a star to stay our minds on- Chekov

Vijay Padalkar- scholar of Chekov's work and author of much acclaimed Marathi book 'kavadase pakadanaara kalaavant' - tells me:
'
Robert Frost wrote in one of his poems;

"We may choose something like a star/To stay our minds on and be staid"

I have chosen Chekov.'

He is not alone.

Artist : Sidney Harris Publication: The New Yorker 8 April 1985

Recurring Drone

For last several years, middle class Maharashtrian family functions tend to have following topics for discussion:

1. I or some-one-I-know is going to US to attend to a child birth
2. My or some-one-I-know’s son / daughter is coming to India from US/Europe/ Middle-east/ Far East on a vacation
3. I or some-one-I-know is buying a new car / house / plot of land..
4. Value of my or some-one-I-know’s real estate/ stocks has doubled in last 12 months.
5. Traffic jams / Restaurant food
6. One day Cricket
7. the latest SRK / Amitabh Bachhan starrer / TV sitcom
8. salary of mine or some-one-I-know
9. practice of religion / horoscope, moon signs
10. sloganeering: “with pride I say I am an Indian / Hindu / Marathi / Brahmin / Maratha etc.”



Artist : Bruce Erik Kaplan The Publication: The New yorker 17 Jan 1994

Gold coins don’t make an age golden

D D Kosambi: "Gold coins don’t make an age golden"

Artist : Richard Decker Publication: The New Yorker 27 June 1959

Where do you suppose Bhau Padhye learned such terrible words?

“SACRED GAMES” of Vikram Chandra has received a lot of praise across the world.

Donald Morrison in his review for FT on Sept 29, 2006 says:

’……… the real star of Sacred Games is Mumbai, described with the fond precision of Joyce’s Dublin - from Colaba to Bandra, gang-ridden Dongri to graceful Marine Drive….

Chandra gets the sounds and smells, as well as Mumbai’s mix of smugness and longing, rural atavism and mobile-phone modernity, filmi (film music) glitz and gangster strut. He also evokes the close links between those last two realms, in an almost painfully hilarious account of Gaitonde’s attempt to produce a Bollywood movie.

For added authenticity, Chandra sprinkles the pages with enough Hindi, Urdu and Marathi to fill a dictionary. It helps to know your blenchods from your maderchods, your lakhs from your crores. He never offers translations - or italics - yet clarity prevails. When one of Gaitonde’s girlfriends says: “Give a boy a ghoda, doesn’t make him smart. Just makes him a chutya with a gun,” you get the picture.’

In Bhau Padhye, Mumbai had her best chronicler of all time.

Marathi speaking people often say- in day to day life they speak Tukaram’s (17th century saint-poet) Marathi. Similarly, a lot of Bambaiyya Hindi / Marathi is deeply influenced by Bhau Padhye’s Marathi. Or is it the other way round?!

Literary stalwarts like Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत, Vijay Tendulkar, Bhalchandra Nemade and Dilip Chitre have all called Bhau Padhye world-class artist. Quite rightly so.

Unfortunately, Bhau’s royalty income from his entire life’s work would never equal even a fraction of Chandra’s advance (US$ 1 million) for this single book!






Artist: Helen E. Hokinson The New Yorker 9 June 1945

Not to do with sex but snoring!

In Marathi world, snoring is not made as much fun of as it deserves. It is perhaps because far more men are victims of it than women.

I have been snoring, I think pretty horribly, for many years now. Luckily for our marriage and our budget (as explained later), my wife sleeps like a log and only the noise of my nose blowing, next only to a bad dream, can wake her up.

TRACIE ROZHON in her article “To Have, Hold and Cherish, Until Bedtime” (NYT March 11, 2007) says:

“Not since the Victorian age of starched sheets and starchy manners, builders and architects say, have there been so many orders for separate bedrooms. Or separate sleeping nooks. Or his-and-her wings.
In interviews, couples and sociologists say that often it has nothing to do with sex. More likely, it has to do with snoring. Or with children crying. Or with getting up and heading for the gym at 5:30 in the morning. Or with sending e-mail messages until well after midnight.”

