title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: After reforming in early 2009, Blink-182 toured worldwide, and released its sixth studio album, "Neighborhoods" in 2011. The band members recorded the majority of the album on their own in different studios, an extension of their pre-break-up miscommunication. They parted ways with their record label, Interscope in 2012, later self-releasing an extended play, "Dogs Eating Dogs", that holiday season. Plans for a seventh Blink-182 album were delayed numerous times, reportedly due to guitarist Tom DeLonge's involvement in his other group, Angels & Airwaves, as well as other projects. In the interim, the band mounted an anniversary tour for its self-titled fifth album, and headlined the Reading and Leeds festivals. By the time DeLonge spoke to "Rock Sound" in November 2014, there was still little work completed on the album: "We're just getting to that point of starting ... there's no timeline at the moment." By the time a record deal was finalized one month later, DeLonge backed out of recording and performing commitments by email—which led bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker to seek legal separation from him in what Hoppus described as a "friendly divorce".


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Hoppus soon revealed that it was "a very, very difficult struggle" to corral DeLonge into working with the group, while Barker asserted that DeLonge's behavior was motivated by money. He also claimed that he quit the band more than once prior to the group's separation. DeLonge countered these accusations by arguing that he was being forced to drop his other projects, calling their actions "defensive and divisive." As he continued to pursue said projects—including a solo album composed of purported Blink-182 demos, "To the Stars... Demos, Odds and Ends"—he related to the press that he was "totally willing and interested in playing with those guys again." Meanwhile, Blink-182 performed two club shows and a slot at the Musink Tattoo Convention & Music Festival in March 2015 with Alkaline Trio vocalist/guitarist Matt Skiba filling in for DeLonge. Barker and Hoppus met with Skiba over a lunch to discuss filling in for DeLonge and began rehearsals with the group. After the shows, Skiba returned to Alkaline Trio for a string of dates and also released "Kuts", an album from his other band, The Sekrets. After legal battles with DeLonge were worked out, Skiba rejoined Blink-182 as an official member, and the trio began preparations for new music in August 2015. The trio initially began writing together for the first time at Barker's studio, Opra Music in North Hollywood, in September 2015. The group wrote and recorded demos for upwards of 30–40 songs.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "California" was produced by John Feldmann and recorded at his studio, Foxy Studios, in Woodland Hills, California between January and March 2016. Feldmann, initially the frontman of the band Goldfinger, became better known for his production work with artists such as 5 Seconds of Summer and All Time Low. Barker was the first to reach out to Feldmann about producing, as the two were good friends. He had known the members of Blink-182 for over two decades, as the group had previously performed shows with Goldfinger. He is the first new producer to work with Blink-182 since the death of the band's longtime producer, Jerry Finn, who last worked with the band in 2003. Feldmann "worshipped" Finn and his approach to producing. "I never thought there'd be anybody that could come even close to replacing Jerry, and John is really the closest that we've come to someone who could fill that capacity," said Hoppus.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: The group initially invited Feldmann to hear its demos, and he suggested that the band regroup at his studio the next day to make a fresh start. The next day, the group wrote three songs, including the lead single "Bored to Death". As the band continued to write and record, the trio chose to shelve their earlier recordings and proceeded to write 28 songs in a period of 3–4 weeks. Half of these songs were chosen to be put on the finalized album, in addition to two joke songs. Barker fought for all 28 songs to be on the album, as he felt fans had waited long enough for more new music. The trio, as well as Feldmann, regularly stayed in the studio for up to 18 hours a day. The band members would arrive at the studio with no plan for what to work on for the day. They would then write several songs in only a few hours, aiming to complete them by the end of the night. Feldmann asked the members to consider what Blink-182, as a group, are all about, to inspire the songwriting. He would encourage the musicians to write with speed, which Hoppus admitted could be frustrating. "John was like, 'Okay: We've got the song structure. Write lyrics. Go in there and sing it. Go in there and sing it.' Sometimes, I was like, 'I'm not ready to sing!' (and Feldmann would reply) 'No. Go write something great right now!'" Barker was more supportive of this method based on his work with the Transplants, which had a similar speedy approach. "I always feel like your first instinct is your best," Barker remarked.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Feldmann felt it was a challenge to work with a new version of Blink-182 while both keeping its legacy and moving the group into a new territory. Feldmann's "agenda was to have an album that was palatable for a generation of ADD kids." The band members and Feldmann felt a breakthrough in direction with the song "Cynical", which they immediately chose as the opening song on the album. According to Hoppus, the band recorded a total of nearly 50 songs. By mid-February, the album was "70–80%" complete, according to Barker, and work was reportedly completed in early March 2016. By the end of March, the group were still narrowing down the songs that would be present on the album. The trio posted their progress via their respective social media accounts during the recording, in the form of Snapchat and Instagram clips. All parties seemed satisfied with the record. While recording, Barker told an interviewer that "It's honestly the best material we've written or put out in years. I haven't been excited about a Blink album like this in a long time." Feldmann commented, "I'm just so excited to have people hear it. I'd say it's one of the best records I've ever made in my life."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Hoppus considered the music on the album wide-ranging, commenting, "We tried to capture the energy and not worry so much about all the knobs." This includes songs he felt sounded like the group circa 1999, "super-fast late-Nineties-punk-rock-sounding songs," as well as more progressive songs "that are like nothing we have ever done before." Overall, he considered the record "really rich with sing-along melodies and sing-along choruses," which was what he preferred most when listening to bands. Feldmann considered the music not a "huge departure" from the band's usual sound, as hoped to make a "classic Blink record." To familiarize himself, he listened to all of the band's catalogue prior to recording. Lisa Worden, music director at Los Angeles radio station KROQ, compared its sound to the second Blink-182 album, "Dude Ranch", and commented, "It sounds like Blink but it's not anything that we've heard before. For fans of the band, they're going to be super happy with it." Critics described the album categorically as alternative rock, pop-punk, and punk rock.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Hoppus considered his lyrical content relatively similar to the group's prior releases: "The topics are universal. There is a lot of angst that could be teen angst or it could be angst of everyday life. I still have the same emotions I had 20 years ago – I get frustrated or I get excited. I still feel like I'm falling in love with my wife." Hoppus considered common topics he wrote about to be "miscommunication, loss of identity and questioning of identity which is a process we went through just by being in the studio, writing a new Blink record and having a new iteration of Blink." Though in the past he preferred to ruminate on his lyrics for days on end, Feldmann's speedy process gave Hoppus little time to process them. Despite this, he felt he wrote "some of the best lyrics I've written in a long time for this record, because I didn't have a chance to go and overthink things." Hoppus's self-doubt on his own creative process is referenced in the opening lyrics of "Cynical". "I start every song with this fear, thinking I'm never going to write another good song," he told "Upset". Skiba said that at the time of writing the album, he and Hoppus were both reading books such as "", "Blood Meridian", and "The Revenant", and he felt the prose impacted their lyrics: "there were a lot of rushing rivers and the whole idea of using metaphors to describe loneliness, just like settler, Native American and Southern Gothic influence of literature, that was kind of our rhyming dictionary."