Global Recycling Day....Conversations

#GlobalRecyclingDay

Artist: Bruce Eric Kaplan, The New Yorker, December 2015

Kafka Back To Arabian Nights

 Haruki Murakami, ‘Kafka on the shore’:

“…I head off to the reading room and back to Arabian Nights. Like always, once I settle down and start flipping pages, I can't stop. The Burton edition has all the stories I remember reading as a child, but they're longer, with more episodes and plot twists, and so much more absorbing that it's hard to believe they're the same. They're full of obscene, violent, sexual, basically outrageous scenes. Like the genie in the bottle they have this sort of vital, living sense of play, of freedom, that common sense can't keep bottled up. I love it and can't let go. Compared to those faceless hordes of people rushing through the train station, these crazy, preposterous stories of a thousand years ago are, at least to me, much more real. How that's possible, I don't know. It's pretty weird….”

 

Paying Bills of Savile Row tailors- M. Nehru, Jinnah, Churchill

Hannah Furness wrote in Telegraph, UK on December 3 2015:

“...Sir Winston Churchill was not so adept, it appears, at paying his bills. The archives of Henry Poole & Co, the Savile Row tailors who dressed the young Sir Winston, have revealed how the politician repeatedly refused to pay for his suits, leaving a £197 bill outstanding.  He became so infuriated by requests for payment, it discloses, that he “took umbrage and quit” their patronage, claiming it was good for “morale” and the tailor’s business for him to be dressed well.  His last order was placed in 1937, for minor repairs to a yachting cap, according to the Henry Poole & Co archives, which stretch back to 1865 and are to be made public today....”

The Savile Row tailors played such a big part in the history of 20th century. Here are a couple of more examples from the history of subcontinent.

Katherine Frank, 'Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi', 2001:

"...Anand Bhawan was not merely an elaborate replica of an English country estate. The Nehru household was actually bifurcated between East and West, India and Britain. Motilal Nehru wore expensive suits ordered from Savile Row tailors (though contrary to rumour his linen was not shipped back to Europe to be laundered). He eschewed religion, drank Scotch whisky, ate Western food (including meat) prepared by a Christian cook, and insisted that only English be spoken at his table. He employed British tutors and governesses to educate his children and, after Harrow, sent his son to Cambridge..."

Nisid Hajari, ‘Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition’, 2015:

“...Jinnah had a cold, relentless courtroom style that earned him enemies but also victories; by 1916 he had become a force at the Bombay Bar. At the beginning of the twentieth century, politics on the subcontinent was a matter for gentlemen—successful lawyers, doctors, and wealthy industrialists—who gathered under the auspices of the Indian National Congress, established in 1885, to debate how to move the country gradually toward self-government within the British Empire. Jinnah fit right in with this crowd. If anything, his Savile Row suits were better tailored, his pants more sharply creased, his two-toned shoes even shinier than those of more established figures. Within the Congress, he quickly became known as a man to watch...”

And I am also sure that Mr. Nehru and Mr. Jinnah paid their bills unlike Mr. Churchill.  Nehru and Jinnah would eventually stop wearing the western clothes.

 

Artist: Helen E. Hokinson (1893-1949), The New Yorker, May 17 1947

Artist: Peter Arno (1904-1968), The New Yorker, March 28 1942

इटालियन कट्टा....The Friendly Gossips

अतिशय आवडलेले चित्र

'The Friendly Gossips", 1901

 Artist:  Eugene de Blaas (1843-1932)  

माधव ज्यूलियन , श्रीधर बाळकृष्ण रानडे आणि बा सी मर्ढेकर...Madhav Julian, S B Ranade, B S Mardhekar

 माधव ज्यूलियन आणि श्रीधर बाळकृष्ण रानडे हे एकेकाळचे जवळचे मित्र, रविकिरण मंडळातील सोबती , 'वरदा नायडू' प्रकरणामुळे प्रचंड दुरावले होते... 

त्याबद्दल सविस्तर वृत्तांत 'माधव ज्यूलियन' (१९५१-१९६८) या गं. दे. खानोलकर लिखित पुस्तकात विस्ताराने दिला आहे.

मजा म्हणजे 'मर्ढेकरांची कविता' (आवृत्ती १९७७) या बा सी मर्ढेकरांच्या पुस्तकामध्ये माधव ज्यूलियन आणि श्रीधर बाळकृष्ण रानडे शेजारी आले आहेत. 'असंग्रहित' कवितात क्रमांक ३ ची कविता आहे: 'माधवराव पटवर्धन' आणि लगेचच 'परिशिष्टें' मध्ये येते रानडे यांनी 'शिशिरागम' साठी लिहलेले प्रास्ताविक.

