फौस्टला डोक्यावर घेवून भारतात कोणी नाचले का?...Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today August 28 2016 is 268th Birth Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"...Deep in our heart Care quickly makes her nest,

there she engenders secret sorrows

and, in that cradle restless, destroys all quiet joy;

the masks she wears are always new—

she may appear as house and home, as wife and child,

as fire, water, dagger, poison;

we live in dread of things that do not happen

and keep bemoaning losses that never will occur..." ( Stuart Atkins’ translation of Faust)

 
पु. शि. रेगे (P. S. Rege)'s epigraph for his novella 'Matruka' (मातृका),1978:

'Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan."  Faust II
 
("Eternal womanhood
Leads upward and on."  or

"Eternal Womanhood

Draws us on high")

 I heard very early in life that Goethe loved Kālidāsa's 'Abhijñānaśākuntalam' so much that he danced by bearing it over his head.

I have never heard any one in India making such a dance after reading Goethe's 'Faust'.

Adam Kirsch compares him not to Kalidasa but to Shakespeare for The New Yorker dated February 1 2016:

“...To get a sense of how Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dominates German literature, we would have to imagine a Shakespeare known to the last inch—a Shakespeare squared or cubed. Goethe’s significance is only roughly indicated by the sheer scope of his collected works, which run to a hundred and forty-three volumes. Here is a writer who produced not only some of his language’s greatest plays but hundreds of major poems of all kinds—enough to keep generations of composers supplied with texts for their songs. Now consider that he also wrote three of the most influential novels in European literature, and a series of classic memoirs documenting his childhood and his travels, and essays on scientific subjects ranging from the theory of colors to the morphology of plants.

Then, there are several volumes of his recorded table talk, more than twenty thousand extant letters, and the reminiscences of the many visitors who met him throughout his sixty-year career as one of Europe’s most famous men. Finally, Goethe accomplished all this while simultaneously working as a senior civil servant in the duchy of Weimar, where he was responsible for everything from mining operations to casting actors in the court theatre. If he hadn’t lived from 1749 to 1832, safely into the modern era and the age of print, but had instead flourished when Shakespeare did, there would certainly be scholars today theorizing that the life and work of half a dozen men had been combined under Goethe’s name...”

I also read this about him.

Osman Durrani, TLS, July 13 2016:
"...Raised a Protestant, Goethe retained a soft spot for Luther’s Bible. At heightened moments he tended to recycle its phrases and imagery. Yet many of the outward manifestations of Christianity filled him with loathing. He abhorred the sight of crucifixes and the sound of church bells. By contrast, he inclined sympathetically towards Judaism and Islam, which refrain from depicting the deity in visual terms. For the same reason he condemned the lavish temples of India and, provocatively, praised the general who defaced the colossal statue of Buddha at Bamiyan centuries before it was dynamited by the Taliban. But in the end, it was Faust, Part Two that created the greatest furore. Nothing he wrote met with more invective and derision than its final scene, in which the erstwhile devil’s disciple appears levitating towards some pseudo-Catholic form of absolution in the company of angelic choirs. This seemed to run counter to everything he stood for. Robertson is, understandably, at pains to put a positive spin on the controversial conclusion of the poet’s magnum opus, arguing that his inner motivation had always led Faust to strive productively for something beyond his reach. This enduring commitment to striving, so often taken as the key to Faust’s career, is perhaps best viewed as the inevitable legacy of the Enlightenment. Its value is thrown into question by the multiple murders, brute thuggery, land-grabbing and summary evictions in which he was complicit, along with the invention of capitalism through the creation of paper money and the use of slave labour in a colonial context..." 

Artist:  Johann Tischbein, 1787

p.s फौस्टला डोक्यावर घेवून भारतात कोणी नाचले का? Perhaps the late Vinda Karandikar (विंदा करंदीकर) did because he translated it in Marathi: फाऊस्ट...

