He said that each new literary effort leaves him even more convinced that Urdu literature in general and poetry in particular was not only maintaining its position but actually gaining stature and following. He said that poetry to him is a balance between one’s innate ability to feel, observe and create verse, and the technical craft that can be learnt, honed and polished. “A good verse has to strike a perfect balance between beauty of thought and a technically sound craftsmanship in its expression,” he added.

He urged all new writers to continue to work hard on the craftsmanship of writing. Shabnam Shakil, a renowned poetess while commenting on ‘Kiyun’ termed Sharjeel’s verse as “immensely mature both in thought and style of expression”, especially for someone whose very first collection of poetry has come out.

She also appreciated the author’s command over the Urdu language, especially the strong Persian and Arabic flavor in it. Meanwhile, the author, Sharjeel, regaled the audience with lighthearted tales of the hardships faced by first-time authors in getting their works published.

He hoped that poetry fans across the border and second generation of Pakistani Diaspora allover the world who can understand but cannot read Urdu will find the website a useful platform for remaining in touch with their roots back home. The event was attended by poetry lovers of the twin-cities.-SANA

Farideh Mahdavi Damghani will translate the book into French and Iran’s cultural attaché in Canada will sponsor the English version. The head of the Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies of the New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, Akhtar Mehdi is translating the book into Urdu and, once completed, the Urdu version will be distributed in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

Iran’s cultural attaché in Tashkent will publish the Urdu version of the book that is now being translated by Shakirjan Alamov. Published by Madreseh Publications, the theme of the book is the life of Prophet Muhammad (S). Hassanbeigi’s book for elementary school children entitled “Golden Fish and Silver Fish” was translated into Turkmen by Maral Batirova and published in Turkmenistan recently.

Khokhar pointed out that Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has given directive that first ever Pakistan Culture Centre in foreign country to be established in Beijing. He said that in this connection he will hold preliminary talks with Ambassador Masood Khan. ‘We have brought with us the message of peace, love and harmony for our Chinese Friends”, he said.

He expressed the hope that the performance of our troupe will be appreciated by the Chinese audience. Khokhar further said that with the visit of our cultural troupe the already existing strong relations between Pakistan and China will further be cemented.

According to the organizers of the Festival 19 troupes from difference countries and regions will present their performance on the occasion. The Festival will be organized between September 25 to October 10 in Zhengzhou.

Input from Agencies

Educated at St.John’s College, Cambridge, Ralph wrote profuse articles and essays in Urdu and English and attended many literary seminars and workshops on the subject of his specialization. He has been famous for his translation of Mirza Ghalib poetry into English and is considered as an authority on the 18th century sub-continent poet. His few of the books are
Ghalib, Life and Letters
The Oxford India Ghalib
The Seeing Eye
Selections from the Persian ghazals of Ghalib
Ghalib, the Poet and his Age
The Famous Ghalib

He was Farhad Darya, one of Afghanistan’s most popular singers and a household name. Mr Darya, who had been living in exile, was one of the first singers to return to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Now, the 46-year-old celebrity runs a charity named Kochah, meaning street in Dari, to supplement the incomes of Kabul widows and their children.

Kochah provides widows with $50 a month to keep their children off the street and help them receive education.” My daughter used to collect bread from other families and my son gathered rubbish from a nearby American base for firewood,” says Bibi Roagoal, who lost her first husband to a suicide attack four years ago.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. How one Afghan star is helping children get back to school? Her second marriage - to her late husband’s brother - ended in tragedy when he died in a car crash. But now the monthly donation from Kochah has changed Bibi Roagoal’s life for the better. Her children attend school and the family has money for food.

“Only a few months ago, this would not have been possible,” says the widow. Her smile and excitement refuse to leave her face. “My children go to school now so they won’t be illiterate like me.” Thousands of widows and orphans are a legacy of Afghanistan’s many wars which have claimed countless lives, among them many husbands and fathers.

According to the United Nations, there are 37,000 street children in Afghanistan’s capital. Nearly all are fatherless. In an almost exclusively male-dominated society with little opportunity for women to find employment, many fatherless children are the main bread-winners for their families.

They work year-round - under burning sun or in freezing snow - instead of going to school. And most of them are engaged in odd jobs. Ajmal - a witty 13-year-old who enthusiastically sells gum on the outskirts of Kabul - says his biggest wish is that he could attend school.

“My family relies on my work,” he says. “So I try to sell as much as I can. I wish I could focus more on my school, but I can’t afford to.” There are also many who do not work and provide for their mothers and siblings by begging. Like Hussain, 14, for whom begging is an accepted fact of life. He would attend school if he could, but instead spends 10 hours a day begging on the streets of Kabul.

“I tried to work,” he says “so my family could live an honourable life, but my boss at the shop paid me very little. I tried a few other jobs, but finally I decided to beg. “I have always wanted to be a teacher. I still have hopes that our government will help the poor like us.” The monetary help Kochah is able to provide comes from Darya’s concerts and private donations.

