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."

Saturday, May 01, 2010

In the Battle of Romance, Marathi Lost it to Hindi

Suhas Palshikar: "...MNS or no MNS, preferential treatment to locals is always an easy and attractive policy proposal. What is wrong with it? It is wrong simply because it creates an untenable category of “local”. In administrative parlance it becomes “domicile” – meaning resident for 15 years. This strategy practically abandons diversity. Apart from raising issues of definition of the local, such a policy encourages inbreeding and denies its beneficiaries he advantage of greater exposure and competition. It produces ghettoisation at schools, colleges and at workplaces – resulting in non-diverse social universes –hostels, localities and cities...." (Economic & Political Weekly, Feb 13, 2010)

Does this ghettoisation also affect the culture? I argue it does.

"The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do without it" by Philip Ball has been reviewed by a number of publications in recent days.

Guy Dammann says: "...We do not love music because it exercises our brains or makes us more attractive to members of the opposite sex, but because we have lived with it since we came into being: it is entwined in our common and individual consciousness to the extent that, simply put, we would not be ourselves without it. In contemplating the mysteries of music we are also thereby contemplating the mystery of ourselves..." (The Observer, 21 February 2010)

A majority of good music for most Marathi speakers has been Hindi film music. Hindi may or may not be India's 'national language' but for me it surely is a language of soulful music. In happiness and in sadness.

I have rarely NOT cried at the end of watching 'Na To Karvan Ki Talaash Hai'- a great paean of love- from 'Barsaat Ki Raat'(1960).

In one of his numerous letters, G A Kulkarni (जी. ए. कुलकर्णी) dismisses lyricist Shailendra in comparison with G D Madgulkar (ग. दि. माडगूळकर).

G A got this horribly wrong. Madgulkar was a very good lyricist. But Shailendra, if any, was slightly better.

(GA was wrong on many other counts such as Marathi poet-saints, Mahatma Gandhi, popular Hindi cinema...

He keeps mentioning Ingrid Bergman...Who doesn't like Ms. Bergman? But how did he miss my goddesses with forever looks: Nutan, Madhubala, Geeta Bali? Were they any less?)

N S Phadke (ना सी फडके) rued in his essay "Poverty of Romance in New-Theatre" (नवनाट्यांतलं शृंगाराच दारिद्र्य) ['laharee', (लहरी) 1966] how Marathi theatre did not come out with a single new great romantic play since 1920.

I don't recall a single great romantic movie in Marathi.

Let us face it: In the battle of romance, since 1950's, Marathi theatre and cinema lost it to Hindi cinema.

[Marathi poetry has fared much better. Although, it must be said, it never reached the heights reached by its saint-poets earlier as in 'पीक पिकलें प्रेमाचें । सांठवितां गगन टांचें...' (Eknath एकनाथ) or 'mujhse pahli-si muhabbat mere mehboob na mang...' (Faiz Ahmed Faiz)]




Geeta Bali / Ingrid Bergman->




I don't think there is as much great music associated with Ms. Bergman as Ms. Bali!
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