Remembering Anja Niedringhaus through her lens

Anja Niedringhaus

The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer was killed this week covering the presidential election in Afghanistan. She worked in the conflict areas of the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya from where she always displayed compassionate and courageous photojournalism. (http://www.theguardian.com)

Anja Niedringhaus,

Anja Niedringhaus (12 October 1965 – 5 April 2014) was a German photojournalist who worked for the Associated Press (AP). 
She was the only woman on a team of 11 AP photographers that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Iraq War. That same year she was awarded the International Women's Media Foundation's Courage in Journalism prize.

Niedringhaus had covered Afghanistan for several years before she was killed on 4 April 2014, while covering the presidential election, after an Afghan policeman opened fire at the car she was waiting in at a checkpoint, part of an election convoy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anja_Niedringhaus)

The ill fated car

Shock attack in heavily guarded compound near Khost city kills Associated Press photographer. Anja Niedringhaus, 48, was shot in her car by a rogue police officer. The German photographer had been covering the Afghan general election. Reporter, Kathy Gannon, was also wounded in the attack. A unit commander named Naqibullah walked up to the car, yelled 'Allahu Akbar' - God is Great - and opened fire on them in the back seat with his AK-47. AP executive editor say Niedringhaus was 'vibrant, dynamic, well-loved'.  
Niedringhaus becomes the 26th journalist killed in Afghanistan since 2001 - and the third in the past month. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk)

Niedringhaus, pictured at the 'Goldene Feder' German media awards

Anja Niedringhaus laughs as she attends an event at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens
picture: Reuters

Anja Niedringhaus laughs as she attends an event at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Anja Niedringhaus was part of the AP team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography for the coverage of the Iraq war. Here, US Marines of the 1st Division raid the house of a city council chairman in the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad on 2 November 2004

A Libyan rebel prays next to his gun on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, Libya, on 21 March 2011

A Canadian soldier with the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, rests next to his guns after a mission in Khebari Ghar, Afghanistan, on 3 June 2010

Afghan men line up next to a destroyed passenger plane as they wait for humanitarian aid to be delivered near the stadium in Kabul on 4 February 2002

In this photograph from November 2012, a young girl reaches out to a Pakistani policeman securing the road outside Kainat Riaz's home in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan. Kainat was wounded by the same Taliban gunman who shot Malala Yousufzai and 13-year-old Shazia Ramazan on their way home from school. Malala was shot for her outspoken insistence on girls' education

AP colleague Muhammed Muheisen, who was with her the day before she was killed, wrote: 'Anja in few words: caring, funny and committed to photography.' In this photograph taken on 9 June 2011, a US Marine walks towards food supplies after they were dropped by small parachutes from a plane outside Forward Operating Base Edi in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The smoke in the background comes from parachutes that the Marines burn after landing

An Afghan national police officer mans a checkpoint on the outskirts of Maidan Shahr on 15 May 2013

AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said: 'Anja was a vibrant, dynamic journalist, well-loved for her insightful photographs, her warm heart and joy for life. We are heartbroken at her loss.' In this photograph, taken on Thursday, an Afghan girl helps her brother down from a security barrier set up outside the Independent Election Commission office in the eastern Afghan city of Khost

Associated Press president Gary Pruitt described Anja as 'spirited, intrepid and fearless, with a raucous laugh that we will always remember'. Here, in this photograph taken on 11 June 2011, Lance Corporal Blas Trevino of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, clutches his Rosary beads as he is treated by US Army flight medic Sgt Joe Campbell on a medevac helicopter after being shot in the stomach outside Sangin, Afghanistan

more Anja link: 
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/anja-niedringhaus
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/04/photojournalist-anja-niedringhaus-killed-in-afghanistan/100710/ 
http://www.anjaniedringhaus.com/

shared thankfully from:

pic credit: Anja Niedringhaus/AP

http://www.theguardian.com

http://www.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.en.wikipedia.org

Holi: springing of the year

Holi (in India) is also called the Spring Festival [1] 
as it marks the arrival of spring [2], the season of hope and joy. 

