Setsuko Hara@100

Today June 17 2020 is 100th birth anniversary of Setsuko Hara (1920-2015).

After seeing a Setsuko Hara film, the novelist Endo Shusaku wrote "We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?"

In year 2012, I saw two Japanese films  'Late Spring', 1949 and 'Tokyo Story', 1954. Both masterpieces by Yasujiro Ozu, both starring Setsuko Hara.

Watching them was like reading G A Kulkarni's (जी ए कुलकर्णी) 'Kairi' ( कैरी)  one more time. Such tenderness, such lyricality, such beauty, such simplicity and yet very little sentimentality...While I had known GA's story for more than thirty years, where was 'Tokyo Story'?

I am glad I did not 'meet' Ms. Hara at a more impressionable age unlike Ms. Nutan. If I had, I would have madly fallen in love with her, would have lost the sleep for a few days.

Ms. Hara's partnership with  Mr. Ozu reminds me of Nutan's partnership with Bimal Roy.

Setsuko Hara, in Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece 'Tokyo Story'

Photograph courtesy: the distributor of the film or  the publisher of the film.

In Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anari, 1959

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

Ms. Hara foreswore the acting profession in 1963 and became a Greta Garbo-like figure. Nutan never did anything like that but she too remained an enigma for me.

They both- June borne- look stunning on B&W screen. While they are there, I look at nothing else. I also notice  a touch of melancholy that goes with an incredible amount of beauty. 

That's what makes them special.

Rodents and Girls Under 8: The Soft Totalitarianism of Political Correctness

Peter Thiel, October 2011

“Modern Western civilization stands on the twin plinths of science and technology. Taken together, these two interrelated domains reassure us that the 19th-century story of never-ending progress remains intact. Without them, the arguments that we are undergoing cultural decay — ranging from the collapse of art and literature after 1945 to the soft totalitarianism of political correctness in media and academia to the sordid worlds of reality television and popular entertainment — would gather far more force....”

“It was offensive to people who haven’t turned eight.”  

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

Artist: Harry Bliss

क्लीओपात्राची तेलचिंधी, मधचिंधी....What Came Before Condoms?

(पृष्ठ : १००, 'जाळ्यांतील चंद्र', म वा धोंड,१९७७ १९९४/१९९८)

रघुनाथ: रघुनाथ धोंडो कर्वे, शंकर - शंकर धोंडो कर्वे , दिनकर: दिनकर धोंडो कर्वे , भास्कर: भास्कर धोंडो कर्वे
अण्णा : धोंडो केशव कर्वे

तेलचिंधी सारखे घरघुती उपाय....

किती प्राचीन होत तेलचिंधी?

Stacy Schiff, 'Cleopatra: A Life':

"...Had she wanted to, Cleopatra could have availed herself of volumes of advice on contraception and abortion, some of it surprisingly effective. Nothing better revealed the conflicting tides of science and myth, enlightenment and ignorance, between which she lived than the literature on birth control. For each valid idea of Cleopatra’s age there was an equally outlandish belief. Hippocrates’ three-hundred-year-old recipe for inducing miscarriage—jump up and down, neatly touching your heels to your buttocks seven times—made some of the first-century measures look perfectly reasonable. A spider’s egg, attached to the body with deer hide before sunrise, could prevent conception for twelve months. This was no stranger (or more effective) than attaching a cat liver to one’s left foot, but then it was also asserted that a sneeze during sex worked wonders. In Cleopatra’s day crocodile dung was famed for its contraceptive powers, as was a concoction of mule’s kidney and eunuch’s urine. Generally the literature on abortifacients was more extensive than that on contraceptives; the time-tested ingredients for a morning-after pill were salt, mouse excrement, honey, and resin. Long after Cleopatra, it was asserted that the smell of a freshly extinguished lamp induced miscarriage. At the same time, some of the popular herbal remedies of Cleopatra’s age proved effective. White poplar, juniper berries, and giant fennel have qualified contraceptive powers. Others—vinegar, alum, and olive oil—remained in use until recently. Early diaphragms existed, of wool moistened with honey and oil. All offered better results than the rhythm method, of dubious benefit to a people who believed that a woman was at her most fertile around the time of menstruation...."

