New Book , First ever English translation of Nizami’s invaluable Urdu book Begumat ke Aansoo
pix: amazon.in
Apart from the fifteen years that Sher Shah Suri snatched upon defeating Humayun, the flag of the grand Mughal Empire flew over Delhi undefeated for over 300 years.
But then, 1857 arrived and the mighty sword fell helpless in the face of a mightier British force.
After the fall of Delhi and Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s tragic departure from the Red Fort in 1857, members of the royal Mughal court had to flee to safer places. Driven out from their palaces and palanquins onto the streets in search of food and shelter, the dethroned royals scrambled to survive. Some bore their fate with a bitter pride, others succumbed to the adversity.
Through twenty-nine accounts of the survivors of the Uprising of 1857, Khwaja Hasan Nizami documents the devastating tale of the erstwhile glorious royalty’s struggle with the hardships thrust upon them by a ruthless new enemy.
In vivid and tragic stories drawn from the recollection of true events, Nizami paints a picture of a crumbling historical era and another charging forward to take its place.
With the reminiscence of past glory contrasted against the drudgery of everyday survival, Tears of the Begums – the first ever English translation of Nizami’s invaluable Urdu book Begumat ke Aansoo – chronicles the turning of the wheel of fortune in the aftermath of India’s first war of independence.
source: http://www.amazon.in / Amazon / Home> Books> History> World / as on August 06th, 2022
Ariba Khan is the founder of Jumping Minds, which promotes mental well-being. Image courtesy: Ariba Khan
Technology and human emotions may seem a mismatch, but at Ariba Khan has fused them for a mental health platform.
As a young, spirited and ambitious 30-year-old, Ariba Khan can relate to mental health challenges that people her age are fighting. The lack of a safe space where such people could open up about their thoughts anonymously is what spurred her business idea – an artificial intelligence-based deep tech mental health app.
With Jumping Minds, this IIT-Rourkee and IIM-Bengaluru alumnus, along with co-founder Piyush Gupta, built a space where people could chat with individuals in a similar situation without exposing their identity.
“All of us require a safe space where you can talk about the challenges you may be facing. It doesn’t have to be clinical stress, but all of us are facing one stress or another – a bad breakup, difficult time at work, adjusting with the family. So, we thought of creating a digital space where you connect to people who may have gone through similar stressors, share your experiences, and release emotions,” Khan tells Health Shots.
Mental health matters
In the past few years, global celebrities have broken their silence on facing mental health issues. Somewhere, destigmatization has happened, but there’s a long way to go. It is because of the continued stigma around mental health that Khan chose to make Jumping Minds an anonymous space.
“Otherwise, there’s always a judgment factor,” says the Delhi dweller, adding that even though her platform is all about tech, at the heart of lies human interaction through technology.
“It helps people to release emotions, clear their head and find solutions,” asserts Khan.
Just five years ago, talking about stress and feeling burnt out at work would have been unimaginable. But the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed people into taking their mental health more seriously.
“The Gen-Z, especially, is more unapologetic about their mental health. They have an aspirational lifestyle, they want to live a well-balanced, happy life. And so, I would say the younger generation is leading the change in mindset and the positive shift towards wellness. Still, there’s a stigma around mental health and limited safe spaces where people don’t feel ashamed or guilty about sharing their story. Instead, people should feel empowered that there are so many other people going through the same,” Khan says.
“It’s okay to not be okay,” believes Ariba Khan. Image courtesy: Ariba Khan
Mental health issues of the young generation
As someone who believes in the adage that “it’s okay to not be okay”, Khan outlines the most common health problems that youngsters in the 20-30 age group are going through these days.
1. Relationship troubles:
Whether you are stressed at work or family life, it directly impacts your interpersonal relationships. People are getting increasingly stressed about how to maintain relationships.
2. Anxiety
This is why people need a digital detox from time to time! “Anxiety is the after-effect of social media. The need to be perfect, with filters on all the time,” explains Khan, stressing on how social anxiety and social comparison are turning out to be spoilers.
“People tend to think, ‘Maybe I am not enough’, ‘I am working so much, but I am not upto that level.’ And that social anxiety has become very prominent in the post-Covid era,” she explains.
3. Sexual wellness:
This is the age when early professionals and college students explore their body and preferences. So, people have a lot of questions around sexual wellness.
4. Career:
The desire to reach career milestones leads to undue pressure and stress on people. They overthink things like, ‘Are we in the right job? Are we working with the right people?’ But talking about these things, instead of keeping the thoughts to yourself, will give you a feeling of validation.
3 happiness hacks for women, suggested by Ariba Khan
Khan has three simple suggestions for women to follow for the sake of their mental peace.
1. Find peaceful breaks in a day
“I know we are women of the 21st century, always leading the way – whether it is in personal life or professional life. But it is very important to have time in a day when you are by yourself, living in the moment,” she suggests.
Khan assures that doing so even for a few minutes every day will help people become more productive and more appreciative of the positive results of the everyday hustle.
