पंत’साहित्य

बाबरी मशीद चा निकाल म्हणता म्हणता येउन ठेपलाय. भरपूर ठिकाणी लोकांना निर्णयाबद्दल कुतूहल आहे. हिंदूचे चुकले कि मुस्लिमांचे, कोणाची बाजू नक्की खरी वगैरे; वादविवाद म्हणा किंवा चर्चा म्हणा त्या ऐकू येत आहेत. एकंदरीत १९९२ चे मुंबई bomb blasts, त्यानंतर एकामागून एक घडलेल्या अनेक तश्याच घटना म्हणजे गोधरा, गुजराथ दंगल, सतत उसळणारं मालेगाव - घडत राहिल्या आणि लोकांना त्याची सवय ही होत गेली. २६ नव्हेंबर इथे मुंबई पुन्हा एकदा याच वादातून पोळली गेली. एवढा सगळं होऊन सुद्धा काही लोकांची खुमखुमी काही जात नाहीए . मुळात त्यांना ही गोष्ट जाणवत कशी नाही कि तेच आपल्या हाताने स्वत: चे आयुष्य insecure बनवत आहेत. आज ते वाचले तर उद्या त्यांच्याच पुढल्या पिढीच्या जीवाला विरुद्ध  बाजूने धोका राहणारच आहे.    २७ तारखेची याचिका फेटाळली गेली, आणि दोन्ही बाजूंकडून खुलासे देण्यात आले की कोर्टाचा निर्णय सर्वमान्य असेल. तेव्हा एक गोष्ट डोक्यात आली - की कोर्टाने असा निर्णय दिला तर? वादग्रस्त जमिनीवर रामलल्ला, निर्मोही आखाडा आणि मुस्लीम अत्युच्च संस्था वक्फ या तिघांचाही भारतीय म्हणून हक्क आह...

Disclaimer - All characters depicted below are fully imaginary and any resemblance to living or dead is purely coincidental.     Charaters Mr. Vasant Kale - age 57 - working manager in PWD Mr. Yogesh Vasanta Kale - age 30 - Design Engineer Mrs. Devayani Yogesh Kale - age 26 - Housewife Mr. Gajanan Deshmukh & Mr. Russell  Scene 1  (8 years back) Yogesh: Father I am officially an engineer now! Got first class!  Vasant: (proudly) - I just can’t believe myself that my kid has grown up so much. This is a different feeling of satisfaction. I sometimes think as if its yesterday when you used to show me your report card. You made it my boy even when I couldn't offer you the best of facilities....I know it was not easy for you as well. My clerical government job in PWD seemed not enough to balance home finances . . but yes . . one thing is there, we never felt morally dented. We all kept walking and now I know that I subcauntiously waited for this day s...

काही दिवसांपूर्वी गीतारहस्य चे अवलोकन वाचत होतो .... अचानक का कुणास ठाउक एक गोष्ट जाणवली. सर्वसामान्य माणसाला विष्णूच्या दशावतारांपैकी रामाच्या अवताराचे अनुकरण करणे म्हणजेच - मर्यादा पुरुषोत्तम, संयमी, एक पत्नीव्रत, दुरितांचा नाश, कुटुंबवत्सल वगैरे गुण अवलंबणे हे जरूर शक्य आहे आणि म्हणाला तर सोपेही आहे. पण अशीच बुद्धी कुणाला कृष्णाचे अनुकरण करायची झाली तर तर ते अनुकरण ' आदर्शवादी' म्हणून accept होईल का हा प्रश्न पडला. निष्कर्ष एवढाच काढला आहे की . . कृष्णा सारखे कुणी वागायला लागले तर त्या व्यक्तीला आजचा white collar समाज आदर्श नक्कीच मानणार नाही  पण लोकांच्या हातचा मार जरूर खाईल .  भगवद्गीता भगवान श्रीकृष्णा प्रमाणेच अगम्य आहे . . . त्यामुळे त्यावर लाखो टीका लिहिल्या गेल्या, अजूनही नव-नवीन लेख छापले जात आहेत. थोडक्यात bluntly सांगायचं तर mostly स्वत:ची विद्वत्ता सिद्ध करण्यासाठी म्हणून दुर्दैवाने गीतेचा आधार घेतला गेला . याच कारण, त्या प्रत्येकानी ज्याच्या त्याच्या सोयीनी त्यातून घेतलं आहे आणि आपापल्या पद्धतीने सोयीस्कररीत्या अर्थ काढलेला आहे. No doubt - राज...

Continuing the previous part of my experience of working on the part time job in England. Please click here , to read the previous part. I got to meet variety of people. There was this happy-go-lucky and filthy rich fellow . . who I thought was my best guest - because of his constant smiling face. He occasionally used to come and place a big order like 14 pints of beer. I remember the joy on his face when the main race event ended and he ordered such a big lot of alcohol to me, even though there were many people were waiting before him. I don't know why but I still paid attention to him as I already knew him. I also remember a confused sexy blond ( umm..I know I used 2 extra adjectives here which were not required. . but I guess 'just in case' - ) who asked me the costs of everything available one by one. ‘I'll have large Jack Daniels please.....oh wait ...how much is it for?’ oh .. Forget it please get me Smirnoff then. ‘but it's the same price ma’am’ - me, . . ...

        Continuing the previous part of my experience of working on the part time job in England. Click here , to read the previous part. Some minutes went by and disaster happened. Each of us were having two in-line orders in front of is and suddenly the flow of beer stopped in one tap, we were expected that as the flow of incoming beer was weak. It was informed to Anne as she too was busy in serving someone. Since people were lined up and it was too much rush, we called up the event manager and alerted them for this delay. People standing in front of the counter started getting mad because of the delay. They started yelling. Many of the customers especially the females were starting to get little bit zonked out, and few started sounding like maniacs but few were patient enough to stop for the technical difficulty. Soon the second beer tap gave up to flow and we announced ‘Beer's not available!’ A wave of disappointment was felt in the crowd. Posit...

