Gina Lollobrigida: Great Actress from Italy of the 20th Century

Gina Lollobrigida has a special niche for herself in Italian –Hollywood cinema. During her prime in the fifties and sixties she was a rage and had carved a special niche for herself. Her charm and sex appeal exuded from her and she was a veritable heart throb for millions of her followers.

Gina was born in 1927 and that would make her 84 years old now. Her active period in the show world was till 1996 when she retired and started devoting her time to American Italian heritage. Gina Lollobrigida despite being Italian and knowing very little English was a success on the Hollywood stage. She starred in many epic films.

Gina’s most telling and sexy scene is the Pagan dance in the film Solomon and Sheba where she starred with Yul Brynner. The Pagan dance brought out the sex appeal of Gina which transcended all boundaries of language and religion. Dressed in skimpy attire Gina does the Pagan dance with aplomb, that would shame many an eastern actress from Bollywood or Tamil films. More over none of the eastern actresses could carry of such a scene in the skimpy dress she wore.

Gina acted in many more films from Hollywood and in all of them she proved herself a versatile actress. Among her other films were Hunchback of Notre Dame with Anthony Quinn, Beat the Devil with Humphrey Bogart, Never so few with Frank Sinatra, Trapeze with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis among others.

In 1955 Lollobrigida appeared in The World's Most Beautiful Woman, for which she received the first David di Donatello for Best Actress award. Her film Come September in 1961 was a great hit all over the world where she co-starred with Rock Hudson.

During the period of the seventies and nineties, her career slowed down and finally retired from acting. She then became a activist of NIAF( National Italian American Foundation). She received a life time award   from this foundation in 2008. The foundation looks after the heritage if Italian Americans.

Gina married only once and divorced in 1971. She has one child (a son). Gina Lollobrigida is remembered for her sex appeal and histrionics on the screen. Even now almost 5 decades later Gina is remembered as a Hollywood and Italian actress par excellence. Her films like Solomon and Sheba in re-runs and on the net are still a tremendous draw. I for one have seen her re-runs and am convinced she was the most beautiful screen actress to light the scre

Life in the United Arab Emeritus: A Success story of the Middle East

The United Arab Emeritus is a nation on the edge of the Arabian Desert and abuts the Arabian Sea. It is a union of 9 Sheikhdoms with Abu Dhabi being the biggest and Dubai the most developed.  All the 9 states are developed though the degree of development and prosperity is may vary.

The UAE is comparatively an oasis of peace and the norm of arson and violence so endemic to other Middle East nations like Egypt, Syria and Iraq is absent here.  In the ultimate analysis the UAE has charted a different path and is also relatively more secular than the other Middle East nations. It also gives equal opportunity to all its residents.

In great measure this secular approach is the result of pragmatic and realistic policies followed by the rulers led by Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai and Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi. The approach can be seen in the largest Sikh gurudwara (temple) in the Middle East at Jebel Ali in Dubai. There are also many functional churches in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE and Dubai in particular has developed as a financial center and tourist paradise.  Millions of visitors come to UAE for a holiday and Dubai is the second busies airport in the world after New York. There is a vast expatriate population that constitutes almost 80% of the population of UAE, with people from India and Pakistan making up the bulk. In fact the entire country is run by workers from the sub –continent. With such a large expatriate work force the chance of  an agitation like the ones witnessed in other Middle East nations during the famous ’Arab Spring’ are totally absent here and probably will never take place. Thus the UAE has a  stable political environment and organizations like the IS( Islamic State) are unable to find any roots at this place.

There is also a property boom on and many well-heeled Englishmen and Indians are buying homes in UAE. This ownership of property is allowed by the rulers who have adopted a pragmatic approach. In addition Dubai s developed as a world financial center. Millions of tourists visit UAE, making Dubai the second busiest airport in the world after New York. It follows a tax free regime and foreign businesses have flocked to UAE. The bigger gain is in tourism and there is nothing to match dubai with sand safaris and camel rides and belly dancers.

The UAE is an oasis in a troubled Middle East and one wonders why other Muslim nations cannot take a leaf from the book of the UAE.

Richard Burton: Mind of a Famous Star * 66

A Review of Richard Burton's Diaries: an Explosive Personal Account

The Richard Burton Diaries reveal Burton as a very intelligent man. Readers will be particularly interested in his account of his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. The diaries make interesting reading. Perhaps at times Burton must have been aware that whatever he wrote would be read by people all over the world for posterity after his death. Would that have colored some of what he wrote?

