Is She J E Millais's "Mariana" or Ray's "Charulata"?

I consider myself lucky that I saw "The pre-Raphaelites at Tate Britain - audio art tour" on Guardian, September 11 2012.

I spent hours going through it.

When I saw following picture, I was reminded of Satyajit Ray's "Charulata", 1964.

Charulata is a "story of a lonely housewife, known as Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee), who lives a wealthy, secluded and idle life in 1870's Calcutta."

("Charulata" has been on this blog before here and here.)

"Mariana" by John Everett Millais (1829 – 1896) dated 1851

"This painting is an allegory of Victorian sexual repression and the longings of women trapped in dreary lives. Mariana is a character from Shakespeare’s 'Measure for Measure', a play that satirises sexual hypocrisy. Millais’ contemporary, the poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson, laments the domestic incarceration of Shakespeare’s character in his poem Mariana, which Millais quoted when he unveiled this painting: "She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, / I would that I were dead!’""

 


"Christian saints in a stained glass window literally obstruct Mariana’s view of the outside world, while an altar lit by a lamp reveals that she is eking out her youth in prayer."

"Desolate autumnal leaves blow through the house. Time is passing, it is late in the season. Life is passing Mariana by."

"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892). Trapped in a sterile existence and melancholy of leaves suggests that well.


'Mariana' Images are courtesy: Tate Photography; Some commentary is courtesy: Guardian
 
"Mariana as she stretches her sensual body is desperately bored in what looks like a 19th-century vicarage. Her pose emphasises her curvaceous hips and slender waist as Millais hymns rebellious desire."

Millais goes for bored Mariana's sexuality, her longing to be a woman in puritanical setting. Without showing us her curves, Ray does something similar to Charu by making her sexually desire Amal, her husband's cousin.

'Charulata' images are courtesy: RDB Productions and Big Home Video

Ray's film is based on   Rabindranath Tagore's  novella "Nastanirh". Did Tagore ever see or hear about Millais's "Mariana"? 

Singapore Fulfills R K Laxman's Vision!

Jeremy Grant wrote in FT on Aug 26 2012:

"A Singapore property developer is targeting the super rich with parking problems by marketing luxury apartments that allow owners to keep their cars next to their living rooms, even if they are on the top floor of the 30-storey block...Singapore, along with Hong Kong, is home to more Maseratis, Ferraris and Lamborghinis per capita than anywhere else in the world..."

On March 6 2009, this is the entry I posted on this blog:

The Times of India March 3, 2009: "Bookings for Nano will start from March 23: Tata Motors has advanced the booking date for its Nano, touted as the world's cheapest car, in India by three weeks,"



Artist: R K Laxman, The Times of India, September 1 2007


Artist: Tom Cheney, The New Yorker, 9 March 2009, Cartoon Caption Contest 183

my caption:

"I told you: our neighbour's drawing room was right above our bedroom."

Evgeny Morozov:

"The Khannas also heap praise on Singapore, “a seamlessly efficient cosmopolitan world capital of finance and, increasingly, innovation.” Alas, they do not explain how Singapore has become so “seamlessly efficient.” Perhaps this quotation from Lee Kuan Yew, its first long-time ruler—conveniently omitted by the Khannas—may shed some light: “Everytime anybody wants to start anything which will unwind or unravel this orderly, organized, sensible, rational society, and make it irrational and emotional, I put a stop to it without hesitation.” The Khannas approvingly note that Singapore is “the leading role model in city-state Technik for entities from Abu Dhabi to Moscow to Kuala Lumpur.” That all three aforementioned cities are situated in despicable authoritarian regimes—which might explain why they look up to Singapore—does not much trouble the Khannas. They recently announced that they are moving to Singapore. Good. The autocratic city and the apologists for autocracy deserve each other."

