Latest news with #Aparna
India Today
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Thank you for not doing it: Shabana Azmi to Aparna Sen for turning down Ankur
Veteran actor Shabana Azmi and actor-filmmaker Aparna Sen came together for a heartfelt session at the Habitat Film Festival, where they reflected on their bond, remembered the late filmmaker Shyam Benegal, and celebrated Shabana's 50-year milestone in cinema. The chat was more like a tete-a-tete between two friends, who fondly referred to each other as Munni (Shabana) and Reena (Aparna), while the audience listened in like friendly conversation, marked by warmth and wit, began with Aparna Sen paying tribute to Shyam Benegal, who died in December last year. "It's a loss, but he's left behind such wonderful films and memories. That is what we have to celebrate today. And along with that, we must celebrate Shabana's 50 years of acting. She is an inspiration to all the actresses who came after her,' Aparna said, before turning to Shabana with a smile, adding, "Really, you are."Shabana, with her trademark wit, quipped, "You never told me that when I was doing four films with you." Aparna responded, "At that time it was difficult." She went on to reveal that before Shabana, Benegal had approached her to play Lakshmi's role, which earned Shabana her first National Award. "Now, let me tell you something. Shyam had asked me to play the role of Lakshmi in 'Ankur'."advertisementShabana playfully interrupted, 'Thank you for not doing it!' Shabana Azmi and Aparna Sen at the 17th Habitat Film Festival. Aparna continued, 'My loss was Shabana's gain. It was Shyam's first film and when he sent me the synopsis, I saw that the role was of a Hyderabadi servant girl who speaks smatterings of Telugu. Immediately, I was terrified. I didn't say that to him though. I just said thank you, but I don't think I'll do it."She added that if Benegal had been probed further, she would've given in: "And, that would have been a disaster because we wouldn't have had Shabana. I was so happy when I saw her in Ankur - and you were just wonderful.'Reflecting on her debut with 'Ankur', Shabana called working with Shyam Benegal a transformative experience: 'It wasn't just working with a director, it was an exercise in knowing myself. I hung on to every word he said."She added that Benegal was warm and had such faith in his actors that they felt confident taking fondly recalled travelling to Berlin with Benegal for the film's screening. 'It was my first time abroad. I just wanted to rush to the malls and shop,' she laughed, adding, 'But Shyam would sit and talk about the taxi driver, the garden, the history of the place. He taught me that there's so much more to experience."She also praised his meticulous nature. "He'd plan our entire festival itinerary, ensuring we watched the right films. He was so invested in learning and sharing knowledge." Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag played pivotal roles in Ankur. Aparna then brought up Shabana's gold medal from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), jokingly asking if she brought it to the set for confidence. Shabana responded, 'No, not at all. It was in my being.'Shabana recalled preparing for the role of Lakshmi. She said she had never even stepped into a village before shooting 'Ankur.' 'When I reached Yellareddiguda, the village where we shot, Shyam asked me to just wear my costume and walk around. The tailor came to take my measurements, and I was shocked — a male tailor in a village! That's how I began," she shared that she didn't know how to speak Telugu, but she would speak Dakhini. Shabana said she was familiar with the dialect, having visited Hyderabad often, which helped her essay the Benegal's 'Ankur' won three National Film Awards and was nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1974. You May Also Like
Time of India
11-05-2025
- Time of India
Decomposed body found at Coimbatore's Vellalore bus terminal
Coimbatore: A decomposed body of an unidentified man was found at the integrated bus terminal, which is under-construction at Vellalore in the city, on Sunday. Police said the deceased's body did not have any signs of external injuries, but his hands and legs were found tied up with clothes. Podanur police visited the spot after they received information on the decomposed body found in the area and sent it to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) for a postmortem. Police added that the deceased was aged between 25 and 40 years and had tattooed the name 'Aparna' on his chest. Meanwhile, the preliminary postmortem report has ruled out any possibility of strangulation. Forensic experts have also revealed that the deceased might have been murdered 48 to 72 hours before his body was found."We are inquiring with more than 50 families which reside near the Vellalore garbage dump yard, to trace the identity of the deceased. Only after the deceased is identified, can the reason for the murder be established. There are no CCTV cameras in the locality, making it difficult to trace the suspects. We are also checking the missing person cases," said a police added that a police team has initiated inquiries in Konavaikkalpalayam and Vellalore. Podanur police have registered a case of suspicious death case and are investigating further. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Mother's Day wishes , messages , and quotes !