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "Cynical" was proposed by Feldmann as a faster song, reminiscent of the band's past work. Hoppus wrote the song about "thinking the world is in a cynical place," but also as a mission statement as a new version of Blink-182. "Bored to Death" was the first song the band recorded with Feldmann on the group's first day of work with him. "She's Out of Her Mind" namedrops the post-punk band Bauhaus in the words. It was the result of multiple rewrites, with each draft attempting to perfect the chorus preceding it. Hoppus called it a "simple love song." "Los Angeles" was meant to show a heavier, more "experimental" version of the band. The song is centered on the band's adopted hometown; its lyrics reference the demolition of the Sixth Street Bridge in LA. Hoppus described "Sober" as "about rebuilding [and] finding yourself, and knowing that you're in a troubled place but striving to get to somewhere better." Its subject matter is based around two experiences: one when Skiba was a bicycle messenger in Chicago and was struck by a car, and another a fictional story of a "drunken night with a girlfriend". Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy collaborated with the band, his initial idea being "what could Blink be on modern rock radio in 2016?" "Built This Pool" is a short joke song with homoerotic lyrics. The audible "is that really it?" heard at the end of the song was a genuine reaction from Barker.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "No Future" was nearly cut from the record. It was inspired by punk rock history, as many songs—for example, the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen"—contain a "no future" lyric. "Home Is Such a Lonely Place" is a ballad with "clean arpeggiated finger-picking guitars with strings underneath it." Its lyrics are themed around lost love; it emerged from an early-morning coffee meeting between Hoppus and Feldmann, who both imagined how lonely their homes would be when their children grow up and move away. "Kings of the Weekend" was also nearly moved off the final track listing, but kept because of its recognizable guitar riff. Feldmann described it as "the party song. We've all had day jobs and we all know what it's like to have that day off to do what we want." "Teenage Satellites" is based around "being a kid and not knowing who you are, not having enough courage to say what you mean." It was the last song recorded for the album, and it was at first written without a hook or melody in mind. "Left Alone" made the album cut because the band liked Skiba's vocal performance. "Rabbit Hole" was one of Hoppus' favorites, and revolves around "standing your ground and not falling for people's nonsense."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "San Diego" is centered on the band's original hometown and on a deeper level, relationships with the group's former bandmate, Tom DeLonge. According to Feldmann, it was a song Hoppus did not want to write. "There's clearly a lot of feelings involved with having a best friend who is not in your band anymore," Feldmann said. For him, the song "acts as a bittersweet homage, a goodbye to this city ... while acknowledging the interpersonal relationships within the band." Stump also collaborated in the writing process for "San Diego". "The Only Thing That Matters" originally began as a cowpunk-infused number until Hoppus re-wrote it. "California" is about "giving credit to how lucky we are to have lived here and grown up" in California. "Brohemian Rhapsody"—its title a pun on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"—is another joke song with the sole lyric "There's something about you I can't quite put my finger in." Hoppus and Feldmann wrote and recorded the song in nine minutes.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: The album's artwork was created by English street artist D*Face. Barker was a fan of his work, having bought many of his pieces at his galleries in the past. According to D*Face, the trio "wanted the artwork to represent California, but with a subversive side to show that it's not always great and there's always something under the surface, in the underbelly." The artist was particularly busy, and employed pre-existing but unfinished illustration for the album cover. He also offered two alternate pieces that were rejected, but later posted on "NME" website. Skiba and Barker were pleased, but Hoppus was not as immediately receptive, according to the artist. While he did not admit to being a fan of the group, D*Face was happy with the commission, commenting, "To have a band with such a great legacy and talent like Blink ask to work with you is a great honour and privilege."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: The title "California" is representative of the band's home state, and was picked after the band members realized that they had written multiple songs relating to its cities and culture. The title was also inspired by the season and Feldmann's studio: "It was a perfect California winter, and it was sunny and hot every single day. John's studio, it's basically indoor-outdoor with palm trees everywhere." Though he refrained from dubbing it a concept album, Skiba considered the songs linked thematically: "big and bright and huge and dark and twisted, everything that California is." "The title of this album was one of the most difficult things I've done in my entire life," said Hoppus. Alternate titles for the album included "No Future", which was dropped because it seemed too negative, and the joke titles "OB-GYN Kenobi", "Nude Erection", and "No Hard Feelings". D*Face also reported that the titles "Los Angeles" and "Riot" were nearly used.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "California" was announced alongside the lead single, "Bored to Death", on Los Angeles radio station KROQ on April 27, 2016. A music video, directed by Rob Soucy, was released on June 20. The group released an additional three songs—"Built This Pool" on May 5, "Rabbit Hole" on June 8, and "No Future" on June 23—and also performed "Brohemian Rhapsody" in live concerts prior to the album's release. "California" was released on July 1. The date is typically the 182nd day of the year, but due to it being a leap year, it was the 183rd. "She's Out of Her Mind" was announced as the second official single on August 1, 2016 and sent to radio October 11. "Home Is Such a Lonely Place" was sent to alternative radio as the third official single April 18, 2017.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "California" was the band's first and only release through independent service BMG Rights Management, and was among BMG's first releases through its distribution deal with the Alternative Distribution Alliance. The album was initially slated to be self-released, but they decided to work with BMG when that label acquired Vagrant Records. Vagrant had a promotional team that, according to Blink's manager Lawrence Varra, understood the culture surrounding the band and genre. The deal allowed the band and its management to be in near-complete control of the release and promotion of "California". "We didn't have to listen to a major label spend the money they wanted to spend, [and] we'd just spend it ourselves the way we wanted to," said Varra. Rather than "window" the album — an industry term for its release being exclusively physical for a period of time — the team chose to release "California" as wide as possible. "We wanted the music to be accessible to the younger kids who listen to it on YouTube and Spotify and different places," he said. In addition, they employed ticketing tiers for the "California" Tour, making it possible for hardcore fans to obtain the best seats, but also allowing it to be affordable for more casual fans. However, a hit was not guaranteed: "I was speculative leading up, and nervous. This record could have gone either way," said Jon Cohen, EVP of recorded music for BMG.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: In December 2016 the band revealed they were in the process of recording more material for a deluxe edition re-release of the album. "It's a double album at this point and it’s more of an extension of what we did in the studio earlier. Some of the songs were songs that we did not put on the first album, but are great songs. And some are brand new that we just wrote last week," Hoppus said to "Billboard". On February 28, 2017, Hoppus replied to a message on Twitter in regards of the deluxe edition, stating that it is set to release on May 19, 2017. On March 16, 2017, "Parking Lot" was released as the first song from the deluxe edition.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "California" has received mixed to positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 63 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews" based on seventeen reviews. AllMusic's Neil Z. Yeung dubbed the record "their best in 15 years," considering it "a return to form and an admirable maturation of the band's classic pop-punk sound ... It's not a desperate grasp at youth and faded glory, but rather a reflective look back and an expert execution of what they do best." Gav Lloyd from "Rock Sound" wrote that "Blink-182 have delivered an album that recalls everything that makes this band great and gives it all a fresh twist, the end result is "California" being amongst the best albums they've ever produced." "NME" Charlotte Gunn felt "California" "has the humour, pace, emotion and huge choruses of a classic Blink record." Evan Lucy at "Alternative Press" felt it "upbeat, hooky and, above anything else, a total blast." "Exclaim!"'s Josiah Hughes was more critical, calling it "uneven and disjointed" and "hard to take in as one larger whole".