(The New Republic, "The Naked and the TED", Aug 2 2012)

Wanted for Sedition- Aseem Trivedi in Great Company

Curtis White in Lapham's Quarterly October 2011:

"...When John Murray published the works of Lord Byron in London in the early 19th century, he risked prosecution and jail if the work was found blasphemous or libelous by the powerful. Byron, notoriously, didn’t help things, deliberately writing his poetry out along the razor’s edge of public tolerance, just as he lived his life. In another example, Shelley wrote to his publisher, Thomas Hookham, regarding the appearance of his poem Queen Mab: “If you do not dread the arm of the law, or any exasperation of public opinion against yourself, I wish that it should be printed and published immediately.” Hookham must have had such fears because he refused to publish the atheistic and revolutionary poem (Tory legislation against “blasphemous and seditious” literature was the order of the day). As a consequence, the first edition of the work was self-published in a run of a few hundred copies for distribution among friends. Even so, in 1817, the poem’s radical politics and atheism were used against Shelley in his suit to gain the custody of his children; he lost the suit and never saw them afterwards. In England, still in reactionary posture after the French Revolution and Napoleon, poets and writers like Shelley, Byron, and Leigh Hunt found it safer to flee the country in order to write. They conducted their on-going dialogue with their native land through their brave, nerve-wracked, and sometimes imprisoned publishers..."

The Hindu, September 9 2012:

"Award-winning political cartoonist and anti-corruption and Internet freedom crusader Aseem Trivedi (25) was remanded in police custody till September 16 by a holiday court in Bandra on Sunday. He was arrested on Saturday night on charges of sedition, cybercrime, and insulting the national flag, Parliament and the Constitution through his work..."

"Reward for information leading to the apprehension of --- Jesus Christ Wanted -- for Sedition, Criminal Anarchy - Vagrancy, and Conspiring to Overthrow the Established Government. Dresses poorly, said to be a carpenter by trade, ill-nourished, has visionary ideas, associates with common working people the unemployed and bums. Alien - beleived to be a Jew Alias: 'Prince of Peace, Son of Man'-'Light of the World' etc etc Professional Agitator Red beard, marks on hands and feet the result of injuries inflicted by an angry mob led by respectable citizens and legal authorities."

Artist: Art Young, The Masses, 1917

courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

उंच झोका महादेव गोविंद रानडेंचा M G Ranade's Greatness

लोकमान्य टिळक-"सर्वज्ञः स हि माधवः"

In recent days, I have been recommended, especially by the women, Marathi TV serial "Unch Majha Jhoka" (उंच माझा झोका)...My Swing At High.

The serial is based on the life of the late Ramabai Ranade (रमाबाई रानडे), second wife of the late Mahadev Govind Ranade (महादेव गोविंद रानडे) 1842-1901.

I have tried to watch the serial but have so far been disappointed by it. Thus far there has not been much to it beyond costumes and sets, just like the recent film on the life of Bal Gandharva (बाल गंधर्व).

And even they don't look very authentic.

Most women in the serial have threaded eyebrows, their nine-yards sarees that are worn in kitchen glitter, their Marathi diction sounds very artificial...

My mother's mother, a Chitpavan Brahmin like Ranade family, was borne around the start of the 20th century and I still distinctly remember her diction, gestures, attire...and eyebrows!

But I guess the rest of the Marathi TV serials are perhaps so trashy that people find some solace in "Jhoka".

One good thing the serial does is that it reminds people of Ranade.

Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar (त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर) writes about him in January 1957:

"सरकारी नोकर असूनहि राजकारणी; यूरोपीय सुधारणेचे अभ्यासू चाहते असूनहि हिन्दी संस्कृतीचे अभिमानी; प्रार्थनासमाजाचे सभासद असूनहि यात्रा करण्याइतके श्रद्धाळू; सुधारकांचे अग्रणी असूनहि वडिलांची मोहबत ठेवणारे सुपुत्र; ब्राह्मणी संस्कृतीत वाढलेले असूनहि धन्देउद्योगात लक्ष घालणारे; गाढ विषयात बुडून गेलेले असूनहि गावातील सभासंमेलने, व्याख्याने, वक्तृत्वाच्या चढाओढी, यातहि हुरुपाने न चुकता भाग घेणारे; असे रानडे हे तत्कालीन समाजाचे स्वयंभू पुढारी बनले तर त्यात आश्चर्य कसले?"

