If Barack Obama is a Muslim, so was J L Nehru!

According to Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 18 percent of Americans recently polled believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

I have often wondered how similar, many prosperous Indian middle-class and right-wing Americans are: Obsessed with Islam and mosque. Babri or WTC. One demolished, one yet to be erected.

I was privileged to attend Narhar Kurundkar's (नरहर कुरुंदकर) many public lectures in Miraj during yearly Vasant Vyakhyan Mala (वसंत व्याख्यान माला) in later half of 1970's. [Our teacher Vasantrao Agashe (वसंतराव आगाशे) worked tirelessly for the event every year.]

Once Kurundkar told his majority Brahmin audience that he was now going to praise Mahatma Gandhi knowing fully well that his audience disliked, if not hated, Gandhi! (Kurundkar was a staunch Gandhian but he was happy that Pakistan was created.)

As I have noted earlier, in Brahmin Marathi middle-class homes, seldom a family gathering perhaps passes without tongue-lashing at either Muslims or North Indians or affirmative-action or all of them.

If a Pew poll were to be taken about J L Nehru among Brahmin Maharashtrians in late 1940's, 18% would surely have said Nehru, and even M K Gandhi, were Muslims!

While reviewing "Voyager" By Stephen J. Pyne, Prof GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS notes with disappointment:

"...It remains to be seen whether today's intellectual legacy will be as impressive. The signs of late have not been encouraging. Witness the recent statement by President Obama's appointee to head NASA, Charles Bolden, who said that his "perhaps foremost" mission is to "engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering."..." (WSJ, July 19 2010)

I wonder why Mr. Reynolds doesn't find this encouraging. Sure, many Muslims already know this. But isn't a bit special for them to hear it from the chief of NASA?

If such a statement were to be made by NASA chief about medieval India's contribution to science and technology, he would become a household name. After all isn't NASA more popular and respected- who can forget hoopla over Indian-American Kalpana Chawla's travel in space shuttle Columbia- here than it is in US?

I think Charles Bolden's statement is one of the most matured statements I have read made by a Westerner in high position in recent times. It will surely help US build bridges to Islamic cultures.

As for achievements of Muslims in science, math and engineering, read S. Frederick Starr.

"...In AD 998, two young men living nearly 200 miles apart, in present-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, entered into a correspondence. With verbal jousting that would not sound out of place in a 21st-century laboratory, they debated 18 questions, several of which resonate strongly even today.

Are there other solar systems out among the stars, they asked, or are we alone in the universe? In Europe, this question was to remain open for another 500 years, but to these two men it seemed clear that we are not alone.

They also asked if the earth had been created whole and complete, or if it had evolved over time.

Time, they agreed, is a continuum with no beginning or end. In other words, they rejected creationism and anticipated evolutionary geology and even Darwinism by nearly a millennium. This was all as heretical to the Muslim faith they professed as it was to medieval Christianity.

Few exchanges in the history of science have so boldly leapt into the future as this one, which occurred a thousand years ago in a region now regarded as a backwater. We know of it because a few copies of it survived in manuscript and were published almost a millennium later. Twenty-six-year-old Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, or al-Biruni (973–1048), hailed from near the Aral Sea and went on to distinguish himself in geography, mathematics, trigonometry, comparative religion, astronomy, physics, geology, psychology, mineralogy, and pharmacology. His counterpart, Abu Ali Sina, or Ibn Sina (ca. 980–1037), was from the stately city of Bukhara, the great seat of learning in what is now Uzbekistan. He made his mark in medicine, philosophy, physics, chemistry, astronomy, theology, clinical pharmacology, physiology, ethics, and even music. When eventually Ibn Sina’s great Canon of Medicine was translated into Latin, it triggered the start of modern medicine in the West. Together, the two are regarded as among the greatest scientific minds between antiquity and the Renaissance..."

Remember Omar Khayyam (1048—1131) was a poet, rebel and astronomer!

It was he who developed a calendar which had an error of one day in 3,770 years (superior to the Gregorian calendar with an error of one day in 3,330 years). It was based on his amazingly accurate determination of the length of the year as 365.242199 days. The length of the year is currently 365.242190 days... (from Justin Marozzi's review 'Omar Khayyam: Poet, Rebel, Astronomer /His own man' by Hazhir Teimourian for The Spectator, 21st November 2007).

Was he also a tent maker?


