सूर्यफुले हाती ठेवणारा कवी…Namdeo Dhasal

Dylan Thomas:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light…

…And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

  
George Santayana:

"Schopenhauer thought tragedy beautiful because it detached us from a troubled world and did not think a troubled world good, as those unspeakable optimists did, because it made such a fine tragedy."

Frances Spalding, The Guardian, 17 January 2014:


"...Van Gogh never suggested that the sunflower had any religious meaning for him, though it is customarily associated with humanity's love of God, or Christ. But he did link it on two occasions to gratitude. He admits in one letter: "My paintings are … a cry of anguish while symbolising gratitude in the rustic sunflower."..."

I have never forgot following lines of poet Namdev Dhasal (February 15 1949 - January 15 2014) since I read them in class X,  1974-75.

"...सूर्यफुले हाती ठेवणारा फकीर हजारो वर्षानंतर लाभला
आत्ता सूर्यफुलासारखे सूर्योंमुख झालेच पाहिजे."

('आत्ता', नामदेव लक्ष्मण ढसाळ, गोलपिठा, १९७१ )

[ ("After thousands of years, we met a fakir who handed to us sunflowers
now we must become sun-facing like sunflowers"

('Aatta', Namdev Lakshman Dhasal, Golpitha, 1971)]


Tragedy in the hands of the late Mr. Dhasal was beautiful like fiery sunflowers. Like Van Gogh, those flowers also perhaps were his 'cry of anguish', while symbolising his gratitude towards Dr. B R Ambedkar (डॉ भी. रा. आंबेडकर).

But he never thought the world around him good because it made such a fine tragedy.

                                                            Van Gogh's Sunflowers, 1888

Courtesy: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and The Guardian


I don't think NLD's rebellion in Marathi literature was pointless.

Artist: Robert Kraus, The New Yorker, April 9 1960