Darya says Kochah is a non-profit organisation, and that he absorbs the administrative costs himself. However, he says, funding is not easy to come by. ”There are thousands of Afghan traders around the world and they spend thousands of dollars everyday without thinking, but when we approach them about Kochah, they don’t give,” he says. “A lot of Afghans in the West promise help, but few follow through.” Kochah aims to assist 2,000 widows. So far, it has managed to help somewhere between 250 and 300. Says Bibi Roagoal: “I pray for peace in my country all the time, because war took everything away from me. “I don’t want another mother to be widowed, or their kids orphaned.”-SANA

Born into a family with a centuries-long tradition of Qawwali singing, Khan began recording in the early ‘70s after ignoring his father’s wishes that he pursue medicine. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was considered as one of the greatest Qawwals in the world. Khan was a master of Qawwali singing, which combines lyrics from Sufi religious poems with hypnotic rhythms and vocal chants.

He never performed in English, he sang in Urdu, Punjabi and occasionally Persian. Khan also captivated many Westerners, including such musicians as Vedder, Joan Osborne and the late Jeff Buckley, as well as Hollywood types like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

Khan had made a great impression on the music scene with his mix of Eastern poetic music with that of the West. After traveling to London for treatment for liver and kidney problems, Khan was rushed from the airport to Cromwell Hospital, where he suffered a fatal heart attack. Khan departed from this sphere on the 16th of August 1997, and will be missed immensely by his fans all across the globe.-SANA

Careful analysis of the lyrics reveals how these two videos video and their lyrics relates to an individualistic audience whereas the other one is for the collective audience. The general theme of both the videos and its lyrics warrants its viewers to think about a certain question. The question in both cases is related to situations where the present condition is not satisfactory and either there is a need to do much more or there is a puzzle as to the way things are and how they came to be.

Analyzing the video by Switchfoot we can see that the lyrics address an individual in the first three verses. The next verses although say “we were meant to live for so much more”, we in this case is not used to refer to a collective group but what he means is that we as individuals were meant to do so much more. The individualistic notion can be judged from the fact that the singer asks for a second life to make things right. Such a request leads us to believe that the singer is referring to an individualistic audience residing in western, advanced and developed nations which has grievances about how a person’s nature has become and a need for a second chance to make him less materialistic, nature loving and a better human being. Also the video focuses on a single singer to emphasize the individualistic notion.

Video by Strings presents a group of two and their lyrics presents ideas or question which do not directly focus on an individual and is more of a general nature. The references to occurrences of nature like light, fragrance, clouds indicates that the video corresponds to a collectivist audience which resides in a more traditional and less developed society where focus is more towards spiritual happening. Also ideas like aspiration and hope are more close to a collectivist society.

A conclusion can be drawn here to differentiate between an individualistic approach and collective approach and ultimate culmination of these approaches can be clearly felt in these two videos and their lyrics.

“This is a gradual process, this is not something that could be done in one, two or three years because we are talking about a country that is essentially medieval, that has very little in the way of infrastructure, very little in the way of human resource, that has an endemic culture of corruption”, he said.

He added that even if Afghanistan was to continue at its present “good” rate of economic growth, it would still be 15 years before it reached the level that Bangladesh is at now. “This truly is a long-term Endeavour. I don’t think it is that long-term an Endeavour for the military. I think we are talking about some years but we are not talking about decades”. While he acknowledged that the Western coalition faced a “mammoth problem” in Afghanistan, the Chief of the Defense Staff said that it was important not to be put off by the scale of the difficulties.

Air Chief Marshal Stirrup said he was “disappointed” that other NATO allies had not been prepared to send more troops to the south and east of the country where British, American and Canadian forces have borne the brunt of the fighting. While he said that the Taliban were in “an extremely bad way” militarily, he warned they still had the capacity to launch effective attacks using suicide bombers and improvised roadside devices, as the recent deaths of seven British soldiers had shown.

“They can still mount very serious asymmetric attacks. We don’t take that lightly”, he concluded. At least 106 British servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan. More than 7,000 UK troops are deployed in the country, mainly in the trouble southern Helmand Province.-SANA

Other details and instructions regarding the Urs are available on the Application Form and on the official website www.mora.gog.pk as well. Applications on old forms will not be entertained. Amir Khusrau Dehlavi (1253-1325 AD), a prolific classical poet associated with royal courts of more than seven rulers of Delhi Sultanate, is also a household name in much of North India and Pakistan, through hundreds of playful riddles, songs and legends attributed to him. Through his enormous literary output and the legendary folk personality, Khusrau represents one of the first (recorded) Indian personages with a true multi-cultural or pluralistic identity.

It was a very old saying about a Bengali babu. Food has always been a weakness for Bengalis. In those days Bengalis used to spend a large amount of money just for the sake of food. A Bengali babu has never hesitated in throwing a party to others, and if for the sake of it, they had to exhaust all their wealth they never did minded at all. Not only in marriage ceremonies, any occasion to them was a party time and in these parties lavish expenditure on food reduced many to a popper. Bengalis have been winners in all the delicacies they have presented to the world. Not just mutton, fish and vegetables but the variety of confections and array of fruit dishes have always overawed the gluttons of the world.

Fish has always played an important role in Bengali culture.”Maach Bhhat Banaye Bangali” or “Mache bhate khanti bangali” these phrases describes the intimacy of fish in Bengali culture. Also it should be noted that fish is very nutritious as well as it’s a good source of protein. It is the most reliable source of protein for over one million people all over the world. Fish is among the most common food allergens.