The gloom of the winter goes away as Holi [3] promises of warmth and bright sunshine..

pic courtesy:google doodle/holi-festival-2014

change in the air, perceived by plants, expressed through colors so vibrant ..

pic courtesy: http://animikha.wordpress.com/

pic courtesy: http://www.gardenworld.in/cfd30327e_butea.html

 ..that human too followed with bonfires and colors.

pic courtesy: The Hindu, Photo: Mohammed. Yousuf

pic courtesy: http://omnivorocultural.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/holi-festival-in-brazil/

This is also a time when farmers are happy with their mustard, wheat and other crops in the field 
and so are many more visitors: 
i.e. various kind of insect and bees with vivid beauties; 
as if to greet this festivity !!

Suchitra Sen: passing of enigmatic recluse goddess of Indian cinema who has shut out world for 3 decades

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone’. I only said, ‘I want to be left alone’. 

There is a world of difference.”

Suchitra Sen? No, Greta Garbo.

The screen goddess who was the most famous hermit of New York for years would often take long walks through the streets dressed in oversized clothes and wearing large sunglasses to avoid prying eyes.

The screen goddess who has been the most famous hermit of Calcutta for three decades has confined herself to her Ballygunge Circular Road house, surrounding herself with a chosen few and immersing herself in a life of spirituality.

“Garbo wasn’t a true recluse as she went out in public,” said Rachel Dwyer, the British academic, author of a number of books on Hindi cinema.

So, Suchitra has done a Garbo better than Garbo.

 It will forever remained a secret how reclusive actress Suchitra Sen, who was hardly seen in public in the last 35 years, looked in her last days.

So will a glimpse of today’s Suchitra Sen shatter the three-decade-old enigma? Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, professor of film studies at Jadavpur University, thinks not. “A myth was created around Greta Garbo when she went into oblivion. We too have created a myth around Suchitra Sen. Her aura is based on the photographic reality in our memory, it is built around her star status. It is huge and I don’t think the real image on television can demystify her.”

Silver-haired and chubby, Suchitra seemed to “have a kind of spiritual glow on her face”, observed Sabitri.

Sources in the Sen household said she does indeed spend her days surrounded by spiritual texts and is visited only by monks. Access is denied to all other outsiders by the core group of her daughter Moon Moon, son-in-law Bharat and her granddaughters.

“Her only link with filmdom is the work of Raima and Riya. Otherwise, she does not watch films and even makes it a point to turn off the TV or switch channels if an old movie of hers is showing,” said a source.

This can be explained by Dwyer’s analysis of the Garbo-Sen reclusion syndrome: “Some stars, usually very beautiful, hate seeing themselves grow old. Some probably find it harder than the rest of us to deal with these changes.”

If Garbo had ruled the silver screen from 1920 to 1941 and then gone into shock retirement, Sen was the heartthrob of hundreds from 1953 to 1978 before slamming the doors shut on the world.

“It’s sad if people can’t respect someone else’s privacy. But no one can take away what my grandmother is and will always be,” Riya said in the evening.

She is right. Suchitra Sen is and will always be an enigma.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090118/jsp/frontpage/story_10406617.jsp 

Suchitra Sen (6 April 1931 – 17 January 2014),  
was the first Indian actress to receive an award at an international film festival when, at the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, she won the Silver Prize for Best Actress for Saat Paake Bandha. In 1972, she was awarded the Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian awards in India. From 1979 on, she retreated from public life and shunned all forms of public contact; for this she is often compared to Greta Garbo. In 2005, she refused the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest cinematic award in India, to stay out of the public eye. In 2012, she was conferred the West Bengal Government's highest honour: Banga Bibhushan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suchitra_Sen

Subhash Mukhopadhyay: the forgotten hero of IVF

The first test tube baby in India is surrounded by much controversy. The person credited with this breakthrough, Dr Subhash Mukopadhyay, lived in ignominy for three decades before his work was recognised and lauded. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhash_Mukhopadhyay_%28physician%29

He produced the first Indian test tube baby on Oct 3, 1978, just 67 days after Marie Louise Brown - the world's first test tube baby. 

http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/i-thought-being-born-in-a-test-tube-was-normal/848077/

At the time, no one believed the doctor's claim. What added insult to injury was that he was not allowed to carry any further research on in-vitro fertilisation, and was also prevented from going to Tokyo to present a paper. Humiliated, frustrated  and in failing health, Mukhopadhyay killed himself on June 19, 1981. 

