Oil pastels on canvas

Oil On Canvas

(24"x30")





(24"x30")

Acrylic On Canvas

My first attempt on canvas with acrylic colors

When the Stars fall down on the Earth & the Moon sleeps : the sleeping baby & the singing mother

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang : Snowy Soul

Approximately after ten years I return to Himalayan hills, en-route to queen of hills Shimla, in the midst of chilling night, partly warmed with car-heater, indulging in conversation with driver to feed my boredom which started with about his whereabouts & ending in world politics. Ten years-a long period for a change, yet the Himalayas, from where I left it-Ranikhet in Kumaon hills in Uttranchal to Shimla on the other side of this mighty range, remains unchanged. Whilst looking for the change in the shadows of hills in the dark night I inquired into myself; I also remain unchanged. My flight from teenage to late twenties may have hiked my body through several alterations but still something inside remains untouched. "Should I take some anti-vomit pills ?" was the thought that frequented my mind whenever I used to enter the turning roads hills. I observed that thought coming again.
There is some connection between mighty Himalayas & my soul, just a glimpse of them makes me feel so inferior. The tireless false ego somehow starts to vanish, letting me to fall into depth created by these giant mountains.










Writing this, I sit in my hotel room, the snow fall visible from window. Snow god welcomed me by throwing small cotton balls like snow into my world, making me struck into struggle between body & heart. My heart wants to leap on the snow & play with it while my body encountering this idea. In anyway, I know that my heart will win eventually as I myself stand on its side, I always have.

For me at least, always, nature has evoked something in me that even I never figured out. Sartre with all his wit, shouting inside me - other is hell, & then getting disappeared with rest of thoughts. Coming in close proximity with nature has made me lonelier, & most important much calmer.
I, with mighty Himalayas & cotton like snow, feel much more like a human instead of gods, closest to my basic nature. These hills speak, trying to touch me with their pine tree like hands & squeezing me to the utmost state of being where neither happiness nor sadness exists. I take back my'self' from here instead of memories, learnt the art of drinking Zen tea.
The only word that I can give to this wild eruption is 'love'.

Sketcher's sketch : - Tushar Waghela captured in charcoal & color on paper.

नंगे पाँव मत चला करो आसमान में
कहीँ तारे ना चुभ जाएँ पाँव में

मिट्टी के दीये

कल शाम एक मित्र की डायरी में लिखे कुछ शब्दों को पढ़कर कि धर्म वैयक्तिक होता है, ना इससे कम ना इससे ज्यादा, एक कहानी याद आ गयी। कहानी शायद काफी पुरानी है - एक समुद्र का किनारा इस बात के लिए प्रसिद्ध था कि वहाँ बैठने वालो को समुद्र के अन्दर से घंटियों की आवाज सुनाई पड़ती है। शायद किसी समय में कोई भव्य मंदिर रहा हो जो समय के साथ विलीन हो गया हो और लहरों के टकराने से उस मंदिर की घंटियाँ बजती हो। एक दीवाना अपनी मौज में रोज उन घंटियों को सुनने आता था। लेकीन सिवाय लहरों की गर्जन के उसे कुछ सुनाई नही पड़ता था। फिर भी उसने संकल्प ले रखा था की उन घंटियों की आवाज सुनने का। एक दिन अचानक वो दीवाना जोर जोर से चीखने लगा की सुन ली मैंने घंटियों की आवाज। लोगो ने जब पूछा तो उसने कहा कि ये आवाजें समुद्र से नही मेरे अंतस से आती हैं, मैंने सुना है उन्हें । लोगो ने समझा कि बेचारा पागल हो गया लेकीन वो तो आल्हाद से भरा हुआ नाचने लगा। मैंने सुना है की आज भी वो यही बात कहता है।

आज नवरात्रि का पहला दिन है। नौ दिनों तक सारे देश में देवी की पूजा होगी।
मार्क्स का ये कथन कि धर्म अफीम का नशा है, आंशिक रुप से सत्य है। नौ दिनों तक लोग उपवास करेंगे ताकि देवी प्रस्सन होकर उन्हें मुँह माँगा वर दे। अधिकांश ने धन माँगा होगा। इस देश से ज्यादा भौतिक देश दुनिया में शायद ही कोई दूसरा हो। हम तो सीधे - सीधे लक्ष्मी को ही पूजते हैं।

