Loose Lips Sink Ships - I!

It is an American English idiom meaning "beware of unguarded talk" and was an American propaganda poster of WWII.  This phrase was coined as a slogan during WWII as part of the US Office of War Information's attempt to limit the possibility of people inadvertently giving useful information to enemy spies. The slogan was actually 'Loose Lips Might Sink Ships. This was one of several similar slogans which all came under the campaigns basic message - 'Careless Talk Costs Lives',  one should avoid speaking of ship movements, as this might allow the enemy to intercept and destroy the ships. In my consideration ‘loose lips’ is signify to the breeds who unlock their mouth to throw the rubbish then proceed to scan their brain, if there is any. In our backyard there in no dearth , we have plenty of them. Some current living examples of great ‘lips’ those are always ‘loose’.  Can we say that a loose talk is a sign of miniature brain, it is up to you to judge it.

Chetan Bhagat

Popular writer indeed but  mainly writing novels keeping Bollywood in his mind. For me he is nothing more than a masala writer but he decided to take a dig on Salman Rushdie, a writer of great stature. What he wanted an exposure in the international literature circle, where he was petty unknown and he was quite successful in his attempt with his big mouth.

He criticised the support leant to authors whose books are banned for offending religious communities, referring to Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses'. The Booker-prize winner Salman Rushdie tweeted against  Chetan Bhagat - Rushdie said, "Chetan Bhagat: people like me are liberal extremists & as bad as the fundos. I`m being Bhaggered!! It`s like being molested by Dan Brown!"

Arvind Kumar Kejriwal

It is hard to believe that he is an IITians. When he is there for all noble cause he should know what he should say and not. The language he often using in his recent outings are not expected from a man who is having such educational background. Team Anna, with these sort of loose lips, losing there way.

Bal Thackeray

If one talk about big mouth, he is clear winner because he is having huge one.  A controversial figure, Thackeray has attracted significant attention by making statements expressing admiration for Hitler, inciting violence against Muslims, expressing support for the LTTE, and taking strong stances on the aspects of popular culture, including fervent opposition to the celebration of Valentine's Day. Specially, some of his statement against some prominent women politicians are sear disgusting. In the 1960s he called South Indians Lungiwaale and Yanda Gandu and had slogans like Lungi Hatao Pungi bajao. In 2002, Thackeray issued a call to form Hindu suicide squads to counter alleged Muslim violence:     If such suicide squads are formed only then can we take on perpetrators of mindless violence.

Vijay Mallya

For a change he is a well known businessman also known as ‘King of Good Times’. In every aspect he try to copy from Richard Branson only failed while humanity and manners are in question. While spending crores on the year calendars and happily posing with scanty bikini clad girls but hardly donated anything for any noble causes, of course he is having a valid logic too. A very ridiculous and horrible explanation came from a this very colourful personality, rather call him liquor baron,  he thinks that he is providing huge enjoyment to the peoples of this nation mainly those are drinking his fine liquors, therefore, the tax that generated is filling the government coffer, so there is no need for him to donate for any philanthropist cause, after all it is his money. He may be forgotten that ‘Money comes and Money Goes’.

Mamata Banerjee

Problem with the current chief minister of West Bengal that while in office she always moving towards a single direction because for everything she look to the left and she missing all right opportunity that given to her by the people of West Bengal. This month she crosses all limits when  a women raped in a moving car on gun point. It was a preplanned act of the accused because the rapists introduced themselves to the victim with different false names.  Police inaction is questioned when she approached to the police station, instead of filing her complain immediately, Kolkata police was very indifferent to her. Shame on these lots of public servant.

Then it was turn to our CM, as she always does, a shot from her big mouth. She mentioned it as fabricated story. However, finally the real culprits were arrested. The big problem with Mamata Banerjee that she never knew how to say sorry. The very bias  intellectual circle of Kolkata, including writers, painters and film stars, those were shouting from the roof top against the previous government now prefer to keep quite, a big thumb down to them and really doubt about their credentials.

