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"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" -- Benjamin Franklin
Alternative Media Sites I watch regularly
A few journalists I follow regularly:
Journalists whose work I follow are John Pilger, P Sainath and Robert Fisk. Their writings are related to the people of this Earth (the mere mortals) and not the leaders (aka the oligarchy).
Movies
These are some of my favorite International directors and actors/actresses and I like many of their films.
- Stanley Kramer
- William Wyler
- Akiro Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai)
- Howard Hawks
- Cary Grant (for laughs!)
- Audrey Hepburn
When it comes to Telugu, I am a great fan of the old Telugu classics: Mayabazar, Missamma, Rojulu Marayi, Pedda manushulu, Devadasu. In the new movies, I loved Pelli Pustakam a lot. The play on words in all these movies and the impeccable and beautiful Telugu makes me so thrilled. Well, I am an ardent Telugu fan and not at all a fan of Telugu movies in general ;)
In Hindi movies, I enjoy the comedies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, love many of Bimal Roy's, followed all the early movies of Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani. Amongst actors, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri with Shabana and Smita Patil were my favorites (not surprising, eh?). But, my great love was Balraj Sahani. His movies Anuradha, Do Bigha Zameen are my all-time favorites. I think that the recent trend in Hindi movies to explore is a good trend.
Interestingly (and ironically?), the best feminist movies I have watched have been Iranian movies - particularly, The Hidden Half and Two Women directed by Tahmineh Milani, one of the great women directors of our time and acted by Nikki Karimi, who is one of the finest actresses I have ever watched. Of course, there has been a great golden period of Iranian cinema with directors such as Abbas Khiarostami, Majid Majidi, Mohsen Makmalbaf.
Books
Ah! The world of books! Something I lived with and continue to all my life...started off with Enid Blyton and read many of the English classics. Read a lot of Russian classics and a few French authors such as Victor Hugo and Balzac. In between, read the mystery/suspense novels and am fond of Perry Mason series and the Christie books. I rarely read best sellers.
Science fiction was another that always fascinated me - Asimov (of course!), Clarke. The Foundation series are fascinating and being a great lover of Earth (subse pyaari subah teri, sabse rangeen teri shaam), I love Foundation and Earth the best. I feel a nostalgia for a lost Earth perhaps - more and more in these days of environmental damage to Earth.
And, then, of course, were the popular science books by Carl Sagan such as his Cosmos, Broca's brain etc., Isaac Asimov, Patrick Moore on Astronomy and Richard Leakey and the The Leakey Family on Paleoanthropology, especially Richard Leakey's book and TV series The Making of Mankind.
A few biographies that I read are those of Maxim Gorky, Charlie Chaplin, Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis and my favorite of Dr.Henry Norman Bethune whose biography The Scalpel, The Sword is one of the most lyrical biographies I have read.
In the recent times I have read a lot of social science - books/articles by
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti and so on. Lots more to read - especially my not yet started "Ambedkar Project"!
Travel
I have not traveled much in India even though I would love to. However, we did make a few trips as a family: my father's wish of visiting Ajanta and Ellora in which we visited all the most important places around Aurangabad and Hampi were fulfilled before he passed away. We also visited Nagarhole and Bandipur national parks.
But when it comes to USA, I have seen a lot of the most famous parks: Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Skyline drive in Shenandoah National Park (in autumn to see the fall colors), Smoky Mountains, Lassen National Park, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone (the best of the lot!), Crater Lake, Stone Arches, Yosemite and a bunch of other local parks situated in California.
The other thing I did was to use my time in Baltimore and later to visit the museums in Washington D.C. -- primarily, the National Air and Space Museum and National Gallery of Art where I spent endless hours and still came away with having not covered everything to my satisfaction.