2. It’s okay, to err is human
Even research says women tend to have higher stress levels than men ! “The society has made women accustomed to keeping everyone around them happy – be it colleagues, friends, family.
But it is okay to sometimes make mistakes, feel bad or low. We may think we are superwomen, but we are humans after all! We should’t expect ourselves to be perfect all the time, because there’s true beauty in being imperfect,” she adds.
3. Talk it out
Don’t keep your thoughts to yourself. If you are stressed, talk about it. “Don’t feel ashamed about it, and who knows, it may give courage to others to talk about their journey. Once you start releasing the monster from your head, it becomes smaller. And if you do it in a community, you will see magic!”
source: http://www.healthshots.com / Health Shots / Home> She Says> by Radhika Bhirani / August 02nd, 2022
Over the past few years, and particularly after their recent tussle with the government over the statue of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Ulama’s involvement in politics has come back under scrutiny in Bangladesh. Since the 10th century, the Ulama have been exercising strong authority over religious issues; yet they have been accused of failing to respond to modernity and to the changes in society.
Against this backdrop, the actions, discourses, and history of the Ulama are well worth looking into. Muhammad Qasim Zaman’s The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodian of Change (2002) and Barbara D Metcalf’s Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (2016), both published by the Princeton University Press, are two outstanding studies in this regard. While Metcalf looks into the emergence, proliferation, and responses of the Deobandi Ulama to “modernity” when Muslim power in India was declining, Zaman looks at their strategy to establish authority in British India and Pakistan.
Shifting sands of influence
In pre-British India, religious education was a private enterprise and individual tutelage was the usual mode of the dissemination of religious knowledge. This tradition was to change with the emergence of the Farangi Mahall Ulama as custodians of Muslim intellectual traditions.
The Lucknow-based Farangi Mahall Ulama were known by the family of Mulla Hafiz, who received a land grant from Mughal Emperor Akbar sometime in the sixteenth century. He was the ascendant of Qutbu’d – Din (d. 1691), a Mughal courtier who participated in the collection of Fatawa-yi ‘Alamgiri’. The latter is a collection of Fatwa to be used in the Mughal courts. The family and students who took lessons from this family were known by the name of Farangi Mahall. The activities of the Ulama of Farangi Mahall, however, were confined to producing graduates for princely services. Their most significant contribution was their systemisation of the curriculum—dars-i-Nizami—for religious education. As Metcalf informs us, this curriculum came to Bengal when a Farangi Mahall graduate was appointed as the first principal of the madrasa yi ‘Aliyah’, Calcutta in 1780.
Farangi Mahall’s dominance declined and the centre for religious studies shifted from Lucknow to Delhi by the late 18th century. The person who played a key role in this shift was Shah Waliyu’llah, who advocated for more social and political responsibilities for the Ulama as opposed to those of the Farangi Mahall. Waliyu’llah’s successors had studied legal codes and written fatwa for the Muslim community, which had once become the main tool to disseminate religious instructions when the British were about to establish political authority over India. Besides claiming centrality of the hadith in the interpretation of the sharia, Shah Waliyu’llah discouraged blindly following the rulings of the earlier generations (taqlid). He suggested going back to the Quran or Sunnah for legal solutions.
The 1857 revolution landed heavily upon the revivalist movement initiated by Shah Waliyu’llah. Suspecting the Ulama’s involvement, British colonisers took all religious institutions in Delhi under their control. Fourteen hundred people were shot by British soldiers in Kuchah Chelan, where Shah Abdul Aziz (son of late Shah Waliyu’llah) used to preach, according to Metcalf. The Delhi-based Ulama were forced to move to the countryside and establish a madrasa at Deoband in 1867.
After the revolution, Deoband became the centre for Muslim intellectuals. They introduced formal religious education for Muslims in British India. Students had separate classrooms and a library, and the curricula were organised according to departments, such as Arabic, Persian, and others. A formal examination system was introduced and successful students were issued certificates of award. Graduates came from different corners of India. Most significantly, these graduates went back home and set up madrasas in their respective localities. By the end of the 18th century, nearly every town held the presence of the Deobandi Ulama.
One well known Deobandi Ulama was Muhammad Ashraf Ali Thanawi (1863-1943), who authored Bahishti Zewar (1981)—among the most popular books for Muslims of India, and masterminded the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act 1939—the first reformist legislation for Muslims of British India.
In the late 19th century, the Ulama played a crucial role in upholding the pride of their religion and their community through publications and public debate on religious issues. Their intellectual exercise peaked with the invention of print technology, multiplying the scale of the transmission of knowledge all over India. Publishing in local languages such as Urdu, instead of Arabic, was one of their effective strategies to establish authority. This also served as a medium of communication between common Muslims and the Ulama, and helped renew Muslim traditions against local customs. Following the birth of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, the Ulama consolidated their authority and forced the then government not to pass a law against sharia. Over the next few years, their continuous efforts would force the Pakistani government to establish a Supreme Sharia Board to oversee any inconsistencies between sharia and laws passed by the parliament.
