Ugh! Marathi Films

India Today December 17, 2007 talked about: "How India watches movies".

"...3.7 bn number of movie tickets sold in India in 2006. 1.4 bn number of movie tickets sold in the US in 2006. 29% is the share of movies in the $11 billion Indian media and entertainment industry. The share of television is 64 per cent...".

Sadly, Marathi cinema, unlike say Tamil or Telugu cinema, is not sharing this bounty adequately. Is it dying?

Smita Talwalkar स्मिता तळवलकर, actor and producer, while presiding over the third all-India Marathi film convention 2007 on November 24 and 25 at Ganesh Kala Krida Rangamanch, Pune said:

“Marathi people have lost pride in their mother tongue . They do not watch Marathi films or plays...Lack of an audience is a major hindrance for Marathi filmmakers and distributors… ”

Actor, producer Ramesh Deo रमेश देव readily agreed threatening that if this trend continued Marathi films would not be produced any more.

Ramesh Deo should know better. He acted when Marathi films fared much better. They had warmth, interesting storyline and soulful music.

He and his son are now going to release a film on the life of Vasudev Balwant Phadke वासुदेव बळवंत फडके, one of the most liberal and inspiring characters of 19th century India. I hope it will be a good film based on the criteria of a good cinema and not just because it’s based on the life venerable Vasudev Balwant. (There already is a huge benchmark as Phadke's life may have inspired Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to write the novel Anand Math in 1882. The novel has already been turned into a movie in 1952 starring inimitable Geeta Bali)

And Ms. Talwalkar, how about you producing half a good Marathi TV serial after heralding the age of decadent serials with “Avantika अवंतिका”?

It’s not lack of pride but their bad quality that puts me off Marathi films. I don't know why urban middle-class Marathi speaking people start waving flags as soon as anything goes against their wishes.

In Kolhapur, south Indian films do huge business because they are better than Marathi films.

I hope Marathi speaking Rajnikanth's megahit Sivaji gets dubbed in Marathi. It will set Marathi box office on fire, the way it did during the times of V Shantaram व्ही शांताराम or Dada Kondke दादा कोंडके.

The last Marathi films I enjoyed were “The Turn of Ghost एक डाव भुताचा” and “The Threshold उंबरठा”(both 1982).
[btw- It's not nostalgia. I enjoyed Hindi film Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) and English film, The Pink Panther (2006)]

I have tried to watch many Marathi films after 1982 but they are lousy and unwatchable. During this time, Marathi had some very good talent-like the late Laxmikant Berde लक्ष्मीकांत बेर्डे- but they wasted it.

I don’t recall a single song of any Marathi film since "The Threshold उंबरठा".

Much talked about “Breath श्वास” (2003), I found tear-jerker and boring. Nothing wrong with sentimentality though. Shyam's Mother श्यामची आई (1953) , a 'sentimental' film, on the other hand is one of the greatest film made in India.

Noble subject doesn’t mean good film.

Jabbar Patel जब्बार पटेल made bad film on Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s life (1998). I thought here we go again. Richard Attenborough turned Gandhi into a classic, in both Hindi and English, while Ambedkar gets unfair treatment even here.


Artist: Robert Weber The New Yorker 20 July 1963

Butterfly with Stinger - James McNeill Whistler and D G Godse द ग गोडसे

Key to unravel great minds and their work often is to know what drove them - personalities, events etc.

Great D G Godse द ग गोडसे, who studied arts in pre-WW II England, I feel, was driven by two personalities all his life-Mastani मस्तानी (wife of First Bajirao Peshwa पहिला बाजीराव पेशवा 1699-1740) and artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903).

He was obsessed with Mastani and deeply influenced by Whistler.

Wikipedia describes Whistler as:

“an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Averse to sentimentality in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". He took to signing his paintings with a stylized butterfly, possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for Whistler's art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, in contrast to his combative public persona. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler titled many of his works 'harmonies' and 'arrangements'.”

I think most of it fits Godse too.

“Averse to sentimentality in art…art for art's sake… possessing a long stinger for a tail.. art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, in contrast to his combative public persona…”

“The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies” is a book by Whistler published in 1890. The book contains Whistler's letters to newspapers chronicling his many petty grievances against various acquaintances and friends.

Godse too could have written a book with the same title!

