Sulochana-kaki, the Spirited Septuagenarian Sculptor

Thank you, Blogadda, for picking my post for the Spicy Saturday Picks!
Readers may have seen our daughter Supriya’s painting in my earlier blogpost here.

If Supriya took a keen interest in painting, we owe it all to her “Sulochana-kaki”, Mrs. Sulochana Haldankar, a kind-hearted elderly woman who lives in our locality. We heard about the art classes, which she conducted in her house from our neighbourhood friends. It was apparent from our first meeting that “Sulochana-Kaki” was extremely talented and loved to teach the little kids residing in our locality, the basics of drawing and painting. Once at her place, she would often forget the time and be at the assigned task for several hours, until we would go over to fetch her home. That Supriya was able to get an "A" grade, both in her preliminary and intermediate arts examination held by the state can be largely attributed to her art teacher!

Sulochana-kaki at work with her portrait painting

It’s been some time now that we hadn’t called on her and we heard that Sulochana-kaki had stopped teaching kids and was busy day and night with her sculpting and painting activities in preparation for an exhibition planned to be held at the Jehangir Art Gallery! It is not often that we come across such spirited septuagenarians, who have so much to do these days, do we? So we called on her last week-end to chat up with her find out she has been doing lately.

The gallery had been booked 2 years ago and it would be another 3 years for her exhibition to be hosted, she informed. Sulochana-kaki, who turns 75 on 17th December this year, is toiling to give shape to some of her sculptures and also on some oil-on-canvas portraits of eminent public figures which some institutions in her village of Malgund want her to do.

It was really kind of her to find time from her hectic schedule and let us know how she had begun her journey into this wonderful world of creativity where her hands would pick up mud and clay and create life-like busts and statues. Fortunate to have been born in a family, which held art forms in high regard, it was not difficult for her to pick up drawing and craft. Her father was a singer and stage-artiste and her mother would encourage her to make decorative articles like cloth-dolls, rangolis, embroidery and so on, on festive occasions. But as was the norm in those days, she married at the age of 16, even before completing her matriculation in 1953. She was not allowed to leave her house for 7 years after marriage, so she had to curb her creative urge to pursue her interest in the field of art.

It was only after an incident that happened seven years into her marriage, that her husband learnt of her artistic skills, when her society organised an art exhibition and she painted a woman offering her prayers to the sacred Tulsi outside her house. This humble work singularly proved to be the proverbial key which opened up the world for her! Her husband took keen interest in developing her special skills and provided her with any art material and also encouraged her to join a 3-year Diploma at the Modern Art Institute at Dadar. After completing this course, she had the opportunity to assist an artist who worked on portraits. She then joined the JJ Institute of Fine Arts and completed her Diploma in Drawing and Painting in 1965 and her Diploma in Sculpture and Modelling in 1970 in which she secured First Class.

“You are a girl, do you really want to sculpt?” everyone would ask her. “Yes, I just don’t want to do the course for some academic diploma – I want to sculpt!” she would reply firmly. In those days, no one had heard about female sculptors apparently. Soon she put to rest the doubts in the minds of one and all when her sculpture, depicting the court scene of Shivaji, won the Gold Medal at the annual exhibition at the JJ School of Art in 1970 and another sculpture, Mother and Child won the Bronze Medal at the exhibition organised by the Sculptors Association at the Jehangir Art Gallery in 1970. She thus became one of the early women to break the clay barrier, if I may say so.

Shivaji Maharaj in his court a classic depiction of the period

The artist receiving an award from the well-known writer, Shri Mangesh Padgaonkar.

Sculpting involves hours of toil, often standing or sitting in the same position, is that not very tiring and does that not stress her out, really, one may wonder. Firstly, she is so deeply immersed in her work that she often finds herself up at it upto 3 am and some times well into the next morning! “One normally does not get tired of doing what one enjoys”, she replies “and for the stress, I do some exercises” she replied. “One should always pursue hobbies that keep one engaged”, she concludes “so today when I live alone, I don’t really live alone I have my hobby which I cannot live without.”


