Can We Broken Statues Escape Tragic Flaws?...लेखनातील ट्रॅजिक फ्लॉ

James Thurber:

"Even a well-ordered life can not lead anybody safely around the inevitable doom that waits in the skies."
 
Burton Raffel:

"Aristotle’s definition of “tragedy” is supremely applicable to both Othello and to his wife.“The change from prosperity to adversity should not be represented as happening to a virtuous character,” Aristotle explained. Nor “should the fall of a very bad man from prosperous to adverse fortune be represented.” In other words, no one who is consistently “virtuous” can be the central figure in a true tragedy, but neither can anyone who is utterly without virtue play such a role. Aristotle spoke of the virtuous figure’s downfall being caused by “some error of human frailty”; this has come to be called the “tragic flaw.” And, again, there can be no doubt that Othello, like King Oedipus and a host of tragic heroes after Oedipus, presents a striking instance of exactly that nature. Oedipus is arrogant, wrathful, rash, but has no awareness that he suffers from any of these fatal imperfections. Othello is a social simpleton,a military bull in a civilian china shop, and similarly has no idea of these crucial deficiencies. Both men are resplendent heroes, and both fall like broken statues." 

जी ए कुलकर्णी :

"...सार्या आयुष्यात तांडेलाला आपण तांडेल का झालो हे समजले नाही. रात्रंदिवस अस्वस्थपणे विचार करणार्या समुद्रालासुद्धा, अनंत काळ जाऊन देखील, 'आपण समुद्रच का झालो?' याचे उत्तर अद्यापही मिळाले नसेल!"

 ('इस्किलार', 'रमलखुणा', 1974)

विंदा करंदीकर, 'राजा लिअर':

"गर्जा वादळांनो, थोबाड फाटेपर्यंत! करा आक्रोश!
करा गर्जना!
हे जलस्तंभांनो आणि तुफानांनो, सोडा फूत्कार
आमचे मनोरे भिजून जाईपर्यंत, आमचे पवनकुक्कुट
बुडेपावेतो!
विचारवेगाने संचार करणाऱ्या हे गंधकाग्नींनो,
ओकाच्या वृक्षांना दुभंगून टाकणाऱ्या
वज्रांच्या अग्रदूतांनो,
माझे शुभ्र डोके काढा होरपळून, चराचर कापवणाऱ्या
हे विद्युतगर्जने,
हा पृथ्वीचा सघन गोलाकार, कर सपाट एकाच
तडाख्यात!
टाक फोडून निसर्गाचे साचे, कर नष्ट एका दमात
सगळे बीजद्रव्य
ज्यातून निपजते ही जात कृतघ्न माणसांची..."

Sally Satel:

"Summoning an array of anthropological evidence, (James Q.) Wilson elaborated on the idea that our moral sense is innate, acquired not through learning but through evolution."

Lucy Coats:

"I like the story of Nyx, and the fates. Nyx was the goddess of the night and her cloak covered the night sky. She had three daughters who were the fates. I love the story of the fates: Klotho, Atropos, and Lakhesis, who weave the tapestry of life. They’re the ones who decide what your fate is going to be, so they snip the thread if you’re going to die. I just love the mystery of it."
 
Actor Amruta Subhash (अमृता सुभाष) writes in Loksatta, July 27 2013:

"...कारण मी जर तसं करू शकले तर माणूस म्हणून माझ्यात 'फ्लॉज' नक्कीच असतील पण ते शेक्सपिअरच्या नायकासारखे 'ट्रॅजिक' उरणार नाहीत!"

(...so if I can do that as a human I will continue to have 'flaws' but they won't be tragic like that of heroes in Shakespeare's plays!)

It's hard to believe that this comes from an alumnus of National School of Drama, New Delhi and one of the better actors of Marathi stage. (Is it because of all the 'acting' in dumb TV serials?)

There are two questions that arise from Ms. Subhash's statement:

1. Should we avoid tragic flaws?  2. Is it in us to avoid them?

Let me start with the second.

Tragic flaw is defined as  "(hamartia from Greek hamartanein, "to err"), inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favored by fortune." 

(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008.)

If it is "inherent defect or shortcoming", Ms. Subhash, how do you avoid it? Only by not being born!

If you are born, can you avoid being the hero in a tragedy? 

No, because tragedy comes from the encounter of human will with fate / destiny and every human is a 'hero' in her life's story.  

And  can we escape the encounter with fate / destiny? No, because we can never know about the last sorrow?

John Gray says: "The last sorrow cannot be told. If the dead could speak we would not understand them. We are wise to hold to the semblance of tragedy; the truth unveiled would only blind us."

