan Manto @100 is Still Working to Make Our Age Bearable

Today May 11 2012 is 100th Birth Anniversary of Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the greatest South Asian writers of 20th century.

Saadat Hassan Manto:

“IF you are not familiar with the age in which we live, read my stories. If you cannot endure my stories, it means that this age is unbearable.”

I knew very little about Saadat Hassan Manto until 2012. Since then I have bought books- both Hindi and English- that contain most of his short stories.

Those stories are some of the best I have read.

For instance, Manto is as good as the best Marathi has to offer- writer like G A Kulkarni (जी ए कुलकर्णी)- in this genre.

I have seen a couple of Marathi translations of his work but wonder why Manto is not as popular or not as much read by Marathi speaking people as he should be. They should claim Manto their own because many of Manto's stories are based in Mumbai and Pune!

His shadows of Bombay life- darker and more intriguing than the one sees in Chetan Anand's 'Taxi Driver', 1954- were later claimed and celebrated by others, most notably Bhau Padhye (भाऊ पाध्ये) in Marathi.

It is also surprising considering that there are so many ardent fans, among native Marathi speakers, of Gulzar and Amrita Pritam: for my taste, both ordinary writers compared to Manto.

I probably know one reason why Manto is treated thus: His most popular stories evoke and define the Partition, one of the greatest human tragedies since the start of the history and the fact that he migrated to Pakistan after 1947.

The Partition is almost a taboo with most middle-class Indians. They don't want to know any more about it than what has been told- very little- to them in school texts.

One of his popular stories is “Toba Tek Singh”.

Anatol Lieven writes about it:

"The signature story is a masterpiece of allegory with touches of surrealism. It’s also a very powerful human story. Toba Tek Singh is the story of a lunatic asylum from British days in India, which after partition ends up on the Pakistani side of the border. In this lunatic asylum there is this Sikh called Bishan Singh from the village of Toba Tek Singh. His family flee to India and he’s left behind in Pakistan. A few years after partition – this is where you can see Manto’s deep regret about partition and where his anger and despair comes in – the decision is made that the Hindu and Sikh lunatics and the Muslims lunatics also have to be partitioned and that the Hindu and Sikh lunatics have to be sent to India. He refuses to go because he realises that he is going to be separated forever from his beloved Toba Tek Singh. When they try to drag him he throws himself on to the ground and the authorities leave him there for the night. In the morning, the implication is that he’s dead, with his body straddling the border between India and Pakistan."

No one tells us what exactly we lost in the Partition better than Manto.

But personally I like his stories that portray man-woman relationships better. A few of them are sensuous, real turn-ons. They remind me of love stories from ancient Indian literature in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali etc.

courtesy: Rajkamal Prakashan

Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत: First Decade of Her Absence

दुर्गा भागवत: "मला जगण्याचं सुख वाटतं बघ."

(Durga Bhagwat: "I am happy living.")

Today May 7 2012 is 10th death anniversary of Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत).

I have not thought of anything new to write on her but just remembering her.

Again, as is typical of Marathi, most of the writing on her is hagiographic but she too had, as always is the case, her faults. Some of them glaring.

Ms. Bhagwat must wait for more rounded biography.

There are at least a dozen posts on this blog referring to her. They can be reached by clicking here.

Supermoon and Supertoon

The phenomenon, called supermoon, this year coincides with 'Buddha Purnima' on May 6 2012.

Such a moon always brings my attention back to super cartoon by one of the greatest.

"Maynard, I do think that just this once you should come out and see the moon!"

I wonder what Maynard is doing.

Watching IPL or his favourite sitcom? Is he capable of enjoying the moon? I mean his eyesight is not a problem because if he comes out the moon will be in his face. Did he ever enjoy looking at the moon? Does he like to watch the moon more on National Geographic than the one in his backyard?

Artist: Charles Addams, The New Yorker, 25 July 1983

Scream! By Edvard Munch, Keshavsut & Nick Ut

Nigel Fountain:

"AK47 codifies avtomat (automatic), the designer's name, Kalashnikov, and the year of its invention, 1947, deep in cold war permafrost. The rifle was not to be the fastest, most accurate, most lethal, but there would be 70m of them, and growing, because it was to be the rifle that could be dropped from heights, buried in mud, filled with sand, submerged and reassembled in minutes, and still reliably transform human beings into screams, blood and pulp."

(Guardian, July 28, 2007)

It was widely reported in April 2012 that Edvard Munch’s “The Scream" would go under hammer on May 2 2012. It would go on to fetch $119.9 million, the highest price paid for a work of art at auction.

