There was a great quote by one of his authorities in the post. It is below.

“No matter how cheesy it sounds, but when you follow your guts, ignore the outside resistance, and you take MASSIVE action, you will follow your true destiny. It’s about crafting a laser-sharp focus on your path, and implementing the trial-and-error method on a daily basis. Concentrate on what matters, and hack away the unessential.”

“The life of al-Ghazali has been thus far examined mostly as the development of his individual personality. However, since the 1950s there have appeared some new attempts to understand his life in its wider political and historical context (Watt 1963). If we accept his religious confession as sincere, then we should be careful not to reduce his thought and work entirely to non-religious factors. It may well be that al-Ghazali’s conversion from the life of an orthodox doctor to Sufism was not merely the outcome of his personal development but also a manifestation of a new stage in the understanding of faith in the historical development of Islam, from the traditional form of faith expressed in the effort to establish the kingdom of God on Earth through the shari‘a to a faith expressed as direct communion with God in Sufi mystical experience. This may be a reflection of a development in which the former type of faith had lost its relevance and become a mere formality due to the political and social confusion of the community. Al-Ghazali experienced this change during his life, and tried to revive the entire structure of the religious sciences on the basis of Sufism, while at the same time arguing for the official recognition of the latter and providing it with solid philosophical foundations.”

Ref:
www.ghazali.org

Scarlett O’Hara is a survivor. She has that ability to struggle through trauma to reach tomorrow. Tomorrow, After all tomorrow is another day. This reverberating force of her being makes her the life-like example for people surrounding her for whom she became a support during the war and the reconstruction era. People who hated her shrewd, selfish ways. The same people accolade her by saying that, she is the one who has ‘gumption’, she is the one carrying us through, she is the life that remains after the saga of death that raged their communities.

While her contemporary women are gossiping their lives away, she is following her ambitions, when they are crying haplessly, she is caring for the sickly (albeit unwillingly), while they are starving, she makes the famous resolution ‘God is my witness that, I’ll never be hungry again’, she saves her home, feeds everyone in it, and builds a life for them out of burnt woods.

Her practicality, and overwhelming talents come to exposure, when she comes to Atlanta during reconstruction and runs Frank Kennedy’s factory. Here is where we realize that how out of place and time is this woman situated. She proves to be an awesome business woman. Although too ambitious at times but her opportunism also represents the opportunism of the era she survives in and the hunger that haunts her. Her ambition sometimes also manifest her human weakness as the drive to overcome poverty with her limited means as a woman, take the better of her.

Scarlett is living in the constraints of her world and naturally is an opposite to it. Ms. Mitchell has thrown in terribly contrasting elements at work in one setting and as we see their drama unfold, the complexity of it all make it very difficult to understand to for most people and they are limited to view her through the frames of time, convention and her relationships with men in her life.

As the novel goes, we see her grow and mature. There is never a single instant in the whole book spanning 9-10 years of Scarlett’s life where she hasn’t shown resourcefulness to face the odds. She is the symbol of force that knows how to stand up after falling down.

She starts at the age 16, as believing herself to be in love with chauvinistic aristocrat ‘Ashley Wilkes’ who is attracted to and takes pleasure in Scarlett’s passionate and willful ways. He spoils her and then marries according to design and tradition. Time goes by and she doesn’t manage to come out of her fantasy. As the plot moves through one disaster to the other, she marries and remarries for her betterment (the only respectable profession for women those days).

Rhett Butler mocks her constantly and drives her away from himself. It can be termed as, he never is able to win her although he claims to love her. Scarlett, due to some circumstances, some of her follies and Rhett’s uncaring attitudes is late in discovering her love for him.

Never in the entire novel, we hear Rhett expressing his love to Scarlett properly.

A perfect trajedy, roaring with war and trauma and how profoundly it changes people’s lives. A civilization “Gone with the Wind”. Scarlett is a symbol of that.