Richard Burton was an English actor from Wales. He was born in 1925 at Pontrhydyfen. Despite his English origin Burton won accolades in Hollywood, where he was nominated seven times for an Oscar. Out of these, six times were for ‘Best Actor’. Only Peter O Toole was nominated more times than Burton, but sadly Burton never won an Oscar.  This is more a reflection on the Oscar award than on Burton.
Burton acted in some legendary roles that are remembered. Films like My Cousin Rachel, Becket, The Robe, Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf and dozens of other movies show cased Burton as an actor par excellence.. He is also remembered for a tumultuous love affair and three marriages with the famous Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor.
 How Burton Wrote his Diaries
Burton was in the habit of writing his diary throughout his life. After his death in 1984 the diaries were published. Burton’s diaries can make depressing reading as some pages have just one word ‘Booze’ written. This show the actors drift to melancholy and alcoholism. This was a lifelong struggle for Burton who just c couldn't control his alcoholism and ultimately drank himself to death.

Reading the diaries however show the man to have been insecure, despite all the fame and riches he had. The diaries have been published in their original sequence and readers can link up with the various events in Burton’s life. The diaries cover a period of almost 44 years from 1939 to 1983. Burton started writing the diaries as a young teen. He meticulously recorded entries for over four decades. A reading of the diaries will bring out the mesmerizing roles he played on stage and screen. Burton was also a great stage actor, no way less than as a star on celluloid.A reader of the diaries will wonder how a man who on the face of it had everything including the most beautiful woman in the world as a love and wife could drift into depression and alcoholism. The diaries also cover the period when he was Hollywood’s highest paid actor. Readers may try and get some insight into the mind of Burton who made dazzling purchases of diamonds as well as several homes in different places.

Burtons Diaries

Burton wrote the diaries in his own hand. It’s fascinating to read Burton as he brushed shoulders with some of the greats in show business like Olivia de Havilland, John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, Laurence Olivier, John Huston, Dylan Thomas, and Edward Albee.
 The Richard Burton Diaries reveal Burton as a very intelligent man. Readers will be particularly interested in his account of his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. The diaries make interesting reading. Perhaps at times Burton must have been aware that whatever he wrote would be read by people all over the world for posterity after his death. Would that have colored some of what he wrote?
Despite this Burton’s diaries are a treasure house of interesting literature. They reveal the mind of the man who can be rated as England’s greatest actor. He was a titan among other mortals and has left behind an image of a great human being.

A Review of "The Perfumed Garden" and its Erotic Tales

Tales of 'The Perfumed Garden': Arabic Erotica

The Perfumed Garden is a book that emphasizes the sexual nature of the Human mind. The book written by Sheikh Nefzawi gives good sexual advice and at the same time illustrates the Sheikhs ideas through a series of tales that are interspersed throughout the book. The tales are erotic and one is hard put to explain how so licentious a book has come from a Muslim area.

The Perfumed Garden is a book that goes against the mainstream thought of modern Islam as practiced in countries like Saudi Arabia. The book is the antithesis of the Wahabbi concept in Islam which is puritan and rigid. The Wahabbi concept enforces a code of conduct that denies women their basic rights. The Perfumed Garden strikes at the roots of this concept by emphasizing the sexual nature of the Human mind. The book written by Sheikh Nefzawi gives relevant sexual advice and at the same time illustrates the Sheikhs ideas through a series of tales that are interspersed throughout the book.  The tales are erotic and one is hard put to explain how so licentious a book has come from an area that is home to an extremely rigid and iconoclast religion that denies the sexual nature of a human relationship.

The Sheikh's Imagination

Whatever hard line Muslims might say the Perfumed garden is a book that is erotic in the extreme. The purpose of these stories which can be read independently of the other chapters of the Perfumed Garden is to stimulate the reader and open a world of sexual pleasure.

The Tales in the Perfumed Garden. 

The Sheikh was a man with a great and imaginative mind. His description of the sex act is the work of a genius. The Sheikh writes  that  during a sexual act when the organ disappears into the vulva, the testicles are frightened . The vulva who has devoured  the brother announces that it will ensure that their brother is killed. The testicles are even more frightened, but after a lapse of time when their brother emerges out they find him very weak, yet he is happy and his brothers the testicles are surprised.

The Perfumed Garden is replete with a number of erotic tales. Some of the tales will be more than a match for modern erotic fiction recognized as great literature like Night in a Moorish Harem and Venus in India.
One the tales concerns the Jester Bauloul. This man loved the beautiful princess Hamdouna and he forever was making plans to seduce the princess.  As per the Sheikh the Jester was successful and the game of sexual love was furthered by a Robe which Bauloul owned and the Princess desired. Balaoul readily consented to part with the robe and as a recompense seduced the lovely Hamdouna. The Sheikh recounts how the Jester was able to copulate with the princess not once but 3 times and each time he was a man of greater vigor and the princess was eminently satisfied. The moral of the story is that a man must satisfy his beloved to get to her inner feelings of love.