Early diaphragms existed, of wool moistened with honey and oil.

Cavafy and Lockdown

Al Jaffee RETIRES at age 99...Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

The Washington Post reported on June 6 2020:

"Mad magazine’s iconic back-page Fold-In is about to fold it in. Finito after 56 years. Because Al Jaffee, officially the longest-working comic artist ever, has decided to retire at age 99.

 So to mark his farewell, Mad’s “Usual Gang of Idiots” will salute Jaffee with a tribute issue next week. It will be the magazine’s final regular issue to offer new material, including Jaffee’s final Fold-In, 65 years after he made his Mad debut..."

When he turned 94....

Henry Miller 40th Death Anniversary

#HenryMiller40thDeathAnniversary

"A picture… is a thousand different things to a thousand different people. Like a book, a piece of sculpture, or a poem. One picture speaks to you, another doesn’t… Some pictures invite you to enter, then make you a prisoner. Some pictures you race through, as if on roller skates. Some lead you out by the back door. Some weigh you down, oppress you for days and weeks on end. Others lift you up to the skies, make you weep with joy or gnash your teeth in despair...
...I enjoy talking to painters more than to writers… Painters give me the impression of being less used up by their daily task than writers or musicians. Also, they use words in a more plastic way, as if conscious of their very substantial originals. When they write … they reveal a poetic touch which writers often lack. Perhaps this is due to living continuously with flesh, textures, objects, and not merely with ideas, abstractions, complexes. Often they are mimes or story tellers, and nearly always good cooks. The writer, on the other hand, is so often pale, awkward, incompetent in everything except the business of putting words together."

'Marcel Proust' from 'To Paint Is to Love Again', 1960

Artist: Henry Miller

बडीसी बात ...Basu Chatterjee, Vidya Sinha & I

परवा (मे २९) योगेश गौर वारले....

आज (जून ४) बासू चॅटर्जी वारले. असे वाक्य लिहून त्यांच्या सिनेमांनी माझे भावविश्व एकेकाळी किती ढवळून निघाले होते ह्याची सुरवात सुद्धा होत नाही.

  Chhoti Si Baat (1975), Chitchor (1976), Khatta Meetha , Priyatama (1977), Baton Baton Mein (1979), हे त्यांचे सिनेमे अगदी आवडीने थेटर मध्ये पाहिले आहेत. दहावी -बारावीची महत्वाची वर्षे त्यांनी dominate केली.रजनीगंधा(१९७४) या शतकात पाहिला.

त्यात सगळ्यात जास्त प्रभाव पाडणारा सिनेमा होता - छोटीसी बात. 

पालेकर यांचे काम मला फार आवडले नाही. ते (म्हणजे त्यांचे पात्र) साधे , बावळट वगैरे सिनेमात कधीच दिसत नाहीत. सिनेनट सोडले तर त्या दिवसात सगळे तसेच दिसायचे. पालेकर  त्या दिसण्या, वागण्याची नक्कल करतात. चांगले बेरके आहेत, स्वार्थासाठी काहीही करतील असे पहिल्या फ्रेम पासून वाटते.

सिनेमा बघून मी विद्या सिन्हा यांच्या मात्र प्रेमातच पडलो होतो. इतका त्यांचा अभिनय प्रामाणिक आहे. त्यानंतर  काही महिनेतरी बऱ्यापैकी दिसणारी प्रत्येक मुलगी विद्या सिन्हा (त्याही वारल्या) दिसत असे! मी पालेकर आहे असे मात्र कधी वाटले नाही. 

ज्यावेळी आयुष्य-माणसे-मुले-मुली सगळे खूप साघे होते, परवडणारी फक्त एकच करमणूक होती, त्याकाळी बासू चॅटर्जी यांनी माझा चांगला tp केला.

मुख्य म्हणजे संगीत चांगले होते त्यांच्या सिनेमात. अजूनही "न जाने क्यूँ" ऐकले की कायकाय आठवते....

