Wednesday, November 29, 2023

The Age of Sail...and Hell...

 असे म्हटले जाते की ब्रिटन ने एकेकाळी जगावर प्रभुत्व गाजवले त्यांच्या नौदला मुळे ... 

अलीकडे (एप्रिल २०२३) Stephen R. Bown यांचे 'Scurvy: how a surgeon, a mariner, and a gentleman solved the greatest medical mystery of the age of sail' पुस्तक चाळत आहे आणि त्यातील माहिती अद्भुत आहे!

मी माझ्या चौथी मध्ये १९६८-६९ साली स्कर्व्ही बद्दल पहिल्यांदा वाचले आणि तो शब्द आणि त्या रोगाचे कारण डोक्यात जाऊन अडकले. त्यामुळे मी ह्या पुस्तकाकडे आकर्षित झालो. 

हा एक परिच्छेद पहा, ब्रिटनच्या १८व्या शतकातील बलाढ्य नौदला बद्दल:

"...The Royal Navy needed at least double the number of able-bodied seamen who would willingly serve. In eighteenth-century Britain men frequently disappeared from seaport towns and villages. Wandering alone they were clubbed, dragged aboard ships in port, and “recruited” into the navy. Many were never seen by their families again...."... सोबतचे चित्र नौदल भरतीचे आहे!

 

पुढे जाऊ. 

"...Mariners in the eighteenth century suffered from a bewildering array of ailments, diseases, and dietary deficiencies, such that it was next to impossible for surgeons or physicians to accurately separate the symptoms of one from those of another. Niacin deficiency caused lunacy and convulsions, thiamin deficiency caused beriberi, and vitamin-A deficiency caused night blindness. Syphilis, malaria, rickets, smallpox, tuberculosis, yellow fever, venereal diseases, dysentery, and food poisoning were constant companions. Typhus, or typhoid fever, was common on every ship. Spread by infected lice in the frequently shared and rarely cleaned bedding, typhus was so prevalent in the navy that it was known as “ship’s fever” or “gaol fever.” Man-of-war and merchantman, both were a cozy den for disease.

 Life shipboard was not conducive to curing or avoiding any of these varied ailments, and indeed was an ideal environment for spreading them. The sailor’s wooden world was infested with refuse, trash, rotting flesh, urine, and vomit. The mariners were either crammed into their quarters like sardines in a box or slept, occasionally in good weather, sprawled like hounds on the deck. The holds were crammed with vermin, festering and spoiled provisions, and in some cases rotting corpses. On English and Dutch ships, the primarily Protestant dead sailors were wrapped in their hammocks and pitched overboard—with proper ceremony, naturally. But on the ships from Catholic countries such as France and Spain, the decaying bodies were stowed in the gravel of the hold, mouldering for perhaps months until the ships returned to home port and the dead could be buried in their native soil....

... Sanitary conditions aboard ships, and particularly the warships of national navies, were as bad as or worse than the filthiest slums then in London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Seville. The cramped, stifling, congested forecastle, where the crew slept, was dark and dingy. The air was clouded with noxious bilge gasses and congested with the sweet, cloying reek of rot and sweat. Sailors slept in dirty bedding and wore the same vermin-infested rags for months on end.... "

फ्रेंच आणि स्पेन च्या नौदलात वारलेले नौसैनिक कित्येक महिने तसेच गुंडाळून होल्ड मध्ये ठेवले जात... 

अजून पुस्तकाचे पहिले प्रकरण सुद्धा संपले नाहीये....

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Indian War of Independence, 1857 and Suez Canal...१८५७च्या भारतीय स्वातंत्र्ययुद्धामुळे सुएझ कॅनॉल घडला

While browsing S. C. Burchell's "The Suez Canal", 2016, I came across this...

"...But a day came when the opposition to the canal received a serious setback. In March 1857, near Calcutta, the disastrous Great Mutiny began. Native troops revolted against the British, and reinforcements had to be rushed to India in order to put down the rebellion. Of course, the only way they could be rushed from England was by ship on the four-month-long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. It was painfully obvious that a canal through the Isthmus of Suez would have saved countless British lives. As it turned out, the British government was finally forced to beg Said’s permission to send troops through Egypt overland across the isthmus to the Gulf of Suez. English newspapers were quick to see their government’s folly. “Nothing could be a more complete avowal of the utility of M. de Lesseps’ scheme,” said the London Daily News, “and the action of the Government is the implicit condemnation of Lord Palmerston and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.”