No wonder Godse wrote two wonderful essays on Whistler: “नांगी असलेले फुलपाखरू: 1 & 2” (Stinger Possessing Butterfly: 1 & 2) in 1989.

Thanks to poverty of Marathi publishing world, the book containing these essays is not well printed and has NO pictures, except the one on the cover (reproduced below left).



Artist: D G Godse द ग गोडसे c 1989 and James McNeill Whistler c 1890-1899

First time perhaps they appear together!

Deer Hunters Complain About Packaging; Deer about Slaughter

When I was at IIT, Madras, deer on its campus outnumbered cats and dogs there. 1982-83 was a drought year in Madras. Deer seemed to be suffering a lot. They used to eat anything organic they came across, like Surf cartons!

But I never heard them appearing on dinner plates. I understand it changed in later years.

I am not a vegetarian. In fact, I have tasted even (legal) venison in Arunachal Pradesh at a lunch thrown by a tribal chief, but I still balked when I read this:

“EVERY year, 15 million licensed hunters head into America’s forests and fields in search of wild game.

In New York State alone, roughly half a million hunters harvest around 190,000 deer in the fall deer hunting season — that’s close to eight million pounds of venison…”:

STEVEN RINELLA, NYT December 14, 2007

Rest of the article is justification of this slaughter across USA.

I once told my WASP American colleague: You have to kill something at every mealtime.

He laughed.



‘Ugh! There’s so much packaging!’


The Spectator October 27, 2007

Woodrow Wilson, Hillary Clinton: Live and Let Live. जरा जगा अन् जरा जगूं द्या

For Newsweek December 10, 2007, Adam B. Kushner reviewed David A. Andelman's new book, "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today".

His conclusion: American President Woodrow Wilson was an inadvertent villain. (Like so many other American Presidents since and before him, I might add!)

“… Every high school student learns how the punitive Treaty of Versailles the American president helped negotiate in Paris pushed Germany toward militarism, National Socialism, and eventually World War II. Andelman looks beyond Hitler, surveying the worldwide havoc the document wrought. There is no dearth of material.

Of course, Wilson wasn't the sole architect of that global catastrophe. But unlike the incompetents, cynics, and partisans who populate Andelman's account, Wilson entered (and won) the war on behalf of his Fourteen Points, which promised freedom and self-government for every people. Instead, the treaty, enabled by his naiveté, betrayed those ideals and laid the groundwork for another world war, followed by 50 years of imperial chess. And the victims whose self-determination Wilson signed away at Versailles represent, to Andelman, the nails in Wilson's coffin.

Why'd he do it? For a fantastical notion called the League of Nations—a precursor to the United Nations that he hoped would prevent future wars. Wilson understood it was a hard sell—why should the winners surrender any sovereignty? So he knowingly allowed the Allies to make greedy (and colonial) territory assignments, guessing that his deference would buy enough goodwill to make the League real. Once it existed, he assumed, it would simply fix the mistakes of Versailles…

…Predictably, the League of Nations was never going to right these wrongs. In fact, the U.S. Senate wouldn't even approve its creation, and without American muscle it had no real power. Around the globe, the mistakes of Versailles then began to multiply. Maps that had been drawn strategically to divide coal mines and ports rendered states with indefensible borders and irredentist minorities: ethnic Germans in Poland, for example, clamored noisily to rejoin the motherland until Hitler's panzer divisions granted their wish just two decades later.

Meanwhile, native peoples—from Algeria to China—subjugated by Allied colonies after Versailles furnished inviting targets for communist insurrections throughout the century. And in outposts like Saudi Arabia, where revolutionaries failed to eject Western-friendly despots, anti-colonial feelings often turned anti-Western. Wilson hoped the 117,000 American dead in World War I would fertilize the seed of democracy; instead, Andelman says, they produced Al Qaeda. ..”

When I was taught League of Nations at Miraj High School (9th standard?),where great historian Vasudevshastri Khare वासुदेवशास्त्री खरे was a teacher once, I wasn’t taught a word of this!

Woodrow Wilson for a long time was a hero to me.

B S Mardhekar बा. सी. मर्ढेकर was a poet with global sensibilities. Korean war was a major event in world history but rarely figures in Marathi literature. Mardhekar’s few poems must be an exception.

"अजून येतो वास फुलांना"(Still fragrance emanates from flowers) is one such. Another one is "जमीन म्हणते मीच धांवतें" (Ground says I only run).