There are lots of variety of fish that adheres to the Bengali culture. The most famous being Hilsa fish (Ilish) and Lobster (Golda, Bagda).Other famous fish includes Tengra, Parshe, Pabda, Gurjawali, Arr,Gule,Pakal,Kajri,Telapiya…..to name a few.

Some famous fish dishes include Ilish macher sorshe paturi(Hilsa fish in mustard curry binded in banana leaves), ilish maach bhappe(Steamed Ilish),ilish mach kancha kumror jhool(Hilsa with pumpkin),Ilish macher kaachkola diye jhool(hilsa fish with kacha kela),Daab chingri(Prawns with Coconut),Chitol macher Muitha(Chitol fish recipe),Mourala Batichochori(Mourala delicacy), Rui Macher Golap Soru(Fish and Rice cooked together), Koi Macher er horogouri , Koi macher Ganga Jamuna…..and lots of more.

In both parts of Bengal (West Bengal and East Bengal-Bangladesh) fish forms the main recipe. Typically in Bangladesh there is special variety or style of cooking fish. Particularly Chattagram (Chittagong), Lakhipur

these sea facing areas dry up the fishes and cook them with Brinjal and potatoes. This variety is known as “Shutki”. It is a complete East Bengal delicacy. In Dhaka people are more fond of Hilsa and other fishes. In fact the most famous recipe of fishes comes from Dhaka.

A Bengali marriage without fish dishes is incomplete. In marriage special fish dishes include “Rui Macher Kalia” (Rui Fish Curry), “Macher Matha diye Dal” (Dal with Fish Head), “Bhetki Paturi” (Bhetki in Mustard Sauce), “Chingri Macher Malaikari” (Prawns in Coconut curry), “Rui Posto” (Rui in Khus Khus curry), “Ilish Paturi” to name a few. In modern days new dishes like Fish Butter Fry or Fish Orley are also considered.

Fish apart from being taken as food is also considered to be pious. In Hindu culture it is widely used during Saraswati Puja (Jora Ilish’er Bhog). In famous Kali Temple in Kolkata as well as in Dhakeshwari in Dhaka fish is offered to Devi Kali. Fish is often considered as Lakshmi according to Hindu Tradition. In Bengal, before going out of their homes people like to see a fish as because it is considered a lucky one.

Apart from fish, Mutton is a favourite food of Bengal. Some of the mutton dishes include “Kosha Mangsho”( Mutton Curry), “Koch Pathar Jhol” (Mutton Thin Curry), “Mutton Chap in Bengali style”, “Mangshor Jhol” (Mutton Stew) , “Bhojoharir Mangsho” (Mutton dish by Famous imaginary Bengali cook named Bhojohari Manna), “Mangshor Patla Jhol” (Special Mutton Curry) , “ Mutton Dakbanglo” (A dish of Mutton Served during the British Raj), to name a few. Mutton is a must in a Marriage. Mutton is offered to Devi Kali by giving ‘Bali’ to the Devi. So in religion it takes an important place.

Chicken does is not included in traditional Bengali food list. In olden days Hindus of Bengal strictly avoided chicken. But Muslim Bengalis used to have chicken. But with the advancement of days people started to take up chicken. Also with the rise up in cost of mutton chicken is a replacement for mutton.

Favorite chicken dishes includes “Murgir Jhol” (Chicken Curry), “Kosha Murgi” (Chicken Dry Curry) ,” Bon Murgir jhol” (Jungli Murga) to name a few.

Other Non-Veg foods includes Crabs (Kankra), Moluscles (Geri). There is a famous crab dish called “Digama sahib er Kankra”. This crab dish was eaten by Vasco Da’ Gama.

Beef forms an important part in Muslim Bengali culture. During Bengali New Year they cook a very special dish known as “Goru kalia”. Also favorite beef dishes include “Beef Kosha”, Beef Cutlet”, “Beef Chop”. “Beef Biriyani” …to name a few.

There is lot of Non veg Bengali foods. But there are lots of veg foods too. These Bengali veg foods are very important. In a typical Hindu Bengali home a widow is forbidden to take Non-veg foods. So, it forms an important diet for a Hindu widow. Some great traditional Bengali veg foods include “Potoler Dolma” (Parval preparation), “Dhoka Dalna” , “Labra” (Mixed Vegetables) , “Ghoogni”(Matar Sabji), “Aloor Dum”, “Niramish Chochori” (Mixed Vegetables) , “Lau Borir Ghanto”(Lauki with Bari), “ Mulo Ghonto”, “Cholar Dal” (Chana Dal), “Sona Muger Dal”(Moong Dal), “Mochar Ghonto” , Shukto, to name a few.

A very famous dish in Bengal is Posto (Poppy seeds). It can be made with Vegetables like Aloo, Cauliflower, Bhindi, Taru…etc It is also prepared with Mutton, prawns or Chicken. Bengalis really love posto.

Biriyani is not a traditional food in Bengal but Pulao is prepared in al over Bengal. Although, In Dhaka-Bikrampur there is Biriyani called Dhakai Biriyani. In Bengal people used to take just plane rice and Mutton or fish. Khichri (Khichuri) forms a very traditional food in Bengali culture. It is taken during the monsoon season with Beguni or Ilish Bhaja and pappar, Achar. Kichuri is also served as an “Asthumi Bhog” during the famous Durga Pujas.

