जी ए, टेनेसी विल्यम्स आणि शी:धप्प बोलणे (आणि लिहणे)...PERSON—TO—PERSON That GA Never Wrote

जी ए कुलकर्णींचा पत्र व्यवहार आता त्यांच्या साहित्याचा मोठा आणि महत्वाचा भाग ठरला आहे. तरीसुद्धा त्यांनी  लिहलेली बरीच पत्रे आपल्याला कधीच वाचायला मिळणार नाहीत कारण कित्येक उपलब्ध झाली नाहीत आणि कितीतरी त्यांच्या संपादकांनी प्रसिद्धी-लायक मानली नाहीत....शिवाय पाठ्वलेल्याकडे हरवणे, पोस्टात गहाळ, प्रसिद्धीसाठी उपलब्ध करू न देण वगैरे...

माझ्या मते जीएंचे प्रत्येक उपलब्ध पत्र, अतिखाजगी उल्लेख वगळून, कसलीही संपादकीय कात्री न लावता, प्रसिद्ध करायला पाहिजे.

जी एंना कोणत्या प्रकारच पत्र आवडत नसेल याबद्दल माझे काही अंदाज आहेत.... त्यांना 'घोड्याची लीद पडत असल्याप्रमाणे शी:धप्प' ( 'यात्रिक', 'पिगळावेळ', पृष्ठ २४१) पत्र आवडत नसणार.

जगातील एक सर्वोत्कृष्ट नाटककार टेनेसी विल्यम्स 'कॅट ऑन अ हॉट टिन रूफ', १९५६ ह्या त्यांच्या नाटकाच्या सुरवातीला त्यांचे चिंतन लिहतात- 'पर्सन-टु-पर्सन' या शीर्षकाखाली:

“... Of course I know that I have sometimes presumed too much upon corresponding sympathies and interest in those to whom I talk boldly, and this has led to rejections that were painful and costly enough to inspire more prudence. But when I weigh one thing against another, an easy liking against a hard respect, the balance always tips the same way, and whatever the risk of bring turned a cold shoulder, I still don’t want to talk to people only about the surface aspects of their lives, the sort of things that acquaintances laugh and chatter about on ordinary social occasions.

I feel that they get plenty of that, and heaven knows so do I, before and after the little interval of time in which I have their attention and say what I have to say to them. The discretion of social conversation, even among friends, is exceeded only by the discretion of 'the deep six', that grave wherein nothing is mentioned at all. Emily Dickinson, that lyrical spinster of Amherst, Massachusetts, who wore a strict and savage heart on a taffeta sleeve, commented wryly on that kind of posthumous discourse among friends in these lines:

I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed? ' For beauty,' I replied. 'And I for truth,—the two are one, We brethren are' be said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.

Meanwhile!—I want to go on talking to you as freely and intimately about what we live and die for as if I knew you better than anyone else whom you know."

याबाबतीत जी ए विल्यम्स यांच्याशी सहमत असावेत असं मला कायम वाटत आल आहे. जीएंना सुद्धा आयुष्याबद्दल वरवरचे - शी:धप्प  बोलायचे नसायचे.

(BTW- एमिली डिकिन्सन यांचा विल्यम्स यांच्यावरचा प्रभाव पहा!)

Paul Newman with Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958

courtesy: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer