Poet’s don’t mind
July 9, 2006 | Filed Under Point of View
Today a statue of Meena Thackeray was desecrated in Bombay. Buses were burnt across Maharashtra, stones were pelted at open shops, and Bombay was shut down by rioters who ensured that Bombayites rested on a lazy Sunday.
Not too long ago, there was a bust of Ram Ganesh Gadkari at the very same site where the bust of Meenatai Thackeray stands. He was a greatly loved poet and writer of the marathi speaking audience. After Meena Thackeray died (Bal Thackeray’s wife), the bust of the poet was replaced by her bust. I don’t recall there being too many protests then.
Who would want to protest for a poet?? A poet doesn’t have a role in politics, a poet isn’t a mother of anyone (i mean in the larger sense, like a nation or a small clan of people), a poet has a voice which cannot be easily muffled and neither can someone else put words in the mouths of dead poets.
The pictures on the TV didn’t reveal any sentiments of hurt, people seemed to be revelling in the destruction they were carrying out. There was so much joy in their hearts. It’s like finally they got a reason to do some hulla-gulla. Poor Uddhav Thackeray, I do feel sad for him, it was his mother’s bust that is out there for people to use as a tool for politics, I don’t know who will benefit from this all but the middle-class is largely inconveienced.
Early in the morning my mother expressed an irritated sentiment. She said that all these statues must be removed from wherever they are and put in a museum. And there shouldn’t be any more permissions given to people to put up these statues. PIL anyone?
An interesting page, it’s about some great people who were born in Maharashtra but probably have been forgotten in today’s times of goondaism.
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5 Responses to “Poet’s don’t mind”
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are you the talking toad or the dog who barks?
all these shiv sainiks should be shot…i wanted to go shopping today!
hmm .. this wasn’t on the online version of the times of india ..
so, this was news to me ..
wish people would do something constructive instead of goondaism .. remember why the statue was there .. why she was honored .. or plant a tree .. or undo any damage caused to the statue .. why damage something else?
btw are there any non-political figures as statues anymore?
no idea if we make statues of non-political figures. i guess if they can’t be used for politics then they have no use.
freak of nature!
I did not know this…shocking….
My friend Bhushan Pradhan (a fanatic CKP himself) pointed out to me first time Ram Ganesh was CKP, as if it mattered.
Bhushnya may not mind as one CKP replaced another! RGG couldn’t care less. He was a chamipon. (Read my blog’s entry: http://searchingforlaugh.blogspot.com/2007/05/divine-comedy.html )
For rest of us, shame continues.
Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ozymandias”
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(1818)