लिहून भिंतीवर गवळण भरला रंग चिताऱ्याकडून...Milk-maid from Menawali for Dahi Handi

 Today August 25 2016 is Dahi Handi/ Gopalkala (दहीहंडी/गोपाळकाला)

शाहीर प्रभाकर ( - १८४३):

 "लिहून भिंतीवर भुजंग भरला रंग चिताऱ्याकडून."

दत्तात्रय गणेश गोडसे (१९१४-१९९२):

 "...ही भित्तिचित्रे म्हणजे त्या वेळच्या बालमनाची यक्षसृष्टीच होती...भिंतीवरून दरवर्षी नव्याने काढण्यात येणारी चित्रे ही त्यावेळच्या आमच्या बालवयात मोठे कुतूहल असे; आणि ती काढणारे 'पेंटर' तर आम्हाला प्रत्यक्ष परमेश्वर वाटत. दरवर्षी कोणत्या भिंतीवर कोणत्या नव्या चित्राचे लेणे चढणार याबद्दल आम्ही उत्सुक असू. शाळकरी मित्रांच्या संवादाचा विषय ही चित्रेच असे. गावाच्या काही वाड्यांच्या प्रशस्त भिंती या वार्षिक चित्र प्रदर्शनांची उघडी सभागृहे असत..." ('नांगी असलेले फुलपाखरू', १९८९)

Artist: Anonymous

Courtesy: Dr. B. K. Apte, 'Maratha Wall Paintings: Wai, Menawali, Satara, Pune', 1988

This is a wall-painting dated 1770- 1800 and was done at Menavali, Satara, Maharashtra. It was funded by Nana Phadnavis's  (1742-1800).

This is how Dr. Apte describes the painting:

Great Art Was Born of Great Terrors...Fate of Manuel's Magpie and Finches

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977):
"...Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them..."

Orson Welles as Harry Lime ‘The Third Man’, 1949: 

"In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

The following picture combines two snaps taken in the months of November/ December 2015.

On the left are two birds:  a sparrow eating biscuit powder laid in the steel plate and a bulbul (a member of  family Pycnonotidae, medium-sized passerine songbirds) is perched on a bar after having had its fill earlier.

On the right are two cats somewhere in my cousin's garden.

The cats above look so cute, indeed pious but I know how murderous they can get on sighting a bird.

When I read in October 2015 that "Cats ARE neurotic - and they're probably also trying to workout how to kill you, say researcher., I was NOT surprised.

"'They're cute and furry and cuddly, but we need to remember when we have cats as pets, we are inviting little predators into our house,' psychologist Dr. Max Wachtel told 9NEWS".

All this reminded me of  the following stunning picture.

Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga, 1787-1788, current location: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist: Francisco Goya

When I first saw the picture, I was focused on Goya's 'Red Boy' Manuel...but as my gaze came down, I saw the terror that was lurking in the picture....three cats are eyeing Manuel's pet magpie.

Robert Hughes in his wonderful book 'Goya', 2003 says this about the painting:

"...The little boy, who was four at the time, is wearing a rich red silk jumpsuit with silvery-white sash and collar. He holds a string whose other end is tied to the leg of a pet magpie (the eclectic bird, noted for picking up things here and there, has Goya’s calling card in its beak, complete with a design of palette and brushes). Two cats are staring at the bird with fixated, murderous concentration, waiting for the boy’s attention to stray. Nearby on the floor is a cage full of finches, which the cats will presumably polish off as well if they get a chance. On one level this may be a lighthearted painting, but on others it is no such thing. It is another example of Goya’s awareness of how contingent life is: how at any moment, without warning, death can break into it, and it will be too late to save anything or anyone. Neither the magpie nor its noble young owner can relax. The price of privilege is unremitting tension, for birds as for people...."

Manuel himself died young at the age of just eight. There probably is no record of what happened to the magpie and finches.

वाङ्मय शोभा, ऑगस्ट 1947....What Did Vangmay Shobha Say in August 1947?...आक्रंदन!