The historiography of these two books may be compared with Geoffrey G Field’s Blood, Sweat and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2011), in which Field understands “class” from multi-dimensional approaches including its relationship with the state, society, and family. Similarly, Barbara Metcalf and Qasim Zaman define the Ulama as a class by providing a social and intellectual history of their presence in South Asia. Metcalf highlights their hardships in the post-1857 revolution and the silent “intellectual” revolution of the Deobandi Ulama. Hers is an excellent cultural history. Despite being published earlier, Zaman fills in what Metcalf’s study left to be addressed: it focuses on how the Ulama have played an active role in different social and political contexts, particularly in post-colonial Pakistan. He disapproves of the allegation that the Ulama are against changes. The common mistake that most studies make, says Zaman, is not to consider the social and political context within which the Ulama work. To him, the flexibility of sharia depends on a socio-political context. Zaman suggested that the Ulama do not respond to changes as not because they do not like it but because of their fear of losing authority over religious issues in a modern state.
None of the above-mentioned studies, however, concerns the Ulama of Bangladesh. The growing presence of the Bangladeshi Ulama in the public sphere, particularly their increasing involvement in the political issues, merits investigation into—in Zaman’s words—their “transformation, their discourses, and their religio-political activism.” Could the Ulama in Bangladesh inherit the wind of the Islamic intellectual traditions? The question deserves to be addressed amongst others.
Dr Md Anisur Rahman is a legal historian at Asian University for Women. His research interests include Islam in Asia and South Asian Islamic Law and Society.
source: http://www.thedailystar.net / The Daily Star / Home> Reviews / by Md. Anisur Rahman / January 28th, 2021
The photo-book ‘Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh’, comprising visual stories of resilience and resistance, isolates individuals from the image of the mass movement as was seen on prime-time news and press photographs.
Portraits from Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh (Credit: Prarthna Singh)
Who is the perfect protester? We imagine raised fists, hurt faces, angry stances. We imagine climbing barricades, braving tear gas. If we go by this visual vocabulary, Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh (Every Evening Belongs to Shaheen Bagh) takes us by surprise. With over 150 portraits of non-violent protesters, the photo-book gently challenges the imagery of contemporary resistance movements.
Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh is Mumbai-based photographer Prarthna Singh’s first solo photo-book (she had earlier teamed up with the authors of Sar: The Essence of Indian Design in 2016). In December 2019, after the Delhi police reportedly assaulted students of Jamia Millia Islamia University who were challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a sit-in protest led by Muslim women started in Shaheen Bagh. Under a tent, with hundreds of women and children on any given day, the peaceful protest lasted for 100 days, until the pandemic struck.
Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh; By Prarthna Singh; 143 pages; Rs 3,300
Singh joined the anti-CAA protest in January 2020, spending most of her time on ground. Known for her women-centric narratives and portraiture work, she taps into her speciality to create portraits in an on-site photo studio, cobbled together with whatever was available at Shaheen Bagh. The result is these portraits of women, either looking directly at the camera or away, but always with a sense of pride. Poised and calm, the unnamed sitters indicate trust in the space, the purpose and the photographer.
Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh is Mumbai-based photographer Prarthna Singh’s first solo photo-book (she had earlier teamed up with the authors of Sar: The Essence of Indian Design in 2016).
Our collective memory of Shaheen Bagh, as is often the case with resistance movements, is of the masses, as seen on prime-time news and press photographs. Indeed, mass resistance movements give rise to the most recognisable images in the documented history of the world. Vulnerability and resilience coalesce into one defining moment — people standing up to power and confrontation, whether it’s one man blocking a row of tanks or a girl offering a flower to an armed soldier. Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh trades the monumental for the intimate, asking us to reconsider what we mean by “iconic”. It isolates individuals from the sea of faces, almost as if to say that a movement’s power lies not in numbers but in the will of its people.
Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh takes the form of a personal diary or a scrapbook.
Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh takes the form of a personal diary or a scrapbook. It contains drawings, a painting by artist Sameer Kulavoor, whose company Bombay Duck Designs has also designed the book, verse and a letter from one of the protesters, available in Urdu, English and Hindi. Some pages are deliberately uneven, recalling the makeshift quality of the Shaheen Bagh tent. While the book’s cost makes it inaccessible to some socioeconomic groups, Singh has shared copies with the protesters. A portion of the book sales goes towards Jeevan Stambh, an NGO working on the rehabilitation of the victims of the Jahangirpuri demolition last month.
During the pandemic, the Delhi police cleared the Shaheen Bagh site, painting over its graffiti and dismantling its art installations. In a country that is determined to erase and rewrite its history, one could say that a photo-book on a citizen protest is as good as an act of protest itself.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Books & Literature / by Benita Fernando / New Delhi – May 21st, 2022
At a modest house in South Delhi’s leafy Sarita Vihar colony, a tall, handsome man woke up early in the morning to read a bunch of newspapers religiously. He didn’t only read whatever “readable” news and views a dozen newspapers in Hindi, Urdu and English carried, but also shared them with the wider world. For five years–ceaselessly, tirelessly.