A personal opponent of de Lesseps’s was removed when, because of a general lack of confidence in his government, Lord Palmerston’s cabinet fell in February 1858...."

Look at the situation in 1855:

"...Britain’s powerful navy patrolled the waters from Gibraltar to Alexandria and guarded the sea lanes that led to India around the Cape of Good Hope. Any threat in these two areas was a blow at her heart. And it happened in 1855 that the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps was making such a threat. To Great Britain, the idea of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez was unthinkable. The British had long dominated the route to the Far East around the Cape of Good Hope and were not interested in any change. Moreover, the canal now proposed - the British government felt with some justice - would be monopolized by the French, despite de Lesseps’s insistence that it was to be an international undertaking. If France controlled the canal, British prestige would decline throughout the Middle East. Its Indian empire would be in danger and so, too, would its leadership in trade with the Orient. In the eyes of the British government, the political aspect of a Suez canal was a simple one. De Lesseps had hold of a dangerous idea, and to add to the unpleasantness, he was a Frenchman as well. The British were going to fight, and the first battlefield they chose was Constantinople...."


 cover artist: Dinanath Dalal


Thursday, November 23, 2023

Banabhatta: My Name is Red!...बाण, दुर्गा भागवत आणि राजा रवी वर्मा

दुर्गा भागवत:
 
"... 'थोडी चित्रमयता आणि लाल रंगाची अनावर ओढ यामुळे बाण वाचावा' असं मात्र गुरुदेव टागोरांनी म्हटलं आहे..."
 
('बाणाची कादंबरी आणि मी', 'अबकडइ', दिवाळी १९८४, पृष्ठ १८१, 'भावसंचित', २०१५)
 
[ ओरहान पामुक यांच्या "My Name is Red", १९९८ ह्या त्यांच्या नोबेल पुरस्काराला हातभार लावणाऱ्या कादंबरी प्रमाणे असे वाटते बाण (इ स. सातवे शतक) सुद्धा म्हणतायत "My Name is Red"!]
 
"She was young, and dark like Mohini who beguiled the asuras into parting with the nectar. Indeed she was like a walking sapphire doll. Her body was covered down to her ankles in a dark-coloured robe. Over her head she wore a red silk veil. It was like the red rays of the morning sun falling on a field of blue lilies. On one of her ears there hung a dantapatra, an ivory ear ornament whose radiance seemed to render her cheek a little pale, even like the rays of the rising moon lightening the darkness of the night. Her brownish tilaka done in gorochana was like a third eye. Her slender waist could have been grasped by one hand, like the floral bow of Manmatha.
She was like autumn with her wide eyes like white lily blooms.
She was like the rainy season with her cloud mass of dark tresses.
She was like Shri with the lotus lustre of her palms...."
 
('Kadambari' by Bana , translated by Padmini Rajappa)
 
picture: 'Kadambari' by Raja Ravi Varma
 
 

Monday, November 20, 2023

आमादेर शान्तिनिकेतन...Our Santiniketan

माझे पु ल देशपांडे यांनीं लिहलेले सर्वात आवडते पुस्तक आहे : "रवीन्द्रनाथ : तीन व्यख्याने", १९८१. 

त्यातील एक प्रकरण आहे: "रवीन्द्रनाथांची शाळा" (पृष्ठ ४३- ७४)

"... आमादेर शांतिनिकेतन ... 

...आमरा जेथाय मरी घुरे

शे शे जाय ना कभू दूरे 

मोदेर  मनेर माझे प्रेमेर शेतार 

बांधा जे तार शुरे 

मोदेर प्राणेर शंगे प्राणे 

शेजे मिलिये छे ऍकताने 

मोदेर भाइयेर शंगे भाइके 

शे जे कोरिछे ऍक मन 

आमादेर शांतिनिकेतन..."