("Politician despite being a bureaucrat; proud of Indian culture despite being a studious buff of European reforms; a faithful pilgrim despite being a member of Prarthana Samaj; loving son of his father despite being a leader of reformers; taker of keen interest in commerce despite being raised in a priestly culture; an enthusiastic participant in local debates, lectures and elocution competitions despite being a scholar; was it then any surprise that such Ranade became a self-made leader of the then society?")

Shejwalkar concludes:

"समाजसुधारणेच्या ऐवजी सुखवस्तुपणा, रामदासांनीहि प्रशंसिलेल्या नेमस्तपणाऐवजी संकुचित मध्यमवर्गीय भावना, राजकीय ध्येयवादाऐवजी संधिसाधूपणा, विश्वबंधुत्वाऐवजी क्षुद्र जातीयता, इत्यादि दुर्गुणांचा बुजबुजाट महाराष्ट्रात द्रुष्टोत्पत्तीस येतो. अशा वेळी रानड्यांच्या लिखाणाचे पुन्हा एकवार वाचन व त्यांच्या चरित्राचे मनन हितकारक ठरावे अशी अपेक्षा आहे."

("indulgence instead of social reforms; narrow middle-class sentiments instead of moderation praised even by Ramdas; opportunism instead of political idealism, petty casteism instead of global brotherhood, such vices are seen to be thriving in Maharashtra. During such times rereading of Ranade's writings and rumination on his life are expected to be beneficial.")

But the real eye opener on Ranade was recently reading Dr. B R Ambedkar's (भी रा आंबेडकर)- himself the greatest Indian of 20th century for me- speech that was delivered on January 18 1943 at Gokhale Memorial Hall, Poona.

I was stunned by Ambedkar's intellect and learnt why indeed Ranade is considered great.

"...He was not only big in his physique and in his sincerity. he was also big in intellect. Nobody can question that Ranade had intellect of a high calibre. He was not merely a lawyer and a judge of the High Court, he was a first class economist, a first class historian a first class educationist and a first class divine...

...Indeed it would be difficult to find in the history of India any man who could come up to Ranade in the width of his learning, the breadth of his wisdom and the length of his vision. There was no subject which he did not touch and in which he did not acquire profundity. His reading was on the scale of the colossal and every inch he was a scholar. He was great not merely by the standard of his Time, but he was great measured by any standard. As I have said no claim for being a great man can rest on the foundation of sincerity and intellect either singly or in combination. Ranade could not be called great if he had these two qualities and no more. His title to being a great man must rest upon the social purposes he served and on the way he served them. On that there can be no doubt. Ranade is known more as a social reformer than as a historian, economist or educationist. His whole life is nothing but a relentless campaign for social reform. It is on his role as a social reformer that this title to being a great man rests...

...His path as a reformer was not smooth. It was blocked from many sides. The
sentiments of the people whom he wanted to reform were deeply rooted in the ancient past. They held the belief that their ancestors were the wisest and the noblest of men, and the social system which they had devised was of the most ideal character. What appeared to Ranade to be the shames and wrongs of the Hindu society were to them the most sacred injunctions of their religion. This was the attitude of the common man. The intelligentsia. was divided into two schools—-a school which was orthodox in its belief but unpolitical in its outlook, and a school which was modem in its beliefs but primarily political in its aims and objects. The former was led by Mr. Chiplunkar and the latter by Mr. Tilak. Both combined against Ranade and created as many difficulties for him as they could. They not only did the greatest harm to the cause of social reform, but as experience shows they have done the greatest harm to the cause of political reform in India...

...Ranade's aim was to cleanse the old order if not to build a new one. He insisted on improving the moral tone of Hindu society. If he had been heard and followed, the system would have at least lost its rigours and its rigidity. If it could not have avoided Communal settlement it would have made it easy. For his attempts, limited as they were, would have opened the way to mutual trust. But the politicals had developed a passion for political power which had so completely blinded them that they refused to see virtue in anything else. Ranade has had his revenge. Is not the grant of political safeguard a penalty for denying the necessity of social reform ? How much did Ranade achieve in the field in which he played so dominant a part ? In a certain sense the question is not very important. Achievement is never the true measure of greatness..."

Ambedkar then goes on to compare Ranade to Gandhi and Jinnah:

"...Who are the present day politicians with whom Ranade is to be compared ? Ranade was a great politician of his day. He must therefore be compared with the greatest of today. We have on the horizon of India two great men, so big that they could be identified without being named—Gandhi and Jinnah. What sort of a history they will make may be a matter for posterity to tell. For us it is enough that they do indisputably make headlines for the Press. They hold leading strings. One leads the Hindus, the other leads the Muslims. They are the idols and heroes of the hour. I propose to compare them with Ranade. How do they compare with Ranade ? It is necessary to make some observations upon their temperaments and methods with which they have now familiarized us. I can give only my impressions of them, for what they are worth. The first thing that strikes me is that it would be difficult to find two persons who would rival them for their colossal egotism, to whom personal ascendancy is everything and the cause of the country a mere counter on the table. They have made Indian politics a matter of personal feud. Consequences have no terror for them ; indeed they do not occur to them until they happen. When they do happen they either forget the cause, or if they remember it, they overlook it with a complacency which saves them from any remorse. They choose to stand on a pedestal of splendid isolation. They wall themselves off from their equals. They prefer to open themselves to their inferiors. They are very unhappy at and impatient of criticism, but are very happy to be fawned upon by flunkeys. Both have developed a wonderful stagecraft and arrange things in such a way that they are always in the limelight wherever they go. Each of course claims to be supreme. If supremacy was their only claim, it would be a small wonder. In addition to supremacy each claims infallibility for himself...

...Politics in the hands of these two great men have become a competition in extravaganza. If Mr. Gandhi is known as Mahatma, Mr. Jinnah must be known as Qaidi-Azim. If Gandhi has the Congress, Mr. Jinnah must have the Muslim League. If the Congress has a Working Committee and the All-India Congress Committee, the Muslim League must have its Working Committee and its Council. The session of the Congress must be followed by a session of the League. It the Congress issues a statement the League must also follow suit. If the Congress passes a Resolution of 17,000 words, the Muslim League's Resolution must exceed it by at least a thousand words. If the Congress President has a Press Conference, the Muslim League President must have his. If the Congress must address an appeal to the United Nations, the Muslim League must not allow itself to be outbidden. When is all this to end? When is there to be a settlement? There are no near prospects. They will not meet, except on preposterous conditions. Jinnah insists that Gandhi should admit that he is a Hindu. Gandhi insists that Jinnah should admit that he is one of the leaders of the Muslims. Never has there been such a deplorable state of bankruptcy of statesmanship as one sees in these two leaders of India. They are making long and interminable speeches, like lawyers whose trade it is to contest everything, concede nothing and talk by the hour. Suggest anything by way of solution for the deadlock to either of them, and it is met by an everlasting "Nay ". Neither will consider a solution of the problems which is not eternal. Between them Indian politics has become "frozen" to use a well-known Banking phrase and no political action is possible.

How does Ranade strike as compared to these two ? I have no personal impression to give. But reading what others have said I think I can say what he must have been like. He had not a tinge of egotism in him. His intellectual attainments could have justified any amount of pride, nay even insolence. But he was the most modest of men. Serious youths were captivated by his learning and geniality. Many, feeling completely under his sway, responded to his ennobling influence and moulded their whole lives with the passionate reverence for their adored master. He refused to be satisfied with the praises of fools, and was never afraid of moving in the company of equals and of the give and take it involves. He never claimed to be a mystic relying on the inner voice. He was a rationalist prepared to have his views tested in the light of reason and experience. His greatness was natural. He needed no aid of the stage nor the technique of an assumed eccentricity nor the means of a subsidized press. As I said, Ranade was principally a social reformer. He was not a politician in the sense of one who trades in politics. But he has played an important part in the political advancement of India. To some of the politicians he acted as the teacher who secured such signal successes and who dazzled their critics by their brilliance. To some he acted as the guide, but to all he acted as the philosopher..."

He was not only big in his physique...Ranade statue standing at Churchgate, Mumbai

courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, 17 February 1968

Ranade's greatness > Gandhi's greatness and Jinnah's greatness put together?

Is Toska = 'Zapurza' (झपुर्झा)?

Today I read here about word Toska.

Vladimir Nabokov, cited in A Field Guide to Melancholy by Jacky Bowring:

"Toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ - Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.

No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."

Is there a single Marathi word for this?

Probably yes, Keshavsut (केशवसुत) invented word : Zapurza (झपुर्झा) from his poem of the same title:

"
हर्षखेद ते मावळते,
हास्य निवालें
अश्रु पळाले;
कण्टकशल्यें बोंथटलीं,
मखमालीची लव वठली;
कांही न दिसे दृष्टीला,
प्रकाश गेला,
तिमिर हरपला;
काय म्हणावें या स्थितिला ?-
झपूर्झा ! गडे झपूर्झा ! १

हर्षशोक हे ज्यां सगळें,
त्यां काय कळे ?
त्यां काय वळे ?
हंसतिल जरि ते आम्हांला,
भय न धरुं हें वदण्याला :-
व्यर्थीं अधिकची अर्थ वसे,
तो त्यांस दिसे,
ज्यां म्हणति पिसे,
त्या अर्थाचे बोल कसे?-
झपूर्झा ! गडे झपूर्झा ! २
..."

(मुंबई, २ जुलै १८९३)

(करमणूक, २९ जुलै १८९३, पृ. ३१६)

courtesy this excellent website dedicated to Keshavsut.

Sadhana: Now that’s a woman. But did God Create Her with Special Care?

Today Sept 2 2012 is 71st Birthday of Sadhana Shivdasani

Stephen Marche:

"Strange gods reveal themselves in beautiful shapes, appear eternal and untouchable for the brief terms of their on-sale dates, and then vanish as swiftly as they came, generating constantly new and immediate responses to the slightest flutter of need in the public consciousness."

Shiv Visvanathan, Jan 12 2010:

"Time is a trickster, it plays pranks on you. All it needs to do is to thicken your skin, bloat your body into a puffball, and your sense of self disappears under a backstage of cosmetics.

Even Bollywood with all its magic often fails to defeat time. Icons of yesterday often fail even in terms of nostalgia. Who remembers Ranjan or Padmini or Ragini in the new generation, or even Nadira? Dev Anand appears a sad imitation of himself. Sadhana disappears seeking the aura of a Garbo-like recluse and all she receives is indifference..."

from : Rajkumar, 1964 Director: K Shankar

As a kid, watching Sadhana in 'Geeta Mera Naam', 1974, after watching her in 'Rajkumar', was learning little more about heartless, witless nature. What could happen to you in just 10 years...

Khalid Mohamed writes in his memorable essay on Raj Khosla (The Asian Age, Oct 15 2011):

"...Aware that I wasn’t getting my “serious, analytical” interview, I rounded off with film-related questions. He (Raj Khosla) answered them, too, getting particularly sentimental about Sadhana. “Now that’s a woman. God must have created her with special care,” he sighed. The woman smiled, “Raj-ji… he’s mad about his heroines, falls in love with all of them.” Not surprisingly, his women characters were infallibly steel strong. He wept a bit, then, recalling the memory of his mother..."

And then one saw her in 2010.

Sadhana (on the left) in Sept 2010

Photo courtesy: PTI

The Times of India, December 25 2010:

"Mystery surrounds the 'death' of yesteryear actress Nalini Jaywant who, neighbours say, passed away three days ago in tragically lonely circumstances at her bungalow in Chembur. Her relatives and those she had once worked with in the film industry were all unaware of the passing of the star who scaled the heights of fame in the 1940s and '50s but had turned into a complete recluse for the last many years.

Jaywant's neighbour Ajay Kapoor told TOI that the security and domestic staff in the colony saw the body being taken away in an ambulance on Tuesday. "However, by the time we got to know about it, it was all over," he says. "We heard from our staff that a man, who claimed to be a distant relative , came and took the body away. The house is locked and in complete darkness for the past three days, the servants have gone, and Naliniji's pet dogs are on the streets. We neighbours have been taking care of them."..."

Do I Feel Cheated 43 Years Later in August 2012?

