मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि 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: "… . . 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Monday, August 15, 2016

वाङ्मय शोभा, ऑगस्ट 1947....What Did Vangmay Shobha Say in August 1947?...आक्रंदन!

Today August 15 2016 is India's 70th independence day

Artist: Dinanath Dalal (दीनानाथ दलाल),'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय शोभा), August 1947

This was 100th issue of the magazine that was launched in 1939.

Dalal's lady is not just beautiful and elegantly attired but also so excited that she forgets, for a moment, the pot she is carrying over her head...the collective joy of the free nation is represented by the overflowing waterpot...

The cover of the magazine is so sunny and full of hopes and dreams but the editorial strikes a sour note with a title "आक्रंदन!" (scream!).

The leader includes following two cartoons:

Unfortunately I can't guess or read the name of the artists. 

courtesy: 'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय शोभा)

Interestingly editorial praises Dr. B R Ambedkar (डॉ. भी. रा. आंबेडकर) and lauds the Congress party for taking him aboard. It condemns Mahatma Gandhi for not recommending Ambedkar's name for presidency of Congress.

Although the tilt of the editorial is overzealous anti-Gandhism, it does raise some valid points such as  early signs of poor administration, corruption under home-rule etc.

It has printed a letter, dated March 26 1947, by Mr. Neel B. Banerjee, ICS who had served as chief secretary for  the United Provinces under Mr. G B Pant.

Following is the first page of the letter.