मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Maharashtra Farmers Just Sit and Chew Tobacco?

On September 9, 2007, Union textile minister Shankarsinh Vaghela said farmers of Vidarbha were themselves to be blamed for their plight.

He reportedly said: “If you just sit and chew tobacco in the farms, how can you expect good crops? The government can only help you to an extent. You should emulate the practices of farmers in Gujarat”

There has been big hue and cry after this. Vaghela of course has declared that he is misquoted and this is a “fabrication” by BJP to malign him.

These debates have been going on for long.

When I was in Assam, I often heard all other communities talking about Assamese as “Lahe Lahe” people.

One of the best non-fictional Marathi book in recent years is the late R B Patankar’s “अपूर्ण क्रांती ” ‘Incomplete Revolution’ (Mauj Prakashan 1999). He has written extensively about two important periodicals of 19th century Maharashtra. ‘मराठी ज्ञान प्रसारक Marathi Dnyan Prasarak’ and ‘विविध ज्ञान विस्तार Vividh Dnyan Vistar’.

In June 1851, an article was published titled “Comparison of Gujarati and Marathi people’s current condition”. Author Keshav Janardan Punalekar said that “Marathi people have indifference towards commerce, fondness for undisciplined expenditure, arrogant nature and laziness” and Gujarati people have “interest in commerce, simplicity, industriousness, habit of limited expendituere”.

Punalekar is not just critical but suggests how Marathi people can change their ways.

Patankar does not mention any controversy after publication of Punalekar’s article.

Mr. Minsiter, is this farmer in Thurber's picture from Maharashtra or Assam?


Artist: James Thurber The New yorker August 15, 1936
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