His huge circle of friends, from Birmingham to Barabanki, Miami to Mumbai, Seattle to Singapore devoured the selected news and views this selfless, soft spoken news warrior shared with such dedication and devotion. I don’t know any other person on the planet doing this with such consistency for five long years. Yes, some of us news premi pick up news randomly and share them with a few friends.
Shafique Ul Hasan, a senior journalist-turned-advertising professional, completed five years of sharing the news clippings on June 24 this year. Among hundreds of friends who value his work and have congratulated Shafique Bhai—that is how most of us address him—on reaching this milestone include filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, writer-politician Shashi Tharoor, former bureaucrat and ex-VC of Jamia Millia Islamia Najeeb Jung. They all underlined the importance of Shafique Bhai’s work—making available some of the important news and opinion pieces at one place. In our crazily busy schedule, many of us have forgotten what and how to read news. In the age of social media explosion, it has become very important to decide what news and views one should consume. At a time when fake news and viral videos are shared with an ulterior motive, Shafique Ul Hasan’s work assumes significance.
It all started with the news of Hafiz Junaid’s lynching. The young, kurta-pajama clad maulvi was returning home after shopping for Eid when a group of boys accosted him in train, beat him up so badly that he succumbed to injuries. The news shocked us. Most of us silently mourned the loss of an innocent’s life due to demonization of Muslims. Had fellow passengers intervened, young Junaid’s life could have been saved. But the hate-mongering has made us so insensitive and numb that we don’t react till the trouble reaches our own doorsteps. “This is not our problem,” we dismiss and move on. We forget the episode till a fresh case of mob violence hits the headlines.
Shafique Bhai reacted to the lynching of young Junaid in a different way. It affected him so deeply and intensely that he decided to do something beyond mourning his death silently. He made clippings of the horrific news and shared them with some of his friends on WhatsApp. And then he thought more. “What can I do to stop this madness? What power do I possess to make an intervention?”, he asked himself.
Most of us don’t realise the hidden power we possess. The strength lies in communicating the pain too. If we share some genuine, truthful news, this too is a service. Taking out morchas and petitioning authorities are not the only forms of protest. A protest is registered if news about an unkind, unjust thing or event is shared with a purpose to create awareness and help form an informed opinion. Shafique Ul Hasan decided to share the news clips from newspapers in the morning daily.
He made it part of his daily routine. So, he didn’t miss sharing the clippings even if he was travelling, in India or abroad, attending wedding celebrations or birth parties, vacationing in Europe or in the Middle East. “Once during our holiday in Europe I ensured that I woke up in the morning according to Indian time and made clippings from digital editions of the newspapers while my wife was fast asleep. Not many of my friends realized that they had shared those clippings sitting in Paris or London,” he told me recently.
Significantly, Shafique Bhai’s services have been acknowledged and appreciated widely. Many individuals and organizations have feted him for this yeomen service. Among those who have awarded him for this service include Sirajuddin Qureishi of New Delhi-based India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC), several NGOs and organisers of a programme celebrating 200 years of Urdu Journalism recently in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, sticking to a fixed schedule for long and sitting for a few hours without a break daily began to take a toll. Shafiqul Hassan’s health got affected. His BP shot up and had to be hospitalized before his condition could have worsened. He didn’t stop from doing what he loved to do even while he recuperated in a hospital. Despite protests from his lovely family, he didn’t take a break. He resolved to complete at least five years of sharing the news and views clippings. He fulfilled the promise he had made to himself.
Meanwhile, a few well-meaning friends advised him to monetize it. Since many websites and other news outlets charge money for their products, it would have been quite fair had Shafiqul Hassan too put a price to his services. “No. I don’t want to make any money out of it. It will be free of cost till whatever time I do it,” he told me.
But he had to take a break. Many of us told Shafique Bhai to take a long break after completing five years of this selfless service. He deserves to pay attention to his health, his business and spend more quality time with family. He has announced that much-deserved break. I suggest he finds a mechanism through which he resumes this service in a more organized way. He needs to get a team of computer savvy individuals who can work with him. Rather than doing everything himself, he should delegate work to subordinates. He should now work more as a supervisor. But to create such a team, some funds will be needed. Shafique Bhai is a self-respecting man. He will never seek charity or any other funds to set up a professional team for news/views gathering and dissemination. It is the duty of all concerned citizens to ensure that such a corpus is created and this work resumes.
Mohammed Wajihuddin is a senior journalist, now associated with the Times of India, Mumbai. His write-ups are popular with wide range of readers.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Opinion / by Mohammed Wajihuddin / June 27th, 2022
The awards were constituted by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington DC-based advocacy group, to “highlight stories and amplify voices that are often missing from the mainstream/elite media”.
New Delhi:
Ismat Ara was among the winners of the first edition of the Human Rights Religious Freedom (HRRF) Journalism Awards, taking home the Young Journalist of the Year Award for stories that were published in The Wire.