There are varieties of breads and snacks or starters in Bengali. Luchi is the most famous bread. It is served traditionally with “Kosha Mangsho” or Aloor Dum or Cholar Dal. Dhakai Paratha is a famous paratha variety. Paratha in Bengal is also served with “Kumro’r Chakka” (Pumpkin Sabji). Snacks include “Beguni, Allor Chop, Mochar Chop, Kabiraji, Hingche Chop, Cutley”…..and lots of more.

There are lots of varieties of chutneys is prepared in Bengal. This includes Chalta Chutney, Mango Chutney (Fatik Jhol), Amra Chutney, Jalpai Chutney…and many more.

Bengali sweet is famous all over the world. In whole of Indian subcontinent no other place for sweet. The traditional Rassgulla (Rossogolla) was first invented in Dhaka by Nabin Chandra Das in 1765 AD. However in 1782 when he shifted his base to Kolkata, Rasgulla became a part of Kolkata. In 1852, Bishnu Charan Guin invented a sweet and named it after Lord Canning’s Wife Lady Canning. With the passage of days it camed to known as “Ladicanne”. Other sweets include Dahi(Doi)(Molla Chowk), Monohara(Janai),Lengcha(Shaktigarh), Rosmalai(Commila), Pantua(Ranaghat),chomchom(Kolkata),Jora Mundi(Krshnanagar),ChanaBora(Midnapore),Golap Papri,Suji Halua,Sandesh(Dhaka , Kolkata),Patishapta(Faridpur),Payesh(Kheer), Zarda, Pithe(During Winters),Shor Bhaja(Murshidabad)…and there are lots of lots of more. These are just a few.

At the end of everything Pan formed an important ending of a Bengali feast. Pan is traditionally served with Chun (Chuna), Khair (Katha), Supuri (Supari), Mitha Masala, Chaman Bahar, Elaichi, Gulkand, Chutni.

Some Famous Dishes from Different Districts of Bengal:

1. Ilish Paturi (Dhaka-Bikrampur).

2. Chitol Mitha and Kalia (Faridpur).

3. Shutki (Chittagong, Narayanganj, lakhipur, Noakhali, Barishal, Patuakhali).

4. Mangsho kosha (Kolkata)

5. Chingri Bhate (Murshidabad).

6. Chingri Malaikari (West Bengal).

7. Ilish Bhate (Mymensingh , Sylhet)

8. Dhoka (West-Bengal)

9. Posto (Bengal)

10. Kopi Chochori (Tangail).

To name a few……………………………………………

But in these days people are too busy to make this preparation. So, they are inclining towards these bogus pizza and burgers. New generations are totally unaware of these foods. They even, haven’t heard the names. Bengal is losing its culture and if it goes on in this manner, it will not take too much time when these foods will be in the pages of history. However, apart from Bengali foods Bengali are now consuming varities of food. Including Punjabi, Chinese, Italian, Mexican…etc

“Ore Bangali roili na je tui bangali…..maach bhat chere dhorli le je biliti khana”

(Oh! Bengali……..you are no longer a Bengali……..For the sake of continental food you have forgotten your culture. You have stopped eating Fish and rice for the sake of Pizzas and Burgers).

Other successful entries by Afghan artists include a beaded snake in a glass jar; a pink rose whose stem is pierced by pins; and a wooden lampshade in the shape of Afghanistan and painted in the colours of the national flag. Mohammad Ismael Zadran, 33, was so excited when he heard the radio advertisement for the prize that he hired a taxi and packed it full of 200 pieces of art. From his small, conservative village in the north-eastern province of Khost - where he is the only artist - he made the eight-hour bumpy journey.

“Three of my wood sculptures were destroyed during the journey,” said Mr Zadran. “But it was a chance I had to take.” Contemporary art in Afghanistan is far removed from the world of contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. It has roots in the period when the former Soviet Union occupied the country. “Contemporary art is difficult for most Afghans to understand,” said Timor Hakimyar, a former president of the Artists Union of Afghanistan.

“But it is a good thing to start, to encourage people to learn about the arts.” All art forms suffered heavily during the Afghan civil war and then during the Taleban takeover. The Taleban movement regarded most art as “haram” - forbidden in Islam - particularly work that showed any depiction of the human form. As part of the prize, the 10 nominees are participating in a two-week workshop that aims to explore the concepts of contemporary art. Local and international artists have been invited to speak to Afghan artists to help them develop new ideas. Afghanistan has been wracked by 20 years of war and there is currently an insurgency in many parts of the country. Organisers believe that contemporary art offers the Afghans a way of channelling their trauma and discussing topics that are still largely taboo in society. During one of the workshops, the artists were asked to buy items from the local market and make a piece of contemporary art.

One participant’s exhibit had twigs sticking out of a doorway, and the debris of a small two-person figurine, a statue of a dog, a smashed light bulb, a cigarette butt and vegetables strewn on the ground. He said it symbolised the scene of when his house was hit by a rocket in Kabul in the early 1990s. Organisers say that an exhibition of this new artwork will be held next month followed by an announcement of the first winner of the contemporary art prize.-SANA

In olden days Bengal was called “Bongo” or “Bongodesh”. Bengal is Geographically important place in South Asia. Presently Bengal is divided into two parts but the culture is same as it was. Bangladesh(East-Bengal) is now an independent nation and West-Bengal is a part of India. Indian part of Bengal is surrounded by Tripura, Orrisa, Assam. Majority of United Bengal speaks Bengali irrespective of their religion, cast or creed. Bengali of East-Bengal is somewhat different from West-Bengal. The two main rivers of Bengal are Ganga & Padma.

