बा सी मर्ढेकर:
"...शतशतकांच्या पायलन्सवरतीं
किती कावळे टिंबे देती; ..."
(२, पृष्ठ ७४, मर्ढेकरांची कविता , १९५९-१९७७)
मर्ढेकर पायलन्स चा अर्थ टेलिग्राफ पोल असा घेतात का?
बरेच पक्षी टिंबे देत आहेत
पण आता ह्याला पायलन्स म्हणत नाहीत. टेलिग्राफ पोल म्हणतात. चित्रातले पोल टिकावू असतात आणि साधारण २०० वर्षे जुन्या झाडांपासून (किमान ब्रिटन मध्ये) बनवलेले असतात ("One
pole in Ingleby, Lincolnshire, was installed 131 years ago, and remains in
active service") आणि मर्ढेकरांच्या "शतशतकांच्या
" ह्या विशेषणाला पात्र ठरतात.
मला वाटते १९५० च्या सुमारास भारतात पायलन्स आणि टेलिग्राफ पोल हे एकाच अर्थी वापरत असावेत. पण ह्याची खात्री पटवणारे मला इंटरनेट वर काही आढळले नाही.
FT ह्या इंग्लिश वर्तमानपत्रात त्यांच्यावर आणि पायलन्सवर सुंदर लेख आला होता. टेलिग्राफ पोल हे कलावंताचे आवडते आहेत असे दिसते, विशेषतः कवींचे आणि चित्रकारांचे सुद्धा.
"He is not alone in waxing lyrical. In “The Railway Children” poet Seamus Heaney describes their white cups and sizzling wires and how “like lovely freehand they curved for miles . . . sagging under their burden of swallows”. Eric Ravilious paid homage to them criss-crossing the rural landscape in his painting “Wiltshire Landscape”. And Australian sound artist Alan Lamb, who died in April, made field recordings of wind whistling through telegraph wires; the best known is “Night Passage” (1998), recently reissued, created on his Faraway Wind Organ — a set of 12 abandoned poles and six wires in Western Australia, which Lamb bought and reimagined as a vibrating sound world. "
Eric Ravilious “Wiltshire Landscape”, 1938Giant Pylons
"Britain’s 4.2mn telegraph poles are a largely overlooked feature of the landscape — which is much of their charm. But their quiet, diminutive power — in stark contrast with pylons, the steel towers supporting electricity lines, that can reach 68 metres in height — is perhaps due a reappraisal. Several thousand new pylons must be built to carry the 620 miles of new power lines needed for the UK government’s 2030 clean energy targets. Environmentalists are concerned and rural communities are protesting. Signs in the Scottish highland village of Brora read “Save Carrol rock and Loch Brora from giant pylons”."