Peter Aspden says:

"...“The Scream” is one of the most disturbing images to come out of the history of modern art. It depicts a moment of psychic calamity, of shattered nerves. Munch intended, when he first created the image in 1893, to record “the modern life of the soul”; and what a fraught, anxiety-ridden vision it was. For decades his distorted vision was regarded as an eccentric by-way of expressionism, laden with Nordic gloom and unnecessary cosmic pessimism.

Yet here we are, the world’s hyper-rich leading art collectors seemingly poised to make “The Scream” one of the most valuable artistic images ever created. A vision from the haunted dusk of the 19th century has found its moment more than 100 years later. Munch has hit the mainstream. We are finally strong enough to stomach his scream. Someone, somewhere in the world is busy planning to pop this icon of human disintegration above the fireplace, at enormous cost. We are, it seems, past the age of water lilies and sunflowers. The swirling chaos and vacant expression evident in Munch’s most famous work has become a touchstone for our troubled times..."


Artist: Edvard Munch, "The Scream", 1895
©Munch Museum

“I was walking along the road with two Friends /
the Sun was setting – The Sky turned a bloody red /
And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood /
Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black /
Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire /
My Friends walked on – I remained behind /
– shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in Nature – EM.”

"The Scream" always brings two things to my mind.

First is a famous Marathi poem called 'Tutari' (तुतारी)- the one I fell in love with as a kid after reading its first five lines- by Keshvasut (केशवसुत):

"एक तुतारी द्या मज आणुनि
फुंकिन मी जी स्वप्राणाने
भेदुनि टाकिन सगळी गगनें
दीर्ध जिच्या त्या किंकाळीने
अशी तुतारी द्या मजलागुनी"

("Get me a trumpet
that I will blow with all my strength
Will pierce all skies
with its loud long scream

Get such a trumpet to me"

Btw- How much, if any, was Keshavsut (1866-1905) paid for this poem? INR 1.199?

And the second: the screams of Kim Phúc and her siblings on June 8, 1972:

Phan Thị Kim Phúc (aged 9; middle left) running down a road near Trảng Bàng, Vietnam, after a napalm bomb was dropped on the village of Trảng Bàng by a plane of the Vietnam Air Force. The village was suspected by United States Army forces of being a Viet Cong stronghold. Kim Phúc survived by tearing off her burning clothes.

Also pictured is her older brother Phan Thanh Tam (aged 12; far left), younger brother Phan Thanh Phuoc (aged 5; background left, looking back), and younger cousins Ho Van Bo and Ho Thi Ting (boy and girl, respectively; middle right).

Photo Artist: Nick Ut, courtesy: AP and Wikipedia

Edvard Munch talks about "The Sky turned a bloody red".

What colour was the sky over Trảng Bàng on that June day almost 40 years ago?...The colour of napalm?

Of Zohra and Achla: अभीभी जोहरा-जबी और जवान...

Louis-Ferdinand Céline:

"I had tried to lose myself. I hadn't wanted to be face to face with my own life any time, but everywhere I kept finding it. I was always coming back to myself. My wanderings were over. No more knocking about for me...The world had closed in...We had come to the end! Like at the carnival! It's not enough to be sad; there ought to be some way to start the music up again and go looking for more sadness...But not for me...We may not admit it, but what we really want is to have our youth back again..."

('Journey to the end of the night', 1932)

ज़ोहरा सैगल:

"ज़िंदगी का कुछ पता नहीं. कब क्या हो जाए."

"we really want is to have our youth back again"...most of us aren't as lucky as Yayati (ययाति)...but we somehow want it back...youth...जवानी...तारुण्य...but better if we felt young at any age..."Just now I am young"..."अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ"...

One of the most memorable moments for me, on TV, has been watching Zohra Sehgal's rendition of Hafeez Jalandhari's (हफ़ीज़ जालंधरी) 'Abhi To Main Jawan Hoon'(अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ) at the request of program host Khushwant Singh.

The way her eyes on wrinkled face twinkled, the way she gestured, especially with hands, and the way Mr. Singh received it...Was the interview just an excuse to get her to sing the song?...Like arranging a concert just for the finale with Raag Bhairavi...It was surreal...


Photo courtesy: The Hindu

There is another lovely story associated with this song.

People used to ask the late P L Deshpande (पु ल देशपांडे) if the character of Kakaji (काकाजी) from his very popular play 'Tujhe Ahe Tujapashi', 1957 (तुझें आहे तुजपाशीं)was based on the real life figure of Ramubhaiya Date (रामुभैया दाते).

Pu La used to answer: "Kakaji in the play keeps saying 'I am still young' ('अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ') but here (in case of Mr. Date) the childhood (शैशव) itself is still not over!"

