The Five Elements and Hanuman

Today April 22 2016 is Hanuman Jayanti… it also is birth anniversary of my late Kumud-mavashi (कुमुद मावशी)

Artist: Ritoparna Hazra for Amar Chitra Katha

फर्ग्युसन कॉलेजातील दादा ताई...Charlotte Bronte@200

Today April 21 2016 is 200th birth anniversary of Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Brontë, 1853:

“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould and tilled with manure.”

One of the best essays in Marathi is by Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade (विश्वनाथ काशिनाथ राजवाडे) 1863-1926. It is titled "Kadambari" (कादंबरी): novel.

Rajwade has no high opinion of not just Marathi novels but English too. He is fond of French and Russian novels. 

He says: "...टॉल्स्टॉय, झोला, ह्यूगो  ह्यांनी लिहिलेल्या कादंबऱ्यांच्या तोडीची इंग्लिश भाषेंत एकहि कादंबरी झाली नाही. जगातील सर्व राष्ट्रांना प्रसिद्ध अशा निरनिराळ्या भाषांतील कादंबर्यांची गणना केली तर त्यांत इंग्लंडातील दोन तीन व अमेरिकेतील एकाच कादंबरीचा समावेश करावा लागेल. Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe आणि Uncle Tom's Cabin ह्या चार कादंबर्याखेरीज दुसर्या कोणत्याहि कादंबऱ्या इतर राष्ट्रांना सरसहा माहीत असतील असे म्हणवत नाही…. " [page 296/297, 'Rajwade Lekhsangraha', 1958/1992 (राजवाडे लेखसंग्रह)] 

Well, today Mr. Rajwade would be surprised to know that Bronte's 'Jane Eyre', 1847 is now commonly accepted in the canon of English literature and is widely studied in secondary schools.

Not just that,  "Charlotte Brontë has been called the 'first historian of the private consciousness' and the literary ancestor of writers like Joyce and Proust. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel's exploration of classism, sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism." (Wikipedia)

(BTW: it's surprising that Rajwade does NOT mention Herman Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’, 1851, probably the greatest American novel of all time)

  
India figures in ‘Jane Eyre’ as it does in most 19^th century English literature. 

In later part of the novel, St. John asks Jane to come with him to India. He wants her to come as his wife while she wants to be his sister!

“....“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.”

“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”

“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.”

He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your strong sense will guide you.”

I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us continue.”

“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: “it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember—you have said that.”

“Conditionally.”...”

I thought this was funny.  There was so much of this brother-or-husband / sister-or-wife confusion in 20th century India, particularly before independence. 

There is a Marathi book called 'Vishrabhad Sharda' (विश्रब्ध शारदा), 1972 that contains a lot of letters exchanged among Marathi literati, theater personalities, other cultural players, activists, budding politicians.

I remember letters that were exchanged between Kavi Anil (कवी अनिल) and Kusumavati Jaywant. They started their exchange by addressing each other as brother (दादा) and sister (ताई) and went on to marry each other! 

There are dozens of such examples.  

This 'Victorian' custom must have come to English-educated Maharashtra from England via Bengal. In any case, they were reading Bronte at Fergusson college when Anil and Kusumavati attended it

'

'Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë'

Artist: Branwell Bronte, c 1834

“Branwell—Emily—Anne are gone like dreams—gone as Maria and Elizabeth went twenty years ago. One by one I have watched them fall asleep on my arm—and closed their glazed eyes—I have seen them buried one by one—and—thus far—God has upheld me.”

—Charlotte Brontë lost her last sibling at the age of thirty-three in 1849

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, adapted by Elizabeth Watasin 

[The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Graphic Canon Series), 2012]

(if you have a difficulty reading speech balloons in the picture above, I have reproduced them below)

“Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.

Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.

The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple’s—a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance.” (Chapter VIII, 'Jane Eyre', 1847)

Jack Ohman Madness!

I like Pulitzer prize because it is also given to a cartoonist.

This year it has been given to Jack Ohman.

"For cartoons that convey wry, rueful perspectives through sophisticated style that combines bold line work with subtle colors and textures."

Mr. Ohman appeared on this blog on April 1 2011.

Artist: Jack Ohman, March 25 2011

For more pictures of brilliant Mr. Ohman, please visit http://www.gocomics.com/jackohman/
 
He has drawn some outstanding cartoons over the years. Here are a couple of examples:

2012

2010

2011 

माझे बाबा...तेजस्वी दर्शनाची एकशेपंचवीस वर्षे...B R Ambedkar@125

Today April 14 2016 is 125th birth anniversary of Dr. B R Ambedkar 

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, in the unpublished Preface dated April 6, 1956, to 'The Buddha and His Dhamma':

“I told my father that I did not like any of the figures in (the) Mahabharata. I said, ‘I do not like Bhishma and Drona, nor Krishna. Bhishma and Drona were hypocrites. They said one thing and did quite the opposite. Krishna believed in fraud. His life is nothing but a series of frauds. Equal dislike I have for Rama. Examine his conduct in the Surpanakha episode, in the Vali-Sugriva episode, and his beastly behaviour towards Sita.’ My father was silent, and made no reply. He knew that there was a revolt.”

"What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?"

Perry Anderson:

“When Gandhi was blackmailing Ambedkar to submit to the demand that Untouchables be treated as loyal Hindus within the caste system, rather than pariahs excluded from it, Nehru uttered not a word in solidarity or support for Ambedkar.”

Arundhati Roy:

“...Dr Ambedkar’s disillusionment with the Communist Party began with the textile workers’ strike in Mumbai in 1928 when he realised that despite all the rhetoric about working class solidarity, the party did not find it objectionable that the “untouchables” were kept out of the weaving department (and only qualified for the lower paid spinning department) because the work involved the use of saliva on the threads, which other castes considered “polluting”...”