हे रवीन्द्रनाथांनी लिहलेले गाणे शांतिनिकेतनमध्ये नेहमी म्हटले जाते... 

पुलंनी  शांतिनिकेतनचे एक शाळा म्हणून केलेले वर्णन माझ्या सारख्या अत्यंत बेताच्या प्राथमिक शाळेत गेलेल्याला अविश्वसनीय वाटते... आणि शांतिनिकेतन मध्ये शिकलेल्या प्रत्येकाचा प्रचंड हेवा वाटतो ... 

TLS च्या मार्च १० २०२३ च्या अंकात महाश्वेता देवी यांच्या "OUR SANTINIKETAN", Translated by Radha Chakravarty या पुस्तकाचे परिक्षण आले आहे... 

"..Devi arrived at the school in 1936, “angry and upset”, unsure why she had been sent away from home. She became aware only much later of her father’s transferable job and his desire to give her a “proper” education. That the chapter entitled “Our Studies” should begin with the line “Truth be told, I can’t remember the books prescribed for study in each class” seems entirely in keeping with the ethos of the place Tagore built – an ethos of simplicity, creativity and true learning, not tied to certificates or degrees..."


Friday, November 17, 2023

This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper.: October Revolution

Victor Sebestyen, ‘Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror’  2017:

“…Most people in Petrograd did not know a revolution was happening. The banks and shops had been open all day, the trams were running. All the factories were operating as usual – the workers had no clue Lenin was about to liberate them from capitalist exploitation. That evening Chaliapin was appearing in Don Carlos before a full house at the Narodny Dom, and Alexei Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan the Terrible was playing at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. Nightclubs and concert halls were open. Prostitutes were touting for business in the side streets around Nevsky Prospekt as on any normal Wednesday evening. The restaurants were packed. John Reed and a group of other American and British reporters were dining at the Hotel de France, close to the Palace Square. They returned to watch the Revolution after the entrée.

In Soviet mythology for decades to come, the Revolution was portrayed as a popular rising of the masses. Nothing could be further from the truth. Contemporary photographs show a few isolated spots around the city where a handful of Red Guards were milling about casually. There were no big crowds anywhere, no barricades, no street fighting. It is impossible to know how many people took part in the few isolated parts of the city which mattered during the insurrection. Trotsky estimated ‘no more’ than 25,000, but by that he meant the number of Red Guards he could have called out. The real number was far fewer – probably 10,000 at most, in a city numbering nearly two million.

There was no ‘storming’ of the palace, as depicted in Sergei Eisenstein’s epic, cinematically brilliant but largely fictional 1928 film October. Many more people were employed as extras than took part in the real event…”

 "October: Ten Days That Shook The World", 1928 film poster.

Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov


Tuesday, November 14, 2023

What is this, 1962?

Today November 14 2020 is Children's Day in India



Artist: Barbara Smaller, The New Yorker, September 2013

Saturday, November 11, 2023

दुर्गाबाई, जी. ए आणि नवपरिवर्तन....Durga Bhagwat, G. A. Kulkarni and the Hero

 

दुर्गाबाई भागवतांची अनेक पुस्तके वाचून माझ्या एक गोष्ट लक्षात आली होती की त्यांनी जी. ए. कुलकर्णी यांच्या वाङ्मयाबद्दल मतप्रदर्शन केलेले नाही... 
 
'ऐसपैस' मध्ये तर प्रतिभा रानडे त्यांच्या समोर जी एंचा विषय काढतात पण त्यावर दुर्गाबाईंचे भाष्य होत नाही ... याचे मला काही वर्षे कुतुहूल वाटत आले ... 
 
परवा वॉल्डेन बुक स्टोअर Walden Book Store मधून "शासन , साहित्यिक आणि बांधिलकी", १९८८/२०१८ हे दुर्गाबाईंचे पुस्तक मागवले.... दुर्गाबाईंनी (बहुदा) १९८४ साली दिलेल्या तीन व्याख्यानांवरती आधारित ते पुस्तक आहे ... बहुदा कारण नक्की तारखा पुस्तकात कोठेही दिल्या नाहीत ... 
 