The latter poem has this stanza.

नळीतलें जग नळीत जगतें
उगाच रुसवा रसायनाचा;
उगाच दावा मानवतेचा
आणिक डंका सामर्थ्याचा !

“Testtube world lives in testtube
gratuitous grudge of chemicals;
gratuitous claim of humanism
And drumbeating of brute force !”

The late M V Dhond म वा धोंड reviewed it for दैवज्ञश्री(दिवाळी Diwali 2000). He showed how this was a severe indictment of hypocrisy in American claim of humanism and Chinese claim of communism.

Testtube world is the world of hoi polloi.

See related picture post here.


President Woodrow Wilson campaigning on behalf of the League of Nations in St. Paul, Minn., in 1919 (Picture Courtesy- Newsweek website).

He looks so photogenic. Everyone around him looks so happy. He might win in 2008!

Bobbing Run-up, the Goggle-Eyes, the Whirring Wrist, the Fizzing Ball...

Here, for whatever worth, is my list of top 5 cricketers South Asia produced so far:

1. Muttiah Muralitharan (First, Not Doosra!)
2. Wasim Akram
3. Kapil Dev
4. Imran Khan
5. Sunil Gavaskar

On December 6, 2007, Murali had taken no wickets in England second innings. And then he clean bowled first Matt Prior and later, with 'snake' ball, Ian Bell. It's hard to play his snake ball even in a dream. Ian Bell (and I) thought ball left him safely, only to see it crashing into his stumps.

Michael Atherton gentleman cricketer wrote memorable essays on Murali in year 2001 and 2006.

Atherton wrote in January 2001:

“At his strike rate of just over five wickets a Test, Muttiah Muralitharan will become, barring misfortune, the greatest wicket- taker in the history of the game in about four years' time. Not bad for a short, slightly built, bow-legged finger spinner with a congenital defect of his right arm…”

In less than six years, Murali on December 3, 2007 claimed his 709th wicket to become world’s number one wicket- taker in test match cricket.

“…More than that, he was a complete breath of fresh air. Sometimes a county dressing-room can become a tired and cynical place and what was once a game can become a humdrum job. Indeed, when Murali arrived, I was injured, sidelined and contemplating retirement as I had lost some enjoyment of the game in the previous six months through constantly battling injury. Murali's arrival reaffirmed to me that cricket is played best when it is enjoyed rather than endured. It was such a pleasure to see a player, a world-class player, clearly relishing the opportunity to bowl and taking pleasure in everything he was asked to do. He simply loves the game.

It is rare to see a great player with so little ego. When the ever- insatiable Lancashire marketing department asked him to dress in lederhosen in front of the members and cameras one day to promote the Warsteiner floodlit series, it was a request that would have been flatly refused by most. But there he was, looking ever so slightly ridiculous, waving his feathered hat, swigging the amber nectar, having the time of his life…”

Atherton wrote in year 2006:

“…Muralitharan is now 34 years old, with a creaking shoulder, and the strain of carrying his country's attack almost single-handedly for more than a decade will surely bring down the curtain on his career before he returns to these shores again. It is entirely likely that this will be the last time that we will see the bobbing run-up, the goggle-eyes, the whirring wrist, the fizzing ball and the best of batsmen hypnotised, mesmerised and ultimately bamboozled.

Appreciate him while you can: his like will not come again.”




Muttiah Muralitharan in action
(Picture Courtesy- AFP / cricinfo.com)

Taslima Nasreen and Sanskrit Playwright Bhasa, What is Common to them?

Outlook December 10, 2007 said: Taslima Nasreen is on the run again. Earlier she was attacked in Hyderabad in August 2007 at a book launch. In November 2007, riots in her name erupted in Kolkata.

Her detractors want her work burnt down. Here she is in good company of great Sanskrit playwright Bhasa (circa 4th/5th century BC).

Take heart Ms. Nasrin.

A G Noorani said in Economic & Political Weekly December 1, 2007 : "Book banning is a civilised form of the vice of book-burning which is a sure symptom of fascism. India has a formidable record of book banning. As with much else, independent India simply took over the habits of the British raj."

Does India have a formidable record of book burning too?

According to the late Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत, Indians burnt down Bhasa’a भास play “Pratima प्रतिमा” because they didn’t like it.

