THE WORLD PORTAL

DEEPIKA PADUKONE

The famous Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone was taken another duty in her life. She is the new brand ambassador of Johnson & Johnson’s new fairness cream ‘Neutrogena’. Deepika Padukone is one of the most famous actresses of Bollwood and appeared in many advertisements like Liril, Close-up and Limca.

BIOGRAPHY

Deepika Padukon was born on 5th January, 1986 in Copenhagen, Denmark as the daughter of famous badminton player Prakash Padukone and travel agent Ujjala. She gained her school education from ‘Sophia High School’ and graduation from ‘Mount Carmel College’, Bangalore. She showed interest in badminton in her school days, but rejected this interest to concentrate on exams. She turned into modeling in her college days and appeared in many advertisements like Liril, Close-up and Limca. She was the brand ambassador for Jewels of India, a jewelry exhibition and the face of Maybelline, an international brand. She also appeared in the 2006 Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar. She gained popularity in modeling by winning the ‘Model of the Year’ title by the fifth Kingfisher Fashion Awards. She also gained “Female Model of the Year and “Fresh Face of the Year” award at the Idea Zee Fashion Awards ceremony. Deepika started her acting career by appearing in a song ‘Naam Hai Tera’ for the pop album “Aap Kaa Surroor” by Himesh Reshammiya. In 2006, she started her film career with a Kannada film “Aishwarya” opposite Upendra, who is one of the leading stars in the Kannada film industry. Her Bollywood career started with the film “Om Shanthi Om” opposite Shah Rukh Khan, the king of Bollywood. This film was super hit, and she won ‘Filmfare Best Female Debut Award’ and ‘Filmfare Best Actress nomination’ for her performance of this film. Deepika’s other notable films are “Bachna Ae Haseeno”, “Chandni Chowk to China”, “Love Aaj Kal” and her upcoming films are “Karthik Calling Karthik” and “Housefull”. She was dating with Bollywood’s current heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor, and now they broke the relationship between them.

AWARDS AND HONORS

Deepika had gained many awards and honors in her shortest period of acting career. She gained ‘Filmfare Best Female Debut Award’ and ‘Filmfare Best Actress Award nomination’for the film “Om Shanti Om” in 2008. She was also chosen for ‘Sony Head N Shoulders Fresh Face of the Year Award’ in 2008. In addition, she gained many awards including ‘Star Screen Awards’, ‘Zee Cine Awards’, ‘IIFA Awards’, ‘Apsara Film and Television Producers Guild Awards’, ‘Asian Film Awards’ etc for her performance in the super hit film “Om Shanti Om”.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN

There is no need to introduce Ustad Zakir Hussain to the music lovers of the world, because he is the world’s best Tabla player. Now he increased his achievements by gaining the nomination for ‘52nd Grammy award’ in the ‘Best Classical Crossover album category’ for his album “The Melody of Rhythm”. He is the two time winner of ‘Grammy award’. Earlier, he won the ‘Grammy Award’ for the album “Global Drum Project ” in ‘Best Contemporary World Music Album’ and also his album “Planet Drum” won the ‘Grammy Award’ in ‘Best World Music Album’ category. Zakir Hussain is famous in both in the field of percussion and in the music world. His musical brilliance is spread not only in India, but in the whole world.

BIOGRAPHY

Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain was born on 9th March of 1951 in Bombay as the son of well known tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha. He gained his school eduaction from St:Micheal’s High School in Mahim and gratuation from St: Xaviers College of mumbai. At the age of five, Zakir Hussain started to learn tabla from his father and began his professional career at the age of seven. He first appeared on the stage at the age of 12. At the age of 19, this tabla player went to United States to capture international status. His contributions to the music world is outstanding. He conducted 150 concerts in a year, and he has composed and recorded many albums and soundtracks. Thus he becomes famous as a composer. He is the most versatile tabla player, and he had worked on several works of fusions with Indian and foreign artists. His historic collaborations includes ‘Shakti’, which he started with John McLaughlin and L. Shankar, the ‘Diga Rhythm Band’, ‘Making Music’, ‘Planet Drum’ with Mickey Hart, the Hong Kong Symphony and the ‘New Orleans Symphony’ etc. He had performed at a variety of concerts, includes both Eastern and Western classical music together with jazz, rock and fusion. His first solo “Making Music” is considered as one of the most inspired East-West fusion albums ever recorded. He also composed soundtracks for the films like “Custody”, “The Mystic Masseur” , “Vanaprastham”, “Saaz”, and “Everybody Says I’m Fine”. He had worked with many western and Indian artists. His recording credits include albums with George Harrison, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison, Jack Bruce, Tito Puente, Pharoah Saunders, Billy Cobham, the Hong Kong Symphony and the New Orleans Symphony. He is also practiced with other percussion instruments like dholak and khol. Hussain is married to Kathak Dancer and teacher Antonia Minnecola, an Italian American, and they have two daughters Anisa Qureshi and Isabella Qureshi. This legendary person brought Indian Music on the International panorama and is still continuing his journey with melodious music of tabla.

AWARDS AND HONORS

Zakir Hussain’s achievements are unbelievable, and he got many honors and awards. He is the winner of Grammy award for two times. The first being in 1992 for his album ‘Planet Drum’ and second for his album ‘Global Drum Project’ for the ‘Best Contemporary World Music Album’. The Government of India honored him by giving the ‘Padma Bhushan’ in 2002, and Padma Shri’ in 1988 for his outstanding contribution to Indian music. In addition, he gained countless awards which includes ‘Sangeet Natak Academi Award’ in 1991, ‘Kalidas Samman’ in 2006, ‘Indo-American Award’ in 1990 and in 2007, readers’ polls from both modern drummer and drum! magazines named him best world music and best worldbeat drummer respectively. He is also the recipient of the 1999 National Heritage Fellowship of United States. He worked as visiting professor at Princeton University and Stanford University. Now he is the member of Bill Laswell’s ‘World Music Supergroup’ Tabla Beat Science. In addition, he is the member of ‘Global Drum Project’ with famous percussionists like Mickey Hart, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgofrom from around the world. In short, Zakir Hussain’ is a master of entertainment and his imagination and ability to create vivid sounds on the tabla is simply beautiful. Wah! Ustad is really a magician of tabla.