Martin Wolf, FT, October 2 2012

"What we are now living through is an intense, but narrow, set of innovations in one important area of technology. Does it matter? Yes. We can, after all, see that a decade or two from now every human being will have access to all of the world’s information. But the view that overall innovation is now slower than a century ago is compelling."

J G Ballard:

"The only truly alien planet is Earth."

John Horgan:

"...How can we justify costly missions in space when so many people here on earth lack adequate health care, housing, education and other necessities? Given all our terrestrial troubles, our infatuation with space seems more than ever like escapism..."

(Scientific American, August 26 2012)

If you pay attention to the dialogues of Hindi/ Marathi films from 1960's, you often hear about the prospect of man going to the moon.

I guess it started with US President John F. Kennedy's- who was quite ubiquitous even in India- speech dated May 25, 1961 :

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

After July 20, 1969, the dialogue changed to man's historic achievement..."We have gone to the moon...what next" etc.

For instance, a line in this Rajesh Khanna/Kishore Kumar/Laxmikant-Pyarelal/Anand Bakshi song from 'Aan Milo Sajna', 1970 reads:

"teri nazar to chaand taaron pe aaj hai" (your sight today is on the moon and the stars.)

courtesy: Shemaroo

Last 43 years have been a kind of letdown.

David Graeber writes in "The Baffler" No. 19

"A secret question hovers over us, a sense of disappointment, a broken promise we were given as children about what our adult world was supposed to be like. I am referring not to the standard false promises that children are always given (about how the world is fair, or how those who work hard shall be rewarded), but to a particular generational promise—given to those who were children in the fifties, sixties, seventies, or eighties—one that was never quite articulated as a promise but rather as a set of assumptions about what our adult world would be like. And since it was never quite promised, now that it has failed to come true, we’re left confused: indignant, but at the same time, embarrassed at our own indignation, ashamed we were ever so silly to believe our elders to begin with.

Where, in short, are the flying cars? Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now? Even those inventions that seemed ready to emerge—like cloning or cryogenics—ended up betraying their lofty promises. What happened to them?

We are well informed of the wonders of computers, as if this is some sort of unanticipated compensation, but, in fact, we haven’t moved even computing to the point of progress that people in the fifties expected we’d have reached by now. We don’t have computers we can have an interesting conversation with, or robots that can walk our dogs or take our clothes to the Laundromat.

As someone who was eight years old at the time of the Apollo moon landing, I remember calculating that I would be thirty-nine in the magic year 2000 and wondering what the world would be like. Did I expect I would be living in such a world of wonders? Of course. Everyone did. Do I feel cheated now? It seemed unlikely that I’d live to see all the things I was reading about in science fiction, but it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t see any of them."

Artist: Mark S Fisher

What about the future as we see it today...where are we going?

ADAM FRANK:

"Short of a scientific miracle of the kind that has never occurred, our future history for millenniums will be played out on Earth and in the “near space” environment of the other seven planets, their moons and the asteroids in between. For all our flights of imagination, we have yet to absorb this reality. Like it or not, we are probably trapped in our solar system for a long, long time. We had better start coming to terms with what that means for the human future...

...The truth is we propel ourselves into space using much the same physics as the Chinese played with when they discovered what we came to call gunpowder more than 1,400 years ago. Blowing stuff up under us is just about the only way we know how to travel through the void.

But what we’ve learned in doing so brings me, as an adult and as an astrophysicist, to the hardest and most inconvenient truth of all। While our children’s children’s great-grandchildren will live with ever more powerful technology, they will also live ever more intimately with ever more billions of others in this, our corner of the cosmos. Looking back and forward, my bets are now on that same human genius, ambition and hope to rise to the occasion. We will have no other choice. There will be nowhere else to go for a very long time."

(The New York Times, 24 Jul 2012)

But why should we despair?

Taking in droplets of water, poet B S Mardhekar (बा सी मर्ढेकर) stood on the banks of the majestic Ganges in Patna, Bihar and told his God:

"असशील जेथे तिथे रहा तू,
हा इथला मज पुरे फवारा !"

(You stay where you are,
for me sprinkling here will do !)

I am content with the light reaching me from the moon and the stars.

