मनुष्य कसला प्राणी आहे पहा...
आधी सिंहाबरोबर पाणी पितोय ....
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Artist: Laszlo Reber (László Réber) 1920-2001, Hungarian graphic artist, illustrator, cartoonist
पण माणसाची तहान काही भागेना...
मग सिंहाच्या शिरातून प्यायला लागला ...
Lion head drinking cup, c500BC-470BC, attributed to the Athenian Douris
ह्या वर्षी ५० वर्षे झाली ... १९७३ च्या ऑइल शॉकला...
आमचे पाच जणांचे कुटुंब त्यावेळी मिरजेस रहात होते. आम्ही lpg कनेक्शन अजून घेतले नव्हते. त्यामुळे आम्ही रॉकेल आणि कोळश्यावर घरातल्या इंधनासाठी अवलंबून होतो.
मला नेमके कारण आणि त्याची व्याप्ती माहित नाही पण आम्हाला कोळसा मिळणे त्या सुमारास बंद झाले. मला वाटते पर्यावरणासाठी कुठलातरी निर्णय घेतला गेला असावा आणि त्याची अंमलबजावणी त्यावेळी सुरु झाली असावी. त्या मुळे आमच्या घरातील कोळश्याची शेगडी आणि चूल दोन्ही बंद पडल्या.
आता आम्हाला रॉकेलला पर्याय उरला नव्हता. रॉकेल मिळाले नाही तर घरात काहीच शिजणार नव्ह्ते. पाणी तापणार नव्हते. आणि त्यात ऑइल शॉक....
असे म्हणतात की सरकारने पेट्रोलचे दर प्रचंड वाढवले आणि डिझेल आणि रॉकेलचे वाढवले नाहीत. असेल. पण अचानक (कदाचित वरील निर्णयामुळे) रॉकेल बाजारातून नाहीसे व्हायला लागले.
मिरजे मध्ये एखाद्या दिवशी कुठे रॉकेल मिळत असेल ह्याचा काहीच भरवसा उरला नाही. केंव्हा रॉकेल लागेल याचा अंदाज बांधून त्याच्या आधी चार दिवस पायपीट सुरु, ते मिळवण्यासाठी. प्रत्येक दुकानात जाऊन विचारायचे.
सुदैवाने रॉकेल न मिळाल्यामुळे घरी स्टोव्ह पेटला नाही असे कधी झाले नाही पण ती अनिश्चितता भयानक होती. ती किती महिने राहिली हे आता आठवत नाही.
कोळसा मिळायचा बंद झाल्यामुळे आमच्या वर आणीबाणी ची वेळ आली आणि पुढे दोन वर्षात आणीबाणी सुद्धा आली!
ज्यावेळी नंतर "Mad Max 2", 1981 (After a global war resulted in widespread oil shortages, civilization collapsed, and the world descended into barbarism.) हा सिनेमा बघितला , त्यावेळी त्यातील पेट्रोल मिळवण्याची तडफड बघून मला १९७३ -७४ काळातील आमची केरोसीन मिळवायची धडपड आठवत असे!
मी एप्रिल ४ २०२३ रोजी लिहले:
ना. वा. टिळक :
वन सर्व सुगंधित झाले / मन माझे मोहुन गेले – कितीतरी
फुल कोठे नकळे फुलले - मज तरी
स्वर्गात दिव्य वृक्षास
बहर ये खास
असे क्ल्पीले - असे क्ल्पीले/ मन माझे मोहुन गेले - कितीतरी
परी फिरता फिरता दिसले
फुल दगडाआड लपाले - लहानसे
दिसण्यात फार ते साधे
परी आमोदे
जगामधी पहिले - जगामधी पहिले/ मन माझे मोहुन गेले - कितीतरी
मी प्रेमे वदलो त्यासी
का येथे दडुनी बसशी - प्रिय फुला?
तू गडे फुलांची राणी
तुला गे कोणी
रानी धाडिले- रानी लावीले? / मन माझे मोहुन गेले - कितीतरी
ते लाजत लाजत सुमन
मज म्हणे थोडके हसुंन - तेधवा
निवडले प्रभूने स्थान
रम्य उद्यान
तेच मज झाले- तेच मज झाले / मन माझे मोहुन गेले- कितीतरी
"...
मधाळ पोळें
ओठांवरती जमलें तेंही
निसर्गातले, नैसर्गिक !
ओठांवरती ओठ लागले;
पिपांत उंदिर न्हाले ! न्हाले !"
(पृष्ठ ४१, २१, मर्ढेकरांची कविता, १९५९/१९७७)
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Pl. 15, Die Pflanze in Kunst und Gewerbe, Gerlach & Schenk pub. (1887-1889)
असे म्हटले जाते की ब्रिटन ने एकेकाळी जगावर प्रभुत्व गाजवले त्यांच्या नौदला मुळे ...
अलीकडे (एप्रिल २०२३) Stephen R. Bown यांचे 'Scurvy: how a surgeon, a mariner, and a gentleman solved the greatest medical mystery of the age of sail' पुस्तक चाळत आहे आणि त्यातील माहिती अद्भुत आहे!