Today August 15 2016 is India's 70th independence day

Artist: Dinanath Dalal (दीनानाथ दलाल),'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय शोभा), August 1947

This was 100th issue of the magazine that was launched in 1939.

Dalal's lady is not just beautiful and elegantly attired but also so excited that she forgets, for a moment, the pot she is carrying over her head...the collective joy of the free nation is represented by the overflowing waterpot...

The cover of the magazine is so sunny and full of hopes and dreams but the editorial strikes a sour note with a title "आक्रंदन!" (scream!).

The leader includes following two cartoons:

Unfortunately I can't guess or read the name of the artists. 

courtesy: 'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय शोभा)

Interestingly editorial praises Dr. B R Ambedkar (डॉ. भी. रा. आंबेडकर) and lauds the Congress party for taking him aboard. It condemns Mahatma Gandhi for not recommending Ambedkar's name for presidency of Congress.

Although the tilt of the editorial is overzealous anti-Gandhism, it does raise some valid points such as  early signs of poor administration, corruption under home-rule etc.

It has printed a letter, dated March 26 1947, by Mr. Neel B. Banerjee, ICS who had served as chief secretary for  the United Provinces under Mr. G B Pant.

Following is the first page of the letter.

मग आपल्या मठात जाऊन त्या प्रेतावर ध्यान लाऊन बसायचं. हे धूतव्रत…Nine Cemetery Contemplations

दुर्गा भागवत, 'ऐसपैस गप्पा: दुर्गाबाईंशी', लेखक: प्रतिभा रानडे, 1998:
"...'विसुद्धीमग्ग' या ग्रंथात सांगितलय, की बुद्ध सांगायचा, की शरीर किती अशाश्वत आहे हे जळणाऱ्या प्रेताचं बारीक निरीक्षण करून कळत. ते कळण आवश्यक आहे…'विसुद्धीमग्गा'त प्रेताच्या विविध अवस्थांचं सूक्ष्म वर्णन केलेल आहे…य़ा ग्रंथात प्रेताच्या किती तर्हा असतात, प्रेताकडे कसं जायचं, तेंव्हा कोणती सावधगिरी बाळगायची, कशी बाळगायची हे सांगितलंय…की नुकताच प्राण गेलेल प्रेत पहा, रक्तान , पूंवान भरलेलं प्रेत पहा, मग नुसता अस्थिपंजर उरलेलं प्रेत पहा. वेगवेगळ्या वयाच्या माणसांची प्रेतं पहा. रोज रोज पाहायचं. मग आपल्या मठात जाऊन त्या प्रेतावर ध्यान लाऊन बसायचं. हे धूतव्रत… " 

Mary Roach, ‘Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers’, 2003:

“...The life of a bacterium is built around food. Bacteria don't have mouths or fingers or Wolf Ranges, but they eat. They digest. They excrete. Like us, they break their food down into its more elemental components. The enzymes in our stomachs break meat down into proteins. The bacteria in our gut break those proteins down into amino acids; they take up where we leave off. When we die, they stop feeding on what we've eaten and begin feeding on us. And, just as they do when we're alive, they produce gas in the process. Intestinal gas is a waste product of bacteria metabolism.

The difference is that when we're alive, we expel  that gas. The dead, lacking workable stomach muscles and sphincters and bedmates to annoy, do not. Cannot. So the gas builds up and the belly bloats...

... Bloat is typically short-lived, perhaps a week and it's over. The final stage, putrefaction and decay, lasts longest.

Putrefaction refers to the breaking down and gradual liquefaction of tissue by bacteria. It is going on during the bloat phase—for the gas that bloats a body is being created by the breakdown of tissue—but its effects are not yet obvious.

Arpad continues up the wooded slope. "This woman over here is farther along," he says. That's a nice way to say it. Dead people, unembalmed ones anyway, basically dissolve; they collapse and sink in upon themselves and eventually seep out onto the ground. Do you recall the Margaret Hamilton death scene in The Wizard of Oz? ("I'm melting!") Putrefaction is more or less a slowed-down version of this. The woman lies in a mud of her own making. Her torso appears sunken, its organs gone—leached out onto the ground around her.

