What Will Change in 2015?

Charles Lamb on December 31 1821:

“...The last day of 1821. I don’t know how it is, but I grow less reflective as I get older. I seem to take things as they come without much care. In early life, everything being new excites thought. As nothing is new when a man is 35, one thinks less...”

John Gray:

"...Bio-engineering and artificial intelligence are certain to be developed and used for military purposes, and any post-humans that emerge will probably be locked in combat with one another. Chronically divided, the new species will no more be masters of the earth or themselves than we are today..."


One of my favorite cartoonists Zachary Kanin drew this in 2012

 
This year he drew this in August 2014 for The New Yorker

पिवळीच मी पाकोळी की...Poetry of Flowers is often Patchy and Ill-informed

Writing of his experiences in World War I, Edmund Blunden in ‘Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau’:

“…Bold great daisies' golden lights,

Bubbling roses' pinks and whites—

Such a gay carpet! poppies by the million;

Such damask! such vermilion!

But if you ask me, mate, the choice of colour

Is scarcely right; this red should have been duller.”

On September 18 2007, I wrote on "self-absorption" of writers. Read it here.

As mentioned there, apparently, writers from Kalidasa to Dnyaneshwar (ज्ञानेश्वर) and beyond never mention a butterfly/ moth  in their writings!

I claim this based on a book 'Nisrgotsav' by the late Durga Bhagwat. (“पिवळीच मी पाकोळी की”/ निसर्गोत्सव, 1996 लेखक: दुर्गा भागवत)

Now, I have learnt a little more on the subject.

In the issue dated September 25 2014 of the The New York Review of Books, Robin Lane Fox says:

"...Surprisingly, the poetry of flowers is often patchy and ill-informed. None of the ancient Greek poets mentions the brilliant wild tulips that run like red rivers through parts of the Greek landscape. Chinese poets focus on a narrow canon of flowers, soaked in symbolism and hidden meanings. They say nothing about the heavenly wild flora, the superb shrubs and mountain flowers that have transformed Western gardens since their collection and introduction by Europeans. John Milton’s poetry describes bunches of flowers that would never flower during one and the same season. No gardener, especially in Britain this year, would agree that April is “the cruellest month” and in no gardens or landscapes known to me does April breed “lilacs out of the dead land,” least of all on the American East Coast within range of the young T.S. Eliot..."

Very big names, very big civilizations were mentioned there...

Chinese poets focus on a narrow canon of flowers, soaked in symbolism and hidden meanings. They say nothing about the heavenly wild flora, the superb shrubs and mountain flower...

And so is true of  Indians.

For Indian writers, lotus and rose- followed by Parijat (Night-flowering Jasmine), Champak (Magnolia champaca), Gulmohar (Delonix regia), Bakul (Mimusops elengi) etc- are  'soaked in symbolism and hidden meanings'. Not much place for 'wild flora, the superb shrubs and mountain flower'.

Chinese Chrysanthemum cultivar

Courtesy: 'The Golden Age of Botanical Art' by Martyn Rix

पिपांत बनले 'जागते रहो'...How a Humble Barrel Helped Make The Greatest Hindi Movie

Amit Maitra's and Sombhu Maitra's 'Jagte Raho' (जागते रहो) 1956,  for me, is the greatest Hindi movie ever made. I can watch it every day and never get tired of it.

I have written about it a couple of times earlier. I feel every frame from the feature is golden. Music by Salil Chowdhury is not just one of the best in the history of Hindi films but sets up the film beautifully. Every performance by a human  in the movie is either good (for instance Iftikhar, Pradeep Kumar...), very good (Raj Kapoor, Nargis...) or great (Motilal). But one of the best performances is by an abandoned empty barrel.

Interplay between Motilal, Raj Kapoor and the humble barrel matches the comedic excellence of the likes of the Marx brothers,  Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy.

One of the best scenes in the film is the fight among neighbors to claim the ownership of the humble barrel.

 courtesy: Shemaroo and copy right owner of the feature

I feel that barrel stands for many things - drunkenness of Motilal, spiritual emptiness and greed of  India's middle class, the terror of living (not getting even a drink of water) जगायची पण सक्ती आहे ,  facelessness of vast majority of India's poor and downtrodden, black humor that is integral to every life....

Some of these thoughts came to my mind as I read Andrew McKie'sreview of Henry H. Work's book 'Wood, Whiskey and Wine: A History of Barrels', Spectator UK, December 6 2014.

"...The barrel, of course, was in many respects the precursor of this development, and Henry Work sets out to demonstrate the technological, cultural and economic importance of barrels from their development, probably before 500 BC, to their ubiquity for storage and transport from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century..."

Bacchus. Statue of the god, whole-length seated on a wine barrel, wearing grapes in his hair and holding a stylized thyrsos, his left hand resting on his hip; unsigned; first state before planet-sign added on socle; after Jacques Jonghelinck. 1586 Engraving

© The Trustees of the British Museum  .