For me : I am going to hang myself at least thrice because last Election I voted for – Guess it, yes my precious vote wasted for Mamata Banerjee.

!!!The ‘Loose Lip’ award of the year goes to MB, I mean Mamata Banerjee.!!!

Blood Money!

‘Blood’ and ‘Money’, both words are related to in many ways. All money we earned in our life, considered to be the same as “Blood Money”. Of course only if it obtained by putting lots of hard work and honesty. Heaps of water pass over our head while putting two and two together to make out a decent life and every decent life needs adequate funds. I consider my money whatever I earned by sweating days and nights is the money that made while churning out of my blood, therefore, I am having a few of those. However, generally the words are always not meant for a noble cause. If we go through dictionary then we will find two different meanings of it. First one when money given as the fees to a hire a killer to kill some one, in India it is also known as Supari. Other one, in some cultures, compensation paid to the relatives of somebody who has been killed or murdered and for me both are crime and not different from each other.

I am not against any community but when a dear one killed by someone and then I decided to pardon the accused by accepting money is gruesome as good as  sort of kidnapping, killing and walking with ransom money. Apart from Muslim countries, it legal in Japan, Korea and Somalia.

If we turned back to out history then, in the Christian Bible, the term is used to refer to the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot receives in exchange for revealing the identity of Jesus Christ to the forces sent by the Pharisees and/or the Sanhedrin. After the crucifixion of Christ, Judas returns the payment to the chief priests, who took the silver pieces and said, ‘It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood’.

I am going to put two recent incidents and both happened in our neighbouring state, where first case it was an American and other case seventeen Indians citizen were involved.

Pakistan

Raymond Davis the American CIA Agent, shot dead two men in Lahore, he insists that he was acting in self-defence against a pair of suspected robbers, who were both carrying guns. Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January.  Pakistani authorities rightly charged him with murder, the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity. However,  finally he has been released after families of the two Pakistanis he killed 'Pardoned' after Blood Money  Payment, the amount has also been a matter of some speculation.

Sharjah

On Mar 28, 2010, the Sharjah Court had pronounced the death sentence on the 17 Indian nationals, who were accused of killing a Pakistani named Misri Khan in Jan 2009. Seventeen men, 16 from Punjab and one from Haryana. The victim, himself was a  bootlegger, he was killed during a brawl due to problem between two groups. Dubai based hotelier S P Singh Oberoi who played most crucial role in arranging and paying blood money and negotiating with the family of the deceased which was earlier adamant on the "revenge". The money paid to the family was equivalent to Rs 9 crores.

I feel, Pardon is sacred word and ability to Pardon is a great human quality that should be unconditional.

Bottom Line: If, an Indian killed by seventeen  Pakistanis, the judgment  would have been nothing sort of this.

!!!Word pardon cannot come in a package containing words like revenge, faking and conditions.!!!

Golden Voice and Troubled Mind!!

Life is learning process but it is sad that there are no place where you can learn Success Management. Tasting success at a very early stage may be satisfying but mostly it is too dangerous and disastrous. In the case of many celebrities life, it is natural for those who tasted success very early but never able to cope with it. When we look at the top level, there are quite a few name will queue up in the memory. Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Boy George, George Michael, Britney Spears and Whitney Houston. Sometime it is loneliness at the top and more often they succumbed to the horrid lifestyle their own. Whitney Houston, when she arrived she looked like a little angel with great persona and enormous talent but her end came with very unlike than that should be.

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston was born in a middle class family in Newark, New Jersey, the third and youngest child of Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston, Jr. and gospel singer Cissy Houston. Her mother, along with cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick and godmother Aretha Franklin were all notable figures in the gospel, rhythm and blues, pop, and soul  genres. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle class area in East Orange, New Jersey when she was four.

At the age of 11, Houston began to follow in her mother's footsteps and started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano.  Her first solo performance in the church was "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah".

