May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss is the first book of Arnab Ray, an Indian blogger. The book is an extension of his blog. It deals with Indian pop culture, Bollywood, satire and his own life experiences. He makes sarcastic comments on the Indian film industry, Indian politics and society in general.
The book generally met favourable reviews. It was on India Today's Bestsellers list. [1] Times of India Crest said, "Take a chance on Ray; you might enjoy being tickled greatbong style.". [2] The Daily Telegraph said "for a more in-depth insight into the minds of the pubescent adults growing up in the ’80s, do read his Bollywood made me what I am". [3] It also found a mention on the newspaper's surprise hits of 2010. [4] Daily News and Analysis called the satire in the book as "highly entertaining" and that "all said and done, if you grew up in the late eighties and the nineties, this is a book you should not miss." [5] Deccan Herald wrote that "everything from the cover, the title, the blurb and the preface tells you that this is a book worth picking up. It doesn’t disappoint". It considered the book as irreverent but also poignant. Outlook felt the content of the book could make hilarious blog posts "but reading over forty thousand words of this pales quickly". It also pointed out the episodic nature of the chapters with no connection with each other as a sore point. [6] Kanchan Gupta of The Pioneer, on the other hand, commented on the episodic nature of the chapters in MIHYAP (as the author likes to call his book). He said that it gives the reader the freedom to "read in bits and pieces, portions that aren’t particularly interesting can be skipped." [7] It also finds a mention in WorldCat book catalogue. [8]
Taslima Nasrin is a Bangladeshi-Swedish writer, physician, feminist, secular humanist, and activist. She is known for her writing on women's oppression and criticism of religion; some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. She has also been blacklisted and banished from the Bengal region, both from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
Rituparno Ghosh was an Indian film director, actor, writer and lyricist. After pursuing a degree in economics, he started his career as a creative artist at an advertising agency. He received recognition for his second feature film Unishe April which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Having won 19 National Awards, along with his contemporaries Aparna Sen and Goutam Ghose, Rituparno heralded contemporary Bengali cinema to greater heights. Ghosh died on 30 May 2013 in Kolkata after a heart attack. Ghosh was also one of the openly homosexual personalities in Indian cinema.
Mamata Banerjee is an Indian politician who is serving as the eighth and current chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal since 20 May 2011, the first woman to hold the office. Having served many times as a Union Cabinet Minister, Mamata Banerjee became the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the first time in 2011. She founded the All India Trinamool Congress in 1998 after separating from the Indian National Congress, and became its first chairperson. She is often referred to as 'Didi'.
Tiretta Bazaar, is a neighborhood near Lalbazar in Central Kolkata. It is usually called Old China Market. The locality was once home to 20,000 ethnic Chinese Indian nationals, but now the population has dropped to approximately 2,000. Most of the Hakka Chinese people in the area moved closer to Tangra. The traditional occupation of the Chinese Indian community in Kolkata had been working in the nearby tanning industry as well as in Chinese restaurants. The area is still noted for the Chinese restaurants where many people flock to taste traditional Chinese and Indian Chinese cuisine.
Abhijit Bhaduri is an Indian author, columnist and management consultant. Bhaduri was Chief Learning Officer of the Wipro Group. Bhaduri is the author of three best-selling books- two novels of the 'MBA' Series- Mediocre But Arrogant, Married but Available and the management 'guide-book' Don't Hire The Best.
The genre of science fiction has been prevalent in the Indian film industry since the second half of the 20th century. Beginning in 1952, the Tamil film Kaadu was made, which was an Indian-American co-production. The 1963 Tamil film Kalai Arasi and 1967 Hindi film Chand Par Chadayee also have science fiction in its storyline. The Alien was a science fiction film under production in the late 1960s which was eventually cancelled. The film was being directed by Bengali Indian director Satyajit Ray and produced by Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures. The script was written by Ray in 1967, based on "Bankubabur Bandhu", a Bengali story he had written in 1962 for Sandesh, the Ray family magazine. In 2018, Tik Tik Tik', Tamil film became the first-ever Indian film that was based mostly in space.
Kahaani is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language thriller film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Sujoy Ghosh. It stars Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman looking for her missing husband in Kolkata during the festival of Durga Puja, assisted by Assist Sub-Inspector Satyoki "Rana" Sinha and Inspector General A. Khan.
Hawkers in Kolkata numbering 275,000 generated business worth ₹ 87.72 billion in 2005. In Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal, almost 80 per cent of the pavements are encroached by hawkers and illegal settlers. In many countries, hawkers use pavements or other public places to retail their goods or services but in Kolkata the magnitude has drawn special attention of administrators and law courts.
