Dear Deepika Anisha,As you stand on the threshold of life’s journey, I want to share with you some lessons that life has taught me. Live a life that is healthy and one that will allow you to live with your own conscience. Deepika, I have learned that you can’t always win in life, that everything you want might not come your way. I was thankful for the few hours a week we had the opportunity to hit the shuttle back and forth. If you occasionally wonder why we refuse to treat you like a star, it is because you are our daughter first and a film star later. Looking back, I realise that the most important thing about my childhood and adolescent years was my refusal to complain about a lot in life. You have to learn to take life’s ups and downs in your stride.

Deepika Padukone, who has had an eventful 2015, received several awards for her brilliant performances in several films.Lovingly,Pappa. Even during my toughest times, I focused on what I had, instead of dwelling on what I did not. And that is what I want to tell you my children, that there is no substitute for perseverance, hardwork, determination and passion for what you choose to do.

You are in an industry where there’s always going to be big money, but I believe that it is important to try to be the best in whatever you do regardless of the money. Strive to generate positivity around you even though you are too new and too small a player to effect a big change.Deepika, who is currently shooting for her Hollywood debut film, took to a networking site to share her dad's letter. Our badminton court was the wedding hall of the Canara Union Bank near our house, and it was there that I learned everything about the game.

The amount of effort that I put in my game never varied from the first day till my retirement. But that did not distract me from the sheer joy of having been instrumental in putting India on the global map of this game. In the end, we decided to let you follow your heart and thought it would be cruel to not give our child the opportunity to go after a dream that she lived and breathed for. In fact, the foundation on which I based my career and my life was the refusal to whinge or whine about polished brass letters anything. If you succeeded, it would make us proud, but even if you didn’t, you would not have any regrets that you did not try. In the end, when your career is behind you, what remains is family, the friends that you have made. The things that really matter in life are relationships, honesty, respect for your parents and elders. Decades ago, as a little boy growing up in Bangalore, I started my tryst with badminton. Spare a few minutes of your day to close your eyes and meditate, to think about God and you will see how much faith in His power will strengthen you.

And remember, no matter what, we are always going to be there for you. I had the ability to make the best of the worst circumstances and remain steadfast to my goal. If you love what you do, nothing else matters — neither awards nor compensation, not even the gratification of seeing your face in newspapers or television. Every day, we would wait to see if there was a function in the hall, and if there was none, we would rush there after school to play to our hearts’ content.

At a recently held award ceremony, she read out a heartwarming letter written to her by her dad Prakash, when she had started her career in modelling. Remember how I constantly tell you both about the importance of making your way up in the world without waiting for your parents to pull strings I believe it is best for children to work hard to make their dreams come true and to not have things handed to them on a platter. In those days, there were no stadiums and courts where sports people could train. Deepika, at eighteen, when you told us that you wanted to shift to Mumbai for a career in modeling, we felt you were too young and too inexperienced to be alone in a big city and in an industry we knew nothing about. When you are home visiting us, Deepika, you make your own bed, clear the table after meals, and sleep on the floor if there are guests at home.The actress, who is currently in Toronto shooting for her Hollywood debut film 'xXx3: The Return of Xander Cage' opposite Vin Diesel, took to a social networking site to share her dad's letter. That events don’t always turn out as you want them to. The cameras that follow you everywhere and the arc lights will eventually fade and what will remain is the real world. To win some, you have to lose some. Read it out here. Material success is important, not fundamental to happiness and peace of mind

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A complete shutdown was observed by Muslim traders in Jammu region’s frontier districts of Rajouri and Poonch against the civilian killings in the Valley..Earlier, another key separatist leader and Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was shifted to a makeshift detention centre in the foothills of Zabarwan rage here from a city police station.”