Our Neil following our Rajesh is Dead

I do not remember any foreign name- other than possibly Pele, Bradman and Sobers- who became as much a household name in India as Neil Armstrong since India's independence in 1947.

As you will see below, there were two people who made India's 1969 their own. Rajesh Khanna, who was a superstar and Mr. Armstrong who reached the moon. Both are now no more.

Here is recycling my post dated July 20 2009:

For a nine year old, 1969 was: Hindi movies:Talash (particularly its promos of scantily dressed dancers in champagne glasses from page 2 of Maharashtra Times), Waris, Anjaana, Shatranj, Ansoo Ban Gaye Phool, Ek Phool Do Maali, Do Raaste and Aradhana; passing away of P K Atre and Dr. Zakir Husain; Gandhi Centenary (so many mandatory, boring cultural programs in Gandhi's memory at school).

And cricket.

India lost the Nagpur test match to New Zealand in October.

It was a national calamity. There were rumours that our cricketers were too drunk to walk on cricket field on the last day October 8. Another rumour was that M A K Pataudi, India's captain, was too busy wooing Sharmila Tagore to concentrate on his cricket.

This loss was more than redeemed by beating strong Australian side in December.

Now I understand even following events happened in the same year: India's first credit card Diners card was introduced, the first Indian-built Centaur rocket was successfully tested, Dadasaheb Phalke award was instituted. ("The Indian Millennium AD 1000-2000" by Gopa Sabharwal, 2000)

I don't remember July 20, 1969 but it changed the scene. They say: For a very brief moment during the 1960s, America was moonstruck.

So was India.

Moon, Apollo spacecraft and its crew- Neil Armstrong, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, Michael Collins were every where.

Many forts children built in Maharashtra during Diwali festival had the theme of Apollo mission. Ganesh festival pandals exhibited moon landing scenes.

Cartoons, jokes, films, plays, literature -popular culture as a whole- started referring to the landing. Mr. Armstrong became as popular as Rajesh Khanna!

No NRI complained why Gayatri Mantra was not chanted on the moon when it was reported that Buzz Aldrin gave thanks to God by the taking of the Holy Communion on the moon.

There was a sense of urgency to dump the old practices, now that we had reached the moon.

Some experts in India predicted that faith in astrology would wane because moon, which plays such an important part in a horoscope, was now soiled by a mortal man.

Nothing like that ever happened. Astrology remains more popular in India today than ever before. For some prominent scientists(?), astrology and vastu-shastra have become branches of science!

I personally like the moon mission because it eventually gave birth to Buzz, a co-hero of Toy Story films.



Paul Krugman says:

"...Indeed, manned space flight in general has turned out to be a bust.

The key word here is "manned." Space flight has been a huge boon to mankind. It has advanced the cause of science: for example, cosmology, and with it our understanding of basic physics, has made huge strides through space-based observation. Space flight has also done a lot to improve life here on Earth, as space-based systems help us track storms, communicate with one another, even find out where we are...

...Yet almost all the payoff from space travel, scientific and practical, has come from unmanned vehicles and satellites..." (NYT, February 4, 2003)

In 2007, Gerard DeGroot wrote a book “Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest”

"...DeGroot came to share the view of many people today, that Apollo was 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..." (Clive Cookson, FT, March 9 2007)

"...In fact, it turned out the Russians were far behind the US in space expertise, a fact Kennedy only discovered in office. It was too late by then and the space monster he had unleashed began devouring money faster than any other federal programme. Kennedy might have stopped the rot, says DeGroot, but was assassinated. After that, 'the space programme became a homage to Kennedy and, as such, untouchable'

The US lunar quest was, therefore, 'an immensely expensive distraction of little scientific or culture worth', a grand futility from which the US space agency Nasa has never recovered. It is hard to disagree with this assessment.

DeGroot, a sharp and witty writer, has prepared his case assiduously, though for my taste he overstates it badly, wilfully ignoring the romance and chutzpah of what was, after all, the 20th-century's crowning human achievement..." (Robin McKie, The Observer, 3 February 2008)

"...But Dark Side of the Moon underestimates many positive aspects of Apollo. One was the psychological impetus given to the embryonic environmental movement by seeing our fragile blue-and-white planet from the moon. And Apollo gave a huge long-term boost to scientific innovation by inspiring a generation of schoolchildren to study science and technology. Their enthusiasm did not wane when the moon landings ended, and in subsequent decades many became high-tech innovators and entrepreneurs..." (Clive Cookson)



"What's happening to us, John? People will soon be going to the moon, and we don't even seem to get out of the house any more."

