<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->233-32 Rani Padmavati of the Maurya Empire (India)
After the death of her husband Ashoka Vardhana or Govindchand she ruled the empire, which was the first really large and powerful centralised state in India. It was very well governed, with tempered autocracy at the top and democracy at the city and village levels. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador at the court of Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, had expressed his admiration for the efficient administration of the empire. His book 'Indica' is a collection of comments of other Roman and Greek travellers, and Megasthenes wrote about the prosperity of the Mauryan cities. Since she had no children her advisors appointed Hariprem Vairagi as king.
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other link
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Sorry I should have spleed her name right. Its Rani Padmini of Chittorgarh.
I think she is also known as Rani Padmavati.
BharatVarsha and Digvijay have exchanged a few posts in the IF thread here
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...indpost&p=58218
<b>US Air Force band to sing Kajra re </b>
IANS
Posted Tuesday , March 13, 2007 at 23:20 Email Print
DESI TUNES: US Air Force band was fascinated when it heard Kajra re and asked for the score.
New Delhi: The Bollywood hit Kajra re will take on an American flavour when a US Air Force band belts it out here later this week at a military tattoo being conducted as part of the ongoing platinum jubilee celebrations of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
The tattoo on Saturday, open to the public, will also feature air force bands from Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as also of the IAF, the Indian Army and the Indian Navy.
The bands will perform indoors the next day for an audience that will include Defence Minister A K Antony.
"The US Air Force band was fascinated when it heard Kajra re and asked us for the score. They have promised to stick to the original but they are bound to give their own distinctive touch," said an IAF officer.
Kajra re, a popular number from the 2005 hit Bunty Aur Babli, featured superstar Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek and the latter's fiancée Aishwarya Rai.
A tattoo is essentially a stylised open-air concert that militaries stage worldwide and at which equal emphasis is given to music, choreography and ceremonial uniforms.
By far the best known of these is the Edinburgh Military Tattoo that is now in its 57th year.
India has its own version of the tattoo - the Beating Retreat ceremony in the Capital on January 29 that concludes the annual Republic Day celebrations.
"The programme (for Saturday) has been stylised as per the international format and will be performed in two segments," Air Marshal J N Burma, the IAF's air officer-in-charge administration, said.
The first segment will begin at 1600 hrs, IST at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial to the Unknown Soldier at India Gate.
The bands will perform martial tunes and march around the memorial for 12 minutes each.
They will reassemble at the same venue at 1800 hrs, IST and each band will perform popular tunes, as also some jazz and rock numbers, for 15 minutes each.
The Sunday performance will feature a medley of tunes by each foreign band, while the Indian military bands will stage a combined performance. Each band will perform for 15-20 minutes.
<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Mar 10 2007, 07:45 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Mar 10 2007, 07:45 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Me was only fantasizing about My Plan. Unlike Pinky and the Brain - who come up with different schemes everyday to take over the world, I've got only one. [right][snapback]65456[/snapback][/right]
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Glad to find another Pinky and Brian fan on IF. I didn't know there existed any. Those of you who haven't seen it - it's an absolute must. It's story of two lab mice trying to take over the world, well, it's actually one and other's just a side kick in for the ride.
On to "300", anyone associated with it has any neo-con leanings? Timing of the movie with the sabre-rattling against Iran seems all too convenient.
<!--emo&:thumbsup--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' /><!--endemo--> Nihshabad; I don't have shabads to describe this wonderful movie! Amicable resolution!
However in real life, things can go pretty nasty e.g. reported incidence of '03 whereby sextagenerian boss married employee in 20s; b-in-laws invited him and literallu amputate his sex organ in Kolkota
Watched Nishabd yesterday. I have to give it to AB that he is able to carry a very bogus movie and still maintain some form of dignity. The movie's central line says it all -> life needs to be lived with only one's own decisions (zindagi wohi hai jo apne faislo per jiyee jaay).
any comments on Black Friday and Kabul Express?
<!--QuoteBegin-sridhar k+Mar 19 2007, 06:55 PM-->QUOTE(sridhar k @ Mar 19 2007, 06:55 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->any comments on Black Friday and Kabul Express?
[right][snapback]65879[/snapback][/right]
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I was looking forward to Kabul Express but was told that it was not that good - some good comedy from Warsi but other then that so-so.
I heard comment that KE was very sympathetic to the rats next door.
<!--QuoteBegin-sridhar k+Mar 19 2007, 09:55 PM-->QUOTE(sridhar k @ Mar 19 2007, 09:55 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->any comments on Black Friday and Kabul Express?
[right][snapback]65879[/snapback][/right]
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No idea on Kabul Express.
Black Friday was okay - film delayed for over 2 to 3 years as they didn't want to sway public opinion while trials were underway. Of course such consideration is pretty darn selective.
