I have a feeling that this poem was on R K Narayan's mind when he wrote one of his best ( and partly autobiographical) novels "The English Teacher" where he describes his loving wife's death by typhoid...
R K Narayan:
र वा दिघे (१८९६-१९८०) (रा ग गडकरींशी झालेले बोलणे आठवत):
"... शेवटी एमिल झोलाच्या 'Gin Palace' ची त्यांना आठवण करून दिली. तेंव्हा गडकरी रागावले. कारण Gin Palace + देशमुख वकिलांची गोष्ट = एकचप्याला होता. गडकऱ्यांना स्तुतिपाठक आवडत. टीका करणारे आवडत नसत..."
(पृष्ठ : सतरा, प्रास्ताविक, "साहित्यिक गप्पा दहा साहित्यिकांशी", लेखक: जयवंत दळवी, १९८६-२०१३)
'संपूर्ण गडकरी', खंड १ ह्या प्रथम १९८४ साली प्रसिद्ध झालेल्या पुस्तकाच्या १५८ पानी दीर्घ प्रस्तावनेत आचार्य अत्रे काय म्हणतात पहा:
मला दिघेंचे म्हणणे जास्त बरोबर वाटते...
Artist is Walter Molino (1915-1997). Picture is titled Election Poultry (how appropriate) for publication La Domenica del Corriere, 1951
Caption reads: In Francavilla al Mare (a comune and town in the province of Chieti, Italy), during a rally for the local elections, a speaker made propaganda leaflets, chocolates, flowers and, supreme flattery, live chickens and turkeys rain from an airplane hanging from rudimentary tiny parachutes.
Illustration for Courier Sunday, 17 June 1951.
बा सी मर्ढेकर;
"...
अडलिस आणिक पुढें जराशी
पुढें जराशी हंसलिस;
___मागें
वळूनि पाहणें विसरलीस का ?
विसरलीस का हिरवे धागे ?
..."
(२५, पृष्ठ ९६, मर्ढेकरांची कविता, १९५९-१९७७)
(बा भ बोरकरांची 'पाठमोरी पौर्णिमा' ही सामान्य कविता आहे पण त्याचे शीर्षक आवडल्याने ते पोस्ट च्या शीर्षकात घातले.)
माझी माझ्या फेसबुक वरील दीनानाथ दलाल पेजवरील मार्च १२ २०२४ ची पोस्ट:
दत्तात्रय गणेश गोडसे यांनी "नांगी असलेले फुलपाखरू"- १ आणि २ असे जेम्स मॅकनील व्हिसलर (१८३४-१९०३) ह्या कलावंतावर दोन लेख लिहले हे आता त्यांच्या "नांगी असलेले फुलपाखरू" (प्रसिद्धी १९८९) ह्या पुस्तकात समाविष्ट आहेत.
त्या बद्दल मी पूर्वी लिहले आहे.
त्यातील काही भाग व्हिसलर आणि तत्कालीन प्रसिद्ध टीकाकार जॉन रस्किन (१८१९-१९००) यांच्या मधील न्यायालयातील खटल्यावर आहे. गोडसे हे व्हिसलर यांच्या बाजूने आहेत, मला तर वाटते ते स्वतः व्हिसलर सारखे आहेत असे त्यांना आयुष्यभर वाटत होते.
ह्या खटल्यावर इंग्लिश मध्ये अलीकडे एक पुस्तक प्रसिद्ध झाले Paul Thomas Murphy's "Falling Rocket: James Whistler, John Ruskin, and the Battle for Modern Art", 2023.
तो खटला सुरु झाला कारण मर्फी यांचे पुस्तक सांगते “…A true work of art, by Ruskin’s definition, conveyed a great number of great thoughts. These dark and discernibly unfinished messes conveyed nothing but physical and spiritual emptiness. They were nothing but variations upon the plague cloud. All of this might have occurred to Ruskin as he contemplated these paintings—but might not have. His written reaction to them is less intellectual, much more visceral: overwhelming, instinctive contempt and disgust. He had his Theoria, but did not need it: in this case, Aesthesis—sensation alone—was more than sufficient. He loathed these poor excuses for art.
One painting of the seven stood out as worst of the bad: the darkest, most chaotic painting of the lot. Not only was Nocturne in Black and Gold a meaningless blob; it was also an effortless one—clearly the work of an hour or two. To ask a couple hundred guineas for this—this nothing: it was an obscenity.
Ruskin left the Grosvenor Gallery with rage in his heart and soul, surely mulling over the thunderbolt he would hurl at the two men responsible for this affront to culture: Sir Coutts Lindsay, for thinking this thing art, and James Whistler, for thinking himself an artist….”
ह्यामुळे अब्रुनुकसानीचा खटला सुरु झाला आणि तो व्हिसलर यांनी कोर्टात जिंकला, पण Without costs: that is, with each side saddled with its own costs.!
"But if James McNeill Whistler touted his victory, and John Ruskin acknowledged his defeat, few others saw it that way. In the eyes of the world, the victory the jury had given Whistler with its verdict it had simultaneously taken away with its derisory damages, which posited Ruskin’s loss, while real, to be insignificant. Whistler’s great wit on the witness stand might have proved him to be a master of the mot, but it convinced few if any that he was a master of the palette. Many critics and most of the public continued to be baffled by his work. Sales of his paintings, if anything, shrank after the trial. As time passed and Whistler underwent his highly reported insolvency, it became clear that he and not Ruskin had suffered the most from the verdict."
