Showing posts with label Important Personalities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Important Personalities. Show all posts

Sunday, March 25, 2018

World-Renowned and Beloved Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking Dies


British Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking
Photo courtesy: www.hawking.org.uk/

British astrophysicist, author, and professor of Mathematics at the Cambridge University died on March 14 at home (Cambridge, England) at the age of 76.

In spite of suffering from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- a type of motor neuron disease and its related difficulties from the age of 21, he has been active in teaching, writing, and moving with the help of a motorized wheelchair and electronic machines and computers.

His contributions are in the fields of singularities in gravitational collapse, black hole mechanics, vanishing of blackholes, rise of galaxies, and wave function of the universe.

Because of his profound contributions, he has received 13 honorary degrees, CBE award (1982), Companion of Honour (1989), and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009). 

To know more on him, please read the following:

Stephen Hawking's Death, Biography, and Appreciation of His Work:

His Membership with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences :
His Comments on Religion and God:
Miscellaneous Quotes of Stephen Hawking:


Books by Stephen Hawking:



 Cartoons on Stephen Hawking:


Photos of Stephen Hawking:

Videos of Stephen Hawking:
Movie on Stephen Hawking:

(Updated on March 28, 2018)


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Posted by Jerome D'Costa at 12:28 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Dr. Humayun Ahmed (1948-2012): The First Pop-writer of Bangladesh


Dr. Humayun Ahmed -- the most popular writer in Bangladesh
Photo courtesy: Reflections (blog)

Dr. Humayun Ahmed, who died on July 19 in a New York hospital, was the first pop-writer (popular writer) of Bangladesh. Before his books started to appear in the Bangladesh book market, writers of Bengali books from West Bengal of India dominated the field. It can be said with certainty that Dr. Humayun Ahmed, not only broke the monopoly of Indian books but also unilaterally created a new breed of readers, especially among the teens and youths. This readership also expanded to the elder ones with his creation of teleplays and films.

Dr. Ahmed was a writer, novelist, script writer for TV and film, and film director. He excelled in all these fields and gathered millions of admirers and fans.

Some of my sons were also his book readers and admirers. In early 1990s, we went to the Ekushey February book fair at the Bangla Academy compound in Dhaka and bought one his books from a stall where he was sitting and requested for his autograph on it. Dr. Humayun Ahmed, who looked serious and who had a smoker’s lips – darkened and unattractive – signed the books without any expression or smile!  In appearance, he looked completely the opposite of what one pictures him mentally from reading his books and watching his teleplays and films -- a congenial and humorous person.

Dr. Ahmed, a prolific writer, unprecedented in the history of Bangladesh, wrote more than 200 novels, over 100 teleplays -- including some drama serials, and more than a half-a-dozen film scripts. He also directed eight films. Unbeknown to many, he was an amateur painter, who, in the last 10 years, painted more than 500 paintings – mostly in watercolour – which were never exhibited or sold. 

Once he was a professor of and an expert in chemistry, yet he made a foul in mental chemistry of his married life. In one of his books for children, he had profusely praised his wife, Gultekin, for her dedication and love and his three daughters and a son for their lovableness. After 30 years of marriage, he left his wife and looked for a greener pasture. He went after his TV drama serial actress Meher Afroz Shaon -- a teen friend of his teenage daughter -- and married her in 2005 and sired two more sons. 

Although he had a fair share of his critics, Dr. Humayun Ahmed, has definitely earned a place in the Bengali literature of Bangladesh and he will continue to live among his readers through his innumerable books. The presence of thousands of mourners at his funeral proves his popularity in Bangladesh.

A Short Life-Sketch

 Born on November 13, 1948, at the village of Kutubpur of Netrakona District, Bangladesh, Dr. Humayun Ahmed passed the Secondary School Certificate exams from Bogra Zilla School (1965), Higher Secondary Certificate from Dhaka College (1967), and B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Dhaka, and Ph.D. in polymer chemistry from the North Dakota State University in Fargo of North Dakota, USA (1982).

He received many awards and prizes for his work in literature, TV and film.

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Posted by Jerome D'Costa at 5:14 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Photo Meditation of the Month (June, 2009): BEING ONESELF



Renowned singer Michael Jackson (1958 - 2009)
at different phases of his life

 Photos Courtesy: The Internet

American singer Michael Jackson unexpectedly died on June 25 of heart failure in Los Angeles, USA, at the age of 50. He was called the "King of the Pop" (popular music). Because of his unique musical talent (music in consonance with dance moves), his fame reached all over the world. He became acceptable to people of any colour in the USA as well as the world. His musical influence will live on for many more years to come.

Being Oneself

By Jerome D'Costa

If we look at the photos above, what do we see?

We see a Michaelian metamorphosis: from a black kid to a white one, from a round-nosed person to a sharp-nosed one. Is that all we see?

