We'll always have Paris?

 

Casablanca , 1942

artist: Vaughan Tomlinson

Every generation invents a word for young people who look too happy to obey. Beatniks were one such word.

 

Movie poster from the 1959 crime drama, "The Rebel Set."

Beatniks were the popular, slightly hostile media label for people associated (loosely) with the Beat Generation in the late 1940s–1950s.  The actual writers were people like:

• Jack Kerouac

• Allen Ginsberg

• William S. Burroughs

They were interested in: freedom, travel, jazz, poetry, sex without apology, spiritual searching (Zen, Buddhism), rejecting middle-class conformity

But “beatnik” was not their word. It was a tabloid word, meant to suggest:

• dirty

• irresponsible

• sexually loose

• criminal-adjacent

• unserious

  Look at the text:

  Living in hobo love!
  Hunting for strange kicks!
  Dealing in startling crime!

  This is moral panic dressed as advertising. It says:

• “These people are having too much fun”

• “They don’t respect work, marriage, or rules”

• “They might be dangerous”

• “But you should definitely come look”

condemnation + fascination.

---

The woman: 

She is:

• dancing, not posing

• smiling with her whole body

• unashamed

• physically expressive

• uncontained

Her body language says:

I am enjoying being alive.

The poster text says:

This is a problem.

That tension is the whole picture.

We are not afraid of her.
We are invited by her, even while being warned.

---

The man behind her

He is:

• smaller

• watchful

• cautious

• half-outsider

He represents society looking at the beatnik world:
curious, suspicious, not quite inside the dance.

He is not the hero.
She is the energy.

Again — note how we talk about her, not him 

About “the song”

There isn’t a specific song referenced here — but the imagery borrows heavily from:

• jazz culture

• beat poetry readings

• coffeehouse music scenes

Think:

• bongo drums

• spoken-word poetry

• cigarette smoke

• improvised rhythm

The “song” is really a rhythm of nonconformity, not a tune.

 The truth here is simple: joy looks threatening to systems built on control. Every generation invents a word for young people who look too happy to obey. Beatniks were one such word.

The Hite Report@50 and Male Vanity Including My Own

 Stephen Jay Gould, 'Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History':

"...As women have known since the dawn of our time, the primary site for stimulation to orgasm centers upon the clitoris. The revolution unleashed by the Kinsey report of 1953 has, by now, made this information available to men who, for whatever reason, had not figured it out for themselves by the more obvious routes of experience and sensitivity.

The data are unambiguous. Consider only the three most widely read of extensive surveys—the Kinsey report of 1953, Masters and Johnson’s book of 1966, and The Hite Report of 1976. In his study of genital anatomy, Kinsey reports that the female clitoris is as richly supplied with sensory nerves as the male penis—and therefore as capable of excitation. The walls of the vagina, on the other hand, “are devoid of end organs of touch and are quite insensitive when they are gently stroked or lightly pressed. For most individuals the insensitivity extends to every part of the vagina.”

The data on masturbation are particularly convincing. Kinsey reports from his sample of 8,000 women that 84 percent of individuals who have ever masturbated depend “primarily on labial and/or clitoral techniques.” The Hite Report on 3,000 individuals found that 79 percent of women who masturbate do so by directly stimulating the clitoris and surrounding vulva, while only 1.5 percent use vaginal entry.

The data on intercourse affirm this pattern. Shere Hite reports a frequency of orgasm with intercourse at 30 percent and often attained only with simultaneous stimulation of the clitoris by hand. She concludes: “not to have orgasm from intercourse is the experience of the majority of women.” Masters and Johnson only included women who experienced orgasm with intercourse in their study. But they concluded that all orgasms are identical in physiology and clitoral in origin. These findings led Hite to comment that human copulation “sounds more like a Rube Goldberg scheme than a reliable way to orgasm…. Intercourse was never meant to stimulate women to orgasm.” As Kinsey had said earlier with his characteristic economy and candor: “The techniques of masturbation and of petting are more specifically calculated to effect orgasm than the techniques of coitus itself.”..."

 This conclusion should be utterly unsurprising—once we grasp the proper role and limitation of adaptationist argument in evolutionary biology. I don’t believe in the mystery style of writing essays: build up suspense but save the resolution until the end—for then readers miss the significance of details along the way for want of proper context. The reason for a clitoral site of orgasm is simple—and exactly comparable with the nonpuzzle of male nipples. The clitoris is the homologue of the penis—it is the same organ, endowed with the same anatomical organization and capacity of response.

