She is spotted with some of the hottest hunks all over the country and biker-actress Alisha Abdullah enhanced that image recently when she and John Abraham bumped into each other in the city.
She even posted a photo online of the two rekindling their friendship, saying it was fantastic to get back in touch with John. “It was a chance meeting. We both ended up being in the same hotel, but a very fortunate coincidence indeed. I know John from nearly five years back when we were both brand ambassadors for a product, and though we have remained friends over time, you know how difficult it is to keep in touch in our industry. However, he was really excited to see me.”
And the bike-crazy duo apparently decided to collaborate on a project. “When he saw me looking fit and glam, John proposed the idea of working together and I was only too happy to agree, I mean, who wouldn’t? John was as warm and friendly as ever. He’s off to Los Angeles now, but we have set up a meeting for the second week of August to get together and brainstorm. The way he has maintained his body over the years is truly awesome, and I was absolutely gushing over him,” Alisha laughs. While shooting for her second movie is about to start, the racer says she’s struggling to balance her film, sport and fashion commitments. “But when the lure of Bollywood comes calling, it’s hard to say no,” she says.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Entertainment> Tollywood / DC / Gautam Sunder / July 28th, 2014
‘Dastan-E-Urdu’, a 13-episode miniseries will bring on television for the first time evolution of Urdu over centuries and will aim to break misconceptions about the language among the youth.
The show, which will be aired weekly on Doordarshan National from July 27, will depict the history of the language, how at one point of time, Hindi and Urdu were considered one and what led to that disintegration.
It is produced by filmmaker and Urdu activist Kamna Prasad and directed by Aparna Srivastava Reddy.
“Today’s generation has myths about Urdu and we want to bring clarity to that. They think it is a foreign language and just got adapted in India but that’s not true. It’s an Indian language and its history starts from India,” Prasad told PTI.
The show aims to captures all nuances and aspects of Urdu’s poetic opulence and its universal appeal, by interviewing Urdu experts like eminent lyricist-screenwriter Javed Akhtar, Pt Gulzar Dehlvi and Professor Mushirul Hasan, among others.
“I already knew many of them personally as we keep meeting at Mushairas I organize, in fact Javed Akhtar attends every Mushaira I hold and they are all experts in the field of Urdu, so I spoke with them at length about its history and relevance in today’s scenario,” said Prasad, who has also done the research work for the show.
The producer says series was initially planned to be aired on DD Urdu.
“We first planned for Urdu-loving audience but Doordarshan decided that it should be aired on DD National as the language has national importance and it deserves to reach a wide audience,” Prasad said.
source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> PTI Stories> National> News / Press Trust of India / New Delhi – July 25th, 2014
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, 39, keeps his life easy, so that he can perform the complex roles on screen. He is sensitive, strong and open and loves his mother the most in the world. While being a theatre actor is his fallback option and security in life, he takes his time to decide on a film, as he knows that an actor like him is not spared for his mistakes.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui
What made you come to Mumbai?
I am from a family of farmers from Budhana near Muzaffarnagar. I studied till Class XII in my village only and did farming all throughout, along with my father. We are eight siblings and I am the oldest. I went to Hardwar to do my B.Sc, but realised that since I had not specialised in any course, I could only manage a job as the chief chemist in a petrochemical factory in Baroda. I then came to Delhi, where someone showed me a play on stage. Before that, I had no interest in acting, but seeing the play, I realised that this is what I wanted to do, as I got fascinated by the chemistry between the actor and the audience. I joined theatre and after doing it for over a year, I joined full- time NSD. I started doing street plays and did that for four years. We used to do four shows on a day. On days when we got shows, we had money, but if we didn’t have a show, we did not have money that particular day. So, I thought that agar bhooka hi marna hai, toh kyun na Bombay jaake maraa jaye? And I shifted to Mumbai in 2001.
We really got to know you from Gangs Of Wasseypur in 2012. What did you do for so many years after coming to Mumbai?
