The wind: A powerful literary symbol...William H Davies, Arun Kolatkar, Philip Larkin, Joseph Conrad

 The Villain by William H Davies  

“While joy gave clouds the light of stars,

That beamed wher'er they looked;

And calves and lambs had tottering knees,

Excited, while they sucked;

While every bird enjoyed his song,

Without one thought of harm or wrong—

I turned my head and saw the wind,

Not far from where I stood,

Dragging the corn by her golden hair,

Into a dark and lonely wood.”

“काय डेंजर वारा सुटलाय”

           अरुण कोलटकर, "अरुण कोलटकरच्या कविता",  १९७७

 

"अरे तुझी टोपी

तुझी टोपी गेली खड्ड्यात

कपाळ पहिलं सांभाळ

काय डेंजर वारा सुटलाय

डोसक्यात कचरा

धूळ धूळ डोक्यात

 

साहेबाची खिडकी फुटली

गादीवर काचा काचा

आपोआप गुंडाळतोय

पंजाब्याचा गालिचा

पार्शिणीचा फ्लावरपाट

गडाबडा लोळतोय

 

सिंधीणीच्या दांडीवरली

म्हागडी नायलॉन साडी

चालली वार्‍यावर हवाई झाज

नवव्या मजल्यावरल्या

बंगाल्याचा लेंगा लगेच

लागला तिच्या पाठी..."

 Wedding-Wind by Philip Larkin

"The wind blew all my wedding-day,

And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;

And a stable door was banging, again and again,

That he must go and shut it, leaving me

5Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain,

Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick,

Yet seeing nothing. When he came back

He said the horses were restless, and I was sad

That any man or beast that night should lack

10The happiness I had.

                                     Now in the day

All’s ravelled under the sun by the wind’s blowing.

He has gone to look at the floods, and I

Carry a chipped pail to the chicken-run,

Set it down, and stare. All is the wind

15Hunting through clouds and forests, thrashing

My apron and the hanging cloths on the line.

Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind

Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread

Carrying beads? Shall I be let to sleep

20Now this perpetual morning shares my bed?

Can even death dry up

These new delighted lakes, conclude

Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?"

 

Joseph Conrad:

"...A big, foaming sea came out of the mist; it made for the ship, roaring wildly, and in its rush it looked as mischievous and discomposing as a madman with an axe. One or two, shouting, scrambled up the rigging; most, with a convulsive catch of the breath, held on where they stood. Singleton dug his knees under the wheel-box, and carefully eased the helm to the headlong pitch of the ship, but without taking his eyes off the coming wave. It towered close-to and high, like a wall of green glass topped with snow. The ship rose to it as though she had soared on wings, and for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if she had been a great sea-bird. Before we could draw breath a heavy gust struck her, another roller took her unfairly under the weather bow, she gave a toppling lurch, and filled her decks. Captain Allistoun leaped up, and fell; Archie rolled over him, screaming: — ”She will rise!”..."

 

 

अशोकवनात सीता...Bhavanrao Shrinivasrao Pantpratinidhi and Raja Ravi Varma

अशोकवनात रावणाने सीतेला ठेवलेले आहे , हा रामायणातील सुंदरकांडातील एक महत्वाचा प्रसंग आहे...

 

औंधचे १९४७ सालपर्यंतचे राजे भवानराव श्रीनिवासराव पंतप्रतिनिधी (१८६८-१९५१) यांच्या १९१६ सालच्या चित्ररामायणात त्यावर एक सुंदर चित्र आहे, त्या दुर्मिळ चित्ररामायणाची एक प्रत आमच्या कुटुंबाकडे आहे...

 

त्यातील एका चित्रात (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Chitra_Ramayana) सीता झाडावर बसलेल्या हनुमानाला भेटताना दाखवली असून , तिच्यावरील पहारेकरी स्त्रिया आजूबाजूला झोपलेल्या दाखवल्या आहेत, ते मला इतके मजेचे वाटे की, कधी घरातील नातेवाईक स्त्रिया दुपारी लोळत झोपलेल्या पाहिल्या तर मी त्यांना म्हणत असे - अगदी अशोक वनाचा सीन झाला आहे!

