I have a feeling that this poem was on R K Narayan's mind when he wrote one of his best ( and partly autobiographical) novels "The English Teacher" where he describes his loving wife's death by typhoid...
R K Narayan:
मला अलीकडे आर के नारायण यांच्या गाईड मध्ये आणि जी ए कुलकर्णी यांच्या स्वामी मध्ये साम्य वाटू लागले आहे...
गाईड, १९६५ या सिनेमातील शैलेंद्र यांनी लिहलेले आणि एस डी बर्मन यांनी गायलेले अप्रतिम गीत पहा...
"वहाँ कौन है तेरा/ मुसाफिर जाएगा कहाँ /दम ले ले घड़ी भर /ये छइयाँ पाएगा कहाँ/ वहाँ कौन है तेरा / मुसाफिर जाएगा कहाँ/ वहाँ कौन है तेरा...
बीत गये दिन, प्यार के पलछिन/ सपना बनी वो रातें / भूल गये वो, तू भी भुला दे/ प्यार की वो मुलाक़ातें - २
सब दूर अन्धेरा, मुसाफ़िर जायेगा कहाँ ...
कोइ भी तेरी, राह न देखे/ नैन बिछाये ना कोई/ दर्द से तेरे, कोई न तड़पा/ आँख किसी की ना रोयी - २
कहे किसको तू मेरा, मुसाफ़िर जायेगा कहाँ ..."
हे आपल्याला तुरुंगात अचानक अडकलेल्या स्वामीच्या मनात आलेल्या विचारांची आठवण करून देतात...
"...Raju asked, “Now you have heard me fully?” like a lawyer who has a misgiving that the judge has been woolgathering.
“Yes, Swami.”
Raju was taken aback at still being addressed as “Swami.” “What do you think of it?”
Velan looked quite pained at having to answer such a question. “I don’t know why you tell me all this, Swami. It’s very kind of you to address at such length your humble servant.”
Every respectful word that this man employed pierced Raju
like a shaft. “He will not leave me alone,” Raju thought with resignation.
“This man will finish me before I know where I am.”..."
वरच्या परिच्छेदात पहा, तो मठातील तळघरात नसेल, पण राजू स्वामी बनत चालला आहे, राजुला त्याचा काय शेवट होणार आहे याची कल्पना नाही, पण आपल्याला आहे आणि आपल्याला त्याचे 'स्वामीकरण' स्पष्ट दिसत आहे...
त्यापुढील काळात राजूची मनस्थिती काहीकाळ स्वामी सारखीच आहे पण पोटभर जेवण मिळत असलेल्या स्वामी ची तडफड शेवटच्या क्षणापर्यंत आहे पण राजू मात्र काही काळात वेगळ्या प्रकारचा स्वामी झाला आहे, त्याला उपोषणामुळे येऊ घातलेल्या मृत्यूसाठी अफूची गरज नाहीये, त्याला मनःशांती कदाचित मिळाली आहे,...
"...
“How long have you been without food now?”
“Ten days.”
“Do you feel weak?”
“Yes.”
“When will you break your fast?”
“Twelfth day.”
“Do you expect to have the rains by then?”
“Why not?”
“Can fasting abolish all wars and bring world peace?”
“Yes.”
“Do you champion fasting for everyone?”
“Yes.”..."
R. K. Narayan, The English Teacher, 1945:
"...I was walking down our lone street late at night, enveloped in the fragrance of the jasmine and rose garland, slung on my arm. ‘For whom am I carrying this jasmine home?’ I asked myself. Susila would treasure a garland for two whole days, cutting up and sticking masses of it in her hair morning and evening. ‘Carrying a garland to a lonely house – a dreadful job,’ I told myself.
I fumbled with the key in the dark, opened the door and switched on the light. I hung up the garland on a nail and kicked up the roll of bedding. The fragrance permeated the whole house. I sprinkled a little water on the flowers to keep them fresh, put out the light and lay down to sleep.
The garland hung by the nail right over my head. The few drops of water which I sprinkled on the flowers seemed to have quickened in them a new life. Their essences came forth into the dark night as I lay in bed, bringing a new vigour with them. The atmosphere became surcharged with strange spiritual forces. Their delicate aroma filled every particle of the air, and as I let my mind float in the ecstasy, gradually perceptions and senses deepened. Oblivion crept over me like a cloud. The past, present and the future welded into one...
...‘Susila! Susila!’ I cried. ‘You here!’ ‘Yes, I’m here, have always been here.’ I sat up leaning on my pillow. ‘Why do you disturb yourself?’ she asked.
‘I am making a place for you,’ I said, edging away a little. I looked her up and down and said: ‘How well you look!’ Her complexion had a golden glow, her eyes sparkled with a new light, her sari shimmered with blue interwoven with ‘light’ as she had termed it …‘How beautiful!’ I said looking at it. ‘Yes, I always wear this when I come to you. I know you like it very much,’ she said. I gazed on her face. There was an overwhelming fragrance of jasmine surrounding her. ‘Still jasmine-scented!’ I commented.