मी माझ्या चौथी मध्ये १९६८-६९ साली स्कर्व्ही बद्दल पहिल्यांदा वाचले आणि तो शब्द आणि त्या रोगाचे कारण डोक्यात जाऊन अडकले. त्यामुळे मी ह्या पुस्तकाकडे आकर्षित झालो.
हा एक परिच्छेद पहा, ब्रिटनच्या १८व्या शतकातील बलाढ्य नौदला बद्दल:
"...The Royal Navy needed at least double the number of
able-bodied seamen who would willingly serve. In eighteenth-century Britain men
frequently disappeared from seaport towns and villages. Wandering alone they
were clubbed, dragged aboard ships in port, and “recruited” into the navy. Many
were never seen by their families again...."... सोबतचे चित्र नौदल भरतीचे आहे!
पुढे जाऊ.
"...Mariners in the eighteenth century suffered from a bewildering array of ailments, diseases, and dietary deficiencies, such that it was next to impossible for surgeons or physicians to accurately separate the symptoms of one from those of another. Niacin deficiency caused lunacy and convulsions, thiamin deficiency caused beriberi, and vitamin-A deficiency caused night blindness. Syphilis, malaria, rickets, smallpox, tuberculosis, yellow fever, venereal diseases, dysentery, and food poisoning were constant companions. Typhus, or typhoid fever, was common on every ship. Spread by infected lice in the frequently shared and rarely cleaned bedding, typhus was so prevalent in the navy that it was known as “ship’s fever” or “gaol fever.” Man-of-war and merchantman, both were a cozy den for disease.
Life shipboard was not conducive to curing or avoiding any of these varied ailments, and indeed was an ideal environment for spreading them. The sailor’s wooden world was infested with refuse, trash, rotting flesh, urine, and vomit. The mariners were either crammed into their quarters like sardines in a box or slept, occasionally in good weather, sprawled like hounds on the deck. The holds were crammed with vermin, festering and spoiled provisions, and in some cases rotting corpses. On English and Dutch ships, the primarily Protestant dead sailors were wrapped in their hammocks and pitched overboard—with proper ceremony, naturally. But on the ships from Catholic countries such as France and Spain, the decaying bodies were stowed in the gravel of the hold, mouldering for perhaps months until the ships returned to home port and the dead could be buried in their native soil....
... Sanitary conditions aboard ships, and particularly the warships of national navies, were as bad as or worse than the filthiest slums then in London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Seville. The cramped, stifling, congested forecastle, where the crew slept, was dark and dingy. The air was clouded with noxious bilge gasses and congested with the sweet, cloying reek of rot and sweat. Sailors slept in dirty bedding and wore the same vermin-infested rags for months on end.... "
फ्रेंच आणि स्पेन च्या नौदलात वारलेले नौसैनिक कित्येक महिने तसेच गुंडाळून होल्ड मध्ये ठेवले जात...
अजून पुस्तकाचे पहिले प्रकरण सुद्धा संपले नाहीये....
While browsing S. C. Burchell's "The Suez Canal", 2016, I came across this...
"...But a day came when the opposition to the canal received a serious setback. In March 1857, near Calcutta, the disastrous Great Mutiny began. Native troops revolted against the British, and reinforcements had to be rushed to India in order to put down the rebellion. Of course, the only way they could be rushed from England was by ship on the four-month-long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. It was painfully obvious that a canal through the Isthmus of Suez would have saved countless British lives. As it turned out, the British government was finally forced to beg Said’s permission to send troops through Egypt overland across the isthmus to the Gulf of Suez. English newspapers were quick to see their government’s folly. “Nothing could be a more complete avowal of the utility of M. de Lesseps’ scheme,” said the London Daily News, “and the action of the Government is the implicit condemnation of Lord Palmerston and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.”
A personal opponent of de Lesseps’s was removed when, because of a general lack of confidence in his government, Lord Palmerston’s cabinet fell in February 1858...."
Look at the situation in 1855:
"...Britain’s powerful navy patrolled the waters from Gibraltar to Alexandria and guarded the sea lanes that led to India around the Cape of Good Hope. Any threat in these two areas was a blow at her heart. And it happened in 1855 that the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps was making such a threat. To Great Britain, the idea of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez was unthinkable. The British had long dominated the route to the Far East around the Cape of Good Hope and were not interested in any change. Moreover, the canal now proposed - the British government felt with some justice - would be monopolized by the French, despite de Lesseps’s insistence that it was to be an international undertaking. If France controlled the canal, British prestige would decline throughout the Middle East. Its Indian empire would be in danger and so, too, would its leadership in trade with the Orient. In the eyes of the British government, the political aspect of a Suez canal was a simple one. De Lesseps had hold of a dangerous idea, and to add to the unpleasantness, he was a Frenchman as well. The British were going to fight, and the first battlefield they chose was Constantinople...."