Durga Bhagwat liked Bhasa’s plays more than any one else’s.

She said: “Kalidasa is sweet to ears but there is no ‘stuff’ in him. No ‘stuff’ no drama…”

Bhasa wrote ‘Pratima’ based on the life of Rama.

She further said: “…But people didn’t like it (Pratima) and they burnt it down. After passage of hundreds of years some one discovered ‘Pratima’ and hence we have it…

…Such was the unprecedented talent of Bhasa. I like Bhasa very much. There is not an iota of artificiality in him.”

(Source- Easy Conversations: With Durgabai by Pratibha Ranade ऐसपैस गप्पा : दुर्गाबाईंशी, लेखक प्रतिभा रानडे 1998)

D G Godse द ग गोडसे too wrote a beautiful essay on controversial ‘Pratima’.

According to Godse, Rama in Bhasa’s play has the main objective of expanding Arya’s empire beyond river Godavari by conquering Anaryas (non-Aryans). (No wonder M Karunanidhi isn’t happy.)

Like the Old Testament, both Ramayana and Mahabharata (episode of burning of Khandav Forests) tell us chillingly how Aryans went about acquisition of new land, dispossessing it of its earlier inhabitants.

The Economist December 15, 2007 said:"...Over the centuries, pioneer peoples, from the Ulster Protestants to the Boers, have drawn inspiration from passages in the Old Testament which describe the acquisition of new land, and the dispossession of its earlier inhabitants.

What makes America's Christian Zionists unusual is that their fascination with conquest is vicarious: it is projected onto a land thousands of miles away. The movement's followers are unlikely to feel at first hand the consequences of the policies they advocate. This makes their aspirations both more aggressive and more fantastical."

One interesting observation of Godse is as follows: Jatayu is a traitor Anarya. While killing a fellow Anarya- Jatayu, Ravana says: I will send you to dwelling of Yama (यमसदन). But dwelling of Yama is an Aryan concept. Therefore, Ravana’s usage of this alien phraseology is very meaningful.

(source: "Destiny in Bhasa's Play Pratima"------ "भासाच्या 'प्रतिमा' नाटकातील 'नियती' "-------'नांगी असलेले फुलपाखरू' 1989)

On December 9, 2007, the Hindu reported:

“…Mr. Bhattacharjee was referring to the controversy generated by reports in a section of the media that said that the Chief Minister, while delivering a public speech on the 15th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid on Thursday, had said that Lord Ram existed only in the poet’s imagination.

“While addressing a public meeting organised by the government of West Bengal, Sports and Youth Service department, in connection with the 15th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, I quoted the following lines from Rabindranath Tagore: ‘Kobi tobo monobhumi Ram er jonmosthan Ayodhya r theke satya jeno’ [the poet’s mind is the birth place of Ram, which is more real than Ayodhya],” the statement said.”

Tagore is dead for a while now. Else, he would be on the run! How can anything be more real than Ayodhya?

Like in the picture below, Ram indeed has become a dreaded word for many people.


Artist: R K Laxman Times of India 18 September 2007

Selling of Heritage, Fragment by Fragment!

KATHERINE BOUTON has reviewed Nina Burleigh’s book “MIRAGE /Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.” (NYT December 9, 2007).

“…The most famous artifact the scholars discovered was the Rosetta stone, which soon wound up in British possession. The French military leadership, ever impatient with the scientists left in their care, bargained it away, along with all the scientists’ notes, drawings and specimens, in the truce that finally allowed them to return home. To this day it sits in the British Museum despite Egypt’s request for its return, with a label that says only “Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801, presented by King George III.” Perhaps it was historic justice that a Frenchman eventually cracked the code (working from copies), in 1822.

…The book’s legacy — and the legacy of Napoleon’s Egyptian adventure — was enormous, prompting the half-century of Egyptomania that swept Europe. The resulting decades of plunder brought Cleopatra’s Needle to New York, the Luxor obelisk to the Place de la Concorde, and room after room of mummies to the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum and the Louvre. Two hundred years later, a new struggle over national cultural heritage may in the end restore at least some of this magnificence to its country of origin.”

We all know India was looted of its treasures during the British Raj and is being done so during the Indian Raj. But now I begin know the price tag of the loot!

Times of India reported on November 26, 2007 an example of how “precious” our heritage is in dollar terms!