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Jon Dolan of "Rolling Stone" considered it the band's catchiest music since their heyday, summarizing, "At its best, "California" shows Blink trying new ways to freshen up yesterday's racket." Jon Caramanica at "The New York Times" found it "pleasantly familiar if not especially imaginative ... the album [is] full of songs that have achieved their purpose by the halfway mark." Andrew Unterberger of "Spin" felt DeLonge's presence was missed, describing it as "fine, fun, and overall kinda "meh"." Aidan Reynolds from "Drowned in Sound" noted "California sounds like the work of a band filled with the joy of existence, giving in to every pop indulgence or production trick that could stuff in one more hook before the end. There are pick-scrapes and 'whoah-oh' backing vocals EVERYWHERE, and even the dumb, seconds-long throwaway tracks have their own charm."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: A number of reviewers found the album overly long, while others felt Feldmann was too much of an influence. Mike Damante at the "Houston Chronicle" said "Feldmann's style is all over the record, as most tracks sound too formulaic, similar and run together. Other tracks are way too commercial, even for a band the size of blink. ... "California" is ultimately a step back, rather than a throwback." David Anthony from "The A.V. Club" gave the album a C−, commenting, ""California" is the sound of Blink-182 desperately trying to remain relevant by outsourcing its creativity. [It] is another homogenous addition to Feldmann's growing résumé. But this time he unintentionally removed the soul of pop-punk's clown princes in the process." Nina Corcoran from "Consequence of Sound" was similarly negative: "When not cranking the compression on the vocals, Feldmann ruins other songs with nonstop gimmicks: the piano interludes, the stiffened handclaps, the sappy title track." Gwilym Mumford of the "Guardian", focusing on the album's turbulent history regarding the departure of DeLonge, deemed the album "a tired – and tiring – work."


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Blink-182 were nominated for the award for Best Rock Album. "California" lost to Cage the Elephant's "Tell Me I'm Pretty".


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: "California" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, moving 186,000 equivalent album units; it sold 172,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's streaming activity and track sales. It marked the band's second number one album and first in over 15 years, when "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" debuted at number one in 2001. It also knocked Drake's "Views" from the summit after having spent nine weeks at the top. The album became the band's first to top the charts in the United Kingdom, selling 24,000 copies in its debut week. The album also managed to reach higher chart positions worldwide than its predecessor "Neighborhoods" and outsold both its first-week and total sales in the US. As of December 2016, "California" has sold 408,000 units in the United States; making it the ninth best selling rock album of 2016. The album re-entered the "Billboard" 200 at number 17 in the week of the deluxe edition release.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: Following the band's first performances with Skiba in 2015, Barker alluded to a potential tour with rock group A Day to Remember. Performances promoting "California" began on May 14, 2016 with the group's surprise appearance at KROQ Weenie Roast in Irvine, California. Prior to the main headlining tour, the group embarked on the We Are Pirates Tour, performing at several festivals and amphitheaters between May and July 2016. The festivals included X Games Austin 2016, Firefly Music Festival, Big Field Day, Amnesia Rockfest, and Kerfuffle 2016. Hoppus and Skiba also performed several acoustic sets in England in June 2016. The main tour behind "California" began on July 21 in San Diego and its North American leg concluded on October 7 in Irvine. The trek was supported by A Day to Remember, as well as the All-American Rejects, All Time Low, and DJ Spider. Afterwards, the group again performed acoustic sets in the U.K., and also performed at various festivals and events, including Not So Silent Night, Holiday Havoc, Wrex the Halls, and KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. The band also played the AT&T Developer Summit and the Phoenix Open in early 2017.


title: California (Blink-182 album)

text: A second U.S. leg began in March 2017, with support from the Naked and Famous and Wavves. The band embarked on a European tour between June and July 2017, including spots at the Nova Rock Festival, the I-Days Festival, Hurricane Festival and Southside Festival, Roskilde Festival, and the Download Festival. Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls and the Front Bottoms opened for the group for much of the tour. The "California" Tour grossed more than $28.9 million from its first U.S. leg, with a total attendance of 745,395. The tour concluded in late 2017 with spots at Lollapalooza, and the Life is Beautiful festival.


title: Pierre Aubameyang

text: Pierre-François Aubameyang (also spelled Aubame-Eyang; born 29 May 1965) is a Gabonese former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He spent most of his career at French clubs Stade Lavallois and Le Havre. At international level, he won 29 caps for the Gabon national team. He also holds a French passport. He is the father of Catilina, Willy and Pierre-Emerick.


title: Pierre Aubameyang

text: During his time at Stade Lavallois, Aubameyang became so sick he could not walk. His then-teammate, Franck Leboeuf, claims that the malady was healed by a marabout with black magic after medical doctors could not cure him.


title: Pierre Aubameyang

text: In September 2018, he was reported to have become joint managers of the Gabon national team with Daniel Cousin. However, a few days later, his son, Pierre-Emerick, said he had not accepted the position. The Gabonese FA admitted they had made an error, and that Cousin was the sole manager.


title: Doug Cockle

text: Cockle is known for his voice-over roles in video games, most notably of Geralt of Rivia in "The Witcher" series. He was nominated for a Game Award for Best Performance and won Golden Joystick Award Best Gaming Performance for his portrayal of Geralt in "".


title: Indian literature

text: Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognised languages.


title: Indian literature

text: The earliest works of Indian literature were orally transmitted. Sanskrit literature begins with the oral literature of the Rig Veda, a collection of literature dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" were subsequently codified and appeared towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit literature developed rapidly during the first few centuries of the first millennium BCE, as did the Pāli Canon and Tamil Sangam literature.


title: Indian literature

text: In the medieval period, literature in Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 9th and 10th centuries respectively. Later, literature in Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, Odia, and Maithili appeared. Thereafter literature in various dialects of Hindi, Persian and Urdu began to appear as well. In 1913, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore became India's first Nobel laureate in literature. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and the Jnanpith Award. Eight Jnanpith Awards each have been awarded in Hindi and Kannada, followed by five in Bengali and Malayalam, four in Odia, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Urdu, two each in Assamese and Tamil, and one each in Sanskrit and Kashmiri۔


title: Indian literature

text: Examples of early works written in Vedic Sanskrit include, the core Vedas and Upanishads. Other examples include the Sulba Sutras, which are some of the earliest texts on geometry.


title: Indian literature

text: Ved Vyasa's "Mahabharata" and Valmiki's "Ramayana", written in Epic Sanskrit, are regarded as the greatest Sanskrit epics.


title: Indian literature

text: The famous poet and playwright Kālidāsa wrote one epic: "Raghuvamsha" ("Dynasty of Raghu"); it was written in Classical Sanskrit rather than Epic Sanskrit. Other examples of works written in Classical Sanskrit include the Pāṇini's "Ashtadhyayi", which standardised the grammar and phonetics of Classical Sanskrit. The "Laws of Manu"(मनुस्मृति) is a famous text in Hinduism. Kālidāsa is often considered to be the greatest playwright in Sanskrit literature and one of the greatest poets in Sanskrit literature; his "Recognition of Shakuntala"(अभिज्ञानशाकुन्तलम्) and "Meghaduuta" are the most famous Sanskrit plays. Other famous plays include "Mricchakatika" by Shudraka, "Svapna Vasavadattam" by Bhasa, and "Ratnavali" by Sri Harsha. Later poetic works include "Gita Govinda" by Jayadeva. Some other famous works are Chanakya's "Arthashastra" and Vatsyayana's "Kamasutra".


title: Indian literature

text: The most notable Prakrit languages were the Jain Prakrit (Ardhamagadhi), Pali, Gāndhārī, Maharashtri and Shauraseni.


title: Indian literature

text: One of the earliest extant Prakrit works is Hāla's anthology of poems in Maharashtri, the Gāhā Sattasaī, dating to the 3rd to 5th century CE. Kālidāsa and Harsha also used Maharashtri in some of their plays and poetry. In Jainism, many Svetambara works were written in Maharashtri.