So much was her love for sculpting and painting, that when her nephew suggested her to begin teaching kids, she was not at all inclined to do so. How could she teach such young kids the basics now? But then her nephew had a point – “If you teach youngsters, you will keep the art alive and your students will create beautiful work more than you alone can! Moreover the satisfaction will be immense”, he persuaded.

She liked the idea, and expresses gratitude to her nephew for this suggestion. Besides immense satisfaction and adoration from her students, she has also received support and help from their parents! So it was with a heavy heart that she had to stop the classes when she learnt there was much to do and could not carry on both these activities simultaneously.

Finally it was time to leave so we informed her about my blog and that I would need some pictures I would like to put up with the write-up, and she was kind enough to provide them. “Thanks for all the trouble you’ve taken” she said as we prepared to leave.

Trouble? She also has a great sense of humour, doesn’t she?

Post-script: Must thank Supriya and Amita for joining me in doing this post!

Images of Smt. Sulochana Haldankar's work below:


Goddess Amba Devi with 18 hands her creation that has stayed with her all along!


A Panel of Child God Bala Krishna helping himself to some curds hung high up


Mother and Child sculpture


Lord Krishna playing his flute


An old photograph of the artist in her younger days with her husband along with the bust of her mother.


Swami Vivekananda's Bust and Shirdi Sai Baba
All images posted above taken by me during the visit.

All images posted below are Courtesy: Image Photo Studio, Dahisar (E)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's Statue


Goddess Amba Devi another image of her majestic creation made with great devotion


A passionate piece of sculpting


Lord Ganesh - intricate and artistic depiction


A statue of Poet Keshavsut - Kavi Krushnajee Keshav Damle Interestingly, the poet never had his photograph taken and Sulochana-kaki had to depend on the sketches of another artist to create this statue to be installed in the memorial behind Bhageshwar Temple. Some trustees objected in doubt of it being really representative of the great poet's looks, but finally accepted it and still stands at the memorial at Malgund.


The Trimurti at Elephanta Caves


Lord Dattatraya


Shirdi Sai Baba Statue


A close-up snap of Amba Devi - so you can notice the detailing!

WORD OF THE YEAR 2009

It's time again for the WOTY!

According to Wikipedia, the American Dialect Society (ADS) began announcing the Word of the Year (WOTY) since 1991.

ADS has been seeking nominations for their WOTY 2009 and the details of the same are available here:

ADS is also inviting nominations for the Word of the Decade 2000-2009 and the details of the same are here.

Meanwhile just have a look into the announcements of WOTY 2009 declared by the Global Language Monitor and New Oxford American Dictionary and the Merriam Websters' Dictionary

Global Language Monitor’s (GLM) WOTY 2009 is
Twitter – The ability to encapsulate human thought I 140 characters

A recent phenomenon this microblogging platform allows users to let others know what they think and do in 140 characters. Beginning with “What are you doing?” Twitter has quickly (and silently) moved on to “What’s happening?” Lots, I would say, considering it made it to GLM’s WOTY 2009!

Twitterati may want to partwee!

New Oxford American Dictionary’s (NOAD) “Oxford WOTY 2009” is
Unfriend - To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”
Going by the comments to this announcement on their blog, it appears that a large number of Facebook users haven’t liked the choice. Because they thin – hold your breath - it is the wrong word! According to them they always ‘de-friend’ whenever the need arises and not ‘un-friend’! One comment goes something like this: Oxford? American! Aaah…!

Merriam Websters’ (MW) WOTY 2009 is
Admonish - "to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner."

While the GLM and NOAD have selected new words as their WOTY, MW has surprised one and all by selecting an old word which has been around for centuries!

MW explains its selection criteria thus:
“The latest selection for 2009 Word of the Year comes from the good people at Merriam-Webster. Unlike other dictionary publishers that anoint an annual word, Merriam-Webster bases its winner and runners-up on actual user lookups to its online dictionary and thesaurus. So instead of the novelties selected by its competitors (distracted driving from Webster's New World, unfriend from New Oxford American), Merriam-Webster's choice is an old word that worked its way into current events: admonish.”

