There is a Short Period in Everyone’s Life when His Character is Fixed for Ever...Eric Blair Goes to Burma

Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace, 2000:

"...The British occupation had changed everything: Burma had been quickly integrated into the Empire, forcibly converted into a province of British India. Courtly Mandalay was now a bustling commercial hub; resources were being exploited with an energy and efficiency hitherto undreamt of. The Mandalay palace had been refurbished to serve the conquerors’ recondite pleasures: the west wing had been converted into a British Club; the Queen’s Hall of Audience had now become a billiard room; the mirrored walls were lined with months-old copies of Punch and the Illustrated London News; the gardens had been dug up to make room for tennis courts and polo grounds; the exquisite little monastery in which Thebaw had spent his novitiate had become a chapel where Anglican priests administered the sacrament to British troops. Mandalay, it was confidently predicted, would soon become the Chicago of Asia; prosperity was the natural destiny of a city that guarded the confluence of two of the world’s mightiest waterways, the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin..."

 George Orwell, 'Burmese Days': "There is a short period in everyone’s life when his character is fixed for ever." 

This is an epigraph of new novel by Paul Theroux "BURMA SAHIB", fictional account of Orwell's life in Burma from 1922 to 1927.

I have read Burmese Days, 1934 after I lived in Assam for about three years (1989-1992) and I could relate to a few things in the book easily. But in the end the novel left me sad. 

It is said that young Orwell's experiences in Burma made him the writer and thinker who became George Orwell

Reviewing Theroux's new book for TLS,  Alice Jolly writes:

"... Although Paul Theroux allows himself no authorial rhetoric or contemporary critique, Burma Sahib is a work of profound relevance to the present day for the way in which it demonstrates how human beings become enslaved to systems, institutions and social codes. It shows how such systems work to obscure the facts and make it impossible for the majority to rebel or even question. Blair is aware that the British Empire is a “racket” and a “colossal bluff”, but he can do little to oppose it. Only later, in his writing, does he begin to challenge it; and then only at a distance."

 

Eric Blair at 19 (Credit...Private Collection, via Bridgeman Art Library)

Mohammed Rafi@100

 

 With Naushad on harmonium

with Geeta Dutt and O P Nayyar

The 1737 Calcutta Cyclone...French Ship on Shore Having Enormous Crocodile

 Amitav Ghosh, 'The Hungry Tide', 2004:

"...“In Kolkata tens of thousands of dwellings fell instantly to the ground — Englishmen’s palaces as well as houses and huts. The steeple of the English church toppled over and came crashing down. They say there was not a building in the city left with four walls intact. Bridges were blown away, wharves were carried off by the surging waters, godowns were emptied of their rice, and gunpowder in the armories was scattered by the wind. On the river were many ships at anchor, large and small, from many nations. Among them there were two English ships of five hundred tons each. The wind picked them up and carried them over the tops of trees and houses; it threw them down a quarter of a mile from the river. People saw huge barges fluttering in the air like paper kites. They say that over twenty thousand vessels were lost that day, including boats, barges, dinghies and the like. And even among those that remained, many strange things happened.”

“A French ship was driven on shore with some of its cargo intact. The day after the storm, the remaining members of the crew went out into the fields to try to salvage what they could from the wreckage. A crewman was sent down into one of the holds to see what had been spared. After he had been gone a while, his mates shouted to ask him what was taking him so long. There was no answer, so they sent another man. He too fell quickly silent, as did the man who followed him. Now panic set in and no one else would agree to go until a fire had been lit to see what was going on. When the flame was kindled they saw that the hold was filled with water, and swimming in this tank was an enormous crocodile — it had killed those three men. “And this, my friend and comrade, is a true story, recorded in documents stored in the British Museum, the very place where Marx wrote Das Kapital.”

 

How Many IITians Were Behind Chandrayaan -III?

 Eighty-year-old Dr R Mahadevan, from the first batch of IIT-Madras was interviewed by Indian Express in September 2023. Read it here.

This is a wonderful interview. I did not know so much about IITM but  a part of this statement what saddened me: 

"We didn’t have any placement cells in 1964. We just concentrated on our studies and once we graduated, we started applying for jobs. However, most batchmates went abroad for higher studies. I worked at the Hindustan Steel in Rourkela and then pursued MTech from IIT Kharagpur,” 

..."most batchmates went abroad for higher studies"....and probably never returned....

shocking...so from first batch it started...and then it was happening as- he himself informs- the course was shortened to complete in Jan 1964 as country needed engineers after China war....

 

what kind of kids were they, when India needed them most....? 

 

When did elites bury nationalism after 1947? Was it 'Jagte Raho', 1956 syndrome? Indeed things had fallen apart in India from 47 to 64 and middle-class was utterly cynical and hopeless?

 

 IIT Madras - The first batch of graduates from IITM and their faculty (1964)

Raj Kapoor@100...राज कपूर आणि आम्ही

राज कपूर यांचे आमच्या घरात अग्रणी स्थान होते ... माझे वडील आम्हाला त्यांचे सिनेमा बघायला प्रवृत्त करायचे ... बाकीच्यांना नाके मुरडायांचे ... (नंतर मी त्याची कसर भरून काढली!)... त्यांचे फार कमी  सिनेमे मला खूप आवडले - जागते राहो, श्री ४२०, बूट पॉलीश , चोरी चोरी , मेरा नाम जोकर, बॉबी ...

माझ्या आई बरोबर वडिलांचे जे प्रेमप्रकरण १९५०च्या दशकात पुण्यातील पंतगोटात सुरु होते , त्यावेळी त्या दोघांना राज कपूर नर्गिस म्हटले जात असे मी नंतर ऐकले आहे ... 

