Sri 108 Munishree Pavanakeerthi Bhattaraka Muni Maharaj is seen conferring ‘Sri Mahaveera Ahimsa Award’ on noted Homoeopath Dr. Khader during the 2615th Janma Jayanti celebrations of 1008 Bhagawan Sri Mahaveera Theerthankara organised under the aegis of Sri Mahaveera Seva Samsthan at Sri M.L.Vardhamanaiah Smaraka Bhavan on Chadragupta Road last evening as Padmashree Jaina Mahila Samaja President Sheela Anantharaj, Sri Mahaveera Bhavan Construction Committee President M.A. Sudhirkumar, Sri Digambara Jain Samaj President S.N. Prakash Babu, M.L. Jain Boarding Home Secretary Madan Kumar, Sri Mahaveera Seva Samsthan Vice-President M.R. Sunil Kumar, Ajit and others look on.
Mysuru :
“Born as a human being, one should practice the habit of letting other living beings also live in peace,” said city’s noted Homoeopath Dr. Khader, who has been touring rural areas propagating the message of non-violence for the past 10 years after turning a vegetarian at the age of 15.
He was speaking after being conferred with ‘Sri Mahaveera Ahimsa Award by Sri 108 Munishree Pavanakeerthi Bhattaraka Muni Maharaj at a function organised by Sri Mahaveera Seva Samsthan as part of 2615th Jayanti Mahotsava of 1008 Bhagawan Sri Mahaveera Theerthankara at Sri M.L.Vardhamanaiah Smaraka Bhavan on Chadragupta Road in city last evening.
Regretting that 30 to 40 percent of those manufacturing biscuits and chocolates use fat extracted from animals, he added that consumption of bakery items also lead to sugar-related and respiratory ailments, which need to be curbed at once by using vegetarian products.
Former Mayor and Ekalavya Awardee (for Kho-Kho) N.Prakash was also felicitated on the occasion by the Seva Samsthan.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / April 20th, 2016
UNIQUE CONSTRUCTION:The age-old Juma Masjid at Thazhathangadi.
Mosque built by preacher from Arabia
The age-old Juma Masjid at Thazhathangadi, believed to be among the 11 mosques constructed by Malik bin Dinar, the eighth century religious preacher from Arabia, will, for the first time, be opened for women.
Timings
Women believers can enter the mosque on April 24 and May 8 from 8 a.m. till 12 noon and then from 1 p.m. till 3.30 p.m. and later from 4.30 p.m. till 6 p.m. The timings have been regulated so as not to interfere with the religious rites, a press note said on Tuesday.
The unique construction attracts tourists from far and wide, but women have not been allowed to have a peek into the richly carved interiors, made primarily of wood, so far, said C.M. Yousuf, secretary of the Thazhathangadi Muslim Jamaath, in the press note.
The Juma Masjid, considered one of the most beautiful places of religious worship, reflects the heritage of Kerala temple architectural styles and showcases the rich sculptural styles of Arabic architecture.
The mosque also houses the centuries-old sundial, sacred writings from the Quran embossed in wood, the stunning Maalikappuram and the richly carved facades and many more objects of interests.
According to Mr. Yousuf, researchers and tourists used to arrive to have a look at the unique structure, but so far women have been denied permission.
There have been appeals from the local people for such a permission. It was against this background that the Juma Masjid committee decided to allow women to enter the mosque, he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Kottayam – April 20th, 2016
A large illuminated Qur’an, by repute taken from the baggage of Nana Sahib after his defeat in the Mutiny of 1857, Sultanate India, late 15th/early 16th Century
Arabic manuscript on cream-coloured thin paper, 632 leaves, 11 lines to the page written in large and dispersed bihari script, first, sixth and eleventh lines on each page written in red ink, remaining lines written in black ink with diacritics and vowel points in black, the work Allah and some other significant words picked out in red, gold rosettes decorated with blue and red dots between verses, inner margins ruled in blue and red, catchwords, circular and pear-shaped devices in predominantly red, yellow and white coloured panels between suras left blank, two double pages of illumination at beginning and end with outer borders decorated with intertwining stylised floral and vegetal motifs interspersed with gold lozenges, edges frayed, some tears, corners rather thumbed, some waterstaining mostly restricted to outer borders, discoloration, later brown morocco with stamped central medallions and cornerpieces of paper onlay, with flap, edges torn, covers stained, rebacked
325 x 200 mm.
