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Deccan’s heritage on display

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Karnataka (under research project), Travel & Tourism, World Opinion, , , , , ,

Kalaburagi (formerly Gulbarga), KARNATAKA :

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From coins to paper currency, books, radio, telephone, gramophone and old cameras, one can find a wide variety of antiquities at Ayaz Art Gallery in Kalaburagi. Detailed information about each item exhibited here makes this collection a heritage enthusiasts’ favourite. The credit for developing this intriguing collection goes to Mohammed Ayazuddin Patel, who is a photographer by profession.

After the completion of his education, Patel worked abroad for six years. In the meantime, he developed an interest in Deccan’s heritage. As a professional photographer, he has extensively documented the region’s ruined monuments.

Collection of coins and currency at Ayaz Art Gallery in Kalaburagi.
Collection of coins and currency at Ayaz Art Gallery in Kalaburagi.

Patel has collected the antiquities from various places, urban and rural. There are instances of him finding value in an item that others would discard as scrap. Apart from objects, he also has a good collection of rare books published during the British and Nizam rule. Some of them are printed at Oxford Press.

Coins and currency form a major part of the collection. The coins from Satavahana, Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Hoysala, Nagas, Gandhara, Khilji, Lodhi, Tughluq, Mughals, Bahmani, Wadiyar, Kalachuri, Tipu, Qutb Shahi, Nizam Shahi, Adil Shahi, Barid Shahi,  Imad Shahi, Malwa, Kashmiri, British, and present coins and notes of Indian government are available with him.

Being an artist, he has exhibited the collection aesthetically, with all the details like the currency name, country, capital of country and country’s population on display. Presently, he is having about 275 countries currency notes in his collection which can be treated as the largest collection in Karnataka.

Many research scholars visit his art gallery to get information about the region’s history and heritage.

He has travelled to 26 countries to present the cultural beauty of the Hyderabad Karnataka region. While returning, he picks each country’s flag. Such flags are displayed neatly at the gallery.

Apart from this, he has exhibited his work of digital art, attended seminars, art camps and got honours for the same. Some of the unique pieces found in the gallery include an old lantern used in the ship; an ink bottle of 1855 AD used for fountain pens ; metal locks from Bahmani to Nizam period and terracotta plates and bowls of Nizam period.

Property and other agreement bonds written in Arabic, Parsi, Halegannada, Sanskrit and other languages find a place in his collection. The stamp papers of Jodhpur State and Bikaner State, Jaora State under the of Iftikhar Ali Khan Bahadur, Bhopal and Burma Government both, British India, Travancore and Dewas State, Rajgarh State, Government of Madras, Government of Mysore and Indian non judicial paper are in his collection.

After practicing photography for many years, he started digital art using his photos that portray the heritage of Hyderabad Karnataka.

Mohammed Ayazuddin Patel
Mohammed Ayazuddin Patel

He acknowledges the support extended by his parents. His mother used to collect coins and antiquities as a hobby. And his father, Mohammed Khaja Naveed Patel, was a Munsi and was an expert of history. “Kalaburagi has a rich history and heritage.  It is everyone’s responsibility to collect and preserve these objects,” Ayazuddin says.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum> Spectrum Statescan / by Rehaman Patel / August 17th, 2019

All eyes on antiques here

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Karnataka (under research project), World Opinion, ,

Kalladka (Dakshina Kannada), KARNATAKA :

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After his dream to become a kabaddi player was crushed by his ill-health, Yasar Kalladka turned to another area of interest. Collecting antiques. The man from Kalladka, in Dakshina Kannada, began this journey in 2003.

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It has been a great one so far, he says. In his museum is a massive collection of rare coins, notes, agrarian equipment etc. A series of currency notes from different countries that carry their ministers’ and freedom fighters’ faces are arranged in order of their date of birth.

Currency notes of more than 200 countries that carry images of iconic buildings, birds, animals are also in the museum.

A Karnataka map studded with 879 coins of 50 and 25 paise value, and an India map studded with 1,020 coins draws many visitors.