मैं कभी कभी सोचता हूँ कि यदि हम अमर हो जाये तो क्या धर्म बचेगा। रसेल की धर्म का मूल आधार भय है। मेरे देखे से ये बात भी आंशिक रुप से ही सही है। संगठित धर्म का मूल आधार तो भय ही है। वैयक्तिक का प्रेम। इन दिनों धार्मिक चैनलों की बाढ़ आयी हुई है। धर्म गुरुओं को २४ घंटे ब्रह्म चर्चा में लीं देखा जा सकता है। सब इश्वर को खोजने का रास्ता बताते हैं। इस बात पर एक और कहानी याद आ गयी - जेन फकीर रिन्झाई के पास आ कर एक व्यक्ति ने पूछा की इश्वर को कहॉ खोजू। रिन्झाई भी अपने में एक विरला था। पास अपने डंडा रखता और मूर्खों के सर पर चला देता। लेकीन ख्याति उसकी बहुत थी। शायद इसी के चलते ये व्यक्ति भी रिन्झाई के पास आया था। उसका प्रश्न सुनकर रिन्झाई ने अपना डंडा उसके सर पे दे मारा और कहा -'जहाँ गुमा कर आया है वहीँ जा कर खोज'।

ईश्वर को खोजने से पहले उसे गुमाना भी तो जरुरी है।
कुछ दिनों पहले मेरे पुराने परिचित एक बालक से मिलना हुआ। उनकी उम्र कोई साठ वर्ष है लेकीन हैं वो बच्चे ही । उन्हें ब्रह्मचर्चा का बड़ा शौक है। उनकी हवाई बातें सुनने के लालच में मैं उनके घर आया जाया करता था। मिलते ही उन्होने कहा की कल भगवान् शिव मेरे सपनो में आया थे और कहा कि तुम्हे सात दिनों के अन्दर ब्रह्म ज्ञान हो जाएगा। मैंने उन्हें बधाई दीं, और मैं दे भी क्या सकता था।

Running short of friends in the real world, so in the virtual one I logged on to this another social networking web-site Facebook. Unlike its predecessor Orkut, atleast this one isn't crowded with phony characters.

Thanks to AJ for guiding me to change the look of this blog.
& thanks to Tushar for not suggesting me at all. :)

Untitled

It comes uninvited in every blogger's life when there are a real shortage of new entries. The question "what to write ?" pops up in some corner of mind & is fed by different absurd ideas; "ok, I should write about this or that". The blog during this phase is famished in the scarcity of new entries & just to keep it alive the blogger forcefully has to put some thing new, I just saw a Chennai girl's blog in which she has mentioned about her successful effort of making Paav Bhaaji. Well, for any human living in so south of India, a northern paav bhaaji making expedition deserves a place in blog. The problem is I cant write all this because I haven't even tried making Dosa yet in past few days. Having kicked out of kitchen a few times by my mom has forced me to accept that I cant cook even though I know how to make Maggi & tea, my only two cooking achievement. Coming back, the blogger falls into such scarce entry state which makes them repeatedly seeing their own entries & counting the number of visitors ( who also may have seen them ) or changing the color of blog. Some even take a vacation from this blogging business. But for the most dangerous part, there is always a fear of blogger becoming a poet during such state. For those the easy answer is : Cant write anything, write poems. & then starts the battle of intelligentsia. Such bloggers whenever meeting fellows always ask : 'hey! have you read my new poem? Really, I don't believe that I have written it. Have you also read the comments ? ( I just don't understand who comments for such things, well, the fools have majority everywhere ).



If you still didn't understood I am also in one of those phases: scarcity of new entries. Not to blame myself but where will I find so many things to write upon, after all my brain weighs only 1.4 kgs ( universal information source : Google ). I think that I should write Indian history once again in my own way & when I am writing it in my blog, my presence in every important turn in the history of India becomes quite understood.
Once and for all, please dont blame me if I too start writing poems।

My Photo Travelogue : Istanbul & Scotland

My trans-continental travel ends in here in London, where I am at leisure, having access to internet. So, I post some of my photos of Istanbul & Isle Of Skye, Scotland. The one week long journey so far stretches me to many fragments of my being, I fell in love with Istanbul while Scotland mesmerized me.







