ऑर्फियस आणि यूरिडिसी ...Inspiration for Artists, Writers and Composers for Centuries

ऑर्फियस आणि यूरिडिसी म्हटल्यावर अनेक मराठी वाचकांना पहिल्यांदा काय आठवते ते जी ए कुलकर्णी यांची 'ऑर्फियस' नावाची रूपक कथा. 

पहिल्यांदा 'सत्यकथा' मध्ये १९७३ साली प्रकाशित झालेली आणि नंतर 'पिंगळावेळ' या १९७७ सालच्या कथासंग्रहात समाविष्ट केलेली. 

'Orpheus and Eurydice' या नावाचा लेख हिस्टरी टुडे या माझ्या आवडत्या नियतकालिकात ऑगस्ट २०१९ मध्ये प्रकाशित  झाला. त्याची सुरवात अशी केलेली आहे :

"A Classical myth of enduring love that has inspired artists, writers and composers for centuries."

जीए त्या परंपरेतील एक. 

"... In Peter Paul Rubens’ painting, Orpheus is depicted struggling to look ahead soon after the deities have consented to her return. On leaving the underworld, the lovers ascended a steep and misty path and, as they neared the earth’s rim, an anxious Orpheus looked behind for his bride, who fell and murmured a final farewell before dying again. ‘No reproach passed her lips’, according to Ovid in his Metamorphoses, because Eurydice now knew for certain that Orpheus loved her unconditionally.

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired numerous works of art: in literature, a cast as diverse as Boethius, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Pynchon and Carol Anne Duffy have created variants on its themes, while the filmmakers Jean Cocteau, in his trilogy – The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orphée (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1959) – and Marcel Camus, with Black Orpheus (1959), have captured its resonant tragedy. Fittingly, it is in music that the myth’s greatest legacy lies. L’Orfeo, Claudio Monteverdi’s opera, the form’s earliest surviving masterpiece, composed in 1607, became the first of many musical dramas to tackle the story: Christoph Willibald Gluck (Orfeo ed Euridice, 1774), Jacques Offenbach (Orpheus in the Underworld, 1858), Harrison Birtwistle (The Mask of Orpheus, 1986) and Anaïs Mitchell’s current Broadway hit Hadestown, set in America’s Deep South, are among those to have added to a canon that continues to expand."

जीए ह्यांनी Rainer Maria Rilke (The Sonnets to Orpheus, 1922) किंवा Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow, 1973) यांचे संबंधित साहित्य वाचले असायची शक्यता खूप आहे तसेच Peter Paul Rubens ह्यांचे चित्र तर त्यांनी नक्कीच पहिले असणार. 

Orpheus, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1636-38

केशवसुत कसले मेले, केशवसुत गातची बसले ... माझी आई गेल्यावर सांत्वन करणारे शब्द...Roger Penrose

 सर रॉजर पेनरोज यांना नोबेल पुरस्कार मिळाला हे ऐकल्यावर खूप आनंद झाला कारण जानेवारी २००६ मध्ये माझी आई वारल्यावर त्यांचे वाचलेले शब्द मनावर सर्वात जास्त फुंकर मारून गेले... (डिसेंबर २ २००७ची माझी पोस्ट)

“…I think there is a positive side to this picture of space and time being laid out there as 4 dimensions, because it tells you that all times are there once and it can affect the way one thinks about people who have died.

I mean, I remember thinking in this kind of way when my mother died. In some sense she was still there because her existence is still out there in space/time although in our time she is not alive. A colleague of mine had a son who died in tragic circumstances and I presented this idea to him and it helped his understanding also.

This was before I heard that Einstein had a colleague died and he wrote to the man's wife that Bessa was still out there, and that somehow this was reassuring. I certainly think this way often, that space/time is laid out and that things in the past and things in the future are out there still…"

 "So this means that in a sense, the present past and future are out there, and that also gives us a very deterministic view of the world. We have no control of what happens in the future because its all laid out. I think the trouble that people have with this idea is that you think the future is under your control, to some degree, and so this means that if the future's laid out then in a sense its not under your control.