Debut

Houston's debut album Whitney Houston was released in February 1985. Rolling Stone magazine praised Houston, calling her "one of the most exciting new voices in years" while The New York Times called the album "an impressive, musically conservative showcase for an exceptional vocal talent".  At the 1986 Grammy Awards, Houston was nominated for three awards including Album of the Year.    She won her first Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "Saving All My Love for You". At the same award show, she performed that Grammy-winning hit; that performance later winning her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.

Film and Disastrous Marriage

With the commercial success of her albums, movie offers poured in, including offers to work with Robert De Niro and other famous actors but Houston felt the time wasn't right.  Houston's first film role was in The Bodyguard, released in 1992 and co-starring Kevin Costner. Houston played Rachel Marron, a star who is stalked by a crazed fan and hires a bodyguard to protect her. USA Today listed it as one of the 25 most memorable movie moments of the last 25 years in 2007. She was married to  R&B singer Bobby Brown and having a daughter named Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown.

Sorry State and Sad End

A day before  her death, Houston visited singers Brandy and Monica, together with Clive Davis, at their rehearsals for Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party. Times reported that Houston was reeking of alcohol and looked very bloated and disheveled, wearing mismatched clothing with her hair dripping of either water or sweat. During  rehearsal, Houston was seen skipping around the lobby or wandering aimlessly around the hotel ground. At one point guests of the hotel reported her behavior to security after she was seen doing handstands by the hotel pool. Houston attended a party that evening held by Kelly Price and a scuffle was narrowly avoided with singer Stacy Francis. Houston attempted to raise her hand, but was calmed down. Later in the evening, Houston gave what would be her final onstage performance when she took to the stage along with Price for a one minute performance of "Jesus Loves Me". Houston was photographed leaving the club clearly intoxicated and with scratches and blood stains on her legs, of unknown cause.

On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills. she was pulled out of her bathtub ‘unconscious and unresponsive’ and she was pronounced dead a hour later.

!!!Managing your Success and Failure, all mater to your mental strength.!!!

At The Top of The World!

Theoretical or practical but this one is a common perception that when a journey started with a disaster that predictable to be a failure. Under such circumstances, giving up without a fight is natural but there are many, who preferred to move ahead until they tasted the desired success. Although there are rare cases when peoples came with a horrible past yet marched on until they made it big. My page is all about a woman, born to a poverty stricken single mother, rumoured to be raped when she was only nine, mothered a child when she was fourteen yet with all these drawback she preferred to rally on to reach the place where she is now, that is incomparable. It is about Oprah Winfrey, the USA talk show queen who recently was in India.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey, born as Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954 is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Early Life

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Achievement

At 18, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. At 19, she was anchoring a newscast on Nashville's WTVF-TV. She later co-anchored the nightly newscast at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, and co-hosted a local talk show called People Are Talking, before jumping to Chicago's WLS-TV. Her morning talk show there debuted in 1984, and rose to number one in the ratings within a month. Outside of local telecasts, Oprah first drew national attention in her film debut, The Color Purple, for which she snagged an Oscar-nomination as best supporting actress. She's acted in other films since, but never nearly so well.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claims broke 20th century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream. By the mid 1990s, she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and an emotion-centered approach she is often praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. From 2006 to 2008, her support of Barack Obama, by one estimate, delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race.

She is the first black American woman billionaire, her net worth $2.4B (Forbes 2010) and reportedly makes about half a million dollars a day from her TV show alone. She owns or co-owns the Oxygen Network, O  Magazine, her own Harpo Studio, Harpo Productions, Harpo Films, Harpo Print, Harpo Video, and the Oprah Winfrey Network. Harpo, of course, is Oprah spelled backwards.

!!!Disregard the past and fasten your seat belt, surge forward towards the goal, nothing is there that cannot be achieved.!!!

The Golden Days!