Kay Kay Menon in Black Friday was only redeeming feature, think someone like Ajay Devgan or Manoj Bajpai might have suited better; otherwise the movie's filled with all new characters (could be a funding issues - imagine the bhai's behind Bollywood putting money on this movie). Movie's based on the book and there's a scene of Dawood residing in Dubai/Pakiland wanting to surrender with some preconditions - this might have been fiction since I've never read anything about him wanting to surrender.
Some comments on other movies:
Traffic Signal: Exposes a huge industry that's thriving at our local traffic signals where beggars, squeege guy, pimps, vendors etc make their living.
As far as Hollywood goes:
Bable (Brad Pitt): Ranks with "Boom" - amongst the worst movie I've seen.
Illusionist : Edward Norton is good, movie okay with an interesting plot.
Queen: Set around the events surrounding Princess Di's death. Like the real queen, should have ignored it.
Night at Museum: Ben Stiller carries the movie.
Departed: Pretty good - lives up to the Martin Scorsese hype. Jack Nicholsan, Matt Damon, Dicaprio have all performed well.
03-21-2007, 01:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-21-2007, 01:27 PM by Husky.)
Another twist to old story (the mile-high drama):
http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/EntertainmentNew...ArticleID=23599
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Fiennes urged to take HIV test after unsafe sex with former prostitute</b>
Wed-21-Mar-2007 6:13amÂ
Ralph Fiennes
Actor Ralph Fiennes is being urged to take an HIV test after the stewardess he had sex with in a Qantas aeroplane toilet has confessed she was once a prostitute.
The stewardess, Lisa Robertson, was fired after she admitted having sex with the British celebrity multiple times during the 9 hour flight.
Robertson has since told media she could be pregnant with Fiennes child as they were having unprotected sex on the flight, and that she previously had worked as a prostitute.
Ironically, Fiennes was on an AIDs awareness flight from Darwin to Mumbai.
<b>More on this story:</b>
Sun 18-Mar-2007
Flight Attendant who had sex with Fiennes was prostitute
Fri 2-Feb-2007
British actor raising awareness of AIDS in India<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->His entire life could be on the line if he's contracted AIDS.
03-21-2007, 01:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-21-2007, 01:31 PM by Husky.)
Forgot which thread had people discussing film '300':
http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/NewsDisplay/tabi...42/Default.aspx
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Iranian Government condemns film as 'enemy plot</b> (Video)
The Iranian government has condemned â300â as an âenemy plotâ against the nation.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Meanwhile, it's #1 in US box office and it seems it's leagues ahead of #2 in that respect.
Viren,
Thanks. Saw Black Friday yesterday. Agree with most of what you say. They have not spared ISI like the usual candle wallah movies, but slightly sympathetic to Dawood as he is shown as somebody who was threatened and forced to get mastermind the blasts.
Could have been made much better.
Ran into this the other day
http://palscape.wordpress.com/2005/06/29/t...m-hindi-movies/
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some other links from the same blog
http://www.rajiv.com/india/humor/filmi1.htm
http://www.rajiv.com/india/humor/filmi2.htm
http://www.rajiv.com/india/humor/filmi3.htm
* The classic:
"main tumhaare bachche ki maan banne waali hoon."
<!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:tv--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tv_feliz.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tv_feliz.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Op-ed in Pioneer, 2 April, 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Indian cinema comes of age
Shobori Ganguli
<b>A decade ago</b> when I quit academics to join this newspaper, <b>popular Hindi cinema rarely found serious consideration.</b> While a glamorous star would occasionally meander in by way of a picture on page one, cinema per se was entertainment, covered by the features section. <b>However, unknown to many then, Indian cinema had embarked on a significant journey, a journey which by the first decade of this millennium would make the Indian film industry a global phenomenon and a newsworthy entity.</b>
<b>Two distinct trends mark this phenomenal evolution. On its part, the Mumbai film industry engaged in a serious image makeover. </b>Each Friday now holds the promise of refined filmmaking from mainstream Bollywood. A more educated audience means filmmakers can ill afford indifference to quality or content. Significantly, Bollywood is also the strongest cultural link the Indian diaspora has had with the land of its origin. <b>Here steps in the second trend. What marks the coming of age of Indian cinema is the manner in which the Indian diaspora itself has decided to tell its side of the story through the genre of crossover films. </b>Today, after a film like Mumbai-based Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black and New York-based Mira Nair's The Namesake, <b>one can comfortably assert that the two strands are collectively taking Indian cinema to unprecedented heights of creativity.</b>
<b>To speak of crossover films by the Indian diaspora first, they are the most authentic sociological register of immigrant Indians.</b> Although filmmakers like Mira Nair came to India way back in 1988 to create a masterpiece like Salaam Bombay, <b>the story remained that of India, done by a Non-Resident Indian. The other side of the story was yet to be told.</b> In 1993 came London-based <b>Gurinder Chadha's Bhaji on the Beach. This was the first signal that the diaspora was ready to narrate its story, a story that needed to be heard and acknowledged as much by Indians as by the world in which this diaspora resided. While most Indians have immigrant relatives and are therefore familiar with the agonies and ecstasies of life in a foreign land, crossover cinema today is the most effective instrument of showcasing those ordinary and some not-so-ordinary lives lived far from home. </b>
Admittedly, Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham in 2002 marked the commercial success of the diaspora's filmmaking efforts but the aggregation started a long way back. Toronto-based Deepa Mehta's Sam & Me in 1991 fared well at the Cannes Film Festival that year, establishing a crucial link in this evolving trend. The trickle had begun although such cinema was yet to taste commercial success. The same filmmaker, better known for her elements trilogy, Fire, Earth and Water (all with Indian themes), returned with her roller coaster Bollywood/Hollywood in 2002 that captured the NRI story on a lighter vein, telling the world that immigrant living is not necessarily all gloom and longing.
