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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Film Reviews
"At Five In The Afternoon" is the second film of Samireh Makhmalbaf that I watched.I do not have much theoretical ideas about the inception of New Iranian Cinema and the ways paths they are following, Earlier I have seen "The Blackboard" by the same director, and a couple of films by her father, Mohsen Makhlambaf, including "Once Upon A Time Cinema".I must say it was quite an experience watching the film, which evolves in the backdrop of Afghanistan in the post Taliban regime . Devastation rules ; poverty, hunger and helplessness looms large.Nogreh is a young girl in her twenties, whom her father sends to an institution which feeds young women on conservative theories of ideal womanhood.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Film Reviews
Last week I went to watch "Dus Kahaniyan" , a bouquet of ten short films from Sanjay Gupta. A praiseworthy and unique effort, the film was surely interesting to watch [ far better than Karan Johar :) ], and I thanked myself for changing my decision in the last minutes to watch Dus Kahaniyan instead of Om Shanti Om. I watched the latter by borrowing a dvd from a friend, and realised , I did a good thing by not spending Rs 200/- [150/- FOR TICKET +REST FOR SNACKS ] :) on OSO !!
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
I DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO CONTROL AND/OR TELL ME WHAT , HOW AND WHEN TO VIEW/ READ/KNOW/SHARE ! PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION...
Posted by Mahasweta Ray on Wednesday, 8 April 2015
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
To begin with, I thank all the people who thought it right to make the video go viral by sharing and re-posting it. You all were courageous enough to go against the "ban" put up by the Authorities of The Great Indian Democracy. At this point, I feel I should rather thank our Authorities first, for setting up a classic example of negative publicity. Hadn't they put up a row, most people would not have found time to watch the video on TV on 8th March - it's a Sunday, Cricket matches are on, most households do not maintain the maximum rated cable/DTH package that allows viewing BBC in India. But now, Jyoti Singh is present in almost every single concerned individual's desktop, laptop, tablets and smartphones - good work Sirs !
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
During my post-graduation classes, I came to know that in the "West", in the school art classes,from a very little age, children are taught to copy the art of classical masters. The idea fascinated me. I realised it is actually a wonderful way of learning about painting styles, use of colours, compositions, textures etc, in a fun way. I also went to a weekend art class in my childhood. But I never went through any such session.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
A blog post on my journey as a reader, inspired by an event organised to celebrate International Authors' Day
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
"Hello, am I speaking to Mahasweta?""Yes""Well Mahasweta, I am a friend of yours....""err..ok...""So how are you?""May I know your name please?""My name? Do you really need to know it?""Yes, it will be nice if you say...""What if I do not tell you my name?"
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
Leaving few hours in between, I have been more or less glued to the television since Wednesday late night. It has been beyond 48 hours, and a bizzare drama is still going on in front of my eyes - almost the likes of hollywood thrillers - with fire blazing out of one of the most magnificent structures of the country, random explosions, gunshots and security forces- NSG, MARCO, RAF, and others.... the financial capital of the country, Mumbai, was attacked by terrorists, who by now we know are in all probability backed by a militant group from Pakistan.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
A few days back, I was with my niece Srijani and nephew Rick, on the formers birthday, and I gifted her a pair of dolls, which she had secretly wished for from me. They had brought out all their dolls and kitchen sets and we were playing, scattering things on the floor. Srijani is more interested in dressing up her dolls, and changing their dresses, while Rick is the one who takes charge of organizing things in place, and even cooking and making tea with his toy utensils. They reminded me of my own childhood.I am an avid lover of dolls, and I used to play with dolls even when I was quite grown up.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
Rick is only five years old and studies in KG. His elder sister Srijani , who is about one and a half year older than him, studies in Class I. She has started learning to write small paragraphs about people and objects around her. Rick, in his stance to imitate whatever elder sis does, also tried his hands in writing paragraphs - about himself and about a cow.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
At five years of age, my nephew Rick is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and senstive kid around. He is an ardent fan of Tintin, though he can not read properly yet, and enjoys the graphics more . On his 5th birthday, I gifted him a CD of Tintin's Red Rackham's Treasures. He got very excited, then brought out the book version of the same from his collection.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
This evening, I had gone to Lake Market to get some medicines. I had plans to get back to Hindustan Mart, the conglomerate of handicraft and embroidery raw material suppliers at Gariahat, and then come back home. Availing an autorickshaw for the same, I got to seat beside the driver. There was an old gentleman sitting in the back seat, along with a young couple. In continuation of his conversation with the young man, he was saying that he was 81 years old,and he wanted to go to Jodhpur Park. He asked if the vehicle will cross Jodhpur Park, to which the young man informed him that he will have to get down at Gariahat to go to Jodhpur Park.Then he asked the young man whether he was a Bengali. The young man also asked him where he was from, and he said he was from Kanyakumari, and had left that place in 1940!!
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Life and Times
A few days back, I finally updated our website http://www.auroramedia.in . Earlier it was a flash website, but this time we decided to make a full XHTML/CSS site, with minimal flash, and made sure both the XHTML and the CSS passed the w3c validation. In fact, I was quite happy to be able to put up the w3c validation icons on my pages.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Ruminations
More than a decade ago, she migrated to the city along with my parents to the teeming city. Dexterous pruning and proper care by baba resulted in an artistic moulding of the thick stems and made the plant look exactly like a hopeful human with arms widely spread towards the sky.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Ruminations
Sometimes, my non-Bengali schoolmates mention that even though they remember how to read Bengali, they avoid reading/ cannot read my posts because , naturally, it becomes a lengthy exercise. So I decided to write this post in English. The festive season has just begun, and this post is about a common memory associated with festivities from the yesteryear that I want to share with them all. Maybe many of them are already aware of the piece of history I am about to share — yet, no harm in going through the same once more.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Ruminations
A couple of weeks back, my parents had come to spend a fortnight with me.After they arrived, my father asked for something from me. He wanted to get a colour printout of a particular area of Bangladesh from the wikimapia or any other site that provides detailed political map of any country. He said he was very troubled after hearing from somebody that the small town in Bangladesh, where he had spent his childhood , had been washed away by the flood, more after the devastating g attack of Sidr, the mini Tsunami which hit Bangladesh last month. He said he was losing his memory gradually, and didnt want to forget his utopia of childhood, and as a last resort, wanted to get a coloured printout of the area in the map - which I knew, would in no way compensate or stand up to the verdant memories of childhood.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Travel Diaries
Along with my brother and a few of his friends, I went to spend a few days in the last week of January 2009 at Varanasi [Benaras]. Varanasi is the oldest living city in the world, with its history tracing back almost 3,000 years. Mythologies say that the city of Varanasi sits on the trishul of Lord Shiva. Varanasi is situated on the west bank of the River Ganga.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Travel Diaries
I wrote down this travelogue after my trip to Kerala.
I simply copy pasted the text from a doc file, which had the font- style pre defined. I know this page is not looking good, with two types of fonts, but right now I am too busy to sit and make the changes :) So , please overlook the issue.
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- Written by: Mahasweta
- Category: Book Reviews
My first ever encounter with someone with Cerebral Palsy was as a kid. There was a boy, officially older than me, who used to go to the same Montessori school with us. Let's assume his name was 'S'. He had difficulty managing his limbs and getting up and down the steps of the bus.