And we can't escape the last sorrow because as Simone Weil says:  “All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.”

Where does Ms. Subhash's optimism, so widespread among talking heads of  Maharashtra, come from?  

This thinking is not native to India. It comes mainly from Socrates.

John Gray explains:  

"In the Greek world in which Homer’s songs were sung, it was taken for granted that everyone’s life is ruled by fate and chance. For Homer, human life is a succession of contingencies: all good things are vulnerable to fortune. Socrates could not accept this archaic tragic vision. He believed that virtue and happiness were one and the same; nothing can harm a truly good man. So he re-envisioned the good to make it indestructible. Beyond the goods of human life – health, beauty, pleasure, friendship, life itself – there was a Good that surpassed them all...."

("Straw Dogs")

As quoted at the beginning even "Aristotle spoke of the virtuous figure’s downfall being caused by “some error of human frailty”..."...the truth is we simply don't know about either our frailties or fatal imperfections...and how can we eliminate something we don't know?

Let me know turn to the first question: Is "tragic flaw" all that bad so that we avoid them if we can? 

The Economist, July 15 1999:

"...“Dr Strangelove” was, of course, a stepping stone to “ 2001: A Space Odyssey”, the modern classic by which he is best remembered. The story of evolution, from Darwinian apes, through homo sapiens to a new kind of star child, it is astonishingly highbrow for a mainstream movie. How did Kubrick get away with it? By introducing a sub-plot involving a computer named HAL9000, who distrusts man's ability to explore space and takes firm steps to frustrate the mission. This is the element of conflict, without which any drama is incomplete. But is HAL really a “baddie”? Or more of a Shakespearian hero—a great mind whose inability to trust man's intellect is its tragic flaw"

Artist: William Steig, The New Yorker, February 21 1970

Marathi Literature at Sea!...मराठी साहित्यात समुद्राच वास्तव किती सातत्याने दुर्लक्षित केलं आहे

"यथा काष्ठं च काष्ठं च समेयातां महार्णवे। 
समेत्य तु व्यपेयातां कालमासाद्य कंचन।
एवं भार्याश्च पुत्राश्च ज्ञातयश्च वसूनि च ।
समेत्य व्यवधावन्ति ध्रुवो ह्येषां विनाभवः ॥" 

[Ramayana, 2/105/26, 1/105/27]

 (In a great ocean, two logs meet, they come together;
after some time they separate.
Similarly wife, son, relations and wealth come together and then after some time they start going away from each other because their separation is pre-determined.)

Herman Melville:

"...Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred..."

 (Moby-Dick)

दुर्गा भागवत :

"…देशबंधू दासांची आणखी  एक गंमत सांगते. त्यांनी 'सागरसंगीत' म्हणून समुद्रावर कविता लिहिल्या आहेत. समुद्रावर चाळीस कविता लिहिणारा हा  जगातला एकुलता एकच माणूस. त्या कवितांबद्दल साने गुरुजींनी इतक सुंदर, इतक सुंदर लिहिलंय, की ते वाचल्यावर मला बंगाली भाषा शिकायचा मोह झाला. मी शिकले बंगाली आणि मूळ बंगालीतून   'सागरसंगीत'च मराठी भाषांतर केल…"

("ऐसपैस  गप्पा: दुर्गाबाईंशी",  लेखक : प्रतिभा रानडे, पृष्ठ: 59, 1998)

{Durga Bhagwat:

"...I tell you another interesting thing about Deshbandhu Das. He has written poems- called 'Sagarsangit'- on sea. He is the only man in the world to write forty poems on sea. Sane-guruji has written so beautifully, so beautifully about them that after reading it I was tempted to learn Bengali. I learnt Bengali and translated 'Sagarsangit' from the original Bengali into Marathi..."

("Aispais Gappa: Durgabainshi"  by Pratibha Ranade )]


Emily Dickinson:

"THE Sea said “Come” to the Brook,
The Brook said “Let me grow!”
The Sea said “Then you will be a Sea—
I want a brook, Come now!”"


Simon Winchester:

 "...As a small boy I once just loved the sea; I then came to fear it and revere it; and for a brief few months and years—after my small navigational triumph in the Indian Ocean doldrums—I thought I had come to know it. But that was all fantasy—for as the small creature of the Sargasso so adroitly reminds us—we know less about the seas today than we know about the surfaces of Mars, or of the moon. The water covers all in a shroud of mystery. And love the oceans though we might and fear them though we should, to know their waters truly will simply not be possible until, as Robert Burns put it so long ago, “the seas gang dry, my dear, /and the rocks melt wi’ the sun.”"