Parambrata Chattopadhyay is an Indian actor and director. Parambrata started his career with Bengali television and films. He has acted as the fictional character Topshe from Feluda under Sandip Ray's direction. He made his Hindi debut in Kahaani (2012), starring with Vidya Balan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. His notable works include Bhalo Theko (2003), Baishe Srabon (2011), Sold (2014) directed by Jeffrey D. Brown, Kadambari (2017), Anukul (2017), Pari (2018), Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi (2019), Dwitiyo Purush(2020), Bulbbul (2020).
Ipsita Roy Chakraverti is a Wiccan priestess based in India. Born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and royalty for mother, Chakraverti spent her early years in Canada and the US where her father was stationed. There, she was allowed to join a select group of women studying ancient cultures of the world and the old ways. Chakraverti studied with them for three years and finally chose Wicca as her religion. After coming back to India and getting married, Chakraverti declared herself as a witch in 1986. Amidst the backlash that followed her declaration, Chakraverti explained to the media the Neo Pagan ways of Wicca and its healing power.
Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Bengali cinema or Tollywood, is an Indian film industry of Bengali-language motion pictures. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. It was a historically important film industry, at one time the centre of Indian film production. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema's most critically acclaimed global Parallel Cinema and art films, with several of its filmmakers gaining prominence at the Indian National Film Awards as well as international acclaim.
David McCutchion was an English-born academic, and a pioneer in a number of original strands of scholarship in Indian studies before his early death at age 41. Popularly known as "Davidbabu", in his short life, he made a major contribution to the study of Hindu terracotta and brick temples of Bengal and was also one of the first scholars to write a study of the emerging field of Indian writing in English.
Arnab Ray is an Indian novelist, blogger, podcaster who currently lives in the United States. While finishing his PhD at Stony Brook University, he started his blog with the name Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind, in August 2004, using Greatbong as his pen name. The blog focuses on satirical social and political commentary.
The Bengal Club is a social and business club in Kolkata, India. Founded in 1827, the club is the oldest social club in India. When Kolkata was the capital of British India, the club was considered to be the "unofficial headquarters of the Raj". The club is nowadays known for its old-world ambience and patronage among contemporary social and corporate elites, and is among a small number of Indian clubs featured in the elite list of the "Platinum Clubs of the World".
Yash Dasgupta is an Indian actor, television personality, politician. He works Hindi and Bengali Film industry. He started his career in television, and his movie debut was in the 2016 Bengali film Gangster, his upcoming Bollywood debut film Yaariyan 2. He was listed as the most desirable man in the Calcutta Times list of Most Desirable men in 2014, 2015 and 2020.
Vish Dhamija is a British Indian crime-fiction writer. According to the Indian Press he is India's Best Page-Turner and one of the ten most popular Indian thriller authors. He is the only writer of Indian origin listed among the major legal thriller authors of the world. He is also known for his psychological thrillers. In August 2015, at the release of his first legal fiction Déjà Karma, Glimpse Magazine called him India's John Grisham for stimulating the genre of legal fiction in India which was almost non-existent before his arrival on the scene. In a survey by eBooks India website, Vish Dhamija was listed along the top 51 Indian authors you must follow. The Asian Age and The Times of India have cited him as the only legal fiction writer in India.
Nisith Ranjan Ray was an Indian historian, social activist and the founder of the Society for Preservation, Calcutta, an organisation working for the preservation of the cultural heritage of Kolkata.
Shantanu Maheshwari is an Indian actor, dancer, choreographer and host. He debuted with the show Dil Dosti Dance on Channel V in his breakthrough performance as the protagonist Swayam Shekhawat. In 2017, he participated in Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 8 and emerged as the winner. He was also seen as a contestant on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 9 and Nach Baliye 9 and became a finalist in both. He is a part of the Desi Hoppers dance crew who emerged as the winners in the World of Dance 2015 Championship in Los Angeles. Maheshwari made his Bollywood debut in 2022, with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Gangubai Kathiawadi opposite Alia Bhatt.
Bong is a neologism that originated in cosmopolitan India in the 1980s as a slightly pejorative exonym for the educated middle-class Bengalis from the Indian state of West Bengal. In the 21st century, the term became a self-appellation of pride through the use of satire and self-reflexive irony by the Bengali blogging community, which came to stand for West Bengalis as a whole. Bong has been noted as a word of Indian English, used in the Indian newspapers.
Sunil K. Dutt is an Indian photographer and photojournalist.