FOOTNOTES
Provenance:
Probably Dhondu Pant, known as Nana Sahib (1824-57).
Lieutenant-General Harward, Royal Artillery.
Portsmouth Libraries.
Exhibited:
Portsmouth High Street Museum (unknown date, but probably first half of the 20th Century).
A typewritten label affixed to the flyleaf reproduces the exhibition note: Copy of the Koran from the baggage of the arch fiend of Bittoor, “Dundoo Punt”, Nana Sahib – the monster of Cawnpore. The Nana was a Hindoo, and this Koran was used to swear in his Mahomedan followers. Presented by Lieut. Gen. Harward, RA.
Nana Sahib, whose original name was Dhondu Pant, was a Maratha aristocrat, born in Bithoor, adopted son of the last exiled Maratha ruler, Peshwa Baji Rao II.
In the 1850s he became disenchanted with what he regarded as the East India Company’s high-handed policies, as well as, more immediately, its revoking the pension he felt he was due following the defeat and extinction of the Maratha kingdom.
In 1857 at Cawnpore (Kanpur) he switched sides, captured the Company’s treasury and declared loyalty to the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II and that he intended to restore the Maratha kingdom.
It is disputed whether Nana Sahib himself, or his subordinates, gave the order to murder 120 women and children (survivors of an earlier massacre) on 15th July 1857 at Bibighar.
But they were undoubtedly murdered, hacked to death by sepoys and others, and the bodies thrown down a choked well. Whatever the exact details, the incident, alongside others of 1857, became part of the mythology of the British Empire, and the cry of ‘Remember Cawnpore!’ passed into common parlance – seen even in the label in this manuscript – as a reflection of British views of Indian perfidy during the Mutiny (or Rebellion).
Nana Sahib disappeared after the Company retook Cawnpore. There were rumours that he lived on in Nepal, and became an ascetic; others that he died of fever.
Post-Independence he was lauded as a freedom fighter and there is a park in Kanpur in his honour.
According to David James (After Timur: Qur’ans of the 14th and 15th Centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, Oxford 1992, pp. 102-107), ‘most of the Indian Qur’ans that have survived from the pre-Mughal period were written in bihari, a peculiarly Indian form of naskh whose origins are still obscure and which virtually disappeared with the advent of the Mughals.
In bihari script, the emphasis is on the sublinear elements of the Arabic letter forms, which are greatly thickened and end in sharp points. It is usually assumed the name of this script was derived from the province of Bihar in eastern India, but Bihar was not particularly important as a centre of Islam.
There is an alternative spelling, bahari, and it has been suggested that this is the correct form and that it is derived from the size (bahar) that was used to prepare paper for writing’.
James observes that the most frequently used colours in the illumination are a strong orange, a milky blue and yellow and motifs such as floral sprays, quatrefoils and chains painted in gold directly onto a blue ground.
source: http://www.bonhams.com / Bonhams / Bonhams.com> Auctions / London, Bond Street
Can you imagine a non-Muslim building a mosque in 21st century India? May sound impossible today. But, two far-sighted Jains built one of the earliest mosques in Gujarat, a state that has seen some of the worst post-independence communal riots.
And, all this for the sake of business. Between 1178 and 1242, Vastupal and Sheth Jagdusha built mosques in Cambay and Bhadreshwar in Kutch to attract Arab and Turkish traders, who would bring in foreign exchange. While Vastupal was the commissioner of Cambay port, Jagdusha was a merchant of Bhadreshwar port in Kutch. Jains have been an important business community from the earliest time till today.