<b>Not yet a spate, more was added to this trickle when in 1997 an Indian engineer quit his job in Atlanta to resettle in India. Nagesh Kuknoor employed his modest savings of Rs 1.7 million to give India its first indigenous crossover film Hyderabad Blues in 1998. The film picked on the reality of Indians who after an alien spell return to their homeland. With their growing acceptability in international theatres, more and more NRIs and Indians effected their narrations of the South Asian experience overseas. </b>If Indo-American Somnath Sen's Leela poignantly captured one part of the story, India-based Revathy's Mitr gently dwelt on another. From American Chai, to American Desi, The Guru, Split Wide Open, and Everybody Says I'm Fine, the floodgates opened. From the tragic to the ridiculous, today the South Asian experience overseas is well-chronicled in cinema.
<b>If crossover cinema got going, our indigenous filmmakers too matched the trajectory. By the mid-1990s Bollywood was administered much-needed resuscitation. The effort began in true earnest in 1995 with Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ). Although Hum Aapke Hain Kaun the previous year was actually the film that brought back audiences to the theatres, DDLJ initiated an important era in cinematic history. With this film Bollywood found an audience it had hitherto not looked at seriously - the Indian diaspora. This culturally famished diasporic audience across continents was forever in search of connections with the homeland. DDLJ repackaged that promise of connection and soon gorgeously clad Made in India films started finding fame across the seven seas. The economics followed.</b>
<b>The year 1997 saw the international release of films </b>like Dil To Pagal Hai, Yes Boss, and Pardes, the last one more popular abroad than in India for its treatment of the NRI theme. By the time Karan Johar arrived with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai the following year, Bollywood was travelling across world capitals for premiers to packed audiences. Into the new millennium Indian cinema was not limited to international film festivals. Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in 2001, Kal Ho Na Ho in 2003 and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna in 2006, were all released in mainstream cinema halls across Europe and America. A promising global market saw Karan Johar liberally people his plots with NRIs, connecting with great finesse, the Indian diaspora and its homeland. Today, in 2007, as the fastest growing movie industry in the world, Bollywood holds legitimate interest, not simply because it defines India across cultural and political borders but because it is an industry in its own right, selling theme India to the global market.
<b>Admittedly, Hindi cinema was worth pittance for most part of the '80s and the '90s, a hiatus that saw some of the worst cinema churned out by the film industry. Not surprisingly, global recall of Hindi film stars ceased at Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Amitabh Bachchan.</b> Therefore, when mainstream Hindi cinema credibly reinvented itself through Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in DDLJ, the stars acquired instant cult status. While in India the audiences returned to the theatres, the diaspora found fresh icons to fete. Technology helped this process and by the time the new millennium arrived, film producers were eagerly eyeing the global market. <b>Subhash Ghai's Yaadein in 2001 was a telling comment. The film bombed at the Indian box-office but the producer more than made up from sales overseas.</b>
Today between the two kinds of cinema there is a rich market that allows commercial filmmakers like Bhansali to make films as diverse as Black and Devdas and NRIs like Mira Nair to swing between Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. <b>If Bollywood sells sugar-candy dreams to Indians abroad, crossover cinema speaks of the diaspora's lived life, to India and to the world. Admittedly, between the two Indian cinema has accomplished the most unprecedented global consolidation. Time we stopped testing this against the Oscars.</b>
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I saw three flims this weekend- Namesake in theater and Dor and Sarhad Paar on DVDs. Dor by Nagesh Kukunoor was a better and sensitive handling of widows than Deepa Mehta's Water. Sarhad Paar is a new twist of Bollywood blaming Paki jihadis and absolving thier masters the RATS.
Mitr is also good, made in Silicon Valley. AZN TV channel show this movie every month.
Ramana: Was wondering if you are still watching 'Ravan'? Any opinions on they have represented it so far?
I gave up as it was dragging too long and making it into an == serial between the devas and asurs. I see a streak of equating the pakis with Asurs and Indians with Devas. And thus this == stuff. Hence stopped watching. I really should write to the Zee Network.
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