Romancing Cosmos...कुसुमाग्रज, Hafez, Italo Calvino and Amar Chitra Katha

Today February 27 2015 is 103rd Birth Anniversary of Kusumagraj (कुसुमाग्रज). It also is Marathi Bhasha Diwas (मराठी भाषा दिवस).

पृथ्वीचे प्रेमगीत:

"...तुवा सांडलेले कुठे अंतराळात
वेचूनिया दिव्य तेजःकण
मला मोहवाया बघे हा सुधांशू
तपाचार स्वीकारुनी दारुण

निराशेत सन्यस्थ होऊन बैसे
ऋषींच्या कुळी उत्तरेला ध्रृव
पिसाटापरी केस पिंजारुनी हा
करी धूमकेतू कधी आर्जव

पिसारा प्रभेचा उभारून दारी
पहाटे उभा शुक्र हा प्रेमळ
करी प्रीतीची याचना लाजुनी
लाल होऊनिया लाजरा मंगळ

परी दिव्य ते तेज पाहून पूजून
घेऊ गळ्याशी कसे काजवे
नको क्षूद्र शृंगार तो दुर्बळांचा
तुझी दूरता त्याहुनी साहवे

तळी जागणारा निखारा उफाळून
येतो कधी आठवाने वर
शहारून येते कधी अंग तूझ्या
स्मृतीने उले अन् सले अंतर

गमे की तुझ्या रुद्र रूपात जावे
मिळोनी गळा घालुनीया गळा
तुझ्या लाल ओठातली आग प्यावी
मिठीने तुझ्या तीव्र व्हाव्या कळा..." (courtesy: current copyright holder of the poem)

I never quite liked Kusumagraj's rejection of the Moon on behalf of earth- तुवा सांडलेले कुठे अंतराळात वेचूनिया दिव्य तेजःकण मला मोहवाया बघे हा सुधांशू- because he (moon) is working with borrowed light.  His earth (she) might choose the Sun in the end but the Moon (whether he or she) sure is a great contender.

Italo Calvino:

“The Distance of the Moon

At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. Then the tides gradually pushed her far away: the tides that the Moon herself causes in the Earth’s waters, where the Earth slowly loses energy.

How well I know! – old Qfwfq cried – the rest of you can’t remember, but I can. We had her on top of us all the time, that enormous Moon: when she was full – nights as bright as day, but with a butter-colored light – it looked as if she were going to crush us; when she was new, she rolled around the sky like a black umbrella blown by the wind; and when she was waxing, she came forward with her horns so low she seemed about to stick into the peak of a promontory and get caught there. But the whole business of the Moon’s phases worked in a different way then: because the distances from the Sun were different, and the orbits, and the angle of something or other, I forget what; as for eclipses, with Earth and Moon stuck together the way they were, why, we had eclipses every minute: naturally, those two big monsters managed to put each other in the shade constantly, first one, then the other…”

(from ‘The Complete Cosmicomics’, 1965)

courtesy: Hafez, Amar Chitra Katha Studio and its artists on Facebook page