The same could be safely said of Ms. Sehgal the way she winked at the camera in a recent TV interview.

Irrespective of what else she has done, the fact that she choreographed Guru Dutt's Baazi (1951) and the dream sequence song in Raj Kapoor's 'Awaara' (1951) tells us about her abundant talent.

She turned 100 on April 27 2012!

Ms. Sehgal told BBC, Hindi in 2009: "चेतन आनद और राजकपूर को मैं कभी नहीं भुला सकी." (I could never forget Chetan Anand and Raj Kapoor.)

Many of Mr. Anand's films features Ms. Achala Sachdev (अचला सचदेव) (b. 1920), a beauty with a distinct voice until she started doing roles of weeping widows.

Ms. Sachdev, at the centre, in Chetan Anand's 'Heer Raanjha', 1970

Of course, Ms. Sachdev will be most remembered for featuring in a wonderful song: 'Ae Meri Zohra Jabeen' (एह मेरी जोहरा-जबी) from Yash Chopra's 'Waqt', 1965.

In April 2012, Indian media- both electronic and print- celebrated 100th birthday of much-decorated Padma Vibhushan Ms. Sehgal while Ms. Sachdev died, largely forgotten, in a Pune hospital on April 29 2012.

Zohra and Achla, they both will always be my darlings!

एह मेरी जोहरा-जबी, तुझे मालुम नही
तू अभी तक है हसी और मै जवान
तुझपे कुर्बान मेरी जान मेरी जान
एह मेरी जोहरा-जबी

ये शोखिया ये बचपन,
जो तुझ मे है कही नही
दिलो को जीतने का फेन, जो तुझ मे है कही नही
मै तेरी
मै तेरी आंखो मे पा गया दो जहा
एह मेरी जोहरा-जबी

तू मीठे बोल जान-ए-मन,
जो मुस्कुराके बोल दे
तो धध्कानो मे आज भी,
शराबी रंग घोल दे
ओह सनम
ओह सनम मै तेरा आशिक-ए-जाविदा

एह मेरी जोहरा-जबी

(lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi)

अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ (3)
हवा भी ख़ुशगवार है, गुलों पे भी निखार है
तरन्नुमें हज़ार हैं, बहार पुरबहार है
कहाँ चला है साक़िया, इधर तो लौट इधर तो आ
अरे, यह देखता है क्या? उठा सुबू, सुबू उठा
सुबू उठा, पयाला भर पयाला भर के दे इधर
चमन की सिम्त कर नज़र, समा तो देख बेख़बर
वो काली-काली बदलियाँ , उफ़क़ पे हो गई अयाँ
वो इक हजूम-ए-मैकशाँ, है सू-ए-मैकदा रवाँ
ये क्या गुमाँ है बदगुमाँ, समझ न मुझको नातवाँ
ख़याल-ए-ज़ोह्द अभी कहाँ? अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ (3)

इबादतों का ज़िक्र है, निजात की भी फ़िक्र है
जनून है सबाब का, ख़याल है अज़ाब का
मगर सुनो तो शेख़ जी, अजीब शय हैं आप भी
भला शबाब-ओ-आशिक़ी, अलग हुए भी हैं कभी
हसीन जलवारेज़ हो, अदाएं फ़ितनाख़ेज़ हो
हवाएं इत्रबेज़ हों, तो शौक़ क्यूँ न तेज़ हो?
निगारहा-ए-फ़ितनागर , कोई इधर कोई उधर
उभारते हो ऐश पर, तो क्या करे कोई बशर
चलो जी क़िस्सा मुख़्तसर, तुम्हारा नुक़्ता-ए-नज़र
दरुस्त है तो हो मगर, अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ (3)

न ग़म कशोद-ओ-बस्त का, बुलंद का न पस्त का
न बूद का न हस्त का, न वादा-ए-अलस्त का (2)
उम्मीद और यास गुम, हवास गुम क़यास गुम
नज़र से आस-पास गुम, हमां बजुज़ गिलास गुम
न मय में कुछ कमी रहे, कदा से हमदमी रहे
निशस्त ये जमी रहे, यही हमा-हमीं रहे
वो राग छेड़ मुतरिबा (2), तरवफ़िज़ा आलमरुबा
असर सदा-ए-साज़ का, जिग़र में आग दे लगा (3)
हर इक लब पे हो सदा, न हाथ रोक साक़िया
पिलाए जा पिलाए जा, पिलाए जा पिलाए जा

अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ (3)