title: Indian literature

text: Many of Aśvaghoṣa's plays were written in Shauraseni as were a sizable number of Jain works and Rajasekhara's "Karpuramanjari". Canto 13 of the Bhaṭṭikāvya is written in what is called "like the vernacular" ("bhāṣāsama"), that is, it can be read in two languages simultaneously: Prakrit and Sanskrit.


title: Indian literature

text: The surviving Gāndhāran Buddhist texts are written in the Gāndhārī language, a northwestern prakrit spoken in Gandhāra.


title: Indian literature

text: The Theravada Buddhist Tipitaka (Triple Basket) in the Pali language is mostly of Indian origin. Later Pali literature however was mostly produced outside of the mainland Indian subcontinent, particularly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.


title: Indian literature

text: The canonical Pali literature includes Buddhist discourses ("suttas"), Abhidharma works, poetry, works on monastic discipline ("vinaya"), and the "Jataka tales". There are also later post-canonical works written in India, such as the "Milindapanha", a dialogue between a Buddhist monk and an Indo-Greek King.


title: Indian literature

text: The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், "Sanga ilakkiyam)" is the ancient Tamil literature of the period in the history of south India (known as the Thamizhagam or the Tamilagam) spanning from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE (Akananuru (1, 15, 31, 55, 61, 65, 91, 97, 101, 115, 127, 187, 197, 201, 211, 233, 251, 265, 281, 311, 325, 331, 347, 349, 359, 393, 281, 295), Kurunthogai (11), Natrinai (14, 75) are dated before 300 BCE). This collection contains 2381 poems in Tamil composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous.


title: Indian literature

text: Most of the available Sangam literature is from the Third Sangam, this period is known as the Sangam period, which refers to the prevalent Sangam legends claiming literary academies lasting thousands of years, giving the name to the corpus of literature. The Only religious poems among the shorter poems occur in "paripaatal". The rest of the corpus of Sangam literature deals with human relationship and emotions.


title: Indian literature

text: Sangam literature deals with emotional and material topics such as love, war, governance, trade and bereavement. Some of the greatest Tamil scholars, like Thiruvalluvar, who wrote on ethics, and on the various issues of life like virtue, wealth and love, or the Tamil poet Mamulanar, who explored historical incidents that happened in India, lived during the Sangam period.


title: Indian literature

text: The Buddhist Charyapadas are often cited as the earliest example of Assamese literature. The Charyapadas are Vajrayana Buddhist songs composed in the 8th to 12th centuries. These writings bear similarities to Oriya and Bengali languages as well. The phonological and morphological traits of these songs, some of which are extant, bear very strong resemblance to Assamese.


title: Indian literature

text: After the Charyapadas, the period may again be split into (a) Pre-Vaishnavite and (b) Vaishnavite sub-periods. The earliest known Assamese writer is Hema Saraswati, who wrote a small poem "Prahlada Charita". In the time of the King Indranarayana (1350–1365) of Kamatapur the two poets Harihara Vipra and Kaviratna Saraswati composed Asvamedha Parva and Jayadratha Vadha respectively. Another poet named Rudra Kandali translated Drona Parva into Assamese. But the most well-known poet of the Pre-Vaishnavite sub period is Madhav Kandali, who rendered Valmiki's Ramayana into Assamese verse (Kotha Ramayana, 11th century) under the patronage of Mahamanikya, a Kachari king of Jayantapura.


title: Indian literature

text: Assamese writers of Vaishnavite periods had been Srimanta Sankardev, Madhabdev, Damodardev, Haridevand Bhattadev. Among these, Srimanta Sankardev has been widely acknowledged as the top Assamese littérateur of all-time, and generally acknowledged as the one who introduced drama, poetry, classical dance form called Satriya, classical music form called Borgeet, art and painting, stage enactment of drama called Bhaona and Satra tradition of monastic lifestyle. His main disciples Madhabdev and Damodardev followed in his footsteps, and enriched Assamese literary world with their own contributions. Damodardev's disciple Bhattadev is acknowledged as the first Indian prose writer, who introduced the unique prose writing style in Assamese.


title: Indian literature

text: Of the post-Vaishnavite age of Assamese literature, notable modern Assamese writers are Lakshminath Bezbaruah, Padmanath Gohain Baruah, Hemchandra Goswami, Hem Chandra Barua, Atul Chandra Hazarika, Nalini Bala Devi, Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya, Amulya Barua, Navakanta Barua, Syed Abdul Malik, Bhabananda Deka, Jogesh Das, Homen Borgohain, Bhabendra Nath Saikia, Lakshmi Nandan Bora, Nirmal Prabha Bordoloi, Mahim Bora, Hiren Gohain, Arun Sharma, Hiren Bhattacharyya, Mamoni Raisom Goswami, Nalini Prava Deka, Nilamani Phukan, Arupa Kalita Patangia, Dhrubajyoti Bora, Arnab Jan Deka, Rita Chowdhury, Anuradha Sharma Pujari, Manikuntala Bhattacharya, Sananta Tanty, Nabakanta Barua, Samir Tanty, and several others.


title: Indian literature

text: A comprehensive introductory book "Assamese Language-Literature & Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbaroa" originally authored by leading Assamese littérateur of "Awahon-Ramdhenu Era" and pioneer Assam economist Bhabananda Deka together with his three deputies, Parikshit Hazarika, Upendra Nath Goswami and Prabhat Chandra Sarma, was published in 1968. This book was officially released in New Delhi on 24 Nov 1968 by then President of India Dr Zakir Hussain in commemoration of the birth centenary celebration of doyen of Assamese literature Lakshminath Bezbaroa. After almost half a century, this historic book has been recovered and re-edited by Assamese award-winning short-story writer & novelist Arnab Jan Deka, which was published by Assam Foundation-India in 2014. This second enlarged edition was officially released on 4 December 2014 on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Lakshminath Bezbaroa and 8th Death Anniversary of Bhabananda Deka by Great Britain-based bilingual magazine "Luit to Thames" ("Luitor Pora Thamsoloi") editor Dr Karuna Sagar Das.


title: Indian literature

text: The first evidence of Bengali literature is known as Charyapada or Charyageeti, which were Buddhist hymns from the 8th century. Charyapada is in the oldest known written form of Bengali. The famous Bengali linguist Hara Prasad Shastri discovered the palm leaf Charyapada manuscript in the Nepal Royal Court Library in 1907.


title: Indian literature

text: The most internationally famous Bengali writer is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his work "Gitanjali". He wrote the national anthem of India and Bangladesh namely, "Jana Gana Mana" and "Amar Sonar Bangla", respectively. He was the first Asian who won the Nobel Prize.


title: Indian literature

text: Rabindranath has written an enormous number of poems, songs, essays, novels, plays and short stories. His songs remain popular and are still widely sung in Bengal.


title: Indian literature

text: Kazi Nazrul Islam, who is one generation younger than Tagore, is also equally popular, valuable, and influential in socio-cultural context of the Bengal, though virtually unknown in foreign countries. And among later generation poets, Jibanananda Das is considered the most important figure.


title: Indian literature

text: Other famous Indian Bengali writers were Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Jasimuddin, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay etc.