(Isle Of Skye, Scotland)




(Istanbul, Turkey)


I will update my blog with my travel diary and experience when I come back to India. Until then, adieu.

My Recent Works

Notes To Myself : A Tale, A Pain, A Death

"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."

- (As reads the epitaph of Jalal-ud-din Muhammed Rumi)


Alas!
You have shattered
The beautiful world
With the brazen fist;
It falls, it is scattered.

-(Goethe's Faust, lines 1607-11)



On the thirteenth day of her demise, when thirteen brahmins ate the sacred meal, I finally gathered the strength to write at least that which can be called her obituary. My paternal aunt (bua) passed away on the day of 31st July, leaving a never-ending pain on my soul which I know time can never heal.

Being the resident of same town, a close relationship germinated between me & her. I can still recall my early childhood which used to pass within the warm walls of her home. In fact, it was she who gave me the identification : my first name - Amit. Later, I was to ask her, while the question really bothered me during my early teen-age, meaning of my name. I remember, she told,' It means limit-less, so you are going to be.' This was the only lie that I knew she told me. I am not limit-less, never even going to be. I believe it was a lie to quench a boy's curiosity. Being born on the ominous date of 13th & growing up watching horror movies like 'Friday The 13th', I always felt that fate has parted ways with the boy who is born on such inauspicious date. But there was she, who not only filtered my infant mind of such vague ideas but also in some way taught me never to trust the numerological & astrological absurdities. Though she never felt herself that this was the beginning of my atheism which later was to grow into agnosticism, thanks to the numerous dead spirits. She laughed when a teen-age boy, born on 13th, refused to attend any pooja activites during diwali. Her laugh was a consent, for instead of preventing my own cultivation of ideologies, she stood against the whole family to spare me & let me do what I want.

Ironically, I became the center of her motherly love, for her only son was born mentally retarded. This mishap, I feel, forced her to grow me in the way what she preferred or else what I preferred. While my mother was preparing for my sister's birth, she brought me with herself to her home until the delivery. This temporary stay was to last for two years. The only mother I knew until then was she. My naughtiness reached to its fullest in her home, pulling her hairs with all the strength I got while reciting the poem which my uncle taught me. My uncle during all this act used to laugh merrily, for I was doing what he always wanted to do. Throwing the neighbor's two year old child in drain, I faintly remember, was my favorite.

Twenty five years later I was to witness her grasping for every breath in the dark corner of Intensive Care Unit of hospital.

Putting in the words of Nietzsche - the idyllic tendency of the opera, she became my confidant, hearing all the stories of my girl friends. Turning the tide she always would,' why are you fooling them ?'. & I would laugh on her innocent remark. I was to discover later in the words of Carl Jung - mater spiritualis, which gradually and innocently she became for me, efforting to prevent her son to commit any sin, which I never did.

Though I never live to eat but I must say that she was the best cook I ever knew. I used to arrive at her place without even informing her exactly at the time of lunch. I remember her getting angry, of my coming without any prior notice, though I had taught her how to use a mobile phone. But I knew she used to love my home coming, informed or uninformed. On the thirteenth day when I ate what others called the sacred meal, I knew, it was the last meal I was treating at her place. With every bite, I ate the solitude created by her absence. Au contraire, it increased. Stealing the glance of everyone I conflated my lone tear with her unseeable presence.
She suffered from severe arthritis which followed her like a ghost for six years. Having sought to the refuge of every specialist doctors in this case with her, I never managed to get her rid from this painful physical state. Some twenty days ago, she barely survived a major cardiac arrest which led her to begin a journey which was to end in death. Doctors informed me of multiple diseases apart from cardiac related, I knew then that she wont last long. For seven dreadful days, I stood by her bed, while she dozed in coma, unaware of my presence.

