You should see the sun on the Ganges...the City of Light

Kowalski: You should see the sun on the Ganges. It's amazing.

(Lieutenant Matt Kowalski played by  George Clooney, Gravity, 2013)

"BANĀRAS is a magnificent city, rising from the western bank of the River Ganges, where the river takes a broad crescent sweep toward the north. There is little in the world to compare with the splendor of Banāras, seen from the river at dawn. The rays of the early-morning sun spread across the river and strike the high-banked face of this city, which Hindus call Kāshī—the Luminous, the City of Light. The temples and shrines, ashrams and pavilions that stretch along the river for over three miles are golden in the early morning. They rise majestic on the high riverbank and cast deep reflections into the waters of the Ganges. Long flights of stone steps called ghāts, reaching like roots into the river, bring thousands of worshippers down to the river to bathe at dawn. In the narrow lanes at the top of these steps moves the unceasing earthly drama of life and death, which Hindus call samsāra. But here, from the perspective of the river, there is a vision of transcendence and liberation, which Hindus call moksha..."

(Diana L. Eck, 'BANARAS: CITY OF LIGHT', 1981)

  sunrise over the river Ganga in Varanasi

'ऑल अबाउट इव्ह', १९५०...How to Walk Around with an Erection for Three Days?

Sam Staggs, 'All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made!',  2000:

"...Bette Davis: “The unholy mess of my own life—another divorce, my permanent need for love, my aloneness. Margo Channing was a woman I understood thoroughly. I had hard work to remember I was playing a part.”

Gary Merrill: “Before long we were walking about holding hands, going to the movies.… From simple compassion, my feelings shifted to uncontrollable lust.”

Bette Davis: “The last place I expected to find love was on a movie set.”

Celeste Holm: “It was not a very pretty relationship; they laughed at other people. Bette and Gary formed a kind of cabal, like two kids who had learned to spell a dirty word.”

Bette Davis: “There was one bitch in the cast—Celeste Holm.”

Gary Merrill: “Would Miss Davis like coffee? A cigarette? A sandwich? Someone murdered?”

Bette Davis: “I sensed in Gary my last chance at love and marriage. I wanted these as desperately as ever. I had been an actress first and a woman second.”

Gary Merrill: “I walked around with an erection for three days.”

Bette Davis: “I started falling in love with him when I observed how he could relax in bed all day long for two solid weeks.”

Zsa Zsa Gabor: “There was one bed on the set and every time we came back after lunch, it was obvious that Gary and Bette had been using it during the break.”

Bette Davis: “That bed was for a scene in All About Eve but it was so comfortable that, between shots, the whole cast stretched out on it. Most of us would lie there for a few moments then pop up for cigarettes or something. Not Gary. He just lay there, completely at ease, until his scenes were called.”

Gary Merrill: “We only played two love scenes before I said, ‘Will you marry me?’”

Bette Davis: “I had fused the two men completely—Bill Sampson and Gary Merrill. Margo Channing and Bill Sampson were perfectly matched. I was breaking every one of my rules. I always swore I’d never marry an actor.”..."

 Joseph L. Mankiewicz यांचा 'ऑल अबाउट इव्ह', १९५० हा माझा अतिशय आवडता सिनेमा आहे, त्याच्या बद्दल काही माहित नसताना सुद्धा मला तो त्या अनेक कारणांमुळे आवडला होता- दिग्दर्शन, अभिनय, फोटोग्राफी, एडिटिंग ... सगळ्यात वर  त्याचा चटपटीतपणा , कथानकाचा वेग ....आणि त्याचा understated eroticism .. सेट वर उदा. काय चालले होते (I walked around with an erection for three days... There was one bed on the set and every time we came back after lunch, it was obvious that Gary and Bette had been using it during the break.) त्याचे प्रतिबिंब सिनेमात पडले आहे... 

 Bette Davis as Margo Channing, Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson

रेडिओ राजकन्या... Indira Devi of Kapurthala: Cinema, War, Driving Ambulances, BBC

 "Maharajkumari Indira Devi (a.k.a. Princess Indee), born in 1912, was the daughter of Maharaja Paramjit Singh and Maharani Brinda of Kapurthala. By all accounts a spirited, intelligent young woman, she left India for Britain in her early 20s to become a movie star. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, and worked briefly in the movies, narrating a few films.

