About stardom, Rajesh Khanna and meeting Tom Cruise
Posted By Admin on Jul 19, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
July 18, 2012
India’s first ever superstar Rajesh Khanna passed away today. I am not trying to imply that I am very young, but when I was still in my bloomers, he had already seen the height of his stardom and his career was on its decline. Legend has it that women all over India used to go hysterical over him and his mailbox often received letters written in blood from some of his crazy fans. The BBC documentary on Khanna, shot in 1973, hinted that some girls even committed suicide when he got married.
Back then I was not allowed to watch many movies, or flip through celebrity gossip magazines by my strict mother who had missed her calling as Mother Superior of an all girls convent school and was making up for it by becoming Mother Superior of our house. Doordarshan, India’s only television channel at that time, telecasted family films every Sunday. These I was allowed to watch sometimes. As a bonus I was allowed to watch Chitrahaar (a 30 minute capsule of songs from Hindi films) every now and then. I remember watching a popular song from Aaradhana, starring Rajesh Khanna and wondering why the middle aged Rajesh Khanna whom I watched in the movies on Sundays did not look half as good as this man. The Rajesh Khanna of my growing years was a man with a broad face and a funny hairstyle. The Rajesh Khanna of Aaradhana had a boyish face and looked very handsome and very Hollywood. In spite of not ageing very well, Khanna had many liaisons with several beautiful women, most of whom were actresses.Read More »
The Cosmic Traveler
Posted By Admin on Jun 02, 2012 | 0 Comments
Padmajaa Iyer
June 2, 2012
I‘ve journeyed through time far and wide, but no where have I seen,
A home as wondrous as her, Mother Earth so blue and green.
A home as wondrous as her, Mother Earth so blue and green.
Lo Behold! She stands out, amongst the cosmic elite,
But none of them seem even close, to her beauty infinite.
But none of them seem even close, to her beauty infinite.
As volcanic ash I descended, upon her bosom green,
As rock, as soil, as minerals, as water I did breathe.Read More »
As rock, as soil, as minerals, as water I did breathe.Read More »
Food wars and why it is so hard to win them
Posted By Admin on May 09, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
May 09, 2012
I have just finished baking a batch of blueberry muffins for my older child who is blessed with about 28 sweet teeth in her nine-year-old mouth. Since there is so much emphasis on whole foods these days I have taken extra care to use healthy ingredients such as oatmeal, milk, canned blueberries and organic cane sugar. Sounds gross doesn’t it? But don’t judge me till you have walked in my shoes. We had an episode last week where the child complained of such high intensity stomach cramps that the pediatrician had to be called in to examine and mercifully it wasn’t a case of appendicitis. It was, however, a case of amendicitis, if ever was such a word. My daughter had been officially told to amend her food habits in favour of high fibre foods by the good doctor.Read More »
The weekend the husband baby sat and the price I am paying for it
Posted By Admin on Apr 24, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
April 24, 2012
A few weeks ago I decided to travel out of Bombay leaving my kids and husband behind to bond with one another. This was a luxury previously unknown to me as I willingly signed up for the traditional role of the homemaker soon after the stork had visited us for the first time. Even though we have both stuck to our roles of breadwinner and homemaker with unmatched zeal and commitment the monotony of our respective roles does take its toll on us at times.
The husband is the ‘Up in air’ guy. I don’t mean I am married to George Clooney (sigh), but the gentleman who is the father of my children and my husband spends the better part of his life at airports and in planes.
Therefore this two-day get-away was just what the doctor ordered and the husband and I looked forward to the approaching weekend of role reversal with much enthusiasm.
That weekend, it felt wonderful to not have to be bothered by the kids since I was convinced that the husband would be doing a fabulous job as a hands-on daddy.Read More »
‘An Introduction to Transformational Psychology’
Posted By Admin on Apr 20, 2012 | 0 Comments
Brigitte Arora
April 20, 2012
The focus of Transformational Psychology is to unearth and bring forth into our awareness, the presence of an immortal Being that exists beyond our personality. It is this Being who we really are. Through the methods of this psychology we can establish a permanent connection with our immortal Being. The personality that we believe our self to be is only a mortal shadow in a physical body created so that we can exist for some time in this world of time, space and duality. We embark on our journey of discovery and transformation in order to awaken to the fact that we are an unfinished species that still lives mostly within the consciousness of the animal kingdom. The goal is to escape the animal consciousness by our transformation into a higher state of consciousness; that of our Higher Self.
It is only through our awakening that we become aware of the magnificence of our potential. We have no idea that we are more than our personality and the roles that we are “playing” on the stage of this life. We don’t know that we have the potential to become an autonomous Immortal Being of Light and Love. Nor do we know that the transformation needed to make this possible can only be done while in a physical body within this realm of duality. This is why our life here in this world is so important.Read More »
Mother’s love in the time of American Express
Posted By Admin on Apr 14, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
April 14, 2012
Last night I was indulging in my usual cleansing and age-defying ritual that includes scrubbing my face and slapping on some serum.
Standing there in front of the mirror, I noticed that there was a whole evenly spread out layer of grime all over my face somehow that was making me look like a coal miner. I rinsed my face gently and groped around for a hand towel to wipe it and looked back at my reflection. Strangely the grime was still there. I tried to wipe it off my face again but in vain. On closer inspection I realized that it wasn’t grime at all. This was my newly acquired tan from sitting under the unforgiving and inconsiderate-to-women-with-sensitive-skin sun, earlier in the day. This is the thing about life. You want something good but you have to be patient and wait it out and then there are things which don’t rank very high on your wish list but you can get them in no time at all. Just like that.Read More »
What is Kundalini?