Though the word ‘admonish’ is old, the reason why it was the most looked up word has been due to recent developments :
“Extensively looked up after Rep. Joseph Wilson, R-South Carolina, was admonished for houting "you lie" at President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress.”

The Runners up
If you have seen the winners, would you not want to have a glimpse of the runners-up? There could be some interesting words there!

GLM’s Top Words of 2009

New Oxford American Dictionary – the Runners up
Wondering what other new words were considered for the New Oxford American Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year? Check out the list in the link here - and you would like to read the comments section of the OUP Blog too!

Merriam Websters’ Runners-up list here.

Indians should have their own WOTY! What do you have to say?

Blogger Bond Award

So inspite of all the whatnonsanz that has been posted on this blog, it has once again been recognized for having touched the lives of fellow bloggers and been considered worthy of an award! I am deeply honored by the gesture!

This award comes my way from Rachana Shakyawar who blogs at Humming Today
Read her profile here

Humming Today, is an artistically designed website - what with butterflies and lovely thoughts urging one to ‘Celebrate Life’ and smile all the way! The award has been designed and painted by Rachana herself! Lovely award, Rachana. Also some of her recent refreshing posts have made it to the Blogadda Spicy Saturday and Tangy Tuesday picks, which you will find listed alongside on her blog.

So Rachana thought it was time to celebrate the bonds that bloggers share in this post, which tells us in detail why she wanted to award us:
“Celebrate you – the Blogger Bond Award”

Thanks so much, Rachana!

Congratulations for having touched the Century mark in terms of number of posts and do continue to share the irresistible celebratory mood that your blog gets readers into. I am sure your blog will post several more centuries - celebrating life all the way! With your blog, one really doesn’t need an occasion to celebrate, I guess.

Lest we remember...

To all those critics, who kept asking “What have we learnt from 26/11?”, I have this to offer in reply:

1. RR Patil has learnt that making blasphemous statements like “Aise chhote mote haadse hote rahte hain” (such minor incidents keep happening) can get you a much-needed vacation until you get back into action in the same Ministry.
2. RR Patil has also learned that he should speak in Marathi and then blame it on the translators for misinterpretting him.
3. Vilasrao Deshmukh has learnt that striking a deal with Bollywood directors for their next blockbuster adds value to one’s CV and helps you get a Union Minister post while the lay public is pleased with the “prompt action taken”.
4. The public has learnt to take these “smart moves” in their stride. After all, their removal was only to keep their critics quiet - the aam aadmi was only hoping for improvement in the security measures to avoid such breaches in future, weren’t they?
5. We have learnt that we need a common enemy in a foreign land to unite us – even if it is for a short while and even with that we don’t keep united for long..
6. We have also learnt that, soon enough, some of our politicians will remind us of our regional, religious and other affiliations and pit us against each other so that we are engaged in fighting each other rather than how to deal with external threats.
7. Tourism operators have learnt how to capitalise on the incident and promote “terror-tourism” by organising visits to Leopold Café, Taj Mahal Hotel, Hotel Trident and Nariman Bhavan. Maybe they could throw in a visit to Dharavi as a free “slum-tourism” package, popularised by the award-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” (or vice versa)
8. We have learnt that kind souls do set up NGOs and assistance groups to look into the problems of those affected by the terror attack
9. We have also learnt that Government Cheques do bounce!
10. We have learnt to wait for the next anniversary.

We could go on…..So it isn’t that we haven’t learnt!

Now that the first 26/11 anniversary is behind us and we’re done with lighting the candles, floral tributes and joining the peace marches or whatever it is that makes us feel we’ve done our bit for those who laid down their lives, it is time to move on with life. At least until the next anniversary becomes due in 2010. By which time, we may pitch the counter-terrorism ball shorter and not with the same pace or force as this time around.