The question of the passage of time is something the scientists have rather set aside, and taking the view that its not really physics, it's a subjective issue; and subjective questions are not part of science. Now when you start talking about phenomena like one's own perception of the passage of time, then that is a subjective thing. And that's almost a taboo subject for science because it's subjective. The physical world at least according to Relativity, is out there, and there is no flow of time, it's just there; whereas our feeling (we have this feeling of the passage of time) are intimately connected to our perceptions."

नको, नको, का आपण ह्यापुढ भटकायच......GA's Epigraph

No, No, Why further should we roam  

 Since every road man Journeys by,
Ends on a hillside far from Home
Under an alien sky
- Walter de la Mare 

नको, नको, का आपण ह्यापुढ भटकायच
कारण माणसान तुडवलेला प्रत्येक रस्ता, 
संपतो  एखाद्या टेकाडावर  घरापासून लांब
 परक्या आकाशाच्या  खाली 
 - वॉल्टर डी ला मेअर 
  (अनुवाद माझा)
 

हा 'रमलखुणा', १९७५ चा epigraph मला Walter de la Mare यांच्या मी बघितलेल्या कोणत्याही कविता संग्रहात मिळालेला नव्हता ...

Google Books वरती तो ऑक्टोबर २०१८ मध्ये मिळाला त्यावेळी खूप आनंद झाला... पूर्ण कविता खाली पहा...

जीएंनी ही कविता बहुदा जर्नल मध्ये न बघता कविता संग्रहातच बघितली असणार...

कवितेला शीर्षक नाही
POEM
BY WALTER DE LA MARE

'This is the end': the anguished word
Scarce stirred the air. She bowed her
head.
No sign I made that heart had heard;
I, too, was weary and sped.

Above us loomed the night-black tree;
Beneath, a valley in shadow lay;
A waning moon beyond the sea
Cast a faint sickly ray.

Once, 'Oh, have courage!' had been
my cry;
Now mutely aghast I gazed into
A face distorted, caught the sigh
That shook her through and through

No, no. Why further should we roam,
Since every road man journeys by  
 Ends on a hillside far from home
Under an alien sky;

Where souls disconsolate and sick
That Valley scans each treads alone,
And a Sea whose menace leaves the
quick
Colder than churchyard stone.

(The Living Age, Volume 319, 1925)

जॉन ग्रे यांची सात प्रकारची नास्तिकता आणि म वा धोंड....Faiths of Tukaram, M V Dhond and John Grey

 "... मी नास्तिक आहे- संदेहवाद्यांसारखा अर्धवट नास्तिक नव्हे, तर संपूर्ण- तरीही मी अश्रद्ध नाही. माझी विठ्ठलावर आणि वारकरी संतांवर अपार श्रद्धा आहे... तुकाराममहाराजही माझ्यासारखेच नास्तिक होते..." 

(पृष्ठ १००, 'ऐसा विटेवर देव कोठें!', २००१)

हे संपूर्ण वाक्य गोंधळात टाकणारे आहे. 

नास्तिक पण विठ्ठलावर श्रद्धा , मग नास्तिक कसे? आणि तुकाराममहाराजांना ह्या गोंधळात ते का ओढत आहेत: माझ्यासारखेच नास्तिक होते" म्हणत?   

हा सगळा पुरोगामी डोक्यांमधला गोंधळ आहे.

ते पाहून मी ठरवले हे जरा जॉन ग्रे ह्यांच्या गाजलेल्या "Seven Types of Atheism", 2018 ह्या पुस्तकात तपासून पाहू. 

ग्रे त्यांच्या ७ प्रकारच्या नास्तिकता खालील शब्दात वर्णन करतात :

"... The first of them – the so-called ‘new atheism’ – contains little that is novel or interesting. After the first chapter, I will not refer to it again. The second type is secular humanism, a hollowed-out version of the Christian belief in salvation in history. Third, there is the kind of atheism that makes a religion from science, a category that includes evolutionary humanism, Mesmerism, dialectical materialism and contemporary transhumanism. Fourth, there are modern political religions, from Jacobinism through communism and Nazism to contemporary evangelical liberalism. Fifth, there is the atheism of God-haters such as the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky’s fictional character Ivan Karamazov and William Empson himself. Sixth, I will consider the atheisms of George Santayana and Joseph Conrad, which reject the idea of a creator-god without having any piety towards ‘humanity’. Seventh and last, there are the mystical atheism of Arthur Schopenhauer and the negative theologies of Benedict Spinoza and the early twentieth-century Russian-Jewish fideist Leo Shestov, all of which in different ways point to a God that transcends any human conception...."