Life is nothing but a tremulous journey. However this unsteady journey is beautiful yet bumpy, short or long but everyone has to pass through different stages. Some paths are full of thorns and journey becomes so unbearable that we are forced to wonder ‘God! Why with me?’. Of course we forget everything when we move towards the sunshine. My perspective is totally different, I always consider those old bad days are the glorious moments of my life because those are the days that made me stronger. What is life if we have never struggled for something and a goal is worthless if it comes easily. Born with a golden spoon was not a thing that I ever desired. Among the passing phases, everyone has their own favourite and worst to choose from. Nevertheless, the phase we left behind during our schooling days will come out as clear winner as the best phase of ones life.

My school days are considered to be the golden times of my life. It was a big close knit family and I have no words for my teachers. Those bunch of dedicated women, who used to come to the school to  teach and obviously we were there only to learn. Decades gone over but for me still my teachers are the driving force that are  generating the burring desire for my learning passion. Let me look little to one of the oldest and respected profession of the world.

India is a country where once teachers were respected as per God. The believe was based on the text from available old stuffs. If we believe those textual substances then Balmiki was considered to be one of the greatest teacher who ever lived in this earth. Today I am going to put some names of the teachers who glorified this noble profession.

Socrates

Socrates was educators, philosophers, politicians and scientists all over the world acknowledge that Socrates was one of the most enlightened teachers and thinkers in our history. Through students like Plato, Socrates encouraged the pursuit of virtue through critical thinking and questioning. This system has affected all industries and fields of study and has inspired other great philosophers.

Annie Sullivan

Annie Sullivan is best known as being Helen Keller’s instructor. She coached her deaf and blind student by giving her obedience and social etiquette lessons, as well as teaching her Braille. Sullivan became well-known and respected for her teaching methods and for being able to help Keller progress well beyond her expected potential. Sullivan traveled with Keller to give lectures and was supported by Alexander Graham Bell and Andrew Carnegie. Sullivan was also recognized by Temple University and other educational institutes "for her tireless teaching and commitment to Helen Keller."

Pythagoras

Pythagoras, also known as "the father of numbers," was a Greek philosopher and mathematician who invented the Pythagorean theorem, which is still taught and used today. Though Pythagoras spent much of his life traveling and learning, he also became a teacher in India, where he is still known as "the Ionian teacher," or Yavanacharya. He later built an educational institute in Croatia to teach philosophy and basic "moral training."

Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton is credited with discovering the theory of gravity, but he was also a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, appointed by Isaac Barrow. During this time, Newton made advances in his optical research.

I came to this profession by accident rather than by choice but I will never deny that I enjoyed the journey and tried my best to carry forward what my teachers have given to me. On the week of Saraswati puja I convey my regards to the teachers who once thought me in different course of my life. Looking forward to join you all at the other side of the world.

!!!Embarrassed to see that over hundred millions children worldwide deprived  from savoring the joy of being in the school.!!!

Switching off the Shutterbug!

The word lost opportunity doesn’t subsist in my dictionary because I hardly got  any in my life that I rued latter for missing out. While in school I was considered to be a moderate sportsperson and I was very active too during my early days. However, even I am proud of my orthodox background at the same time it was one of my biggest drawback. Whenever I intended to move to my desired direction I was dragged back to the square by my superior. Often those moments were very irritating but at the same time it gave me a great sense value that still I carrying forward. Today when I looked back I never regret for those opportunities I was denied but later I was thrust forward to create my own opportunities and I am proud of it. Women in India, that too from an era when being a women was a biggest shortcoming yet someone surged forward against all odds to be someone that needs to be mentioned. Today, my blog a tribute to Homai Vyarawalla, the first lady of the lens.

Homai Vyarawalla

Homai Vyarawalla, was India's first woman photojournalist. First active in the late 1930s, she retired in the early 1970s. In 2011, she was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of the Republic of India. India’s first woman press photographer Homai Vyarawalla, captured the last days of the British Empire in India. Her work also traces the birth and growth of a new nation. The story of Homai’s life and her professional career spans an entire century of Indian history. This selection of rare photographs tells her life story amid footnotes of an emerging nation, as she saw it.

