I lived in Mumbai continuously only from mid-1983 to mid-1987 but I got lucky.
I watched नीळू फुले (Nilu Phule) and लालन सारंग (Lalan Sarang) perform सखाराम बाइंडर/ बाईंडर (Sakharam Binder) at साहित्य संघ ,गिरगाव (Sahitya Sangh,Girgaum) from the first or the second row.
I have yet to see a better performance than that on either Indian stage or Indian cinema's silver screen.
I understand he felt emotionally exhausted after every performance of Binder. Why not? I felt devastated watching him just once.
I always thought Nilu Phule would have been a much better नाना फडणवीस (Nana Fadnavis)- a historical character tormented by his often losing struggle with sexuality- than मोहन आगाशे (Mohan Agashe) in विजय तेंडुलकर Vijay Tendulkar's घाशीराम कोतवाल (Ghashiram Kotwal).
It might have given an opportunity to 'Kotwal' to become a dark comedy instead of just great entertainment.
Cinema, unlike theatre, is predominantly director's medium. Unfortunately, for Mr. Phule and us, Marathi cinema did not have great, and not just good, directors while he was active. (How many great directors Marathi has produced anyway?)
He still gave memorable performances in movies like पिंजरा (Pinjara), सोंगाड्या (Songadya), थापाड्या (Thapadya), सामना (Samana), सिंहासन (Simhasan), लक्ष्मी (Laxmi).
My favourite is चोरीचा मामला (Choricha Mamala), brilliantly acted by Phule in the company of another brilliant but under appreciated actor: ललिता पवार (Lalita Pawar).
He always had something interesting to say. I wish he wrote.
He was an atheist like तुकाराम Tukaram: "आहे ऐसा देव वदवावी वाणी । नाही ऐसा मनीं अनुभवावा ।"
कमलाकर सारंग Kamlakar Sarang, talented director of Sakharam Binder, has written passionately about Phule in his autobiographical book बाइंडरचे दिवस (baaindarache diwas),1984.
Launched on Nov 29 2006, now 2,100+ posts...This bilingual blog - 'आन्याची फाटकी पासोडी' in Marathi- is largely a celebration of visual and/or comic ...तुकाराम: "ढेकणासी बाज गड,उतरचढ केवढी"...George Santayana: " Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence"...William Hazlitt: "Pictures are scattered like stray gifts through the world; and while they remain, earth has yet a little gilding."
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."