Artist: Ed Fisher, The New Yorker, 26 March 1990

My caption: Your calendar is a miracle Mr. Khayyam- but actually I asked you to drop by so we could discuss my daughter's horoscope. They say Mars there may cast an evil eye on her marital life.

p.s This post was published on August 22 2010. And I came across following cartoon on August 24 2010. We waste reams of paper only to discover a Luckovich! Isn't he a modern master? Look at the eyes of the Indian and American frogs in a well...err pot. They reflect their attitudes.


Artist: Mike Luckovich

If Dilip Chitre's Ghost Reaches Out, We will put Him in Jail!

On my Facebook account, there are 34 requests from Dilip Chitre unattended by me because I didn't much use FB when he was alive.

Now, I neither feel like ignoring them nor accepting them.

His facebook page now has become a kind of his samadhi (समाधी) / memorial. People paying their last respects, leaving flowers, singing a song, missing him...

JENNA WORTHAM writes about the kind of awkward issues Facebook is facing when a member dies: "As Facebook Users Die, Ghosts Reach Out" (NYT, July 18 2010).

I only wish Chitre's ghost did not reach out here in Pune anytime soon because there are some people in his native Maharashtra, in his Tukaram's Maharashtra, who want him to be arrested! (Read a related post here.)

Look at following picture: There a jailer is ordering the ghost of a former inmate to leave because he had already paid his debt to the society by serving his jail term.

And here we want to arrest a world-class artist, after his death, an artist who paid far more than his due debt- if there is such a thing- to the Indian society during his lifetime.


Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, April 6 1963

My Debt to Nalanda!

On Aug 3 2010 FT said:"...One of the world’s oldest universities – Nalanda, in the impoverished Indian state of Bihar – is to be refounded more than 800 years after it was destroyed, fulfilling the dreams of scholars from India, Singapore, China, and Japan..."

I owe a debt to Nalanda for two reasons.

First for providing a beautiful locale for a wonderful song from Vijay Anand directed Johny Mera Naam (1970)- "O Mera Raja" and then for being a great seat of learning in the past...In that order!

This is on the lines of what P L Deshpande (पु ल देशपांडे ) said about Maharashtra's debt to three Chhatre's (छत्रे)- Snack manufacturer (चिवडेवाले ), circus propeitor (सर्कसवाले ) and mathematician (गणिती). The debt should be considered in descending order!

[p.s There is a moving wordportrait of the 'last' Chhatre - mathematician one- Kerunana Chhatre in Y D Phadke's (य. दि. फडके) 'Agarkar' (आगरकर )]


Has an Indian woman ever looked more beautiful than Hema Malini in that movie? But don't ignore Nalanda in the background.

Isn't Akbar as much ours as Shivaji?

The other day on Marathi TV comedy Phu Bai Phu (फू बाई फू) I saw Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar teased rather crudely. (Even otherwise the quality of comedy in the said program is very ordinary and just proves one more time how badly Marathi TV needs quality scripts.)

[p.s. In the finale of this contest, televised on August 15 2010, which I watched for first 10 minutes, there were tasteless jokes about Birbal and Jodha Bai. I feel terribly ashamed of this.]

Since Prithviraj Kapoor's theatrical performance as Akbar in Mughal-e-Azam (1960), he has been up for some fun for last fifty years.

Akbar does not mind. Neither has it seemed Akbar's supporters.

Shahu IV (1874-1922), aka Rajarshi Shahu, used to rever both Akbar and Shivaji. Even Shivaji has praised Akbar in glowing terms to his great-grandson Aurangzeb in a famous letter.

Will Shivaji's followers tolerate even a slight fun of him?

Isn't Akbar as much ours as Shivaji?

Sophoclean Tragedy of Ramu, Romantic Natyachhatakar's Son

Gregory Hemingway to Ernest Hemingway:

“When it’s all added up, papa, it will be: he wrote a few good stories, had a novel and fresh approach to reality and he destroyed five persons – Hadley, Pauline, Marty [Gellhorn], Patrick, and possibly myself. Which do you think is the most important, your self-centred shit, the stories or the people?”

Bill Bryson:

"In a sense William Shakespeare's greatest achievement in life wasn't writing Hamlet or the sonnets but just surviving his first year."

JOHN STAUFFER:

"What is more courageous, militancy or a middle-class life? Fleeing for freedom or remaining loyal to a family?"

