China - the Cake of Kings and India - Plumb-Pudding of Geat Britain

China - the Cake of Kings, 1898

Creator(s):     Meyer, Henri

The great powers of Europe, brandishing knives, competing to carve up China: Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Czar Nicolas II. Marianne of France looks on, supporting her Russian ally. Japan contemplates what move to make, while a caricature of China is dismayed but powerless.

 

The Plumb-Pudding in Danger, 1805

Creator(s): Gillray, James, 1756-1815

The plumb-pudding in danger' is probably Gillray's most famous print. It achieves its impact through the simplicity of its design and the brilliant economy with which Gillray captures the political situation. Napoleon Bonaparte and William Pitt face each other across a steaming 'plum-pudding' globe, both intent on carving themselves a substantial portion of the world. Pitt appears calm, meticulous and confident, spearing the pudding with a trident indicative of British naval supremacy. He lays claim to the oceans and the West Indies. In contrast Napoleon Bonaparte reaches from his chair with covetous, twitching eyes fixed on the prize of Europe and cuts away France, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and the Mediterranean

इथिका नावाच्या बेटास... Miraj Gave Me the Beautiful Journey

C. P. Cavafy (1863- 19333):

"Ithaca

As you set out on the way to Ithaca

hope that the road is a long one,

filled with adventures, filled with discoveries.

The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,

you won’t find such things on your way

so long as your thoughts remain lofty, and a choice

emotion touches your spirit and your body.

The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

savage Poseidon; you won’t encounter them

unless you stow them away inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up before you.

 

Hope that the road is a long one.

Many may the summer mornings be

when—with what pleasure, with what joy—

you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;

may you stop at Phoenician trading posts

and there acquire the finest wares:

mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

and heady perfumes of every kind:

as many heady perfumes as you can.

Many Egyptian cities may you visit

that you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

 

Always in your mind keep Ithaca.

To arrive there is your destiny.

But do not hurry your trip in any way.

Better that it last for many years;

that you drop anchor at the island an old man,

rich with all you’ve gotten on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

 

Ithaca gave you the beautiful journey;

without her you wouldn’t have set upon the road.

But now she has nothing left to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca didn’t deceive you.

As wise as you will have become, with so much experience,

you will understand, by then, these Ithacas; what they mean."

[1910; 1911]

ज्या मिरजेत मी जीवनाची पहिली २१ वर्षे होतो, त्या मिरजेला मी २०१९ साली १९८४ सालानंतर पहिल्यांदा गेलो, आणि त्यानंतर 'इथिका' ही महान कविता वाचली. 

आणि त्या  सगळ्या ओळी कवीने कशा जणू माझ्यासाठीच लिहल्या आहेत असे वाटू लागले, विशेषतः खालील ओळी...

 

Happiness Is A Pest-Free Home......Charlie Brown Meets Kafka's Gregor Samsa

Artist: R. Sikoryak

 R. Sikoryak has been creating parody strips of literary masterpieces, casting familiar cartoon characters in classic roles—Little Lulu as Pearl Prynne, Little Nemo as Dorian Gray, Charlie Brown as Gregor Samsa.

आधुनिक डॉन.... Tilting At Windmills While Waiting

William Egginton , ‘The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World ‘, 2016:

“....Predictably, famously, Don Quixote does not heed his good squire’s commonsense admonitions, but instead charges ahead, spearing the enormous sail of a windmill’s arm with his lance and being lifted, horse and all, off the ground and smashed back down in a miserable, aching heap. Sancho’s reaction to his mishap, though, is different from those that greeted all Quixote’s previous antics. Where the others treated Quixote as a spectacle, entertainment, or a nuisance, Sancho responds with compassion. Seeing his master lying next to his fallen horse and shattered lance, Sancho hurried to help him as fast as his donkey could carry him, and when he reached them he discovered that Don Quixote could not move because he had taken so hard a fall with Rocinante.

“God save me!” said Sancho. “Didn’t I tell your grace to watch what you were doing, that these were nothing but windmills, and only somebody whose head was full of them wouldn’t know that?”

From the limited outlook of his own simplicity, Sancho sees his master fail, sees the calamitous consequences of his delusions, and yet decides to accept him despite them: “‘It’s in God’s hand,’ said Sancho. ‘I believe everything your grace says, but sit a little straighter, it looks like you’re tilting, it must be from the battering you took when you fell.’”

In the space of a few pages, what started as an exercise in comic ridicule and, as the narrator insists on several occasions, a satirical send-up of the tales of chivalry, has taken on an entirely different dimension; it has begun to transform itself into the story of a relationship between two characters whose incompatible takes on the world are bridged by friendship, loyalty, and eventually love...”

Artists: Pablo Picasso, c. 1955 and, on the right, Liana Finck, The New Yorker, February 2017