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Chandramukhi (character)
''Chandramukhi'' is one of the pivotal characters in the 1917 Bengali novel ''Devdas'' by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Her character was inspired by the Hindu mystical singer Meera, who devoted her life to Lord Krishna; similarly Chandramukhi devoted her life to Devdas. Chandramukhi is portrayed as a hooker with a heart of gold in the novel and its film adaptations. Chandramukhi means "moon faced" or "as beautiful as the moon" in Sanskrit. In the novel Chandramukhi is a courtesan who lives in Calcutta also known as Kolkata. She is considered the most beautiful and richest prostitute in the area of Chitpur. She is first introduced to Devdas by Chunnilal, who returns to Calcutta heartbroken after the marriage of Parvathi "Paro". Devdas, disgusted over Chandramukhi's profession insults her and leaves her kotha. Chandramukhi, impressed by Devdas's attitude, later falls in love with him after realizing his steadfast love for Paro. She leaves her profession for Devdas and convinces hi ...
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Devdas
''Devdas'' ( bn, দেবদাস, transliterated as ''Debdās'') is a Bengali romance novel written by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. The story pivots a tragic triangle linking Devdas, an archetypal lover in viraha (separation); Paro, his forbidden childhood love; and Chandramukhi, a reformed courtesan. Devdas has been adapted on screen 20 times for film and 5 times for single song. The character of Parvati was based on a real life second wife of zamindar Bhuvan Mohan Chowdhury, it was said that even the writer visited the village. According to sources, the original village was called Hatipota. Plot summary Devdas is a young man from a wealthy Bengali family in India in the early 1900s. Parvati (Paro) is a young woman from a middle class Bengali Brahmin family. The two families live in a village called Taalshonapur in Bengal, and Devdas and Parvati are childhood friends. Devdas goes away for a couple of years to live and study in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata). During vacatio ...
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Meera
Meera, better known as Mirabai and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern-day Pali district of Rajasthan) and spent her childhood in Merta. She is mentioned in ''Bhaktamal'', confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Bhakti movement culture by about 1600 CE.Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot (2006), India before Europe, Cambridge University Press, , page 109 Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treating Krishna as her husband and being persecuted by her in-laws for her religious devotion. She has been the subject of numerous folk tales and hagiographic legends, which are inconsistent or widely different in details.Nancy Martin-Kershaw (2014), Faces of the Feminine ...
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Pulled Rickshaw
A pulled rickshaw (from Japanese language, Japanese ) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people. In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers. Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws. Overview Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement. In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia. Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner. It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue." The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, t ...
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Suchitra Sen
Suchitra Sen ( ; born as Roma Dasgupta (; 6 April 1931 – 17 January 2014) was an Indian actress who worked in Bengali and Hindi cinema. The movies in which she was paired opposite Uttam Kumar became classics in the history of Bengali cinema. Sen 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 Pake Bandha''. In 1972, she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award 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. Her first official release was Sukumar Dasgupta's ''Saat Number Kayedi'' (1953). She was catapulted to stardom a ...
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Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy (12 July 1909 – 8 January 1966) was an Indian film director. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as ''Do Bigha Zamin'', ''Parineeta (1953 film), Parineeta'', ''Biraj Bahu'', ''Devdas (1955 film), Devdas'', ''Madhumati'', ''Sujata (1959 film), Sujata'', ''Parakh (1960 film), Parakh'' and ''Bandini (1963 film), Bandini'', making him an important director of Bollywood, Hindi cinema. Inspired by Italian neorealism, Italian neo-realistic cinema, he made ''Do Bigha Zamin'' after watching Vittorio De Sica's'' Bicycle Thieves'' (1948). His work is particularly known for his mise en scène which he employed to portray Realism (arts), realism. He won a number of awards throughout his career, including eleven Filmfare Awards, two National Film Awards, and the International Prize of the Cannes Film Festival. ''Madhumati'' won 9 6th Filmfare Awards, Filmfare Awards in 1958, a record held for 37 years. Biography Bimal Roy was born on 12 July 1909 ...
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Humanitarianism
Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons. One aspect involves voluntary emergency aid overlapping with human rights advocacy, actions taken by governments, development assistance, and domestic philanthropy. Other critical issues include correlation with religious beliefs, motivation of aid between altruism and social control, market affinity, imperialism and neo-colonialism, gender and class relations, and humanitarian agencies. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian. An informal ideology Humanitarianism is an informal ideology of practice; it is "the doctrine that people's duty is to promote human welfare." Humanitarianism is based on a view that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such. Therefore, humanitarians work towards advanc ...
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Brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub parlours, studios, or by some other description. Sex work in a brothel is considered safer than street prostitution. Legal status On 2 December 1949, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. The Convention came into effect on 25 July 1951 and by December 2013 had been ratified by 82 states. The Convention seeks to combat prostitution, which it regards as "incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person." Parties to the Convention agreed to abolish regulation of individual prostitutes, and to ban brothels and procuring. Some countries not parties to the convention also ban prostitution or the operation of broth ...
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Chitpur
Chitpur (or Chitpore) is a neighbourhood in North Kolkata in Kolkata district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Sometimes, the entire area along Chitpur Road is referred to as Chitpur, although the various localities have distinctive names. History Chitpur has existed for at least 400 years. It received its name from the goddess Chitteswari, who had a splendid temple here erected by Gobindram Mitter, where human sacrifices used to be offered. The lofty dome of the temple, which was known as Nabarutna or the shrine of nine jewels, fell during the earthquake of 1737, and it is now in ruins. According to another source, the area was earlier named Chitrapur. It is referred to in Bipradas Pipilai's poem ''Manasamangal'' in 1495, but it could be a later interpolation. According to it, Chitpur was home to Chakrapani, Commander-in-Chief of the Nawab of Bengal's army, and had a flourishing colony of artists. It refers to one Gobinda Ghosh as founder of the Chitteswari temple in 1610. ...
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Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commercial, and financial hub of East India, Eastern India and the main port of communication for North-East India. According to the 2011 Indian census, Kolkata is the List of cities in India by population, seventh-most populous city in India, with a population of 45 lakh (4.5 million) residents within the city limits, and a population of over 1.41 crore (14.1 million) residents in the Kolkata metropolitan area, Kolkata Metropolitan Area. It is the List of metropolitan areas in India, third-most populous metropolitan area in India. In 2021, the Kolkata metropolitan area crossed 1.5 crore (15 million) registered voters. The ...
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Courtesan
Courtesan, in modern usage, is a euphemism for a "kept" mistress (lover), mistress or prostitute, particularly one with wealthy, powerful, or influential clients. The term historically referred to a courtier, a person who attended the Royal court, court of a monarch or other powerful person. History In European feudalism, feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together. Prior to the Renaissance, courtesans served to convey information to visiting dignitaries, when servants could not be trusted. In Renaissance Europe, courtiers played an extremely important role in upper-class society. As it was customary during this time for royal couples to lead separate lives—commonly marrying simply to preserve bloodlines and to secure political alliances—men and women would often seek gratification and companionship from people living at court. In fact, the verb 'to court' ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ...
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