I really like writings of Natyachhatakar Diwakar (नाट्यछटाकार दिवाकर) who was inspired by Robert Browning's dramatic monologues.

I have liked him since I was in primary school. Later, I discovered that I was in excellent company. Vijay Tendulkar (विजय तेंडुलकर), Sadanand Rege (सदानंद रेगे), Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत), Madhav Julian (माधव जूलियन) too were his big fans.

(Similar to his poems on likes of Keshavsut केशवसुत, D G Godse द ग गोडसे and a few others, Rege has written a very moving poem on Diwakar.)

In March 2010, at a book exhibition held during "akhil bharatiya marathi sahitya sammelan" (अखिल भारतीय मराठी साहित्य संमेलन), I acquired 'Samagra Diwakar' (समग्र दिवाकर) edited by Sarojini Vaidya (सरोजिनी वैद्य), 1996.

Reading it I learnt Diwakar lost his three out of four kids and wife during his rather short life: 1889-1931. (His only surviving daughter died within eight months of his death at the age of sixteen!)

Diwakar's only son, Ramchandra, lost his mother at the age of just three and he himself died at the age of eight. It means Diwakar was his only parent for almost five years.

And this is what Diwakar wrote in his diary when Ramchandra died:

"...son Ramu since birth was sickly and weak. But his luck was wretched! Only his mother, until her death, might have embraced him and cuddled him. But I - his father- don't remember if, in his entire life of eight years, I ever embraced him. Let alone kissing with affection etc..."

(an entry in Diwakar's diary dated Feb 27 1922; page no 413-414 ibid)

("...चिरंजीव रामू हा जन्मापासूनचा रोगी व अशक्त. पण बिचार्याचे दैव मोठे खडतर. आई मरेपर्यंत तिने काय त्याला जवळ घेतला असेल किंवा कुरवाळले असेल इतकेच. पण मला - त्याच्या बापाला- काही आठवत नाही की त्याच्या आठ वर्षाँच्या आयुष्यात, एकदा तरी मी त्याला जवळ घेतला आहे असे! मग प्रेमाने मुके वगैरे घेण्याच्या गोष्टी तर दूरच!...")

Will I - 'lucky bastard' who constantly got his mother's deep affection until he turned 46- ever begin to understand the pain of that sickly kid Ramu who lost his mother at the age of three and was ignored by his learned and 'ultra sensitive' father for the rest of his life?

Ramu's (and his sisters' and mother's) tragedy, in my eyes, dwarfs his father's entire literature.

Romantic Robert Browning won't do to help describe it. Shakespeare or, even better, Sophocles has to be summoned because it is he who supposed to have said "that to never have been born may be the greatest boon of all."

Ramu, very likely, would agree.

Would Diwakar have been a lesser man if he remained 'ordinary' by dedicating his limited resources towards cuddling kids, appreciating his wife's cooking, being grateful to his larger family's support in looking after him and his kids after his wife's death instead of pursuing higher arts?

Didn't he like kids? If he didn't, why did he produce them? (His wife died in child birth.)

If Ram Ganesh Gadkari (राम गणेश गडकरी)- who was Diwakar's friend- were to write a tragedy based on Diwakar's life, where the protagonist is addicted to books and intellectual pursuits instead of liquor, it would have been more tear-jerking than his celebrated play 'Ekach Pyala' (एकच प्याला) that describes how addiction to booze eventually destroys a happy family.

What are the forces that drive artists like Diwakar?

Was Diwakar following the tradition of 'romantics' from England?

Ben Downing argues reviewing a recent biography of Byron, Shelley and their circle (YOUNG ROMANTICS / The Tangled Lives of English Poetry’s Greatest Generation By Daisy Hay) that the women and children in their lives too suffered mightily.

"...But if you do read “Young Romantics,” be prepared to come away outraged and depressed. The real calamities here aren’t so much the early deaths of Shelley and Byron as those of their dependents.

Shelley’s abandoned first wife committed suicide, and all but one of the four children he had with his second wife, Mary, died young. Claire Clairmont, meanwhile, had the daughter she’d conceived with Byron imperiously stripped from her by the poet, who, quickly tiring of the girl, stuffed her in a convent, where she too soon died. There was also a baby of mysterious parentage, registered as Elena Shelley, who survived only 18 months. In short, the two poets left the Italian peninsula, along with a few spots in England, strewn with dead relations. While they cannot entirely be blamed, it’s hard not to conclude that their callousness, selfishness, impulsiveness and bullying demand for “free love” were ruinous to those around them (though in truth only Shelley idealized his lusts, the cynical Byron merely pouncing where he could).

