Herta Muller Awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature

Herta Muller - 2009 Nobel Prize in LiteratureHerta Muller, “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed” won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature. Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 after years of persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel award since Günter Grass in 1999.

Herta Müller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller’s mother who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timi?oara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceau?escu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech. After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate. Continue reading

Another Raman Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Dr. Venkatraman RamakrishnanOnce again an Indian (or person of Indian origin) wins the Nobel prize. Dr. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was awarded the 2009 Nobel prize in chemistry for his research on ribosomes. It was in 1930, another Raman, Dr. Chandrashekhar Venkata Raman (popularly known as C. V. Raman) won the Nobel prize in Physics.

Dr. Venkataraman (of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England) won the award along with Dr. Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University, and Dr. Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
Dr. Venkatraman was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1952 and obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio University, and holds American citizenship.

For further details, visit http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/index.html

NJISACF 2009: Day 3

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11
ALL SCREENINGS AT BUSCH CAMPUS CENTER
604 Bartholomew Rd, Piscataway, NJ

Time MPR Center Hall
12:00 PM
Pura Handa Kaluwara / Death on a Full Moon Day (Narrative Feature/Sri Lanka/ 1999/ 74min/ Sinhala)
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Barah Aana / Short-changed

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2009/ 97min/ English-Hindi)
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2:15 PM
A Bristol Pilgrimage

(Docu Feature/UK-USA-INDIA/ 2008/ 60min/ English)
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Shared Look – Theatre Life in Kabul

(Docu Short/Germany-Afghanistan/ 2006/ 43min/ Dari-English)
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Oru Pennum Randaanum / Climate for Crime(Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 115min/ Malayalam)
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Shared Look – Theatre Life in Kabul

(Docu Short/Germany-Afghanistan/ 2006/ 43min/ Dari-English)
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5:15 PM
Mohandas

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 117min/ Hindi-English)

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Chaturanga / 4 Chapters

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 125min/ Bengali-English)
Sponsored by Mrittika of New Jersey

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NJISACF 2009: Day 2

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10
ALL SCREENINGS AT LOREE IN DOUGLASS COLLEGE
72 Lipman Dr., New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901

Time LOR 022 LOR 024 LOR 020
12:00 PM
Boomerang

(Narrative Short/USA/ 2009/ 12min/ English)
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Karma Calling

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 90min/ English-Hindi)
Sponsored by Sukh Sagar Cuisine of Piscataway

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Certain Chapters

(Narrative Short/Singapore/ 2008/28min/ Tamil-Hokkien-Malay)
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Dinner for Four

(Narrative Short/Germany/ 2008/ 14min/ English)
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Malaamee / Funeral

(Narrative Short/France-Nepal/ 2008/ 20min/ Nepali)
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Small Voices

(Narrative Short/Pakistan/ 2008/16min/ Urdu-English)
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Who Am I Ek Zindagi

(Narrative Short/India/ 2009/20min/ Hindi)
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Banshi

(Narrative Feature/Bangladesh/ 2007/ 76min/ Bengali)
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Chinese Whispers

(Narrative Silent Short/India/ 2007/ 28min/ English-Hindi)
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2:15 PM
Sarpanaah / Shelter

(Animated Short/Afghanistan/ 2007/ 6min/ Silent)
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Loori

(Narrative Feature/USA/ 2008/ 90min/ Dari-English )
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7 Days in Slow Motion

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2009/ 101min/ English-Hindi)
Sponsored by The Indian Institute of Performing Arts (IIPA)

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4:30 PM
Barah Aana / Short-changed

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2009/ 97min/ English-Hindi)
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THE DAMNED RAIN (Gabhricha Paus)

Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 100min/ Marathi
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7:15 PM
Akasa Kusum / Flowers of the Sky

(Narrative Feature/Sri Lanka/ 2008/ 90min/ Sinhala)
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Gulabi Talkies

(Narrative Feature/India/ 2008/ 122min/ Kannada)
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9:30 PM
Swapnodanay / On the Wings of Dreams

(Narrative FeatureIBangladesh/ 2008/ 88min/ Bengali)
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Ghosht Story

(Narrative Short/USA/ 2009/ 19min/ English-Marathi-Hindi)
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Kala Pul / The Black Bridge

(Narrative Short/US-Pakistan/ 2008/ 42min/ Urdu-English)
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Hungry God

(Narrative Short/India/ 2009/ 8min/ Marathi)
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Pura Handa Kaluwara / Death on a Full Moon Day