I felt for the first time that Assagiolian egg diagram is all wrong, for he forgot to mention the space occupied in our 'self' by those whom we love. Their departure creates a vacuum within us which can never be occupied, reminding us from time to time of their 'once-existence' by those small things which we inevitably tend to associate with them : memory. Her demise reminded me of my own, for I have also to go one day, induction of love for life rather then the fear of death. Things are never going to be same again. I miserably accept that it is not the death of our loved ones which causes pain but it is the shattering of our mirage : that every thing is permanent. She taught me even with her death.

The quintessence of all religions : fear of death. Exploitation of humanity on the name of surviving in some other world, waiting for day of judgment, the vague desire of humanity, which even Godard moans in his film 'À bout de souffle' : 'I want to be immortal. '
If Michel Foucault is correct when he says ,'Man is an invention of recent date', then it may be also correct in finding the answers to all the curious questions of death, which is yet to happen, one must investigate the recent date itself. Simply put, the question of future can be answered in present.
But what if science wins over death, as it has always been put into effort by the means of alchemy. If it happens, I doubt, there would be any trace left of religion. The immortal man, I suppose, cannot be religious. But would it pose another threat, as in Kafkaesque 'Metamorphosis' Gregor Samsa wakes up from a nightmare finding himself being transformed into a giant beetle, causing a disgrace to his whole family, an outcast. The science made immortal man would be far different from what we are today, unlike Gregor Samsa, but very much like a giant beetle. Neither there would be any Nietzsche's Übermensch in this scientific expedition. Whatever there would be, I may not live to see it.

Her death struck the very roots within myself, which was unwittingly growing into such ideas of immortality. I feel that I am being lessoned in the most vital chapter with her sad demise : immortality can be achieved only by mortality. Just like, she will live within me, always & I am dead within her.

The boy born on August 13th 1980, turns 27 years old today.

My 25 Odd Observations Of Myself

1. The way for me to live is to have no way.

2. People dying around reminds me of my own death. Rather, it makes my love for life stronger than to fear death.

3. I drag myself to the point where I don't condemn myself for my feelings, even when they are condemnatory.

4. I stutter when I am not in rhythm of myself.

5. I witness my breath when I lie down on my bed. It keeps me awake while I sleep.

6. When I see my mind, its purely gibberish & non-sense.

7. I cannot be more than what I am this moment.

8. If I have wings & I don't fly, the fault is all mine.

9. I expected those things from others that I never expected myself to do.

10. While talking to someone I feel like I am talking to myself.

11. There is always a difference in 'I should do', 'I want to do' & what 'I do'.

12. I thought that I know what is silence. I was stupid to have thought that.

13. When I sing I feel ecstasy. I forget myself when I sing. In other words, forgetting myself is ecstasy.

14. Boredom for me is getting tired of my thoughts.

15. I look into someone's eyes , I feel he is like me.

16. I think I know how to find 'it'. Stop looking for 'it'. I am not sure.

17. My opinions keeps on changing especially when they are about others.

18. When I say 'I disagree', I want to exhibit myself.

19. Mostly, the fault I see in others are all mine.

20. I feel lazy when I start making a list of 'things to do'.

21. I boast about the things which have occurred on their own.

22. I love. 'Who ?' is irrelevant.

23. When I say there is a God, am I not hiding my fear ?

24. I look stupid when I want to impress someone.

25. Are these statements a ploy to show my wisdom ?

My Chameleon Blog

So, my blog changes its colors again. To tell the truth, I myself wasn't satisfied with the change that I had done in its appearance. I conducted a poll then, the result of which nearly equals ( see right ).
The poll itself says it all, the blogger himself isn't feeling good of what he has done.
I turn the colors and appearance back to normal again. I hope the voters who found the change was better, won't mind.

3 thoughts for 365 days

1. Never read any health book, you may die of misprint.

2. Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad.

3. Let us swear, while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed.

On Friendship

"Man is a civilized animal"- so pens Plato some twenty four centuries ago. Today on friendship day, when I sit back in my home, with my friend, I am forced to put this entry as a token of respect for this day. " Man Needs Friends". By mere coincidence, I happen to be reading these days the climax saga of an amiable friendship of three teenagers popularly known as Harry Potter series. The bond they exhibit is the one that we all yearn for from our infancy-the search of a friend.
The most unfortunate chapter in any human life would be of not having any friend. It simply would display the isolation of one's spirit in order to unveil the personal secret identity which is abandoned from the rest of the world. The only possible way to attain friendship is to recognize the realism of oneness with other. Friendship is nothing other than a mere quality which grants the human soul the very objective of its living.