The story of Homai’s life and her professional career spans an entire century of Indian history. Belonging to the small Parsi community of India, Homai was born in 1913 into a middle-class home in Navsari, Gujarat. Her father was an actor in a traveling Urdu-Parsi theatre company. Homai grew up in Bombay. She was the only girl in her class to complete her matriculation examination. Vyarawalla, studied at the Bombay University and the Sir J. J. School of Art.

Homai moved across Delhi on a bicycle. Wearing a saree, with two huge sling bags across her shoulders that held her cameras and equipment, she also carried two boxes, one holding new flashbulbs and the other to keep the fused ones. "I would get strange looks from people on the street" she chuckles. "A lot of them thought I was a foreigner in spite of the fact that I wore a saree!"

Homai Vyarawalla took a number of memorable photographs during her career. Her favorite subject was Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.

Most of her photographs were published under the pseudonym “Dalda 13″. The reasons behind her choice of this rather amusing name were that her birth year was 1913, she got married at the age of 13 and her first car’s number plate read “DLD 13″.

Homai Vyarawalla, who passed away January 15, 2012 at the age of  98. Thus, she surged forward to fulfill her passion in a male dominated turf and left a huge footprint behind.

!!!In the land of opportunity, Lost and Found are non-existing, all we have to do is create one for ourselves.!!!

                                                                                            

The Iron Lady!

It is too early to write about her but it is difficult for me to ignore it for too long. If I recollect from the past then I had quite a few name from Hollywood in my A-list, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn and Doris Day. Jodie Foster is another name I always looked for but I think Meryl Streep is incomparable. Over thirty years, she portrayed one after another memorable characters with ease and it is difficult to judge which one is better than other. It was way back in 1980 when I saw ‘Kramer Vs Kramer’, that was the film  for which she got her first Oscar. In that movie she was sharing screen space with another greats and one of my favourite actor, Dustin Hoffman. Obvious the result was awesome. Every of her outing are breathtaking. Apart from appearing celluloid screen she also performed in stage and related with music. Record-setting, sixteen Oscar nomination in her kitty and won it twice,  once for ‘Kramer Vs Kramer’ and other for ‘Sophie’s Choice’.

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep is an American actress and singer who has worked in theatre, television and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented and respected actresses of the contemporary era. Streep made her professional screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia. Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Oscar nomination and the latter her first win.

Considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 16 times, and has won it twice. Born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.

A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next 10 years in great films like ‘Silkwood’ , ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Ironweed’ and ‘A Cry in the Dark’. Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ and as the prodigal daughter in ‘Marvin's Room’.

Filmography :  The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, Kramer vs. Kramer, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Sophie's Choice, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark, Postcards from the Edge, The Bridges of Madison County, One True Thing, Music of the Heart, Adaptation, The Hours, The Manchurian Candidate, The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt, Julie & Julia, The Iron Lady.

List of Movies of Meryl Streep that got her a Nomination for Academy Award

Year	Film
1978	The Deer Hunter	Nominated - Best Supporting Actress
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	Won Best Supporting Actress
1981	The French Lieutenant's Woman	Nominated - Best Actress
1982	Sophie's Choice	Won - Best Actress
1983	Silkwood	Nominated - Best Actress
1985	Out of Africa	Nominated - Best Actress
1987	Ironweed	Nominated - Best Actress
1988	A Cry in the Dark	Nominated - Best Actress
1990	Postcards from the Edge	Nominated - Best Actress
1995	The Bridges of Madison County	Nominated - Best Actress
1998	One True Thing	Nominated - Best Actress
1999	Music of the Heart	Nominated - Best Actress
2002	Adaptation.	Nominated - Best Supporting Actress
2006	The Devil Wears Prada	Nominated - Best Actress
2008	Doubt	Nominated - Best Actress
2009	Julie & Julia	Nominated - Best Actress
2011	The Iron Lady	?

I know that these are not the final list, certainly, she is going to get many more meaty roles and awards, so I said it is too early to write about her.

!!!This toast of mine is for the one and only Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady!!!