I came here to work in TV, but at that time, things were changing on TV and everything was becoming glossy. So if a dark person like me was taken, they would have had to put a baby light and that would delay production and so, I did not get success even on TV. I then did a few small roles in C-grade films. For the sake of just earning money, I also did a lot of crowd shots in films, but when the camera came to me, I would hide my face so that no one saw me. People would think that he calls himself from NSD and look what he is doing. Even to be a junior artiste, you needed a card, which I didn’t have. One time, I got caught as I didn’t have the card and had to bribe `1,000 to the junior artist coordinator. I did that for three years. I then started doing one-scene roles and hoped that I would get at least two, given that people would say that I did the first one well.
My mother mortgaged her jewellery to educate me
But my struggle continued and for five years, I got only one scene, till in 2009, when I got a role in Peepli Live and then Kahaani. Anurag Kashyap had met me in 2003 when he too was struggling. He had told me then, ‘If I become anything, I will give you a film.’ Post Kahaani, I was in my village when he called and said, ‘I have a role for you that you always wanted to do.’ I heard the narration and he signed me for Gangs Of Wasseypur.
Did you lose hope at any time?
Despite being from NSD, I was not getting work for so many years and I had started feeling irritated with that. Financially, I would survive borrowing money from other theatre actors, even though they too did not have money to lend. If I asked them for `100, they would probably have only `50 to spare and that too, I could not guarantee as to when I could return it. I was a mahir (an expert) at borrowing money. I would return the money, but to do that I would again borrow money from someone else. I always travelled without ticket in trains. I never travelled in buses, as we would need to buy a ticket. So I would walk to the nearest station and then go wherever I wanted to, without a train ticket. We were 4-5 actors sharing a room just 15 feet by 12 feet, which also included a small bathroom and place to cook.
The biggest problem was that if I went to any film office, they would look at me and ask rudely, ‘Haan, kya hai?’ I would say, ‘Actor hoon.’ They would say, ‘Dekhne se toh nahi lagta.’ And that was the biggest problem. And that problem was not just in Mumbai. It had been my problem in the village, where, when I told them that I was going to Mumbai to become an actor they would say, ‘Dikhta toh hai nahi tu actor jaisa yaar.’ So that would always frustrate me and I really felt bad. I would feel angry, but when I looked at myself in the mirror, I would realise that haan yaar, baat toh sahi hai. Despite being insulted so much, I would not have returned to either Delhi or my village, as I had solace that at least in Mumbai, there was anonymity.
When I had no money, I would find out which friend had work and money at that point in time and would go and stay with him for a week. All of us theatre guys did that. I had come to terms with the fact that nothing would happen in my life. Marriage was a distinct thought. Girls would not even befriend me, forget about marriage. And why would they? I had neither money, nor looks and nor was I successful. One thing I had decided was that come what may whether I make it or not, even if I have to continue doing small roles, I will, for the sake of my self-respect, not go back. Even though I never expressed my feelings to anybody, my mother was always confident about me, in fact over-confident. I used to find myself very unlucky in life. But today I feel ki sab der se hua par achcha hua. I don’t believe in destiny. I believe in hard work.
What does working with Salman Khan in Kick mean to you?
I was very excited to work with Salman to the extent in the beginning, I would feel scared that it should not get cancelled. He is such a big star with such a vast reach. Due to working in Kick, my smaller films will be benefited.
Who do you love the most in the world?
My mother. Even though she was uneducated, she always felt that she must educate us. She never interfered and wanted me to do whatever I wanted to. Even when I was leaving the village, she never held me back. She also disciplined us a lot. I have seen her sacrificing a lot for me. She even mortgaged her jewellery for my education. In our side, people are quite aggressive and the attitude there is quite goonda type, so you feel it’s good for your child to get out and she always wanted that for us, even though my parents still live in the village. What she likes the most about me is that I have always been responsible. If she gave me work to do for the cows at 5am, no matter what, be it winters or summers, I would be awake doing that. I was very obedient, responsible and hard-working.
