When Jacob Epstein Met Rabindranath Tagore...

 I saw very ordinary Netflix documentary of Albert Einstein ("Einstein and the Bomb") in February 2024. An important scene (that I liked) there is of Sir Jacob Epstein making his portrait bust in 1933.

I was going through Epstein's book "Let There Be Sculpture", 1940 where he has written about his making of bust of Rabindranath Tagore in 1926.

Epstein writes: "...“I am he that sitteth among the poorest, the loneliest, and the lost.”

This quotation from Gitanjali was strangely contradicted by my sitter, whose handsome, commanding presence inspired in his followers awe and a craven obedience. On entering my house I brought to him for presentation a little Indian boy, Enver, who was living with me. He was the son of Sunita. Tagore looked at him and asked, “A Hindu?” I said, “No, a Moslem,” whereat Rabindranath lifted his eyes to the ceiling and passed on...The manners of Tagore were aloof, dignified, and cold; and if he needed anything only one word of command to his disciples escaped him.

It has been remarked that my bust of him rests upon the beard, an unconscious piece of symbolism."

 

When Godot Knows You are Waiting...

 

 courtesy: The Spectator, UK

सुंदर मी होणार,, सुंदर ती झाली ...श्रावण मासी , हर्ष मानसी....Indian Hockey

मराठीतील एक अप्रतिम कविता म्हणजे कवी गोविंदांची  (१८७४-१९२६)

"सुंदर मी होणार, आतां सुंदर मी होणार !

सुंदर मी होणार । हो । मरणाने जगणार ।धृ.।

.... 

मी १२ वर्षांचा असताना , माझ्या डोळ्यादेखत, भारतीय हॉकी ची अवस्था  १९७२ च्या म्युनिक ऑलिम्पिक मध्ये  वाईट झाली.

 त्या  वर्षी ब्रॉन्झ मिळाल्यावर  प्रचंड टीकेचा आणि उपहासाचा सामना करायला लागला होता. १९७५ साली आपण कसाबसा वर्ल्ड काप जिंकला खरा पण आपली घसरण  सुरु झाली आहे अशी भीती वाटायला लागली होती. ती खरी ठरली. नंतर ब्रॉंझ सुद्धा मृगजळ ठरू लागले.

२०२१ सालच्या टोकियो ऑलिम्पिकस पर्यंत मी सर्वआशा  सोडल्या होत्या. 

पण भारताची मोडलेली, अपंग हॉकी त्या वर्षी पुन्हा सुंदर झाली , आणि आज चार वर्षांनंतर तिचे  सौन्दर्य कायम आहे.... 

माझे बालपण परतले , श्रावण मासी , हर्ष मानसी अशी अवस्था ह्या पदकाने सर्वात जास्त झाली आहे

Indian Hockey team with their bronze on August 8 2024

What do you call Diarrhea of Wokeness?

 

 

artist: Harry Bliss

Alexandria and India...what empty words these kingdoms were

Islam Issa, 'Alexandria: The City that Changed the World', 2024:

"...Alexandrians also made the most of their location to travel. In the second century BCE, the Ptolemies learnt how to use the monsoon winds to sail directly from the Red Sea to the Indian coast, thus taking complete control of the Red Sea ports. Strabo records fleets of more than 120 ships setting sail towards India. According to a cargo list on a papyrus discovered in the late twentieth century, a huge ship named Hermapollon crossed the Indian Ocean and its crew returned to Alexandria with some 140 tonnes of pepper, 80 boxes of muskroot plants and 167 elephant tusks weighing 3.3 tonnes. On other occasions, they would return with sparkling gemstones and pearls, in addition to fine silks. They also brought back malabathrum (a cinnamon-like plant) and spikenard (a honeysuckle plant) whose leaves were pressed to make essential oils for perfume and medicine...."

"...The act of imagining Alexandria’s past inspired Cavafy to understand its present. In ‘Alexandrian Kings’, he visualises Cleopatra and Antony’s festival in which the queen crowned her children, insinuating that the whole population has always been able to see through the political façades:

and the Alexandrians rushed to the festival

filled with excitement, and shouted acclaim

in Greek, and in Egyptian, and some in Hebrew,

enchanted by the lovely spectacle −

though they knew what they were worth,

what empty words these kingdoms were...."

 

 Alexander’s incredibly lavish funeral procession, as imagined by Andrew Bauchant, 1940

 

100 Years of Joseph Conrad's Absence...नव्या नगाऱ्याच्या आवाजात फार दुर्लक्षित झाले आहेत

 जी ए कुलकर्णी, मे १७ १९८०:

"...Conrad किंवा Hardy सारखे लेखक नव्या नगाऱ्याच्या आवाजात फार दुर्लक्षित झाले आहेत. विशेषतः Conrad मला फार श्रेष्ठ लेखक वाटतो. कारण त्याचे कथानक एक metaphor असतो, तर विषय जीवनातील साक्षात्कार किंवा भ्रमनिरास किंवा anguish चे असतात..."