The first anniversary was also timely – at least for Madhu Koda, whose story receded into the background while the nation paid tributes to the national heroes and the media shifted focus from scams to martyrs and heroes of 26/11. Also, fortunately for scamsters like Ramalinga Raju and Madhu Koda, the nation does not observe any anniversaries of scams! Naturally, since nobody dies – we all continue to live, albeit duped and deprived. How about a “scam tourism package” thrown in, now that we have a portfolio of scams to boast of? Perhaps the only thing that may remind us of a past scam is the next bigger scam! How about a new mega scam around 26/11/2010?

Bloggers' Post-Script: Readers of the blog who have not yet read my interview featured on Webneetech.com may read the same in this link here.

Do read my microblogpost on India-tweets "The other cheek please"

Mee Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar Boltoy

Thank you, Blogadda - for picking this post for Spicy Saturday Posts

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to watch a popular Marathi movie, “Mee Shivaji Raje Bhosale Boltoy”. I quite liked the movie, considering that it presented to viewers, the kind of predicament a typical middle class Maharastrian family living in Mumbai finds itself in, when dealing with members of other communities who have migrated to Mumbai and made it big, while they continue to struggle in their mediocrity and don’t really know how to cope with the aggressively competitive and ambitious “outsiders”, who beat them on their home turf.

Watching this Marathi Manoos taking all insults lying low, Shivaji Maharaj, the all-time hero of the people of Maharashtra, decides that he cannot continue to see his own people suffering anymore. Shivaji Maharaj rides it out to the humble abode of the protagonist and offers to guide him out of the rut that he has gotten himself into due to his own low self-esteem and lack of spirited approach to life and calls upon him to change his own thinking to take on the world in his own terms. He transforms the humble son of the soil, wallowing in his own miseries, into a force that the world reckons has truly arrived.

I have never posted a movie review on my blog. Nor is this post a review of this wonderful Marathi movie, which deserves to be translated into every known Indian language and released nation-wide. This post is about how several Marathi stage artistes, movie-makers, writers and thinkers have done more for the Marathi Manoos than a couple of cousins haggling for vote banks! The work of Pu La Deshpande needs to be translated and made available to every Indian. Movies like Shwaas has made it to the Oscars, but why don’t we find dubbed version of such great masterpieces showing in other states of India?

Every week I watch several young boys and girls singing great Marathi songs in the Zee Marathi channel “SaReGaMaPa - Punha Nave Sapna Swaranche” on Mon/Tues 9.30 pm onwards. Several non-Maharashtrians told me that they too watched all the episodes of SaReGaMaPa including Little Champs, and simply loved that program! What makes them watch a program in a language that they couldn’t understand much, I asked.

“We love the manner in which the judges, Avdhoot Gupte and Dr Salil Kulkarni guide and advise the participants about music, humility and about life! The participants are blessed and it is a rare treat for us – we don’t find this kind of mentoring in any other language music reality shows!”, was their reply!

How very true! In fact, some of the participants, who are non-Maharashtrian, have made it to the top 12. A South Indian, Abhilasha Chellam and a North Indian, Rahul Saxena, are doing a great job for Marathi music and culture! Truly, music has no language barriers – neither have evolved human beings!

When the true-blue proud Maharashtrian and Mumbaikar, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, who completed 20 years of entering the International Cricket arena spoke about Mumbai being a part of India and that he was an Indian first, I thought, he was entitled to his view. He may have done more for Mumbai, Maharashtra and India than the 2 Senas put together have done for Maharashtra. And I am glad that by speaking up against regional divides, which harm the interest of our country, he has just padded up – and will bat for India! One does hope more enlightened writers and thinkers and prominent state figures that truly make Maharashtra what it is today do join in and unify the country!

And to my fellow Indians from other states, I have this to say – Maharashtra is more than a couple of cousins squabbling amongst themselves for the coveted title of the “Grand Saviour of Marathi” – Its much more!