I have heard of one Madam Blavatsky who used to throw flower seeds during her train journey so that they bloom into beautiful flowers. Once asked she said,'I want to make this world more beautiful'.

This is what I call friendship.
Happy Friendship day to all my readers. May this day never end.

dans la solitude de la mort

For a few more

A Layman's Effort : Remembrance

When the spring comes, grass grows by itself.

Colors of Phoenix : Tushar Waghela Strikes Again

In the month of monsoon when whole existence gets filled with the music of rain-drops, in a quite corner of his house an unknown mystical artist was busy with his colors & brushes. Tushar Waghela, one of the closest friend of mine, has revivified himself from the scars of sunburn which deliberately put all of us into unknown but painful dreaminess. His vibrant work, this time has appeared as a "Rainmaker", somehow autobiographically. Whats more important ? The art or the artist ? I say, when the artist itself becomes the art.

The colors of phoenix : -



( The Alchemist)




( The song of rainmaker)




( The Dream seller )




( The philosopher )

I often find a clumsy similarity in his work & me. If in some other life, which I trust I am not going to be born again, I happen to be an artist, I would definitely paint in the manner that he does. Its the song of rainmaker, listen closely.

To Be Or Not To Be ?

Welcome, Amit

You are connected to 59,238,695 people through 119 friends. This is what my Orkut home-page reads. Just looking at the numbers displayed anyone would trust that I am an ace person in making friendship. Well, its partially true. This figure simply suggests the number of people I am acquainted with in the virtual world. The world that we all live in today is fragmented in two equally surviving entities : Virtual & Real. With the advent of cyberspace, along came such virtuality in our lives that we put ourselves distinctively into two separate identities, the pros & cons is yet to be manifested. For an instance, in Orkut itself I have found myself communicating to people who live steps away from my home & with whom my real communication remained infinitesimally small. But in the virtual we have chatted like old buddies. Interestingly, I own a taciturn friend in real world, who likes to maintain silence but in the virtual world his volubility is quite evident from his blog. He writes so many words that he may not be speaking that much in a year. Why to leave the odd, even I have been known to speak as less as possible but the readers of my blog may not agree with me on this (those who don't know me in person). This change of our personality is certainly evident in many ways when we swing from one world to another. We become someone else in the virtual world. All the friendship that we possess in the cyberspace is nothing more than digital, keeping us all connected with each others through Graham Bell's invention : Telephone. Even Marquez's One hundred years of solitude, in which gypsies come with new scientific discoveries to a forbidden village claiming them all to be some sort of magic from the farthest corner of earth, will fall behind this magical cyberspace. Even Dolly the sheep has never been cloned in this way as we clone ourselves in form of various usernames & passwords. Definitely not, this virtual world is no different than real world. Here also exist all sorts of sins which defies the human limit of its reliance on technology. Hunter is being hunted ? Our reliance on modern technology has went to such an extereme that we cannot think to move an inch without it. Ironically, even this blogger needs it to write such comments. Few years back due to some technical problem in main frame computer the whole eastern coast of North America went into dark for several hours, leading the life to make a sudden fullstop. There were no rails, no traffic lights, created such a havoc that it took atleast two days for the system to get normal. Once watching discovery channel, I was duly informed by that electronic medium that US President possesses a red briefcase in which a computer is installed, having all the codes of US nuclear missiles. If some day the President wakes up with a heavy head, gone nuts, he can easily end the existence of humanity in just one click of button. God Bless US President. Digital love Just few months back one of my friend left Orkut for some very awkward reasons. Someone used his photos in an effort to win females in some adult community. Though I managed to catch the culprit, I was shocked, that person has been known to me from quite a few time & he always personified himself as another re-incarnation of Lord Vishnu, never missing a single daily visit to temple. I inquired him why did he did this. His answer was more shocking, Aise hi. Similarly, while surfing along TV channels a few days back, I got hold by the news on some news channel about how a girl is being molested by his unknown Orkut friend. She was under the impression that the boy loved her. This digital love of her made her fall into deep pain. No Ink, No Pen, No Paper One of the worst consequence of dwelling so much in to virtual world has been, according to me, the ill effect on words. The words have gone digital now, filling the never-filling gap of dissimilarity in writing of two different people. Now, we all write alike. The effect: actual hand writing getting worse. Even this blogger is suffering with the same illness. My writing is getting worse. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, who remained very depressed for his entire life about his bad handwriting, it does not concerns me much but still just to mention it, its really getting worse. The books also have become digital, changing the long corridors of library into silicon chips, the inevitable conversion into e-books. Coming back, does our existence in these two worlds necessary ? Worse : Is it moral ? To be or not to be , thats the question.