‘History of International Trade And Customs Duties In Gujarat’, a book by historian Makrand Mehta, says Vastupal encouraged Muslims to settle down in Cambay and Anhilwad Patan, the capital of the Solanki-Vaghela rulers of Gujarat.
The accounts of Arab travellers like Masudi Istakhari Ibn Hauqal and others, who visited Gujarat between the 9th and 12th centuries, amply testify to the settlements of Muslims in Cambay and other cities of Gujarat.
“But the Muslims settlements could hardly have developed without the support of the Solanki rulers. In fact, they attracted the Arabs and Persians to Cambay and Vastupal did it by constructing mosques for them,” says Mehta.
Jagdusha was not officially designated as a customs collector but he had cultivated excellent relations with ship captains and customs staff. Although a devout Jain, as a staunch businessman he understood the value of foreign exchange. “For this reason he also constructed a mosque in Bhadreshwar, his hometown,” according to the book.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Ahmedabad / by Ashish Vashi & Harit Mehta / TNN / February 10th, 2010
REACHING OUT:Actor Mammootty consoles Surumi who lost her husband in the Puttingal fireworks tragedy.— Photo: C. Suresh Kumar
Heartrending scenes were witnessed when the actor hugged siblings Krishna and Kishore who lost their parents in the disaster.
Film actor Mammootty undertook one of his most poignant roles in real life when he arrived at Paravur on Tuesday to comfort the traumatised victims of the Puttingal fireworks tragedy.
As he addressed the victims at the Kottapuram LP School hall in the township, Mammootty even whimpered and that had a relay effect on the audience, especially the victims.
The actor, who arrived there shortly after noon, spent more than an hour with the victims.
The gathering was jointly organised by the Puttingal Nagar Residents Association, the Mammootty Fans Association and the Patanjali Herbal Exports Private Limited.
Heartrending scenes were witnessed at the venue when the actor hugged the siblings Krishna and Kishore who had lost their parents in the tragedy.
He was seen comforting 21-year-old Surumi who had lost her husband Vishnu in the tragedy. Carrying her one-and-a-half-year-old son, she burst into tears as the cine star approached her.
The actor said comforting the victims was a herculean task. Still, if his presence there could make a little contribution, it would be precious to him, he said.
“The tragedy at Puttingal has no comparison.”
The thrust now should be the rehabilitation of the victims, especially helping them overcome their mental shock. “This is one tragedy in which the living victims cannot be comforted by mere words alone,” he said
Fireworks are a dangerous entertainment which should always be enjoyed from a safe distance, he added.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Kollam – April 20th, 2016
A seminar on ‘Understanding Islam’ will be organized by the Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, Manipal University, at 3.30pm at Old TAPMI building behind Manipal post office on Saturday.
Prof Varadesh Hiregange, director, Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, Manipal University, said the seminar proposes to explore different dimensions of Islam as a religious culture with its own belief systems, philosophy, science, day-to-day practices, festivals, customs, and diversity and reforms movements.
“It is an attempt to understand Islam in its diversity as practised in different regions of the world, much against the image of a ‘stereotype’.
The seminar essentially makes an attempt to clear all the misunderstandings,” he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Mangalore / TNN / April 156th, 2016
Huma Qureshi is paired with Mammootty in ‘White’, a movie about a peculiar relationship between the two.
Actor Huma Qureshi, who is all set to debut in South India with her Malayalam film White, says she is glad that her debut in southern cinema is with superstar Mammootty and nobody else.
Talking about Mammootty, Huma told IANS: “I am glad that my south debut was with him and nobody else.”
How was her experience working with the Manglish star?
“Mammootty is a thorough gentleman. I got to learn a lot under him of course he’s an acting legend so it was an intimidating thought but he made it very easy to work with him,” said the 29-year-old.
The Badlapur actor added that Mammootty helped her “with the language and was extremely supportive”.