There’s an album that identifies on currency notes the dates of birth of presidents and prime ministers of India. Yasar has spent seven years to make a 50-feet-long chain using 999 10-rupee notes.

RBI-issued coins that mark important occassions can be seen in Yasar’s museum. The currencies issued by China, made of bamboo during the second world war; coins from dynasties like Maurya, Mughal, Pallava, Keladi, Chola, Kadamba, Chalukya, Hoysala,  Nizam, The East India Company etc, and medals of soldiers are now owned by him. Signatures of Gandhi, Lata Mangeshkar and Kapoor families are also found in his collection. In his newspaper clippings collections, the focus is on the deaths of personalities like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Nehru etc. Road maps, tissues of different countries, perfumes and one-inch holy books also find a place in his museum.

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For Yasar, his main source of information are the contacts he has built over the years.

His collection has grown when relocating families have given him antique materials. Once, a woman from England visited his museum and gave him an uncut currency sheet of 30 dollars from her collection.

His networking on social media also fetches him clues to source for his collection.

Sample this, a board he found in a junkyard turned out to be a piece of evidence to prove that the Panemangalore bridge was built by the British in the year 1914, that it has now crossed more than 100 years. “Young people need to understand the value  of the collections,” says Yasar.

He has bagged many awards for his passion including the Aryabhata Award for his collection of coins and currencies.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum> Spectrum Statescan / by Deepa Kamila / September 14th, 2019

Ahmad Abbas: The man who gave us Amitabh Bachchan

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Videos, World Opinion, , , , , , ,

Panipat, HARYANA / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Mr. Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, well-known film critic, script writer and producer. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
Mr. Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, well-known film critic, script writer and producer. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES

On the occasion of writer-filmmaker Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s 102nd birth anniversary that fell earlier this week, some reflections on his first movie Dharti Ke Lal, a film that was not available for public viewing until about a year back…

The name Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, whose 102nd birth anniversary passed by this week with nary a mention of him in mainstream media, rings a bell in the mind of an average cinephile primarily for two reasons. The first is as the story/screenplay writer for Raj Kapoor’s cinema; and the second is as the filmmaker who introduced the star of the millennium, Amitabh Bachchan, to Hindi films. His directorial output, comprising 14 feature films and numerous short films and documentaries, is either ignored or overlooked.

This year is special for someone who wants to get introduced to Abbas’s cinema — heavily influenced by the art of Soviet filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin — as it marks seven decades since his first film, Dharti Ke Lal (Sons of the Soil) was released. It was a unique experiment by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), co-founded by Abbas, at film-making and an early example of Indian film industry’s tryst with social realism. This was the realism of the kind that would be seen later in the films of Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy and Mrinal Sen.

The tale of a peasant family’s struggles during the British-authored Bengal famine of 1943 during World War-II, the film was a combined adaptation of three literary works — Bijon Bhattacharya’s Bengali play Nabanna; a Hindustani play Antim Abhilasha; and Krishan Chander’s short story Annadata.

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Dharti Ke Lal can also be considered a part of an Abbas trilogy (emphasis mine) of 1946. The three films — the other two being Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani and Neecha Nagar, both written by him — presented three different ways in which he expressed the idealism of a common man in pre-Independence India. Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, a biopic on Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis, was based on Abbas’s story, And One Did Not Come Back. It showed a young doctor, inspired by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s call to serve the wounded Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War, staking his career to serve the dispossessed masses in a distant country. This was a primer into Abbas’s early-day internationalism.

Neecha Nagar by Chetan Anand, about a nonviolent rebellion by residents from a decrepit shantytown, shows an educated youngster Balraj (Rafiq Tanwar) motivating and organising the masses to speak up against Sarkar (Rafi Peer), the municipality head. Abbas’s desire to lift the urban subaltern to a state of peaceful revolution found expression through the screenplay of the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv5Nb4M534&feature=player_embedded

Neecha Nagar – Part 1 of 10 – Cannes Awarded Indian Classical Movie 

source: http://www.youtube.com

Dharti Ke Lal, with a young peasant Niranjan (played by Balraj Sahni) in the lead role, was much more explicit than Neecha Nagar in advocating for independence and self-rule. It is set in Ameenpur, a village in pre-Partition Bengal, is slowly coming to grips with India’s struggle for independence. Through references to Saare Jahan Se Achcha, with Ravi Shankar’s music playing in the background, Abbas introduces a nationalist tenor into the film.

