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"...The publishers dictate ideas for novels to the writers, supplying them with titles, and in some instances, writing the books themselves. The American custom of seducing one's best friend's wife, and later killing oneself while on a 'spree', out of fear that one is actually in love with one's best friend, is the basic theme most recently insisted upon by the publishers..."
......From 'The American Literary Scene' (a spoof as reported by a visiting British Journalist) by James Thurber
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The problem with me as accused by my friends and relatives is that I have no poetry in my soul which they say is heartless (It never troubled me though). The only poetry I indulge in is limericking which is as much of a poetry as a tadpole is like a hilsa fish.
It is somewhat strange since three of my uncles and a couple of my cousins are published poets in both English and Telugu. And theirs was certainly love poetry. I have nothing against love as such as long as it is down to earth. I mean, I love myself most.
Here I am reminded of a cute witticism of my Russian girl friend and disciple, sort of:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/03/my-fair-russian-lady.html
She would sit by my side on the famed (and creaking) lawn-bench of our Faculty Hostel after the day's lesson and would show off the progress in her spoken English. She would ask me to say:
"I love you"
and when I said it she would pretend to blush all over and retort:
"I...too love...MYSELF"
patting her ample bust and smiling like a villainess.
Anyway, my sea side Village, Muthukur, is about 3 km from the port and beach of Krishnapatnam. During my sojourn there we visited the sea beach at least half a dozen times...mostly to take a ritual dip in the sea on occasions like eclipses and offering holy tarpan to ancestors up there watching with bated breath.
We get up at 4 AM and board a double-bullock cart which takes us to the Buckingham Canal. We then get down and the ladies and gents take the country boat to ferry them across, while us kids are airlifted by the boatmen hanging around for a small fee. And then a short walk would lead to the range of seven sand dunes that looked delightfully like hillocks to us kids...they must be no more than 12 feet high; and roller-coastering on them was the best part of the picnic. And then lo and behold, the vast Bay of Bengal (no escape from Didi) fills our terrified senses by daybreak.
Once however my Father, a subdued poet, took me on a slightly modified picnic on a New Year's Day holiday (there is no winter in our parts except in the early hours of Jan 1st, if you are lucky). He dressed himself in his best white dhoti and white jibba and we proceeded as usual up to the Canal. Here a country boat was waiting for us, not to cross the canal, but to take us two to the Konamal Bungalow (now demolished due to Development). On our way, the Canal widens and deepens and feels like a river, rather.
I was naturally scared to death because the country boat, though boasting of a hood on one side, looked like the 'Pride of Thames' (see the next supplementary blog).
And the boatman smelt of toddy.
That was at daybreak. The boatman rowed us not very 'gently down the stream'. And water was splashing on me who was asked to quietly sit down on the damp floor.
Father however was in a great mood and took his 'seat' under the hood which was no more of any hood than a cobra's thing.
And after snacks, Father conjured up (like one of the pigeons of PC Sorcar) the pocket book of his favorite poetry (sort of a mini-Golden Treasury). I was rather familiar with this bound book because during the three months my mom was away for her sixth delivery he used to read aloud to me the contents of that curious tome and explain to me in rapturous tones the beauty of Tennyson's Poetry, taking care to mention that he was Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate.
And his favorite poems were about King Arthur's Court. I was quite taken in wide-eyed imagery by the Legends of King Arthur like that sword set in stone and pulled off by him, the Camelot, Damsels in Distress, the Holy Grail, the Lady of the Lake, the sword Excalibur and stuff that turns kids' hearts into so many rosogollas.
But when it came to King Arthur's beautiful wife Guinevere and her escapades with the Knight Supreme who went by the romantic name Lancelot, I drew the line...but Father was all for it. I mean, even at that tender age, I could see no sense in killing and dying for the love of one's best friend's wife (see Thurber above).
By 8 AM the sun was no longer mellow and the boatmen lost his wind and took to towing us along. That was the most unromantic spectacle...almost like the Calcutta Rickshawala pulling babu's and their families by the sweat of his brow in monsoon.
But Father, reclining in his white dhoti and jibba never noticed the change of engines...he was so engrossed in the lechery, treachery and misery of the One fishy Love Affair to kill all other love affairs...but Tennyson is tennyson and Father is father forever...
