निळा रंग कधीच निघून जात नाही...मुंबईचे चंडरव ....The Blue Jackals and The Blue Dogs

 #चंडरवकुत्रा #TheBlueDogsofMumbai #Panchtantra

"निळा रंग कधीच निघून जात नाही. म्हणतातच की, वज्रलेप, मूर्ख लोक, स्त्रिया, खेकडा, मासा, निळा रंग आणि दारुड्या यांनी एकदा पकडलेले की , किंवा त्यांचा ग्रह झाला म्हणजे तो धक्काच ! त्यात बदल होत  नाही."

\                                                  Artist: Mehlli Gobhai

पंचतंत्रात निळ्या कोल्ह्याची गोष्ट 'चंडरव कोल्हा' या नावाने येते. संदर्भ : पृष्ठ ७०-७५, 'संपूर्ण पंचतंत्र : प्रामाणिक मराठी भाषांतर' अ:  ह. अ. भावे, प्रस्तावना : रा चिं  ढेरे १९७७/२००३

Wikipedia narrates Panchatantra tale 'The Blue Jackal' thus:

"One evening when it was dark, a hungry jackal went in search of food in a large village close to his home in the jungle. The local dogs didn't like Jackals and chased him away so that they could make their owners proud by killing a beastly jackal. The jackal ran as fast as he could, and not looking where he was going fell into a bucket of indigo dye outside the home of the cloth dyer. The dogs ran further and the jackal climbed out of the bucket, wet but unharmed.

The jackal continued into the jungle and saw the lion, King of the Jungle. The Lion asked him who he was and the jackal seeing that he had now turned blue declared himself as Chandru - protector of all the animals in the jungle. Chandru told the lion that he would only continue to protect the jungle if all the animals would give him food and shelter.

Soon Chandru was sought for advice from animals from other jungles and animals sat at his feet and brought him the best of food. But as happens every year in India, the Monsoon came, and slowly but surely, the blue dye had run off Chandru's coat and he was just a mangy jackal again. The animals realised this and chased the jackal far into the jungle, where he was never seen again."

FT reported on August 29 2017 in a story called 'Blue dogs of Mumbai expose poor pollution controls':

"Roaming packs of stray dogs are an established part of the landscape of Taloja, an industrial district to the north-east of Mumbai. But when a group of them turned blue this month, environmental activists sounded the alarm at this vivid evidence of industrial failure to adhere to proper standards of pollution control.

“There is pollution in every industrial zone, and the government keeps neglecting it,” said Arati Chauhan, an activist who posted photographs of the blue dogs that went viral on social media. “God has used the blue dogs to draw our attention to the problem.”..."

courtesy: Deepak Gharat and FT

If We Double The Minimum Wage....

#LaborDayUS 

Today September 4 2017 is Labor Day in the United States

Yuval Noah Harari, from his books:

"Egyptians built Lake Fayum and the pyramids not thanks to extraterrestrial help, but thanks to superb organisational skills. Relying on thousands of literate bureaucrats, pharaoh recruited tens of thousands of labourers and enough food to maintain them for years on end. When tens of thousands of labourers cooperate for several decades, they can build an artificial lake or a pyramid even with stone tools.

Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place."

 

Artist: David Sipress, The New Yorker, October 2013

युद्धकाळात आम्ही कसे जगलो?...कॅप्टन लक्ष्मी सहगल लग्न कोणाशी करणार..Who Will Captain Lakshmi Sahgal Marry?

७८ वर्षांपूर्वी १ सप्टेंबर १९३९ रोजी दुसरे महायुद्ध सुरु झाले

गोविंदराव टेंबे (१८८१-१९५५)... महायुध्दांचा  जीवनावर झालेल्या परिणामाबाबत लिहतात:

"…पण  तसे पाहिले असता, गेल्या पाच  सहा वर्षापूर्वीचे सर्वच जीवन पुसून गेलेले आहे; मग हस्तलिखित पुसून गेल्याचा विषाद कशाला वाटायचा? भावना, श्रद्धा, संस्कृती, भीती, कला, धर्म इत्यादी, समाजाला स्थिरता व मधुरता देणारी तत्वे नामशेष झाली आहेत..."

 ('माझा जीवनविहार', १९४८)

John Gray, New Statesman, July 1 2017:

“...The Second World War was not just another event – it changed everything.” Even more than the Great War of 1914-18, Keith Lowe argues, the Second World War altered human experience fundamentally. In one way or another it affected more human beings than any other violent conflict in history. Over a hundred million men and women were mobilised, and yet the number of civilians killed was greater than the number of soldiers by tens of millions. Four times as many people were killed as during the First World War. But the effects ranged far beyond the numbers of dead. For everyone who died, dozens of others found their lives changed irrevocably. Whether as refugees and exiles in the great displacement of people that followed the war, or else as factory workers, slave labourers or targets for the protagonists in the conflict, uncountable human beings were caught up in the devastation wreaked by this unprecedented upheaval...” 

वरील दोन अवतरणांची मला जाणीव करून देणार, दुसऱ्या महायुद्धाचा (१९३९-१९४५) महाराष्ट्रातील सामान्य जीवनावर नेमका काय आणि कसा परिणाम झाला सांगणार, मराठी किंवा इंग्लिश पुस्तक मला अजून मिळालेले नाही.
तुम्हाला कोणते पुस्तक माहित असेल तर जरूर सांगा.

पण वाङ्मय शोभेचे पूर्वीचे अंक चाळताना, हे वाचायला मिळाले.