‘Oh wait,’ I said and got up. I picked up the garland from the nail and returned to bed. I held it to her. ‘For you as ever. I somehow feared you wouldn’t take it …’ She received it with a smile, cut off a piece of it and stuck it in a curve on the back of her head. She turned her head and asked: ‘Is this all right?’
‘Wonderful,’ I said, smelling it.
A cock crew. The first purple of the dawn came through our window, and faintly touched the walls of our room. ‘Dawn!’ she whispered and rose to her feet.
We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy – a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death."
(please note in case you don't...Susila has been dead for a while)
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R. K. Narayan, Guide, 1958: “…As they sipped their coffee, Rosie began her dance, to the accompaniment of a song that she lightly sang. I ventured to beat time with my hands, like a very knowing one. They watched in fascination. She suddenly paused, wiped the perspiration from her brow, took a deep breath, and, before resuming again, said to me, “Don’t beat time; it misleads me.”
“All right,” I said, awkwardly grinning, trying not to look snubbed. I whispered, “Oh, she is so precise, you know.” They shook their heads.
She finished her piece and asked, “Shall I go on? Shall I do ‘The Dancing Feet’?”
“Yes, yes,” I cried, glad to be consulted. “Go on. They will like it.”
When they recovered from the enchantment, one of them said, “I must admit I have never cared for Bharat Natyam, but watching this lady is an education. I now know why people are in raptures over it.”
The other said, “My only fear is that she may be too good for our function. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll reduce the other items to give her all the time she wants.”…”
R. K. Narayan, ‘My Days’,1974: “…Lord Mountbatten suddenly asked, “What’s the story of The Guide?” Pearl Buck began to narrate it, but could not proceed very far with it. I heard her say, “There was a man called Raju—he was a guide—”
“What guide?” asked his lordship, in his deep voice.
This question upset her flow of narration. She turned to me and said, “Narayan, you tell the story.”
I would not open my mouth. Dammit, I had taken eighty thousand words to tell the story; I was not going to be drawn into it now. Press announcements had given Pearl Buck credit for writing the screenplay, and it was said that she had been paid an advance of twenty-five or two hundred thousand dollars, and I was not going to help her out now. She looked pleadingly at me, and everyone there tried to egg me on. I sat tight. Pearl Buck meandered: “There was Rosie—the dancer. . . .”
“Oh!” exclaimed M. “Who is she? What happened to her?” he asked with a sudden interest, which made Pearl Buck once again lose track of her own narration. I must admit that I enjoyed her predicament, as she treated Mountbatten to a mixed-up, bewildering version of The Guide…”
ZIYA US SALAM, Frontline, November 2017: “…But not once did (Lekh) Tandon remind anyone that cinema was essentially a director’s medium where actors carry out the director’s vision. He was always happy to stay behind the scenes, happy to let others hog the limelight. He was like an industrious worker who did his job, collected his wages, and worried about the next day. In his case, the next film.
This ability to blend with the shadows is particularly praiseworthy when one considers Tandon’s body of work. Besides the hits with Shammi Kapoor, he gave us Amrapali (1966), which was selected as the Indian entry for the Oscars. A more self-obsessed man would have been hungry for the spotlight, but not Tandon. He let Vyjayanthimala and Sunil Dutt, the film’s lead pair, be the talk of the town. And as the media talked endlessly about the film’s stars, music and dance numbers, it seemed that the director was almost incidental. Tandon was happy to be anonymous. Amrapali, in the common man’s mind, was a Vyjayanthimala movie with five superhit songs by Lata Mangeshkar…”
Sukanya Verma , March 2004: “…As for the dances, Vyjayanthimala's training in Bharata Natyam came in handy. The actress made Gopi Krishna's highly complicated dance steps look so simple with her grace. Her sex appeal was tastefully showcased in Bhanu Athaiya's costumes, which later came to be known as Amrapali blouses.
…Despite all its splendour, Amrapali didn't get a favourable response at the box-office.
Director Lekh Tandon moved on to find success in light-hearted comedies like Prince, Jhuk Gaye Aasman and dramas like Doosri Dulhan, Dulhan Wohi Jo Piya Man Bhaye and Agar Tum Na Hote.
But the film's leading lady, Vyjayanthimala, who looked breathtakingly beautiful, was heartbroken. Soon after Amrapali's no-show, she quit films.”
ह्या वर्षी हिंदी सिनेमा 'आम्रपाली' ला ५५ वर्षे पूर्ण होत आहेत.
गाईड १९६५ मध्ये प्रकाशित झाला आणि असे म्हणतात की इंग्लिश भाषेतील गाईडच्या दिग्दर्शक पर्ल बक यांच्या मुळे रोझी (Rosie) ची भूमिका वैजयंतीमाला यांच्या ऐवजी वहिदा रेहमान यांना मिळाली कारण त्यांना आंतरराष्ट्रीय सिनेमासाठी बारीक रोझी हवी होती.
आम्रपाली मध्ये वैजयंतीमाला अशा दिसतात की त्यांच्या इतके सुंदर आणि आकर्षक हिंदी सिनेमाच्या आजवरच्या इतिहासात क्वचितच कोणी दिसले असेल. (मला स्वतःला लहानपणचे c1967 त्यांचे आवडलेले ह्या सिनेमाचे पोस्टर्स आठवतात!)