 
V S Naipaul on Ambedkar’s birth anniversary celebration at Mumbai, “India A Million Mutinies Now”, 1990:
"...There had, indeed, been a religious stillness about the people in the line. They had been like people gaining merit through doing the right thing. The Dr Ambedkar idea made sense of the flags and the emblems of which I had had a memory. The people I had seen were honouring their leader, their saint, their deity; and by this they were honouring themselves as well..."

John Updike:

”(During the fourth decade of The New Yorker 1955-1964) the foremost domestic issue of the time was the struggle of the black minority for civil rights, yet people of color are almost totally absent from these cartoons.”

For me, Ambedkar is the greatest thinker Maharashtra produced in 20th century and was not given his due by majority of his contemporary Marathi literati even after his death.

For instance, I was quite surprised to discover that T. S. Shejwalkar (त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर) had written almost nothing on him. I have also NOT seen anything substantial written by Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत), M. V. Dhond (म वा धोंड) on him.

Shripad Krushna Kolhatkar (श्रीपाद कृष्ण कोल्हटकर) 1871-1934 was known to recognize and promote new talent in different fields. I have read accounts of his encouragement to R D Karve (र धों कर्वे) and Shejwalkar.

While reviewing very popular novel of Hari Narayan Apte's (हरि नारायण आपटे) 'Pan Lakshat Kon Gheto' (पण लक्षात कोण घेतो?)-published in 1890- Kolhatkar said:

"रा. आपट्यांनी स्त्रियांच्या दुःखाची कहाणी सांगितली आहे तशी मागासलेल्या जातीच्या दुःखाची सांगितल्यास ती मिसेस स्टौच्या 'टॉम काकाची कोठडी' या कादंबरीच्या खालोखाल क्रांतिकारक होईल अशी खात्री वाटते. "

(Mr. Apte has told the story of misery of women, if a similar story can be told of misery of the backward castes it is certain that it would be revolutionary next only to Uncle Tom's Cabin.)

[This is quoted in Keshav Meshram (केशव तानाजी मेश्राम), a prominent Dalit writer's book "Shabdavrat" (शब्दव्रत)].
 
But I have not seen Kolhatkar's views on Ambedkar (1891-1956) or his thoughts. Ambedkar was 43, and very famous after The Poona Pact of 1932, when Kolhatkar died.


On the other hand, read the way Ambedkar analyses the greatness of M. G. Ranade (महादेव गोविंद रानडे) on January 18 1943....it sounds so contemporary and incisive:

 "...Ranade never received the honours of apotheosis as these great men of India today are destined to receive. How could he? He did not come with a message hot from Senai. He performed no miracles and promised no speedy deliverance and splendour. He was not a genius and he had no superhuman qualities. But there are compensations. If Ranade did not show splendour and dominance he brought us no catastrophe. If he had no superhuman qualities to use in the service of India, India was saved from ruin by its abuse. If he was not a genius, he did not display that perverse super subtlety of intellect and a temper of mind which is fundamentally dishonest and which has sown the seeds of distrust and which has made settlement so difficult of achievement. There is nothing exuberant and extravagant in Ranade. He refused to reap cheap notoriety by playing the part of an extremist. He refused to mislead people by playing upon and exploiting the patriotic sentiments of the people. He refused to be a party to methods which are crude which have volume but no effect and which are neither fool-proof nor knave-proof and which break the back even of the most earnest and sincere servants of the country and disable them from further effort. In short Ranade was like the wise Captain who knows that his duty is not to play with his ship clever and masterful tricks, just for effect and show in the midst of the ocean but to take it safely to its appointed port. In short Ranade was not a forged bank note and in worshiping him we have no feeling of kneeling before anything that is false..."

My feelings about Ambedkar's intellect are summed in the following quote. 

आचार्य प्र के अत्रे (P K Atre):

"...टिळकप्रेमाने आंधळया झालेल्या महाराष्ट्राने त्या वेळी गोखल्यांचा जो अनन्वित छळ केला त्याची आठवण झाली की  खरोखर अंगावर शहरा  येतो. पण अलीकडच्या कॉंग्रेसच्या जमान्यात गोखल्यांपेक्षाही आंबेडकरांचा जास्त छळ झाला… म्हणून राजकीय पूर्वग्रहाचा काळा चष्मा डोळ्यांवरून काढून टाकल्यावाचून आंबेडकरांच्या जीवनाचे आणि व्यक्तिमत्वाचे देदीप्यमान स्वरूप जनतेला कळून यावयाचे नाही आणि आंबेडकरांचे  हे तेजस्वी दर्शन झाल्याखेरीज त्यांच्याबद्दल आदर आणि प्रेम स्पृश्य समाजाच्या अंतःकरणात निर्माणही होणार नाही! डॉ. आंबेडकरांएवढा प्रचंड बुद्धीचा, विद्वत्तेचा आणि कर्तृत्वाचा दुसरा एकही महाराष्ट्रीय माणूस  आम्हाला तरी दिसत नाही!..."

[Navyug (नवयुग),  July 13 1947, ' from 'Dalitanche Baba' (दलितांचे बाबा), 1960/2002 ]

There is no great cinema (unlike Richard Attenbough's 'Gandhi', 1982) or great play (quite a few decent plays in Marathi on Gandhi, Tilak, V K Rajwade exist) on Ambedkar in any language or a great painting. I have so far not liked any of his biographies too.

Thankfully there is some great poetry, most notably by the late Namdeo Dhasal (नामदेव ढसाळ).

Publisher: Parchure Prakashan Mandir (परचुरे प्रकाशन मंदिर )

Artist: Alan Dunn, The New Yorker, May 7 1927