title: Indian literature

text: Sukanta Bhattacharya (15 August 1926 – 13 May 1947) was a Bengali poet and playwright. Along with Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam, he was one of the key figures of modern Bengali poetry, despite the fact that most of his works had been in publication posthumously. During his life, his poems were not widely circulated, but after his death his reputation grew to the extent that he became one of the most popular Bengali poet of the 20th century.


title: Indian literature

text: As a result of the Bengal Renaissance in the 19th and 20th centuries, many of India's most famous, and


title: Indian literature

text: In the history of Bengali literature there has been only one pathbreaking literary movement by a group of poets and artists who called themselves Hungryalists.


title: Indian literature

text: Literature in Chhattisgarh reflects the regional consciousness and the evolution of an identity distinct from others in Central India. The social problems of the lower castes/untouchables were highlighted in the writings of Khub Chand Baghel through his plays "Jarnail Singh" and "Unch Neech".


title: Indian literature

text: In the 20th century, several Indian writers have distinguished themselves not only in traditional Indian languages but also in English, a language inherited from the British. As a result of British colonisation, India has developed its own unique dialect of English known as Indian English. Indian English typically follows British spelling and pronunciation as opposed to American, and books published in India reflect this phenomenon. Indian English literature, however, tends to utilise more internationally recognisable vocabulary then does colloquial Indian English, in the same way that American English literature does so as compared to American slang.


title: Indian literature

text: India's only Nobel laureate in literature was the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote some of his work originally in English, and did some of his own English translations from Bengali. India's best selling English-language novelists of all-time are the contemporary writers like Chetan Bhagat, Manjiri Prabhu and Ashok Banker. More recent major writers in English who are either Indian or of Indian origin and derive much inspiration from Indian themes are R. K. Narayan, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Raja Rao, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Mukul Kesavan, Raj Kamal Jha, Vikas Swarup, Khushwant Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sehgal, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Ashok Banker, Shashi Deshpande, Arnab Jan Deka, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Markandaya, Gita Mehta, Manil Suri, Manjiri Prabhu, Ruskin Bond, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Bharati Mukherjee.


title: Indian literature

text: In category of Indian writing in English is poetry. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and was responsible for the translations of his own work into English. Other early notable poets in English include Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Sri Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, and her brother Harindranath Chattopadhyay.


title: Indian literature

text: In the 1950s, the Writers Workshop collective in Calcutta was founded by the poet and essayist P. Lal to advocate and publish Indian writing in English. The press was the first to publish Pritish Nandy, Sasthi Brata, and others; it continues to this day to provide a forum for English writing in India. In modern times, Indian poetry in English was typified by two very different poets. Dom Moraes, winner of the Hawthornden Prize at the age of 19 for his first book of poems "A Beginning" went on to occupy a pre-eminent position among Indian poets writing in English. Nissim Ezekiel, who came from India's tiny Bene Israel Jewish community, created a voice and place for Indian poets writing in English and championed their work.


title: Indian literature

text: Their contemporaries in English poetry in India were Jayanta Mahapatra, Gieve Patel, A. K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Eunice De Souza, Kersi Katrak, P. Lal and Kamala Das among several others.


title: Indian literature

text: Younger generations of poets writing in English include G. S. Sharat Chandra, Hoshang Merchant, Makarand Paranjape, Anuradha Bhattacharyya, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Jeet Thayil, Ranjit Hoskote, Sudeep Sen, Abhay K, Jerry Pinto, K Srilata, Gopi Kottoor, Tapan Kumar Pradhan, Arnab Jan Deka, Anju Makhija, Robin Ngangom, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Smita Agarwal and Vihang A. Naik among others.


title: Indian literature

text: A generation of exiles also sprang from the Indian diaspora. Among these are names like Agha Shahid Ali, Sujata Bhatt, Richard Crasta, Yuyutsu Sharma, Shampa Sinha, Tabish Khair and Vikram Seth.


title: Indian literature

text: In recent years, English-language writers of Indian origin are being published in the West at an increasing rate.


title: Indian literature

text: Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Arvind Adiga have won the prestigious Booker Prize, with Salman Rushdie going on to win the Booker of Bookers.


title: Indian literature

text: Hindi literature started as religious and philosophical poetry in medieval periods in dialects like Avadhi and Brij. The most famous figures from this period are Kabir and Tulsidas. In modern times, the Dehlavi dialect of the Hindi Belt became more prominent than Sanskrit.


title: Indian literature

text: "Chandrakanta", written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, is considered to be the first work of prose in Hindi. Munshi Premchand was the most famous Hindi novelist. The "chhayavadi" poets include Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', Prem Bajpai, Jaishankar Prasad, Sumitranandan Pant, and Mahadevi Varma. Other renowned poets include Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Maithili Sharan Gupt, Agyeya, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and Dharmveer Bharti.


title: Indian literature

text: Gujarati literature's history may be traced to 1000 AD. Since then literature has flourished till date. Well known laureates of Gujarati literature are Hemchandracharya, Narsinh Mehta, Mirabai, Akho, Premanand Bhatt, Shamal Bhatt, Dayaram, Dalpatram, Narmad, Govardhanram Tripathi, Gandhi, K. M. Munshi, Umashankar Joshi, Suresh Joshi, Pannalal Patel and Rajendra Keshavlal Shah.


title: Indian literature

text: Gujarat Vidhya Sabha, Gujarat Sahitya Sabha, and Gujarati Sahitya Parishad are Ahmedabad based literary institutions promoting the spread of Gujarati literature.


title: Indian literature

text: Umashankar Joshi, Pannalal Patel, Rajendra Keshavlal Shah and Raghuveer Chaudhary have won the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award in India.


title: Indian literature

text: The oldest existing record of Kannada prose is the Halmidi inscription of 450 CE, and poetry in "tripadi" metre is the Kappe Arabhatta record of 700 CE. The folk form of literature began earlier than any other literature in Kannada. "Gajashtaka" (800 CE) by King Shivamara II, "Chudamani" (650 CE) by Thumbalacharya are examples of early literature now considered extinct. "Kavirajamarga" by King Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I (850 CE) is the earliest existing literary work in Kannada. It is a writing on literary criticism and poetics meant to standardise various written Kannada dialects used in literature in previous centuries. The book makes reference to Kannada works by early writers such as King Durvinita of the 6th century and Ravikirti, the author of the Aihole record of 636 CE. An early extant prose work, the "Vaddaradhane" by Shivakotiacharya of 900 CE provides an elaborate description of the life of Bhadrabahu of Shravanabelagola. Since the earliest available Kannada work is one on grammar and a guide of sorts to unify existing variants of Kannada grammar and literary styles, it can be safely assumed that literature in Kannada must have started several centuries earlier.