See the picture below of Avlokitesvara and Green Schist Gable Relief circa 2nd-3rd century.

Those two alone are reportedly worth US$ 1,070,000!

It may be interesting to put up a price tag outside each archeological site to let people know the worth of what they are viewing and how careful they should be.


Avlokitesvara and Greenschist Gable Relief Gandhara 2nd-3rd century



Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker 7 March 1959

Does Teenage Pune Forget to Wear a Condom?

Newsweek December 10, 2007 has an interesting story:
“A Special Delivery/With all the films about unplanned pregnancy this year, 'Juno' is the only one to discuss abortion.”

Its author Jennie Yabroff says:

“This may go down as the year Hollywood forgot to wear a condom. Several prominent films—"Knocked Up," "Waitress," "Bella," "Margot at the Wedding"—feature women who unexpectedly find themselves in the family way. While they react to the news with varying levels of delight and/or despair, sooner or later they all accept their condition, as though motherhood has been a fait accompli from the moment of fertilization. Then there's the 16-year-old at the heart of "Juno." After downing gallons of Sunny Delight to facilitate multiple pregnancy tests, Juno MacGuff does what most women do in her circumstances: she calls her best friend. Then she has an awkward conversation with the baby's father. But finally, she does something hardly any other pregnant character in a film has done since Roe v. Wade: she goes to an abortion clinic.

Hollywood is generally assumed to be a bastion of political liberalism, but when movie characters find themselves unintentionally pregnant, one of two things happens: they keep the baby, or they conveniently miscarry. "Juno" is the only film in recent history in which the protagonist seriously considers termination. ..”

After I read this, I asked my wife if she remembered any Hindi or Marathi film where a leading lady went for the abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.

Both of us couldn’t recall a single instance.

In Hindi films too, "they keep the baby, or they conveniently miscarry." See related entry on this subject here.

Times of India November 23, 2007 reported:

“Teen abortions rising at alarming rate:

The number of teenagers and young unmarried women going for abortions has risen sharply in Pune, sparking concern among gynaecologists over unsafe and unprotected sex…

Most of these girls and women are educated and are either students or working women…

While the members of the society said it was difficult to count the actual number of teen abortions in the city, they agreed that the number has risen sharply…”

I had read in the past how abortions among teens went up few weeks post-Navratri.

However, Times of India reported in October 2005:

“Solved: Post-Navratri abortion

It's a revolution of sorts. Social researchers waiting to dish out those cliched surveys on abortion rates after Navratris in Gujarat, are in for some disappointment. Because revellers, especially girls, are shedding inhibitions and walking up to the neighbourhood chemist asking for condoms.

And invading the market are the Cobras, Draculas, Skinless Skin — all brands of condoms from China. With the nine nights of revelry having peaked over the week-end gone by, chemists are confessing that condom sales are up by up to 50 per cent…”

Considering that Hindi films tend to have a lot of influence on Indian teens and that, like Hollywood films, they can’t show abortion, I hope they promote use of condoms to Indian teens.


Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker 11 January 1930

Omar Khayyam or Tycho Brahe? Mardhekar Chose Tycho Brahe.

While reviewing book on Marco Polo (“MARCO POLO/ From Venice to Xanadu.” By Laurence Bergreen) , BRUCE BARCOTT said:

“…In the end, Marco Polo’s greatest contribution to history was to deliver this simple news to Europe: The Asians, they’re not so bad. They’re kind of like us. In some ways, they’re better.” (NYT December 2, 2007)

I wonder what Europeans learnt from Polo’s message but what about us, Indians?

We still don’t know enough about greatness of our neighbouring civilizations in China and Iran. I was never taught in my school anything good about China. We then thought Chinese ate roaches and geckos for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Iran particularly has fallen off the map of most educated Indians. Funny considering Marathas, for a tiny while in 18th century, nursed the dream of invading Iran and Farsi once was as important in India as English is today.

Here is one possible reason.

I am told you don’t ever get US visa if your passport is stamped with Iranian visa. And for middle class Indians, US visa is better than even that of mythical Chitragupta’s चित्रगुप्त visa to heaven!

Quite a few Indians know about Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131), an Iranian, though thanks to “… the Rubaiyat, a collection of his free-spirited quatrains made famous around the world by the translations of the 19th-century poet Edward Fitzgerald.