Posted By Admin on Apr 13, 2012 | 0 Comments
Brigitte Arora
April 13, 2012
The Kundalini is the power that sustains and regulates our life force and the driving power that fuels our transformative evolutionary journey. Kundalini is a Sanskrit word that means coil; coiled like a snake. Throughout human history, Kundalini has been represented by the symbols of the serpent, fire and the snake. When the snake is shown as coiled it represents Kundalini in Her dormant state. When shown coming out of the top of the head, it symbolizes the field of energy of a risen Kundalini.
The Kundalini is active in all life forms. She usually lies in a near dormant state in the perineum where it is held stable and secure at the sacrum on the spinal column. Through various practices such as meditation, yogic disciplines, drugs or through a shock, She can suddenly awaken and begin to rise upwards along the spine where her main targets are the seven psychic centers. Her work is to cleanse and to transform the organs and all the other systems that compose the body and our psyche. The ultimate goal of the Kundalini is to transmute the physical body of a present species into a newer and higher form. The transformation to a new consciousness and a new body occurs when the vibration of the old body is transformed to a higher vibrational frequency.Read More »
On Separation Anxiety
Posted By Admin on Apr 06, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
April 6, 2012
“My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can’t decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.” ~ Rita Rudner
“The hand that rocks the cradle usually is attached to someone who isn’t getting enough sleep.”
~ John Fiebig
~ John Fiebig
I am to travel to London briefly next week. The thought of leaving my children is rustling up much anxiety in me and marring any chance of looking forward to my trip. I have no doubt that my children will be well looked after by their doting dadi. And yet I suffer coz the ‘heart has its reasons that reason does not know’.
Becoming a mother is really the hardest and yet the most rewarding thing in the world. Cliché? Yes. But true. I don’t think I have slept a full night’s sleep since our first-born came into the world nine years ago. I should have been warned before I had my babies. Someone ought to have told me that I need to choose between sleep and motherhood.
My body wakes up on autopilot in the middle of the night and I sleepwalk to my kids’ room to check on them every single night. This includes the night when they are doing a sleep over at their grandparents’. On those nights, I wake up and look up our dog.Read More »
Detox and the death of Venus
Posted By Admin on Mar 20, 2012 | 0 Comments
Shunali Khullar Shroff
March 13, 2012
I ran into a friend of mine at a soiree about two weeks ago. It was a sit down dinner and while we all did the sitting down bit to perfection, the folds around the abdomen of some of my gender in attendance did not quite manage to sit down much, in a manner of speaking. We have made our respective contributions to the planet by creating life.Read More »
A brief history of the film society movement
Posted By Admin on Dec 22, 2011 | 2 Comments
By Colonel SC Khullar (founder President Doon Film Society)
All over the world intellectuals, thinkers and film aficionados seek association with established film societies, not merely to serve their passion for this form of art, but also as a validation of their intellect. Dehradun’s own film society, “REACH Talkies-Doon Film Society” will itself be completing three years, since its inception. Yet to many the term ‘film society’ continues to be a vague concept. This blog is my attempt to explain briefly, aims and objectives of a Film Society and the back ground of “Film Society Movement”.
The first film society was established on 25th October 1925 at London by H G Wells, G B Shaw, M Keynes and some other intellectuals. During its first season, the Film Society had screened 39 films – 20 of which had never been screened in England before. This was the primary objective of the society: to screen more of the avant-garde material which would not have found an outlet in the commercial cinema. It continues to be the raison d’être for the Doon Film Society as well.
In over nine decades, the Film Society Movement (FSM) has spread world over. The film societies have made their presence felt everywhere and proved their relevance by creating an audience with a taste for realistic, artistic and socially relevant cinema. The FSM has also inspired many film makers to make films with aesthetic and artistic approach.
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Au Revoir Cheetal Grand
Posted By Admin on Nov 28, 2011 | 5 Comments
By Shalini Kataria
A twist of fate and what was once a must- stop on the Dehradun-Delhi highway stands alone and forlorn. A stop at Cheetal Grand in Khatauli was almost a habit when travelling between Dehradun and Delhi. But, ever since the new toll road has come up, everybody (however loyal a Cheetal fan they may have been) whizzes past the signboard that reads, “Cheetal Grand 500 meters ahead”. It is just too much of a bother to take a detour down a dusty road when you are sailing at 100 kmph plus on the new highway. Now bang on the highway you have a spanking new McDonald’s (open 24hours) , Haldiram and Café Coffee Day to pander to the hunger pangs. Haldiram’s is a self service joint. The food and the tea are served in disposable plates and cups and one has to queue up at the counter to pick up the order. No waiters to serve you after a long drive! A quick look around and one sees more than 60 people (on a weekday) which makes one think about the huge amount of non-degradable waste that must be generated every hour. At this point, one gets nostalgic remembering the familiar faces of the waiters at Cheetal. Even the cleaning lady at the washroom has been the same for all these years. A bite of the food and again one yearns for the freshly prepared fluffy omelettes, grilled sandwiches, cheese pakoras, the yummy Rajma Chawal and the hot cup of masala tea famous at Cheetal.
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