 

 

त्या विषयावर राजा रवी वर्मा यांनी काढलेले १८९४ सालचे चित्र आज पहिले, सीता तर विलक्षण सुंदर आहेतच पण पहारेकरी स्त्रिया सुद्धा देखण्या आहेत... त्या स्त्रिया अर्थातच सध्याच्या श्रीलंकेतील अजिबात वाटत नाहीयेत... "राक्षसी" दिसणे असा एक समज होता, त्या नुसार त्या काढल्या आहेत, पण त्यांचे सौन्दर्य त्यातूनही दिसत आहे...आपल्या समाजात आता फक्त गोरेपणा (जो माझ्या लहानपणी प्रचंड महत्वाचा होता) म्हणजे सौन्दर्य हा समज सुद्धा कमी होवू लागला आहे... 

 

वेगवेगळ्या देशातील खेळाडू, कलाकार आता आपल्याला आवडतात... 

 

दुसरी महत्वाची गोष्ट म्हणजे महाराष्ट्रात (आणि इतर भारतात सुद्धा) पूर्व आफ्रिकेच्या किनाऱ्यावरून येऊन स्थायिक झालेल्या लोकांची संख्या नगण्य नव्हती (मलिक अंबर हे त्यातील सर्वात महत्वाचे नाव)...

मी असे वाचले आहे की नाना फडणवीसांनी त्यांच्या- १८०० सालच्या- मृत्यूनंतर स्वतःच्या पत्नीची सुरक्षा करण्यासाठी पूर्व आफ्रिकेतील लढवय्यांचे दल ठेवले होते. तेंव्हा अशा गोष्टीचे संस्कार सुद्धा १९व्या शतकातील चित्रावर होणे साहजिक आहे..

 

वर्मा यांनी कळत न कळत आपल्याला शिकवले आहे की पहा आपल्या सारखी न दिसणारी माणसे सुद्धा किती सुंदर असू शकतात...

 

 

Contribution of Visual Arts to Indus Archeology

 On X, in October 2023, I read this post of Harappa.com@Ancient_Indus  

"One of the least appreciated things in ancient Indus archaeology is the fine photography done by early expeditions and their unknown Indian photographers. This is from Sahni's Harappa 1923-24 excavations, note how perfectly the lines and trench is arranged, the bricks in the foreground across the (much later) mosque remnant in the top right." 

 

Bhaiyya@60

 माझा भाऊ २४ जून २०२२ रोजी ६० वर्षांचा झाला, 

त्याला मी ही २३ जून १९६२ च्या न्यू यॉर्कर च्या मुखपृष्ठाची, पीटर अर्नो यांचे अप्रतिम चित्र असलेली फ्रेम भेट दिली, 

त्याच्या मागचा मजकूर सोबतच्या दुसऱ्या चित्रात आहे ...

 

फिरकीचा तांब्या...Love of Metal Utensils

 

There was a time in India, everyday use utensils of aluminum, copper, brass were advertised.

 

The accompanying ad is supposedly dated before 1947 and its illustrator is unknown to me. 

 

The brass-ware the lady is holding is a water container that once only rich, upper middle class people used to carry water. In Marathi, we call it 'Phirkicha Tambya' (फिरकीचा तांब्या). 

 

I remember my own pre-school class of 1964-65 in Miraj that used to be held in Hansprabha talkies (where great Balgandharva made his Marathi stage debut, now Balgandharv Natyamandir) when three richest kids in the class carried those brass water containers and they used to keep them on top of a classroom wall. 

 

I used to watch them from time to time and envy. They looked like Aladdin's lamps to me!