The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE. The first Independent known ruler of Bengal was Shasank who ruled the state around 7th century. After that Senas, Palas ruled the state.

Subsequent Muslim Conquest helped spread Islam throughout the region. Bhaktiar Khilji, a Turkic general of the Slave Dynasty of Delhi Sultanate, defeated Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal. Consequently, the region was ruled by dynasties of Sultans and feudal lords under the Delhi Sultanate for the next few hundred years. Arround 1200 Ad it came under the Rule of Delhi sultanate and capita of Bengal was shifted to Dhaka from Kolkata. Around 1567 AD Murshid Kuli Khan Shifted his capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad and then started the Golden rule of Nawabs of Murshidabad.

The European Came in Bengal in Fifteenth Century. Dutch established their colony in Chinsurah. Portuguese in Sodpore, Islampur, Chattagram(Chittagong). French got chandannagore and British settled in Dhaka-Bikrampore, Narayanganj, Barishal, Noakhali, Patuakhali, Kolkata, Paraganas, Birbhum and started the most worst case in history called “Neel Chash”.

The first revolt against the British started in Bengal by Mangal Pandey. From here Bengalis started fighting against the Brirish including…..Bagha Jatin, Bidrohi Kabi Nazrul Islam, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Pulin Behari Das, Binoy Badal Dinesh, Khudiram, Sher-E-Bangla Fazlur Haque, Nawab Latif of Faridpur and many many others. Then in Muslim majority province of united India; Muslims started united and getting roots in Bengal thus Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906.

In spite of a last ditch effort to form a United Bengal, when India gained independence in 1947, Bengal was partitioned along religious lines. The western part went to India (and was named West Bengal) while the eastern part joined Pakistan as a province called East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan, giving rise to Bangladesh in 1971). The circumstances of partition was bloody, with widespread religious riots in Bengal.

West Bengal, the western part of Bengal, became a state in India. In the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages, strikes and a violent Marxist-Naxalite movement damaged much of the state’s infrastructure, leading to a period of economic stagnation. The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 resulted in the influx of millions of refugees to West Bengal, causing significant strains on its infrastructure. West Bengal politics underwent a major change when the Left Front won the 1977 assembly election, defeating the incumbent Indian National Congress. The Left Front, led by CPI(M) has governed for the last three decades.The state’s economic recovery gathered momentum after economic reforms in India were introduced in the mid-1990s by the central government, aided by election of a new reformist Chief Minister in 2000.

Economy of Bengal is very good. Rice, Fish, potatoe, Jute, Tea(From Darjeeling) are very important crops. Fish forms a very important part of Bengal.

Culture Of Bengal:

The common Bengali language and culture binds the shared tradition of two parts of politically divided Bengal. Bengal has a long tradition in folk literature, evidenced by the Charyapada, Mangalkavya, Shreekrishna Kirtana, Maimansingha Gitika or Thakurmar Jhuli. Bengali literature in the medieval age was often either religious (e.g. Chandidas), or adaptations from other languages (e.g. Alaol). During the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Bengali literature was modernized through the works of authors such as Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.

The Baul tradition is a unique heritage of Bangla folk music.Other folk music forms include Gombhira, Bhatiali and Bhawaiya. Folk music in Bengal is often accompanied by the ektara, a one-stringed instrument. Other instruments include the dotara, dhol, flute, and tabla. The region also has an active heritage in North Indian classical music.

Bengal had also been the harbinger of modernism in Indian fine arts. Abanindranath Tagore, one of the important 18th century artist from Bengal is often referred to as the father of Indian modern art. He had established the first non-British art academy in India known as the Kalabhavan within the premises of Santiniketan. Santiniketan in course of time had produced many important Indian artists like Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Benode Bihari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. In the post-independence era, Bengal had produced important artists like Somenath Hore, Meera Mukherjee and Ganesh Paine.

Rice and fish are traditional favorite foods, leading to a saying that in Bengali, mach ar bhaath bangali baanaay, that translates as “fish and rice make a Bengali”. Bengal’s vast repertoire of fish-based dishes includes Hilsa preparations, a favorite among Bengalis. Bengalis make distinctive sweetmeats from milk products, including Rôshogolla, Chômchôm, and several kinds of Pithe(sweet).

Bengali women commonly wear the shari and the salwar kameez, often distinctly designed according to local cultural customs. In urban areas, many women and men wear Western-style attire. Among men, European dressing has greater acceptance. Men also wear traditional costumes such as the panjabi with dhuti or pyjama, often on religious occasions. The lungi, a kind of long skirt, is widely worn by Bangladesh men.

The greatest religious festivals are the two Eids (Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha) for the Muslims, and the autumnal Durga Puja for Hindus.Christmas (called Borodin (Great day) in Bangla), Buddha Purnima are other major religious festivals. Other festivities include Pohela Baishakh (the Bengali New Year), Basanta-Utsab, Nobanno, and Poush parbon (festival of Poush).