Blogger’s Postscript: This subject has got more attention than it really deserves. This post attempts to say something different. (I hope it does).
After all, I am an Indian Blogger first!

First Book Review of my First "ArTicKles" Book

It gives me great pleasure to announce that a fellow author and blogger, Jeena Papaadi, who accidentally discovered my book "The ArTicKles Collection", while googling for the Bangalore Book Festival (BBF), has posted a Book Review in her blog.

I do thank Jeans, as she calls herself, for this!
Do read the review here

I do hope the copies of my book are sold out before the BBF closes on Sunday 15th Nov 09! The book is available at a specially discounted price of Rs. 100 until 15th Nov 09 at the Pothi Stall in BBF held at Stall No. 288, Gayatri Vihar, Palace Grounds, (entrance near Chowdiah / Bellary Road side) at Bengaluru.

Blogger's Post-script:
Meanwhile what do you think bloggers do when they arent posting blogs? Well, they are posting tweets on Twitter! So get on to Twitter and follow me @gopinathmm and you will be amazed at the fun and excitement abuzz on the microblogging platform.
So when most people were worried about Phyan in Mumbai, tweeple had several views why it wouldnt enter Mumbai "MNS didnt allow it because it doesnt know Marathi" said one,"becoz it does not have a Marathi name" said another. I also found the origin of the name of the cyclone Phyan here.

But now that it is past us, it is safe, I presume to disclose that this Burmese word for berries falling of trees is just crap, it was indeed of marathi origin! Since the rural Maharashtra folks felt that this cyclone was no great stuff and God had just put on the fan sot they kept saying "Phyan", as they always say in rural Marathi, you see... so now you know!

Phyantastic, isnt it?

BBF is on

The Bangalore Book Festival is on since November 6th and will be open until 15th Nov 09. My self-published book, enabled and powered by Pothi.com has been put up in their Stall No. 288 there as I have already announced in my previous post.

Pothi.com has begun posting all the happenings and pics in their blog “Booknomics” here.

Jean, blogger and author of “Tales from the Garden City” has posted some pictures and written about her visit to the Pothi stall in her blog, which can be read here.

Jean also left a comment on my blog that she has bought a copy of my book! Thanks, Jean! Do write a review on the Pothi.com website and/or your blog, once you’ve finished reading it.

All a writer wants, once he completes writing his book, is that his book reaches as many readers as possible. Though some of us have opted for self-publishing our books at Pothi, this does not prevent us from trying to approach established publishers for buying the rights of the book. I forwarded copies of my books to 4-5 publishers till date and they were quick enough to revert with a standard reply, “At the moment, our hands are full, you may try some other publisher”.

Just wondering why Goddess Saraswati did not bless our publishers with a dozen hands instead of just 2 – in which case, wouldn’t they have some hands free for handling my book? Anyway, just take it that this message is just an accepted publishing industry norm for a “rejection slip” to the author. Having collected several such rejection slips from newspapers and magazines, these just add to the tally, I thought.

However, according to this piece, even some best-sellers in the market today have been rejected several times before publishers see the potential in them, citing 14 best-sellers which were rejected more than 15 times (some more than 30 times) before acceptance!

Who would guess that “Gone with the wind” by Margaret Mitchell would have been rejected 38 times, “Carrie” by Stephen King was rejected 30 times, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach was rejected 18 times, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” by Jack Canfield was rejected 140 times, “The Peter Principle” by Laurence Peter was rejected 16 times? So you now know how wrong publishers were to reject the book submissions! Chicken Soup for the Soul ended up selling over 80 million copies and was translated in 37 languages once published.

I wonder how so many publishers didn’t find such remarkable books worth the print paper? So authors should not get disappointed by rejections by established publishing houses who can print many copies of our book and place them in the bookstores all around the world, and who knows they may be the best-sellers in the days to come!

So, guys, we have a new platform of self-publishing to get started, but we need to keep trying our luck with established publishers and distributors and of course keep improving on the work in terms of presentation and details – that’s what successful authors have been doing all along.