Lewis Carroll:

"There are certain things—as a spider, a ghost,
The income tax, gout, an umbrella for three—
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the sea."



 I lived first almost 21 years of life in Miraj. Our favourite vacation destination was Kolhapur.

As the crow flies,  both places are not too far from the Arabian sea.

My mother was born in Mahad, Konkan. She had many stories to tell from life there, some imaginary, many real. None had sea in it.

India has a coastline of 7,517 km.

And yet, sea hardly figured in my life or fantasies. I had no (and still don't have any) emotional connection with an ocean in contrast to even a neighbourhood hillock.

I wonder why.

The shloka from Ramayana I have quoted at the top becomes most moving because of the presence of ocean in it. If it were river or any other water-body, the impact would be far less.

 

Sri Rama Vanquishing the Sea 

 Artist: Raja Ravi Varma

courtesy: Kamat's Potpourri and Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore

I have still not fully read Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", 1952. (My father used to teach this book to college students.)

I have also not fully read probably one of the greatest novels in English language Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick", 1851.


Therefore, it was interesting to read the following.

विलास सारंग:

"… मराठी साहित्यात समुद्राच वास्तव किती सातत्याने दुर्लक्षित केलं आहे, हे माझ्या विवेचनाच सार होतं… आपण वास्तवाच्या -वाङमयीन सामग्रीच्या- केवढ्या मोठ्या भांडाराला मुकतो आहोत, हे माझ्या लेखात निर्देशित केलं आहे...मराठी वाङमयातील समुद्राची अनुपस्थिती मराठी समाजाच्या संरचनेशी कशी निगडीत आहे, हे माझ्या लेखात स्पष्ट केलेलं आहे."

("वाङमयीन संस्कृती व सामाजिक वास्तव", 2011, पृष्ठ 66-67)

[Vilas Sarang:

"....How consistently Marathi literature has ignored the reality of sea: that was the summary of my  interpretation...the huge extent of reality - literary content- we have lost has been pointed in my article. The absence of sea in Marathi literature is linked to the structure of Marathi society has been clarified in my article."

("Vangmayin Sanskruti va samajik vastav")]


Courtesy: Lapham's Quarterly Summer 2013 Issue

p.s written on September 1 2013:

Arun Kolatkar (अरुण कोलटकर):

"where the sea jostles
against the wall
vacuous sailboats snuggle
tall and gawky
their masts at variance
islam
mary
dolphin
their names appearing
music"

('the boat ride')

p.s. I am writing the following on September 11 2013.

Those who want to read in depth on this subject, please read Vilas Sarang's essay titled "कुंपणा मधला समुद्र" (kumpanamadhala samudra), now part of his book "मॅनहोलमधला माणूस", 2008 (manhol madhala manoos).

I read it first time on the rainy night of Sept 10 2013. 

I Wish Durga Bhagwat's Other Bhavmudra Was Chosen

Henrik Bering:

"While living in Paris in 1895, the Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg asked his friend Edvard Munch to create a portrait of him. Presented with the resulting lithograph, Strindberg was not entirely satisfied: Munch had misspelled his name "Stindberg"—stind is Swedish for "stout" and carries a suggestion of pompousness—and had placed a naked woman along the border, which somewhat detracted from the seriousness of the image. At their next encounter, without saying a word, Strindberg placed a revolver on the table. Munch got the message: In the new version, he corrected the spelling and removed the lady."

  

Henri Cartier-Bresson:

 “The most difficult for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt”

 Marathi daily Loksatta (लोकसत्ता) reported on July 28 2013 that the late Ms. Durga Bhagwat's (दुर्गा भागवत) portrait would be inaugurated on August 2 2013, tomorrow,  at the Durbar hall of Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
 
The portrait is done by  Mr. Suhas Bahulkar (सुहास बहुलकर).

A Marathi TV news channel interviewed Mr. Bahulkar in late July 2013 and, while he was interviewed, one could see the said portrait in the background. Mr. Bahulkar said it was still not finished.

I did NOT like the work-in-progress portrait at all. I did not like the spectacles used by the model. I did not like the slight plumpness of the model...It's likely that the TV screen is deceptive in this regard but I am stating my first impressions of it.

I have seen Mr. Bahulkar's portrait (only face) of S D Phadnis (शि द फडणीस) mounted on the wall of Mr. Phadnis's drawing room and I could not take my eyes off it, even though real Phadnis was sitting next to me!

I like to think of Durgabai as a Marathi middle-class home grown Albert Camus, a young, charming rebel. 