It has been said that these immensely popular books, first published in 1859 and running into numerous editions, contributed more phrases to the English language than the Bible and Shakespeare combined.”

Marathi has seen few translations of the Rubaiyat. My father (Gopal Dutt Kulkarni) for instance made one- “Geet Rubayat” (गीत रुबायत)- during 1960’s.

Justin Marozzi reviewed “Omar Khayyam: Poet, Rebel, Astronomer /His own man by Hazhir Teimourian” for The Spectator, 21st November 2007.

He said:“…Khayyam developed a calendar which had an error of one day in 3,770 years (superior to the Gregorian calendar with an error of one day in 3,330 years).

It was based on his amazingly accurate determination of the length of the year as 365.242199 days. The length of the year is currently 365.242190 days...”

Even today, almost 1000 years later, I have hard time comprehending this accuracy. Number numbness!

Poet B S Mardhekar बा. सी. मर्ढेकर (1909-1956) was an ardent fan of another good poet and Farsi pandit Madhav Julian माधव जूलियन् जुलियन(1894-1939). (btw- Mardhekar has written a moving poem on ordeals faced by Madhav Julian.) Madhav Julian माधव जुलियन translated the Rubaiyat from Farsi into Marathi (1929-1933). He also created a Farsi- Marathi dictionary (1925).

Mardhekar chose to use Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) who was famous for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical observations in following lines of his well-known poem: [मी एक मुंगी, हा एक मुंगी, (I am an ant, he is an ant,)] (poem 16 "आणखी कांहीं कविता" some more poems)

ह्या नच मुंग्या : हींच माणसे :
असेच होते गांधीजीही,
येशु क्रिस्त अन् कृष्ण कदाचित्
कालिदास अन टैकोब्राही.

(These not ants : these only humans :
Like this was Gandhi too
Jesus Christ and Krishna perhaps
Kalidas and Tycho Brahe too)

If he were to use Omar Khayyam instead of Tycho Brahe, it would read like this:

ह्या नच मुंग्या : हींच माणसे :
असेच होते गांधीजीही,
येशु क्रिस्त अन् कृष्ण कदाचित्
कालिदास अन ओमर खय्याम.

Still sounds great to me!

I wonder why Mardhekar didn’t choose Omar Khayyam. Did he know Omar Khayyam too was a great astronomer?
Also, in politically correct second half of 20th century, it would have meant showcasing a great Muslim in the company of great Hindus and Christians.

Pity, I still know so little about Khayyam as a poet, rebel, astronomer and possibly a tent maker!


Artist: Ed Fisher The New Yorker 26 March 1990

p.s. Now I think I know why Mardhekar chose Brahe. Read this article from NYT dated Nov 29 2010.

The Dolphin is the Cow of the Brahmaputra/ And Brahmaputra is My Mother

Asian Age November 29, 2007 reported: “Brahmaputra’s dolphins dying out”.

My first thought was a deep regret: Although I lived in Assam from 1989-1992 intermittently, I never saw a dolphin even once! My ‘affair’ with Brahmaputra is documented here.

I fell in love with river dolphins after reading Amitav Ghosh’s “The Hungry Tide”(2004).

I liked the book mainly because it has so much 'water' and water-borne objects in it.

I was raised in western Maharashtra, land of hills and stream-like rivers. Those rivers sometimes have no water, let alone hungry tides, crocodiles and dolphins!

Ghosh has portrayed romance between protagonist Piyali Roy and Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) with great sensitivity.

Sadly, the book has no pictures. As reported in the press, I hope they don't make a shoddy Hindi film based on the book and instead include pictures of Sundarbans in the next edition.

R K Sinha, a Patna-based ecologist who studies the river’s eco-system intimately says:

"The Ganga has more life in it than a forest; its biodiversity is rich. We know so little because its aquatic life is largely undocumented. The river dolphin is an indicator of the river’s health as it is at the top of the riverine food chain, like the tiger is in a forest. That’s why locals say: “Sons bachao nadi mein,/ naam kamao sadi mein”. (Save the river dolphin,/ earn name and fame.) “Sons Ganga ki gaia hain/ Ganga meri maia hain”. (The dolphin is the cow of the Ganga/ And Ganga is my mother.) … Only some 2,000 dolphins remain today…”

If intelligent dolphins come to know about what we have done to them, they might say...

Artist: Warren Miller The New Yorker 30 December 1991