The first half, where the family of Samaddar, the village pradhan (head) and his son, Niranjan, tries to live a happy, agrarian life within their means, is an early-day attempt at realistically portraying the village life. This is celluloid portrayal of the kind of society people got introduced to through Munshi Premchand’s novels like Godan and short stories like Panch Parameshwar. Tropes like the affinity of the villagers toward their land and the affection they show toward their cattle and cow are straight out of a Premchand short story.

The second half, where Samaddar’s family is forced to migrate to Calcutta is Abbas’s attempt to see the city through the prism of a humble peasant. The scarcity created by the famine; the apathy of the rich in the city; and the simmering Hindu-Muslim animosity combine to create absolute misery in the lives of the economic migrants. They further encounter indifference as they are forced to beg. Finally, following the end of famine, they are forced to return to their village where they mobilise themselves into a group and practise saajhe ki kheti (collective farming).

Coming back to the Abbas trilogy part, while Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahaani and Neecha Nagar were inspired by Nehru’s vision of an enlightened urban India, Dharti Ke Lal seeks to emphasise Gandhian ethos of seeking comfort in the village life.

In terms of aesthetic merits, Dharti Ke Lal ranks equal to the likes of Do Bigha Zameen made in the next decade. The affection with which the camera views the villagers as it takes their close-ups makes the characters and their situations relatable. Just notice the sense of wonder on the faces of the family members in the 10th minute as they welcome the clouds, emphasising the love-hate relationship a farmer enjoys with the monsoons. The poignancy of the moment is accentuated by an alaap, with a flute playing in the background. This surely reminded me of joy in the face of villagers of Champaren in Lagaan as they anticipate the rains on seeing the clouds, expressed through the ghanan-ghanan song.

source: http://www.youtube.com

In a radio interview quoted in an audio tribute, Abbas expressed a sense of pride when he says that Dharti Ke Lal is the only film that was ‘socialist’ when it comes to the production process. He says none of the members was paid less than Rs.200 or more than Rs.400. His socialist ideals and life-long belief in upliftment of the downtrodden — his commitment to idealism made journalist Vinod Mehta compare him to historian Eric Hobsbawm — kept informing his writing and his film-making.

source: http://www.youtube.com

His production company, named ‘Naya Sansaar’ (A New World) was his way of voicing his message of empowerment as he made films like Shahar Aur Sapna, Do Boond Paani and Saat Hindustani. Most of them were commercial disasters and some of them look didactic from a 2016 viewpoint. However, if there is one film that has remained relevant, both in terms of its art and its content, it is Dharti Ke Lal.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Cinema / by Hari Narayan / June 11th, 2016

How this vlogger travels the world, free of cost

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Travel & Tourism, Videos, , , , ,

Utraula, UTTAR PRADESH / Charummoodu, KERALA :

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While most of us here find it difficult to save money for an annual vacation tour, vlogger Jinsha Basheer is earning money for every trip she takes. The crossroad of her life was her decision to publish photographs and videos of her own journeys online. When her posts on Facebook crossed 8000  likes, Jinsha was assured. Vlogging is more remunerative than the job of an engineer.”

Jinsha Basheer, who grew up in village of Charummoodu near Thiruvalla has only 11 months of experience in vlogging.  But this 28-year-old has more following than those who had been dabbling on Facebook Facebook for over 10 years. Jinsha became a vlogger by chance soon after landing a job with an IT  firm after completing her engineering. The story goes like this:

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Jinsha and Faisal when refuelling at a petrol bunk near Adoor, happened to witness an altercation involving one of the petrol bunk employees and a biker. The biker claimed that he was given less petrol for the money he had paid. The employee argued that every customer should check the counter to ascertain the quantity of petrol received.