"Camus's good looks and sex appeal, wearing a trench coat with upturned collar and the ever-present dangling cigarette"

Artist: Henri Cartier-Bresson

I don't like to see her as a wise, kind, scholarly grandma who lived a long life. I know she was both but I am in love with the former. 

Therefore, I wish the portrait was made using her following or similar picture.

 courtesy: Jaya Dadkar (जया दडकर) and Lalit Magazine (ललित मासिक)

It's a Great Loss...Not for S D Phadnis, For The New Yorker!

Today July 29 2013 is 88th Birthday of  S D Phadnis (शि द फडणीस). He and I went to the same school- Miraj High School, Miraj!

(Mr. Phadnis has appeared on this blog a few times before. Please search the blog to reach there. I created his Wikipedia page in December 2008. If you have relevant expertise, please help me expand it.) 

Sometime this month I saw this beautiful cover of The New Yoker in my FB feed and it reminded me of S D Phadnis.

Artist: Christoph Niemann, The New Yorker

The lady has dropped the phone and is really setting herself up for real vacation by cutting off from the reality.

Now, haven't I seen many similar wonderful pictures by Shi Da?

 Artist: S D Phadnis, 1954

Courtesy and more such pictures: Official Website of S D Phadnis

And then I wondered, is New Yorker even aware of existence of Phadnis, who has been drawing some great pictures for more than 60 years?

It's a great loss, I feel. For the New Yorker!

Coppersmith Barbet, Green Rose & Books- A M T Jackson & Durga Bhagwat-... तांबट पक्षी, हिरवा गुलाब आणि ढीगभर पुस्तके

William Faulkner: “The past is not dead; it is not even past.”
  
The late Pandit A M T Jackson 1866-1909, a member of Indian Civil Service and Indologist,  has appeared on this blog before in December 2009  here.

After reading the post, Mr. Murli Khairnar (मुरली खैरनार), a Nashik resident, -  recipient of the first fellowship for creative writing given by Kusumagraj Pratishthan  (कुसुमाग्रज प्रतिष्ठान) in 2013- asked me in July 2013 about the accuracy of a claim made there. 

(Mr. Khairnar is engaged in writing a Marathi thriller that involves the incident of Jackson assassination. He and I spoke about his astounding research on July 25 2013 and I have never been more looking forward  to a Marathi novel.)

My claim was that the late Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत) 1910-2002 , borne a year after Jackson's death, had told the author Pratibha Ranade (प्रतिभा रानडे) of "Ais Pais Gappa Durgabainshee" (ऐसपैस गप्पा  दुर्गाबाईंशी) that the chase of Jackson's valuable library was entrusted to the Asiatic Society, Mumbai. Mr. Khairanr had gone through the multiple editions of the book but couldn't find it.

He couldn't have!

My claim was wrong (since then corrected). It wasn't in the book I mentioned there.  But I was sure that Durgabai did say it. So I went looking for it in all the books of Durgabai I have (around ten) and also the 'Lalit' (ललित) magazine's special issue dated August 2002 dedicated to her after her death.

                      courtesy: Lalit

Finally,  I found it and I was so delighted to re-read it.

The information comes from Ms. Bhagwat' essay "Tok...tok...tok" (टोक…टोक…टोक), first published Diwali 1957. The essay, a deeply moving tribute to the late Mr. Jackson,  is now part of her book "Bhavmudra" (भावमुद्रा), 1960/ 1998.

 Coppersmith Barbet (तांबट पक्षी), Picture courtesy: Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia Marathi 

"Tok...tok...tok",  a sound made by the bird  pictured above,  is imagined by Durgabai being made by Jackson.

She writes addressing Jackson in first person: "...'Tok, tok, tok' a nonhuman sound, distant sound, does not now belong to  Coppersmith Barbet. It's certainly your sound! For all these years remaining smothered inside the bookcase, rows of books, pages it's only your sound!..." ("...'टोक, टोक, टोक' हा अमानवी, दूरचा आवाज, पण तो आता तांबट पक्ष्याचाही राहिलेला नाही. खास तो तुझाच आवाज! इतकी वर्षे त्या कपाटांच्या गाभ्यात, पुस्तकांच्या रांगात, पानापानात गुदमरून पडलेला तुझाच तो आवाज!..."


Now, I give three small passages from Durgabai's essay.

Ms. Bhagwat was raised in Nashik for a few years. In the passage above she talks about her first visit to the garden named after Mr. Jackson. She also expresses her ambivalence towards his memory. Should she associate with him for his collection of books or hate him for being a representative of the foreign ruling empire?... But for the collection of his books, she would forget his name.