The Sheikh relates another story of a beautiful woman named Fadehat. Such was her beauty that a neighbor Joida fell in love with her and made a one point plan to possess the lovely Fadehat. The Sheikh goes on to say that fortune favors the brave and the lover decided on a direct course of action. He approached the lovely Fadehat and showed himself to the lady. The sight appeared like a gift from the Gods and the lady was so smitten by the visual that the lover could have Fadehat 27 times. The Sheikh relates as a moral that a direct approach with suitable performance is more than likely to win the love of a woman than writing endless poems and verses.

The Sheikh in another story also relates how a woman who claimed to be a prophetess forgot all about being a prophet after she had partaken of the elixir of life. There is also a tale of a man pockmarked and hideous yet was loved by a beautiful and lovely woman. This was due to his immense power and sexual stamina.
The Sheikh makes a worthy point which is very much relevant even today. He brings out the stark fact that a man’s prowess in bed is the ultimate peak on the path of winning the love of a woman. This is accepted now and for the Sheik to have stated it in a puritan atmosphere deserves our adulation.

 We can also spare a thought for the translator Sir Richard Burton who brought the book from obscurity to the limelight at the fag end of the 19^th century

George B Shaw: Greatest Dramatist? His Writings

Evaluating George Bernard Shaw As a Dramatist, Second Only to Shakespeare

George Bernard Shah is recognized as the greatest dramatist after Shakespeare. Some even rate him above the bard from Avon. GB Shah was a writer who revolutionized English prose. He was in a way a dreamer and that filtered into his writings. He believed that the world is beautiful and it is the folly of man that it is not a paradise. This was the reason he took up relevant social- political issues and brought them out in his plays.

George Bernard Shah is recognized as the greatest dramatist after Shakespeare. Some even rate him above the bard from Avon. GB Shah was a writer who revolutnized English prose. He was in a way a dreamer and that filtered into his writings.  He believed that the world is beautiful and it is the folly of man that it is not a paradise. This was the reason he took up relevant social- political issues and brought them out in his plays.

An excellent example is the play “Mrs. Warrens Profession” In this play he discussed the oldest profession in the world, prostitution. Slums so much a part of British London during his time was beautifully represented in “Widower’s House”, Think of a subject and GB Shah tackled it with aplomb. He portrayed the medical profession in “Doctor’s Dilemma” and the scourge of war in “Arms and the man. His portrayal of love, marriage and adultery is skillfully represented in “Candida”.

Thus one can visualize GB Shaw as a dramatist who had a sensitive mind. His i portrayal of social issues that concern the common man is something that puts him in my view above all play.  But GB was not just a man who represented socio-economic problems only, as his writings concerned the innermost feelings and ethos of human life. He wrote about what man is and how he reacts in a situation, this is the beauty of GB Shaw’s writings.

Shaw brings out a deeper conflict, a conflict of the mind. This is more terrible than an actual conflict. Shaw was a mental man and he envisaged a victory on the mental plane with logic and discussion. Thus one can see that the plays of Shaw have a different genre and he in fact is step higher than most play writers. There are critics of the plays of Shaw. They feel his plays lack ‘conflict’ and as this is the soul of a play, they are apt to put him lower in the scale of English writers. Fortunately such critics are very few, but one has to rebut them.

 The characters created by GB are real life characters. His plays are like debates as in ‘Arms and the Man’; a conflict is fought by both sides. But one will agree that though there are allusions to conflict the actual war is not represented.  But in all his plays there is an undercurrent of conflict and that is the beauty of Shaw’s plays.
 Shaw used his characters to portray his innermost feelings. He is like a debater who discusses both sides of an issue. Thus in ’Arms and the Man’ Shaw brings out two opposite view points through his characters Sergius and Bluntschli. A look at one of his plays brings out the debate as one of the characters in ‘Candida’ says   “Man can climb to the highest summits but he cannot dwell for long”, while another character says “It is false: there can he dwell forever.

Shaw thus represented the dual side of a problem.  One can without second thoughts say that here is a writer who is as great as Shakespeare In a way Shaw unlike Shakespeare was of a more modern age and he was a propagandist. But he did not just pen propaganda and that is the reason he wrote fairly lengthy prefaces to his plays. These prefaces are important and help us to understand GB Shaw the man.  He was in a way a maverick, but a genius. His refusal to accept the Nobel prize was part of his make up.
 In sum GB Shaw is one of the greatest writers of the English language and reading him decades after his death, one can realize that apart from writing impeccable English he was a revolutionary and a debater on a higher plane, an intellectual plane.