 

Buying utensils and recording family's name on them used to be an important chore in a middle-class home. I often used to accompany my mother to that shop in Miraj. The shop used to be extremely noisy because banging of metal utensils and owner speaking above that ding.

 

These days most middle-class Indian homes have more metal utensils than they need. Aluminum (and alloys), brass, copper are not much used. It's all stainless steel. 

 

Implications of Marathas’ Protracted Resistance to the British Onslaught...A Tale of Two Cities- Mumbai and Kolkata

१९व्या शतकाच्या सुरवातीस पेशव्यांनी आणि त्यांच्या अनेक सरदारांनी इंग्रजांशी लढा चालू ठेवल्याचे किती चांगले परिणाम भविष्यात झाले, त्याबद्दल अमिताव घोष काय म्हणतातते पहा:

"...But even though Calcutta and Bombay were both hubs of the opium trade, the ways in which business was conducted in the two cities were completely different. Calcutta was the capital of British India throughout the nineteenth century, and it had the largest number of white residents of any city in the country. Being the seat of British power its economy was largely controlled by the white business community, which was closely networked with colonial officials in India, many of whom invested their savings with them. There were further circles of exclusion even within the white business community, with a group of interconnected merchants of Scottish origin playing a dominant role. Race and community were thus central features of Calcutta’s economic life, with a few Scottish firms exercising oligopolistic control over some parts of the business world. The Marwaris were their only significant competitors.

In Bombay, on the other hand, businessmen from many different backgrounds were able to operate on more equal terms. This was not a chance outcome: it was, rather, yet another legacy of the Marathas’ protracted resistance to the British onslaught because of which ‘Western India was conquered by the British at a later stage than Eastern India, thus escaping the period of unabashed exploitation which cost so dearly to indigenous merchants in Bengal’. As a result,

[T]he ethnic and communal diversity of Bombay’s business world was striking: it included merchants belonging to many communities of Gujarat, including the Parsis, the Hindu Vanias and Bhatias, the Muslim Bohras, Khojas and Memons as well as businessmen from other provinces of India (Sind, Marwar), Baghdadi Jews (the different branches of the famous Sassoon family), non-British Europeans (the Swiss firm of Volkarts), Japanese (Toyo Menka Kaisha) and Britishers of various origins. The contrast was clear with the increasingly polarized and oligopolistic world of Calcutta where only two communities mattered: the Scots and the Marwaris.

The fact that the indigenous merchants of Bombay participated directly in the export trade, spending long spells in China, also meant that they had much more exposure to the outside world, so when the explosive growth of the drug trade slowed down towards the end of the nineteenth century, they were able to transition into other industries, like textiles, yarn manufacturing, steel, cement, hotels and so on. ‘British Bombay, unlike Calcutta, was never essentially a colonial city,’ writes Gillian Tindall. ‘The real life of Bombay was always lived in … a more cosmopolitan and egalitarian setting; in warehouses … in counting houses, in places where samples of raw cotton or opium or silk or ivory or inlay-work were passed from hand to hand.’

 (Chapter 10, 'East and West', 'Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey Through Opium's Hidden Histories', 2023, Amitav Ghosh)

So while Bombay prospered, Calcutta’s economy remained quintessentially colonial, structured around racial and communal hierarchies, and dependent on agricultural products like opium, jute and tea, all wrung out of the soil by underpaid and ill-used workers.

These legacies have lived on...."

त्यात ते मराठी व्यापाऱ्यांचा उल्लेख करत नाहीत पण जगन्नाथ शंकरशेठ (१८०३-१८६५)  यांच्या सारखे यशस्वी व्यापारी तर होतेच. 

R K Narayan's The Guide and G A Kulkarni's Swami...आर के नारायण यांच्या गाईड आणि जी ए कुलकर्णी यांच्या स्वामी मधील फरक

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.”..."

 विजय आनंद दिग्दर्शित गाईड चित्रपटात देव आनंद आणि वहिदा रेहमान