Here she finds what brings Jackson and her together. She regrets that there is no picture of him. Nor there has been a biography. How does she understand his personality? But somehow she 'gets it' looking at a green rose in Jackson garden. Later in the essay, she says whenever she heard or read Jackson's name or stood still next to Jackson's library in Asiatic society of Mumbai, she thought of green roses, first seen in Jackson garden.

Here she speculates how once Jackson must have been a ruthless, diplomatic, shopkeeping British but must have transformed after reading about India in thousands of books. She thinks only because of Jackson's affection for India he was able to put together such a majestic and all encompassing library in such a short time.

(passages courtesy: the legal owners of copyrights to the book)

Durgabai also writes that Jackson's widow had no money to return to England.  She had to request Royal Asiatic Society to purchase her husband's library.  The Society then bought it for Rs. 4 - 5,000 and that is where it is today.

(Mr. Kairnar informed on July 25 2013: "Jackson chase is there in Asiatic Library. R E Enthoven, who edited Jackson's folklore books has mentioned in the foreword that He along with a few friends raised a fund to buy all Jackson books and papers to donate them to Asiatic Society, Mumbai.")

After re-reading the essay, I have got little curious. 

Did Durgabai tone down her affection for Jackson in latter years of her life? Other than this essay, whatever I have read, she seldom mentions Jackson or any other English officer - such as Mountstuart Elphinstone or Alexander Cunningham, founder of the Archaeological Survey of India. 

Did she feel her patriotism would be questioned by some if she did? Being Thoreau's follower and a fan of Tagore, could she have embraced Tagore's views on nationalism?

Why It's Hard to Compare Dnyaneshwar With Socrates... तो गुण म्हणजे त्यांचे मार्दव

Today July 19 2013 is Aashadhi Ekadashi (आषाढी एकादशी)

विनोबा भावे:

"...पण ज्ञानदेवाच्या या सगळ्या गुणापेक्षा त्यांच्या ज्या गुणावर मी मोहित आहे,  तो गुण म्हणजे त्यांचे मार्दव, त्यांची विनयशीलता, त्यांची अहिंसा होय. या बाबतीत त्यांची तुलना कोणाशी करावी हेच मला समजत नाही. सॉक्रेटीसाची क्षमा, शांती, अहिंसा प्रसिद्ध आहे. पण दुसर्यांना बोचणारा विनोद तो करू शकत होता...."

('विनोबा सारस्वत', संपादक : राम शेवाळकर, 1993)

{Vinoba Bhave:

"...but the virtue of Dnyandev by which I am more fascinated than the rest of his virtues is his leniency, his humility, his non-violence. In this regard, I don't quite understand who to compare him to. Socrates's compassion, peace, non-violence are well-known but he could  humour that could hurt other people..."

('Vinoba Saraswat', Editor: Ram Shewalkar)]

How true!

The Economist, December 17 2009, "Socrates in America/ Arguing to death" says:

"...The trouble was that, although his students, including Plato and Xenophon, who passed on Socrates’s conversations for posterity, saw him as noble, much of Athens did not. Instead, many Athenians detected an underlying arrogance in Socratic irony. Socrates thus resembled, say, the wiser-than-thou and often manipulative comedian-commentators Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in today’s America. Those who agreed with him found him funny and enlightening. The rest found him merely condescending."

Julian Gough  says in his masterly essay 'Divine comedy' ('Prospect', May 2007):

"...Ah well, this praising of comedy at the expense of tragedy has gone on forever. Let us go back to Greece, before Muhammad, before Christ, and let someone else have the last word. In Plato's Symposium, Aristodemus, a bit pissed, has just woken up to find "… there remained awake only Aristophanes, Agathon and Socrates, who were drinking out of a large goblet that was passed around, while Socrates was discoursing to them. Aristodemus did not hear all the discourse, for he was only half awake; but he remembered Socrates insisting to the other two that the genius of comedy was the same as that of tragedy, and that the writer of the one should also be a writer of the other. To this they were compelled to assent, being sleepy, and not quite understanding what he meant. And first Aristophanes fell asleep, and then, when the day was dawning, Agathon."..."

The scene would have looked something like this:

Artist:  David Borchart, The New Yorker, February 2013

Now there must be four of them- Aristodemus, Aristophanes, Agathon and Socrates. We see only three (Socrates sitting extreme right with an empty chalice in hand). Spot the fourth!

After seeing the picture, it's even harder to compare Dnyaneshwar with Socrates!