At The Edge

I have been wondering about it for quite sometime now. I write something at my Kashmir blog and it gets re-tweeted. No matter what I  write. I might be writing about my dead cat. It gets re-tweeted. Good thing no one reads! Here's what is going on: Fetch the feed of a 'suitable' blog and feed to FriendFeed and then connect it to twitter. Viva la Revolucion!

video link Someone should have told Md. Aziz along ago, 'Yes you are the new Md Rafi. Now stop singing.' And yes never mess with a Md. Aziz fan. A couple of years back, me and my friends hired an Indica to get out from Goa to Mumbai. The cabbie turned out to be from Muzaffarnagar, and his system came loaded with only one CD and that was of Md. Aziz. He did turn his system off but devil got into me and said - We digg Md. Aziz. From Goa to Mumbai, we choked on 150 Hits of Md. Aziz.

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.

In the 80s we had Kalahandi, now we are rich enough to afford Kalmadi. -0- Original was a poster of Mithunda's Paap Ki Kamaee (1990)

All sort of books on Indian Cinema, news pieces about Parveen Babi sad death, glossy film magazines, blog posts about her, all are replete with references to Parveen Babi making it to the cover of Time Magazine, a first for any Indian actress. Few were sure about the date of the issue, fewer could claim to have actually seem the cover. Many were on the trail of the elusive cover. I first tried to find it around two years ago, since then I would look for it whenever I was reminded of that 'will someone find it' cover. Last night, while watching her in Kala Sona (1975) I decided to give the old quest one more try. And today when I finally found it, I was ecstatically delighted. Actually bouncing on my chair. Matter of date. The year was 1976, it was an almost established fact even though a lot of folks even got the year wrong. But the Time magazine archive available at their site, the easiest and the first logical place to look, offered no such cover. She must have b...

Motor Rickshaw Jugaad. Ghaziabad. -0- Previously: Koi Jugaad Hai

At Indirapuram, Ghaziabad October, 2012 I, a Paper Ravan The glimmering of the stars The hustle and bustle of the streets And the colourful company of the friends – These bandits make away with my fortune In the twinkling of an eye. With a view to protecting myself I take refuge, broken and defeated, In the primal cave of my mind. When I find the shadow of a giant, repeating ' Adam- bo , adam -bo' . I settle down, in the primal cave of my heart, with bated breath like a pigeon in front of a cat. In the world of the primal cave dreams keep me company and Ego talks about me and they respond to my intentions. Let this mystery be cleared and my query answered. In a train disaster the travellers were cut into pieces. why shouldn't I search for myself in the list printed in bold letters? or in a fair that of Chhapaar Why should I show my skill, perform cycling feats before a crowd, revolving like a wheel? Or in the Kumbhmela I slip down fr...

Previously posted long ago here But now I finally know the name of the photographer who took these incredible photographs of Rekha. The original photographs (these were photoshopped by me,) were shot by J. P Singhal . Which makes perfect sense, J. P Singhal is known for his tribal themed Calender Art, a rage in the 70s . And a lesser known fact is that he was the one responsible for Zeenat Aman's village belle look in Raj Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Of course, Raj Kapoor added his own wetmark to that look. One look at that first photograph and it all makes sense.

And if the lights are on one big ferris wheel, and there is sundar kand floating is the air, the distraction is even better. The start of the festive season.

Or maybe the Time is slowing down. To this blog, on 3rd Oct 2010, I posted photographs of Sharmila Tagore from 16th Aug 1966 issue of Filmfare that had her on the cover, famously in a bikini . On 9/10/10, TOI, part owners of that magazine, came out with this: For  Ist Anniversary of Times of India - Crest Edition. Spooky. -0- Update: Here's the cover of TOI crest anniversary edition. Via: this blog

I favorite two bit for Hindi alphabets.

Somewhere in Noida, U.P. The origins of the image lie in a poster of WWE wrestling superstar Batista. Something about the captured the imagination of the guys who run Pehlwani shops and local GYM here. The hoarding of a bandaged pehlwan  is now the norm for advertising and designing hoardings for Pehlwani body fix shops and local GYMs. 

Pyar andha hota hai. Bith Control means to insure Blind Love Risk. Ovanil. Which assures the public that it insures this blind risk in such an easy and quite harmless way. - Ad for contraceptive pills published in FilmIndia Magazine, August, 1943 Interesting thing is that the ad was also published in Urdu. In the issues from that and later decades, I couldn't find any other Urdu ads. Curious.

And with that she became the first Indian actress to get into a bikini for a magazine cover. Created quite a hullabaloo when the magazine hit the stand, the matter was even questioned in the question hour of the parliament. The story goes that when Sharmila Tagore walked into the studio of photographer Dhiraj Chawda , he asked her what was she going to wear for the shoot and Sharmila Tagore just took out the suit from her purse. August 19, 1966 issue of Filmfare In all the other images she seems to be giving all these yogic postures - twisting , bending, savasana , standing on toe nails, but in this one she gives a look which must have been quite popular at the time -the Lolita look.