सोबत दोन्ही दिली आहेत. 

Why Is Ganga Eternal Young?

The Mahabharata, translated by Bibek Debroy:

 “...Kuru married Subhagi from the Dasarha region and she gave birth to Viduratha. Viduratha married Sanpriya, daughter of Madhava and she gave birth to Arugvata. Arugvata married Amrita from the Magadha region and she gave birth to Parikshit. Parikshit married Bahuda’s daughter Suyasa and she gave birth to Bhimasena. Bhimasena married Sukumari of the Kekaya region and she gave birth to Paryashrava, also known as Pratipa. Pratipa married Shibi’s daughter Sunanda and through her had sons named Devapi, Shantanu and Bahlika.

‘Devapi retired to the forest when he was still a child. Shantanu then became the king. There is a saying about this. “Those who were touched with his hands felt extreme pleasure and became young again. Therefore, he was known as Shantanu.” Thus, he was known as Shantanu. Shantanu married Bhagirathi Ganga and she gave birth to Devavrata, who later came to be known as Bhishma....”

'Shantanu meets the Goddess Ganga'

  
Artist: Warwick Goble for "Indian Myth & Legend". 1913
 

पांढरा रंग आणि जवळ नदी असती तर...Ibrahim Rauza and The Taj Mahal

१९७४साली ज्यावेळी आमच्या शेजारी सौ शाराक्का जोशी, आमची आई, माझी बहीण आरती, माझा भाऊ अभिमन्यू "भैय्या" आणि मी मिरजेहून विजापूरला गेलो होतो त्यावेळी आम्हाला कमी वेळ होता, पुढे आलमट्टीला मुक्कामाला जायचे होते, अखिल भारतीय रेल्वे संपामुळे (जॉर्ज फर्नांडिस यांच्या नेतृत्वात) बसना अभूतपूर्व गर्दया होत्या, आणि म्हणून आम्ही फक्त गोलघुमट आणि मुलुखमैदान तोफ बघायला निवडली... 

 

फेब्रुवारी २६ २०१९ ला मात्र आमचा गाईड (परशुराम गोडी, बदामी) आंम्हाला प्रथम इब्राहिम रोजा, १६२७ (Ibrahim Rauza) ला घेऊन गेला आणि माझ्यामते विजयपुरातील ते सर्वोत्कृष्ट monument आहे..... 

 

साधेपणा (Spartan), भव्यता, उदात्तता, चिंतन करायला लावणारी स्मशान शांतता, बाहेर प्रखर उन्हाळा असताना येणारी गार वाऱ्याची झुळूक, जगातील एक सर्वोत्तम वास्तुकला हे सगळ अविस्मरणीय आहे...

त्यात राणी ताज सुलताना यांची पण कबर आहे आणि असे म्हणतात की ताजमहाल ला स्फूर्ती इब्राहिम रोजा पासून मिळाली आहे.... 

 

मी दोन्ही ठिकाणी वेळ घालवला आहे आणि माझ्यामते इब्राहिम रोजा ताज महाल पेक्षा श्रेष्ठ आहे.

आमच्या गाईडच्या मते पांढरा रंग आणि जवळ नदी असती तर ते म्हणण सर्वांना पटल असत!

 

 

Mermaid and Mermaid

On the left: "How to Catch a Mermaid" series of advertisements for Western Fishing Line Company, 1959.

On the right: Peligro Serio"("Serious Danger"), Joaquín Xaudaró, 1932, Joaquín Xaudaró y Echau (1872–1933) was a Spanish cartoonist, illustrator, and caricaturist.

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Jane Eyre and Women in India & in the Civilisation of Islam

 

तुम्ही Jane Eyre, १८४७ वाचले किंवा पहिले असेल तर ह्या पोस्ट ची जास्त मजा येणार आहे...

 

त्या पुस्तकाचा आधार Christopher de Bellaigue यांनी त्यांच्या 'The Islamic Enlightenment - The Struggle Between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times', २०१७ सालच्या पुस्तकासाठी घेतला आहे. 

 

त्यांच्या introduction ह्या प्रकरणात ते सुरवातीस लिहतात: 

 

"... And yet, for Jane to see her scheme to its conclusion, she needs the help of certain features of modern England. Without the provincial newspaper, the post office and finally, when it comes to making the journey to Thornfield Hall, a wheeled conveyance trundling along one of the turnpike roads, safe enough for a woman to take on her own, she will be able to do nothing.