title: Indian literature

text: Pampa who popularised Champu style which is unique to Kannada wrote the epic "Vikramarjuna Vijaya". He also wrote "Adipurana". Other famous poets like Ponna wrote "shantinatapurana", "Bhuvanaikaramabhyudaya", "Jinaksharamale", and "gatapratyagata". Ranna wrote "Shantipurana" and "Ghadayudha". The Jain poet Nagavarma II wrote "Kavyavalokana", "Karnatabhashabhushana" and "Vardhamanapurana" . Janna was the author of "Yashodhara Charitha". Rudhrabhatta and Durgashima wrote "Jagannatha Vijaya" and "Panchatantra" respectively. The works of the medieval period are based on Jain and Hindu principles. The Vachana Sahitya tradition of the 12th century is purely native and unique in world literature. It is the sum of contributions by all sections of society. Vachanas were pithy comments on that period's social, religious and economic conditions. More importantly, they held a mirror to the seed of social revolution, which caused a radical re-examination of the ideas of caste, creed and religion. Some of the important writers of Vachana literature include Basavanna, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi. Kumara Vyasa, who wrote the "Karnata Bharata Katamanjari", has arguably been the most famous and most influential Kannada writer of the 15th century. The Bhakti movement gave rise to Dasa Sahitya around the 15th century which significantly contributed to the evolution of Carnatic music in its present form. This period witnessed great Haridasas like Purandara Dasa who has been aptly called the "Pioneer of Carnatic music", Kanaka Dasa, Vyasathirtha and Vijaya Dasa. Modern Kannada in the 20th century has been influenced by many movements, notably "Navodaya", "Navya", "Navyottara", "Dalita" and "Bandaya". Contemporary Kannada literature has been highly successful in reaching people of all classes in society. Works of Kannada literature have received Eight Jnanpith awards, which is the highest number awarded for the literature in any Indian language. It has also received forty-seven Sahitya Academy awards.


title: Indian literature

text: When Kodava was written, it was usually with Kannada script, sometimes with minor modifications. ... The language had no significant written literature until the twentieth century. Appachcha Kavi, a playwright, and Nadikerianda Chinnappa, a folk compiler, are the two important poets and writers of the Kodava language.


title: Indian literature

text: Konkani is a language with a complex and much-contested history. It is one of the few Indian languages to be written in five scripts—Roman, Nagari, Kannada, Persian-Arabic and Malayalam-and also has an extensive oral literature. The first modern Konkani novel, 'Kristanv ghorabo', was written by Eduardo Jose Bruno De Souza, while 'Mhaji ba khãya geli?' by Shenoy Goembab is the first modern short story in Konkani literature. Other prominent Konkani writers include Ravindra Kelekar, Bakibab Borkar, Chandrakant Keni, Damodar Mauzo, Arvind Mhambro, C. F. D'Costa, Pundalik Naik, Hema Naik, Bonaventure D'Pietro, Dilip Borkar, Mahabaleshwar Sail, V. J. P. Saldana, Meena kakodkar, Jess Fernandes, K. M. Sukhthankar, Nayana Adarkar.


title: Indian literature

text: Even up to 500 years since the start of the Malayalam calendar which commenced in 825 AD, Malayalam literature remained in preliminary stage. During this time, Malayalam literature consisted mainly of various genres of songs. "Ramacharitham" written by "Cheeramakavi" is a collection of poems written at the end of preliminary stage in Malayalam literature's evolution, and is the oldest Malayalam book available. Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan (17th century) is considered as the Father of the Malayalam language, because of his influence on the acceptance of the Malayalam alphabet and his extremely popular poetic works like Adhyathmaramayanam. Several noted works were written during the 19th century, but it was in the 20th century the Malayalam literary movement came to prominence. Malayalam literature flourished under various genres and today it is a fully developed part of Indian literature.


title: Indian literature

text: Maithili literature is the entire collection of poetry, novels, short stories, documents and other writings in the Maithili language. The most famous literary figure in Maithili is the poet Vidyapati (1350–1450), who wrote his poems in the language of the people, i.e., Maithili, at a time when state's official language was Sanskrit and Sanskrit was being used as a literary language. The use of Maithili, instead of Sanskrit, in literature became more common after Vidyapati.


title: Indian literature

text: Jyotirishwar mentions Lorika. Vachaspati II in his "Tattvachintamani" and Vidyapati in his "Danavakyavali" have profusely used typical Maithili words of daily use.


title: Indian literature

text: The Maithili script, Mithilakshara or Tirhuta as it is popularly known, is of a great antiquity. The "Lalitavistara" mentions the Vaidehi script. Early in the latter half of the 7th century A.D., a marked change occurred in the northeastern alphabet, and the inscriptions of Adityasena exhibit this change for the first time. The eastern variety develops and becomes the Maithili script, which comes into use in Assam, Bengal, and Nepal. The earliest recorded epigraphic evidence of the script is found in the Mandar Hill Stone inscriptions of Adityasena in the 7th century A.D., now fixed in the Baidyanath temple of Deoghar.


title: Indian literature

text: Meitei literature is literature written in the Meitei language (Manipuri, Meiteilon), including literature composed in Meitei by writers from Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The history of Meitei literature can be traced back to thousands of years with the flourish of Meitei civilization. Despite massive devastation and the burning of Meitei scriptures, such as the Puya Meithaba, Meitei literature survived. The resilience that Meiteis would demonstrate in the event of devastation proves their ability to survive throughout history. Most of the early literary works found in Meitei literature were in poetry and prose or a combination of both. One of the most famous Meitei writers of the twentieth century is M. K. Binodini Devi.


title: Indian literature

text: Marathi literature began with saint-poets like Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Ramdas, and Eknath. Modern Marathi literature was marked by a theme of social reform. Well-known figures from this phase include Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, and others. Prominent modern literary figures include Jnanpith Award winners Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, Vishnu Vaman Shirvadakar ("Kavi Kusumagraj") and Govind Vinayak Karandikar. Though the earliest known Marathi inscription found at the foot of the statue at Shravanabelgola in Karnataka is dated c. 983 CE, the Marathi literature actually started with the religious writings by the saint-poets belonging to Mahanubhava and Warkari sects. Mahanubhava saints used prose as their main medium, while Warkari saints preferred poetry as the medium. The early saint-poets were Mukundaraj who wrote Vivekasindhu, Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296) (who wrote Amrutanubhav and Bhawarthadeepika, which is popularly known as Dnyaneshwari, a 9000-couplets long commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and Namdev. They were followed by the Warkari saint-poet Eknath (1528–1599). Mukteswar translated the great epic Mahabharata into Marathi. Social reformers like saint-poet Tukaram transformed Marathi into an enriched literary language. Ramdas's (1608–1681) Dasbodh and Manache Shlok are well-known products of this tradition.


title: Indian literature

text: In the 18th century, some well-known works like Yatharthadeepika (by Vaman Pandit), Naladamayanti Swayamvara (by Raghunath Pandit), Pandava Pratap, Harivijay, Ramvijay (by Shridhar Pandit) and Mahabharata (by Moropant) were produced. However, the most versatile and voluminous writer among the poets was Moropanta (1729–1794) whose Mahabharata was the first epic poem in Marathi. The historical section of the old Marathi literature was unique as it contained both prose and poetry. The prose section contained the Bakhars that were written after the foundation of the Maratha kingdom by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The poetry section contained the Povadas and the Katavas composed by the Shahirs. The period from 1794 to 1818 is regarded as the closing period of the Old Marathi literature and the beginning of the Modern Marathi literature.


title: Indian literature

text: The period of the late 19th century in Maharashtra is the period of colonial modernity. Like the corresponding periods in the other Indian languages, this was the period dominated by the English educated intellectuals. It was the age of prose and reason. It was the period of reformist didacticism and a great intellectual ferment.


