7 ms·

P.L. Deshpande

85 points by sbmthakur 6y ago

cvaidya1986 6y ago
This is great!
kasperset 6y ago
I remember there was a chapter in one of the Marathi textbook with the initials "Pu La". Not sure which grade. In any case, I was not aware what a talented person he was. Nice!
- atulatul 6y ago
  He is(was) one of the few people I know of who excelled in the field they touched. He was not perfect. Nobody is. But there are very few people who can match their success in one area with their success in another area.
rahulpadalkar 6y ago
The OG standup comedian.
newyankee 6y ago
Pu La is an extraordinary man. He deserves all the adulation, respect and the fandom he has. However i always find it funny when certain fans from certain parts of Maharashtra try to limit his legacy as representative of their limited group and profess this as proof of how intellectually superior they are. Sounds a weird and unnecessarily flagrant statement to make but talking from experience about the snarky 'typical' Puneri culture and attitude is having observed it first hand.
- croh 6y ago
  This happens for every great personality. Once you become famous, people try to connect them somehow. In fact, if you're from same race/gender/region/caste, it is very easy to connect as you don't have to do anything but it's all inherited. I think this is kinda 'Human'ish thing. Humans are insecure by nature. But we should learn from these people, endulge in their contributions and move on. Why to bother ants, when you get sugar !
godelmachine 6y ago
My grandma used to tell me she used to visit him at his house which was about a mile away from ours. She passed away early this year, and was incapacitated to a large extent after she suffered a stroke in March 2017. She lost motor movements (needed help while walking) and lost her speech. She whiled away her time watching his plays on iPad, and used to crack up every single time she watched the one that had “Potato” in its title.
blizkreeg 6y ago
why is this front page hacker news? and believe me, I know who pu la is.
- satyanash 6y ago
  The same reason why Kafka, Camus and others (who seemingly have no relationship with tech/startups) may sometimes make it to the front page. I admit that this is not a detailed article or anything as such, but there is a definite intersection of P.L. fans and tech people, who can relate the daily absurdities of programming and find some Pu. La. style observational humour in it.
  - blizkreeg 6y ago
    Camus, Kafka have a far broader reach worldwide than pu la. Forget the world, outside of Maharashtra pretty much no one knows who he is.
    - satyanash 6y ago
      Does it matter? Populations for ref: Maharashtra pop. 11.42 crores France pop. 6.7 crores Germany pop. 8.3 crores Clearly, there is a bias in favour of western authors in tech. No harm in offsetting it a little bit. It's also not like anyone is forcing people to read about it.
- aloknnikhil 6y ago
  Probably because Google doodled him on his birthday (8th November) https://www.google.com/doodles/purushottam-laxman-deshpandes-101st-birthday https://www.google.com/doodles/purushottam-laxman-deshpandes...
girishso 6y ago
His are the only books where I've laughed out aloud when reading! Yes, I've not read many english comedy books.
- waihtis 6y ago
  Do you know if there's any of his books in English? Granted I only did a quick sweep of Amazon and Google but found little.

85 points by sbmthakur 6y ago

cvaidya1986 6y ago

This is great!

I remember there was a chapter in one of the Marathi textbook with the initials "Pu La". Not sure which grade. In any case, I was not aware what a talented person he was. Nice!

atulatul 6y ago
He is(was) one of the few people I know of who excelled in the field they touched. He was not perfect. Nobody is. But there are very few people who can match their success in one area with their success in another area.

rahulpadalkar 6y ago

The OG standup comedian.

newyankee 6y ago

Pu La is an extraordinary man. He deserves all the adulation, respect and the fandom he has. However i always find it funny when certain fans from certain parts of Maharashtra try to limit his legacy as representative of their limited group and profess this as proof of how intellectually superior they are. Sounds a weird and unnecessarily flagrant statement to make but talking from experience about the snarky 'typical' Puneri culture and attitude is having observed it first hand.

croh 6y ago
This happens for every great personality. Once you become famous, people try to connect them somehow. In fact, if you're from same race/gender/region/caste, it is very easy to connect as you don't have to do anything but it's all inherited. I think this is kinda 'Human'ish thing. Humans are insecure by nature. But we should learn from these people, endulge in their contributions and move on. Why to bother ants, when you get sugar !

godelmachine 6y ago

My grandma used to tell me she used to visit him at his house which was about a mile away from ours. She passed away early this year, and was incapacitated to a large extent after she suffered a stroke in March 2017. She lost motor movements (needed help while walking) and lost her speech. She whiled away her time watching his plays on iPad, and used to crack up every single time she watched the one that had “Potato” in its title.

blizkreeg 6y ago

why is this front page hacker news? and believe me, I know who pu la is.

satyanash 6y ago
The same reason why Kafka, Camus and others (who seemingly have no relationship with tech/startups) may sometimes make it to the front page. I admit that this is not a detailed article or anything as such, but there is a definite intersection of P.L. fans and tech people, who can relate the daily absurdities of programming and find some Pu. La. style observational humour in it.
- blizkreeg 6y ago
  Camus, Kafka have a far broader reach worldwide than pu la. Forget the world, outside of Maharashtra pretty much no one knows who he is.
  - satyanash 6y ago
    Does it matter? Populations for ref: Maharashtra pop. 11.42 crores France pop. 6.7 crores Germany pop. 8.3 crores Clearly, there is a bias in favour of western authors in tech. No harm in offsetting it a little bit. It's also not like anyone is forcing people to read about it.
aloknnikhil 6y ago
Probably because Google doodled him on his birthday (8th November) https://www.google.com/doodles/purushottam-laxman-deshpandes-101st-birthday https://www.google.com/doodles/purushottam-laxman-deshpandes...

girishso 6y ago

His are the only books where I've laughed out aloud when reading! Yes, I've not read many english comedy books.

waihtis 6y ago
Do you know if there's any of his books in English? Granted I only did a quick sweep of Amazon and Google but found little.