Looking at Cartoons, Getting Along

Launched on Nov 29 2006, now 2,100+ posts...This bilingual blog - 'आन्याची फाटकी पासोडी' in Marathi- is largely a celebration of visual and/or comic ...तुकाराम: "ढेकणासी बाज गड,उतरचढ केवढी"...George Santayana: " Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence"...William Hazlitt: "Pictures are scattered like stray gifts through the world; and while they remain, earth has yet a little gilding."

मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Monday, August 23, 2021

हंसा वाडकर , ५० वर्षे झाली...Hansa Wadkar, 50th Death Anniversary

कलाकार: रघुवीर मुळगावकर

सौजन्य : श्री. मुळगावकर यांच्या कार्याचे कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स, वाङ्मय शोभा ऑक्टोबर १९५३, बुकगंगा.कॉम

#HansaWadkar

#RaghuvirMulgaonkar

Saturday, August 21, 2021

ज्या वर्षी माझी आई जन्माला आली ... Karl Schlögel's 'Moscow, 1937' and Anant Kanekar's 'Dhukyatun Lal Taryakade'

माझ्या आईचा जन्म ऑक्टोबर १९३७चा.

पुढील काही भाग माझ्या सप्टेंबर १९ २०१६ च्या पोस्ट मधील :

कै. अनंत काणेकर Anant Kanekar (१९०५-१९८०) हे तत्कालीन मराठी साहित्यातील अत्यंत वजनदार नाव. खांडेकर, फडके, काणेकर वगैरे... १९५७ सालच्या अखिल भारतीय मराठी साहित्यसंमेलनाचे अध्यक्ष... १९६३च्या मराठी नाट्यसंमेलनाचे अध्यक्ष...पद्मश्री... मराठी विश्वकोश मंडळ सदस्य...त्यांचे काही लघुनिबंध (साधारण दर्जाचे) माझ्या शाळेतील क्रमिक पुस्तकात सुद्धा वाचलेले...

... तसेच दुसरे मोठे नाव कै. शं वा किर्लोस्कर (१८९७-१९७५), साक्षेपी द्रष्टे संपादक, पुरोगामी, लेखक, व्यंगचित्रकार...

२०१६ सालच्या एका 'ललित'च्या अंकात काणेकरांच्या 'धुक्यांतून लाल ताऱ्याकडे', फेब्रुवारी १९४० चे संक्षिप्त परिक्षण वाचले. ते पुस्तक विकत घेऊन बरेच वाचले.

पुस्तकाचे शीर्षक सरळ सरळ एडगर स्नो यांच्या अत्यंत गाजलेल्या 'रेड स्टार ओव्हर चायना', १९३७ ची आठवण करून देते.

पुस्तकाला प्रस्तावना आहे शं वा किर्लोस्करांची, ज्यांच्या संपादीत 'किर्लोस्कर' मासिकात, पुस्तक १९३७ साली लेखमालिकारूपात पूर्वप्रसिद्ध झाले होते.

शंवाकि प्रस्तावनेत काय म्हणतात ते पहा:

काणेकर रशियात खूप कमी काळ होते: ३१ में १९३७- ११ जून १९३७.

पृष्ठ १०० ते १५७ मध्ये ते वर्णन आले आहे. बरेच काही लिहण्यासारखे आहे त्याबद्दल पण फक्त एकाच गोष्टीबद्दल लिहतोय.

एका म्युझियमबद्दल काणेकर लिहतात:

काणेकर जोसेफ स्टालिन ला देव म्हणतायत!

Karl Schlögel, ‘Moscow, 1937’, 2008:

“…It is not possible to talk about Russia in the twentieth century, and even present-day post-Soviet Russia, without coming up against the caesura invoked by the term ‘1937’. All lines of inquiry in my previous writings – whether they focused on St Petersburg as a laboratory of modernity, the Russian experience of exile in Berlin between the wars, or the rebirth of Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union – somehow or other and at some point or other inevitably led back to the time and place of the radical and irreversible rupture in the third decade of the twentieth century…

…However, Moscow in 1937 is one of the key settings of European history. It is not situated somewhere or other but on a fault line of European civilization. The dead of 1937 are the contemporaries of a ‘century of extremes’ that knows no frontiers. This is why Moscow in 1937 must form part of our mental processes when we inquire into the meaning of the twentieth century for European civilization….