Finally, in 2003, the ICMR acknowledged his achievement. But the delayed honor could not bring any cheer even to his wife, Namita, who has been paralysed and neglected since her husband's suicide. The widely acknowledged first test tube baby was produced by Dr Indira Hinduja of KEM Hospital Mumbai on August 6,1986.

http://www.drsubhasmukherjee.com/

Colonel Barog: tall upright man of Barog Tunnel

THE 96.54-km-long Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge track in India has 102 operational tunnels that constitute about 8 per cent of the total length of the route.

This rail track, which was open to passengers on November 9, 1903, is a living tribute to those engineers who dared to bore a total of 107 tunnels and set an example of how a railway line could pass through a rough mountainous terrain without destroying the splendour and beauty of the hills.

Barog, the place:

Barog was settled in the early 20th century during the building of the narrow gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway in India. It is named after Colonel Barog, an engineer involved in building the railway track in 1903.

Barog tunnel as of now

Barog, the engineer, was responsible for designing a tunnel near the railway station. He commenced digging the tunnel from both sides of the mountain, which is quite common as it speeds up construction. However, he made mistakes in his calculation and while constructing the tunnel, it was found that the two ends of the tunnel did not meet. Barog was fined an amount of 1 Rupee by the British government. Unable to withstand the humiliation, Barog committed suicide. He was buried near the incomplete tunnel. The area came to be known as Barog after him.

Barog Tunnel Facts

Later it was constructed under Chief Engineer H.S. Harrington's supervison guided by a local sage, Bhalku, in a short period from July 1900 to September 1903 at a cost 8.40 Lakh rupees (Rupees 840,000).

This tunnel is the longest of the 103 operational tunnels on the route of the Shimla-Kalka Railway, which is 1143.61m long. 
Barog station is immediately after the tunnel. 

Barog tunnel is the straightest tunnel in the World. 
Trains take about 2.5 minutes to cross this tunnel, running at 25 kilometres per hour.

And The Man lies forgotten

He was buried in front of the tunnel, 

near the Kalka-Shimla national highway, 

about 1 km from Barog.

Ironically neither the Railway authorities nor the state government has done anything 

to maintain his grave. 

A signboard giving details about the sad end of Barog was put up near his grave 

but that too has now disappeared. 

As a result, it is now even difficult to locate the whereabouts of his grave. 

The forlorn tunnel has now been closed. 

The tunnel has a natural water source 

that meets the water demand of the Special Service Bureau (SSB), Dharampur.

# Reference notes:

* On July 8, 2008, the Kalka–Shimla Railway was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the World Heritage Site Mountain Railways of India. The Mountain Railways of India (including Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Nilgiri Mountain Railway) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai have already been declared as world heritage properties.

* Kalka–Shimla Railway

 

	0 km	Kalka
	6 km	Taksal
	11 km	Gumman
	17 km	Koti
	27 km	Sonwara
	33 km	Dharampur
	39 km	Kumarhatti
	43 km	Barog
	47 km	Solan
	53 km	Salogra
	59 km	Kandaghat
	65 km	Kanoh
	73 km	Kathleeghat
	78 km	Shoghi
	85 km	Taradevi
	90 km	Totu (Jutogh)
	93 km	Summer Hill
	96 km	Shimla

# Consulted and thankfully shared from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalka%E2%80%93Shimla_Railway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barog

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020615/windows/main4.htm