आमच्या मिरजेचे सर्वात मोठे सुपुत्र, वासुदेव शास्त्री खरे (५/८/१८५८- ११/६/१९२४) हे केवढे द्रष्टे विचारवंत होते हे सोबतच्या उताऱ्यावरून दिसून येईल...
एक उत्तम इतिहासकार आणि लोकमान्य टिळकांच्या केसरी मध्ये वरच्या पदावर काम केल्यामुळे त्यांच्यामध्ये हा गुण आला असावा...
शास्त्रीबुवांनी
हे मार्च १९१८ साली लिहले आहे . आज १०६ वर्षांनंतर, भारतात लोकशाही येऊन ७४ वर्षे झाल्यावर, त्यात एकही शब्द बदलायचे कारण नाही...
(पृष्ठ पंधरा, 'उपोदघात', 'मराठे व इंग्रज', न. चिं. केळकर, १९१८-२००९)
२०२३ साली एक फार सुंदर पुस्तक प्रकाशित झाले : "...
त्या वर आलेल्या अनेक परिक्षणांतून काही उतारे खाली देतोय :
"...When his Indian languages specialist Edward Brandreth died, having spent countless hours in the British Museum tracking down entries for 35 separate lists of desiderata, Murray wrote of the debt he had incurred over their long collaboration. ‘Among the many volunteers whose work has contributed to making the New English Dictionary what it is, not many have had the capacity and qualifications, the willinghood, and the time to work for it as our honoured friend has done. May his name never be forgotten when the story is told.’"
Nigel Collett, “Developing the Heart: E. M. Forster and India”, 2022:
“…Politically, the novel is a criticism of the British Raj, whose functionaries and their wives are uniformly portrayed as failing to understand, and mostly not wanting to understand, those they govern. The flawed relationships between rulers and ruled create the impossibility of friendship between the two and place insurmountable difficulties in the path of any man or woman brave enough to defy convention by reaching out the hand of friendship. It is clear from his earlier denial that Forster had intended a serious purpose in writing the novel — he had wanted it to build a bridge between the nations. That he no longer thought such a bridge possible was one of the factors that deadened his impulse to complete the book.
The novel is also about the confusions of a young life awakening to awareness of sex and love, and failing badly to cope. Through the character of Miss Adela Quested, who finds more in “the real India” than she had ever imagined, Forster examines the mystery of the passage from innocence to awareness. Permeating the book are Forster’s hymns to friendship and to India, the country he loved…”
Jacqueline Banerjee, ‘Abundant vitality: How India showed E. M. Forster another way of looking at life’, TLS, August 5 2022:
“…Collett’s thorough research enables him to find many correspondences between Forster’s experience of the subcontinent and A Passage to India, showing, for example, how his state of mind when visiting the Barabar Caves, near Gaya in Bihar, is reflected in the Marabar Caves episode in the novel. But what makes this book so rewarding is the bigger picture – of how a rather timid, repressed youth was, as he put it, shaken out of his “narrow and academic suburban outlook” and introduced to “another way of looking at life”, becoming, in the process, a man at ease among every rank and caste. In return, as Collett shows in new detail, he did much to convey India’s abundant vitality to an uncomprehending West. His broadcasts and contacts in later life helped him to repay the debt of which he was so keenly aware. Enabling leading Indian novelists such as Mulk Raj Anand and Ahmed Ali to find their audience abroad was another part of Forster’s achievement…”
E. M. Forster, “A Passage to India”, 1924:
“…MOST of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself,” or, “I am horrified,” we are insincere. “As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror”—it’s no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent…”
"Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."
विलास सारंगांनी अनुवादावरती विपुल लेखन केले आहे. त्यांच्या 'सर्जनशोध आणि लिहिता लेखक', २००७ मध्ये "अस्सल 'आउटसायडर' च्या शोधात" नावाचा लेख आहे.
ते लिहतात ;
It's interesting that Ryan Bloom has written an essay "Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be" for The New Yorker dated May 11, 2012. (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be)
He says:
"...The ordering of words in Camus’s first sentence is no accident: today is interrupted by Maman’s death. The sentence, the one we have yet to see correctly rendered in an English translation of “L’Étranger,” should read: “Today, Maman died.”"
