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."

Friday, December 14, 2007

Bobbing Run-up, the Goggle-Eyes, the Whirring Wrist, the Fizzing Ball...

Here, for whatever worth, is my list of top 5 cricketers South Asia produced so far:

1. Muttiah Muralitharan (First, Not Doosra!)
2. Wasim Akram
3. Kapil Dev
4. Imran Khan
5. Sunil Gavaskar

On December 6, 2007, Murali had taken no wickets in England second innings. And then he clean bowled first Matt Prior and later, with 'snake' ball, Ian Bell. It's hard to play his snake ball even in a dream. Ian Bell (and I) thought ball left him safely, only to see it crashing into his stumps.

Michael Atherton gentleman cricketer wrote memorable essays on Murali in year 2001 and 2006.

Atherton wrote in January 2001:

“At his strike rate of just over five wickets a Test, Muttiah Muralitharan will become, barring misfortune, the greatest wicket- taker in the history of the game in about four years' time. Not bad for a short, slightly built, bow-legged finger spinner with a congenital defect of his right arm…”

In less than six years, Murali on December 3, 2007 claimed his 709th wicket to become world’s number one wicket- taker in test match cricket.

“…More than that, he was a complete breath of fresh air. Sometimes a county dressing-room can become a tired and cynical place and what was once a game can become a humdrum job. Indeed, when Murali arrived, I was injured, sidelined and contemplating retirement as I had lost some enjoyment of the game in the previous six months through constantly battling injury. Murali's arrival reaffirmed to me that cricket is played best when it is enjoyed rather than endured. It was such a pleasure to see a player, a world-class player, clearly relishing the opportunity to bowl and taking pleasure in everything he was asked to do. He simply loves the game.

It is rare to see a great player with so little ego. When the ever- insatiable Lancashire marketing department asked him to dress in lederhosen in front of the members and cameras one day to promote the Warsteiner floodlit series, it was a request that would have been flatly refused by most. But there he was, looking ever so slightly ridiculous, waving his feathered hat, swigging the amber nectar, having the time of his life…”

Atherton wrote in year 2006:

“…Muralitharan is now 34 years old, with a creaking shoulder, and the strain of carrying his country's attack almost single-handedly for more than a decade will surely bring down the curtain on his career before he returns to these shores again. It is entirely likely that this will be the last time that we will see the bobbing run-up, the goggle-eyes, the whirring wrist, the fizzing ball and the best of batsmen hypnotised, mesmerised and ultimately bamboozled.

Appreciate him while you can: his like will not come again.”




Muttiah Muralitharan in action
(Picture Courtesy- AFP / cricinfo.com)
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