 

(पृष्ठ: १९४, 'जी.एं.ची निवडक पत्रे: खंड १', १९९५)

 

Jacob Epstein, "Let There Be Sculpture", 1940:

 

"...A sculptor had previously made a bust of him which represented him as an open-necked, romantic, out-of-door type of person. In appearance he was the very opposite. His clothes were immaculately conventional, and his collar enclosed his neck like an Iron Maiden’s vice or a garroter’s grip. He was worried if his hair and beard were not trim and neat as became a sea captain. There was nothing shaggy or Bohemian about him. His glance was keen despite the drooping of one eyelid. He was the sea captain, the officer, and in our talks he emphasized the word “responsibility.” Responsibility weighed on him, weighed him down. He used the word again and again, and one immediately thought of Lord Jim—the conscience suffering at the evasion of duty. It may have been because I met him late in life that Conrad gave me a feeling of defeat; but defeat met with courage...

 

....He was a good sitter, always strictly punctual, and he stuck to the stand, giving me plenty of opportunity for work and study. I was with him for twenty-one days. Once, while posing, he had a heart attack, and he felt faint. His manservant brought him a stiff whisky, and he insisted on renewing the sitting. I had no hesitations while at work, owing to his very sympathetic attitude. A doubtful or critical attitude of the sitter will sometimes hang like a dark cloud over the work and retard it. Conrad’s sympathy and good will were manifest. He would beam at me with a pleased expression and forget his rheumatism and the tree outside the window at which he railed. The tree was large and beautiful, but to Conrad it was a source of misery." 

 

  Bust of Joseph Conrad, by Jacob Epstein, 1924 at National Portrait Gallery, London

Doctor Fischer of Geneva, Or, the Bomb Party...How Life Imitated Art

 Since I read Graham Greene's 'Doctor Fischer of Geneva, Or, the Bomb Party', 1980,  sometime in 1980's, the book has stayed with me because I have found more and more people behaving like either Doctor Fischer or his toadies...especially my relatives....

"...But it was not for his money that I detested Doctor Fischer. I hated him for his pride, his contempt of all the world, and his cruelty. He loved no one, not even his daughter..."

"...Anna-Luise called them 'Toads', her English not being perfect. She meant, of course, toadies, but I soon adopted the title which she had given them. Among the Toads was an alcoholic film actor called Richard Deane, a Divisionnaire ~ a very high rank in the Swiss army, which only has a general in time of war ~ called Krueger, an international lawyer named Kips, a tax adviser, Monsieur Belmont, and an American woman with blue hair called Mrs Montgomery. The General, as some of the others called him, was retired, Mrs Montgomery was satisfactorily widowed, and they all had settled around Geneva for the same reason, either to escape taxes in their own countries or take advantage of favourable cantonal conditions. Doctor Fischer and the Divisionnaire were the only Swiss nationals in the group when I came to know them and Fischer was by a long way the richest. He ruled them all as a man might rule a donkey with a whip in one hand and a carrot in the other. They were very well lined themselves, but how they enjoyed the carrots. It was only for the carrots that they put up with his abominable parties at which they were always first humiliated ('Have you no sense of humour?' I can imagine him demanding at the early dinners) and then rewarded. In the end they learnt to laugh even before the joke was sprung. They felt themselves to be a select group ~ there were plenty of people around Geneva who envied them their friendship with the great Doctor Fischer..."

  Dr. Fischer of Geneva (TV Movie 1984)

गारी गोट्या ...Suggestive Games of Marbles at Miraj

मिरजेला रहात असताना १९७०च्या दशकात मी आणि माझे काही जवळ राहणारे मित्र गारीगोट्यांचे दोन खेळ प्रचंड खेळात असू, अक्षरशः तहानभूक हरपून...  ह्यन्नी-गंड आणि बेंद ... 

त्या दोन्ही खेळांचा आता विचार केला तर वाटते, ते चक्क संभोग किंवा तत्सम कृत्य सूचित करणारे खेळ होते. 

ह्यन्नी-गंड (हे शब्दांचे मूळ कन्नडा मध्ये आहे hennu-ganda आणि त्याचा अर्थ स्त्री-तिचा पती असा आहे) खेळात एक छोटा खड्डा असे त्याला आम्ही गद म्हणत असू, आणि त्यात गोटी घालणे हा एक भाग असे... 

सोबतचे नॉर्मन रॉकवेल यांचे चित्र मात्र त्या सगळ्यापासून दूरचे वाटते.... 

 Marble Champion by Norman Rockwell (1939)

Rear Windows...Genius of André François

 कै. वसंत सरवटे यांनी त्यांच्या काही पुस्तकांत शब्दहीन, विशेषतः फ्रेंच, कार्टूनच्या महानतेची उदाहरणे दिली आहेत... 

त्या दर्जाचे हे André François (1915-2005) यांचे कार्टून मला वाटले ... पटकन मला हिचकॉक यांचा Rear Windows , १९५४ हा सिनेमाच आठवला...

10 dead people who have had the greatest impact on your worldview?

Question on X from General of sacred water @sacred_general was:

in no particular order, which 10 dead people have had the greatest impact on your worldview? 

 

in February 2024 my answer was:

Ram,

Krishna,

Shivaji,

Eknath,

Tukaram,

Niccolo Machiavelli

Arthur Schopenhauer,

Einstein,

W H Auden,

G A kulkarni