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Dilip
Kumar
When
Yusuf Khan shifted from Peshawar to Maharashtra, he was just
one in a family of 12 siblings that sold fruits for a living.
However, it didn't take him very long to rise above the mediocrity
of his existence and become an emperor of showbiz in an age
when cinema still didn't have too many superstars.
It all began when Devika Rani reportedly recruited him for Bombay
Talkies while he was working for a canteen in the British Army
and noted novelist Bhagwati Charan Verma rechristened him Dilip
Kumar. A lacklustre debut in Jwar Bhata (1944) was followed
by a string of successes - Andaz, Aan Deedar, Devdas, Daag,
Madhumati - Where the actor skilfully enunciated the art of
underplaying.
As a hero, Dilip Kumar was more aggrieved than angry. Rambling
aimlessly, bottle in hand, a dirge on his lips and the shadow
of death looming ahead, he brought to life a prototpye of the
Greek tragic hero. Hence the unrequited lover of Andaz, Deedar,
Devdas who firmly believed happiness was an impossible dream
in a world riddled with class and caste barriers. And when he
began to be typecast, he opted for an image change. This time,
he donned the mask of the swashbuckler who stormed throught
films like Aan, Azaad, Kohinoor, Ganga Jamuna and Ram aur Shyam,
As a colossus that strides across six decades, Dilip Kumar has
managed to dominate the marquee even in recent years with hits
like Karma, Shakti and Saudagar.
Mohammed Rafi
Virtually the voice of India, Mohammed Rafi articulated the
joys and sorrows of millions of Indians throught his songs.
One of the three most popular Hindi film playback singers, ever
with Kishore Kumar and Mukesh. Rafi made his debut in 1944 in
the film Pehle Aap. He tasted success, however, with Mehboob's
Anmol Ghadi in 1946, where he sang duets with Noorjehan. With
the longest career span for almost all heroes from Pradeep Kumar,
Bharat Bhushan, Dilip Kumar, Guru Dutt, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand
to Rishi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan. His career was somewhat
eclipsed when the superstar of the 1970s. The music of composers
like Naushad, S.D.Burman, Shankar Jaikishen and the poetry of
Sahir, Kaifi Azmi would not have been immortalised without the
melodious croonings of Rafi.
Kishore Kumar
Actor, singer, director, music composer and producer, Kishore
Kumar made his film debut as a playback singer by imitating
his hers K.L. Saigal in Rimjhm (1949). He stormed the box office
as an actor who sang his own songs, mostly in slapstick comedies
like Musafir and Naukari. After Chalti Ka Naam Gadi, he gained
recognition for offbeat humour and for providing a new musical
sound to popular film music. His career as India's most versatile
playback singer was effictively launched when he became Dev
Anand's singing voice with Ziddi and Munimji. Along with composer
Kalyanji, he pioneered the use of electronic music in Hindi
films and modernised the melody.An effort which blossomed under
the partnership with composer R.D.Burman during the 1970s when
Hindi film music boasted of some of the most popular charbusters
like Yeh shaam mastani, Roop tera mastana, Pyaar deewana hota
hai, Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi and many more. If Rajesh Khanna
was able to scale rere heights as a superstar, it was primarily
due to the voice of Kishore Kumar that had the nation swooning
in rhythem. He also sang for the next superstar, Amitabh Bachchan,
too and has some memorable numbers to his credit in films like
Sharaabi, Don and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar.
Vivekananda
Born Narendranath Datta into an upper-middle-class family in
Bengal, Vivekananda was educated at a Western-style university
where he has exposed to Western philosophy, Christianity, and
science. Social reform was given a prominent place in Vivekananda's
thought, and he joined the Brahmo Samaj, dedicated to eliminated
child marriage and illiteracy and determined to spread education
among women and the lower castes.
He later became the most otable disciple of Ramakrishna, who
demonstrated the essential unity of all religions. Always stressing
the universal and humanistic side of the Vedas as well as belief
in service rather than doma, Vivekananda attempted to infuse
vigour into Hindu thought, placing less emphasis on the prevailing
pacifism and presenting Hindu spirituality to the West.
He was an activating force behind the Vedanta movement in the
US and England. In 1893 he appeared in Chicago as a spokesman
for Hinduism at the World's Parliament of Religions and so captivated
the assembly that a newspaper account described him as "an
orator by diving right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at
the Paliament".
He founded the Ramakrishna Mission which now has a worldwide
organisation. His collected works were published between 1919
and 1922.
Rabindranath Tagore
Thinker, scholar, writer, poet, painter, song-composer, nationalist
and campaigner for world peace, Rabindranath Tagore was an extraordianrily
versatile genius. he received the Nbel Prize for literature
in 1913, the first Asian to do so, and was knighted in 1915
- an honour which he resigned in 1919 as a protes against British
policy in punjab.
He believed that India could play the role of a unifier and
synthesiser of the East and West towards a common nrichment
of the humanities. It was to give form and content to this idea
and provide a nucleus for inter-cultural fellowship that he
founded the Visva Bharati world university at Santiniketan in
Bengal. Tagore, to paraphrase Humayun Kabir, was essentially
a poet with interests not confined to poetry. I sheer quantity
of work few writers can equal him. His writings include more
than a thousand poems and over 2,000 songs besides a large number
of short stories, novels, dramatic works and essays on the most
diverse topics. He was also a musician of the highest order.
He took to painting when he was almost 70 and yet produced,
within 10 years, about 3,000 pictures. His contributions to
religious and educational thought, to politics and social reform
to rural regeneration and economic reconstruction were notable.
Munshi Premchand
As a writer Premchand is a pioneer of modern Hindi and Urdu
social fiction. He wrote nearly 300 stories and novels. Among
his best known novels are : Sevasadan, Rangamanch, Ghaban, Nirmala
and Godan. Premchand represented the spirit of his times which
marked a tension between Grandhism and socialism, and a slow
change towards urbanization and uneasy modernism. Much of Premchand's
best work is to be found among his 250 or so short stories,
collected in Hindi under the title Manasarovar. Compact in form
and style, they draw, as do his novels, on a notably wide range
of northern Indian life for their subject matter. usually they
point up a moral or reveal a single psychological truth.
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