आता सहावी आणि सातवी नास्तिकता पहा. भारतातले आपण जवळजवळ सर्वच जण त्यातील एकातरी प्रकारात बसतो. "reject the idea of a creator-god without having any piety towards ‘humanity’.किंवा 'all of which in different ways point to a God that transcends any human conception'. 

 पण सध्या भारतातील 'पुरोगाम्यां'मधेएक ते पाच ह्या प्रकारातील नास्तिकता पसरली आहे. कळत, न कळत ती नास्तिकता म्हणजे खरी नास्तिकता असा प्रचार केला जातो. 

भारतात त्याचा प्रसार एकोणिसाव्या शतकात जॉन स्टुअर्ट मिल यांच्या पुस्तकांपासून सुरु झाला. 

"... Generations of atheists have lived in expectation of the arrival of a truly human species: the communal workers of Marx, Mill’s autonomous individuals and Nietzsche’s absurd Übermensch, among many others. None of these fantastical creatures has been seen by human eyes. A truly human species remains as elusive as any Deity. Humanity is the deus absconditus of modern atheism.

A free-thinking atheism would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom. Without the faith that they stand at the head of an advancing species they could hardly go on. Only by immersing themselves in such nonsense can they make sense of their lives. Without it, they face panic and despair.

According to the grandiose theories today’s atheists have inherited from Positivism, religion will wither away as science continues its advance. But while science is advancing more quickly than it has ever done, religion is thriving – at times violently. Secular believers say this is a blip – eventually, religion will decline and die away. But their angry bafflement at the re-emergence of traditional faiths shows they do not believe in their theories themselves. For them religion is as inexplicable as original sin. Atheists who demonize religion face a problem of evil as insoluble as that which faces Christianity.

If you want to understand atheism and religion, you must forget the popular notion that they are opposites....

... Contemporary atheism is a continuation of monotheism by other means. Hence the unending succession of God-surrogates, such as humanity and science, technology and the all-too-human visions of transhumanism. But there is no need for panic or despair. Belief and unbelief are poses the mind adopts in the face of an unimaginable reality. A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity, and the difference between the two may be less than you think."

कृतज्ञता : दोन्ही पुस्तकांचे मुखपृष्ठकार आणि प्रकाशक आणि लेखक किंवा त्यांचे कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स 

 

चांदोबा मासिकाचे के सी सिवासंकरन...Vampire Stories' Indian Illustrator

 लहानपणी (१९६८-६९ च्या पुढे) घरी विकत घेऊन किंवा बाहेर कुठेतरी , 'चांदोबा' मासिक नेहमी पाहण्यात यायचे.... (माझ्या वडिलांना चांदोबा अजिबात आवडत नसे त्यामुळे आम्ही तो कधी नियमित विकत किंवा वर्गणी लावून घेतला नाही. मात्र किशोर मासिक launch झाल्यावर त्याचे पहिल्या अंकापासून  काही वर्षे आम्ही वर्गणीदार होतो.)....

चांदोबा हे त्याच्या काळात (म्हणजे कित्येक वर्षे) मराठीतील सर्वात जास्त लोकप्रिय मासिक असावे....बाबुराव अर्नाळकर, एस एम काशीकर , गुरुनाथ नाईक इत्यादी यांच्या रहस्य कथांच्या कित्येक पट चांदोबा खपत आणि वाचला जात असावा .... कित्येक साक्षर, नवसाक्षर लोक (प्रौढ, वृद्ध, तरुण, बाल, स्त्री, पुरुष, transgender, सर्व जात, धर्म ,गरीब, श्रीमंत) एकच पुस्तक वाचायचे: चांदोबा!..... चांदोबा (वर्तमानपत्रा सारखा) वाचुन घेतला जात असल्याचे सुद्धा मी पहिले आहे.....