But he also said, "May be the CRPF jawans were chasing the youth but they didn’t push them in river.CRPF spokesman Rajeshwar Yadav termed the incident as "unfortunate. Sources said that the 43-year-old cleric and politician was "debriefed” by senior intelligence and police officials but, at the same time, they requested him to help the authorities in their effort to restore peace and normalcy in the Valley. He was lodged at the nearby Nigeen police station but in the evening shifted steel letters for sale to a cottage in the high-security Chashmashahi near the Raj Bhavan. Protests were reported also from Bugam and Bolsoo areas of southern Kulgam district. He said that the copies of the letter would also be delivered to the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, BSF, CRPF, ITBP and CISF."We came to know about him having been shifted out of the police station at about 6pm but didn’t know where they have taken him.

The locals said that during a clash three youth jumped into Jhelum "to escape their wrath” and that while two of them swam to safety the third identified as 24-year-old Shahnawaz Khatana drowned..The Marhama area of neighbouring Anantnag district witnessed massive protests after one of the three local youth who had jumped into River Jhelum while being chased by the CRPF during a protest on Friday died due to drowning.Stop violence, go Home; Indian Soldiers, Go Home.Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Saturday was detained as he began walking towards the Army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps headquarters from his Hyderpora residence to present a letter, asking the Army to "stop violence” and "go home”. Such undemocratic and authoritarian measures will not deter us from representing and advocating the will and aspirations of people. Late evening, the police officials asked us to give them some of his clothes and other personal belongings,” said a family member. One such face-off was witnessed in Hanjivera village outside Pattan town of north-western Baramulla district. Mr Malik is lodged in Srinagar central prison and the JKLF has claimed that the government is trying to shift him to Delhi.

"Later Mr Farooq spoke to us from his cellphone saying he is lodged in the Chashmashahi sub-jail. This was the last phone call that we received,” he added.” Titled "Quit Jammu Kashmir”, the letter also said, "We appeal and urge you to leave our land. His body was fished out of the river on Saturday.” A statement issued by the police in the evening, however, said that barring five incidents of stone pelting in Anantnag, Shopian and Bandipora, overall situation remained peaceful and under control across the Valley ‘till filing of this report’.

The letter said, "Even though your actions have killed one lakh people, disappeared ten thousand and orphaned more than sixty thousand children to subdue us collectively and to make us surrender our fundamental right of freedom, yet the emotion of love and reverence that martyrdom of Commander Burhan Wani mobilized across and beyond Kashmir, should open your eyes. Curfew was in force also in southern towns of Anantnag, Pulwama and Pampore whereas security restrictions under Section 144 CrPC were enforced elsewhere in the Valley.Mr Geelani and Mr Farooq recently met JKLF leader Muhammad Yasin Malik and formed an ‘issue-based’ loose alliance, which is issuing protest calendars following Wani’s killing.e.

These call, in turn, are widely obeyed by people across the Valley.” He appealed the Kashmiri youth to "stay away from stone-pelting pastime and pay attention to their studies. Srinagar continued to remain under curfew on the 50th day on Saturday.Mr Farooq was detained as he came out of his residence in Srinagar’s Nigeen area on Friday afternoon to march on City’s Eidgah grounds where the separatists planned to hold an "azaadi” rally. They themselves jumped into the river and before doing that they should have also thought if they know swimming or not.”Meanwhile, over two dozen people have been injured in fresh clashes with security forces in various parts of the Valley.The Farooq-led faction of Hurriyat Conference strongly condemned his arrest. "It shows the government’s frustration and failure in dealing with the people’s revolt”, an amalgam spokesman said. He added, "Illegally caging, confining and censoring the leadership is the standard response of the infamous regime as well as its predecessors to prevent them from leading the people and letting the truth of Kashmir be known.. We didn’t catch anybody and then pushed him in the river.”Mr Geelani on Friday night announced that he will march towards the Army’s 15 Corps headquarters in Srinagar’s Badambagh cantonment on Saturday to present a letter to the Corps Commander Lt Gen Satish Dua. People of Jammu and Kashmir are not with India and will never be. All the shops and other businesses and educational institutions of Muslim community remained closed where transport services were also disrupted. Save your individual conscience and help your national soul with healing that only comes from acknowledgement and acceptance of truth, i

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It is in flight with its wings outstretched sideways and the motion is as if creating the sound-effect of its flapping pinions. "Such a serene haven should be an ideal human habitat, far from the madding crowd and selfish politics of this pragmatic world,” he renders. Whereas on the other, a dangerous conspiracy is tirelessly at work to detach him from diverse channels of inspiration like music, literature, beauty, art, euphony that make this world such a wonderful place to live in and appreciate about."On one hand, man takes pride in being the greatest creation of God. Terror is now more organised and a systematic crime."Violence aggravates in proportion, if not properly checked in time.