दोन्ही प्रेमप्रकरणे फार यशस्वी झाली असे आज २०२४ साली म्हणवत  नाही ..

राज कपूर आणि माझे वडील यांच्या बद्दल खूप लिहता येईल पण ते करायला मन धजावत नाही ... बऱ्याचदा त्त्यांचे सद्गुणच आठवतात ... त्यांचे माझ्यावरचे उपकार आठवतात ...

आणि आज तर कपूर यांची जन्मशताब्दी..

Rishi Kapoor:

"...I have seen my father lament about the lack of talent in his own time. He would get exasperated and say, ‘Thank God Mehboob and Shantaram are not around. If they’d seen the kind of films we’re making, they’d have committed suicide.’ I think my father may have wanted to do the same today. Towards the end of his life, he was horrified by how busy actors had become and how wages had shot up, and how little actors were involved in a film as a whole..."

 Raj Kapoor in the greatest Hindi film ever made Amit Maitra and Sombhu Mitra's "Jagte Raho", 1956

 

C. P. Cavafy, Aboard the Ship...जी. ए. कुलकर्णी, दीनानाथ दलाल, पाणी, बोट, नावाडी, भारून टाकणारी दुपार... सगळे जुने...वेळ चुकवून पुढे आलेले

 

जीएंनी त्यांच्या उत्तर हिंदुस्थानातील प्रवासाबद्दल जयवंत दळवींना एप्रिल ६ १९७४ रोजी एका पत्रात कळविले (पृष्ठ १४०-१४१, 'प्रिय जी. ए.: स. न. वि. वि.', १९९४) ....

 

जीएंनी केलेल्या त्या गंगा-यमुना संगमाचे लहानसे वर्णन मला झपुर्झा स्थितीत नेवून सोडते. त्यात त्यांच्या होडीचा अबोल नावाडी सुद्धा महत्वाची भूमिका पार पाडतो ...

आज मी माझे अत्यंत आवडते कवी सी पी कवाफी (C. P. Cavafy, Greek) यांची एक अप्रतिम कविता वाचली ... 

 

=====Aboard the Ship=====

 

It certainly resembles him, this small

pencil likeness of him.

Quickly done, on the deck of the ship:

an enchanting afternoon.

The Ionian Sea all around us.

It resembles him. Still, I remember him as handsomer.

To the point of illness: that’s how sensitive he was,

and it illumined his expression.

Handsomer, he seems to me,

now that my soul recalls him, out of Time.

Out of Time. All these things, they’re very old—

the sketch, and the ship, and the afternoon.

[1919; 1919]

 

... आणि ती वाचल्यावर दलालांचे तितकेच सुंदर चित्र आठवले ...

 

अनंत काणेकर आणि दीनानाथ दलाल यांनी उत्तर आणि दक्षिण भारतात प्रवास करून दोन पुस्तके प्रकाशित केली ... त्यातील दलालांचे एक स्केच

 

पाणी, बोट, नावाडी, भारून टाकणारी दुपार... सगळे जुने...वेळ चुकवून पुढे आलेले...खुणावते आहे ...

 

कृतज्ञता : कवाफी यांचे अनुवादक Daniel Mendelsohn आणि दलाल यांच्या कलाकार्याचे कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स

 

 

डी डी कोसंबी, शाम लाल, आणि सेतु माधवराव पगडी...D D Kosambi, Sham Lal and S M Pagdi

 Sham Lal reviewed Kosambi's 'An Introduction to the Study of Indian History' for the Times of India May-June 1957.

"...History is "the presentation, in chronological order, of successive developments in the means and relations of production". This defines his creed as well as his method.

The lack of disguise puts off many readers. Yet it in no way excuses the bad manners of the critic who after reading the book said: "time marxes on." Marx is not dismissed by a schoolboy joke. Perhaps more than Kosambi's method what gets on the reader's nerves is the cramp in the professor's personality. He is too cold and stern. Not for a second does he warm up to his subject. He is too proud and perpendicular. He never stoops to shake hands with anyone who differs from him. Invariably, he turns his face away. He will not let the sleeping dogs lie and gives them a kick whenever he can.

May be there is a touch of malice in all this..."

"...Who spoke of the "golden age" of the Guptas? Not Kosambi. It is true, he tells us, that we have more gold coins from the Gupta period than from any other, but gold coins don't make an age golden

What about Kalidasa? we mumble. And Arya Bhatta and Varahamihira? And those who painted the murals in caves 1 and 2 and 16 and 17 at Ajanta and carved the face of the Sarnath Buddha? Kosambi dismisses these questions with a shrug of the shoulder. "I know all that and much more," he says in effect. "But bejeweled Avalokitesvaras and faintly smiling Buddhas don't make an age golden either. Look at the languishing cities, a more hidebound caste system and the idiocy of life in the stagnating villages." We are not convinced. There must be something more to it than the idiocy of village life, we say to ourselves. How could so much idiocy sustain so much sophistication in both art and thought?..."

"...So we take leave of the learned professor. We don't feel relaxed. But then history is not fiction, he reminds us in his voice, sour and stern. It is all the more so where the relevant facts are so patchy and can be manipulated easily to suit the conscience of a historian who also happens to be a staunch ideologue as insensitive to symbolic language as to transcendental reflections prompted by the human condition which preoccupies some of the best poets and thinkers even in this hi-tech age."

 (पृष्ठ २२१, 'अलाहाबाद १९३०-१९३३', जीवनसेतु, सेतु माधवराव पगडी, १९६९-२०००)

डी डी कोसंबी,  शाम लाल, आणि सेतु माधवराव पगडी