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

Punishments on the Most Exorbitant Scale

George Santayana:

“The first things which a man learns to distinguish and repeat are things with a will of their own, things which resist his casual demands; and so the first sentiment with which he confronts reality is a certain animosity, which becomes cruelty toward the weak, and fear and fawning before the powerful. ... It is pathetic to observe how lowly are the motives that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity, and from what a hard-pressed and bitter existence they have been drawn. To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously these have been thought points of honor with the gods, for which they would dispense favors and punishments on the most exorbitant scale.”

John Gray:

"In reality, the threat of barbarism comes from within civilisation itself. This is not to endorse the Romantic myth of the noble savage. " Primitive" peoples are just as prone to cruelty and folly as the rest of humankind, and human history is not - as Rousseau taught - a long decline from original innocence. The distinction between civilisation and barbarism does not mark some societies off from others. It runs through all societies and through every human being. Violence and madness are never far beneath the surface, and when they break through it is often in savagery that is sanctioned by authority."

Photo Credit: PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/GettyImages

"Nepalese men hold on to a goat during an ancient annual Hindu festival ritual in Khokana village on the outskirts of Kathmandu, on August 4, 2012. In the ritual, a sacrificial female baby goat is thrown into a pond as local men in teams from localities compete to kill it, with the belief that whoever takes the prize will have a prosperous year ahead. Animal rights activists have been protesting against the cruelty of the festival despite the Nepalese government providing a small amount for the organisation of the festivities."

For more pictures in the series, visit http://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/nepalese-men-hold-on-to-a-goat-during-an-ancient-annual-news-photo/149801247

No 1 Olympic Sport that won't get a Gold Medal

THEODORE DALRYMPLE:

"India alone values the Games at their true worth—which is to say, approaching nil. It is not that Indians are completely indifferent to sports. They are crazy about cricket, a game whose considerable subtleties are lost on all who did not grow up with it but which teaches mental flexibility as well as specific skills. But no official encouragement is necessary to promote this enthusiasm...For reasons that I am unable to fathom, for no person is less interested in sports than I, the United Nations Development Program regularly sends me updates on its efforts to promote economic and social progress through athletics. India, I am glad to say, does not believe in this nonsense." (WSJ, August 17 2012)

Business Standard, Aug 13 2012:

"The fact is that if you are a poor or hot country, you don’t do well in Olympic contests. And if you are both poor and hot, the dice are really loaded against you."

(sounds like Jared Diamond)

I often watch Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV channels. They are much better than any of India's news channel. They often reflect what is going on in this country.

By watching them, I have developed some respect for a few MP's and the processes governing India's democracy.

One member of the Lok Sabha I love to watch is Sharad Yadav. I have always followed Mr. Yadav's career since the emergency.

In my eyes he is deeply rooted in India's soil, is incorruptible, has high integrity , is a good orator in Hindi and, most importantly, gets elected.

This is what he said, in Hindi, on August 8 2012 on the floor of the house:


courtesy: http://loksabha.nic.in/

Mr. Yadav is expressing his concern on the exploding population of India and how India is not doing anything about it.

He also spoke about similar worries for Bangladesh. Today it is the most densely populated large country in the world. I wonder if illegal migration of Bangladeshi's into Assam can ever be stopped if its population keeps growing at the current rate.

As soon as I heard this, I thought about the article in the Guardian newspaper about 150,000 unbranded condoms that were made available at London 2012 Olympic village.

courtesy: Getty and Guardian

The Guardian story mentions sex as "no 1 Olympic sport that won't get a gold medal".

Is that the reason India and Bangladesh have not won a single gold medal at the Olympics? After all their favourite sport- played without condoms by majority of their citizens- wins no medals.

Apparently, if you are poor and hot, the dice are really loaded in favour of you in that sport!