I don’t think today people today will be willing to like a character such as this heroine acclaimed “Shehzori”. A girl who has a will of a her own and that much of a mountain, who knows how to fight for herself, not because she is trained to do it, rather, because that is what she is. What a beauty…!

I haven’t seen a stronger, agressive and lovable female heroine in any of her other plays, that too in possibly the worst of circumstances. If you have a thing for strong girls, ‘Tara’ gets you in the very first scene, where she starts roaring at the house maid for leaving her husband’s house at dismissal of her inlaws. She isn’t shy in blaming women’s losses on their own weaknesses.  She doesn’t blame it on circumstances as you hear people do even today as they talk of how some girl is bound and helpless because of this or that and feel sorry for them. I am amazed how well she made that point back in the 70′s that until a woman gains a sense of self and manages to take reins, nothing can really save her. One catches it in the very first scene that she herself will be presented with the same challenge and prepares himself to see how she handles it.

And handle she does, not chained by expectations of society. She had probably never been a part of it and that serves her well. There is this old saying “Where there is a will, there is a way” (a pill that one should take everyday when one is inclined to hide behind difficulties ).  As we see her ploughing through the mess, we also see hope building up, help coming in one form or the other as we see her going only guided by principle and her sense of self.

The play is not devoid of peculiar comedy that Haseena’s plays always carry. Its remarkable how she mixes such strong themes of female emancipation with her usual wit and satire. The dailogues specially those of Tara are blunt as apposed to sharp in more of her recent works. It is fitting to the plot and particular scenario shown in this play, as there are some situations requiring utter bluntness as compared to some complicated ones requiring sharpness. But it also in my mind reflects author’s youth and the free spirit she carries at the heart of her creations.

It was a treat to watch after a long time. After having known Elizabeth of P&P and Scarlett of GWTW, I was long after discovery of a strong heroine in Urdu Drama. One that is a force to reckon with.  Inspite of the common thread that runs in their heads and the common roaring blood that inspires their actions, its remarkable how much variety they have.

This was when our modern day “Julie” who is obsessed with “Julia” from 1950 and everything about her. It is when she gets a taste of “Julia” in reality and is understandably crushed. Of course, she expected Julia to be what she had imagined. To ease the shock, her husband comforted her with this line that “the Julia, the one in your head matters to you”. The easy thing in her case was that she had never met her, so when she did not like the reality, she chose not to meet her, so as to conserve the strength, that her imagination of Julia had always given her.

Its probably easy to be obsessed like that with someone in a role of a teacher, a mentor, or a someone who is distant in relation to you. When it is possible to be distant. When actually a culmination is not required. When it is possible to be far so as to realize,

“Duur baittha ghubaar e mir uss say…
Ishq bin yeh adab nahi aata…”

In general though, when one is obsessed with someone who is close by. Fantasy collides with reality quite easily. Shouldn’t then a person be able to shake themselves out of falsehood? The disguise that they have constructed to worship. Its amazing how one puts all the features that one likes in the object of his/her love and keeps doing it blatantly, unstoppably.

I mean listen to “Aafreen Aafreen” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The mehboob in that feels like some one from some other universe. Definitely not a inhabitant of this planet… Although, I would allow such exaggerated praise of one’s love, but with a condition. An important condition.

The condition is that of “possession”. If you possess someone you love, it is actually not allowed rather incumbent upon you to worship your possession. That is when it should be done, and only to that it should be done. When one is possessed and is possessing. That is when they are allowed rather encouraged to sink deep into this ocean of “parastish” aka worship.

What right do you have to be obsessed with something that is not yours. And if it was supposed to be yours, why did you not attempt to attain it. If your attempt failed, that is then another story.

Thanks to “Julie & Julia”, it resolved a little something for me. The obsession without culmination is probably possible in a distant role… where one can be nice and strong enough to understand the reality of their object of love and do not drag them through the facade of their imagination.