त्यातील पृष्ठ १२५ वर ठळक परिच्छेद आहे : "जी. एं. ची कैरी कथा"... काय आनंद झाला म्हणून सांगू ... माझी जीएंची सर्वात आवडती कथा कदाचित दुर्गाबाईंची सुद्धा जीएंची सर्वात आवडती कथा असू शकेल... हा परिचछेद आहे पुस्तकातील चौथ्या प्रकरणात "स्वाधीनता आणि आम्ही".... 
 
दुर्गाबाई जीएंचा फार मोठा बहुमान करत त्यांना म्हणतात : ते स्वाधीन लेखक आहेत... 
 
जी. ए. स्वाधीन लेखक आहेत म्हणजे काय?
 
त्याची एक महत्वाची कसोटी:
 
"... मनुष्य निव्वळ पारदर्शक प्रामाणिक हवा. इतरांशी पण मुख्यतः आणि विशेषत्वाने स्वतःशी. इतरांना त्याने फसविता कामा नये आणि स्वतःलाही फसविता कामा नये. सर्व प्रकारची आत्मवंचना त्याला टाळता आली पाहिजे..."
 
जी. ए. असे लेखक आहेत...
 
त्यांनी लिहलेल्या शेकडो पत्रांतून ही गोष्ट आणखीच अधोरेखित होते...
 
मला जीएंच्या अनेक गोष्टींबद्दल मतभेद आहेत, पण मला त्यांची सगळ्यात आवडणारी गोष्ट : त्यांचा "निव्वळ पारदर्शक प्रामाणिकपणा"
 
जीएंच्या "कैरी"तल्या मुलामध्ये मी स्वतःला पाहतो... 
 
माझी आयुष्याची पहिली जवळ जवळ २१ वर्षे मिरज शहरामध्ये गेली... अत्यंत प्रेम, माया, लाड करणारी, अत्यंत सुंदर दिसणारी आई मला माझ्या वयाच्या ४६ व्या वर्षांपर्येत मिळून सुद्धा मी त्या मुलाच्या आयुष्यातील अनिश्चितता समजतो... 
 
कारण माझ्या आईच्या दोन सर्जरी झाल्या एक (बहुदा) १९७२ साली आणि दुसरी १९७८ साली... दोन्ही थोड्या परिस्थिती गंभीर झाल्या नंतर... दोन्ही मध्ये , विशेषतः १९७८ मध्ये आई जाऊ शकत होती... त्यावेळी मी इंजिनीरिंग च्या दुसऱ्या वर्षाला होतो आणि माझे वडील अत्यंत चिडके/ अधिक रागीट/ deeply frustrated झाले होते, ... 
 
भारतातील बहुतेक मध्यमवर्गीयांची आर्थिक स्थिती १९४७ पासून १९९५ पर्यंत ओढाताणीची असे, त्या गोष्टीचा माझ्या वडलांच्या वागण्यावर मोठा परिणाम झाला होता... बहुतेक गरीब लोकांना दोन वेळचे पोटभर चांगले जेवण सुद्धा मिळत नसे...
 
आणि माझी आई गेली असती तर माझे आयुष्य कैरीतील मुलाच्या बरेच जवळ जाऊं शकले असते ..
 
त्यामुळे कैरी पहिल्यांदा १९८२ साली वाचल्यावर एका प्रकारे हायसे वाटले, आपण वाचलो म्हणून.. तो पर्यंत आई मुळे माझ्या हातात नैसर्गिकरित्या पिकलेला आमच्या मिरजेचा (म्हणजे कोकणातून आलेला) अस्सल हापूस किंवा पायरी होता, कैरी नव्हे!
 
Nassim Nicholas Taleb:
 
"... My very first impression upon a recent rereading of the Iliad, the first in my adulthood, is that the epic poet did not judge his heroes by the result: Heroes won and lost battles in a manner that was totally independent of their own valor; their fate depended upon totally external forces, generally the explicit agency of the scheming gods (not devoid of nepotism). Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost...." 
(Fooled by Randomness, 2001)
 
दुर्गाबाईंना जीएंची रूपक कथा खूप आवडते ज्यावेळी ते पाश्चात्य परीकथा व पुराकथा पचवून त्यांचे नवपरिवर्तन आपल्या कथांमधून करतात.
 