Faisal, deciding to get to the bottom of the issue, enquired with another employee of the petrol bunk who revealed a big secret: Fill petrol for 5 or 10 rupees more than the required quantity.  For example, fill petrol for 110, 220, or 1015 rupees. In such cases petrol will be filled as per the exact amount. He talked about those petrol bunks which manipulated the software and delivered less quantity of petrol for the money paid. To make this event public, Jinsha recorded a video and posted it in Facebook with an advice to fill petrol for 5 or 10 rupees more  than the usual exact amounts like 100, 200, 1000 etc. Their Facebook page, which till then had only Jinsha and Faisal as members, received 5000 likes within a day.

A reply to trolls

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Jinsha was born in Utraula in Uttar Pradesh to Basheer, a military man and Barisha, a nurse, as the  youngest of the three sisters. When she was 8 years old, the family resettled in Charummoodu.  Jinsha loved travelling since her childhood. During her studies, she travelled to Mysore and Madurai. Taj Mahal, Agra and Qutub Minar remained her dream destinations. On the first weekend of getting married to Faisal, they travelled to Vagamon and her passion for travelling was rekindled.

While she was working in an IT firm owned by Faisal (which was also a period of many journeys), she  got an offer for taking up a job of a teacher in Qatar. The school management asked her to send a video depicting a simulation of her teaching the pupils. By the time the school management intimated her of their satisfaction of her teaching video, the ‘petrol bunk’ video had become  ‘viral’ in the Facebook. Jinsha decided to focus on volgging instead of taking up the teaching assignment in Qatar. Faisal, too, supported that decision. The first vlog.trip was made from Masinagudi to Ooty via the Kallatti pass. Another vlog on a journey through the Bandipur forests followed. These videos highlighting the beauty of the forests, too, became viral.

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Attempts were made by some elements to hurl abuses at Jinsha and her father through adverse and offensive comments. Jinsha was appalled but decided not to quit. But both Basheer and Faisal supported her cause. “If you bow down now, it will be akin to accepting total surrender.”

Jinsha took a screenshot of the Facebook page of the person who was vitriolic on her which also had that person’s photograph and posted it on her own Facebook page. Within minutes, the children and nephews/nieces of the person apologized. Soon after that, the Facebook page of the person disappeared.

Making money for and from travelling

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One of the first international vlogs Jinsha Basheer did was in Singapore. Dubai and Thailand followed.  The followers were introduced to the facts that in Singapore, a bottle of water costs Rs 350 and that in Thailand, one could take selfies with tigers, all through her vlogs.

“Rains round the year, gentle sunshine, towering buildings, beautiful landscape…Singapore is a place that must be visited at least once in a lifetime. At the same time, Dubai is a place of Guinness Book of world records. There is a village in Dubai with a rivulet and farming. This village is known as Al Barari Farm.” More than one lakh likes were received for this vlog alone.

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“Thailand is a country of individual freedom. The issue is how that freedom is utilized. There is a zoo housing 200 tigers in Thailand. In the elephant rearing centre, one could play with the elephant calves. Photos can be captured with one riding a crocodile in a lake of about 1000 crocodiles.” These facts were included in Jinsha’s vlog on Thailand.

‘Mariner of the Seas,’ a royal Caribbean cruise liner which berthed in Kochi was visited with special permission. “The vlog relating to this visit to the ship with an interior bigger than the LuLu Mall got instant popularity,” Jinsha explained how she started getting remuneration from Facebook.

The vlogging technique

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Jinsha and Faisal discovered ‘The Earth Lounge’ in Kochi international airport while on their way to Dubai. They entered the lounge to avoid the boredom of waiting for their flight. Two hours in there costs Rs 2000. But if you are holding Visa Platinum, Master Card etc it will cost only Rs 2. With that unlimited food and drinks, bathing area, relaxing area etc are made available to you.  ‘The Earth Lounge’ which the airport runs with the promotion of banks, was immediately videoed by Jinsha. Similar videos with little known facts were released on Jinsha’s Facebook page.  Likes and comments started piling up on such posts. Remuneration flowed from Facebook and You Tube.