When you are sick of civilities…
And of conceit and pretensions…
When you need to slice their standards…
with words pinging with sugar…

When you need to show them a mirror…
When you see their vanity get hurt…
By no design of your own…

And take pleasure in inconsistencies…
And laugh at their follies…

And deal with Misses Bingleys…
and Steele’s and Crawfords…
and enjoy their futile chases
of Darcys, Edmunds and Edwards…

You need a dose of Elizabeth Bennet again!

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Oh my dear sweet love, Miss Austen. What would I have done with out you and your beautiful creation that is this woman. I wait for the time in heavens, when I get to kiss your hands.

The inventor of Polyphase Alternating Current, Induction Motor and the Tesla Coil. by virtue of which he can be proclaimed as the father of today’s electrical transmission systems, radio, and a foreseer of all the wireless and satellite communications.

The film “The Prestige” chronicles his part of life where he was being crushed by Edison’s lab and Direct Current, while he maintained that the future belongs to alternating current. In the film’s plot, they develop a fictional hook for him, Tesla is shown inventing a machine for a magician attributing to him that he can do “real magic”. I actually didn’t know much of his life history before watching this captivating movie by Christopher Nolan (also by him: Batman Begins) and then I got hooked to Tesla’s personality. There is this marvelous scene in the film where we see a foggy night, out in the open Tesla is conducting his experiment for conduction through the earth. There are these oblong electric bulbs inserted in the ground as far as you can see, and you insert this one more bulb, probably completing the circuit and see the whole field lightening up.

I read, that he had drawn the principle diagram of Induction Motor walking with a friend on sand and explained it to him right there. Then, I saw him in Niagara Falls. His monument honoring his contribution and commemorating his accomplishment – first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls in 1895.  And today I find that in addition to lighting
the world, he also devised the four tuner circuit that builds the foundation of radios. I also find out today, that Marconi’s most important patent in radio technology was regarded invalid in 1943* considering Tesla’s prior and significant contributions. Marconi who established wireless communication between Britian and Newfoundland in 1901.

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We just keep learning. The places and ideas, we have inhabited, in this case Newfoundland, Niagara, Radios, Electricity, keep muddling with each other and give meaning to our existence. Even the picture on the top of this blog has three photos, 2 of them taken in Newfoundland and 1 in Niagara Falls. And we know just how pivotal are the Signal Hill in Newfoundland and the areas surrounding  Niagara Falls.

*www.teslasociety.com

Just then I was musing over far reaching success achieved, its overviews being displayed. The sharp statement was a nice distraction. How sharp, how stark, how painfully true for world at large.

A state where
the absence;
it ceases to be a sting
ceases to be a pang.

There remains,
only what it has given.
Its healing, its cleansing
Its simple purification.

Or Audrey resembles her…! Well they both resemble eachother. Don’t they? Here’s a picture I put together of them both. This pictures brings out the similarities between their faces and expressions a lot. May be at other occasions one would fail to notice it.

Sadhna (born 1941, Karachi) is a famous Bollywood actress while, Audrey (born 1929, Brussels – died 1993 Switzerland) was an unusual, a very atypical  Hollywood Actress and a humanitarian.

The interesting fact that I have found about this resemblance  since first discovering it is…

Sadhna married the director (R.K. Nayyar) of the film that she played her first lead role in. R.K. Nayyar in that first film created her look and asked her to style her hair after Audrey’s fringe to highlight this resemblance and cover her very broad forehead. The hairstyle apparently after wards became a craze. The interesting thing here is that Audrey (the undisputed beauty that she is now) also used to get noticed for not one, but many flaws in her appearance during her early career. In case of Sadhna though, R.K’s act is not of singling out, its of enhancement and love.

Another interesting fact that I found (via IMDB) was, that during that first film (1959) when they fell in love. They were too young. She probably 16 or 17 and he, 22. He was told to back off by her parents through legal action!!!. They later re-connected and married in 1965.

How on earth can one direct a full fledged feature film at the age “22″………. ?!?