ये ग़श्त कोहसार की, ये सैर जू-ए-वार की
ये बुलबुलों के चहचहे, ये गुलरुख़ों के क़हक़हे
किसी से मेल हो गया, तो रंज-ओ-फ़िक्र खो गया
कभी जो वक़्त सो गया, ये हँस गया वो रो गया
ये इश्क़ की कहानियाँ, ये रस भरी जवानियाँ
उधर से महरबानियाँ, इधर से लन्तरानियाँ
ये आस्मान ये ज़मीं (2), नज़्ज़राहा-ए-दिलनशीं
उने हयात आफ़रीं, भला मैं छोड़ दूँ यहीं
है मौत इस क़दर बरीं, मुझे न आएगा यक़ीं
नहीं-नहीं अभी नहीं, नहीं-नहीं अभी नहीं

अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ (3)

(courtesy: BBC Hindi)

भो भो आर एम एस टायटॅनिक, जहाज, धन्य धन्य!...World's Largest Entertainment Hits ICEBERG

I could hardly watch rather kitschy Hollywood film 'Titanic', 1997 when it was released. Even today I have not watched it in its entirety.

However 'RMS Titanic' has grown on me...I have read a lot on it this year and watched a lot of TV programs based on it over the past decade, majority of them in April 2012.

Even before I read about its grandness etc, I liked this staircase. But then I liked even the tiny one our Miraj home had. It too had a personality and each of us made a distinct sound climbing it.

"Jack Thayer, a teen-age passenger from Philadelphia’s Main Line, who was one of only a handful of people picked out of the water by lifeboats, later recalled that the sound made by the many hundreds of people flailing in the twenty-eight-degree water, drowning or freezing to death, was like the noise of locusts buzzing in the Pennsylvania countryside on a summer night."

( Daniel Mendelsohn, 'Unsinkable / Why we can’t let go of the Titanic', The New Yorker, April 16, 2012)...it takes just 10 minutes for a person to die in that water...

...reading all this was eerie.

I wonder what kind of coverage, if any, was given to the event in Marathi newspapers in the decade of 1911-1920.

All eight of my and my wife's grandparents, people of Greta Garbo generation, and who would later dodge the bullet of 1918 flu pandemic, were kids in 1912. I wonder if any of them had learnt of its fate in 1912.

Sinking of Titanic happened on Emperor (also of India) George V's watch.

My mother's mother, Ms. Manu (Shanta) Karandikar (मनु / शांता करंदीकर), then studying in a Konkan (कोंकण) school, sang following Marathi song-cum-school prayer every day. It praised and well-wished her emperor George V (पंचम जॉर्ज).

I remember having heard a few lines of it from her mouth.

" भो भो पंचम जॉर्ज, भूप, धन्य धन्य ! विबुधमान्य सार्वभौम भूवरा ! ॥
नयधुरंधरा, बहुत काळ तूंचि पाळ ही वसुंधरा ॥
शोभविशी रविकुलशी कुलपरंपरा ॥ध्रु।॥ नयधु।॥

संतत तव कांत शांत राजतेज जगिं विलसो ॥
धर्मनीति शिल्पशास्त्र ललितकला सफल असो ॥
सगुणसागरा, विनयसुंदरा ॥१॥ नयधु।॥

नीतिनिपुण मंत्री तुझे तोषवोत जनहृदंतरा ॥
सदा जनहृदंतरा ॥
राजशासनीं प्रजाहि विनत असो शांततापरा ॥
असो शांततापरा ॥२॥नयधु.॥

समरधीर वीर करुत कीर्तिविस्तरा ॥
पुत्र पौत्र सुखवुत तव राजमंदिरा ॥
सौख्यपूर्ण दीर्घ आयु भोग नृपवरा ॥३॥नयधु.॥

भो पंचम जॉर्ज, भूप, धन्य धन्य ! विबुधमान्य सार्वभौम भूवरा ! ॥ नयधु.॥"

Little Manu could always have sung: "सौख्यपूर्ण दीर्घ आयु भोग टायटॅनिक, महा-जहाज"...wishing Titanic long life in a prayer...

Nigel Jones writes: "Two years before the guns of August 1914, Britain's century of unchallenged global hegemony ended not in fire, but in ice." (Guardian, April 13 2012)

There are a number good essays on Titanic out there.

Daniel Mendelsohn again:

"...One big difference between the Titanic and other wrecks—the Lusitania, say—is the way her story unfolded in real time. Torpedoed by a U-boat in May, 1915, the Cunard liner sank in eighteen minutes—too short an interval, in other words, to generate stories. The Titanic took two hours and forty minutes to founder after hitting the berg—which is to say, about the time it takes for a big blockbuster to tell a story..."

So 'RMS Titanic' became Hollywood's 'Titanic' because it 'took two hours and forty minutes to founder after hitting the berg.'