Continuing the previous part of my experience of working on the part time job in England. Please click here , to read the first part. Our bar was situated on the 2nd floor. It was a medium sized hall. We were told to stand in the bar counter which was constructed on one of the sides of the hall. Our front side had a great view as it had multiple huge windows and glass wall. It was too much away from us.The drinkery was erected on the side of the racecourse. . . you know along the straight stretched path of the oval shaped course . . & it was almost in the middle of that stretch. The counter was long enough as we almost 8 people stood there, side by side comfortably, facing the hall. I propitiously grabbed a position where I had a view of main entrance which was exactly at my back through a window. Out of curiosity, I expected a glimpse of racy vehicles as well as hot people entering through the gate for the event throughout the day.       The hall seemed ready for t...

Mary Kom - mother of two; from the land of manipur; was victorious and grabbed gold medal 'again' for the fifth straight time in 48 kilograms category on Sunday.  Could not resist to upload her and the coach's 'standing tall' pic. Where you can see all the emotions on this warrier's face. Feeling of a achiever, pride, winner, I-know-its-very-easy kinda feeling oozing on her face. Simply brilliant!   She took boxing as a career to provide financial support to the family. She took this step after getting inspired from Dingko Singh who brought home gold medal from Bangkok in Asian games.  Apparently, she is enthusiastically managing her two children along with the sports. Even if she knows that the age is definitely not on her side for 2012 London Olympics, she gets more than excited about it; and informed the media that she is not gonna give up the sport unless she grabs at-least one Olympic gold medal for India.      Hope she inspires many more such figh...

It was a usual hazy day. We were nearing the weekend. Heard from another Indian friend who I knew worked part time with an agency (he actually worked a bit more than he studied here) . . ''Hey! There is this one day part time job offered in with my agency nearby race-course''. I did not even asked how much was the wedges and pay per hour. . and straightaway showed interest in the work as I was loaded in M.Sc. Second semester as well as on my wallet was taking quite a bit if beating. I had to call that recruitment agency first and register myself. Then I had to let them know about my availability on the fixed event date. After this process completion hey informed me that I gotta be present black trousers and black shoes. Even though I said Okay I gulped; as I knew I had only brown ones and which means at least 5 pounds gone! I stood along with my other university mates most of whom I did not know at the waiting place of the D day. The instructions from employing agency...

This is a true story. I often wonder how a story can be true! But anyway .....an experience perhaps?  This happened some 40 years ago when the medical infrastructure in the country was not present. (today at least it is present . . . it is not reaching to the masses is other thing) The era was such that there was no specialist physician existed and people too did not care much. They too were totally inconsiderate about such questions and relied mostly on maintaining the health well rather than repairing the ruined one. Unlike todays condition, where we have one specialist for left knee and the other specialist for right knee was of no question. Our story happened in the village nearby Mumbai. Where at that time the team at the local municipal hospital comprised of just 1 M.D. physician, two resident doctors, one cleaning staff (who was always drunken) and one nursing staff who handled pediatric, orthopedic, gynaecoly cases each day without much equipments, and purely on the streng...

Kaleidoscope of my Mind! My body  . . . is it deteriorating? . . .health first..... I better get into the frame of mind of the motto 'love your body' - get ready for the 'race de survival of the fittest' ...... till then I know it wont respond to perfection even if I do 1000 push-ups, Yoga or running or anything of that sort . . . but then work, career . . . this is the age . . . I gotta achieve at least bare minimum standard necessities . . . what could be it . . money?...family?....home?...materialistic things you like to flaunt . . fuck it off . . . what exactly people strive for ?. . . where is the end? . . .perhaps I am not the best person to speak about it right now...even if it is about me . . coz . . dreams and achievements make a road . . . and I do sometimes feel many people who started with me on the same journey have gone materialistically ('successfully' according to the world) have gone ahead of me'... but they suck . . I see their life and...

गुंडाचा गणपती . . नाव मस्त आहे ना?  कसब्या मध्ये काळे सुगंधी च्या चौकातून  लाल महालाच्या दिशेने आले असता उजवीकडे ही एक रस्ता हा गुंडाच्या गणपतीला जातो.  कुठला ही फार प्राचीन गणेश मूर्तींना आणि तसच त्या मंदिरा मध्ये कसं खूप धीर-गंभीर आणि नो non-sence वातावरण असतं ना, असंच काहीसं पण थंडगार आणि प्रसन्न वातावरण या मंदिरात अनुभवायला  मिळेल.  माझ्या वडिलांचे मामा, हे या गुंडाच्या गणपतीला लागून असलेल्या घरात राहायचे. आता ते राहिले नाहीत पण त्यांचे ते घर अजूनही आहे. कधी त्या मामा आजोबांकडे जाणे झाले; की तेव्हा गुंडाच्या गणपतीच्या देवळात आम्ही मुले खेळत असू. बरीच वर्षे लोटली, मंदिरात एखादा अभिषेक आणि महाप्रसाद आई - वडिलांच्या हस्ते झाला होता. तेव्हाच गेलो होतो.  आज पेपर वाचताना अचानक ही बातमी पहिली आणि एकदम काही वर्षांपूर्वीचे ते मंदिर आणि आजूबाजूचा परिसर डोळ्या समोरून गेला आणि गम्मत वाटली! :-)  निव्वळ मंदिर पाहण्यासाठी म्हणून आता त्या तिकडे अवश्य वाट...