“Tour operators approach us. They invite us to film the package tours they conduct. The tour and accommodation facilities would be arranged by the operator. The vlog that is made on the tour should reflect the services provided by the tour operators. The tour operator which took us on their package tour to Thailand saw more number of tourists opting for its services. The income comes through the Facebook posts. If 1000 readers read it, some small amount will come in the account.  You Tube is the best paymaster. If there are 1000 subscribers and 4000 minutes of viewing, an account for transferring remuneration can be created. The more the number of viewers, more is the remuneration. Jinsha explains after going through the statistics after turning a professional vlogger she has 87,000 followers on You Tube.

Offers for international tours are waiting her attention. There is some indecision on where to fly next among the options available. Faisal loves Switzerland. Jinsha has decided that as soon as her Dubai trip is over, she would fly out to Europe.

source: http://www.travel.manoramaonline.com / OnManorama / Home> Travel> Celebrity Travel / by Baiju Govind / May 16th, 2019

This Bengaluru Ola cab driver’s heartwarming gesture is going viral on the internet

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Karnataka (under research project), Transport, Travel & Tourism, , , ,

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

When it comes to taking cab rides, there have always been many bad experiences for the commuters compared to the good ones.

Bengaluru Ola cabbie Khateeb UR Rahman (Photo | Facebook and PTI)
Bengaluru Ola cabbie Khateeb UR Rahman (Photo | Facebook and PTI)

When it comes to taking cab rides, there have always been many bad experiences for the commuters compared to the good ones.

Two of the dominant cab aggregators Uber and Ola are no different as they have also been in the wrong side of the news in the past.

But this time around it was an Ola cab driver who is in the news for all the good reasons. On September 17th, a Bengaluru based man took to Facebook and shared a heartwarming story of an Ola cab driver.

The commuter, Sayuj Ravindran, said that the cab driver returned valuables and gadgets worth Rs 2.5 lakh to him after he had left them behind in the cab.

He wrote, “Returning after my cousins wedding, I took an Ola cab (with my family) from KR Puram railway station to home at around 3:30 am. Halfway down, the car tyre got punctured. The driver requested me to book another cab since it will take some time for him to replace the tyre. I got another one in 10 mins and I was about to reach home when I got a call from the first cab driver informing that I left a handbag in the car. I then realized it was my laptop bag which also had some valuables in it. He said he will wait for me right there. I took my car from home and rushed back. He was kind enough to come a little further towards my home. We met at the Marathahalli bridge and he gave me the laptop bag.”

Sayuj also mentioned that the cabbie refused to take money from him as a favour.

“Meet Mr Khateeb UR Rahman, who returned my bag (with stuff worth Rs 2.5 lakhs approx). He refused to take any money from me in return of the favour and got back into his cab. But I did manage to slip in the money to his jacket pocket forcefully. Please reward this gentleman for what he has done, ” he said.

The post had gone viral with over 10,000 people liking the post and over 2,600 people sharing it.

The RT Nagar Old office (SGP Group), who came across the heartwarming act of the Khateeb UR Rahman rewarded him with a cheque of Rs 25,000.

This heartwarming gesture once again proves to be an example of how one will be rewarded according to his/her act.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Online Desk / September 25th, 2019

From cooking tips to charity: Meet the ‘vlogger family’ from Malappuram

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, NRI's / PIO's, Videos, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mallapuram, KERALA :

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Vlogging or video-blogging is nothing new in this modern age of technology. But there is an interesting vlogger family worth knowing about. Let’s meet four women from a family in Malappuram, who have established their paths in successful vlogging – Shamseera, Femina, Sabeena and Shabna.

