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, March 16, 2014

Who is Afloat? Joseph Addison or V K Chiplunkar...विष्णुशास्त्री चिपळूणकर

Tomorrow March 17 2014 is 132nd Death Anniversary of Vishnushastri Chiplunkar (विष्णुशास्त्री चिपळूणकर)

 George Orwell, 'Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool':

 "Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion."

The late Mr. Chiplunkar (20 May 1850- 17 March 1882) is an interesting and controversial character in the history of Maharashtra.

Fifty-six  years after his death, Mr. T S Shejwalkar (त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर)  'blames' him and his followers for wiping out reforms of Lokhitwadi and for opposing any reforms for three generations.

"...लोकहितवादींचे समाजसुधारणेचे कार्य चिपळूणकरांनी बोळा फिरवून पुसून टाकले आणि शास्त्रीबोवांना गुरु मानणारा जो एक मोठा मानभावी पंथ महाराष्ट्रांत बद्धमूल झाला, त्याने कोणत्याही सुधारणेची टाकी रुतू न देण्याचा उपक्रम गेल्या तीन पिढ्या सुरु ठेवला आहे..."

(किर्लोस्कर 'Kirloskar', June 1938)

Backed by a large number of educated urban middle-class, fundamentalist tendencies continue to flourish in 21st century Maharashtra. However, I don't know to what extent we can implicate 19th-century writer Mr. Chiplunkar for it.  

Although,  I had read his essay or two earlier, I started reading a book of his essays in October 2013 and I came across this name: Joseph Addison. The name has appeared on this blog earlier in "Michel de Montaigne: a Humble and Inglorious Life; that Does Not Matter" on September 13 2013.

Mr. Chiplunkar was clearly taken in by the charm of Mr. Addison (1672-1719).

"...उदाहरणार्थ, इंग्लिश भाषेत पहा.  हित जे ग्रंथकार आजपर्यंत झाले त्या  सर्वात आडिसन याची प्रमुखत्वाने गणना आहे.… व जोवर या पृथ्वीवर इंग्लिश राहील तोंवर वरील ग्रंथकाराचे लेख  बुडायचे नाहीत असा खात्रीचा अभिप्राय मोठमोठ्यांनी प्रदर्शित केला आहे…"

(...For example, look at English language. Among all the writers produced by it, Addison is among the best...and many greats have opined with a lot of confidence that as long as English survives on this earth the writings of the said author will not drown.")

Note- No Shakespeare. Milton, Swift, Shelley, Austen, Chaucer but Addison (आडिसन)...

 If you read Wikipedia entry on Addison, he is remembered today largely, not for his books or essays, but for the founding of The Spectator  magazine. More precisely it's called The Spectator (1711) to distinguish it from The Spectator. that is published even today. 

The latter published an article on Mr. Addison to observe the bicentenary of the his death in June 1919.

It makes no claim to his greatness, let alone the immortality of his letters.

Has Joseph Addison or his books 'survived' as proclaimed by Vishnushastri?

When I saw these two articles in a Marathi daily Loksatta (लोकसत्ता), on its editorial pages, dated February 14 2014 and March 14 2014, I feel Mr. Chiplunkar has probably done better than Mr. Addison in "drowning test"!
 


Artist: I Klein, The New Yorker, 6 February 1932

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