Bengali cinema are made both in Kolkata and Dhaka. The Kolkata film industry is older and particularly well known for its art films. Its long tradition of film making has produced acclaimed directors like Satyajit Ray, while contemporary directors include Buddhadev Dasgupta and Aparna Sen. Dhaka also has a vibrant commercial industry and more recently has been home to critically acclaimed directors like Tareque Masud. Mainstream Hindi films of Bollywood are also quite popular in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Around 200 dailies are published in Bangladesh, along with more than 1800 periodicals. West Bengal had 559 published newspapers in 2005, of which 430 were in Bangla.Cricket and football are popular sports in the Bengal region. Local games include sports such as Kho Kho and Kabaddi, the later being the national sport of Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Bangla Games has been organized among the athletes of the Bengali speaking areas of the two countries.

Temples & Mosques in Bengal:

1.Nakhoda Mosque: A great old Mosque of Kolkata. Beutiful Architecture
2. Tipu Sultan(Kolkata)
3.Ahsan Manzil(Dhaka)
4.Kali Mandir(Kolkata)
5.Dhakhineswar(Kolkata)
6.Dhakeshwari Kali (Kolkata)
7.PanchGhara Masjid(Kaliganj,Bangladesh)
8.Chatteshwari(Chittagong)
9. Tara Pith(Tarapith,Hooghly,WB and Jessore EB)

and lots of there……including thousand of Monanstry, Churches, Gurudwaras, Parsi Temples……. In one Word ……..Bengal is “Unity in Diversity”

And in the words of Tagore:

Amar shonar Bangla,
Ami tomae bhalobashi.
Chirodin tomar akash,
Tomar batash,
Amar prane bajae bashi
O ma,
Phagune tor amer bone
Ghrane pagol kore,
Mori hae, hae re,
O ma,
oghrane tor bhora khete
Ami ki dekhechhi modhur hashi.
Ki shobha, ki chhaea go,
Ki sneho, ki maea go,
Ki achol bichhaeechho
Bo?er mule,
Nodir kule kule!
Ma, tor mukher bani
Amar kane lage,
Shudhar moto,
Mori hae, hae re,
Ma, tor bodonkhani molin hole,
Ami nôeon jole bhashi.

(National Anthem of Bangladesh)

(References taken from Wikipedia; Ambarish Panday has edited the Bengal section of Wikipedia)

In one scene Tom Hanks, who plays Wilson, and Julia Roberts, his flinty southern belle, bring a powerful Washington politician named Doc Long to a squalid refugee camp near Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan. Moved by the plight of the Afghan refugees, Long promises he will send weapons to fight the infidel communists. “This is good against evil. And I want you to know that America is always going to be on the side of the good,” the pudgy white man declares to the turbaned crowd of Afghan exiles. “Allahu Akbar!” they yell. Long punches the air in return. “Allahu Akbar!” he shouts.

The second film is far from glossy; in fact it is a non-fiction production. Shot in Mohmand, a tribal area in Pakistan’s borderlands near the Afghan refugee camps created by that conflict in the 80s, Revenge is a straight-to-DVD job. It sells for the equivalent of 40p in the bazaars of Peshawar and its budget is evident in the wobbly camera work and harsh lighting. But the action is all too real.

In the climactic scene, a Taliban gang parades six men, accused of theft and betrayal, before a crowd of perhaps 5,000 tribesmen. The prisoners are badly beaten, naked to the waist and smeared with their own blood. They are shoved before the central figure - a man in traditional shalwar kameez and basketball boots, brandishing a knife as long as his forearm. Amid much ballyhooing, he beheads the prisoners, one by one.

The camera spares no detail. The head-chopping Talib clamps his hand over his victims’ mouths as he hacks at their necks; fellow fighters clamor to take photos with their mobile phones; blood squirts on to the soil. But only one sound is audible. “Allahu Akbar!” the crowd cries. “Allahu Akbar!”

The film exemplifies the fundamentalist fury sweeping Pakistan’s frontier region, a fury that has swelled to alarming proportions. Across the North-West Frontier province that abuts Afghanistan, self-proclaimed Taliban forces - a hotchpotch of religious diehards, foreign fugitives, angry tribals and village thugs - are imposing their influence at gunpoint. Girls’ schools have closed, movie and music stores have been torched and barbers who dare to shave beards have shuttered their pokey little stalls. Perceived enemies are kidnapped or, in some cases, beheaded.

Even more worrying, the violence is spilling into other parts of Pakistan. A cascade of suicide attacks and bombs have rocked the main cities. Recent victims have included a three-star general stalled in traffic, FBI agents at a pizza joint and the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, killed as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi. In one of the largest attacks, a massive car bomb gutted a seven-storey police headquarters in Lahore. For days afterwards terrified city residents streamed past to gawp at the awesome destruction. “It looks like we’ve been attacked by an enemy country,” said Muhammad Umar, a municipal clerk, staring at the sagging mess.

The bloodshed has stalled in recent weeks as a new, civilian-led government takes control. But few expect the calm to last. Many Pakistanis blame America. Since 2001 the Pentagon has given the Pakistani army more than £5bn to fight militants in the tribal badlands. But for many Pakistanis this is “America’s war” - a fight inadvertently started by Charlie Wilson. Throughout the 80s the US used Islam as a weapon against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan, funnelling billions of dollars in weapons to the mujahideen fighters. The struggle became a cause celebre across the Muslim world, sucking in disaffected young men like Osama Bin Laden.

