George Orwell, 'Burmese days', 1934:
"...Mandalay is rather a disagreeable town–it is dusty and intolerably hot, and it is said to have five main products all beginning with P, namely, pagodas, pariahs, pigs, priests and prostitutes–and the routine-work at the hospital is a dreary business..."
Paul Theroux, 'Riding the Rails with Paul Theroux: The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star', 2018:
"...Outside was Mandalay. It is a low city of immense size, so dusty at night the lanterns on the pony carts and the headlights of wooden buses shine as if through thick fog. The city is large but without interest; the fort is off-limits, the monasteries have burned down, and the temple at the top of Mandalay Hill is recent and unattractive. Mandalay is a magic name, but little more than that. What of Kipling’s poem then? Well, the fact is Kipling never set foot in the place, and his experience of Burma was limited to a few days in 1889, when his ship stopped in Rangoon..."
Peter Englund, 'November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II', 2023:
"...Mandalay, on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, had once been the royal capital of Burma. Before the war it had settled into romantic decay, but the war has turned decay into devastation. Before marching into the city in May 1942, the Japanese bombed the defenseless city. About two thousand civilians were killed and three-fifths of the buildings burned down. Parts of the city are now deserted and full of ruins..."
मंडाले
हे नाव प्राथमिक शाळेपासून
ऐकले .. mythical वाटायचे ... लोकमान्य टिळक तिथे १९०८
ते १९१४ ब्रिटिशांच्या तुरुंगात
होते ...
In Literary Review dated February 2025, I read moth-eaten
(because the full one is behind paywall) review of Norman Lewis's (1908-2003)
book 'A Quiet Evening' by Nicholas Rankin.
"...was arguably the finest English travel writer of his
generation. Other contenders for the title – Robert Byron, Peter Fleming,
Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, say – were all Oxford-educated, but Lewis was a
product of Enfield’s grammar school and its public library. A devotee of the
classics – Herodotus, Suetonius, Chekhov, Turgenev – he was attracted
southwards. Federico García Lorca was his favourite poet. He gracefully
reconfigured his first book, Spanish Adventure, written at twenty-six, into his
last book, The Tomb in Seville, at the age of ninety-four. Just as a matador
conceals his sword behind a bright muleta cape, he masked a tragic sensibility
with a comic style..."
त्यांचे
'Golden Earth: Travels in Burma' हे
१९५२ चे पुस्तक पाहिले आहे. त्यात ते
मंडाले बद्दल काही चांगले लिहितच
नाहीत.
" ,,,IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, and several hours behind schedule because of the heat-haze, the plane bumped down on Mandalay airfield. The moment the plane door opened I knew that this was a different heat from the Rangoon kind....
...There was no important reason for Mandalay’s existence. It never possessed strategic or commercial importance, and the whole district had had a detestable climate since, centuries before, pious kings had cut down all the trees to be used as fuel in brick-making for pagodas. At some time in the remote past astrologers had declared the area to be astrally favoured, so Ava and Amarapura had been built. These had finally been deserted, as Burmese towns were, when it was decided that the efficacy of the human sacrifices made at the foundation was exhausted. And then, in Victorian times, the pious King Mindon had been tempted to try his luck again. On the advice of the Brahmin astrologers an exemplary mass-sacrifice was arranged, including that of a pregnant woman. According to the old Mongolian belief the spirits of mother and child would unite in death to form a composite demon of exceptional malignancy. This would be animated by an implacable desire for revenge, directed – with seemingly defective logic – against the king’s enemies. As a Buddhist scholar of renown and the leading authority of his times on Pali texts, Mindon probably disapproved of this stone-age practice. If he permitted the woman to be buried alive, he did so in the same spirit as a socialist cabinet minister might dress for dinner – not because he agreed with the principle, but because these things were expected of him; and, after all, there was nothing to be lost one way or another.
These sacrifices probably established a Burmese record for short-lived efficacy. Twenty-nine years later Mandalay fell to the British without the slightest attempt at defence, either ghostly or human."
अशा
गावात कैदेत टिळक ६ वर्षें
राहिले....
त्यांच्या
सोबत कैदी असलेले आणि त्यांचे बराच
काळ स्वैपाकी बनलेले वासुदेव रामचंद्र कुलकर्णी टिळकांच्या मंडाले तुरुंगातील तब्बेतीबद्दल आणि तिथल्या उष्णतेबद्दल
काय म्हणतात पहा :
"... मंडालेमध्ये
उष्णता खूप होती, त्यामुळे
दररोज दुपारी दीड वाजता ते
लिंबू सरबत पीत असत....
त्यांचा दिनक्रम असा होता. तुरुंगात
दोन वर्षे झाल्यानंतर त्यांचा मधुमेह खूप वाढला. ते
रोज औषधे घ्यायचे, पण
काही सुधारणा होत नव्हती आणि
त्यांची ताकद कमी होऊ
लागली.... मंडालेतील प्रचंड गर्मीमुळे महाराज अत्यंत अस्वस्थ होत. उष्णतेमुळे त्यांच्या
अंगावर फोड उठले होते.
त्यामुळे त्यांनी मुंबई सरकारकडे अर्ज केला आणि
आपल्याला अंदमानात पाठवले जावे आणि आवश्यक
जातमुचलका दिल्यानंतर मुक्तपणे फिरण्याची मुभा असावी, अशी
त्यांनी विनंती केली....
‘मंडालेच्या
तुरुंगात पटकीची साथ पसरली, तेव्हा
महाराजांना व मला मिक्टिला
तुरुंगात नेण्यात आले. मंडालेच्या तुरुंगातून
स्टेशनवर जाईपर्यंत दोन्ही बाजूंनी सशस्त्र रक्षक होते. पण गाडी स्टेशनावर
पोचली, तेव्हा तिथे प्रचंड गर्दी
जमलेली होती आणि लोक
‘‘टिळकमहाराज की जय’’ अशा घोषणा देत
होते. त्यांना गुप्तपणे एका विशेष घोडागाडीतून
मिक्टिलाला नेण्यात आले. तिथेही शेकडो
लोक जमून ‘‘टिळकमहाराज की जय’’ अशा घोषणा देत
होते. महाराज त्या तुरुंगात पोचले,
तेव्हा तिथल्या तुरुंगाधिकाऱ्याने त्यांना विचारले, ‘‘तुम्ही कोणत्या देशावर राज्य करत होतात?’’ महाराज
म्हणाले, ‘‘मी स्वतःच्या शरीराचाही
मालक उरलेलो नाही. मग माझे कोणते
राज्य असणार आहे?’’... "
मंडाले तुरुंगात लोकमान्य टिळक
सौजन्य : Tilak Archive
No comments:
Post a Comment