My Favorites :-

Here, I present a list of my favorite celluloids (blog provides a bigger space) along with the people off the screen & on the screen. To be mentioned, none of the list on the lower floor, are arranged in the order of preference. Also, I am providing the useful links below to ease out the readers for getting details.

Directors :-
Akira Kurosawa
Martin Scorsese
Woody Allen
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Ingmar Bergman
Roman Polanski
Jean-Luc-Godard
Stanley Kubrick
Blake Edwards
John Ford
Manoj Night Shyamlan
Quentin Tarantino
Michelangelo Antonioni
Bernardo Bertolucci
Federico Fellini
Pedro Almodovar
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Satyajit Ray
Abbas Kiarostami
Francis Ford Coppola
Luis Bunuel
Frank Capra
Orson Welles
Guru Dutt
Vijay Anand
Gulzar
Vishal Bhardwaj

Movies :-
RAN
Safar e Ghandehar (Kandahar)
TEN
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
It happened one night
Silence of the lambs
Pulp fiction
Life of Brian
Maqbool
Pather panchali
Hable con ella (Talk to her)
Taxi Driver
Clockwork orange
The usual suspects
The Godfather
Three Colors : Bleu, Bialy, Rouge
Bande a part (Band of outsiders)
8 & 1/2
Guide
L, Avventura
Solyaris
Der Untergang
Annie Hall
Pink Panther (old)
The Sting
Requiem for a dream
Rear Window
The good, the bad & the ugly

Actors :-
Sir Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Lectar Hannibal in Silence of the lambs
Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang
Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca
Clarke Gable as Peter Warne in It happened one night
Gregory Pack as Joe Bradley in Roman holiday
Clint Eastwood as Blondie in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Anthony Quinn as Alexis Zorba in Zorba The Greek
Henry Fonda as Juror in Twelve Angry Men
Forest Whitaker as Dada Idi Amin in Last king of Scotland
Marlon Brando as Don Corleone in The Godfather
Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather 2
Ben Kingsley as M.K. Gandhi in Gandhi
Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in The Raging Bull
Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Peter Sellers as Group Captain (G/C) Lionel Mandrake/President Merkin Muffley/Dr. Strangelove in Dr. Strangelove
Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump
Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in The Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker in The Sting
Javier Camara as Benigno in Talk To Her
Toshiro Mifune as Tajomaru in Rashomon
Christopher Reeve as superman in Superman
Sir Alec Guinness as Professor Marcus in The Lady Killers
George Scott as General Patton in Patton
Mike Myers as Shrek(voice) in Shrek
Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest
Gary Cooper as Marshal Kane in High Noon
Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbit in The Rain Man
Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of Carribean
Dev Anand as Raju in Guide
Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay Verma in Deewaar
Prithvi Raj Kapoor as Jalaluddin Mohd. Akbar in Mughal-e-Azam
Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh in Sholay