दुर्गाबाईंच्या मते, वर Taleb यांच्या quote मध्ये आलेल्या, पाश्चात्य परीकथा व पुराकथा मधल्या "वीर नायकाला सक्तीनेच स्वतःचे घर सोडावे लागते कारण बाप आपल्या मुलाचे व्यक्तित्व खच्ची करतो हा आजवरचा जगाचा अनुभव."... आणि मग तो धोका पत्करून, शौर्य गाजवून अमृतफळ, सुवासिक पाणी , गुलाबकावलीचे फूल असे काही अद्भुत, अप्राप्य आणि त्या बरोबर त्या वस्तूची मालकीण सुंदर राजकन्या मिळवून'परत घरी येतो. 
 
दुर्गाबाईंना कैरीतील मुलगा प्राचीन हिरोची नवी आवृत्ती वाटते.
 
मात्र आजच्या हिरोला आपला मावशीकडील प्रवास अर्ध्यावरच सोडायला लागतो आणि परत मामाच्या घरी यावे लागते... हाती अमृतफळ पडत नाही तर पडते न पिकलेला आंबा म्हणजे कैरी....
 
"ही कथा शोकाची भावनाच नव्हे कारुणाची संथ लयसुद्धा निर्माण करते." (दुर्गाबाई गौतम बुद्धाच्या करुणे कडे नेहमी येत असतात)
 
पण हाती कैरी पडली म्हणून काय झाले? Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost...
 
कैरीतील मुलगा हिरो आहे, त्याच निकषाने मी हिरो नाही कारण मी कधी त्याच्या वयात अशा प्रवासाला बाहेर पडलोच नाही...
 
Joseph Campbell:
"... The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. “Live,” Nietzsche says, “as though the day were here.” It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair." 
 
(The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949)
 
काय योगायोग पहा! मी आयुष्यात फक्त दोन मराठी लघुकथा लिहल्या ज्या "अभिरुचि" मासिकात मार्च-एप्रिल १९८४ मध्ये आणि जान-फेब १९८५ मध्ये प्रसिद्ध झाल्या... 
 
त्यातील पहिली कथा होती "रेको (अर्थात रेकमंडेशन)- ती कथा मी महाभारतातील आदिपर्वातील धौम्य ऋषी आणि त्यांचा शिष्य आरुणी यांच्या वर आधारित लिहली होती..
 
आरुणी बांधाचे पाणी स्वतः झोपून अडवतो कारण त्याला गुरुजींचे अमेरिकेत जाणयासाठी रेकमंडेशन हवे असते!... माझ्या आय आय टी तील वर्षांचा आणि तेथील विद्यार्थ्यांच्या वागणुकीचा आणि जी.एं. च्या पिंगळावेळचा त्यावर प्रभाव होता... (अभिरुचीचे अनुक्रमणिका पान आणि कथेची पाने सोबत)
 
दुर्गाबाई म्हणतात :
"... माणसाच्या अध्यात्मिक प्रकृतीवर सूत्रमय भाष्ये करणारे ललित वाङ्मय आमच्याकडे फारसे नाही. पुराकथांच्या रसायनातून जेंव्हा कथा, कादंबऱ्या जन्म घेतात तेंव्हा त्यात ही प्रज्ञा स्वाभाविकपणे प्रकट होते. आपल्याकडे पुराकथांवर आधारित नवे वाङ्मय अजिबात नाही असे नाही. या संदर्भात मला जी. ए. कुलकर्णी यांचे नाव घ्यावेसे वाटते. पाश्चात्य परीकथा व पुराकथा पचवून त्यांचे नवपरिवर्तन आपल्या कथांमधून जेव्हा जी. ए. करतात तेव्हा मनाला खूप आनंद होतो..."
(पृष्ठ १२५, 'शासन, साहित्यिक आणि बांधिलकी', १९८८/२०१८)
 
ज्यावर्षी दुर्गाबाई हे म्हणत होत्या त्याचवर्षी माझी कथा अभिरुचि सारख्या मासिकात प्रसिद्ध होत होती याचे आज खूप समाधान वाटते...