मासिकाचे तत्कालीन संपादक कै मनोहर महादेव केळकर यांचा तीन पानी लेख 'युद्धकाळात आम्ही कसे जगलो !!' मे १९४६च्या अंकात पाहायला मिळतो.

त्याचे शेवटचे पान खाली पहा:

त्यातले हे वाक्य वाचून तर फार मजा वाटली:

 "... कॅप्टन लक्ष्मी हिंदी स्त्रियांना यापुढे कोणत्या तऱ्हेचे मार्गदर्शन करणार आहे या कुतुहलांपेक्षा ती लग्न कोणाशी करणार आहे याच्या चांभारचौकशा करण्याचीच प्रवृत्ति जास्त प्रमाणांत दिसून येते..."

या लेखाकडे काही दिवसांनी मी पुन्हा कदाचित वळणार आहे, इतका तो मला महत्वाचा वाटतो.

सध्या वर लिहलेले आणि या वाक्याच्या खाली लिहलेले यातील विरोध  पहा!

courtesy: History TV channel and its FB page

"Lakshmi Sahgal was a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement, an officer of the Indian National Army, and the Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad Hind government. In 1940, she left for Singapore. During her stay at Singapore, she met some members of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army. She established a clinic for the poor, most of whom were migrant labourers from India. It was at this time that she began to play an active role in the India Independence League. In 1942, during the surrender of Singapore by the British to the Japanese, Sahgal aided wounded prisoners of war. She was one of the founding members of All India Democratic Women's Association in 1981 and led many of its activities and campaigns. She led a medical team to Bhopal after the gas tragedy in December 1984, worked towards restoring peace in Kanpur following the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and was arrested for her participation in a campaign against the Miss World competition in Bangalore in 1996. She was still seeing patients regularly at her clinic in Kanpur in 2006, at the age of 92.On 19 July 2012, Sehgal suffered a cardiac arrest and died on 23 July 2012 at the age of 97 at Kanpur. Captain Lakshmi Sehgal International Airport is proposed at Kanpur Dehat district."

Taking a Deep Breath of Heaven Each Time: Watching Young Frankenstein

#GeneWilder #GeneWilder1stDeathAnniversary #YoungFrankenstein #transylvaniastation

Today August 29 2017 is first death anniversary of Gene Wilder, a screenplay writer and hero  of 'Young Frankenstein', 1974, one of the greatest screen comedies ever.
 

Paraphrasing the Mr. Wilder, any time I watch Mel Brooks' movie, I take a deep breath of heaven!

"...We never improvised dialogue on the set. Physical actions, yes, but not dialogue. One day we were filming the scene of Madeline Kahn’s arrival at the Frankenstein castle. She was wearing a fox stole and a big turban on her head. The scene seemed flat to all of us. After we tried several things, Mel suddenly said, “Marty! When Gene says, ‘Eyegore, help me with these bags,’ you say, ‘Soitanly—you take da blonde, I’ll take da one in da toiben.’ ”

We all laughed and started the scene again, on film. I said my line, Marty said his, and then Marty—in one of his impulsive inspirations—took a huge bite out of the tail of the fox fur that Madeline was wearing around her neck, but the tail came off in his mouth. We all had to go on playing the rest of the scene while we looked at Marty with a tail in his mouth. Out of such lunacy great comedy is born.

When we were filming the Transylvania Station scene, in which “Eyegore” leads me off of the platform to the hay wagon, Mel suddenly said, “Marty, bend over as you walk away with your little cane and tell Gene, ‘Walk this way.’ ”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you later.”

We did the scene. Everyone laughed, but I still didn’t know what it meant. After we finished the scene, Mel said, “Man walks into a drugstore and says to the pharmacist, ‘I got terrible hemorrhoids—have you got some talcum powder?’ Pharmacist says, ‘Yes sir—walk this way.’ Man says, ‘If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.’ ”

I hate to think what might have happened if we had been forced to make the film at Columbia. As it turned out, Alan Ladd, Jr., asked Mel and me to sign five-year contracts at Fox.

Making Young Frankenstein was the happiest I’d ever been on a film. Madeline Kahn (1942-1999), Peter Boyle (1935-2006),  Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Kenny Mars . . . and Mel directing. It was like taking a small breath of Heaven each day.

I’m always lonely when I’m on my own—a leftover I think from the Demon, who always struck when I was alone—but towards the end of filming I realized that I was going to be lonelier when I returned to my home and family. On the last day of filming, during our lunch hour, I was sitting in the Frankenstein bedroom set, staring at the fake fireplace. Mel wandered in and saw me.

“What’s the matter? Why so sad?” he asked.

“I don’t want to leave Transylvania.”...”

('Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art', 2005 by Gene Wilder)

'Walking This Way'

Gene Wilder (1933-2016) as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein and Marty Feldman (1934-1982) as Igor at Transylvania station

Castle knockers [ A device (usually metal and ornamental) attached by a hinge to a door]

"Freddy: What knockers.

Inga: Oh, thank you, Doctor."

 

Freddy admires the knockers on the castle door,  with Teri Garr as Inga!

Pictures courtesy: 20th Century Fox

30th Death Anniversary of Naji al-Ali, One of the Greatest Political Cartoonists

# Najial-Ali30thDeathAnniversary
# Najial-AliOneOfTheGreatestCartoonists
  
Two days later, August 29 2018 will be 30th death anniversary of  Naji al-Ali (1938-1987), one of the greatest political cartoonists


This blog has already paid tributes to Mr. Ali on July 26 2009 here and another brilliant artist Ali Farzat on September 3 2011 here.

courtesy: FB page and Y. Taha