"Reader's Digest ceases publication after its May 2024 issue"
महाराष्ट्रातील 'नव्या' अभ्यासक्रमाची १०वी ची परीक्षा झाली खरी पण ११वी साठी तत्कालीन बहुतेक कॉलेज मध्ये infrastructure तयार नव्हते, त्यामुळे १९७५-७६ सालची अकरावी अनेक शाळांना सक्तीने घ्यावी लागली...
मिरज हायस्कूल मध्ये ११वी (विज्ञान) चा वर्ग एकेकाळी ड्रॉईंग हॉल नामक मोठ्या जागेत भरवला गेला ... त्याच्या शेजारीच शाळेची एकेकाळची चांगली लायब्ररी होती...
१९७२ सालापासून आमच्या शाळेला, मॅनेजमेण्ट बदलल्या नंतर, ओहोटी लागली होती, त्याचे एक उदाहरण म्हणजे ती बंद पडलेली लायब्ररी होती ... आम्हाला ७वी पर्यंत वर्गात पत्र्याच्या पेटीतील फिरत्या लायब्ररीतील पुस्तके मिळत असत (Hans Christian Andersen ते वि वा हडप अशा अनेकांची पुस्तके मी त्यामुळे पहिल्यांदा वाचली)... ते सगळे त्या वर्षानंतर बंद पडले... १९६९-१९७२ साला पर्यंत मी आमच्या शाळेचे सर्वांगीण वैभव पहिले...
एकदा आम्ही काही जणांनी त्या बंद लायब्ररी मध्ये ११वीचा वर्गाच्या आतून असलेल्या दारातून त्यात प्रवेश केला. सगळी कडे धूळ , जळमटे पण असंख्य पुस्तके होती. Reader's Digest चे ढीग च्या ढीग होते. मला त्यांचा मोह झाला. मी अनेक अंक घरी वाचायला आणले. ते इतके जीर्ण झाले होते की पान उलगडले की मोडून पडत असे. ते आता वाचता येणार नाहीत हे नक्की झाले. मग मी ते रद्दीच्या दुकानात घेऊन गेलो. रद्दीवाल्याने सुद्धा ती रद्दी घ्यायला नकार दिला....
इतके महागडे , अनेक वर्षांचे अंक आमच्या शाळेच्या व्यवस्थापनामुळे ना कुणाला वाचता आले, ना त्याचा दुसरा काही उपयोग झाला, मला खात्री आहे हीच वेळ इतर अनेक पुस्तक आणि मासिकांवर आली असणार...
रिडर्स डायजेस्ट कडून स्फूर्ती मराठीत सुद्धा काही डायजेस्ट सुरु झाली - उदा: अमृत, विचित्रविश्व आदी.
मला वाटते रिडर्स डायजेस्ट काही काळ मराठीत सुद्धा प्रसिद्ध होत होते.
रिडर्स डायजेस्ट एकेकाळी पुस्तके सुद्धा प्रसिद्ध करत असे, माझ्या मित्राकडून मी वाचायला घातलेले एक पुस्तक आठवते - "High Stakes and Desperate Men", 1974 (आजही अमेझॉन वर उपलब्ध), महाग होते पण त्यांना ते परवडायचे, सर्व गोष्टी जबरदस्त होत्या, त्यातील एक गोष्ट होती "The Thirty-Nine Steps", 1915....
As I turn 64 today...
Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, October 2023:
“…Enchantment! If disenchantment is the loss of myth and illusion in our lives, then what is the chant that calls those essentials back? An ongoing enchantment is at the heart of “Calvin and Hobbes.” It’s at the heart of “Don Quixote” and “Peter Pan,” too. These are stories about difficult and not infrequently destructive characters who are lost in their own worlds. At the same time, these characters embody most of what is good: the gifts of play, of the inner life, of imagining something other than what is there…”
artist: Bill Waterson on July 17 1995