title: Indian literature

text: The first English book was translated in Marathi in 1817. The first Marathi newspaper started in 1835. Many books on social reforms were written by Baba Padamji (Yamuna Paryatana, 1857), Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Hari Narayan Apte (1864–1919) etc. Lokmanya Tilak's newspaper Kesari, set up in 1880, provided a platform for sharing literary views. Marathi at this time was efficiently aided by Marathi Drama. Here, there also was a different genre called 'Sangit Natya' or musicals. The first play was V.A. Bhave's "Sita Swayamvar" in 1843. Later Kirioskar (1843–85) and G.B. Deval (1854-19l6) brought a romantic aroma and social content. But Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (1872~1948) with his banned play "Kichaka-Vadh" (1910) set the trend of political playwriting. Later on this "stage" was ably served by stalwarts like Ram Ganesh Gadkari and Prahlad Keshav Atre. The drama flourished in the 1960s and 70s with few of the best Indian actors available to take on a variety of protagonists. Mohan Agashe, Sriram Lagoo, Kashinath Ghanekar, Prabhakar Panshikar playing many immortal characters penned by greats like Vasant Kanetkar, Kusumagraj, vijay Tendulkar to name a few. This drama movement was ably supported by Marathi films which did not enjoy a continuous success. Starting with V.Shantaram and before him the pioneer DadaSaheb Phalke, Marathi cinema went on to influence contemporary Hindi cinema. Director Raja Paranjape, Music director Sudhir Phadke, lyricist G.Madgulkar and actor Raja Gosavi came together to give quite a few hits in later period. Marathi language as spoken by people here was throughout influenced by drama and cinema along with contemporary literature. Modern Marathi poetry began with Mahatma Jyotiba Phule's compositions. The later poets like Keshavsuta, Balakavi, Govindagraj, and the poets of Ravi Kiran Mandal like Madhav Julian wrote poetry which was influenced by the Romantic and Victorian English poetry. It was largely sentimental and lyrical. Prahlad Keshav Atre, the renowned satirist and a politician wrote a parody of this sort of poetry in his collection Jhenduchi Phule. Sane Guruji (1899–1950) contributed to the children's literature in Marathi. His major works are "Shyamchi Aai" (Shyam's Mother), "Astik" (Believer), "Gode Shevat" (The Sweet Ending) etc. He translated and simplified many Western classics and published them in a book of stories titled "Gode Goshti" (Sweet Stories).


title: Indian literature

text: Mizo literature is the literature written in Mizo ṭtawng, the principal language of the Mizo peoples, which has both written and oral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century. The language developed mainly from the Lushai language, with significant influence from Pawi language, Paite language and Hmar language, especially at the literary level. All Mizo languages such as Pawi language, Paite language etc. remained unwritten until the beginning of the 20th century. However, there was unwritten secular literature in the form of folktales, war chants etc. passed down from one generation to another. And there was rich religious literature in the form of sacerdotal chants. These are the chants used by the two types of priests, namely "Bawlpu" and "Sadâwt". This article is about the written literature.


title: Indian literature

text: Nagpuri literature refers to literature in the Nagpuri language, the language of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. The earliest literature started in the nagpuri language when the Nagvanshi king and king of Ramgarh Raj started writing poetry in the 17th century. Since then, various literature has been written. Although in the present century, Nagpuri was never considered worthy of literary development, a small but dedicated writers have engaged in writing short stories, plays and poetry.


title: Indian literature

text: Odia language literary history started with the charyapadas written in the 8th century AD. Odia has a rich literary heritage, the medieval period dating back to the 13th century. Sarala Das who lived in the 14th century is known as the Vyasa of Odisha. He translated the Mahabharata into Odia. In fact the language was initially standardised through a process of translation of classical Sanskrit texts like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Srimad Bhagavatam. Jagannatha Das translated the Srimad Bhagavatam into Odia and his translation standardised the written form of the language. Odia has had a strong tradition of poetry, especially that of devotional poetry. Some other eminent ancient Odia Poets include Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja and Kavisurya Baladev Rath.


title: Indian literature

text: Odia language is replete in classicism. Various forms of poetry like champu, chhanda, bhajan, janan, poi, chautisha etc. were written during the medieval ages.


title: Indian literature

text: In the 19th century, Swabhab Kavi Gangadhar Meher (1862-1924), Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843–1918), Gouri Shankar Ray, Gopal Chandra Praharaj, Pandit Nilmani Vidyaratna, Kabibar Radhanath Ray were few of the prominent figures in prose and poetry writings of Odia literature. In the 20th century Godabarish Mohapatra, Kalindi Charana Panigrahi, Kanhu Charan Mohanty (1906–1994), Godabarish Mishra, Gopinath Mohanty (1914–1991), Sachidananda Routray (1916–2004), Sitakant Mahapatra (born 17 September 1937), Surendra Mohanty, Manoj Das, Kishori Charan Das, Ramakanta Rath (born 13 December 1934), Binapani Mohanty, Jagadish Mohanty, Sarojini Sahoo, Rajendra Kishore Panda, Padmaj Pal, Ramchandra Behera, Pratibha Satpathy, Nandini Sahu, Debaraj Samantray are few names who created Odia literature. Recently the Government of India accorded classical status to Odia in 2014.


title: Indian literature

text: There was a time when Bengali tried to overpower Odia Language. Along with West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh tookaway many parts of Odisha letting Odisha into nothingness and despair. Mostly the Bengalis claimed that Odia is the derived form of Bengali and so the language cannot independently exist.The famous Bengali Pandits like Kantilal Bhattacharya and Rajendra Mitra claimed that "Odia ekta swotontro bhasa hobena", i.e., Odia cannot withstand as an independent language. But they were unaware of the fact that Odia language is older than Bengali and even one of the oldest languages in the World. It is one of the classical languages. Owing to the immense contributions and sacrifices of pioneers like Fakirmohan Senapati, Gopabandhu Das, Madhusudan Das, Nilakantha Das, Gourishankar Ray, Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati and many more, Odisha and Odia language got back its special identity and has stood tall among the best in the country.


title: Indian literature

text: The current state Odisha and the language Odia have evolved through many contributions and sacrifices.


title: Indian literature

text: Punjab provided them the perfect environment in which to compose the ancient texts. The Rig-Veda is first example in which references are made to the rivers, flora and fauna of Punjab. The Punjabi literary tradition is generally conceived to commence with Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1173–1266).[2]. Farid's mostly spiritual and devotional verse were compiled after his death in the Adi Granth.


title: Indian literature

text: The Janamsakhis, stories on the life and legend of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), are early examples of Punjabi prose literature. Nanak himself composed Punjabi verse incorporating vocabulary from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other Indic languages as characteristic of the Gurbani tradition. Sufi poetry developed under Shah Hussain (1538–1599), Sultan Bahu (1628–1691), Shah Sharaf (1640–1724), Ali Haider (1690–1785), and Bulleh Shah (1680–1757). In contrast to Persian poets who had preferred the ghazal for poetic expression, Punjabi Sufi poets tended to compose in the Kafi.[3].


title: Indian literature

text: Punjabi Sufi poetry also influenced other Punjabi literary traditions particularly the Punjabi Qissa, a genre of romantic tragedy which also derived inspiration from Indic, Persian and Qur'anic sources. The Qissa of Heer Ranjha by Waris Shah (1706–1798) is among the most popular of Punjabi qisse. Other popular stories include Sohni Mahiwal by Fazal Shah, Mirza Sahiba by Hafiz Barkhudar (1658–1707), Sassi Punnun by Hashim Shah (1735?-1843?), and Qissa Puran Bhagat by Qadaryar (1802–1892).


title: Indian literature

text: The Victorian novel, Elizabethan drama, free verse and Modernism entered Punjabi literature through the introduction of British education during colonial rule. The setting up of a Christian mission at Ludhiana in 1835 (where a printing press was installed for using Gurmukhi fonts, and which also issued the first Punjabi grammar in 1838), the publication of a Punjabi dictionary by Reverend J. Newton in 1854 and the ripple-down effect of the strengthening and modernizing the education system under the patronage of the Singh Sabha Movement in the 1860s, were some of the developments that made it possible for 'modernism' to emerge in Punjabi literary culture. It needs to be pointed out here that 'modernism' is being used here as an umbrella term to cover a whole range of developments in the Punjabi literary culture, starting with the break from tradition or the past to a commitment to progressive ideology, from the experimental nature of the avant-garde to the newness of the forward-looking.