My heart aches and my mind continuously bleeds to witness these constant onslaughts on humanity,” he laments. Titles like Relishing a Kill, Suicide, Thirsty Horses, Nocturnal Nature, Attack, Killing Field, Blind Horses, Selfish Bird, Fascism, Indian Style, A Self-blinded Prince, Sand Storm come in a varying range between 18”X24” to 36”X48”. In Butterflies, a beautiful scene is straight sculpted out of lush green nature.”His creations are a burst of his spontaneity. But all this now seems a farce and is forced to fall under a blanket of cold warning before the final doom arrives.

The night-hour invokes a totally different canvas from the glaring daytime.If current day headlines are anything to go by, then we thoroughly know that most nations become victims of violence through bomb explosions, terror-strikes, insurrections, factional infighting, communal riots, political skirmishes, plane-hijacks, drone attacks, shooting down of aircrafts, ambushes, stone-pelting, border infiltrations, hostage-crisis, invasion of holy religious places of worship or pilgrimage sites and so on. Like trees in the face of deforestation and animals in the face of poaching and hunting, man too in the wake of mass carnage, fights hard to save his existential entity,” he elucidates. They purposefully thwart any peace-initiative process or foil attempts to instil values, dreams, love and affection for a stabilised society.As of now, talks are on both nationally, as well as at international levels to host this solo exhibition in the near future. But its seeds were sown since the existence of living species on this planet.By his own confession, painting every night before going to bed offers him a great sense of relief and a goodnight’s sleep. For the bird cautiously keeps the secluded source of water hidden from its peers’ prying eyes. Only its methods of application have been more sophisticated.. In Nocturnal Nature, the painter portrays a menagerie of creatures like dragons, bats, dinosaurs, horses, winged-angels et al, all on their way to either search out their prey or return to their nests.

True, that in recent times, its frequency appears to have increased by several notches,” comments the artist, whose array of 15 painted specimens the sign factory was of late showcased at Kolkata’s ICCR. Depicting a bird swooshing down over a well of water inside a deep forest to quench its thirst, the artist explains that "the painting bears an underlying message of that urge for absolute power and madness. "By birth, man shares an inseparable bonding with the flora and fauna of nature, as well as with his own race. That dripping blood of agony further colours his paintings and puts him in the throes of protesting expressions to conjure up an insightful picture.

The Killing Field shows a site of mass murder with a line of corpses shrouded in white. Almost all paintings are done out of acrylic on canvas, except the one carrying Selfish Bird label with a touch of charcoal and pastel shades in it. "These are but machinations of militant groups, who are notorious miscreants and march forward as merchants of destruction and death. It is somewhat surreal, dreamy, silent and also sometimes bustles with noisy revelry or illicit activities at shady places,” he deduces. Even the critics admit that there is a clear absence of any pre-meditated scheme or planning in his paintings.Violence is no by-product of modernism or today’s tech-age tools. In Suicide, a giant bird with a kite tied to its wings leaps forward on the hills, while a train passes over a railway track amidst a carpet of white cottony kash flowers on either side. With a tendency to disrupt harmony and goodwill among our global populace, these masked-marauders and murderers swear to wage wars every now and then,” he moans. Be it domestic, communal, gender, social or political — violence uncontrollably spreads like a wild forest-fire and is a curse upon human civilisation. It gradually threatens to take shape of a terminal disease. Encapsulating different forms of violence in his latest artwork series, poet-writer-globe trotter-travel filmmaker-magazine editor plus a talented painter in his own right, Amarendra Chakraborty has stoked up the topic to draw random reactions from his audiences. In another, a string of blind horses is speedily galloping through a blazing field looking immensely wearied, anxious and helpless. The feelings are naturally discharged