(Narrative Feature/Sri Lanka/ 1999/ 74min/ Sinhala)
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B2B Legends : A Unique Concert from Que Zara Productions

New Jersey based Que Zara Productions has announced that they are hosting a concert which will showcase the melodies of the 50s era down to the jingles of the 90s. The show is aptly called B2B Legends or Burman to Burman (S.D.Burman to R.D.Burman), which will be led by original yesteryear super musicians like Ajit Pachegaokar (electric and acoustic guitar) and Inder Singh (I.P.Singh) on the piano/keyboards. They will be supported by nine other famous musicians, including Sanjay Shah (keyboards and vocals), Kumar Majmudar (accordion), Atish Mitra (bass guitar), Sripad Jail (dholak, tabla), Deepak Gundani (rhythm), Pappoo (octopad), Harish B (mandolin), Kalpesh Patel (drums) and Ramesh Maraj (saxophone) of IndiaSax.

The show will focus on the genius instrumentation behind the melodies and will feature vocal renditions from Shweta Ranade and Abhijit Pachegaokar.

Celebrated talent Dan Skye (formerly with Bon Jovi) will provide the sound engineering for the show. Additionally, it will feature melodies of other legendary music composers from Khaiyyam, Laxmikant – Pyarelal, Kalyanji Anandji to disco king Bappi Lahiri.

Speaking on the occasion Kousik Bhowal and Prabir Mitra, Board Advisors for Que Zara agreed, “It is like a Yanni show of Indian music, an Indian instrument-lead concert to savor and learn how the blockbuster hits were created, meet these great musicians in person, enjoy world class audio and go home humming your favorite tunes.”

Aparna Tandon, Prajee chief who will manage the event, said, “I am simply excited to be a part of all this. Five musical decades in one night, eleven expert musicians on one stage, what else can a music lover want?”

Que Zara has plans to replicate the show in the tri-state area in future months.

Dolna Banerjee, Que Zara founder partner, said, “We chose this facility for the excellent acoustics and people capacity. We sincerely hope we can replicate this in other music-loving cities in the US. New Jersey will now experience this unique collage of musicians playing together.”

Que Zara has ambitious plans to bring other unique blockbuster shows to the tri-state area.

Tickets, Show Details are available from: http://cities.sulekha.com/new-jersey/events/Social/2009/09/b-to-b-legends.htm

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NJPA Kali Puja 2009

NJPA cordially invites you to celebrate Kali Puja on October 10th at CrossRoads Middle School.Puja will start at 3:00 PM which will be followed by Prasad and Dinner. Nirmalya Roy of Zee-TV, Tara TV, ETV, Saregama fame will present semi-calssical and ghazals and Moumita Chatterjee of Calcutta Door Darshan, ETV, Tara Music and aAkash Bangla Fame and will present variety songs,. For more information, please visit http://njpa.net.

New Jersey Durga Puja 2009 : A Review

Durga Protima Kallol of New JerseyFinally the annual Durga Puja celebrations are over. I was mostly present at the Kallol pujo but also paid (no pun intended) short visits at the Bharat Sevashram Sangha and Anandamandir. Kallol, just like the previous year, had a full house and had to turn away several people. In one of my previous blogs I had requested, rather wished, that Kallol provide a daily ticket for people who would like to come in for a day. However, for whatever reasons, Kallol decided on the contrary and the result was that I had to listen to complaints from several disappointed friends and family.  Well, rules are rules – that’s what I said.

This year I did something which I never did before. I dropped in on Thursday evening – and it was real fun. There was no pressure of showing the badge, no parking tags, no stress about reserving seats with shawls and jackets and no celebrities on stage to pay attention to. While the volunteers were busy setting up the idol and the kids busy rehearsing on the stage, I had a good time chatting with  friends. For once, after a long time, I had the pleasure of pure Pujo adda – completly unadultered fun. I think we should, at least informally, start the festivities from Thursday – just to prolong the enjoyment for few more hours. Continue reading

Dadasaheb Phalke Award for Manna Dey

Manna DeyNinety-year-old playback legend Manna Dey – who belted out evergreen songs like “Ae mere pyaare watan” and “Zindagi kaisi hai paheli” – is being honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, his family said Wednesday.

Born as Prabodh Chandra Dey May 1, 1919 to Purna Chandra and Mahamaya Dey, the singer was a name to reckon with in the Hindi film industry from the 1950s to the 1970s. He has recorded more than 3,500 songs over the course of his career.