Passing out Parade and a First Dance. * 66

A MEMOIR: ATTENDING MY FIRST DANCE AFTER THE PASSING OUT PARADE.

 The  Air Force is a fine place and one of the services that has an aura and glamour of its own. Despite a PG in Nuclear Physics I joined the Air Force and trained hard to pass the course and become a Pilot Officer. That was the first rank in the hierarchy at that time( Now this rank is abolished). The culmination of a rigorous period of training was a dinner  dance after the passing out parade. I remember the passing out parade as nostalgic moment in my life as we passed out from cadetship to become officers to the band playing "Auld Lang Syne", a latin tune. For long the forces retained the Anglo marching tunes like "Colonel Bogey" and it was only much later that a few Indian tunes were incorporated, but the western tunes still hold sway. 

The passing out parade( I shall write about it later) is followed up with a dinner dance for the cadets ( now officers), their relations and and guests. Also invited are some girl guests who we had come to know during the times we were allowed to book out in mufti. The final training and dance was at Coimbatore.

I recollect that the first dance I attended was as a cadet. We  were all very apprehensive as none of us had ever been at a formal dance.  We confessed our fears to our Flight Commander a chap named Aminuddin Ahmed. He had a big laugh and told us not to worry  as you have the Air Force crest on your pocket and that itself is an invitation.We were not allowed to book out of camp without our blue blazer with the Air Force crest on its pocket and the cadet tie as well.

The flight commander was right as at the dance we had no problems looking for partners and most girls preferred to know us. I became close to an Anglo-Indian girl and it was a start of a wonderful time. I invited her for the passing out parade ( POP) as well as the dinner dance. I can say my mother was aghast and didn't like it one bit, but she came and we danced the fox trot to soulful music of Louis Armstrong. It was also the first time I tasted whiskey. This dance remains a memorable time to remember .

After the dance I dropped her home on a borrowed bike ( my flight commanders) and we promised to meet each other for ever. But before that we  drove miles and miles towards Siruvani the dense jungles around Coimbatore. I dropped her home in the early hours of the morning. But our affair, if I can call it that did not flower as she later migrated to Australia.  I have an old photo of the dance with me in Mess dress along with  Mrs Victor Srihari,  who was the wife of Commander in Chief at that time.  Well times and events take place and I do believe in what the Lord Krishna says " Not a leaf moves without my will"

The Best Place for a Holiday: Abu Dhabi Zoo at Al Ain

VISITING A ZOO IN ABU DHABI: DESERT TRANSFORMED TO A GREEN BELT

Till the sixties of the last century Abu Dhabi was a barren piece of land on the edge of the great Arabian Desert. The discovery of oil changed all that and now Abu Dhabi is one of the countries in the world with the highest per capita income. This oil boom had other effects also and resulted in greening part of the desert. This was done by importing soil from Pakistan, Punjab and planting hardy trees and bushes.

One of the areas greened is Al Alain a small city about 150 away from the capital Abu Dhabi. Visiting this place will make a visitor feel he has come to another part of the world. The Abu Dhabi national zoo is also located here. It is housed in a sprawling green belt and home to some of the best animals from Africa and other places.

The zoo charges an entrance fee of 100 Dirhams( $ 25) per person. Inside the zoo one can hire an electric car to move around and this will cost you another $ 25, but many prefer to walk around and have a look at the animals on foot. The zoo is planned as per international standards and the wild animals kept in enclosures as close to their natural habitat as possible. 

African animals like the Giraffe, Zebra, African lion, Rhinoceros and African elephant dominate the zoo. One can feed the Giraffes in a special enclosure and for this a feed of carrots and radish is available for 10 Dirhams. The birds section has vast enclosures with buzzards, eagles and other hardy species.  The African crocodile is also on display. The pride of the zoo is the white tiger from India. There are a pair of them and none the worse for the heat that can see temperatures touch 50 degrees centigrade in summer.

However it's a matter of regret that animals from India with the exception of the white tiger are not on display. The zoo does not have the Asiatic lion, Indian one-horned rhino and the famous Bengal tiger. Perhaps the zoo will add these animals in the near future. I made an entry in the suggestion book about this and I received an email from the zoo director that this lacuna will be rectified.

Visiting the zoo is a pleasure and one needs an entire day to do justice to this place. There are some nice eateries also and one can have  snacks like hamburgers and cold drinks with tea or coffee.  The zoo can be reached by state bus from Abu Dhabi or a taxi. I however drove in my own car and relished the drive,which is along a lovely speedway. I will recommend a visit to the Abu Dhabi zoo for all who plan a holiday in the United Arab Emeritus.