Art and Culture
Will Vijay Thalapathy’s political party be a blockbuster, or will it collapse at ballot box
Tamil cinema superstar Vijay Thalapathy is shaking up Tamil Nadu politics within just 18 months of launching his political party ‘Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam’ (TVK). The name means ‘Victory of the Tamil People’; but the question is—will he stop at creating a stir, or will he truly change the rules of the game? Let us try to understand that today.
The ‘Bahubali’ of a thousand years ago
Almost 1200 years ago, in the 9th century, a Digambara monk named Jinsen composed an extraordinary epic. His work, known as the Adi Purana, was based on the life of the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhanatha, and the stories of his two sons, Bharat and Bahubali. This was not an ordinary tale; it was a remarkable saga of conquering pride and attaining spiritual liberation. In it, we witness the journey of a warrior who becomes a supreme sage.
Four acclaimed hits running simultaneously
Cinephiles in Bangladesh are enjoying a week that comes once in a blue moon. It is not often that multiplexes screen several big-budget, ambitious films at the same time—each managing to win over audiences as well as critics. Currently, four highly anticipated films of different genres are running in the country's multiplexes. These films have not only created a stir at the box office but have also received excellent ratings from audiences and critics alike. Let's find out more about these four films.
Remembering Rabindra-Nazrul in songs, poems, discussions
Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore and national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam are among the greatest minds of Bengali literature and culture. Two great souls of Bengali literature. Their literature and creative works have played an unforgettable role in shaping the identity and expanding the thinking of the Bengali nation, said speakers at a discussion.
Let conspiracy theories on Zahir Raihan’s murder come to an end
One of the indispensable elements of war is propaganda. War means terrorising with information, distorting information. War means the constant attempt to occupy the psyche with distorted and false information. War means the battle of forgetfulness against memory. In the twentieth century, Hitler’s Propaganda Ministry (Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda), headed by Joseph Goebbels, set an extraordinary precedent in war propaganda. His central philosophy was: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
Selim Al Deen: A marvellous wordsmith
In Selim Al Deen’s works we find a profusion of polysemous sentences, where along with Sartre’s “direct meaning” lie hidden several other meanings. For instance, one sentence from “Hargaj” is: “If the storm is blind, then why did it not make a mistake with the cooking pot?”
Has Shakib Khan truly become everyone’s hero from ‘Gulistan to Gulshan’
Has megastar Shakib Khan really become everyone’s hero—from Gulistan to Gulshan? The phrase “from Gulistan to Gulshan—everyone’s hero” has come from Shakib Khan himself. At the success celebration of the film Borbad, Shakib Khan said that his films are now being embraced by audiences of all classes, from Gulistan to Gulshan.
The poet who set alphabet ablaze with resistance
There is no greater achievement in our national life than the struggle for independence and the Liberation War. Countless poems have been written about these subjects. Poet Shamsur Rahman portrayed independence, the Liberation War, and patriotism in poetry with a powerful and aesthetic touch. His poems have found a place on people's lips, in slogans, on placards, wall writings, banners, and festoons. Like:
Reader’s transformation, writer’s worries
No one now soaks their pillow in tears reading stories or novels as before. Now eyes are fixed on the TV or on the screen of a mobile phone held in the palm. Who bothers to wander through colourful fantasy by reading black and white letters? One writer says to another, “What’s the point of writing so much, brother, no one reads those things.”
Comrade Jatin Sarker will live on through his work
Professor Jatin Sarker has left us. He was not born into a wealthy family, but he was rich in the wealth of knowledge. He belonged to the marginalised. From childhood, he grew up through great hardship, pursuing his education under the same difficult circumstances. But when his thinking became connected with Marxist thought, his worldview expanded. Until his death, he believed in the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism. In practice, however, he was rooted in the folk tradition. He was not dogmatic, nor was he blinded by ideology. He had a strong capacity to embrace the new.