Perhaps more important than any of these things, Jane will need society to agree that she is sovereign over her own destiny – an unmarried woman free to climb aboard a post-chaise and go wherever she pleases, at no risk to her reputation.

 

Now I want to take up this picture of Georgian England and put it into a quite different setting. Imagine that the Jane Eyre of Charlotte Brontë’s novel has been transposed to a non-European situation. By the standards of nineteenth-century globalisation this new environment is not very distant – to get there merely involves crossing the Mediterranean. There one meets the close sibling of the Judaeo-Christian world inhabited by Jane, a civilisation built on the third and most recent of the Hebraic monotheisms and influenced by Greek patterns of thought.

 

This is the civilisation of Islam. How would this civilisation have dealt with Jane Eyre and the vistas of personal fulfilment preventing her from closing her eyes at night? Would it approve or wrinkle its nose? Would Islam ‘get’ Jane Eyre?..."

 

ह्या छोटाश्या अवतरणात अनेक गोष्टी आपल्या आहेत पण सर्वात महत्वाचे म्हणजे स्त्रियांची परिस्थिती. 

 

ह्याच गोष्टी १९व्या शतकातील भारताबद्दल सुद्धा तुलनात्मक रित्या लिहता येतील. पण इथे खोलवर जाणवते ज्या स्त्री आणि पुरुष समाजसुधारकांनी ह्या बाबत कार्य केले त्यांचे महत्व. 

 

१८व्या- १९व्या शतकातील कोणत्या जातीतील स्त्रिया हे सुद्धा मला कमी महत्वाचे वाटते*....स्त्री शिकली (अनके स्त्रिया शिकल्या), घराबाहेर पडली, गाव सोडून नोकरी पकडली, चारित्र्याला डाग न लागता प्रेम केले ... ह्या सगळ्या गोष्टी मला अतिशय महत्वाच्या वाटतात... 

 

एक खाजगी गोष्ट नमूद करतो- २३ वर्षांची माझी आई, STC -CPED पुण्यात शिकलेली, लग्न आणि एक नुकतेच मूल झालेली, बस मध्ये बसून, मुलाबरोबर एकटी, मिरजेला, १९६०च्या सुमारास, कन्याशाळेत नोकरीला गेली होती.. तिला मिरजेचा अनुभव (नोकरीतला चांगला होता) इतका सुखकारक नव्हता, पण तरी हे जगातील बहुतेक देशांपेक्षा चांगले होते हे कबुल केलेच पाहिजे

 

* Keshav Meshram केशव मेश्राम, a prominent Dalit and ex-president Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, has written about qualities of Shripad Krishna Kolhatkar’s literary work as well as his vision. Meshram quotes what Kolhatkar said after reading H N Apte ह ना आपटे’s “Pan Lakshat Kon Gheto पण लक्षात कोण घेतो”: ”If Mr. Apte could tell the story of misery of backward caste people (Dalits) the way he has told of (Brahmin) women, such a novel would be second in revolutionary qualities only to ’Uncle Tom’s Cabin’”. (“Shabdavrat" शब्दव्रत, by Keshav Meshram).

 

 

टाइम ट्रॅव्हलर जातो जिवानिशी, टी-रेक्सची बाळ म्हणतात वातड

James Gleick:

“A pregnant moment in intellectual history occurs when H.G. Wells’s Time Traveller (“for so it will be convenient to speak of him”) gathers his friends around the drawing room fire to explain that everything they know about time is wrong. This after-dinner conversation marked something of a watershed, more telling than young Wells, who had never even published a book before The Time Machine, imagined just before the turn of the twentieth century.

What is time? Nothing but a fourth dimension, after length, breadth, and thickness. “Through a natural infirmity of the flesh,” the cheerful host explains, “we incline to overlook this fact.” The geometry taught in school needs revision. “Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked…. There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.”

“The world remains, always, a bundle of processes evolving in time,” says Smolin.

Logic and mathematics capture aspects of nature, but never the whole of nature. There are aspects of the real universe that will never be representable in mathematics. One of them is that in the real world it is always some particular moment.

In a coda he ruminates briefly on the problem of consciousness—“the really hard problem.” He doesn’t propose any answers, but I’m glad to see physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists continuing to wrestle with it, rather than leaving it to neurologists. Whatever consciousness will turn out to be, it’s not a moving flashlight illuminating successive slices of the four-dimensional spacetime continuum. It is a dynamical system, occurring in time, evolving in time, able to absorb bits of information from the past and process them, able also to create anticipation for the future.”

 Artist: Kim Warp, The New Yorker, 2018