आणि मजा पहा, हे मासिक चेन्नाई मध्ये तयार आणि वितरीत व्हायचे.... आणि ते जवळजवळ सगळे अनुवादित असायचे .....(कै. वि स खांडेकर हे नाव तमिळनाडूत लोकांना तामीळ माणसाचे नाव वाटायचे इतके खांडेकर तिकडे माहित होते आणि इकडे चांदोबा इथला होऊन राज्य करत होता)....कोण म्हणते मराठीत अनुवाद लोकप्रिय नाहीत?.....

आणि त्यामुळे त्यातील चित्रे नेहमी थोडी गंमतशीर वाटत...मी लहानपणी मिरजेला, म्हणजे कर्नाटकाच्या सीमेवर जरी रहात असलो तरी तसे कपडे घातलेले , केशभूषा असलेले, दागिने घातलेले स्त्री-पुरुष मला कधी दिसायचे नाहीत! माझी आई काहीशी दीनानाथ दलालांच्या चित्रातल्या स्त्रियांसारखी दिसायची, चांदोबातल्या स्त्रियांसारखी नाही....चांदोबातील पुराणातील पात्रे सुद्धा राजा रविवर्मांच्या चित्रांहुन (जी अनेक आमच्या जवळच्या दत्ताच्या देवळात लावलेली होती) वेगळी वाटत....

पण कधी मद्रास कडचा सिनेमा बघितला, उदा: तीन बहुरानियां, १९६८, की वाटायच हलता चांदोबा बघतोय .... पण त्या स्त्रीया आकर्षक मात्र वाटायच्या... हे चांदोबाच्या कलाकारांचे यश होते....

१९८१साली ज्यावेळी मी मद्रास ला शिकायला गेलो त्यावेळी गिंडीहून दोन-तीन बसेस बदलून चांदोबाच्या ऑफिस च्या बाहेर पर्यंत वडापलानीला जाऊन आलो .....(मद्रास मध्ये चांदोबातल्यासारखे स्त्री पुरुष दिसायला लागले होतेच!)

चांदोबा आता इतिहासजमा झालेला आहे...आणि ते प्रचंड लोकप्रिय होण्यास कारण ठरलेला त्यातील एक महत्वाचा चित्रकार सुद्धा आता काळाच्या पडद्याआड गेला आहे. 

१९२४ साली जन्मलेले, के सी सिवासंकरन उर्फ संकर सप्टेंबर २९ २०२० ला वारले. 

त्यांचे अत्यंत गाजलेले चित्र म्हणजे मासिकातील विक्रम-वेताळ ह्या कथामालेसाठी त्यांनी काढलेले theme illustration. किती वर्षे मी हे चित्र पहिले असेन!

 

 Chitravarnika and her father Shaktiteja from the series Vikram Vetal, Chandamama, 2007

 Artist: सिवासंकरन (शंकर)

courtesy: copyright holders of the late Mr.  KC Sivasankaran's work

ड्रॉवर्स उडाले आकाशी , त्यांनी गिळिले सूर्याशी ...Saul Steinberg and The Tyranny of Drawers

Artist: Saul Steinberg

Sara Hendren, ‘The tyranny of chairs: why we need betterdesign ‘, The Guardian, Aug 25 2020:

“...How can a nice cushioned chair that screams comfort be so ill-suited to most actual bodies? The real science of ergonomics, Cranz argues, should point designers toward chair design that supports and enables the body’s need for movement, not stillness – with seats that angle downward in front, for example, and have a base that’s flexible enough for the sitter to shift their body weight from leg to leg. But for the most part, these principles are ignored in favour of fashion and cheap manufacturing.

Chairs are generally not a response to the realities of the body, its natural evolution, or its needs over any extended period. Instead, the industrialised body has devolved in its needs and succumbed to chairs. “We design them,” Cranz writes, repurposing a famous line of Winston Churchill’s, “but once built, they shape us.””

त्या  ड्रॉवर्सची ताकत पहा, त्यांनी झेप घेत ब्रह्माण्ड व्यापायला सुरवात केली...  ड्रॉवर्स, नोकरशाही, CO2, हाव , entropy ....वगैरे वगैरे

त्यांच्या फिलिया...John Everett Millais and Shyam Joshi

ही पोस्ट वाचण्याआधी , ही पोस्ट वाचा.  