Even though I hated doing farming and wanted to just get out of the village, I would work from 5 in the morning till 5 in the evening. We would go to sleep latest by 8pm. There was electricity in our village only for 2-3 hours a day so all my life, I studied under a lamp. Till today, wherever I am, I get up at 5 in the morning. Whenever I get a gap, I go to my village and spend 10-12 days there. Nothing has changed there. Electricity still comes only for 2-3 hours and I feel angry seeing that but I get a lot of sukoon (solace) there. Everything seems to be at a standstill there just the way you left it, your friends are the same and you just somehow feel that life is okay.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / and Bangalore Times / Home> Entertainment> Hindi> Bollywood / by Priya Gupta / July 22nd, 2014
Usman is seen displaying the award presented to him by Zee Kannada while his father Abid is seen preparing the delicious Dry Gobi at the Chat Street on Krishna Vilas Road.
Mysore :
Every Mysorean who has visited the ‘Chat Street’ on Krishna Vilas Road, in front of Devaraja Traffic Police Station, would be familiar with the mouth-watering ‘Dry Gobi’ that is available hot and crispy every day.
People stand in queue to put their hands on the yummy Dry Gobi prepared by Abid and Usman, his son. The father-son duo recently won the ‘Best Street Food Award’ at the ‘Oggarane Dabbi’, cookery competition organised by Zee Kannada, a regional channel.
Abid was previously selling ball-point pens at Shivarampet before preparing and selling Dry Gobi. He has been selling dry gobi since 18 years. Earlier, Abid was selling dry gobi for six years at NR Road before moving to Krishna Vilas Road, now popular as ‘Chat Street’.
Speaking to Star of Mysore, Abid said that it was former Mayor D. Dhruvakumar, who gave him an opportunity to sell Gobi at the Dasara Exhibition Grounds and added that it was because of his help that day he was able to look after his family and it was yielding good results.
Abid also expressed his happiness for his delicacy being awarded the Best Street Food- 2014 by Zee Kannada.
To prepare dry dobi, Abid uses around 15 kg oil and 100-150 kg cauliflower. Earlier, Dry Gobi was being sold at Rs. 10 per plate. But with the rise in prices of essential commodities, it is being sold at Rs. 30 per plate.
The cuisine is so famous that people from across India who visit Mysore come to Chat Street to tickle their taste buds with Dry Gobi. This apart, local MLAs, Corporators and senior officials also visit Abid’s Usman Dry Gobi Stall to taste the delicacy.
Award for Green Leaf Food Court
Zee Kannada “Oggarane Dabbi” has presented the best family restaurant award to Hotel Green Leaf Food Court on Kalidasa Road in city.
The award was presented at a function held in Mysore on July 6. The awards programme was telecast in Zee Kannada Channel on July 12 and 13. It will be telecast once again on July 19 and 20 at 9 pm.
Green Food Court is a 12-year-old venture managed by Pandiyanda Anil Kariappa and team of Mysore. It is known all over the city for excellent quality service and tasty vegetarian delicacies.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / July 18th, 2014
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao with tennis star Sania Mirza at a meeting in Hyderabad. Photo: PTI
Hyderabad:
Indian tennis star Sania Mirza was on Tuesday appointed ‘Brand Ambassador’ of Telangana.
She will promote the new “state’s interests” in India and abroad, according to Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Managing Director Jayesh Rajan.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao handed over a letter of appointment and also a cheque of Rs one crore to 27-year-old Sania at an interaction session with industrialists here.
“Telangana is proud of Sania who is a true Hyderabadi. She’s now ranked number five in international tennis and we wish she becomes the number one,” the Chief Minister said on the occasion.
Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma, Special Chief Secretary (Industries) K Pradeep Chandra and other officials were present.
Dr. Maha Jabeen, Administrative Officer, Yuvaraja’s (Autonomous) College, has been appointed as the Principal of the University College of Fine Arts.
She earlier served as Associate Professor and as the Head of Department of Urdu, Maharaja College before being appointed as administrative officer of Yuvaraja College. She is also a renowned Urdu writer and poetess. Dr. Maha Jabeen has represented University of Mysore in numerous seminars and workshops held across the world.