After the outbreak of WWII, this feisty young princess successfully passed the St. John Ambulance examination and drove ambulances during air raids! She eventually joined the BBC in 1942, and hosted several series of radio broadcasts in Hindustani for Indian forces stationed in the Middle East. She also became famous for hosting ‘The Debate Continues’- a weekly broadcast to India. For this programme, she reported from the House of Commons, where she was the only woman in the entire press gallery!

Popularly known as the ‘Radio Princess’, she continued to work for the BBC till 1968. She passed away in 1979, in Ibiza, Spain.” 

 

 Picture- dated c. mid 1930s

 

courtesy: Tanveer Kinsey Studios and Mapin Publishing

 

She surely knew Balraj Sahni & his wife…George Orwell knew her well as documented below:

 

"...In other programme series, Orwell drew on members of the expatriate Far Eastern community living in Britain. These included Mulk Raj Anand, who read many of Orwell's broadcasts on the air. Other Indian novelists and essayists, Cedric Dover, Ahmed Ali, Prem Chand, and Narayan Menon among them, represented the "class that the [BBC's] literary broadcasts were aimed at." They discussed subjects like "Race Mixture and World Peace," "The Problems of Cultural Expression," and "The Federal Idea," with the intention of bringing "East and West a little nearer together." Many of the speakers invited by Orwell were women, including Princess Indira of Capurthala and fellow intellectuals such as Inez Holden and Rebecca West..."

(from '"Talking to India": George Orwell's Work at the BBC, 1941-1.943' by Jutta Paczulla)

अभ्यासातील फ्लोरा का अंतिम परीक्षेतली ?...Flora and the Zephyrs

जी. ए. कुलकर्णी : "... ऑर्फियसने उत्कंठेने वाद्य हातात घेतले व स्वर निर्माण करण्यास सुरवात केली... त्यावेळी हातांतील कंकणांचा आवाज करत, आंतरसालीसारख्या कोवळ्या पावलांनी सूर्यप्रकाश सरकवत एक सौन्दर्यवती युवती आली, आणि निर्भर आनंदाने तिने ओंजळभर फुले उचलली..." 

(पृष्ठ ५, 'ऑर्फियस', 'पिंगळावेळ', १९७७)

Flora आणि  Zephyrs दोन्ही रोमन/ ग्रीक देव. Zephyrs म्हणजे पश्चिम-पवन (मरुत) आणि फ्लोरा (the goddess of the flowering of plants), त्याची पत्नी. 

हे चित्र आहे (Copyright The Hopkins Collection 2021) जॉन वॉटरहाऊस यांनी १८९८ साली काढलेले. त्या बद्दल मिळालेली माहिती अशी:

"Flora and the Zephyrs takes its subject from Ovid's Fasti, which is a verse chronicle of the Roman calendar, and which incorporates the mythologies and historical legends of Rome where they can he associated with specific times of the year. Waterhouse's painting shows the moment when Zephyr first set eyes upon and fell in love with Flora, as she gathered flowers in the fields with her maidens and children.  He flies down to her, accompanied by his winged companions, and captures her by casting a garland of white flowers around her."

पण या चित्रातील फ्लोरा पेक्षा जॉन वॉटरहाऊस यांनी वरील चित्राच्या तयारीकरता काढलेली फ्लोरा (study of Flora) मला खूप जास्त आवडली. 

किती मानवी वाटते, तिच्या चेहऱ्यावर दिसणारी चिंता अगदी परिचयाची. 

 

समुद्र केवळ निरीक्षक आहे...Ulysses and the Sirens, Joseph Conrad and G A Kulkarni

Joseph Conrad

"All the tempestuous passions of mankind's young days, the love of loot and the love of glory, the love of adventure and the love of danger, with the great love of the unknown and vast dreams of dominion and power, have passed like images reflected from a mirror, leaving no record upon the mysterious face of the sea. Impenetrable and heartless, the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors for its precarious favors."

-from ‘The Mirror of the Sea’

 

जी ए कुलकर्णी :

"... समुद्राचा अवजड करडा पडदा स्थिर आहे. त्याच्यात आपली प्रतिबिंबे आहेत म्हणून आपण अस्तित्वात आहो  असे निःशंकपणे खडकांना वाटते. व  ते अलिप्तपणे उभे आहेत.

        समुद्र केवळ निरीक्षक आहे..."

('अस्तिस्तोत्र', १९७१, 'सांजशकुन', १९७५,२०१५)

 

'Ulysses and the Sirens', 1909 by H.J. Draper