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Referring to media reports that the China-Pakistan corridor is forcing Islamabad to change the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan, the JKLF leader has said in his letter that economic development is good "but you have no moral right to make a policy that will adversely affect the future of millions of Kashmiris.The letter further says, "It is not only political wisdom that forces me make this appeal but also respect for the sentiments, sacrifices and aspirations of Kashmiri people.Unconfirmed reports from Islamabad say Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will hold a crucial meeting with his country’s top officials on January 14 to deliberate on the future of Gilgit-Baltistan."If Pakistan imposes its sovereign writ over Gilgit-Baltistan, India will then have a political and moral right to integrate Kashmir with it.Nawaz Sharif plans to hold a meet with top officials to deliberate on the future of Gilgit-Baltistan.He also said that annexing Gilgit-Baltistan would be a clear signal to India to do same with Jammu and Kashmir.He alleged that the move to alter the status of Gilgit-Baltistan, which is rich in culture and heritage, loaded with huge natural resources with vast tourism potential and famous for International Silk Route, amounts to depriving people of Jammu and Kashmir of political, cultural and economical rights”.

The will of people in Kashmir is what everyone including your good self knows. I want to remind you of those promises. He said the ISL will oppose tooth and nail such ‘conspiracies’.In the backdrop of these reports, Pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader, Muhammad Yasin Malik, shot a letter to Sharif cautioning him against such a move and asserting it would only weaken the Kashmiri people’s ‘national cause’.PoK ‘President’ Muhammad Yaqoob Khan has also warned that such a step would be more damaging than the dismemberment of the country in 1971. It is about rights of people,” the letter asserts adding, "Bartering these rights for land means killing the wholesale Custom sign aspirations of people”. And, in this way they have agreed to roll back freedom struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said. Srinagar: Kashmiri leaders on both sides of the Line of Control have expressed serious concerns over the alleged proposal to make the Gilgit-Baltistan region of the Himalayan state the fifth province of Pakistan. With one stroke, Pakistan will be helping India to consolidate its writ on Kashmir,” the letter says urging Nawaz Sharif to stay away from such a course of action. You clearly vindicated Kashmiri position on Gilgit-Baltistan and opposed any proposal that will change its legal or constitutional status”.

"The second step of this conspiracy would be granting complete provincial status to Azad Kashmir (PoK).Bakshi said that the state of Jammu and Kashmir as existed on August 14, 1947 is on the whole a disputed territory according to relevant UN resolutions and that by separating one part of the erstwhile state and absorbing it in another country amounts to huge treachery with the sacrifices of Kashmiris.”Recalling his meeting with Sharif in Lahore in 2009, Malik said, "I know you in personal capacity.An earlier report from Muzaffarabad had said that PoK prime minister Choudhary Abdul Majeed has warned the Nawaz Sharif-government against any attempt to convert Gilgit-Baltistan into a province of Pakistan. When you met me in Lahore in 2009, you made some promises to me. Malik said that such a step would have implications on the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. He urged Sharif to avoid taking any decision that does not fall in his jurisdiction, asserting that he cannot take this decision unless the people of Jammu and Kashmir agree to it. History, morality and ethics dictate that will of people prevail”.The letter then says, "I will also add that history is not made by small bargaining and territorial exchanges but by respecting the will of the people. Referring to the apprehensions that have been raised in various quarters that Sharif’s government may reach a consensus to merge Gilgit-Baltistan with Pakistan. He sought to remind Islamabad that Gilgit-Baltistan had been given in the administrative control of Pakistan on a temporary basis and advised the Sharif government not to think beyond that. Kashmir is not about territory.Bakhshi further said that to fiddle with this status of Gilgit-Baltistan is same as New Delhi granting Ladakh Autonomous Hill Council which will ultimately lead to Union Territory status for Ladakh.”