She has authored five books in Urdu language of which one has won the National Award by Government of Uttar Pradesh.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / July 16th, 2014
Twenty decadent facts from the life and times of India’s last ‘nawab’
A portrait of Wajid Ali Shah. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The poet-ruler Wajid Ali Shah (1822-87) was the last nawab of the north Indian state of Oudh. Deposed by the British, he spent the last 30 years of his life in a riverside mansion near Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he languished in a mock-kingdom with 6,000 subjects. It was a make-believe world. Many of the exiled king’s high-ranking officials held on to their old titles. To the extent that it was possible, Wajid Ali Shah, whose actual reign lasted only nine years, continued the customs of the court.
In The Last King In India: Wajid Ali Shah, British historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones resurrects the nawab with all his tasteful eccentricities. “Holed up in his new palaces, dreaming of love, music and drama,” Llewellyn-Jones writes, “his lack of enterprise only increased the distance between the bubble-like atmosphere of the Court and the reality of peasant life outside the city.”
Days after finishing the book, I mostly remember the following aspects of its hero:
1. Wajid Ali Shah’s famous portrait (at the Hussainabad Picture Gallery in Lucknow) shows him as a well-fed man wearing a lavishly embroidered tunic. His sash has four rows of large pearls. His left breast and nipple are artistically exposed between the gold borders of his dress.
2. He married (approximately) 375 women.
3. At 15, he was married, for the first time, to Khas Mahal, the granddaughter of an Anglo-Indian woman called Sally Begam. Like her husband, Khas Mahal was a poet.
4. He had three kinds of wives—the mahals, who gave birth to his children and were veiled; the begams, who did not give birth and went unveiled; and the khilawatis, who performed menial household jobs.
The Last King in India—Wajid Ali Shah: Random House, 314 pages, Rs 599
5. His autobiography was dreamily titled Pari Khana (House Of Fairies).
6. His poetic pen name was Akhtar, meaning “star” in Persian.
7. At 22, he wrote the play Radha Kanhaiya Ka Qissa—a rare instance of a would-be Muslim king creatively engaging with Hinduism.
8. He had a soft corner for dark-skinned women. One of his brides, Yasmin Mahal, “is clearly of African origin with her short curly hair and un-Indian features”.
9. His personal bodyguards consisted of female African soldiers dressed in red jackets and tight-fitting, rose-coloured silk trousers.
10. His mother Janab-i Aliyyah, who died during a visit to Europe, lies buried in Père Lachaise, the largest cemetery in Paris, which is also the resting ground of musician Jim Morrison and author Oscar Wilde.
11. He ascended the throne in 1847; by then he was fairly notorious. Two years earlier, John Shakespear, an East India Company bureaucrat (he was recently described as the great-great-great- great grandfather of British Prime Minister David Cameron), complained to the governor general that “The Heir Apparent’s character holds out no promise of good. By all accounts his temper is capricious and fickle, his days and nights are passed in the female apartments and he appears to have resigned himself to debauchery, dissipation and low pursuits”.
12. By the time he became king, he had written two lengthy romantic narrative poems—Darya-i-Ta’ashshuq (The River Of Love) and Bahr-e ‘Ishq (The Ocean Of Affection)
13. Wajid Ali Shah marked the beginning of his reign by building Qaisarbagh Palace—it happened to be Lucknow’s last palace. One of the structures was given the poetic name of Jalpari Darwaza, or The Mermaid Gate, which no longer exists. The palace also had a spiral staircase that led nowhere. In 1955, British architecture critic John Terry saw in the palace “the full horror of the impact of stucco and European baroque”.
14. After being compelled to move from Lucknow to Bengal in 1856, the deposed nawab was settled by the British in Garden Reach, an area south-west of Calcutta that had opulent villas along the Hooghly river.
15. The Garden Reach estate comprised three buildings. One of them was Azud Manzil. It was the royal menagerie and had 20,000 birds, beasts, snakes and “every conceivable variety of freshwater fish that can live in a hot climate”. The pigeons, of every variety and colour, numbered 18,000 . There was also a collection of cobras. One morning in 1879, a tigress escaped, severely wounding a German man and an Indian lance corporal (it also killed two cows before being shot dead by the Howrah magistrate).