…. In the minds of millions of Soviet citizens the ‘accursed year 1937’ was a synonym for countless human tragedies. 1937 and 1938 are significant death dates. Human lives were abruptly cut short in 1937.1 It sent shock waves through the entire nation that could be felt far beyond its frontiers. In a single year some 2 million people were arrested, approaching 700,000 were murdered and almost 1.3 million were deported to camps and labour colonies. That was a hitherto inconceivable increase in suffering even in a country that had already experienced huge losses of life. In the First World War and the subsequent Civil War, Russia had lost around 15 million people and up to another 8 million from starvation arising from the collectivization process. But the numbers of those arrested, sentenced and shot in 1937–8 represented a quantum leap, an excess piled on excess.

What makes the year 1937 so terrible, however, is not merely the number of victims. Few of those who were persecuted and killed knew why they had been singled out for this fate. The allegations and accusations were incredible and fantastic, and even more fantastic was the fact that the accused repeated and reproduced them in their confessions. This was the case with prominent revolutionary leaders, statesmen and diplomats known the world over, as well as technical experts and managers sorely needed by the country to help with reconstruction. They were all supposed to have conspired to organize uprisings and assassinations, built up spy networks and been involved in wrecking activities in factories, mines or research institutes. But, within a short time, those who had carried out the sentences found themselves in the dock and were transformed from active participants into victims. The central question that scholars have focused on to this day, and will probably continue to focus on, is why all these events took place, what was their underlying rationale. But in the past attention has concentrated on the trials of the prominent leaders belonging to the ‘old guard’, whereas now, ever since the publication of the documents relating to the so-called mass operations during 1937 and 1938, it has become evident that the Great Terror was directed primarily against ordinary people who did not belong to the Party, but who were singled out on the basis of social and ethnic criteria and systematically butchered…”

Artist: Helen E. Hokinson, The New Yorker, 15 Aug 1942

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Dog Eat Dog World

Fortunately for cats....

Artist: Geoff Thompson, The Spectator

But in this dog-eat-dog world, what is being discussed about cats?

Artist: the late Leo Cullum (1942-2010), The New Yorker

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Sir Walter Scott@250....वस्ताद सर वॉल्टर स्कॉट

#SirWalterScott250

१९व्या आणि २०व्या मराठी कथा/ कादंबरी साहित्याला , प्रत्यक्ष किंवा अप्रत्यक्ष, प्रेरणास्थान ठरलेले, सर वॉल्टर स्कॉट यांची आज १५ ऑगस्ट रोजी २५०वी जयंती आहे.

विश्वनाथ काशिनाथ राजवाडे:

"... या हप्त्यांनीं येणाऱ्या कादंबर्यांत स्कॉट, डिकन्स, थॅकरे, बाल्झाक, ह्यूगो, डूमास , झोला, टाल्स्टॉय या वस्तादांच्या हातून उतरलेल्या कादंबऱ्यांच्या तोडीच्या कादंबऱ्या क्वचितच असतात..."

(पृष्ठ २९१, 'कादंबरी', 'राजवाडे लेखसंग्रह', संपादक : तर्कतीर्थ लक्ष्मणशास्त्री जोशी, १९५८-१९९२)

ना. सी. फडके:

"... स्कॉटच्या कादंबऱ्या वाचूनच ऐतिहासिक कादंबरी लिहण्याची स्फूर्ति हरिभाऊंना (हरि नारायण आपटे) झाली..."

(पृष्ठ: १५७, 'परकीयांचा मराठी कादंबरीवर परिणाम !', 'ऐसीं अक्षरें रसिकें!: साहित्य -चर्चात्मक आणि रसग्रहणात्मक लेखांचा संग्रह', १९६७)

त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर:

"... सर वॉल्टर स्कॉटच्या स्वराष्ट्राच्या उत्कट, रोमरोमांत भिनलेल्या अभिमानानें ज्या कादंबऱ्या निर्माण झाल्या, त्यांचें अनुकरण बंगाल्यांत बंकिमचंद्र प्रभृतींनी व महाराष्ट्रांत हरिभाऊ आपटे सारख्यांनी केले..."

(पृष्ठ: ४२५, 'विभावरी-वाङ्मयाच्या निमित्ताने', मकरसंक्रांत १९४९, ' निवडक लेखसंग्रह', संग्राहक: हा. वि. मोटे , परिचय: गं. दे खानोलकर, १९७७)

Sarah Watling, Literary Review, June 2021:

"In August 1815, only weeks after the French defeat at Waterloo, the novelist Walter Scott set out to visit the battlefield. Standing on the spot from where Napoleon had supposedly watched the battle, Scott experienced ‘a deep and inexpressible feeling of awe’, before being besieged by hawkers. He came away with a number of mementos, including the skull of a Life Guardsman. Then he went home and wrote The Antiquary, a novel in which, Rosemary Hill observes, ‘the idea of a lived relationship between past and present, enacted through artefacts, emerges for the first time as a theme in literature’. It was also the ‘first self-portrait’ of an antiquary in British literature..."