"If your government incorporates Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan, and if as a consequence, India consolidates its hold in Kashmir, this would amount to a bartering of people’s aspirations.Islamic Students league patron Shakeel Ahmed Bakhshi issued a statement in Srinagar where he said that before the division of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan, Leh-Kargil and Gurez were one united province of erstwhile state

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"He was taken to the Soura police station.” It adds: "It’s a tragic irony that I am being treated like a war criminal for stating the inconvenient truth.Dr Abdullah is among several hundred mainstream political leaders and activists and members of trade and civil society groups who have been placed either under house arrest or jailed during past 12 days.She says some security personnel cited her interviews to various media portals and newspapers as the reason for her detention.

My mother Mehbooba Mufti, former CM JK, was detained along with scores of other elected representatives the very same day. It then asks: "Is it a crime to articulate the pain, torment and indignity we have been subjected to? Does it warrant a detention to describe our plight?”She has termed her house arrest as "suffocating and humiliating” and asked under which law(s) she has been detained and for how long, and whether she needs to seek legal recourse. The detainees have been accused of being potential "troublemakers” or involved in stone-pelting incidents that took place in Valley areas after Parliament passed a resolution abrogating the special status of JK under Article 370 of the Constitution and a bill to split the state into two Union territories.. I met the SHO and he promised that he would be released the next day. gold foil signs "We’re not even told when visitors are turned away from the gate and I’m not allowed to step out either.. On Friday, the parents of several Srinagar youths called on a senior government official to claim that their wards were rounded up by the police in the past 12 days "without any justification”.Iltija has, in an open letter to Union home minister Amit Shah, said she fears for her life after she spoke to the media questioning the arrest of her mother earlier this month. "In fact, I have been threatened with dire consequences if I speak up again”, she claimed.Dozens of local residents, mainly youth, have also been detained in police stations.”Iltija claimed Kashmir has been engulfed in clouds of darkness and that she fears for the safety of its people, including those who spoke up.Meanwhile, a family member of former CM and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Friday that he (Abdullah) had formally sought the administration’s permission to offer Id prayers at a Srinagar mosque on August 12, but it was declined. He wasn’t.. Odd since I am not affiliated to any political party and I have always been a law-abiding citizen,” it says.”The letter alleges she is under constant surveillance.

"We Kashmiris are reeling in despair since the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 on August 5.Srinagar: Iltija Javed Shah, daughter of former JK chief minister and People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti, has asked the government to explain the urgency of placing her under house arrest "despite being a law-abiding citizen” and "turning away guests who desire to meet me”. "It is suffocating and humiliating to be treated in this manner. Yesterday I was told by some police officials he was recommended for detention under the Public Safety Act”, Mr Dar told reporters, before meeting Srinagar’s deputy commissioner to plead his son’s "innocence”.However, the relatives of many youth claimed they were picked up by the police "without any reason”.

I have to grovel for permission to allow my aged grandmother to visit her son.The letter says: "I’m left with no other option but to write to you since I’ve made several unsuccessful attempts to get a degree of clarity on my detention. Hope and pray that I am not punished or penalised or arrested for raising questions about my fundamental rights. "For the world’s largest democracy, doesn’t a citizen have the right to speak up in the face of unimaginable repression? I’ve been threatened with dire consequences if I speak up (to the media) again,” reads the letter, copies of which were smuggled out of Mufti’s besieged residence at the high-security Gupkar Road here and distributed among mediapersons.Niyaz Ahmed Dar, a resident of Soura, alleged that his son Aamir Niyaz was whisked away by the police while he was walking on a side street of his locality with a sacrificial sheep on the eve of Id.