Deccan Herald
10-05-2025
- General
- Deccan Herald
When words stay and meanings morph
Listening to my colleague Aparna Chaudhuri speak in the Close Reading Room series organised at the university where I teach, I was surprised by the etymological history of the word 'extravagant'. The 'extra', Aparna reminded her audience, meant 'outside' – as a reader of what is professionally categorised as early British literature, that etymological knowledge had given her an insight into reading these literary texts that she said she might not have had otherwise. I can't exactly remember what she said right after because my mind had paused to register what to it was a new understanding of 'out', particularly 'outside'..Returning home, I decided to look it up myself. In the late 14th century, 'extravagaunt' was one half of a phrase – 'constituciouns extravagaunt' – which meant a term in 'Canon Law for papal decrees not originally included or codified in the Decretals'; it had come from Medieval Latin – 'extravagari 'wander outside or beyond', from Latin extra 'outside of' + vagary 'wander, roam''. By the 15th century 'it could also mean 'rambling, irrelevant; extraordinary, unusual'', and, by extension, a 'sense of 'excessive, extreme, exceeding reasonable limits', so that by 1771, it had come to stand for 'wasteful, lavish, exceeding prudence in expenditure'..Given my predilection, I had fixated on the word 'out', how it had found a home in 'extra', and how a word that had emerged from 'roaming, wandering outside' had come to mean what it does to us today – 'wasteful, lavish' and 'more expensive than is reasonable'. This seemingly naturalised passage – and, indeed, lineage – from the outside to something wasteful and expensive bothers me, bothers me in a way the thin eyebrow-fashion of the 1980s does, without consequence. I'm led to wonder about how 'eat out', a phrase that begins to enter the colloquial from the 1930s, would feed or derive from the hidden 'out' in 'extravagant'..Much before health experts would begin using condemnatory language for eating at restaurants, a thrifty temperament would have created this connection between eating outside the house and extravagance. There would have been the impress of another history, more subtle, more muscular – that the world was being miniaturised and brought inside the house: the temple as puja ghar, the nautanki, jatra, bioscope, and cinema as television set, and so on. The outside was not only being made redundant, it was also being ascribed as impure. It wasn't just the reiteration and refurbishing of the 'angel in the house', it was a shrinking of the world that was worth human interest and seeming – and opportunistic – rejection of the outside, with its shifting perimeter, meant that it would soon be exoticised into something inaccessible and therefore desirable. Tourism, far-from-the-madding-crowd, a consumption and production of the outside, the 'outdoors', would first infiltrate into the cramped interior, of living spaces and offices, the mind and the roadsides, so that one would be compelled to seek, in Rabindranath's words, 'space, more space'. That a monosyllabic sound – 'space' – could hold in it everything outside built space feels like a desperate sigh, even a longing as a species for what was once unconditional but is now must be this mammalian recovery of our relationship to the outside that makes us buy tickets, book hotels, put our feet inside ships and sky, and become extra-vagant. For about a century now, but more acutely in this millennium, we've seen this desire afflict literature. The history of early twenty-first century literature will probably be a history of grief and a history of retreat. 'Retreat' enters the language around the 13th century – its life begins by meaning withdrawal, a kind of step backward; in the space of two centuries, it comes to mean 'territory, region of indefinite extent, stretch of land or water'. Notice the word's emerging relationship with the outdoors, so that by the time the 17th century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan comes to use it in a religious poem, choosing it also its title, it is able to hold in it not just the desire to return to 'angel infancy' but a space that is actually outdoors: a 'shady city of palm trees'..That word today is used for writer and artist residencies, not to mean a return to the 'ancient track' of Vaughan's poem but to mean a space where one can step into a kind of 'outdoor' time or time out of time. The desire is, of course, legitimate, as all such urges are, but I fear that the literature that finds no space or indulgence in such retreats is by the kind of writer who has to actually work outdoors for a living – the working-class writer.
Hans India
22-04-2025
- Hans India
Pioneering Semiconductor Verification Excellence by Aparna Mohan
With over a decade of experience in pre-silicon verification, Aparna Mohan has emerged as a respected voice in the semiconductor industry. Based in Austin, Texas, she brings a rare combination of academic excellence and deep technical expertise to her work, ensuring the reliability of complex ASIC designs. 'Verification is where my analytical mindset thrives,' Aparna says. 'I've always been driven by the challenge of making sure a design behaves exactly as intended—even under the most unlikely conditions.' Her academic foundation is as solid as her professional credentials. After earning a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, she built on her early success as a Third Rank Holder in her undergraduate program at the University of Kerala, India. Her first major role—contributing to satellite systems at the Indian Space Research Organization—sparked her fascination with technological integrity. That fascination soon evolved into a passion for semiconductor design verification. Aparna's verification expertise spans 14 successful ASIC product tape-outs. She applies a blend of formal and simulation-based methodologies to tackle today's complex verification demands. 'Formal verification allows me to rigorously prove that critical properties always hold, especially in security and control logic,' she explains. 'Meanwhile, simulation with UVM gives us the flexibility to explore vast functional spaces using randomized testing.' Security verification is one of the most complex challenges in modern semiconductor design. Aparna addresses this through a layered approach. 'Combining formal verification for security protocols with targeted simulation helps us catch both expected and unexpected vulnerabilities,' she says. She also integrates assertion-based and system-level verification techniques, ensuring robust coverage even as design requirements evolve. A data-driven mindset guides her approach. She closely monitors metrics like coverage, bug detection rates, and cycle efficiency. 'Tracking these indicators tells us where we stand and where we need to focus,' she notes. 'They are the feedback loop that keeps verification on track.' Her commitment to innovation is equally evident. Aparna has developed reusable verification components, improved debug efficiency, and contributed to multiple technical conferences. 'There's always a better way to solve a problem. Whether it's building smarter environments or adopting new tools, I'm constantly looking to improve how we verify chips.' Looking ahead, Aparna is optimistic about the role of AI in shaping the future. 'Machine learning will revolutionize how we generate tests, detect bugs, and even suggest strategies,' she predicts. 'As chips get more intelligent, our verification methods must be just as smart.' Aparna continues to share her insights with the broader verification community, staying actively involved in conferences and forums. 'It's not just about staying current—it's about pushing the field forward together.'