Michael Crichton writes in “Timeline”, November 1999:

"...In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.

But where will this mania for entertainment end? What will people do when they get tired of television? When they get tired of movies? We already know the answer - they go into participatory activities: sports, theme parks, amusement rides, roller coasters. Structured fun, planned thrills. And what will they do when they tire of theme parks and planned thrills? Sooner or later, the artifice becomes too noticeable. They begin to realize that an amusement park is really a kind of jail, in which you pay to be an inmate.

This artifice will drive them to seek authenticity. Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that exists for its own sake, that assumes its own shape. But of course, nothing in the modern world is allowed to assume its own shape. The modern world is the corporate equivalent of a formal garden, where everything is planted and arranged for effect. Where nothing is untouched, where nothing is authentic.

Where, then, will people turn for the rare and desirable experience of authenticity? They will turn to the past. The past is unarguably authentic..."

Yes, sinking of RMS Titanic is authentic and it took 'about the time it takes for a big blockbuster to tell a story'.

Robert Shrimsley writes:

"We have been treated to news bulletins, saturated with anniversary retrospectives and yet another television miniseries. There have been postage stamps, commemorative coins, a requiem written by a Bee Gee and at least two new museums. There was even a cruise promising to “recreate” the Titanic’s maiden voyage – which, to me at least, falls somewhat short as a selling point: “Day four: seven-course meal, whist drive on upper deck. Day five: strike iceberg, perish in North Atlantic”...

...Of course, the Titanic perfectly suits the British self-image, being a tale of shambles and hubris dressed up as one of heroism and sangfroid. We think of the man who put on a black tie so he could die like a gentleman; or the ship’s band, which stayed on post playing a selection of Celine Dion songs – an event for which they are much admired, though one shouldn’t underestimate the readiness of musicians to exploit a captive audience..."

The best commentary for me comes from 1999 headline from the Onion: “WORLD’S LARGEST METAPHOR HITS ICE-BERG”, Robert Mankoff of The New Yorker and Mike Luckovich.

Q: Will RMS Titanic dodge an iceberg today?
A: You bet!


Artist: Mike Luckovich

Charulata-Nastanirh: A Jugalbandi of Ustad Satyajit and Pandit Rabindranath

April 23 2012 is 20th Death Anniversary of Satyajit Ray


विनोबा भावे:

"...कलिदासानंतर भारतीय संस्कृतीचे समग्र रूप पाहणारा आणि सम्यक रुपात ते व्यक्त करणारा रवींद्रनाथांहून श्रेष्ठ साहित्यिक क्वचितच झाला असेल. उत्तरप्रदेशचे महाकवी तुलसीदास, महाराष्ट्राचे ज्ञानदेव, दक्षिण भारताचे कंबन इत्यादि दुसरे अनेक महाकवी होऊन गेले. परंतु त्यांची योग्यता वेगळ्या कोटीची होती. ते धर्मपुरुष होते. परंतु साहित्यिक या नात्याने ज्यांनी भारतीय संस्कृतीचे, केवळ धर्मं दृष्टयाच नव्हे तर समग्र जीवन-दृष्टया सर्व पैलूंचे दर्शन घेतले असे एक रविबाबूच होते."

('अंतःप्रेरणा', 'विनोबा सारस्वत', संपादक: राम शेवाळकर, 1987)

Adam Phillips:

"So Freud leaves us with one overriding question: what is a good life for incestuously-minded people like ourselves, people who must not have what they really want, people whose fraught, doomed love for their parents has made love a hopeless passion; and who fear the loss of love they know to be their birthright and their fate? It is always going to be difficult for us, Freud says, to be excited and kind, to be fair and satisfied. Because , in reality, we can never be or have the object of desire, we are always the left-out ones. And because the object of our desire is forbidden, it is imperative for our (psychic) survival that we are left out. Oedipus was the man who couldn't bear being left out"

Harold Bloom 'The Anxiety of Influence':

"Poetic Influence--when it involves two strong, authentic poets--always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main traditions of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist."

Alexander Payne, Director of 'The Descendants', 2011 in January 2012:

"I watch older films mostly. I recently saw The Music Room (1958) by Indian director by Satyajit Ray. It is a jaw dropper, an unbelievable movie."

Jordan Smith:

"Alas, novelists suffer so that we might know better. Perhaps no other novelists suffer as well as Russian ones, but, thankfully you don’t have to be a Russian to learn from them. The whole world is the beneficiary of that inheritance."

(In India, I would substitute Russian with Bengali in the quote above).

In 1991-92, almost everyday, in Kolkata, I walked back from my office on Shakespeare Sarani to the residence on Hazra Road via Mr. Satyajit Ray's residence on Bishop Lefroy road.