Directed by Uday Ananthan and produced by Eros International, the film has been shot extensively in London, Mumbai and Kochi.
In the film, Huma plays Roshni Menon, a software engineer who moves to London on an overseas assignment. There, things change unexpectedly when Prakash Roy (Mammootty), a billionaire enters her life. Prakash and Roshni’s peculiar, yet charming relationship is what takes the story of Whiteforward.
Apart from them, the film also stars Shankar Ramakrishnan, Siddique, Sunil Sugadha, Ahmad Siddique, Manjulika, Sona Nair and KPAC Lalita.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment / IANS / New Delhi – April 06th, 2016
The ancient site of the Madan Kamdev temple was once preserved by a Muslim. The fact that this has been forgotten is a sign of a larger erasure that we should be concerned about.
Madan Kamdev in Assam. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Arup Malakar.
Over a century ago, the incisive colonial historian Edward Gait, who compiled the first compendium of history in modern Assam lamented the fact that “…there is probably no part of India regarding whose past less is generally known. In the histories of India, as a whole, Assam is barely mentioned, and only ten lines are devoted to its annals in the historical portion of Hunter’s Indian Empire.”
Despite the passage of a hundred years, Gait’s observations on the narrativisation of Assam in popular Indian historiography remain true as ever. Timothy Garton Ash writes that recorded history is a history of memories. And when memories are being deliberated upon, can forgetting be far away? The act of peeking into the silences of historical narratives that have developed over centuries in Assam, or anywhere else in the world, becomes a crucial intervention.
Some such silences are palpably becoming more visible in the culturescape of poll-oriented Assam. The state has often been termed as ‘Sankardev-Azaan Ore Dexh’ – the land of Sankardev and Azaan Fakir, two religious and cultural saints of medieval Assam responsible for altering its socio-religious landscape. Srimanta Sankardev inspired the Bhakti movement, while Azaan Fakir established Sufi Islam here. Renowned Assamese geographer and social scientist Mohammed Taher observed that the syncretic relationship between Sankardev’s Vaishnavite religious traditions and Azan Fakir’s Sufi Islam was one of the main reasons that Muslims became a part of Assamese society.
These syncretic traditions have been an intrinsic part of Assamese society, including its political and cultural milieus. They are also reflected in the case of Ismail Siddiqui, one of the main commanders of the great Ahom general Lachit Barphukan. Siddiqui defeated the Mughal Army led by Raja Ram Singh in the historic Battle of Saraighat in the 17thCentury. For his bravado, Siddiqui was given the honorific Bagh Hazarika, or the Tiger commanding a thousand soldiers.
Religious sites have also been a significant marker of this syncretism. There have been many instances where Hindu religious sites have been taken care of by Muslims for years and Muslim sites have had been under the care of Hindus. In fact, Azan Fakir who ventured into Assam around 1636 AD, was known to have married a high-status Ahom woman. His dargah was constructed by the Ahom King Swargadeo Churamfa as an act of penance, at Saraguri Chapori in Sivasagar District close to the Ahom capital.
Madan Kamdev
There are many such stories across the Brahmaputra valley in Assam, and one of them is found in the history of the ancient temple site Madan Kamdev, the mythical place where Kamdev supposedly resurrected himself after being burnt to ashes by Shiva. These magnificent ruins lie 40 kilometres outside Guwahati.
Though the site has been dated to the 11-12th century CE, new scholarship suggests that the place may have been even older. Construction may have started with the ruler Vanamalavarmadeva of the Salasthambha dynasty in the 9th century, and continued by the succeeding Pala dynasty up to the 12th century.
The site is the capital of ancient Assam, which was known as Kamrupanagara. Even today, one of the major districts in Assam which encompasses this area is known as Kamrup, and those staying in this district in Lower Assam are generally referred to as Kamrupiyas.