योगेश, केप कॉडची सकाळ आणि कहीं दूर जब ...Edward Hopper, Yogesh and Watching the Sun

 मे  २९ २०२० च्या रात्री मी  ट्विटर वरती, झोप येत नसताना, योगेश गौर वारल्याचे पहिले आणि लक्षातच येईना - योगेश गौर म्हणजे कोण... मग खाली 'आनंद' चा उल्लेख वाचल्यावर वाईट वाटले...

सलील चौधरी आणि योगेश यांनी 'ती दोन गाणी'  (मुकेश आणि मन्ना डे) माझ्या जीवनात तरी  अजरामर केली.....

किती लहान होते ते त्यावेळी... १९७० साली अवघे २७ वर्षांचे .... दहा /आकरा वर्षाच्या मला सुद्धा ते अंतर्मुख करून गेले ....

मिरजेला देवल टॉकीज ला तो सिनेमा १९७१ साली बघितला आणि बाबू मोशाय पेक्षा मला ती गाणी जास्त आवडली होती .... बाहेर आलो ते ती गाणी गुणगुणत ... मूड: चेकोव्ह म्हणतो तसा दुःखी पण आनंदी!

ती दोन गाणी नसती तर आनंद हा लक्षणीय सिनेमा झाला नसता....

"कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए

मेरे ख़यालों के आँगन में
कोई सपनों के दीप जलाए, दीप जलाए

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए

कभी यूँहीं, जब हुईं, बोझल साँसें
भर आई बैठे बैठे, जब यूँ ही आँखें

कभी यूँहीं, जब हुईं, बोझल साँसें
भर आई बैठे बैठे, जब यूँ ही आँखें
तभी मचल के, प्यार से चल के

छुए कोई मुझे पर नज़र न आए, नज़र न आए

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए

साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए

कहीं तो ये, दिल कभी, मिल नहीं पाते
कहीं से निकल आए, जनमों के नाते

कहीं तो ये, दिल कभी, मिल नहीं पाते
कहीं से निकल आए, जनमों के नाते

घनी थी उलझन, बैरी अपना मन
अपना ही होके सहे दर्द पराये, दर्द पराये

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए
(...)
दिल जाने, मेरे सारे, भेद ये गहरे

खो गए कैसे मेरे, सपने सुनहरे
दिल जाने, मेरे सारे, भेद ये गहरे
खो गए कैसे मेरे, सपने सुनहरे
ये मेरे सपने, यही तो हैं अपने
मुझसे जुदा न होंगे इनके ये साये, इनके ये साये

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए
मेरे ख़यालों के आँगन में
कोई सपनों के दीप जलाए, दीप जलाए
कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाए
साँझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए
चुपके से आए"

“Cape Cod Morning”, 1950, by Edward Hopper   

What Have You Done to Be Closer to Your Children?: Global Day of Parents

Today June 1 2020 is Global Day of Parents

The following picture first appeared on this blog on November 25 2007. It moves me today as much it did when it arrived by post in 2007.

Hapless old couple, 10:30 PM, kids abroad- notice statue of liberty in the corner,  failing vision, stiff joints, half-asleep, waiting perhaps for an international call, watching domineering, decadent TV.

Sure since 2007, TV has been pushed back on to the wall and there may never be a call but just a WhatsApp message containing hundreds of all-sunshine photos. But little else has changed.
 

Artist: Vasant Sarwate, Lalit Diwali 2007 (वसंत सरवटे, ललित दिवाळी)

Artist: Drew Dernavich, The New Yorker, August 22 2016

 

Rome Was Built In a Day, Most of Ajanta In Sixteen Years

William Dalrymple, October 23 2014, The New York Review of Books:

"...It is the second phase of activity in the caves under the Hindu Vatakata Emperor Harisena (circa 475–500 AD), ruler of the Deccan, that most interests Walter Spink. It was during this fifth-century period of construction—a full six hundred years after the first caves were carved—that twenty-six of the thirty-one caves, and all the most elaborate ones, were dug. Rejecting the conventional line that these caves were the work of many generations of laborers burrowing away into the hillside, century after century, Spink believes that with the exception of the five early caves, the rest were constructed in a mere sixteen years between 462 and 477 by Harisena, whom he describes as one of India’s greatest rulers...."

Artist: Bruce Eric Kaplan, The New Yorker, April 2006