आपले साहित्यिक भाषणं झोडत का असतात?...V S Khandekar Answers Jaywant Dalvi

 

Artist: Saul Steinberg 

मराठीतील प्रथम ज्ञानपीठ पुरस्कार विजेते, पदमभूषण, आणीबाणीचा निषेध न करणाऱ्या वि. स. खांडेकरांवर दुर्गाबाई आणि अनेकांनी तुफान टीका केली असली आणि मला ही त्यांची 'ययाती' सकट अनेक पुस्तके आवडली नसली तरी, त्यांच्या आणि ना सी फडके यांच्या समीक्षेबद्दल मला आदर वाटत आला आहे. 

 

समीक्षा फक्त कलेचीच नाहीच तर कधी समाजाची सुद्धा.

जयवंत दळवींनी (१९२५-१९९४) घेतलेल्या खांडेकरांच्या १९७० सालच्या दोन मुलाखती वाचून तर मला याची खात्री पटली. त्यातील बरेच भाग मला उद्धृत करावेसे वाटतात. 

 

मी मिरजेला रहात असताना (१९६१-१९८१), मिरज विद्यार्थी संघाचे आणि तेथील वसंत व्याख्यान मालेचे सर्वेसर्वा आणि आमचे सर वसंतराव आगाशे व आमचे कौटुंबिक स्नेही पंडितराव खाडिलकर जमेल त्यावेळी कोल्हापूरला जाऊन खांडेकरांचे मार्गदर्शन घेत असत. ते किती मौल्यवान असेल याची मला आज ४०-५० वर्षांनंतर खात्री पटते आहे. 

 

जी ए कुलकर्णी खांडेकरांचे फॅन आहेत असे कधीच वाचनात येत नाही पण ते त्यांचे प्रत्येक पुस्तक खांडेकरांना पाठवत. खांडेकर जीएंना लिहलेल्या एका पत्रात लिहतात - "आज मास्टर विनायक असते तर त्यांनी तुमच्या कथेवर उत्तम चित्रपट काढला असता"... (हे अगदी माझेच शब्द मला वाटतात).... ह्या वाक्यावरून खांडेकरांचे साहित्य आणि सिनेमा ह्या दोन्ही कलांचे ज्ञान आपल्याला कळते. 

 

दळवींच्या मुलाखतीत खांडेकरांनी सखाराम बाइंडरची केलेली समीक्षा आणि १९-२०व्या शतकातील मराठी साहित्याचा जागतिक साहित्यासमोरचा थोटकेपणा याचे खांडेकरांनी केलेले कारणासहित विश्लेषण वाचण्यासारखे आहे आणि मला ते पटले. 

 

दळवींनी त्यांना साहित्यिक सध्या (आणि ते २०२३ साली जास्त लागू आहे) इतकी सगळ्या विषयांवर भाषणे का ठोकत असतात, हे विचारले... पुढचे सोबतच्या फोटोत वाचा...

 

 

 

कृतज्ञता: श्री गिरीश जयवंत दळवी (पृष्ठ ३०-३१, 'साहित्यिक गप्पा: दहा साहित्यिकांशी', जयवंत दळवी, १९८६-२०१३)

Dr. Anantaraman of IIT, Madras always Noticed Pythagoras!

At IIT Madras 1981-1983, we had a great teacher Dr. V. Anantaraman for Organizational Behaviour. He was tall, dark, on fatter side, shirt always tucked in and had booming voice. Commanding presence in a classroom. 

He was an alumnus of Cornell University, US. (some other notable teachers then were - R K Gupta, L V L N Sarma, Dipak Chaudhuri, R Rajagopalan, T T Narendran, Rita Ghatak, Smt. S Kalpakam)

He made every lecture very interesting by illustrating all the theory with examples from real life , of which there was no shortage because he had huge experience as a consultant and sharp observational skills of life around him. 

 For instance he was helping then Madras local bus transport company called PTC and had helped them make many changes to their organizational structure successfully. He also was involved with a few student activities and was very popular among students. Therefore, illustrations for the theory also came from the campus.