16. The nawab’s evenings during his years in exile were chiefly spent in the company of musicians and dancing girls.
17. In his later life, he was carried all over on a sedan chair. He is said to have been afflicted with an anal fistula that forced him to spend many agonizing hours in the toilet.
18. On his death, the nawab’s survivors—his wives, children and their servers—numbered about a thousand.
19. At his funeral procession, a military band played Dead March from Saul, the oratorio by German composer George Frederic Handel that was also performed in the funerals of US president Abraham Lincoln and British prime minister Winston Churchill.
20. Throughout his life, Wajid Ali Shah remained a teetotaller.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge – Leisure / Book Review / by Mayank Austen Soofi / Saturday – July 19th, 2014
Grey clouds hover over Russell Square. They growl menacingly and then spit out fat raindrops. I take cover at the newspaper stall next to Luna Sweets.
A group of men sit on wooden benches outside a chai shop, sipping hot tea. They complain that Shivajinagar is definitely dirtier and more crowded than before. Prasad, the news stall owner tells me that it affects business.” It was not like this in earlier times” recollects a grey haired Syed Anwar.
“The Shivajinagar Bus Terminus used to be a football field called the Chota Maidan in the late 40’s. At the corner of the Square opposite St.Mary’s Basilica was a petrol bunk and in the middle was a large public toilet and well.” They begin to swap stories and I am included in the reminiscences.
“When my father moved his business here in 1957, military officers and Europeans from the Cantonment came to get watches fixed.” says a bespectacled Syed Mahmood. I peek into his shop; the Paris Watch Company.
It is filled with timepieces; grandfather clocks hang on the wall and squat little brass vintage alarm clocks tick merrily inside a tiny work cabin. “Our earlier shop, the Pearl Watch Company (present Mota Chambers) was on Brigade Road. Business was good there.” The shop shifted to Shivajinagar in 1957.
“My family was originally from Chikmagalur where my grandfather had a circus. He was good with animals but it ran at a loss so he shifted to fixing watches.” My eyes widen. I have unexpectedly come across astory on this rainy evening in Bangalore.Perhaps the city speaks only when we stop to listen.
Syed Mahmood’s father, Syed Jaffer,was a respected horologist, well known amongst vintage watch collectors in the city. “One day in the late 70’s, Dr. Ajaz Ahmad, a Unani specialist from Mysore called him about a very important job.
Watchmakers across the country and beyond had failed at it since the three missing parts were irreplaceable. My father manufactured the parts,re-assembled the clock in 30 days and took it to Delhi where he presented the working Mantel Clock to its owner, the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. He charged only `3000 for the job” says Syed Mahmood “but Mrs.Gandhi gave him `10,000.”
Syed Jaffer refused to teach his son the craft through books. “I learnt how to repair and assemble watches standing beside him all day.” His eyes grow moist. “He was a very fine man.”
Syed Jaffer was returning from weekly prayers at a mosque in Kumbarpet when he was unknowingly caught in police firing on MG Road in December 1986, duringa protest over a fictional story in a local newspaper. The stray bullet damaged his voice and his vocation. His shaking hands never fixed a watch again till his demise two years later.
The shop fills with sadness. Syed Mahmood wipes his eyes.
The clouds pass and the stories end. The men discuss world events. Paris Watch Company goes back to work. Syed Mahmood hunches over a dial and scrutinises it carefully.He fixes all kinds of clocks and watches including new ones, but the vintage French mantel clocks are a personal favourite. “Like the English clocks, they are almost impossible to replicate.”
Customers arrive to pick up their resurrected Omega or Rolex watches. They tell me that his skill and dedication too, are equally irreplaceable.The shop’s reputation remains unaltered by time.
The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> Others / by Bangalore Mirror Bureau /July 14th, 2014
Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda, yesterday, said that his Ministry has worked out a plan to lay a second track in the Mysore-Bangalore sector without disturbing the 225-year-old Tipu armoury near Srirangapatna Station.
