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Line of division
REAL AND IMAGINED
In this excerpt from Scoop,
Inside Stories from Partition to the Present,
Kuldip
Nayar recalls his meeting with Lord Cyril Radcliffe, Chairman
of the Boundary Commission which marked the dividing line between
India and Pakistan
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I
nearly gave you Lahore." Lord Cyril Radcliffe, Chairman of the
Boundary Commission, told me. "But then I realised that Pakistan
would not have any large city. I had already earmarked Calcutta for
India." Lahore had Hindus and
Sikhs in a majority and way up in assets, he said. Yet he had no
option because of paucity of big towns in Pakistan. The conversation
took place at Radcliffe’s flat in London towards the later half of
1971.
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Oldest
gurdwara in US
Asha Seth & Ramesh Seth
During
our travels of North America we came across a number of strange cases
about the buildings of various gurdwaras. Among them is the
interesting case of the founding of the first gurdwara in America, at
Stockton, California. This was also called, "Gadari Babeyan da
Gurdwara"—(the gurdwara founded by the members of the Hindustan
Gadar Party.) Both these factors make it unique.
Writers’
paradise
Inder
Raj Ahluwalia recalls a day out at the Chiltern Hills and the
Thames valley
John
Milton found his Paradise
Lost here. Mary Shelley was inspired to
write Frankenstein. Jerome K Jerome lived besides the river and
thought up the classic comic novel Three men in a boat. Thomas
Gray composed his still resonant Elegy in the same churchyard
where his bones now lie.
Queen of
cadence
Lata Mangeshkar’s
inimitable voice reigns supreme conveying a wide and varied range of
emotions. So much so that music lovers look for it in every female
playback singer, writes M. L. Dhawan
as Lata turns 77 on September 28
Lata
Mangeshkar is not just a name; she has become an institution.
Connoisseurs of music point out that Goddess Saraswati sings through
her voice. Since Paa lagoon kar jori from Aap Ki Sewa Mein (1947),
she has done nothing but sewa to the seven notes.
Banking
on Shiva
Ram Gopal Verma’s
latest finds—Nisha Kothari and Mohit Ahlawat—seem to have struck
the right chords with the audience, says Srabanti
Chakrabarti
IT’S
not a good time for Ram Gopal Verma. A string of flops and only one
hit—Sarkar—in the last couple of years has made the
film-making factory think twice about his strategy. And the new
strategy seems to be to follow in the footsteps of mega-hits and make
remakes. The cases in point are Shiva and Sholay.
‘I
can be a little picky now’
Akshay Kumar is smiling from
ear to ear with his "high success ratio regardless of bad career
choices". Vickey Lalwani chats up
Bollywood’s most dependable hunk of the moment
How are you feeling after the
success of Phir Hera Pheri?
I am feeling that I have put fuel in a plane. It’s great to see
money coming into the film industry. I hear that the film is set to
break some records in certain territories.
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