It has now been over ten long agonising days since this crippling curfew was imposed,” the letter says, adding: "The Valley is gripped with fear because all phones of communication have been snapped, thereby debilitating an entire population.It says: "With due respect I fail to understand why I’m being punished for speaking on behalf of Kashmiris whose voices have been smothered”. Is she also a potential threat?”, the letter says.The arrest spree in the Kashmir Valley continues. The police used force to disperse the protesters, resulting in injuries to many of them.”The letter says: "Today, while the rest of the country celebrates India’s Independence Day, Kashmiris have been caged like animals and deprived of basic human rights. Eight of the detained youth belong to the Soura area of Srinagar, where several thousand people including women had on August 9 marched along the streets to protest against the scrapping of Article 370 and the state’s bifurcation

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These dry colours come with a plethora of round net screens rather like the sieves used for flour. Here the colours are filled in the sieve and the sieve gently dusted on the floor for the colour to spread its magic! These can be used with wet colours as well. Unlike earlier when alpana meant white, now vibrant colours like green, purple, pink, yellow, blue, orange are very easily available. By the way, this is via Thailand and for a change not China! Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshiyahoo. In Orissa the lowly jharoo or broom is dipped in a weak lime paste to create bouquet like designs on the walls. Entire front yards would be painted on special days like the Navratri or Deepawali, on days of gollu where toys and dolls are decorated in step like installations in south Indian households. From Gujarat are the two dimensional mirror encrusted mandnas from the Kutch region, Madhya Pradesh tribal belts having some simple but beautiful traditional designs.

It is rangoli time everyday with the chauffer, maid, cook, sister, niece all huddled over some or the other complex design that they want to create – with each wanting the other’s colours! I am often invoked to play referee when the choice of specific colours are in controversy. None needs to be a Husain or a Picasso to do this and still express yourself creatively.

And if you don’t care for semi permanence, there are transparent soft acrylic sheets with jewels encrusted rangolis rather like kundan work stuck on them that can be placed anywhere including the dining table or side tables to give it a festive look without any mess. All the four states in the south Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala have their beautiful kolams that have triggered off this reverie in the first place! I have seen some really exquisite alpanas from Bengal during puja that have inspired many of the Shantiniketan batiks (or is it the other way round ) and I was even more surprised to find pretty alpanas under many trees in the Shantiniketan campus on any given day.I was sharing with some friends the other day that I grew up in a predominantly south Indian area of Delhi where brass letters for signs every morning mamis could be seen painting kolams outside their homes Gone are the days of rice flour when dry or wet kolams edged with a paste of powdered bricks were the norm and all that was needed was the deft wrist and an understanding of geometry – geometry because the mamis would create an intricate code of tiny dots that only they could crack and create the kollam around it. The sizes of the kollams may have reduced but I think the fervor still persists.

I recall how a craftsman would come to our house every few months with bamboo reeds perforated with designs that could be filled with fine marble dust, rice flour, and wheat flour and then the filled reed would be rolled on to the floor, resulting in beautiful designs.

All these memories bring a smile and I am filed with pride about the Indian cultural mores and ethos – yet again. Here the technique involves dipping a sponge in colour and going over the screen softly. Any reference to wall paintings can’t be complete without taking into account Bihar and Jharkhand and the exquisite kohbar paintings that are popularly known as Madhubanis.

But then India does have an amazing tradition of floor and wall paintings right from Rajasthan downwards where the Shekhawati frescos are legendry. The non stone encrusted rangolis are another option that are neatly painted on stiff transparent acrylic sheets rather like coasters in different shapes that allow only the design to be seen and can be juxtaposed with appropriate table linen. How could my house stay unaffected!The market abounds in several variations of floor art. My household has seems to have overlooked the minor fact that Diwali is over (thank God!) but is still persisting in painting the house in multi colours thanks to the large cache of dry rangoli powder they have discovered in the local market. In addition, many easy do-it-yourself options have been put in place: The market is flooded with rangoli stickers in beautiful designs in monochromes and multi colours in varying shapes and sizes that are great options in case art is not your forte. And I can understand why Stephan Huyler wrote and photographed the tome on Indian wall and floor paintings. But then rangoli or alpana or kollam is the latest home art fad this season in urban areas. In Mumbai I found a more easy option where shallow plastic trays are filled with dry colours and dusted with a gentle thud and the result was similar to the perforated reed designs

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