Moyin KP and Khadeeja EC belong to the village of Munduparamb in Malappuram. They have four children – a daughter and three sons. Their daughter Shabna and the three daughters-in-law are into vlogging now. It all began with Shamseera, their eldest daughter-in-law. She grew up in Kerala and Qatar and lived with her husband and kids in Dubai where she too worked for a while. But when they moved to Saudi Arabia in 2014, she found it so different from the places she had been till then – it was hard to go out alone, she couldn’t work as job opportunities were very less for foreign women back then.

Her only solace then lay in her cooking experiments, reading and crafts etc. She even joined her kids’ school as an art teacher but soon realised that ‘teaching itself was art I (she) lacked’. In between, she was also watching videos on YouTube, which gradually brought her to the idea of starting a channel of her own. Shamseera began a YouTube channel in 2016 but had to drop it due to some technical issues. She then began another one in 2017 and uploaded the videos of the previous one in it and thus started the journey again. Since then, she hasn’t turned back from her ‘Momtastic’ channel. (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCL-LW86fWpQejgKbsoWrQqw#menu). She now has 2.98 lakh subscribers from different parts of the world.

 

Shamseera Sherin and family
Shamseera Sherin and family

The other three were inspired by Shamseera. Shabna Hasker was the second to enter the field. She began her channel ‘Taste Tours’ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwXXEk9v87KS57cFkpoTgIQ) in May 2018, and soon Sabeena Shemin joined with ‘Sabeena’s Spice Diary’ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChiazvVDnNGssDgqshIKGAA) in June 2018. And now, Femina couldn’t stay back. She joined the YouTube journey along with her husband Shajin in October 2018 – ‘Femina & Shajin’ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzfIuOwn17TYHnt9NygsWKg) The topics they have selected are all similar – cooking, cleaning, organizing, gardening, crafts, travel, daily house chores etc. Shamseera chose English as the medium for her vlogs, though she has done one in English, Malayalam and Hindi together. Sabeena and Femina began in English and switched to Malayalam owing to the request of viewers. Shabna uses only Malayalam in her videos.

Femina Shejin and family
Femina Shejin and family

All the four ladies manage their YouTube channels along with taking care of their respective families and running their houses. Shamseera, a graduate in commerce, lives in Riyadh with husband and two kids. Femina, an MBA graduate, is in Calicut with her husband and two kids. Sabeena, a Statistical Investigator on leave from government service, lives with husband and a kid in Sharjah. Shabna, a graduate in commerce, lives in Malappuram with husband, three kids and parents-in-law. Speaking to TwoCircles.Net, they said that they wished to upload videos twice or thrice a week in a fixed time but were not able to do so always. Shamseera, Femina and Sabeena shoot their videos and do the related works when their kids are away in school, while Shabna has her youngest child always with her at home and so has to do her works at night after the kids go to sleep. All mentioned the support of their families. Shabna’s channel has more than 1.5 lakh subscribers, while Sabeena’s has 1.01 lakh and Femina’s more than 31,000.

Shabna Hasker and family
Shabna Hasker and family

Shabna now has a cookbook to her credit – ‘Janapriya Ruchikal’ by leading publisher DC Books, expected to be released soon. It was her husband Dr Hasker who suggested the idea and pushed her into writing it when she was reluctant. Shamseera has even starred in an advertisement for the famous Lulu Supermarket.

When asked how they managed their private life and public vlog with the camera inside their homes, all four said they were extremely particular that their vlogging shouldn’t affect their private lives. Shabna said, “We do capture our daily life at home but only for a short time. For example, we capture the first few moments of having food and then turn it off. So we have our time too.” Femina owes the lag between her videos to the priority she has kept.

shabna hasker
shabna hasker

While the other three vlog on their own, Femina does it along with her husband. “It is good. We can spend some more time together,” she said. In addition to the usual topics dealt with by all, they also do comedy videos along with their kids. However, there are times when Femina has to do the vlogs alone as Shajin gets busy with work. The daughter of an Army Major, Femina was born in Kerala and grew up in different parts of the country. After completing her graduation in Commerce, she did MBA in HR and worked for a while when they were in Dubai and back in Kerala. Now she is also running a home décor-related business online.