Just like many temples I walk past every day but never enter, I never felt like meeting Mr. Ray or asking for an autograph.

I wanted his 'darshan' (दर्शन) alright but I didn't want to disturb him.

We got to see many of his movies, without English subtitles, on Door-Darshan after his death.

His body was kept at my favourite Nandan complex. It was stone's throw from my office. I didn't go there either because now he wasn't there and if he was, I still did not want to disturb him.

We moved from Kolkata soon after he died. There was now one less reason to regret it!

'Pather Panchali', 'Jalsaghar', 'Kanchenjungha' and 'Charulata' have never left my mind since then.

I keep watching 'Jalsaghar' ('The Music Room', 1958) once in a while. Recently. I watched 'Charulata' after almost a decade and saw 'Aranyer Din Ratri' (good except Sharmila Tagore) without English subtitles and 'Mahanagar (good), Jana Aranya (very good)' for the first time.

(BTW- Most of Ray's films are based on a good piece of literature. New wave Marathi film-makers should realize this.)

I keep reading Andrew Robinson's 'Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye', 1989. Earlier I was very impressed with the book. I still like it but not as much.

I have read Ray's 'Our Films, Their Films', 1976- I have lost my copy- and Gopa Majumdar translated Ray's Bengali book- "Speaking of films",2005 ('Bishay Chalachitra').

Ray's essay: 'On Charulata', from the latter, is masterly.

Any one who wants to understand the relation between a novel and the cinema based on it, strengths and weaknesses of both media, how to remain loyal to the original art while interpreting it will do no better than reading and re-reading the essay.

As I have said earlier 'Charulata', 1964 had always been a great haunting song for me but after reading the essay it became even greater.

Nastanirh (The Broken Nest), 1901 is a very delicate story. According to Andrew Robinson:"...Kadambari Devi, Tagore's beloved sister-in-law, inspired him to wrire Nastanirh...She in some ways resembled Charu, he Amal and while his elder brother much of the unworldliness and naivety of Bhupati...Kadambari Devi committed suicide in 1884 for reasons unknown..."

Apart from the delicate subject the book has "inconsistencies" which makes it difficult to adapt for the screen. (Read about a similar challenge in "The Tough Job of Adapting Edgar Allan Poe to film", The New York Times, April 20 2012.)

Ray says:"...when one reads the novel, the sheer beauty and power of Tagore's language wipe out these inconsistencies".

Pather Panchali,1955- equally great film- did not pose this kind of challenge because, as Ray himself says: "Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay is one writer whose stories are a gold mine of cinematic observation...Even in his lesser works his eye and ear produce marvels of observation...Yet another quality Bibhutibhushan had was a wonderful ear for lifelike speech..."

Therefore, when Ray decided to make a film based on Nastanirh, it was like master Rabindranath throwing a challenge at his prodigally talented understudy only to see it being tackled successfully.

Interplay of Nastanirh-Charulata is like a great Jugalbandi.

Ray has said of Indian music:"...In the process of execution, the musician can achieve beauty, he can achieve tension and excitement, and he can achieve sublimity. But he cannot achieve drama, because there is no conflict in the music."

True but isn't Jugalbandi or Jazz-Jamming about conflict and drama? In jugalbandi, both musicians act as lead players, and a playful competition exists between the two performers. Turn right, turn right. Turn left, turn left. Both play or sing their ass off! And we are sozzled with great enchantment.

Sadly, I don't read Bengali. But reading Ray's essay, I see how hard he had to struggle to master the novel. And in that struggle, I see all the elements of a great drama. And hence Jugalbandi!

In the said essay, Ray gives example of opening scene of Charulata that runs for seven minutes. The scene attempts to use a language entirely free from literary and theatrical influences. Except for one line of dialogue the scene says in terms that speak to eye and the ear. He also explains how recurring motifs, appearing at several points in a film, often in different contexts, serve as unifying elements. A major motif gets introduced to us in the scene.

In short, a great cinema artist is going to rise to the challenge of a Jugalbandi with a great novelist using his very own instruments namely speaking to the eye and the ear; recurring motifs...

Ray says: "...The film opens with the letter 'B' being embroidered on a handkerchief by Charu. This will prove to be a major motif in the film. We will learn later that the handkerchief is meant for Charu's husband Bhupati. It will trigger off the conversation which will make Bhupati aware of Charu's loneliness. Towards the end of the film, after Bhupati's traumatic discovery of Charu's feelings towards Amal, Bhupati will use the handkerchief to wipe his tears, and will notice the embroidery before he decides to return to his wife..."