Anatomy, physiology, and observed responses all agree. Why then do we identify an issue at all? Why, in particular, does the existence of clitoral orgasm seem so problematic? Why, for example, did Freud label clitoral orgasm as infantile and define feminine maturity as the shifting to an unattainable vaginal site?

Part of the reason, of course, must reside in simple male vanity. We (and I mean those of my sex, not the vague editorial pronoun) simply cannot abide the idea—though it flows from obvious biology—that a woman’s sexual pleasure might not arise most reliably as a direct result of our own coital efforts. But the issue extends further. Clitoral orgasm is a paradox not only for the traditions of Darwinian biology but also for the bias of utility that underlies all functionally based theories of evolution (including Lamarck’s and Darwin’s) and, in addition, the much older tradition of natural theology that saw God’s handiwork in the exquisite fit of organic form to function...."

Sara Lautman, The Paris Review, July 2017 

p.s. she has paused her ironing completely to read The Hite Report. Her facial expression is calm, content, and entirely unapologetic.notice the elongated objects sitting in the basket or dish rack are drawn with a distinct, humorous phallic shape—a subtle visual nod by the artist to the themes of the book 

By the way- I did not know this before I read Gould's essay and it made me think, made me hopefully humbler.... 

 

Nikhil's Father@100...Ramesh Sakharam Benegal

 Ramesh Sakharam Benegal on meeting Netaji in 1944:

"We were made to stand in front of our rooms as Netaji had expressed his wish to meet each of us individually. We all had photographs of Netaji in the INA uniform in our rooms and took the golden opportunity of having them autographed by him. Signing forty-five photographs on a visit like this was time-consuming, but he did it patiently and with a smile.Netaji spent at least two minutes with each cadet and asked about each one’s welfare. When he came to my room, he astounded me by telling me that my brother Sumitra was in the Rangoon Headquarters and was quite well. He then asked me if I had received any letters from him and when I replied that no one had written me any letters, he said that he would remind Sumitra to write to me. He then signed my photograph and moved on to the next room. I have since held responsible posts as a commanding officer and I know what it means to an individual when a superior officer remembers his name and anything about his family…"

 

 Benegal’s MVC citation reads:

As the commanding officer of an operational reconnaissance squadron, Wing Commander RS Benegal carried out a large number of missions over enemy territory and obtained vital information about enemy air force and other installations. The missions entailed flying deep into enemy territory and to heavily defended targets. The information brought back from these missions facilitated the planning of Army, Air Force and Naval operations and thus directly contributed to the attrition of the Pakistan war machine. It is further to the credit of Wing Commander Benegal that he never returned from any of these innumerable missions without having achieved his objective in full measure. While flying repeatedly deep into enemy territory, Wing Commander Benegal displayed conscientious devotion to duty and professional skill of a very high order.

 

अंजु आणि माझे आसाम मध्ये १९८९-९२ काळात मित्र असलेले इंदिरा (माहेरची कल्याणपूर) आणि निखिल बेनेगल... इंदिरा बाळंतपणासाठी हुबळी ला गेल्या नंतर निखिल कित्येक संध्याकाळी आमच्याकडे घालवत असे... 

 

उग्रवादी उल्फा आम्हाला केंव्हाही मारतील असा तो काळ होता ...

 

पुढे निखिल "टी इस्टेट" ह्या निलगिरीतील कंपनीत परत गेला ... 

 

मी बंगलोर मध्ये त्याला एकदोन वेळा भेटलो पण आसाम मधील स्पार्क आता गेला होता ... 

 

एका संध्याकाळी मी हर्षा हॉटेल मध्ये राहत असताना , बहुदा डिसेंबर १९९२ मध्ये , मी त्याच्या वडलांच्या बंगलोरच्या घरी गेलो होतो , ती संध्याकाळ संस्मरणीय आहे, कारण त्याचे व्वडील आझाद हिंद सेनेपासून ते १९७७ पर्यंत भारतीय सेनेत होते आणि ते महावीर चक्र होते!

 

इतका नम्र, साधा, संभाषणचतुर, प्रत्यक्ष योद्धा आणि कर्तबगार मनुष्य मला कवचितच भेटलाय .... 

 

 

George Gross Did Not Need Scantily Clad Damsels

 

artist: George Gross (1909-2003)

 This is pulp — but it is intelligent pulp, and that distinction matters. even without the bodies, this image already tells a crime story. The men are almost redundant. Let’s see why.