She was a joint winner in the category with Scroll‘s Aishwarya S. Iyer.
The awards were constituted by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington DC-based advocacy group. The HRRF Journalism Awards strive to “highlight stories and amplify voices that are often missing from the mainstream/elite media”.
“This year our jury chose winners in the extremely troubled times when media in India is under immense pressure from the ruling government,” said Syed Ali, president of IAMC.
Ara was chosen as a joint winner of the Young Journalist of the Year Award for stories on a temple-mosque controversy in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, the tragic consequences of the so-called anti-love jihad law and the lynching of a Muslim youngster in Haryana. She was a staffer for The Wire when the stories were published.
Iyer’s stories covered the aftermath of the Delhi riots of 2020, shrinking space for open namaz in Haryana and the arrest of a Christian pastor in Madhya Pradesh.
Newslaundry‘s Akanksha Kumar was declared the winner of the Best Text Reporting on Human Rights & Religious Freedom category.
Priyanka Thirmurthy of The News Minute and Shahid Tantray of The Caravan won the Best Video Story on Human Rights and Religious Freedom category and Syed Shahriyar was the winner in the Best Photo Story on Human Rights and Religious Freedom category.
Article 14 and the Mooknayak were declared joint-winners of the Best Media Organisation Covering Human Rights and Religious Freedom Journalism.
According to IAMC, the awards received more than 250 entries across five categories. The winners will share a prize pool of Rs 3 lakh.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Gypsy Guillen Kaiser, who is the advocacy and communications director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the watchdog’s annual prison census found that India set a country record last year for the largest number of detained journalists. “The vast majority of journalists detained in India as of December 1, 2021 are Muslims,” Kaiser said.
“The worrying trends in India make HRRF Journalism awards all the more important to uplift and celebrate the invaluable work of the Indian journalist and to remind us of the responsibility that we all share in working to keep them safe,” she added.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Media / by The Wire Staff / New Delhi – June 20th, 2022
Triumph India has plans to assemble the upcoming Tiger 660 in India. More than 50 percent sales of Triumph are coming from CKD models, and the brand is eyeing to close around 1,200 units.
Over 50% of our sales volumes are coming from CKD models
Over the last 12 months (November 2020 to October 2021), there has been about 10% de-growth in the Indian premium motorcycle segment (usually 500cc and above engine size, and costing more than Rs 5 lakh), but Triumph Motorcycles India grew by about 30% in this period. “We are confident of holding on to this growth over the next few months as well,” Shoeb Farooq, business head, Triumph Motorcycles India, tells FE’s Vikram Chaudhary.
He adds that the Trident, its entry-level 660cc motorcycle, has brought in a new set of customers to the brand. Excerpts:
What all reasons do you attribute to Triumph Motorcycles India’s growth in a shrinking market?
The basic strength of Triumph lies in its product, and we have been pretty aggressive in our product strategy, right from the BS4-to-BS6 transition to now. We have continuously built on our product range; we have 15 models right now, which is one of the largest in the premium motorcycle segment in India.
We have also entered a new territory, which is the 660cc motorcycle segment, and this has given us a completely new set of customers. We also have a very strong dealer network.
Then we aligned our global launches with India launches, and if a product is launched globally we try to ensure that within a few months it is available in India as well.
All these things put together have given us robust growth in a shrinking market.
How many motorcycles have you sold in the last 12 months?
We have sold about 1,050 units in the last 12 months, but in our financial year (which runs from July to June) we will close around 1,200 units.
This will be one of our best sales performances in India.
Did the chip shortage create supply challenges for you?
It’s not just the chip shortage, but also the container shortage (motorcycle parts come to India in shipping containers) that is a challenge, but we are trying to ensure minimum waiting period for our customers.
Have you become India’s largest premium motorcycle player, or is it still Kawasaki?
The premium motorcycle market size in India is close to about 4,500 units, and we represent a quarter of that.
The focus is not about becoming number one, but to create unique post-purchase experiences for our customers, by taking care of all their needs, from curated rides and track days and even choice in terms of riding gear.
Has the Trident become your largest selling single model, considering that it is the most affordable and must have gotten a new set of customers to Triumph India?
We are averaging close to 30-odd unit sales of the Trident motorcycle every month in India, which is about 30% of our monthly sales; our Classic motorcycle range together contributes another 30%, and the remaining is contributed by the Street Triple, the Rocket and the Tiger.
The average age of the Trident buyer is also lower than buyers of other Triumph models.
Going forward, we are getting more products on the 660cc platform, including the Tiger 660, and this will attract a lot of first-time buyers to the premium motorcycle segment.
The 660cc segment has also gotten us some buyers from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and this is expected to only grow with more models in the 660cc range.
The Trident is assembled in India. Will the Tiger 660 also be assembled in India?