Lady in the picture is surely on her way to order her own bedroom.

Artist : Dana Fradon Publication: The New Yorker 4 March 1985

In picture below, Mrs. Booth did not cure anything. Booths moved into a larger house with separate bedrooms!

Lucky me!

Artist : Helen E Hokinson Publication: The New Yorker 9 May 1936

Dark Side of the Moon

In Marathi, I hear cartoons are increasingly being referred as हास्यचित्रे “Hasyachitre”. But cartoons are not necessarily about a laugh (हास्य) or a smile or even a chuckle.

Following cartoon made me cry. Tragedy of aging.


Artist : Richard Decker Publication: The New Yorker 19 April 1958

By the way moon travel itself has come under a lot of flack of late.

I remember post 1969, moon travel was every where. ‘Forts’ children make in Maharashtra during Diwali used to have themes of Apollo mission. Ganesh festival pandals exhibited moon landing ‘scenes’. Neil Armstrong for few years was as popular as Rajesh Khanna. Experts predicted that faith in astrology would come down because moon- who plays such an important part in one’s horoscope- was soiled by a mortal man.

Resurgent Hindu and Muslim fundamentalisms were few years away. Hence, no one talked about Buzz Aldrin performing the ritual of Holy Communion on the surface of the moon.

Gerard DeGroot author of “Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest” calls moon missions “ A $35bn ego trip - an outrageous waste of money that should have been spent addressing problems on Earth. For him, Neil Armstrong’s “small step” on to the moon achieved nothing for mankind beyond a brief burst of media-generated euphoria. Its main purpose, to beat the Russians in the race to the moon, had been achieved. The astronauts were paid off and space travel gave way to other fads.”

“DeGroot, a fine writer with a real flair for storytelling, has fun with Nasa’s extravagance and its tendency to look for complex solutions where simple ones would do. For example, the agency developed a pen that would write in zero gravity - an invention that is still marketed to gadget enthusiasts. The Russians made do with pencils. And he demolishes the commonly accepted idea that Teflon and Velcro were spin-offs of the space race."

Inflation

Inflation once again has become hot. It is on TV! TV screen does not like old and poor people but likes the reason which wories them most- Inflation!

In India, from ages, we have weighed our royalty- both borne and elected- using various things. (It is interesting to note that renowned Marathi-Farsi poet Madhav Julian माधव जूलियन् was weighed in footwears just after his birth because he would not stop crying - "Aamchi Akra Varshe" by Leelabai Patwardhan)

Inflation seems to have affected even that practice!


Artist : James Stevenson Publication: The New Yorker 7 Nov 1964

And how are we middle class people coping with it when even our neighbourhood shopkeeper is so scared……..

Artist: Barney Tobey Publication: The New Yorker 28-8-48

Nothing except facts

I am not perfect , I never was, I never will be in anything I do , have done or will do.

Let me please belong!

Artist :James Thurber Publication: The New Yorker 12 Dec 1936

To help corporations find their soul ?

Adman Bruce Barton in 1923 said that the role of advertising was to help corporations find their soul.

"I like to think of advertising as something big, something splendid, something which goes deep down into an institution and gets hold of the soul of it. . . . Institutions have souls, just as men and nations have souls,"

Artist : Frank Modell Publication: The New Yorker 5 Nov 1960

What is ‘meaning’?

What is the real meaning of life? What is my purpose?.........

Mario Pisani reveiwed the book "THE MEANING OF LIFE by Terry Eagleton" for FT on March 2, 2007।

It has these lines : " I decided to put the book’s analytical framework to the test। I identified three people with very different perspectives on life, and asked them what it meant to them।

A British friend, a member of the international policy-making elite, answered with a dry “it means nothing.” A German colleague said something along the lines of “to be happy.” My Turkish corner-shop-keeper answered “What is ‘meaning’?”

It looks like Eagleton got it right, after all."

Artist: Lee Lorenz Publication: The New Yorker 10 Dec 1960