---

First: why this image starts narrating instantly

Some images describe a scene. This one accuses a moment. The story doesn’t begin with violence — it begins with her interruption. She has arrived too late or arrived at the wrong second. That temporal ambiguity is what creates narrative tension.

---

The woman’s gaze: the real engine of the image

Her gaze is doing three things at once:

1. Not looking at the bodies
   → This is crucial. If she were reacting to them, the image would collapse into melodrama.

2. Looking outward, beyond the frame → Toward threat, escape, witness, or future consequence.

3. Looking upward and sideways → This is not fear; it is calculation under pressure.

This is a gaze that says: “Something has gone wrong — and I am already thinking two steps ahead.” That alone elevates the image.

---

Lighting: pulp, but disciplined pulp

The lighting is almost theatrical, but notice how selective it is:

• Her face and torso are lit — not the men

• Her red skirt anchors the composition

• The background dissolves into near-black

This creates a hierarchy: agency → consequence → residue

The men are residue. She is agency.

---

Why her body does not cheapen the image

Yes:

• blouse open

• leg revealed

• cigarette in hand

But here’s the difference from cheap pulp:

Her body is not offered — it is exposed by circumstance.

• She is standing, not posing

• Her weight is grounded

• Her hand grips the post — not decoratively, but for balance

This is a body under stress, not display. That stress gives dignity.

---

The cigarette: small but decisive detail

This is not a seductive cigarette.

It is:

• unfinished

• absent-minded

• almost forgotten

That means: she was doing something else when this happened.

A cigarette in pulp often signals control or allure. Here it signals interruption.

---

Why the image would still work with only her

Yes — because she is already the aftermath.

Even alone, she would imply:

• a crime just occurred

• a decision must be made

• someone else will pay for this moment

The bodies only literalize what her posture already tells us.

---

Why this feels “noir” rather than lurid

Classic noir is not about crime — it’s about moral asymmetry.

Here:

• men lie helpless, unconscious or dead

• woman stands upright, thinking

Power has shifted. And noir always lives in that shift.

---

The picture doesn’t ask: “What happened?”

It asks: “What will she do now?”

And that is the moment noir always cares about. 

---

The image would survive intact if everything below the collarbone were muted or removed.
That is not true of most pulp. 

Neck-up: where the picture is already complete

From the neck up, everything essential is already in place:

• the angle of the head (slightly turned, alert, listening)

• the set of the jaw (closed, firm, unsentimental)

• the eyes (adaptive, outward-facing, future-oriented)

• the neck tension (not decorative — physiological)

This is where narrative intelligence resides.

By the time you read her face, you already know:

• something irreversible has happened

• she understands it faster than anyone else present

• she is not surprised by violence, only by timing

That’s enough to hold attention — fully.

---

Why the cleavage feels editorial, not artistic

Your instinct about the editor is very plausible, and historically quite likely.

In pulp production:

• covers had to signal genre instantly

• sexuality was shorthand for adult stakes

• editors often demanded “assurance of sales”

What’s revealing here is not that cleavage exists — but that it doesn’t do narrative work.

It doesn’t:

• change her psychology

• intensify the threat

• advance the story

It simply occupies space.

Which is why your eye can mentally subtract it without loss.

---

 "According to pulp writer Bill Cox, “George Gross could do exciting paintings even when there were no scantily clad damsels around, and what’s more amazing, Fiction House let him!” Of course, he could also do well with the scantily clad damsels. These are paintings commissioned as cover art, but are not the covers themselves.". 

Leonard Starr's Everyday Happiness...

 

 

artist: Leonard Starr (1925-2015)

First: what strikes the eye immediately

This is joy without irony.

• The woman is unselfconscious, not coy

• Her smile is open, almost conversational

• She isn’t performing for the viewer—she’s absorbed in her own small ritual

That alone sets Starr apart from a lot of mid-century pin-up or glamour illustration, where happiness is often a mask for seduction.

Here, happiness is the subject, not the bait.

---

The body: present, but not predatory

Yes, the body is emphasized:

• long leg

• corseted waist

• bare shoulders

But notice something crucial:

Nothing is tense.

• No exaggerated arch

• No clenched toes

• No hyper-sharpened erotic triangle

The pose is relaxed, almost domestic. She’s sitting, not presenting.

This is very important for understanding Starr’s emotional register.

---

The mirror, the photograph, the absent man

One of Starr’s quiet genius touches is the photograph of the man in the mirror frame.