After the Soviet forces crawled home in 1989, Wilson and the CIA largely forgot about their jihadi creation until the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001, when the realisation came painfully late. Pakistanis make this argument forcefully and frequently (though usually omitting to mention that their more respected ally, Saudi Arabia, paid for half of the anti-Soviet jihadi budget). But the 80s jihad also spawned a home-grown malignancy - one that now poses a powerful threat.

Recognising the jihadis’ skill with a Kalashnikov and dedication to God, Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) gave them a fresh assignment in the 1990s: Kashmir. Led by Afghan veterans, fighters were secretly trained, armed and funded by the ISI to fight Indian soldiers in Kashmir. The best were later sent to help the Taliban in Afghanistan, then also sponsored by elements within Pakistani intelligence.

But when Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, backed the United States after 2001, the footsoldiers felt betrayed. First they tried to kill Musharraf in 2003; in the past nine months they have launched a blistering offensive against the security forces. A senior Pakistani police official told the Guardian that he believes these elements - loosely termed the “Punjabi Taliban” - have played a central role in the recent violence. Frankenstein’s monster has turned on its master. “The intelligence agencies were so short-sighted not to see the blowback,” says another figure with front-line experience, Hassan Abbas. He was a sub-divisional police chief in North-West Frontier province in the late 90s, and is now a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “You can switch these guys on,” he says. “But it’s 100% more difficult to switch them off.”

Yet for all that, Pakistan is strangely reluctant to crack down on certain Islamists. While there are those who have been captured or killed, others are allowed to roam free. Some shadowy figures seem almost untouchable: men such as Qari Saifullah Akhtar. Akhtar, a jihad veteran of three decades’ experience, has seen it all. He has been portrayed as hero and villain, godfather and coupster, idol and assassin. He has skirted American bombs, fought dirty wars and become pals with the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. Today his past seems to have caught up with him. He languishes in a Karachi jail, accused of orchestrating an attempt on Benazir Bhutto’s life last October. But if history is a guide, he is unlikely to see a trial. He may be quietly released or, who knows, mysteriously slip from custody. People like him, it seems, simply know too much.

Akhtar wasn’t always seen as the bad guy. Back in 1980, just months after the Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, he became a pioneer of the modern Pakistani jihad. He left his home in the city of Chishtian in Pakistani Punjab, and headed north to Peshawar in North-West Frontier province. Teaming up with other religiously minded men, he signed up for the fight. News of the glorious exploits of his group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI), inspired others to follow.

“He was my first amir [commander],” said Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, 35, a baby-faced cleric who heads the Pakistani Ulema (scholars) Council and is a former religious adviser to the government of Punjab. “The Russians were demolishing an Islamic country and it was our duty to defend it. At that time we were the Americans’ sugar babies. They thought we were doing their job. We thought we were doing it for God.”

Men like Akhtar were friends of America, allying themselves to Afghan commanders and, in the bubbling cauldron of jihad, befriending wealthy Arab fighters, such as Osama bin Laden, according to a former Pakistani intelligence officer, Khalid Khawaja. He said he met Akhtar in a training camp in 1987. “He was one of the first Pakistanis to go for jihad,” he said.

After the Russians fled in 1989, a generation of jihadi fighters found themselves fired up with nowhere to go. Pakistan’s ISI spy agency gave them a destination. Within a few years, Pakistani guerrilla groups were infiltrating Indian-controlled Kashmir, all under the control of the ISI. Battle-hardened warriors such as Akhtar led the fight. Saudi-funded madrassas provided a steady flow of recruits. “It was an arrangement that suited the ISI very much,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, author of The A to Z of Jehadi Organisations in Pakistan.

But Akhtar soon made it clear that his first allegiance was to Allah, not Pakistan. In 1995 he was part of a fanciful plot by a fundamentalist army general, Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, to overthrow Benazir Bhutto’s second government, oust the army and turn Pakistan into an Islamic caliphate. Akhtar’s job was to provide the muscle. Once the generals had been arrested or killed, he would lead up to 300 jihadis into action, said Rana.

The plot failed miserably and Akhtar was jailed. But in a pattern that was to recur, he was quietly released months later. Soon after, he slipped back to his stomping ground in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were sweeping to power. At a time when the ISI was openly supporting the Taliban, Abbasi became a close adviser to Mullah Omar. “He was a sort of consultant,” said Rana. And that allegiance made him a new enemy after 9/11: America.

In October 2001, on the first night of the US-led offensive aimed at crushing the Taliban and extremist training grounds in Afghanistan, the US air force blitzed a HUJI training camp in Rishikor, south of Kabul. It was later identified as a graduate school for jihadis. Students from Arab countries, Pakistan and Uzbekistan learned how to kidnap, bomb and shoot. By the time the bombs landed Akhtar had already fled. But he was less lucky a month later. A spokesman for HUJI reported that US bombs had killed 85 Pakistani fighters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Akhtar, it was said, had gone to Kabul to make preparations for the bodies to be repatriated.

