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.)

Maurti Mane; Perhaps Mahabharat's Bheem looked like him

Read my earlier post on the late Mr. Mane here.

courtesy: Pudhari पुढारी July 28 2010

To see more pictures and read more on Mr. Mane, please visit ePudhari's website, choose Kolhapur edition of July 28 and go to page 8.

Hemant Morparia is a Gadfly Constantly Annoying Our Holy Cows

Alexander Waugh: “Beware of seriousness: it is a form of stupidity.”

Julian Gough: '"Why so sad, people?" as Zadie Smith asks.
Well, it's just a habit by now. It's so ingrained in our culture that it has become an unexamined default position. What makes it much worse is that it is now being coached, reinforced. All of the writers on the Granta list attended university creative writing programmes. All, in other words, have submitted to authority. This is a catastrophe for them as novelists...'

Vijay Tendulkar was fond of Hemant Morparia's art. I can see why:

Morparia is a fearless gadfly, ever ready to pester our holy cows, not submitting to any authority.

I have seen many brilliant cartoons borne out of his brush. Here is the latest example.

A luxury book publisher is bringing out a special edition biography of Sachin Tendulkar with pages made from his blood.

This should have been fodder for many jesters. Instead all we see in our media are noisy Jee-Huzoors of Tendulkar.

Thankfully for me Morparia is antithesis of them and gives us this. Sure, it raises some stink because it is supposed to.

I told you this new Indian car Obop was really cool!

My caption: "I told you this new Indian car Obop was really cool!"

Artist: Matt Diffee, New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest# 248, last date July 25 2010

To see more fun around Nano, click here and here.

p.s key IBM-> HAL, Nano->Obop

What did a Woman in the Kitchen have in common with its Floor?

Anton Chekhov: "My holy of holies is the human body..."

Indian religious code: "If a woman was menstruating, she was prohibited from Suttee, the act of a Hindu widow willingly cremating herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband."

ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG: "The worst thing you could do when my mother was in one of her moods was to point out that she got cranky when she had her period. “I am not just a bunch of chemicals!” she’d yell. My brother, who even at 12 believed in the sanctity of data, decided to keep a written record of when Mom was irritable and see whether it correlated with what he could deduce about her menstrual cycle. It was hard to contradict the circumstantial evidence: when our mother had her period, she was harder to live with..."


Annie Hall,1977: "Alvy: Hey, you are in a bad mood. You must be getting your period.
Annie: I'm not getting my period. Jesus, every time anything out of the ordinary happens, you think that I'm getting my period."

Not too long ago, menstruation was NOT a taboo subject in Maharashtra.

For instance, historians like T S Shejwalkar (त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर), D G Godse (द ग गोडसे), have quoted a number of instances in their work when women’s monthly period was mentioned without any hesitation, even in official communication.

(After reading "no Suttee if menstruating" quoted earlier, I asked my wife if some widows could have faked it....I would. She said it would have been very difficult to do so in a joint family setup of medieval India).

But it all changed since the Victorian era began in England.

I wonder if a book like the one mentioned below will ever get written in Marathi. I am sure when it does, it will be one of the most interesting one.

Elissa Stein and Susan Kim have written a book "Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation".

Eryn Loeb reviews it:

"...apparently, plenty of girls still think they pee and bleed out of the same orifice, and menstruation is still understood with a retro blend of embarrassment, fear and superstition...

...Kotex pads burst onto the market the same year women got the right to vote, which was also the same year that saw the first Miss America pageant (that would be 1920)...

...And we learn that as late as 1985, a pre-Friends, pre-Cougar Town, pre-Arquette, Courteney Cox was the first person to use the word "period" in a TV commercial...

Flow revels in the awesome mysteriousness of women's bodies even as its authors try to counter it. It's hard to maintain both positions, though there's something appealing about being normal and mystifying at the same time. That's a central tension of how people have viewed women -- and how women have viewed themselves -- throughout history. Not surprisingly, the ambivalence about the role and significance of menstruation is equally entrenched.

Still, why talk about it? Stein and Kim are tuned in enough to pose that question directly, and their book stands as a pretty clear answer. Certainly, we don't have to talk about everything, but Flow shows that menstruation -- and women's many experiences of it -- are fodder for a host of worthwhile and often important conversations."

Q: What was common to a woman working in a kitchen and the kitchen floor?
A: Both were disinfected with Lysol, a household cleaner!

(For more, check out 'Related Media' by visiting this site.)

How Narayan Dharap scared the bejesus out of my childhood heart

On Sunday July 18 2010, I read on Guardian blog about Edgar Allan Poe and I thought of Narayan Dharap (नारायण धारप).

Although, I haven't read Dharap for a long time and sadly have no book of his in my possession, and haven's spotted any in numerous book exhibitions, I vividly remember many eerie moments he created.

Only the prospect of my mother's death on an operation table scared me more than his books.

My mother (1937-2006) too was fond of those books and used to say how they were scared of passing by Dharap's house in Pune! She said the Dharap-Vada had a certain mystic aura around it. I am sure it was because of N Dharap's books.

Near disappearance of Narayan Dharap from popular Marathi middle-class culture is another instance of its dire poverty.

Agastya Rishi, Vinoba Bhave and Sean Penn

Sean Penn, a brilliant actor and social activist, recently said: “There is a strength of character in the people who have, by and large, never experienced comfort. That’s exactly the character that our Main Street culture lacks and needs in the United States. In other words, we need Haiti.”

I say we middle-class urbanites in India need to revisit teachings of Agastya to build strength of character.

Vinoba Bhave विनोबा भावे wanted to see Indian society respect both manual and intellectual work equally. He has written a Marathi essay- easily one of the best in genre- on Sage Agastya, who apparently celebrated both brain and brawn.
(I have enclosed part that essay below. I read this essay first time as a part of my school curriculum.)


A part of Marathi essay by Vinoba Bhave




The Maharishi (Great Sage) Agastya, 12th century, courtesy: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

You can't arrest dead people!

Sambhaji Brigade wants a number of people arrested because they allegedly helped James Laine. (Pudhari पुढारी, July 11 2010)

Three of the eleven names Pudhari lists are Bhaskar Chandavarkar (भास्कर चंदावरकर) , A R Kulkarni (अ रा कुलकर्णी), Dilip Chitre (दिलीप चित्रे).

There is a slight problem.

All three of them are dead.