• He’s smiling

• He’s not watching her

• He’s not dominating the composition

He exists as context, not control.

This changes everything.

The scene becomes:

“I am happy, and someone exists who shares my life—but my happiness does not depend on being watched.”

That’s a subtle but radical idea for commercial illustration of that era.

---

Color and line: why the happiness feels clean

Starr’s line is:

• smooth

• continuous

• never aggressive

His colors:

• warm but not loud

• playful without garishness

• reds and greens balanced so the image never screams

There is no visual anxiety here. No harsh blacks. No cutting diagonals. The eye glides, it doesn’t pounce. That glide is emotional as much as visual.

---

Why you feel “happiness” (and not just charm)

Starr’s women are often:

• pleased with themselves

• amused by life

• quietly confident

They are not:

• yearning

• scheming

• inviting conquest

This is happiness as self-containment, not conquest.

That is rare.

---

Starr’s happiness is not dramatic. It is not heroic. It is not tragic.

It is everyday happiness. That may be why it feels so good—and so rare. In art, especially modern art, happiness often feels embarrassing, naïve, or suspect.

Starr refuses that suspicion.

He simply says:

“This moment is enough.”

And somehow, that still works—decades later.

Why Leonard Starr is unusual among “mainstream” artists

Most mainstream illustrators carefully manage:

• desire

• fantasy

• ownership

Starr breaks one rule:

He allows his women to enjoy themselves independently of the viewer.

That makes them:

• less erotically available

• more psychologically complete

Mainstream art usually fears this because:

a complete woman cannot be possessed by the gaze.

Yet Starr risks it. That risk is why the image feels strange—even slightly “uncooperative.” 

p.s. AI help has been taken although ideas are mine 

हे चित्र शरीर दाखवत नाही; ते क्षण दाखवतं. आणि क्षण — नेहमीच धोकादायक असतात....Art of Gene Bilbrew- This Moment Cannot Last

 

artist: Gene Bilbrew (1923-1974)

Gene Bilbrew was one of the finest magazine illustrators of mid-20th-century America. He worked in a world where suggestion had to do the work of exposure. Bilbrew was not painting bodies for titillation alone. He was painting tension. The sexual charge comes not from nudity, but from composition.

 Light: why your eye doesn’t linger crudely

Notice how the light behaves:

• The brightest light falls on:

  • the woman’s face

  • her upper torso

• The legs—though prominent—are tonally even, almost sculptural, not spotlighted.

This does something crucial: Your eye moves upward, not downward.

In sleazy images, light pulls the eye to erogenous zones. Here, light pulls the eye to expression and moment. Her face is not passive. It’s alert, almost dramatic—half surprise, half decision.

---

3. Shadow: what is withheld matters more than what is shown

Look at the shadows:

• The man’s face is partly erased

• His features dissolve into shadow

• He becomes function, not personality

This shifts power.

In cheap erotic art:

• Man = actor

• Woman = object

Here:

• Woman = center of meaning

• Man = silhouette, pressure, circumstance

Shadow is doing ethical work here.

---

4. The fan: why it arrests one subconsciously

The steering wheel / fan-like object is brilliant.

Visually, it:

• creates a circular counterpoint to the diagonals of bodies

• anchors the composition so it doesn’t collapse into chaos

Symbolically, it does more:

• it introduces mechanics

• movement, velocity, risk, interruption

This is not a bedroom. This is a moment that wasn’t planned. Eroticism here comes from interruption, not indulgence.

---

5. Posture: why the image feels dramatic, not pornographic

Pornographic posture is designed for viewing.

This posture is designed for balance.

• One heel lifted

• One leg extended

• Body twisted, not opened

She is maintaining equilibrium, not offering herself. That alone changes everything.

---

6. Why one feels “this is unique”

This image belongs more to film noir than to pin-up culture.

It has:

• urgency

• ambiguity

• a sense that something irreversible is happening

Nothing here says “look at this body.” Everything says “this moment cannot last.” It doesn’t ask: “Do you like this?” It asks: “What just happened — and what happens next?” 

p.s. I have taken AI help to compose part of the post but all ideas are mine 

शांत रस: दीनानाथ दलालांचा स्थैर्याचा क्षण....Dinanath Dalal's Shant Rasa, 1953

१९५३च्या दीपावलीच्या दिवाळी अंकात, अप्रतिम मुखपृष्ठाव्यतिरिक्त दीनानाथ दलाल यांनी सहा चित्रांची एक मालिका साकारली आहे— शृंगार, वत्सल, करुण, भक्ती, अद्भुत आणि शांत. आजचं, आणि मालिकेतील शेवटचं चित्र : शांत

________________________________________

शांत रस : भावनांचा अभाव नाही, तर भावनांनंतरची स्थिरता

भारतीय रसपरंपरेत शांत हा रस कमी भावनांचा नाही. तो आहे— भावनांचा प्रवास पूर्ण झाल्यावर येणारी मानसिक स्थिरता.