Refusing to disclose details of the plan, he said that Railway Engineers had chalked out a plan and the track-doubling work would be completed by March, 2015 and maintained “If I disclose the plans now, there will be unnecessary hurdles as this is a sensitive issue and there is no dearth of people who want to rake up controversies.”
The work had hit a road block as the track was expected to pass through Tipu’s armoury. A proposal to relocate the armoury was met with opposition which resulted in the delay, he added.
Funds
Speaking about the funds for other projects in the State, the Railway Minister said that Rs.1,543 crore had been allotted for works that are underway in Karnataka and declared that there was no question of shelving any project initiated by his predecessorMallikarjuna Kharge.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / July 14th, 2014
– no hitch in grave renovation despite faizabad clashes
Lucknow :
Call it the power of music. Death has struck twice in this spiral of violence but hasn’t been able to cast its shadow on a tomb being “rescued”.
Admirers of Begum Akhtar are gearing to rediscover her legacy by restoring her grave in Lucknow at a time Faizabad, where the ghazal singer was born nearly a hundred years ago, is simmering under curfew even three days after riots left two persons dead and hundreds injured.
The violence broke out last week following a clash over an immersion procession.
Inspector-general (Lucknow range) Subhas Chandra said jawans were marching through the streets of Faizabad to restore law and order in the Uttar Pradesh town barely 10km from Ayodhya, the flashpoint of the 1992 Babri riots.
No such tinderbox emotions raged in Lucknow, 125km away, where followers of the ghazal and thumri singer prepared to mark her 38th death anniversary with a series of events starting tomorrow.
The events will culminate next month with her grave being rededicated to the city, where the “queen of melodies” came to live later in life.
The grave is located in a squalid, congested area in old Lucknow where shanties have sprung up. “The singer’s grave needs to be rescued from obscurity and squalor and put on the historical map of Lucknow,” said Salim Kidwai, a Lucknow-based writer who is working on a book on Akhtar.
“Begum Akhtar’s ghazals are suddenly being played by her admirers everywhere,” said a member of Lucknow’s former royal family.
Work on renovating the grave began two months back when artisans from Agra applied their expertise to restore its Pietra dura design — an Italian technique through which semi-precious stones are embedded in monuments. The resetting is complete and a green ring has been constructed around the grave.
Delhi-based architect Ashish Thapar, who volunteered for the project, has been supervising the renovation.
“The Government of India’s culture department has released a grant for the project,” said Madhvi Kukreja, director of Sanatkada, an NGO in Lucknow, which is working on the renovation. “We have approached the state government for funds for maintenance.”
Begum Akhtari Faizabadi, later renamed Begum Akhtar, was born in 1914 in Baradarwaja in Faizabad. Trained under Ustad Imdad Khan, a sarengi exponent in Calcutta, and later by classical singers like Abdul Wahid Khan in Lahore, she first performed at the age of 15.
In 1945, already famous as a singer of national repute, she married a Lucknow-based barrister, Ishtiak Ahmed Abbasi.
She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and was awarded the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan (posthumously) by the Indian government and also bestowed the title “Mallika-e-Ghazal” (queen of melodies). She died on October 30, 1974.
“It is my good fortune that I am involved in strengthening the legacy of my dear Ammi, who is still my guru,” said Shanti Hiranand, a septuagenarian ghazal singer who not only learnt singing from Begum Akhtar but also wrote a book on her, Story of my Ammi”.
Hiranand, herself a Padma awardee, would lead a concert on November 7, after which the new-look mazar would be opened to the public. A documentary, Hai Akhtari, by art critic S. Kalidas, will also be shown that day.
In Lucknow, a number of workshops have been organised in Begum Akhtar’s memory in various parts of the city.
Some 125km away, people in Faizabad were still seething in anger over the destruction of dozens of shops and vehicles in the violence that broke out on October 26.
Police officer Subhas Chandra said the administration had taken measures to check the movement of criminal elements.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Nation> Story / by Tapas Chakraborty / Lucknow, Tuesday – October 30th, 2012