Sprawling and beautiful  IIT Madras campus then had every major department named as a block and housed in a separate building. Typically students, faculty and other staff during a day walked or cycled around from one block to another for various reasons. 

The formal paths from one block to another were marked using tiles etc but people almost always took shorter paths, not using formal, marked roads in the process.  Anantaraman gave that example to us while teaching OB. 

This cartoon reminded me of my Professor...Anantaraman would be smilingly tell us - I-told-you...he always anticipated Pythagoras

artist: Not known to me

Knowing only Life until they are on the Brink of Dying....John Gray and Amy Hwang on Cats

 John Gray, 'Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life', 2020 :

"...Cats were many things in ancient Egypt: sometimes companions of human beings as they passed on to another life, at other times manifestations of gods, at still others protectors of the gods. That they could be all of these at once testifies to the subtlety of the archaic Egyptian mind. But it also speaks to the presence of cats themselves. Cats symbolized an affirmation of life in a world preoccupied with the dead. Egyptian religion responded to the prospect of death by preparing for life in another world, but it needed cats to preserve a sensation of being alive in the realm beyond the grave. Knowing only life until they are on the brink of dying, cats are not ruled by death. The Egyptians had good reason for wanting cats to join them in the journey through the underworld.

When it came to death, humans and cats were in the same boat. No one in ancient Egypt believed that humans have souls while cats do not. But if the soul is untouched by death, the feline soul is closer to immortality than the human soul can ever be."

 <Knowing only life until they are on the brink of dying, cats are not ruled by death.>...how true...Cat on the deathbed is thinking only of napping...that is soul untouched by death!

 Artist: Amy Hwang, The New Yorker, August 2023

माझे तळे परत येणार नाही हे नक्की...At a Bend in the Ganges

ऑगस्ट २०२३ मध्ये आर्थर गेट्झ (Arthur Getz) यांचे ऑगस्ट १९६६ चे न्यू यॉर्कर चे मुखपृष्ठ पहिले आणि मला माझ्या १९६६ च्या सुमाराच्या वर्षांची आठवण झाली. 

त्या आठवणींच्या केंद्रस्थानी आहे मिरजेच्या पूर्वेला असलेले तासगाव वेशीच्या मारुतीचे देऊळ (मिशन हॉस्पिटल ते मिरज मेडिकल कॉलेज ह्या रस्त्यावर) आठवले. ते आमच्या घरापासून लांब होते. ३ किमी तरी असावे. आमची आई आम्हाला तिथे केंव्हातरी घेऊन जायची. आम्ही पायी जायचो. त्यामुळे ते आमच्या लहान मुलांच्या कुटुंबाला पोचायला नक्कीच अवघड होते.  

त्या छोट्या देवळाच्या शेजारी एक उथळ पण स्वछ पाण्याचे तळे होते. तसे मोठे होते. मी तिथे सोबतच्या चित्रातल्या मुलाप्रमाणे दगड टाकून पाण्यावर भिंगऱ्या काढायचो. प्रत्येक फेकीत दोन-तीन तर अगदी सहज निघत असत. 

तो भाग त्याकाळी निर्मनुष्य होता. रस्त्यावर वाहन, आवाज क्वचितच असे. तिथे जीव इतका रमत असे की (भूक लागली नसेल तर) परत यायला नको वाटे. 

आता तो भाग मला ओळखता तर येत नाहीच पण अतिशय विद्रुप झाला आहे, देऊळ आहे पण तळे नाहीसे झाले. या पुढे पृथ्वीचे काय होणार माहित नाही पण मी असे पर्यंत माझे तळे परत येणार नाही हे नक्की.

Hanging in Army Barracks and School Dorm

 I saw the following picture in August 2023:

artist: William Cotton (1880-1958) for The New Yorker cover August 12, 1944

They are 'outraged' by the pictures hanging in a barrack. 

Now see the picture below:

 artist: Ned Hilton (1904- 1967) for the New Yorker 

This time it's a school dormitory and a good explanation for why the picture is there...

 

Road to Surrender Does Not Mention Dissenting Opinion of Radhabinod Pal

 I finished reading "Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II", 2023 by Evan Thomas in August 2023.

It ended much quicker than I had anticipated.