Yes we plan to make it in India; now with the Trident, more than 50% of our sales volumes are coming through CKD models.
source: http://www.financialexpress.com / Financial Express / Home> Express Drives> Auto> Bike News / by Vikram Chaudhary / November 29th, 2021
Passionate about photography: Aziz Mahdi, a Persian scholar, who teaches youngsters in Delhi
Aziz Mahdi, a Persian scholar, on how he balances his love for images and the language of his forefathers
To get us, in Delhi, at least a little bit curious about understanding Iran, Aziz Mahdi, a Delhi-ite who lived for a decade in Tehran, where he studied Persian and then taught the language, is showcasing a pictorial exhibition. On display are 40 photographs (selected arduously out of 50,000 images) in different sizes, of this West Asian nation that gives us a glimpse into its culture and history. Aziz, or Dr. Mahdi, as he is fondly called by his Iranian and Indian students in Tehran and Delhi, has used handmade German paper to print on, ensuring the pictures last a lifetime.
Little is known in India about Iran, barring its “political and bureaucratic side”. On the other hand, there’s a fair amount Iranians know about our country. “Some people think Iran is a desert country. Even my father’s friend asked me if I got adequate drinking water in Tehran. I had to explain to him that there are reservoirs all across the country.”
Travel tales
Between 2005 to 2016, when Aziz lived there, doing a Ph.D. at Tehran University, he would get asked questions relating to Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. He’s watched Sholay in Persian, while travelling on a bus there. “Most Iranians know that India is a nation of diversity and democracy. They describe India as Haftado do Mellat . In English, it would mean a nation of 72 ethnicities.”
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque
As a history student at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, Aziz had come across a classical dome of Persian architecture umpteen times in his textbooks. But the moment of seeing the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque was something else. A perfect example of preserving heritage, it was built during the Safavid Empire, in the early 17th century, and has now been designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site.
“It was almost a surreal experience. Architecturally speaking, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque has a perfect dome. Domes are usually uneven structures. It also has glazed tiles. It was a palace of princess; royal women would go through the tunnel and come back.”
Everyday life and some of the exotic
The exhibition has different aspects of daily life, along with architecture. There’s the Zoroastrian side of Iran with the Chakchak Fire temple; a ring seller leaning on his bike, the confidence in the way he wears his hat; the scissor-maker, an elderly man, with eyes sans pessimism, despite his years. Tehran as a cosmopolitan city comes through in a picture of a wedding where the bride and groom wear Western attire.
Early on, one of his friends gave him “sane advise” that if he wanted to be an Iranologist, he needed to know the country inside out. One way was to study it; the other, was through travel. “I explored this scenic country. However, I still like describing myself as a part Iranologist,” says the 36-year-old, who stands at six feet, four inches.
Persian heritage
Iranian Wedding
Aziz’s father, Akhtar Mahdi, retired as professor of Persian language and literature from JNU. “While growing up, I was guided by him and learnt how Persian is important from the historical perspective. From the 11th century onwards, all our official documents, land deeds of the State and historical texts were printed in Persian. So for 800 years, Persian was the official language until the Mughal rule ended and the British abolished it.”
In fact, Urdu is the daughter of Persian. “It was used during Nadir Shah’s military campaign. It was basically a camp language which was spoken by Persian and Turk soldiers.”
Musician playing a flute
He has roots in Persia too, with his forefathers migrating during the Mughal reign. As for photography, he’s dabbled since childhood, but he began taking it seriously only in Iran. “The sheer beauty of Iran supported the artist in me. Architecturally, it grabs the eye.”
Living in Delhi, where he was used to seeing smoky skies, Aziz was bowled over by blue skies of Tehran (also seen at the exhibition). “They were a welcome relief. Cleanliness and absolute stunning weather are other features of this country.”
His next step is to do a coffee table book. “Not many Indians have stayed in Iran for so long,” says Aziz, on a parting note.
Rowzaneh: Iran Through my Lens is on at the India International Centre Annexe until July 30th
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Art / by Madhu Tankha / July 26th, 2019
His short film Please Hold is in the reckoning for an Oscar.
(L-R) Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi; a moment from Please Hold
Please Hold, a 19-minute sci-fi short about a young man’s life being derailed as he finds himself at the mercy of automated “justice”, is in the running for an Academy Award in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. Please Hold has been shot by ace cinematographer Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi, who has films like four-time Oscar winner Life of Pi, among others, to his credit. The Telegraph caught up with Dehlvi, who was born and raised in Delhi, for a chat on Please Hold, his craft and more.
Congratulations for Please Hold’s Oscar nomination. You are not new to awards and accolades, but does the fact that this is an Academy Award nomination make it more special?
It is special because of the history and prestige associated with the Oscars, and also the fact that ours is a Latino story, an outsider’s story about the privatised prison system in America and the degree of control technology can hold over our lives. I’m glad to see the Academy recognising this kind of work.
You can’t think about the outcome, awards or accolades while making a film… each film is a leap of faith. You hope that you do justice to the story and that it will have an impact on the audience. I’m happy that the film moved members of the Academy enough to vote in our favour. The nomination is a real honour and we have our fingers crossed for March 27. I hope people watch our film and hopefully engage in the ongoing conversations about the subject!