This is hardly a fresh observation, of course, but it is powerfully reinforced by “Young Romantics,” which brings home to a rare degree just how destructive were the poets’ experiments in unfettered living. Even Leigh Hunt, a far more consistently kind and decent chap than Byron or Shelley, made his wife miserable by maintaining an uncomfortably close relationship with her sister and blithely failing to provide for his large brood.

Not that Hay harps on any of this. To her great credit, she never lapses into censoriousness, approaching all her characters, men and women alike, with just the right blend of detachment and sympathy. Yet by concentrating so steadily on their relationships, she inevitably draws attention to the imbalances and (as Clairmont insisted) cruelties within them. Her book winds up being as much a study of domestic arrogance as an exploration of friendship..."

(The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, July 1 2010)

Diwakar is not alone.

If I consider the 'romantics' writing in Marathi in first half of 20th century, the picture on their domestic front is not pretty.

So the dilemma I face is this: Do I still like as well as respect Diwakar?

Ms, Hokinson (1893–1949), who tragically died in a plane accident, is one of the great cartoonists I have come across.
She is one of a kind. I find no words to describe my pleasure when I see some of her pictures. Following is one such.
Is she quizzing us or amusing? Our technology may have gone far beyond the longplay records that are there in the picture but will we ever overgrow the feelings expressed there?


Artist: Helen E. Hokinson, The New Yorker, January 17 1948

Chelsea Clinton's Wedding and The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola:
“Both the Mafia and America have roots in Europe……Basically, both the Mafia and America feel they are benevolent organisations. Both the Mafia and America have their hands stained with blood from what is necessary to do to protect their power and interests. Both are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.”

It was widely reported in Indian newspapers on July 31 2010 that "Chelsea Clinton's future father-in-law is a convicted fraudster".

Why should it matter?

This is what Sarah Churchwell said about President J F Kennedy's- whose portrait in 1970's hung even in 'lowly' corner restaurant called Bharat Bhuvan (भारत भुवन) in Miraj- father:

"...In his monetary dealings, Joe Kennedy was a democrat: he would screw almost anyone. Otherwise, his politics were closer to fascism: his advice to the overwhelmingly Jewish heads of film studios during the second world war was to appease Hitler by ceasing to make "anti-Nazi pictures". What Kennedy learned best from Hollywood, however, was the importance of branding and myth-making: he was an early manipulator of the cult of personality. His talent for pious façades camouflaging covert manipulation only came to fruition with his sons' political careers, as he instructed them: "It's not what you are, but what people think you are that is important.".."

Is that the second reason- because first is obvious- following picture reminded me of Sonny Corleone (James Caan) from Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"?



Artist: Mike Luckovich

Two Compositions from Stage: Waman Kendre, Michael Grandage

Waman Kendre (वामन केंद्रे) is supposed to be very good in the art of theatre direction.

I haven't seen anything by him yet for which I feel bad. But what the hell...I haven't still read even one line from Eknath's (एकनाथ) "Bhagwat" (भागवत) . So much to do, so little time...

Do I understand anything called theatre? I think not.

But I like compositions- "The spatial property resulting from the arrangement of parts in relation to each other and to the whole."

I felt moved by following composition from Kendre's play.


from Bhasa’s 'Madhyamavyayoga' (मध्यमव्यायोग) in Hindi, Kendre's first interpretation of a Sanskrit work

courtesy: The Asian Age July 23 2010

It's a great pity that I have neither read or seen a single full length play of great Bhasa who earlier appears on this blog here and there.

Kendre's 'Madhyam Vyayog' brought to my mind when I was last moved by a similar theatrical composition.

When I first saw it, I couldn't take my eyes off the following picture. Even today it shakes me. What are they going to do next?


This is from FRIEDRICH SCHILLER's German epic “Don Carlos” directed by Michael Grandage.

The Economist (Feb 17th 2005) did one of the most impressive art reviews I have read.