________________________________________

विषय निवड : अहिल्या — विलक्षण, पण अत्यंत अचूक

शांत रसासाठी दलालांनी रामायणातील अहिल्येचा प्रसंग निवडला आहे.

अहिल्या म्हणजे:

• अन्याय झालेली स्त्री

• दीर्घ शिक्षा भोगलेली अवस्था

• पण रडत बसलेली नाही

• क्रोधाने पेटलेली नाही

ती प्रतीक्षेत स्थिर आहे.

शांत रसासाठी याहून अवघड आणि सुंदर विषय निवडता येणं कठीण.

________________________________________

दगड : शिक्षा नव्हे, अवस्था

अहिल्या दगड झालेली— हा प्रसंग बहुतेक वेळा “शिक्षा” म्हणून वाचला जातो.

पण दलालांच्या चित्रात दगड म्हणजे:

• मृत्यू नाही

• जडत्व नाही

• शून्यता नाही

तो आहे—

इच्छांचा विराम

क्रियेचा थांबा

भावनांचा समतोल

अहिल्या इथे दगड बनलेली नाही, ती दगडासारखी स्थिर आहे.

________________________________________

रचना (Composition): हालचाल मागे, शांतता पुढे

चित्रात दोन स्पष्ट स्तर दिसतात—

पार्श्वभूमीत

राम, लक्ष्मण आणि गौतम— सगळे हालचालीत, कृतीत.

अग्रभागी

अहिल्या— बसलेली, हात जोडलेले, मान झुकलेली.

ही रचना सांगते: जग चालू आहे, पण शांतता एका जागी स्थिर आहे.

________________________________________

देहभाषा : नम्रता आहे, शरणागती नाही

अहिल्येचे हात जोडलेले आहेत, पण तिचं शरीर लाचार नाही.

• मान झुकलेली

• पण देह मोडलेला नाही

• चेहरा संयत

• भाव स्थिर

ही शांत प्रतिष्ठा आहे. दलाल इथे “दया मागणारी” स्त्री दाखवत नाहीत,

ते दाखवतात— स्वतःशी समेट झालेली स्त्री.

________________________________________

रंग आणि प्रकाश : मऊ, उबदार, नाट्यमय नाही

इथे:

• तीव्र रंग नाहीत

• भडक प्रकाश नाही

• नाट्यमय विरोध नाही

रंग मृदू आहेत— पिवळे, तपकिरी, धूसर हिरवे.

शांत रस उजेडात नसतो, तो मऊ प्रकाशात असतो.

________________________________________

भारतीय अर्थाने शांत

शांत म्हणजे:

• दुःख नाही, असा दावा नाही

• अन्याय विसरला, असंही नाही

शांत म्हणजे— घडलेलं स्वीकारून पुढे जाण्याची मानसिक स्थिरता

अहिल्या इथे क्षमा करत नाही, हिशेब मांडत नाही— ती फक्त स्थिर आहे.

________________________________________

रसमालेचा परिपूर्ण शेवट

दलालांनी:

• शृंगाराने सुरुवात केली

• आणि शांततेवर थांबले

ही फक्त सहा चित्रांची मालिका नाही. हा मानवी भावविश्वाचा प्रवास आहे.

________________________________________

एक वाक्यात सांगायचं तर : दलालांनी शांत रस ‘काहीच न घडणं’ म्हणून नाही, तर ‘सगळं होऊन गेल्यानंतरची स्थिरता’ म्हणून रंगवला आहे.

शृंगाराने मन उघडलं

वत्सलाने उब दिली

करुणेने अंतर्मुख केलं

भक्तीने झुकवलं

अद्भुताने विस्मय दिला

आणि शांत —

आपल्याला स्वतःशी राहू दिलं.

________________________________________

 

 

कलाकार: दीनानाथ दलाल, दलाल आर्ट स्टुडिओ

 

सौजन्य व आभार:

महाराष्ट्र राज्य मराठी विकास संस्था, चित्रकार दीनानाथ दलाल मेमोरियल समिती, दलाल परिवार