Sabeena Shemin and family
Sabeena Shemin and family

They also try to keep regular contact with their viewers–replying to messages on social media and trying to do videos on request. “Editing and uploading a video is a big task. My eyes get tired, my energy levels fall. But once I publish a video, the comments from my loving viewers are just enough to make my battery level go 100% in a few seconds,” said Shamseera. She recalled an experience she had last month on a trip to Kochi when a lady rode 6-7 kilometers on a scooter with two kids just to meet her.

So, how has YouTube affected their lives? Shamseera confesses she was reserved and shy earlier, but vlogging has made her a more confident person. Life has become busier and more hectic, but now that they are used to it, Femina says it is a beautiful mix. The women are doing their bit for charity too, the latest being during the floods in Kerala. Life has changed for all the four – getting recognized is indeed a matter, but it makes them more responsible too.

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source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> TCN Positive> Indian Muslim> Lead Story> Women / by Najiya O – TwoCircles.net / September 16th, 2019

Jannat Mari is Shah Rukh Khan’s brainchild: Bilal Siddiqi on ‘Bard of Blood’

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), , , , , , , , ,

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

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Ahead of its release this Friday, Bard of Blood writers Bilal Siddiqi and Mayank Tewari discuss the challenges involved in adapting a book into a seven-episode TV format

In 2015, at the book launch of The Bard of Blood, author Bilal Siddiqi and novelist, Hussain Zaidi, made jokes on Emraan Hashmi as to how he is the right candidate to essay RAW agent Kabir Anand, without considering the eventuality that would transpire four years later. Bilal agrees that he did not put an image to the character while writing, and that the casting of Emraan Hashmi happened organically. “When you have a star like Emraan on board, it will obviously elevate the viewership of the show. He embodied the character and brought in lots of nuances to Kabir Anand,” says Bilal Siddiqi, who has written the screenplay of Bard of Blood along with writer Mayank Tewari, known for writing Newton and The Accidental Prime Minister.

Inside the writer’s world

The biggest selling point of The Bard of Blood was Bilal’s age (he was 20) — too young to be dealing with guns, agents and weapons of mass destruction (read: third world politics). But his fascination for the espionage genre stems from his mentor Hussain Zaidi, with whom he assisted in books like Byculla to Bangkok, Mumbai Avengers and My Name Is Abu Salem. Bilal wrote a brief outline of Kabir Singh, the protagonist of The Bard of Blood, and says he never had the intention to make it into a novel. “He [Zaidi] liked whatever I had written and sent it to my publisher. They called me one day, asking to finish the book so that they can take a call. I somehow managed to fulfil my dream of writing,” he says.

He was “subconsciously influenced” by Zaidi, who had one advice for him: ‘Make it visceral and graphic’. That he did when he sat with Mayank Tewari in the writer’s room, having discussions back and forth on how to better the book. “Bilal was very proactive in saying, ‘let us use this material as a springboard to take it to the next level’. Since it was written five years back, we had to spend more time on the screenplay to make it relevant and real,” says Mayank Tewari, adding that the duo has taken the “best chunk from the book”.

Unlike The Accidental Prime Minister, which was non-fiction, the challenge for Mayank was to construct scenes that drives the characters throughout the season, in a satisfying way for the audience. “The one good advantage is that, all characters were sharply etched out. There were some really good lines in the book, which we have retained,” he adds. Mayank did have heated exchanges with Bilal on how to interpret Balochistan. He quips, “But that’s what makes the collaboration rewarding, right? Disagreements lead to fruitful agreements. And everything was in the spirit of making a good show.”

Writing a novel has its own perks. For instance, Bilal had the luxury to use The Bard of Blood as a device to get into the character’s psyche, exploring his inner voice and go overboard with the descriptions — a counter to the film format, where you need to show these things on screen rather than tell. He admits that they had to tone down the details, adding, “Screenplay is like a manual for filmmakers to shoot. So, it is a different ball game and Mayank has given some valuable inputs.”