B is also for Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

courtesy: RDB Productions

How I wish Rabindranath saw the film! I wonder if Vinoba Bhave saw it. And if he did, where would he rate Mr. Ray in relation to his dear Ravibabu.

By the way, I have often wondered if a novel like Nastaneer or film like Charulata would be created in Marathi.

P S Rege's (पु शि रेगे) novella 'Matruka' (मातृका),1978 has elements of this but it fizzles out in second half. Vilas Sarang (विलास सारंग) has written an excellent but not a favourable review of it in two essays that are part of his book: 'aksharaanchaa shram kelaa', 2000 (अक्षरांचा श्रम केला).

As a kid, I often heard that V. Shantaram's (व्ही. शांताराम) 'Manoos', 1939 (माणूस) is a Marathi 'answer' to K. L. Saigal starring film 'Devdas', 1935 based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's 1917 Bengali novel of the same name.

I think this is infantile. Now, 'Manoos' may be a good film but art like 'Devdas' or 'Nastaneer' don't have 'answers'. Indeed they attempt answering our fundamental questions like what it means to be- to use Nietzsche's phrase- "human, all too human".

John Gray says: What Freud offers is a way of thinking in which the experience of being human can be seen to be more intractably difficult, and at the same time more interesting and worthwhile, than anything imagined in the cheap little gospels of progress and self-improvement that are being hawked today.

Doesn't watching Charulata prove to us that "the experience of being human can be seen to be more intractably difficult" as we go through life but "at the same time more interesting and worthwhile" as we enjoy one of the most elating aesthetic experiences in cinema?

Unlike Oedipus some of us can now bear being left out.

Ich bin ein Bihari...मैं बिहारी हूँ

ज्ञानेश्वर:

"हें विश्वचि माझें घर"।

(ज्ञानेश्वरी, अध्याय १२, भक्तियोग)

[Dnyāneshwar:

"This world is my dwelling"

(Dnyaneshwari, Chapter 12, Bhaktiyog)]

Rabindranath Tagore:

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high/...Where the world has not been broken up into fragments/ By narrow domestic walls ... Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way/ Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit."

अरुण कोलटकर:

"मास्तर मास्तर बघा कसा
हिसडे मारतोय भिंतीवरती
भारताचा नकाशा
गेला उडत खिडकीबाहेर
ड़ोंगरांसकट नद्यांसकट खुंटीसकट
गेला सरळ आकाशात”

('काय डेंजर वारा सुटलाय', "अरुण कोलटकरच्या कविता", १९७७)

('Kay denjar vara sutalay", "Arun Kolatkaranchya kavita", 1977)


U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin:


"Ich bin ein Berliner"

Ich bin ein Pune-er

Ich bin ein Karad-er

Ich bin ein Miraj-er

Ich bin ein Madras-er

Ich bin ein Bombay-er

Ich bin ein Thane-er

Ich bin ein Vashi-er

Ich bin ein Nashik-er

Ich bin ein Doom Dooma-er

Ich bin ein Calcutta-er

Ich bin ein Bangalore-er


Ich bin ein Bihari...

And I announce it NOT in the name of Gautama Buddha, Ashoka, Jayaprakash Narayan and Madhu Limaye (मधु लिमये) but for the poor Bihari who is probably working in our society as I write this.

Two 'Bihari's': Balraj Sahni and Ratan Kumar in Bimal Roy's 'Do Bigha Zamin', 1953
courtesy: Shemaroo

If Kauravas in Mahabharata had Horse Collars...Ahead of Even Brahmastra

Today April 14 2012 is 50th Death Anniversary of Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, a technologist, who, above all, served his motherland and still touches lives of millions of ordinary Indians.

"If Visvesvaraya had not toiled
And allowed Cauvery to flow
And not built Kannambadi?
Would this precious land have harvested gold?
Prosperous Kannada land, our prosperous Kannada land?"

[“Bangarada Manushya" ('Man of Gold'), 1972 Kannada movie]

विनोबा भावे:
" इकडे शुभ्र घोड्यांच्या मोठ्या भव्य रथांतुनी
माधवें अर्जुनें दिव्य फुंकिले शंख आपुले"

(गीताई, अध्याय पहिला)

Jared Diamond:

"...by the year 1600 Japan had the best guns of any country in the world. And then, over the course of the next century, Japan gradually abandoned guns.

What happened was that the Samurai, the warrior class in Japan, had been used to fighting by standing up in front of their armies and making a graceful speech, the other opposing Samurai made an answering graceful speech, and then they had one-on-one combat. The Samurai discovered that the peasants with their guns would shoot the Samurai while the Samurai were making their graceful speeches. So the Samurai realized that guns were a danger because they were such an equalizer. The Samurai first restricted the licensing of gun factories to a hundred factories, and then they licensed fewer factories, and then they said that only three factories could repair guns, and then they said that those three factories could make only a hundred guns a year, then ten guns a year, then three guns a year, until by the 1840s when Commodore Perry came to Japan, Japan no longer had any guns."