What makes Please Hold different from the other prestigious projects that you have shot?
One of the things I’m most proud of in Please Hold is the tone we struck, both visually, and in how the story plays out. It is a dark comedy that gets increasingly absurd and Kafkaesque. I drew inspiration from the portraits of Lucien Freud and the films Minority Report and Trainspotting. By the end of the film, I hope that you’re left with a pit in your stomach because of how closely this ‘science fiction’ parallels our reality.
One of the challenges of a short is that there isn’t much screen time to set up the world, to build context for the story. As a cinematographer, I search for ways to do this as simply and effectively as possible. With Please Hold, we found an elegant solution — to have a mural on the wall behind the character in the opening scene. The mural, which depicts a fire-breathing, rampaging robot with Lilliputian humans trying to control it, tells us so much about the world and setting of the film.
Our resources were very limited and we benefited from a lot of goodwill from within both the industry and the community. In particular, Panavision, with whom I’ve worked for many years, supported the project with a camera package and our choice of ‘Panavision Ultra Speed’ lenses to tell this story.
Your work, both as cinematographer and film-maker, has been eclectic. What would you pick as the biggest turning points in your career?
After finishing grad school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, I spent a few years travelling across the US working on documentary projects. My time on the road, especially in the rural south, was a real schooling in the stratifications and power structures of American society, and triggered a process of reflection that has given me a new perspective on my own culture and my childhood in India. Looking back, I’d have to say the biggest turning points have been the collaborators I met, some of whom have become like family now. They’ve taken me on journeys I could never have dreamed of, tasking me to lend images to their stories.
A large part of your work focuses on making the universal personal. What is the key to achieving that?
I strongly believe that beyond entertaining or diverting us, inclusive cinema has the power to bridge cultural divides, to help us recognise our own pathos as we see it in others. I acknowledge the dignity of those that stand in front of my lens, I accept their nuance and individuality, and treat each one as the hero of their own story.
I don’t use the camera as a shield or a dividing line on set. I recognise the intimacy between subject and cinematographer and step out from behind the lens and acknowledge that the actors are more than icons or subjects and they are living, breathing people. Of course you do this while respecting the actors’ space and their own process.
My hope is that when the credits roll at the end of a film, the audience has a moment, however brief or subliminal, where they see their own circumstances in a different light and through the shared experience of the film, perhaps feel more closely connected to the person in the next seat.
I draw a lot of influence from the world outside of film. In recent years I have been studying folk crafts, both across India and the ‘Mingei’ movement in Japan. In particular, I’ve been looking at the use of pattern, and how a motif evolves over time. The timeless quality of traditional patterns is something I want to infuse into my work. The writing of Soetsu Yanagi has had a big impact on me. Also the artist Agnes Martin and photographer Sebastiao Salgado.
Your work is distinguished by its simplicity. In this age of visual effects and tech tools, how do you manage to retain that?
My first priority is always to serve the story. Everything I do, my creative choices, my methodology, the technical decisions are all in service of translating the essence of the written word into images that can connect the audience with our characters. I spend a lot of time with the material in pre-production to ensure that I’m prepared to actively create the visuals while ensuring that the mechanistic aspects of our work don’t disrupt the flow of the performances. This often involves months of work together with the director and production designer where we break down the film and build the visual language piece by piece, talking about light, colour, movement, and also how we can best use the set design and blocking to support our storytelling.
I aim to create a safe and flexible space for the actors and director to work in. I try to keep the equipment and crew outside the set as much as possible, and once we are into a scene, be ready to capture the performances that unfold.
Of course, there are times when a scene calls for a more technical approach, whether it is a precisely constructed camera movement or a particular lighting technique. These moments can feel more mechanical on set, but you have to trust the medium, trust the craft, and if you’re in service of the story, then the final scene, when it plays on screen, will look effortless and truly emotional. The audience will be transported into the movie. These moments are far more effective when you’ve built them into the grammar of the visual storytelling, contrasted them against the quiet moments in the film. It is like a piece of music — you need the pianissimo to feel the effect of the big crescendos. So I wouldn’t say that I eschew any particular tech tools or follow a dogmatic approach of simplicity. I’m always in service of each moment in the story.
Growing up in Delhi, was there an epiphanic moment that made you want to pursue this as both career and passion?
There are many! With both parents working in the industry, I was introduced to films at an early age One moment comes to mind — my first memory looking through the viewfinder of a camera. A visiting photographer, a friend of my parents, allowed me to look through his camera. It was a Hasselblad, a medium-format still camera, and had a viewfinder that showed you a reversed image that was very crisp, almost like a 3D projection. I fell in love with the way this camera’s viewfinder made the everyday image of our garden look magical, more real than reality, like a glimmering 3D projection. I was quite young at the time, and was enchanted with this ‘black box’ that could literally turn the world inside out. Of course now I understand the physics behind it.