अलीकडे माझ्या पाहण्यात "Ophelia" by John Everett Millais हे १८५१-५२ साली काढले गेलेले चित्र आले आणि त्या चित्रात आणि श्याम जोशींच्या चित्रात एक साधर्म्य वाटू लागले. 

Artist: Shyam Joshi (श्याम जोशी) , 'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय-शोभा), Diwali 1965

शहामृगासम...B S Mardhekar and Illustrator Roger Hane

 बा सी मर्ढेकर:
"राव, सांगतां देव कुणाला,
शहाजोग जो शहामृगासम;
बोंबील तळलों सुके उन्हांत,
आणि होतसे हड्डी नरम.

छान शेकतें जगणें येथें
जगणारांच्या हें अंगाला;
निदान ढेकर करपट आणूं
द्या तुमच्या त्या शहामृगाला !"
 (#४३, कांही कविता, १९५९/१९७७)

मर्ढेकर शहामृगाबरोबर देवाची तुलना करतायत...(ह्याच्या संलग्न एक पोस्ट इथे आहे)

खालील चित्र पाहून कारण समजले ते तस का करत आहेत ह्याच!.... 

 ‘Egypt Dying‘ (1969) by American illustrator Roger Hane (1939–1974) 

आग्र्याला रायगड होणे अशक्य!....Did Shivaji Visit the Taj Mahal in Agra?

ऑक्टोबर १९९१ मध्ये मी कलकत्त्याहून द ग गोडसे यांना एका पत्रात विचारले होते की : शिवाजी महाराजांनी १६६६ साली नुकताच (१६५३) पूर्ण झालेला ताजमहाल पाहिला असेल का?

त्यावर गोडसेंनी मला हे उत्तर ऑक्टोबर १९९१ मध्येच पाठवले. 

(गोडसे आणि माझी भेट झालीच नाही, त्यांच्या साठी आसामच्या चहाच्या बागेतून आणलेला, सिल्वर फॉईल मध्ये रॅप केलेला उत्तम प्रतीचा चहा दुसऱ्यांच्या नशिबात होता.... )

मुख्य प्रश्नाला त्यांनी बगल दिली आहे पण ते लिहतात: 

".... ताजमहाल आणि रायगड हे  थोड्या फार फरकाने समकालीन आहेत. पण दोघांच्याही वृत्ती प्रवृत्तीत किती अंतर आहे? महाराष्ट्रात ताजमहाल होणे नाही तसाच आग्र्याला रायगड होणे अशक्य! प्रत्येक भूप्रदेश आपले <?> वेगळे घडवीत असतो..."... 

'Human Sexual Inadequacy', 50 Years

".... 

It seems to me that heterosexuals have come a long way since 1979. The media’s ubiquitous coverage of sex and sex research—as well as the genesis and population explosion of TV, radio, and newspaper sex advisors—have chipped away at the taboos that kept couples from talking openly with each other about the sex they were having. Bit by bit, sex research has unraveled the hows, whys, why-nots, and how-betters of arousal and orgasm. The more the researchers and the sexperts and the reporters talked about sex, the easier it became for everyone else to. As communication eases and knowledge grows, inhibitions dissolve and confidence takes root.

Sadly, the main thing people recall about Homosexuality in Perspective, if they recall anything at all, is that Masters and Johnson spent the second half of the book touting a therapy for helping homosexuals convert to heterosexuality. The team went out of their way to assure readers that they screened clients carefully, accepting only those who had turned to homosexuality after a traumatic experience with heterosexuality (rape or abuse, for instance). They insisted that no gay man or woman who came to them for therapy was ever pressured or encouraged to pursue heterosexuality. However, as one critic pointed out, many should probably have been encouraged not to pursue it.

But let’s give Masters and Johnson their due. And while we’re at it, Alfred Kinsey and Robert Latou Dickinson and Old Dad and everyone else in these pages. The laboratory study of sex has never been an easy, safe, or well-paid undertaking. Study by study, the gains may seem small and occasionally silly, but the aggregation of all that has been learned, the lurching tango of academe and popular culture, has led us to a happier place. Hats and pants off to you all...."

(Mary Roach, 'Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex')

Illustration from Pixar's 'The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.'