"Who then, Whistler or Ruskin, had the most lasting and impactful legacy? Quantifying and comparing achievements so diverse, so full, is an impossibility beyond the fair deliberation of any jury. Who won Whistler v. Ruskin? In the greater contest between the two men—the contest of two centuries rather than two days—neither did.
Or rather, both did."
खटल्या संबंधित महत्वाच्या गोष्टी (खटल्याने त्याला जवळजवळ दिवाळखोर केले) आणि त्याचे झालेले अनेक दूरगामी परिणाम गोडसे सांगतच नाहीत! त्यासाठी मर्फी यांचे पुस्तक वाचा.
मराठी लेखकांच्या वैयक्तिक तीव्र आवडी निवडी काही वेळा त्यांच्या पुस्तकांमध्ये वाचकांना सत्यापासून दूर ठेवतात.
"...In conclusion, to assess the contribution made by cyclist units, one only needs to look among the graves in the British Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries from the First World War to see the headstones of the men who served with units such as the British Army Cyclist Corps, or the names on the memorials to those with no-known-grave such as Tyne Cot in Belgium. Cyclist units are also included on Divisional memorials, such as that to the British army’s 14th Light Division at Hill 60 near Zillebeke, and that to the cyclists of the Belgian army near Haelen.
...They have been used by standing national armies, insurgents, resistance groups and all manner of other organizations in time of war. After all this time, there is no reason to believe bicycles should not continue to be used by armies in the future. To have lasted for as long as they have, there must have been much wisdom in their use."
मिरजेला आम्ही एकाच घरात १९६१- १९८४ राहिलो. तो भाग त्या काळात खूप बदलला असे म्हणता येणार नाही, आम्हीच खूप बदललो....
पण काही बदल जन्म, मृत्यू,लग्ने, बदल्या, घरांचे नूतनीकरण यांमुळे होत राहिले...
असाच एक बदल म्हणजे आमच्या समोरच्या वाड्यात, १९७०च्या दशकात काही बदल होऊन, तिथे समोरच्या बाजूला, आमच्या घरासमोर एक दुकान तयार करण्यात आले आणि ते चालवायला एक दिवस नाना (पत्नी नव्हती) आणि त्यांची दोन अविवाहित मुलगे आले. ते सगळे राहायला नंतर त्या वाड्यातच होते.
त्यांच्या आणि आमच्या संबंधात काही कडू गॊड आठवणी आहेत पण त्या आत्ता येथे लिहित नाही.
लिहणार आहे ते: त्यांच्या बरोबर आलेल्या दोन विचित्र दिसणाऱ्या, बुटक्या , जुनाट पण तगड्या सायकली. आमच्या सायकलीसमोर तर त्या खूपच विचित्र दिसत असत. ते तिघे त्या सायकलींना दुसऱ्या महायुद्धात वापरलेल्या सायकली म्हणत असत. त्या त्यांनी विकत घेतल्या असाव्यात.
पहिले अनेक महिने (जो पर्यंत ते राहायला दुकानाच्या मागेच आले नव्हते तो पर्यंत) ते त्या सायकली बऱ्याच वेळा वापरत असत. नंतर त्यांचा वापर कमी झाला, त्या वाड्याच्या बाहेरच्या दरवाज्याला टेकवून उभ्या असत, शेवट त्या बहुतेक भंगारात गेल्या. त्या चालवावेसे मला एकदाही वाटले नाही.
अशा तर्हेने दुसरे महायुद्ध १९७०च्या दशकात आमच्या डोळ्यादेखत जिवंत होते!
Infantry on bicycles during the Blitzkriegs in 1939 and 1940.
courtesy: "The Military History of the Bicycle: the Forgotten War Machine" by John Norris , 2021
John Gray, Jan 27, 2021, 'New Statesman':
"...We is distinctive in linking the inhuman world it depicts with what many regard as the defining human attribute – the power of reason to reshape society. Zamyatin’s objection to utopias was not that a perfect society is unachievable. It was the very idea of perfection that he rejected. He believed the single-minded pursuit of a rational model of society ended in tyranny. But it was not political repression that most troubled him. He was more concerned with the impact of rationalism on the soul. Human creativity was inextricably bound up with disruptive passions. Utopian schemes were dystopian by nature.
Here Zamyatin followed Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground (1864) – the seminal dystopian text. For Dostoevsky’s “underground man”, a society founded on logic and science (if such a thing was possible) would be a spiritual prison. The capacity for irrational love and sacrifice, for choosing conflict and suffering over peace and happiness, was an essential part of human freedom..."
पु ल देशपांडे त्यांच्या मल्लिकार्जुन मन्सूर यांच्या वरील एप्रिल १९७३ च्या अप्रतिम लेखात म्हणतात:
"... तंबोरे जुळले जात असताना माणसे गप्पा मारीत बसलेली पाहिली की, मला मनस्वी चीड येते, जुळत येणारे तंबोरे ऐकणे हे प्रसाधनात गुंग झालेल्या युवतीला पाहण्यासारखे आल्हाददायक आहे..."
('एक गाण्यात राहणार माणूस', "गुण गाईन आवडी", १९७५-२०११)