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources and a consistent critic of the idea of interlinking rivers (ILR):

"...The then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose speech advocating the project was quoted by Ranjit Kumar and Justice Kirpal virtually created the project in 2002. The NDA government saw political advantage in this. Since it was a grand idea, it could go to the electorate saying it would do this. The government engineers hailed the idea because it would be a grand engineering achievement, something big, which they could boast about. Gigantism is one of our obsessions."

(Frontline, April 20 2012)

Dr. P V Indiresan was the director of IIT, Madras when I was there in early 1980's.

For me, he was a big bore. (btw- I found most teachers at IIT interesting. Some even exciting. A couple of them have already appeared on this blog.)

He used to hold forth on many subjects. If you were a powerful professor at an IIT, it was never very difficult to get nodding audience.

Later in his career, he became a newspaper columnist. I kept meeting him on Business Line Op-ed pages.

He still was a bore. I don't think I read a single article by him in entirety.

But following thoughts by him expressed on April 6, 1998 caught my attention.

"Today, I plan to explore the reasons why India is, and has always been a weak force in international technology. Once we understand why we have been backward, and why we still are backward, we should be on the way to success...

...At the same time, it is proper for us to enquire why we built temple halls with a thousand pillars a millennium after others had mastered the design of the arch. Or, consider why we built the great sundial in Jantar Mantar long after telescopes had become commonplace, and why even today we remain the only manufacturers of vintage cars. When Alexander bore down on us with his swift horses, we stood stuck in the mire with elephants. We learnt no lessons from our defeat at his hands. 1700 years later, we lost again to Babar because, in all those intervening centuries, we had remained loyal to elephants and further had nothing better than muskets to counter Babar's canons. Even in 1962, the Chinese humiliated us because they had modern arms and we had none. Why do we stick to obsolete technology all the time?..."

Wikipedia:

"A horse collar is a part of a horse harness device used to distribute load around a horse's neck and shoulders when pulling a wagon or plow. The collar often supports and pads a pair of curved metal or wood pieces, called hames, to which the traces of the harness are attached. The collar allows a horse to use its full strength when pulling, essentially allowing the horse to push forward with its hindquarters into the collar rather than to pull with its shoulders as it would be required to do if wearing a yoke or a breastcollar. The collar is also an improvement on the yoke as it reduces pressure on the windpipe."

Horse Collars with hames

courtesy: Wikipedia

As a kid, I read and re-read Mahabharata and about chariots of its many heroes. Did they use horse collar then?

No and not just then...India did NOT have as simple (but revolutionary) a technology as a horse collar for centuries after it was invented.

Irfan Habib:
"...The collar-harness, which appeared in Europe about the beginning of the tenth century after a much longer history in China, immediately made the horse an efficient draught animal. However, since the horse-collar was not known in India, carts and carriages in Mughal times were pulled almost exclusively by bullocks...When Mughal artists were called upon to depict chariots used by the heroes of the Mahabharata, they faithfully reproduced the yoke of the bullock-cart, thus reveling their total ignorance of the collar-harness....It's therefore certain that the ekka and tonga are post-seventeenth-century innovations; and Mughal India completely lacked these cheap and quick means of passenger conveyance... "

open horse-drawn chariot: Razmnama painting, Akbar's atelier

courtesy: 'Technology In Medieval India c. 650-1750' by Irfan Habib, 2008

Wikipedia:
"From the time of invention of the horse collar, horses became extremely valuable for agricultural success and for pulling heavy vehicles. When the horse was harnessed with the horse collar, the horse could provide a work effort of 50% more foot-pounds per second because of greater speed than the ox, as well as having generally greater endurance and ability to work more hours in a day. The horse collar was important in the development of Europe, as the replacement of oxen with horses for ploughing boosted the economy, reduced reliance on subsistence farming, and allowed the development of early industry, education, and the arts in the rise of market-based towns."

So it is likely that if only Kauravas had got horse collars and NOT Pandavas, the story of Mahabharata would have been different!

The subject of chariot also brings up Ben-Hur (1959). The music- composed by Miklós Rózsa- during the chariot race- no horse collars even here because they came in Europe c 920 CE- is so haunting.

But have you paused and looked around the cinema where the movie was shown?


Artist: James Stevenson, The New Yorker, 12 December 1959


Mr. Stevenson is as brilliant as they come.