Weeks later, he disappeared. One swashbuckling fable has Akhtar fleeing through the deserts of southern Afghanistan on his motorcycle with Mullah Omar riding pillion as American bombs destroyed the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar. Either way, Akhtar surfaced again three years later, several thousand miles away, in Dubai. In a highly publicized coup for America and Pakistan, he was seized at Dubai airport and flown to Islamabad. The White House and Musharraf claimed to have nabbed a key al-Qaida player. “Very important,” declared President Bush’s terrorism adviser, Frances Townsend. The Pakistanis accused Akhtar of involvement in two attempts on Musharraf’s life nine months earlier.

Akhtar was kept in custody for almost three years. No court case was lodged, no charges were brought and he disappeared from view. Then last May, amid much public anger about Pakistan’s many “disappeared”, he was dumped on a busy road south of Islamabad. He went home. Akhtar might have hoped for the quiet life. His lawyer and family say that he had retired from jihad and started building a khanqah, or religious retreat, on the Grand Trunk Road outside Lahore. In December he spent the holy month of Ramadan deep in meditation at the Syed Ahmed Shah khanqah, a collection of neat, low buildings amid maize fields and lychee orchards to the west of the city.

On a recent Friday morning, a group of young men with frizzy beards welcomed me in a small room off the polished courtyard. They offered sweet tea and biscuits but their faces were sour. “You foreigners call us terrorists because of our beards,” snapped one, a clerk from the city’s high court, in Urdu. But after a few sips of tea the harshness melted. Of course they remembered Akhtar, they said. He stayed in a simple upstairs room, fasting through the day and praying deep into the night, said Rehan Ishfaq. “You could tell he was a commander,” he said. “But he was treated no differently to anyone else.”

To prove the point he named other respected guests who had been treated as equals - Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the extremist Jaish-e-Muhammad, another Kashmir militant group; and Azam Tariq, a sectarian leader gunned down in 2003. The men were upset that Akhtar was now in jail. It was all Benazir Bhutto’s fault, they said. A few weeks earlier Bhutto’s family had posthumously published Reconciliation, the book she was finishing at the time of her death on December 27. In it, she names Akhtar as the puppet-master for a huge suicide bombing that killed 150 people during her homecoming parade in Karachi last October.

“A bomb maker was needed for the bombs. Enter Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a wanted terrorist who had tried to overthrow my second government,” she wrote. Akhtar’s lawyer Hashmat Habib says there is no evidence to link his client to the plot. “Qari sahib [sir] is a pious and religious person, yes. But fighting for freedom is no crime,” he said. And he has launched an ambitious libel case against the book’s New York publishers for $200m in damages - the alleged value of Bhutto’s own insurance policy. “A mujahid’s [religious fighter's] life is worth more than that of a political leader,” he says.

As before, Akhtar is surrounded by more questions than answers. He has not been charged. When the first detention order expired, police flew him to Karachi. When that detention order expired late last month, they renewed his detention for another 30 days. Experts are sceptical he will ever see a trial. A man such as him could shed much light on the intelligence services’ past - and possibly present - links with the murky Islamist underworld.

Suspicions linger that the intelligence agencies have not entirely closed the chapter on jihad - possibly in case its practitioners are needed in any future war with India. “Some people seem to be still in the ‘good books’. The police are afraid to touch them,” said Abbas of Harvard. Several western diplomats echoed this view. Meanwhile the bombs and the blowback continue. Nobody is safe, not even the family of the man who started it all through his policy of “Islamisation” in contemporary Pakistan - the dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan through the 80s and was a key ally of Charlie Wilson. In the movie, the congressman apologises for requesting a scotch on the rocks in the alcohol-free presidency. “I’ll bet that visitors often make that mistake,” he quips. “No they don’t,” says Zia.

A few weeks ago I went to see Ijaz-ul-Haq, Zia’s softly spoken son. Until last year, he served as minister for religious affairs under Musharraf. Sitting under a tobacco-coloured portrait of his father, he looked a little dejected. Now the Islamists were out to get him too, he said.

In late December a bomb prematurely exploded 300 yards from his house in southern Punjab. The police linked the putative killer to the Red Mosque, the radical Islamabad mosque where over 100 people died in a confrontation with the army last summer. Haq had led unsuccessful attempts to find a peaceful solution. There were other ominous echoes. The killer belonged to a militant group that had fought in Kashmir. He had also been to Afghanistan. And he came from a village close to the home of Qari Saifullah Akhtar. “This is a whole new phenomenon,” said Haq. “Even during Afghanistan and Kashmir, we never saw suicide attacks like this.” He had raised the walls around his house and erected concrete barricades. Security men roamed the garden. But still he was worried.

“Time is on their side,” he said. “They go slowly. It’s very scary.” A bearded man wearing a tracksuit, who looked like an ex-soldier, came into the room. A gun appeared to bulge from one pocket. It was time for his employer’s evening jog. The American who funded jihad is also quietly contrite. After September 2001, Charlie Wilson told biographer George Crile that the 1980s fight was a “glorious” time. But the endgame, he admitted, had gone disastrously wrong.

The ceremony was attended among others by Deputy Chief of Jamaat Islami, Liaqat Baloch, PML (N) MNA Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, ambassadors of Iran and Morocco deputed in Pakistan and the people of other schools of thought.-SANA

He said that he was making the film for Islam’s veneration, which would be a rejoinder to the Holland movie. The shooting of this film beginning Thursday would be recorded within Pakistan and abroad. He said that the envisaged film presently has been named ‘Difa-e-Islam’; however, further consultations would be undertaken on this matter.-SANA