Though the temple is dedicated to Uma-Maheshwar, the site of Madan Kamdev has often been referred to as the Khajuraho of the east due to the numerous erotic sculptures dotting the expansive landscape. Madan Kamdev finds mention in the important 10th century Hindu text, Kalika Purana and in the 16th century Tantric text from Assam, Yogini Tantra. However, this stone temple stretching to around half a km was subsequently destroyed by various earthquakes over the centuries, starting with the earthquake of 1548 CE.
Sculpture at Madan Kamdev temple. Credit: Travelling Slacker/Flickr CC 2.0
The ruins of Madan Kamdev were first excavated in 1855 by the colonial military officer, Captain Dalton. But not much information is available on the kind of preservation or conservation efforts that were undertaken post this discovery. However, records do show that a Muslim land official of the colonial administration, Niyamat Ali Mondol, took the responsibility of preserving this ancient temple. Niyamat Ali belonged to the nearby Piyolikhata Village, around 2 kms from the temple site. He was given the title ‘Mondol’ by the British administration, which meant that he measured land in order to calculate revenue for the colonial administration, and also arbitrated land disputes.
Very little is known or written about Niyamat Ali Mondol, but what is significant is that he became the first doloi or chief administrative officer of Madan Kamdev for 10 years, starting in 1901. The upkeep of Madan Kamdev, as with a lot of similar temple sites was administered by a committee made of locals till either the Government of India or the Assam government or the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) took over the responsibilities of conservation and restoration. It was only as recently as 1977 that the directorate of archaeology in Assam officially took over the responsibility of the upkeep of this ancient site.
Mondol’s role
When the temple faced a severe scarcity of funds, Mondol paid its khazna or land tax in his individual capacity for about four years. With such a history, one would expect the temple to hold information or the villages around the temple to offer some narratives, oral or otherwise. However, as Garton-Ash writes, ‘…writing history is nothing less than an infinity of individual memories of any person or event’. One can definitely discern a new form of historiography in the making – one that is complicit in the erasure of certain persons or events or even the linear chronological history of a tangible space. The ASI museum at the site of the temple does not offer any narrative on who discovered the site, how was it maintained, and who was associated with the site in modern history.
Mondol’s descendants who still live close to Madan Kamdev feel that there is an effort to do away with this part of the history of the temple, and in the history of Assam in general. ‘In the early 1990s, the temple officials including the thendoloi came to our house and took away the only surviving portrait that we had of Mondol, as they wanted to honour his efforts and install the portrait at the temple office,’ says his grandson, 86-year-old Bhola Chowdhury. ‘But the portrait went missing after a few years. We have tried locating it as that was our only tangible memory of him, but unfortunately we have no trace of it,’ he rues.
Kamal Nayan Patowary, an assistant professor of history whose doctoral thesis was on Madan Kamdev, offers an interesting anecdote on Mondol: ‘The locals did tell me about a person called Mondol who was the first doloi of this temple. But apparently, there was some issue with the locals and he was removed from the post of doloi soon (after). Hence, in anger, he took a tamrapatra or copper inscription from the temple, and threw it into a pond. According to the locals, the history of the temple has thus been lost. I did try to excavate the inscription during my doctoral research, and even employed divers to search in the pond, but it was a futile exercise.’
This narrative is however confounded by the fact that Mondol’s son, Chand Mohammed Chowdhury Kamrupi himself was part of the temple committee for about five years after the death of his father. Chowdhury was also part of the temple committees of other ancient temples in the region such as Goreswar, Pingleswar, and the 200-year-old Patrapur mosque. He was a prominent citizen of the region, who was bestowed the title Kamrupi by the locals because of his avowedly secular nature and love of the land. Kamrupi was also a well-known political figure, as well as a published writer and poet. He authored the book Vivaah Chitra in 1936, and also had his essay Purdah published in the journal Chetana which was edited by Ambika Giri Rai Chowdhury, popularly known as Assam Kesari.