May His Soul Rest in his Camelot!:
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"...The publishers dictate ideas for novels to the writers, supplying them with titles, and in some instances, writing the books themselves. The American custom of seducing one's best friend's wife, and later killing oneself while on a 'spree', out of fear that one is actually in love with one's best friend, is the basic theme most recently insisted upon by the publishers..."
......From 'The American Literary Scene' (a spoof as reported by a visiting British Journalist) by James Thurber
*****************************************************************************************************
The problem with me as accused by my friends and relatives is that I have no poetry in my soul which they say is heartless (It never troubled me though). The only poetry I indulge in is limericking which is as much of a poetry as a tadpole is like a hilsa fish.
It is somewhat strange since three of my uncles and a couple of my cousins are published poets in both English and Telugu. And theirs was certainly love poetry. I have nothing against love as such as long as it is down to earth. I mean, I love myself most.
Here I am reminded of a cute witticism of my Russian girl friend and disciple, sort of:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/03/my-fair-russian-lady.html
She would sit by my side on the famed (and creaking) lawn-bench of our Faculty Hostel after the day's lesson and would show off the progress in her spoken English. She would ask me to say:
"I love you"
and when I said it she would pretend to blush all over and retort:
"I...too love...MYSELF"
patting her ample bust and smiling like a villainess.
Anyway, my sea side Village, Muthukur, is about 3 km from the port and beach of Krishnapatnam. During my sojourn there we visited the sea beach at least half a dozen times...mostly to take a ritual dip in the sea on occasions like eclipses and offering holy tarpan to ancestors up there watching with bated breath.
We get up at 4 AM and board a double-bullock cart which takes us to the Buckingham Canal. We then get down and the ladies and gents take the country boat to ferry them across, while us kids are airlifted by the boatmen hanging around for a small fee. And then a short walk would lead to the range of seven sand dunes that looked delightfully like hillocks to us kids...they must be no more than 12 feet high; and roller-coastering on them was the best part of the picnic. And then lo and behold, the vast Bay of Bengal (no escape from Didi) fills our terrified senses by daybreak.
Once however my Father, a subdued poet, took me on a slightly modified picnic on a New Year's Day holiday (there is no winter in our parts except in the early hours of Jan 1st, if you are lucky). He dressed himself in his best white dhoti and white jibba and we proceeded as usual up to the Canal. Here a country boat was waiting for us, not to cross the canal, but to take us two to the Konamal Bungalow (now demolished due to Development). On our way, the Canal widens and deepens and feels like a river, rather.
I was naturally scared to death because the country boat, though boasting of a hood on one side, looked like the 'Pride of Thames' (see the next supplementary blog).
And the boatman smelt of toddy.
That was at daybreak. The boatman rowed us not very 'gently down the stream'. And water was splashing on me who was asked to quietly sit down on the damp floor.
Father however was in a great mood and took his 'seat' under the hood which was no more of any hood than a cobra's thing.
And after snacks, Father conjured up (like one of the pigeons of PC Sorcar) the pocket book of his favorite poetry (sort of a mini-Golden Treasury). I was rather familiar with this bound book because during the three months my mom was away for her sixth delivery he used to read aloud to me the contents of that curious tome and explain to me in rapturous tones the beauty of Tennyson's Poetry, taking care to mention that he was Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate.
And his favorite poems were about King Arthur's Court. I was quite taken in wide-eyed imagery by the Legends of King Arthur like that sword set in stone and pulled off by him, the Camelot, Damsels in Distress, the Holy Grail, the Lady of the Lake, the sword Excalibur and stuff that turns kids' hearts into so many rosogollas.
But when it came to King Arthur's beautiful wife Guinevere and her escapades with the Knight Supreme who went by the romantic name Lancelot, I drew the line...but Father was all for it. I mean, even at that tender age, I could see no sense in killing and dying for the love of one's best friend's wife (see Thurber above).
By 8 AM the sun was no longer mellow and the boatmen lost his wind and took to towing us along. That was the most unromantic spectacle...almost like the Calcutta Rickshawala pulling babu's and their families by the sweat of his brow in monsoon.
But Father, reclining in his white dhoti and jibba never noticed the change of engines...he was so engrossed in the lechery, treachery and misery of the One fishy Love Affair to kill all other love affairs...but Tennyson is tennyson and Father is father forever...
May His Soul Rest in his Camelot!:
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