The digestive organs and the lungs disintegrate first, for they are home to the greatest numbers of bacteria; the larger your work crew, the faster the building comes down. The brain is another early-departure organ.

"Because all the bacteria in the mouth chew through the palate," explains Arpad. And because brains are soft and easy to eat. "The brain liquefies very quickly. It just pours out the ears and bubbles out the mouth."

Up until about three weeks, Arpad says, remnants of organs can still be identified. "After that, it becomes like a soup in there." Because he knew I was going to ask, Arpad adds, "Chicken soup. It's yellow."

Ron turns on his heels. "Great." We ruined Rice Krispies for Ron, and now we have ruined chicken soup.

Muscles are eaten not only by bacteria, but by carnivorous beetles. I wasn't aware that meat-eating beetles existed, but there you go....

...There is a passage in the Buddhist Sutra on Mindfulness called the Nine Cemetery Contemplations. Apprentice monks are instructed to meditate on a series of decomposing bodies in the charnel ground, starting with a body "swollen and blue and festering," progressing to one "being eaten by…different kinds of worms," and moving on to a skeleton, "without flesh and blood, held together by the tendons." The monks were told to keep meditating until they were calm and a smile appeared on their faces. I describe this to Arpad and Ron, explaining that the idea is to come to peace with the transient nature of our bodily existence, to overcome the revulsion and fear. Or something...”



Peter Conrad, review of 'Leonardo and the Last Supper', 2012 by Ross King, 'The Observer':
 "...King wants to believe that great art lasts for ever, so he argues that The Last Supper has enjoyed, like Christ, "a kind of resurrection" in Warhol's silk screens or the cloned version that Peter Greenaway manufactured with an inkjet printer. But I wonder if Leonardo didn't intend it to decay. He knew that creativity fights a losing battle with destruction and that art cannot outwit nature: what better way to illustrate those morbid truths than to produce a miraculously beautiful painting that almost immediately begins to revert, like the bodies and minds of all who look at it, to unformed chaos?"
 

 

'Anatomy of the heart; And she had a heart!; Autopsy'

Artist: Enrique Simonet (1866–1927)

जीएंच्या महंताने 'आय, क्लॉडियस' वाचले होते का? G A Kulkarni and Robert Graves

जी ए कुलकर्णी, 'स्वामी'/ 'पिंगळवेळ', १९७७:
(महंत 'स्वामी'ला) "... भोवतालच्या माणसांना एकच मुंडी असती तर ती आपण अत्यंत आनंदाने पिरगाळली असती, असे वाटण्याजोगे क्षण तुझ्या आयुष्यात कधी आले नसतील?..."
 (मूळ प्रसिद्धी:  'दीपावली', १९७३)

Robert Graves, ‘I, Claudius’, 1934:

“...When I returned to Rome I heard that there had open trouble. Caligula had been disturbed one night by the distant noise of the people crowding to the amphitheatre just before dawn, and pushing and struggling to get near the gates, so that when these opened they could get into the front rows of the free seats.

Caligula sent a company of Guards with truncheons to restore order. The Guards were ill-tempered at being pulled from their beds for this duty and struck out right and left, killing a number of people, including some quite substantial citizens. To show his displeasure at having had his sleep disturbed by the original commotion and by the far louder noise that the people made when they scattered screaming before the truncheon charge, Caligula did not appear in the amphitheatre until well on in the afternoon when everyone was worn out by waiting for him, and hungry too. When Leek Green won the first heat there was no applause and even a little hissing.

Caligula leaped angrily from his seat: "I wish you had only a single neck.

I'd hack it through!"...”

Sir John Hurt as Caligula (Aug 0012 – Jan 0041) at the games from TV serial 'I, Claudius', 1976

courtesy: BBC