"...After about fifty military tribunals all over Asia, nearly a thousand Japanese army officers were executed for specific atrocities, up to and including cannibalism. But the main war crimes trial, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, held in Tokyo over more than two years stretching into 1948, was on less solid ground. In a massive courtroom carved out of the old War Ministry at Ichigaya Heights (with air conditioning installed), twenty-five senior Japanese officials were tried for “crimes against peace.” The hope was to put the world on notice that the international community would not tolerate wars of aggression—as opposed to defensive wars...

...To the Japanese, the proceedings in Tokyo had a strong whiff of “victors’ justice.” The Japanese defendants in the dock could argue, with some merit, that they were being prosecuted because they had lost. The Japanese also argued that they were the victims of white man’s justice, since almost all the judges were white men from colonial powers like Britain and its commonwealth, France, and the Netherlands, as well as the United States..."

I was disappointed not so much with Japanese attitude towards “victors’ justice.” but that the author forgot to mention three non-white judges on the tribunal. 

One of them being Radhabinod Pal, who had a dissenting opinion. 

 

The first group picture of the International Justices of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East on July 29 1946.

Happiest Observing Fireflies in the Garden...

Evan Thomas, "Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II", 2023:

 "...Hirohito is not a commanding presence. His voice is reedy, and he is seen slouching about the palace in slippers, talking to himself. He is happiest observing fireflies in the garden and pursuing his passion for sea anemones as a marine biologist. His courtiers try to cheer him up with humorous Walt Disney cartoons of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, seized when the Japanese captured Wake Island. More querulous than confident, Hirohito slumps under the weight of duty...."

 "Fireflies", 1978  by Noji Mikiko 

 Fireflies at Ochanomizu by Kobayashi Kiyochika, ca. 1880

Christina's World and Harry Bliss's

 

 

 artist: Andrew Wyeth, 1948

MoMA writes:

"Set in the stark landscape of coastal Maine, Christina’s World depicts a young woman seen from behind, wearing a pink dress and lying in a grassy field. Although she appears to be in a position of repose, her torso, propped on her arms, is strangely alert; her silhouette is tense, almost frozen, giving the impression that she is fixed to the ground. She stares at a distant farmhouse and a group of outbuildings, ancient and grayed in harmony with the dry grass and overcast sky.

Wyeth’s neighbor Anna Christina Olson inspired the composition, which is one of four paint­ings by Wyeth in which she appears. As a young girl, Olson developed a degenerative muscle condition—possibly polio—that left her unable to walk. She refused to use a wheelchair, preferring to crawl, as depicted here, using her arms to drag her lower body along. “The challenge to me,” Wyeth explained, “was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

The high level of detail Wyeth gave to every object in his paintings encourages intense inspection, but his titles reveal the inner significance of their outwardly straightforward subjects. The title Christina’s World, courtesy of Wyeth’s wife, indicates that the painting is more a psychological landscape than a portrait, a portrayal of a state of mind rather than a place."

Now, cartoonist Harry Bliss saw this portrayal of a state of mind but also saw a tick!

artist: Harry Bliss
 

Belfast, 2021...Raquel Welch is Still a Hell of an Education

I watched Kenneth Branagh's Belfast, 2021 on Netflix in July 2023. Average, forgettable film. But it was funny to hear these dialogues;    

"...Ma: [sitting with family in movie theater watching buxom women in skimpy prehistoric garb] No wonder you brought us to this.

    Pa: It's educational for the boys.

    Ma: Aye. Raquel Welch is a hell of an education...."

The family is watching together Welch's 'One Million Years B.C.' (1966) at a local cinema. 

I wrote a post "पौगंडावस्थेकाळी धरणीकंप...Raquel Welch@80" on this blog on Sept 5 2020. 

"...I saw the movie in early 1970's at Amar talkies in Miraj. I was attracted to it by its poster and Marathi title.

I liked the film ok. I saw it again a few years ago on TV. 

I don't remember what I liked then: the fight between a Ceratosaurus and a Triceratops- both of them look like caricatures of what we now know they looked like in real- or scantily clad Raquel Welch!

I guess both. All three of them are in the poster below.   I wasn't alone facing that dilemma...."