Bilal acknowledges the timely suggestions of Shah Rukh Khan, who has produced it along with Netflix. In fact, Jannat Mari, the character played by Kirti Kulhari, is Shah Rukh Khan’s brainchild and was not there in the book. “He [SRK] saw the pitch before it went to Netflix. The series has several characters that were not part of the book. In that sense, you can say that Bard of Blood is the best version of my book.”

(The writer was in Mandawa at the invitation of Netflix)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Movies / by Srivatsan S / September 24th, 2019

“Tipu Sultan – Patre, Hukum Name aani Itihasache Sadhne” (Tipu Sultan – Letters, Orders and History materials).

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Freedom Fighters (under research project), Karnataka (under research project), Leaders, , , , , , , , ,

Solapur, MAHARASHTRA :

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In an attempt to highlight Tipu Sultan’s personality, diplomacy, relationships with other rulers, foreign policies and other facets of his rule, two youths from Solapur city, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Wayez Sayed are bringing out a Marathi book named “Tipu Sultan – Patre, Hukum Name aani Itihasache Sadhne” (Tipu Sultan – Letters, Orders and History materials).

TipuSultan02MPOs22sept2019

About 415 letters and 10 orders (Hukm name) of Tipu Sultan have been collected by these two youths and translated into Marathi.

The book containing Tipu’s written material is ready for release and will be published by Adv. Gaziuddin Research Center, Solapur, Maharashtra. This research centre has released five books on Tipu Sultan.

Speaking with Twocircles.net, Sarfaraz Ahmed informed that they worked for nearly six years to translate this 300-page book.They had to travel across India to collect these 415 letters written by Tipu which have been preserved  in different libraries of the country, he added.

“These letters show that he had very good relations with Maratha Sardars of Maharashtra, Nizam II of Hyderabad and other Indian kings. He also contacted foreign rulers, including Napoleon Bonaparte and British rulers as a part of foreign policy, ” Ahmad added.

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Come author Sayed Shah Wayez said they had to work hard to translate these letters because they were written in seven languages since Tipu Sultan used to communicate with other rulers in their mother tongue only.

Renowned activist Ram Punyani, who has written the introduction for this book, lauded the efforts and the hardwork of Sarfaraz and Wayez.

source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Historical Facts> Indian Muslims> Lead Story / by Imran Inamdar, Twocirlces.net / September 22nd, 2019

T.N. Governor supersedes Waqf Board, appoints special officer

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Chennai, TAMIL NADU :

M.A. Siddique to perform duties of the board

As elected members in Tamil Nadu  Waqf Board are not more than the nominated members, the Governor has superseded the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board for six months. The Governor has appointed M.A. Siddique as special officer to exercise and perform all the powers and duties as long as the board remains superseded.

As per sub-section (4) of section 14 of the Waqf Act, 1995, the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board would be unable to perform if the elected members were not more than the nominated members. The special officer, at present a Principal Secretary to Government (Expenditure), Finance Department, would perform all the powers and duties under the provisions of the Waqf Act, 1995, according to a notification issued by the State government.

While the board’s chairperson A. Anwhar Raajhaa ceased to be a Member of Parliament, two senior Muslim advocates, who were earlier considered elected members, would have to be considered nominated members, as per the legal advice received by the State government. Although there were two Muslim MPs from the State, even their appointment would still make it six members, whereas the rule demands elected members should be more than nominated members.

Legal opinion

Following show-cause notices sent to all 10 members of the Board as per the rule, only four members replied seeking to drop the superseding process and urged that senior advocates be considered elected members. “The government has received legal opinion that the senior advocates can be considered as nominated members. In view of the above, the elected members are less than the nominated members and the board is unable to perform its functions..,” the notification stated.

The 10 members on the board were: A. Anwhar Raajhaa, K.A.M. Muhammed Abubacker, K.S. Masthan, A. Sirajudeen, M. Ajmal Khan, A. Tamilmahan Hussain, Amatul Aatifa, A.S. Fathima Muzaffer, Haja K. Majeed and Syed Ali Akbar. Mr. Siddique was a government nominee.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Tamil Nadu / by Special Correspondent / Chennai – September 20th, 2019