Forgetting
In the temple precinct, there is also a palpable reluctance by the current trustees to talk about the modern history of Madan Kamdev. There is no awareness of the histories or narratives associated with sites such as these among devotees, or even in the villages nearby. Historian Will Pooley exhorts us to engage with the absent narratives and corroborate the voices that are heard.
In 2016, the state is facing elections which many term as a game-changer in the political landscape of Assam. Perhaps this is also a historical moment to critically examine the larger absences that are being created. It is a narrative or an absent presence that seems to haunt the Khilonjia or local Muslim community of Assam, which has always identified itself with its ethnic rather than religious identity.
History and memory are always interlinked. Changing memories involve the process of what Garton Ash has called ‘slow fading or forgetting.’ Whether this forgetting can be contained and lost memories retrieved is a question that the Assamese community as a whole may want to ponder upon this year.
The author is a PhD research scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Communities> by Shaheen Ahmed / April 10th, 2016
Iconic Bollywood actress Meena Kumari’s original publicity material and memorabilia, including paintings and portraits of her films, will be on the display at the Womanhood Festival here.
At the event, paintings of 1972 ‘Pakeezah’ and the 1953 classic ‘Daera’, co-starring Nasir Khan will be showcased. Portraits of Dilip Kumar-Meena Kumari starrer ‘Kohinoor’ and ‘Benazir’, co-starring Ashok Kumar and Shashi Kapoor, will be on the display at an event scheduled tomorrow at Osianama Liberty as part of the ongoing festival. Besides, posters of ‘Meena Kumari ki Amar Kahani’, ‘Phool Aur Pathar’ and images of ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ will also be featured.
The actress’ films like ‘Pakeezah’, ‘Parineeta’ and ‘Daayra’ will also be screened at the event. “She is a true icon for Womanhood & Cinema, absorbing all, breaking all, in the search to be herself… Along with Nargis and Madhubala, she represents the feminine iconicity just as ‘Mother India’, ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ and ”Pakeezah’ represents a different trinity of Indian cinema,”Neville Tuli, chairman, Osian’s Group said in a statement. Meena Kumari aka Mahjabeen Bano, starred in over 90 films in her career spanning nearly 30 years.
Listen to the songs of Meena Kumari on gaana.com
http://gaana.com/album/meena-kumari-hits
WATCH: Chalte Chalte Yunhi Koi Mil Gaya Tha – Meena Kumari – Pakeezah – Ghulam Mohammed – Old Hindi Song
Did you know that the mother of prominent Bollywood actor ‘tragedy queen’ Meena Kumari had a Lucknow connection?
When her mother Ikbal Bano was a young woman, she left her hometown Kolkata and came to Lucknow with her mother in the 1920s to explore a career in the arts. Meena, though, never visited Lucknow.
Bano had come to Lucknow following her connection with Rabindranath Tagore’s family. She worked as a dancer here for some time before moving to Mumbai to try her luck in Bollywood. There she met Ali Baksh, a harmonium player, whom she married. Their daughter Meena Kumari is a name we know well.
Several such lesser known facts about the life and journey of Hindi cinema’s enduring actress Meena Kumari will be shown in a play called ‘Adhoore Khwaab’, to be staged in the city on Monday. Over 40 trained actors will portray various tangents of her life in an 80-minute show organized as part of the 27th International Literary Festival by the Hindi Urdu Sahitya Award Committee.
SN Lal, the writer of the play, said, “In this play, we have tried to bring to light a different side of her charismatic personality. For the first time, we have incorporated one of the verses of matam (mourning during Moharram) penned by her in a play,” explained Lal.
Despite being one of the most popular names in cinema, Meena faced several hardships, he added.
The last scene of the play has been kept identical to real incidents of her life. “While shooting a song for Pakeezah, she had fallen ill and after that, never returned to movies or shooting. She died following the long illness. We have tried to recreate those moments on stage,” said Middat Khan, the director of the play.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / Vidita Chandra / TNN / April 11th, 2016