"Whatever you do, don't miss “Don Carlos”...“Don Carlos” was written two years before the French revolution, and the good men belong to that time. Carlos, the king's son, and his friend the Marquis of Posa favour humanity, liberty and freedom of speech. Posa almost persuades Phillip of the case for freedom. But, true to history, when the curtain falls, the good men have lost. The dramatic climax is the entrance of the real villain—the imposing, sinister figure of the Inquisitor, clothed in a cardinal's scarlet. When he instructs the king in his duty to God and the Roman Catholic church, Phillip does his bidding—but Schiller has made the case against tyranny. Mr Grandage declares that the message rings no less true, and is no less relevant, on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2005..."

Ravi Baswani, an eternal Sancho Panza

One of the joys of reading Marathi written in 20th century is G A Kulkarni's (जी. ए. कुलकर्णी) 'Yatrik' (यात्रिक) from the collection of his short stories 'Pinglavel' (पिंगळावेळ) 1977, an allegory of Cervantes's 'Don Quixote' and D V Deshpande's (धों वि देशपांडे ) commentary on it from 'jeeenchya katha: ek anwayarth'(जीएंच्या कथा: एक अन्वयार्थ).

Who moves me most, from the story, is not Don but Sancho.

('Pinglavel' appears on this blog quite a few times.)

Kundan Shah said after hearing Mr. Baswani's death:"...He helped Naseeruddin Shah flesh out his character and that was the reason behind the on-screen chemistry..."

That has always been the role of Sancho. He helps Don Quixote flesh out his character and that is the reason behind their eternal chemistry.

In Marathi literature the most famous example of Don and Sancho is the pair of Chimanrao (चिमणराव) and Gundyabhau (गुंड्याभाऊ) of C V Joshi (चिं वि जोशी). Gundyabhau helps Chimanrao flesh our his character.

No Gundyabhau, no Chimanrao. No Dr. Watson, no Sherlock Holmes. No Sancho, no Don. No Ravi Baswani, no Naseeruddin Shah and no JBDY.


Artist: Pablo Picasso

Artist: Roc Riera Rojas

brainpickings.org:

"There must be something in the air about remarkable Spanish illustrations of literary classics. In 1968, Spanish graphic design pioneer Roc Riera Rojas illustrated a special edition of Miguel de Cervantes’ cult 1605-1615 novel Don Quixote, which has since become a prized collector’s item."

S D Phadnis Turns 85 today

Artist S D Phadnis (शि. द. फडणीस) turns 85 today.

I have very little to add to what his close friend Vasant Sarwate (वसंत सरवटे) says on Phadnis's art in a masterly essay included in Sarwate's book Sahapravasi (सहप्रवासी). ( A couple of years ago I was fortunate to spend 2-3 hours with both of them at Phadnis's house.)

On this blog, in the static information on the right side, there is a quote of W H Auden:

“…though one cannot always
Remember exactly why one has been happy,
There is no forgetting that one was”

(Good-Bye to the Mezzogiorno )

Well, I sometimes exactly remember why I have been happy.

It's because I just saw Shi Da's sunlight -or moonlight as in the picture below- filled cartoon where even today a lady looks like my mother of 1970's, where there is no evil, where life is uncomplicated, where people pay attention to their surroundings instead of burying their face in mobile phone...


courtesy: Official website of S D Phadnis

Use Jaane Na Do Yaaro- Ravi Baswani

उसे जाने ना दो यारों

Susan Sontag on the iconoclastic spirit of the 1960's: "...How one wishes that some of its boldness, its optimism, its disdain for commerce had survived……”

They must be kidding when they say Ravi Baswani at death was 64. When did he turn even 40?

I have given up any hope of seeing another Hindi film as good as Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (JBDY), 1983 where he was one of the main reasons to make it so good.

He was equally good in Chashme Buddoor (1981).

It's a pity that I saw so little of him on Hindi silver screen.

In 1980's, for me, it was much easier to identify with him rather than with Naseeruddin Shah or Farooq Sheikh who romanced pretty girls on screen while he on screen and I in real life weren't.

David Remnick recently said: If God had a plan, God was a fantastic comedian. There's a scene in The Human Stain by Philip Roth where Nathan Zuckerman is listening to an orchestra rehearse. People are having a good time and all he can think of is that, in 40 years, every single one of them will be dead.

JBDY is an orchestra. Sure, every single one of them will be dead. But I would dread to think that it would start with Mr. Baswani in 2010.

(after I published this post, I realised Bhakti Barve too was dead but then for me Ms. Barve- a good actor herself- didn't belong to the core of JBDY.)