The Indian country is very old and simply complex. According to a popular estimate, it has covered a span of five thousand years since the period of its first known civilization. During this period, several strains of immigrants, representing different ethnic families and linguistic ones have merged into it and have contributed to its diversity and vitality.
Several different levels of social evolution co-exist in India; like the hunters, the cultivators, the nomads, the itinerant traders, professionals and different artisans. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism are found here, along with a bewildering number of sects and cults , each with its own rituals and beliefs. Add to this the modern academic, bureaucratic, industrial and scientific elites and one can find the past, the present and the future living together.
It is very difficult to identify the earliest inhabitants of India. There are no written records about them, since writing was not invented then. The orally told history is not much reliable. Many minute details could not withstand the ravages of time. Early human activity in India goes back to the second Inter- Glacial period, between 400,000 and 200,000 B.C. Stone tools found and cave paintings unearthed in many places in the country prove this point very clearly.
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This is the Indian flag
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru presented to the Constituent Assembly of India on July 22, 1947,the National - Flag of India .
It is a horizontal tricolourflag. The ratio of the width to the length of the Flag shall ordinarily be 2 : 3.
The cloth for the manufacture of the flag can be handspun and handwoven khadhi, cotton, woolen or silk. The flag shall be a tricolour panel made up of three rectangular panels or sub - panels of equal widths.
The colours of the top panels shall be India - saffron ( kesari ), and that of the bottom panel shall be India - green, the middle panel shall be white bearing at its centre the design of Ashoka Chakra in navy blue colour.
The Ashoka Chakra shall have 24 spokes equally spaced and shall preferably be screen printed or otherwise printed or stencilled or suitably embroidered with navy blue colour. In all the cases, the chakra shall be completely visible on both sides of the flag in the centre of the white panel.
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Taj mahal-Agra Akbar built his own mausoleum near Agra, and his son Jehangir completed it in 1613. With Shah Jahan began the "Lyric Age" of Indo-Mughal architecture (1627- 1658). His Taj Mahal is a beautiful piece of vision in marble and precious stones. Later, his son Aurangazeb added some pretentious buildings, but by then architecture reached a point from where it can only decline.
The Taj in its entire entire splendor is regarded as the labor of love.
The surroundings of the Taj have been restored to the original designs of Ali Mardan Khan , a noble at the court of Shah Jahan. A red stone channel set between rows of Cypress trees accentuates the main vista. The main entrance is from the west, but there are two other entrances, from the east and the west. The main gateway is a large three-storey sandstone structure with an octagonal central chamber with smaller rooms on each side. The walls are inscribed with Quran verses.
The Makrana white marble of the Taj assumes subtle variations of light, tint and tone during different parts of the day. At dawn it assumes a soft dreamy aspect, at noon, it appears to be a dazzling white and in the moonlight, the dome looks like a huge iridescent pearl.
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one of the many thousand movie stars--This one is from Dhoom 2
Cinema is only one century old, but it has emerged as the most powerful influence on an Indians' emotions. India makes more films than any other country in the world. Louis and Auguste Lumiere chose Bombay for popularizing their new invention, cinematograph. The city that the Lumerie brothers chose remains the film capital of India. The so-called Bollywood represents the heart of commercial cinema in India. Bollywood's Hindi cinema and Kodambakkam-based Tamil Cinema not only produce quality cinema, but has also got popular acclamation from all over the world.
The first generation contributors include V.Shantaram, Bimal Roy, and Raj Kapoor in Bombay and K.Subramanyam and S.S. Vasan in Madras. The present generation has a bigger galaxy which includes Mrinal Sen, John Abraham, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Kama Hassan, Girish Kasaravalli, K.Balachander, Aparna Sen, Shekhar Kapoor and the main masters are: Satayajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan.
Mrinal Sen
To shake Hollywood out of his system and evolve a different style was what Mrinal Sen strived for. He began thinking seriously of films only after his third film "Baishey shravan" in 1960. His "Akash Kusum" was a totally different film.
The film that really won for Mrinal Sen a place among the Greats was perhaps, "Bhuvan Shome". Two films on the city of Kolkatta, "Calcutta 71" and "Padatik" and a Telugu film, "Oka Oorie Katha" signaled the end of a phase of Sen's career. "Aakaler Sandhane", "Khandhahar" and "Kharji" are some of his other significant works.In 2001 The Russian government honored him with the Order of Friendship. He received the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India, and had been an honorary Member of the Indian Parliament from 1998 to 2003. After a long gap of eight years, at the age of eighty, he made his latest film, Aamar Bhuban, in 2003. Mrinal Sen is currently busy working on an autobiographical book, which is expected to be published in 2004.
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