I love the mechanical, the optical, the photochemical side of film-making, and I think this goes all the way back to my earliest experiences with a still camera. Getting some black-and-white film out of my father’s ‘stash’ in the fridge, watching him load it into the camera, going out and pressing the shutter with a child’s curiosity and then watching the images develop in a darkroom tray. This process has always been magical for me — a kind of alchemy, pulling images from a place that lies even beyond my imagination. I try and bring that curiosity to my work every day.
Is directing a natural extension of your work in cinematography?
I have always been narratively driven in my work, and having been in the director’s chair has made me a more sensitive and thoughtful cinematographer. I can see things with a broader perspective, am better able to shoot “for the edit” and am more closely in tune with the overall rhythm of the film. I think each informs the other, but I don’t see directing as an extension of cinematography.
I’d like to explore directing, particularly in episodic fiction while continuing to work as a cinematographer. There are several cinematographers who are balancing directing and shooting. Andrij Parekh did this with HBO’s Succession a few years ago, and Dana Gonzales on Fargo.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> My Kolkata> Life Style – Oscar / by Priyanka Roy / March 01st, 2022
Safina Nabi has always felt like a storyteller and, as she put it, a “story listener.” As a child growing up in Kashmir, she would listen to radio programs with her grandfather, showing a natural curiosity about them. “I would have dozens of questions and he would explain [it to] me,” she said. “Growing up, I think journalism came naturally to me.”
Nabi started working in radio programming while studying for her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication at the University of Kashmir.
At one point, she hosted an hour-long live morning show. “I wasn’t interested in writing at all,” she said. “I loved to be in front of the camera, taking pictures or doing interviews.”
In 2014, Nabi was forced to move to Delhi due to flooding in Kashmir. While in Delhi, she began to take on writing jobs as a way to make some extra money. After several years of exploring different mediums and “trying everything,” she decided that writing was what she wanted to do.
Much of Nabi’s work explores issues of gender and how it intersects with health, conflict, social justice and human rights.
She has written for The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Vice, Al Jazeera and more.
Her stories are built around strong female characters; she feels that people are the most important part of any piece.
Over the past couple of years, Nabi also started writing about her culture and community. She sees it as a way to preserve her heritage. “We [Kashmiris] are an ethnic group and we come from a minority background. We need to preserve our history, our language, and our cultural roots. I think one of the major and important ways to do that is to document them.”
Nabi has received two grants from the Pulitzer Center for her work, the first of which she found on IJNet. Initially, she wasn’t even sure she would apply because she was anxious about being rejected. “The tab remained [open] on my laptop for days and days,” said Nabi. Finally, she told herself she had to act. She applied and received a positive response within a week. “I was so excited about it,” she said. The project, Kashmir’s Tribal Women Fight the Stigma of Birth Control, focused on the lack of access to family planning resources for nomadic Kashmiri women. “I have received really great feedback. I really think [working independently] is something that has helped me grow, because I can tell the story the way that I want to,” Nabi said.
The ability to control the direction of her stories is incredibly important to Nabi. She spoke with frustration about the limitations of the journalism industry, and how difficult it was to get started as a young journalist with new ideas. “As a journalist who is juggling lots of other issues like internet gags and communication blockades, we don’t have the kind of time to actually research each and everything,” she said. Grants give her more freedom to control her stories, and resources like IJNet, she explained, help her find new opportunities.
Nabi’s most recent project is an in-depth piece funded by the Pulitzer Center. Titled, “How Kashmir’s half-widows are denied their basic property rights,” it highlights the struggles of Kashmiri women whose husbands have disappeared, but cannot be proven dead, leaving them in limbo.
Telling stories like this is what keeps Nabi going when facing situations like months-long internet and phone blackouts, government censorship and intimidation. “Who will tell the stories of these people who are suffering unnecessarily and [who] do not have avenues to reach out to people, to government, to authorities, and there is nobody to listen to them? I feel this is my obligation and this is my duty, to actually give voices to those people who cannot raise their voice, and I think that that’s something that keeps me pushing still,” she said.
It’s a very difficult phase of journalism in Asia right now, especially for women, Nabi explained. “In Kashmir, we don’t even have a women’s journalism association or a union. I think if we all come together collectively and take [up] that space, I’m sure the struggle is not going to end there, but at least we’ll have that kind of space where we will be able to share our vulnerabilities and our problems and discuss them, and be that support system for each other when in trouble.”
Nabi also noted the importance of media organizations and publications supporting and inspiring young women to become journalists. “I think it’s an obligation and duty of other [sites] like IJNet to give space and give more grants to journalists who come from these small backgrounds and give them chances, amplify their voices and their stories. That’s what will help more journalists to come out, especially women, and feel like, “Okay, there are some people who are making it big despite obstacles or struggles that they are facing.”
Photos courtesy of Safina Nabi.
source: http://www.ijnet.org / IJNET (Int’l Journalist Network) / Home> Newsletter > Journalist of the month / by Daniela Riddle / March 01st, 2022