Actresses:-
Audrey Hepburn as Princess Ann in Roman Holiday
Claudette Colbert as Elie Andrews in It Happened One Night
Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen in Out Of Africa
Marilyn Monroe as Sugarcane in Some Like It Hot
Bette Davis as Margo Chenning in All About Eve
Ingrid Bergman as Ila Lund in Casablanca
Linda Blair as Regan Teresa in The Exorcist
Vivian leigh as Scarlett in Gone With The Wind
Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in Silence of The Lambs
Charlize Theron as Aileen in Monster
Katherine Hepburn as Christina in Guess who is coming to dinner ?
Nelofer Pazira as Nafas in Safar-e-Ghandehar (Kandahar)
Elisabeth Shue as Sera in Leaving Las Vegas
Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena in Boys Dont Cry
Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth 2 in The Queen
Ellen Burstyn as Sara GoldFarb in Requiem for a dream
Cecilia Roth as Manuela in Todo sobre mi made (All about my mother)
Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji Washizu in Kumonosu jo (Throne of blood)
Jean Seaberg as Patricia Franchini in A bout de souffle (Breathless)
Juliette Binoche as Julie Vignon in Trois Couleurs : Bleu
Judi Dench as Mrs Henderson in Mrs Henderson Presents
Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct
Madhubala as Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam
Sharmila Tagore as Pushpa in Amar Prem
Hema Malini as Basanti in Sholay
Mina Kumari as Nargis in Pakeezah


So, here's the list of some memorable performance on & off the screen by both genders. Readers may not find some popular names but to be noted that the world of cinema has infinite stars in it. Many are yet to be discovered by me.

Adieu.

So near yet so far

The announcement of results of PET & PMT in Chhattisgarh, as always, delivers a very awkward picture. The pupils of Bhilai have once again dominated the merit list (claiming nearly 50 seats in IIT this year), whereas Raipurians again have to put their faces in shadow, with only two students in the merit list.
The awkwardness, lies in the fact that both the cities though at a distance of only 35 kilometers but are poles apart when the assiduity of their youth are concerned. The yaksha question :- why ?

Albeit, Raipur is my native place, I was primarily schooled elsewhere, for my parents never felt that the town is a better place for education. For attaining my primary classes I had to reside in an alien place in Uttranchal, Ranikhet. Bhilai too, though for a short span of one year, became my educational refuge. The ambiance that town offers is very different from that of Raipur.

The Dissection
On analysis, of 'why' both near-by cities produces so different mentalities presents the whole socio-economic picture, which even can be applied to all popular system of thoughts.
Nehruvian dream of making India self-reliant in its industrial needs took a giant leap with the commencement of production of steel by Bhilai Steel Plant in 1959, with the help of India's faithful friend, Soviet Union. With this, a township area for its workers & officers also flourished near-by which later grew into the city of Bhilai. The Marxian proposition of work division for machine-cum-humans, eight hour work, eight hour rest, eight hour sleep became inevitably the mantra for this steel plant. This system of life also injected some neo-thoughts into the brains of its inhabitants. The more time passed, the more socialist Bhilai became. The division of residence according to their ranks in the plant viz HIG, MIG & LIG (Higher Income Group, Middle Income Group, Lower Income Group) helped this town to grow into a socially divided unit rather than caste divided, which unfortunately happened in most part of India. The education was also developed in such a way that the competitiveness can be pushed into child's mind from an early age since everything one can get in this town was by one's education. This engineering city to fulfill its own need was determined to produce some of the top notches of engineering products. In some way, this city became a metropolitan, for SAIL (Steel Authority Of India Ltd) deployed its officers & workers from all part of the country, to maintain a steady growth, though with time they familiarized themselves with local atmosphere. This congregation of best brains also led to make their descendants believe that books are the way to success.
All this, resulted in what we see today- the intelligent students of Bhilai.

Raipur, on the other hand, became more & more commercialized with the growth of Bhilai Steel Plant. Putting simply, Bhilai produced steel, Raipur sold it. The money started showering in to Raipur, inevitably leading it to follow a modern lavish lifestyle. To be mentioned, Raipur has always been the centre of political activities since the time of its being a part of central province. Still today, I assume that it is one of the most political cities of india.
The offshoot of all this money pouring in & political hot-pot resulted in a rather different development of youth mind. The political power & wealth became the primary target of majority of youth in this city. Though, these ambitions are not wrong in any way but the approach is. In Bhilai when a young man was dug deep into his books , the Raipur boy was staging a dharna for some political party or sitting in a shop selling consumer items.

The mere difference of 35 kms between both cities is like travelling into another world.
Both these cities are breeding the future of this state & nation.
Last night I saw a group of young boys fighting. On asking, they told me that they are passed-outs from high school.

So near we are, yet so far.