Saturday, August 14, 2021

10 Years of His Absence: Shammi Kapoor

#ShammiKapoor
Recycling my post dated August 16 2011

Friedrich Nietzsche:

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

Woody Allen:

"You could argue that the Fred Astaire film is performing a greater service than the Bergman film, because Bergman is dealing with a problem that you're never going to solve. Whereas Fred Astaire, you walk in off the street, and for an hour and half they're popping champagne corks and making light banter and you get refreshed, like a lemonade."

Casey Walker:

"After all, Shakespeare’s work, like the moon, is a vast place; it exists not in some perfect superhuman archive, but in parallax view, from Earth, one reader at a time."

Govindrao Tembe:

"I consider Narayanrao very cultured man because he never talks about himself." (गोविंदराव टेंबे: "नारायणरावांना मी फार सुसंस्कृत मनुष्य समजतो - कारण ते स्वतःबद्दल कधी बोलत नाहीत -")

As I have often felt, as a kid, movies were always surreal for me and I think it all started with Janwar (1965).

Our favourite Shashi-mama (शशी-मामा) who had already seen the movie more than a dozen times (!) took me to Janwar that was playing at Deval (देवल ) talkies in Miraj (मिरज ).

Even today I recall 'LAAL CHADI MAIDAN KHADI' (लाल छड़ी मैदान खड़ी) playing on silver screen.

An Evening in Paris (1967) is my favourite movie. First time, I watched its matinee show (3 PM) at Kolhapur (कोल्हापुर) after going through an overwhelming experience of standing in a boisterous queue in the hot sun for eternity to buy a ticket.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. What did I like in it?...Shammi Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor…music of Shankar - Jaikishan, Rajendranath and bikini clad Sharmila Tagore.

This went on and one day, after watching Brahmchari (1968), Shammi Kapoor became Shammi-mama.

Why did he become Mama? We almost never had my father's four brothers visiting us and mother's three brothers didn't come that often too. So we met Shammi Kapoor more often than any of them. And like Bart Simpson tells his father: "It's just hard not to listen to TV: it's spent so much more time raising us than you have." (Episode: 2F06 “Homer Bad Man” Original air-date: 27-Nov-94)

I still remember how, while watching Brahmchari, sitting with my mother in 'Ladies' of Deval cinema in Miraj, I got to my feet and started cheering wildly during his fight with Pran towards the end of the movie.

I read somewhere that when Lata Mangeshkar called great Mehboob Khan on phone on his death bed, he requested her to sing- 'Rasik balma hai re dil kyon lagaaya tose' (रसिक बलमा, हाय, दिल क्यों लगाया तोसे).

I want to not just hear but watch 'Main Gaoon Tum So Jao' (मैं गाऊँ तुम सो जाओ) followed by a poem or two of Tukaram (तुकाराम).

No author, no playwright, no actor, no singer, no cricketer, no athlete, no music composer, no cartoonist, no poet, no stand-up comedian has entertained me more than Shammi Kapoor.

Poet Philip Larkin has famously said:

“Life is first boredom

Then fear.”

Maybe. But how fortunate we are that we have remedy in the form of Shammi Kapoor for the first.

Another characteristic of the late Mr. Kapoor was he seldom talked about himself in all the TV interviews he gave in recent years. It was always about music composers, Mohammad Rafi, co-stars, directors, his parents, brothers, his own family...And when he turned to himself, it was all self-deprecating humour. (For instance: "Ranbir Kapoor and others came over and pulled my leg...or whatever is left of them!", "If I were to become aeronautical engineer, more Mig aircrafts would have crashed than what they today!")

Mr. Kapoor said if his film 'Tumsa Nahin Dekha' (1957) had flopped, he would have gone to Assam and become a tea garden manager, riding horse with a whip in hand and whiskey in back pocket!

I lived on a tea estate of Assam from 1989-90. I never saw a horse on any tea estate of Upper Assam or manager with a whip but kept seeing fair bit of whiskey in glasses and Mr. Kapoor on TV.

However, I think I was destined to meet him. If not on silver screen surrounded by pitch-darkness, it would have been at Doom Dooma planters club! (We lived next to the club.)

Woody Allen brings up lemonade to describe Fred Astaire movie experience. For Shammi Kapoor movie experience, I would pour a glass of fresh sugarcane juice that we often drank in Miraj. At a sugarcane juice parlour (गुर्हाळ) not too far from Deval talkies.