We also see a person who is lonely, who is desperate for acceptance and recognition of others. The inferiority complex about his self-image is also acutely visible. We see a constant struggle in him to "fit in" by changing his hairstyle and shape of his face by cosmetic surgery and by bleaching his skin to the extreme.

According to his own words, he had an unhappy childhood. From his very young age, his strict father kept him busy practising music. He, thereby, missed his normal childhood play and interaction with other children.

As a result, although grown up in age and body, he still remained a child in his heart. He built the 'Neverland', a fantasy land where all kinds of items were there for children's play and enjoyment. Till his death, he enjoyed being with the children. Thereby he even faced allegations and lawsuits of child abuse.

What do we learn from the life of Michael Jackson?

  • One's childhood has to be lived like a child, not an adult.
  • Parents make a great mistake if they treat their child as an adult.
  • Fame, recognition, prestige, and money that come too early in one's life become a heavy burden to carry around. Everyone can't cope with this situation.
  • God made us unique persons. We don't need to change ourselves to the extreme to be able to be acceptable to others or to "fit in" with others. We need to be ourselves.

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Posted by Jerome D'Costa at 11:00 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan: One of the Greatest Bangali Musicians Dies

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Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922 - 2009) playing his world-famous sarod
Photo Courtesy: http://davidbaptistechirot.blogspot.com

One of the greatest Bangali (Bengali) musicians and one of the greatest virtuosos of Indian classical music died of kidney failure on June 18 at his home at San Anselmo, near San Francisco, USA. He was 87 years old. He popularized the Indian classical music in the Western countries. He had founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Kolkata (Calcutta) with branches in San Francisco and Switzerland. World renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin had once termed him "an absolute genius" and "the greatest musician in the world." His brilliant compositions and mastery of the 25-string musical instrument, called sarod, made him famous all over the world.

Life-sketch

Born on April 14, 1922 at the village of Shibpur in Comilla District of East Bengal in the then British-ruled India, he was the only son of another great Bangali musician Ustad Alauddin Khan. Originally, his ancestors come from a Hindu Brahmin family.

He began to learn music under his father's tutelage from the age of three. After his birth the family moved to Maihar in Uttar Pradesh, where his father was the court musician of the maharaja (great king -- ruler of the princely state). His sister Annapurna Devi, who later married famous sitarist Ravi Shankar, was an accomplished surbahar -- a plucked string instrument -- player, but she could not perform in public due to conservative customs of placing restrictions on women.

Among his achievements are:

  • At the age of 13 in 1936, he publicly performed for the first time in Allahabad, India. From then on he began to draw attention of music lovers.
  • By his early 20s, he became the music director of All-India Radio in Lucknow.
  • His first grammophone recording was done in Lucknow, India, in his early 20s.
  • In 1943, the Maharaja of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, made him the court musician. He served there until the plane-crash death of the maharaja in 1948.
  • Then he moved to Bombay against his father's wish and began to write music scores for films. He also contributed in film director Chetan Anand's Aandhiyan (1952), Satyajit Ray's Devi (1960), and Tapan Sinha's Hungry Stones ((1960). Later he composed music for Ismail Merchant-James Ivory's film The Householder (1963), and Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha (1993). While in Bombay, once he also won the "Best Musician of the Year" award.
  • Yehudi Menuhin was eager to introduce Indian classical music to the Western audience. At his invitation, Ali Akbar Khan came to the USA and successfully performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955.
  • In 1956, he founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta. In 1967, he opened a branch of this college in California, USA. In 1985, another branch was opened in Basel, Switzerland.
  • On August 1, 1971, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was one of the performers of the "Concert for Bangladesh", organized by singer George Harrison and sitarist Ravi Shankar at the Madison Square Gardens in New York. This concert raised funds for East Pakistani (Bangladeshi) refugees in India during the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. Among important performers were: Ravi Shankar, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan, Kamala Chakravorty, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and others.
  • He was the first to have his long-play record of Indian classical music in the USA.
  • Between 1970 and 1998, he was nominated several times for the Grammy Award in the USA for his music.
  • The government of India granted him the Padma Bhushan as well as Padma Vibhushan awards for his lasting contribution to Indian classical music spanning 50 years.
  • The MacArthur Foundation in the USA granted him, the first Indian, its fellowship ('genius grant') in 1991. The National Endowment for the Arts in the USA also granted him a National Heritage Fellowship in 1997.
  • In 1997, he performed at the United Nations headquarters in New York and also at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of India.
At his death, the great Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who was in Russia at the time, in a message praised him as "undoubtedly the greatest musician of the twentieth century."

Thrice married, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan has seven sons and four daughters. His last wife, Mary, is an American. For the last four decades, he was living in the USA.

One of his famous quotes is: "If you practise for ten years, you may begin to please yourself, after twenty years you may become a performer and please the audience, after thirty years you may please even your guru, but you must practise for many more years before you finally become a true artist -- then you may please even God." Bookmark and Share
Posted by Jerome D'Costa at 10:20 PM 0 comments
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