title: Indian literature

text: Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than 2500 years (Sangam period: 5th century BC-3rd century CE.) Tolkaappiyam (3rd century BC) has been credited as the oldest work in Tamil available today. The history of Tamil literature follows the history of Tamil Nadu, closely following the social and political trends of various periods. The secular nature of the early Sangam poetry gave way to works of religious and didactic nature during the Middle Ages. Tirukkural is a fine example of such work on human behaviour and political morals. A wave of religious revival helped generate a great volume of literary output by Saivite and Vaishnavite authors. Jain and Buddhist authors during the medieval period and Muslim and European authors later also contributed to the growth of Tamil literature.


title: Indian literature

text: A revival of Tamil literature took place from the late 19th century when works of religious and philosophical nature were written in a style that made it easier for the common people to enjoy. Nationalist poets began to utilise the power of poetry in influencing the masses. Short stories and novels began to appear. The popularity of Tamil Cinema has also provided opportunities for modern Tamil poets to emerge.


title: Indian literature

text: Telugu, the Indian language with the third largest number of speakers (after Hindi & Bengali), is rich in literary traditions.


title: Indian literature

text: The earliest written literature dates back to the 7th century. The epic literary tradition started with Nannayya who is acclaimed as Telugu's "Aadikavi" meaning the first poet. He belongs to the 10th or 11th century.


title: Indian literature

text: Vemana was a prince, also called Pedakomati or Vemaa Reddy, who lived in the 14th century and wrote poems in the language of the common man. He questioned the prevailing values and conventions and religious practices in his poems. His philosophy made him a unique poet of the masses.


title: Indian literature

text: Viswanadha Satyanarayana ("Veyipadagalu") (1895–1976), a doyen of conventional yet creative literature, was the first to receive the Jnanpith Award for Telugu followed by C. Narayana Reddy and Ravuri Bharadwaja.


title: Indian literature

text: Srirangam Srinivasarao or Sri Sri (1910–1983) was a popular 20th century poet and lyricist. Srisri took the "Telugu literary band wagon that travelled in roads of kings and queens into that of muddy roads of common man".


title: Indian literature

text: Telugu literature has been enriched by many literary movements, like the Veera Shaiva movement which gave birth to dwipada kavitvam (couplets). The Bhakti movement gave rise to compilations by Annamayya, Kshetrayya and Tyagaraja and kancharla Gopanna (Ramadasu). The renaissance movement heralded by Vemana stands for the old Telugu literary movements.


title: Indian literature

text: The Romantic Movement (led by Krishnasashtri, Rayaprolu, Vedula), Progressive Writers Movement, (Nagnamuni, Cherabanda Raju, Jwalamukhi, , Bhairavayya and Mahaswapna Revolutionary Writers' Movement, Streevada Kavitvam and Dalita Kavitvam all flourished in Telugu literature. Telugu literature has been the standard bearer of Indian literature in these respects.


title: Indian literature

text: Kandukuri Veeresalingam is said to be the father of Modern Telugu fiction. Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao laid the foundation for the realistic modern Telugu novel and short story, and Rachakonda and Kalipatnam carried the flag in to excellency.


title: Indian literature

text: Annamaya, Gurajada Appa Rao, Kandukuri, Devulapalli, Jashuva, Unnava Laxminarayana ("Malapalli"), Bucchi Babu, Tripuraneni Gopichand, Maa Gokhale, Papineni Sivasankar and many more had a profound impact on Telugu literature.


title: Indian literature

text: Tripuri(Kokborok/Tiprakok) is the native language of Tripuri people in present Tripura state in North East of India. During 20th centuries many of Royal family and its officials contributes to develop the Kokborok Language in many ways.


title: Indian literature

text: A significant hint for the antiquity of the Kokborok language can be found in the lines in the "Rajmala", the chronicle which mentions that "Rajmala" was first written in Kokborok(Tripuri).


title: Indian literature

text: The written literature of Tulu is not as large as the literature of other literary Dravidian languages such as Tamil.[46] Nevertheless, Tulu is one of only five literary Dravidian languages, the other four being Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The earliest available Tulu literature that survives to this date is the Tulu translation of the great Sanskrit epic of Mahabharata called Mahabharato (ಮಹಾಭಾರತೊ). It was written by Arunabja (1657 AD), a poet who lived in Kodavur near Udupi[47] around late 14th to early 15th century AD.[48] Other important literary works in Tulu are:


title: Indian literature

text: This script was mainly used to write religious and literary works in Sanskrit.[49][50] Even today the official script of the eight Tulu monasteries (Ashta Mathas of Udupi) founded by Madhvacharya in Udupi is Tulu.[51][52] The pontiffs of the monasteries write their names using this script when they are appointed.[52]


title: Indian literature

text: Modern-day Tulu literature is written using the Kannada script. Mandara Ramayana is the most notable piece of modern Tulu literature. Written by Mandara Keshava Bhatt, it received the Sahitya Academy award for best poetry.[53] Madipu, Mogaveera, Saphala and Samparka are popular Tulu periodicals published from Mangalore. The Tulu Sahitya Academy, established by the state government of Karnataka in 1994, as also the Kerala Tulu Academy established by the Indian State Government of Kerala in Manjeshwaram in 2007, are important governmental organisations that promote Tulu literature. Nevertheless, there are numerous organisations spread all over the world with significant Tulu-migrated populations that contribute to Tulu literature. Some notable contributors of Tulu literature are Kayyar Kinhanna Rai, M. K. Seetharam Kulal, Amruta Someshwara, B. A. Viveka Rai, Kedambadi Jattappa Rai, Venkataraja Puninchattaya, Paltadi Ramakrishna Achar, Dr. Sunitha M. Shetty, Dr. Vamana Nandavara, Sri. Balakrishna Shetty Polali.


title: Indian literature

text: Among other traditions, Urdu poetry is a fine example of linguistic and cultural synthesis. Arab and Persian vocabulary based on the Hindi language resulted in a vast and extremely beloved class of ghazal literature, usually written by Muslims in contexts ranging from romance and society to philosophy and Tassawuf (Sufism). Urdu soon became the court language of the Mughals and in its higher forms was once called the "Kohinoor" of Indian languages. It is surely the most refined, enriched, sophisticated and ripended language and literature, producing poets like, Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal, Zauq and Faiz. The poetry of Mohammed Iqbal invoked a spirit of freedom among the Muslims of India, thus contributing a pivotal role in the making of Pakistan.


title: Indian literature

text: In Urdu literature fiction has also flourished well. Umrao Jaan Ada of Mirza Hadi Ruswa is the first significant Urdu novel. Premchand is treated as father of modern Urdu fiction with his novel Godan and short stories like Kafan. The art of short story was further taken ahead by Manto, Bedi, Krishn Chander and a host of highly acclaimed writers. Urdu novel reached further heights in the 1960s with novels of Qurratulain Haider and Abdullah Hussain. Towards the end of the 20th century Urdu novel entered into a new phase with trend setter novel MAKAAN of Paigham Afaqui. Urdu ghazal has also recently changed its colour with more and more penetration in and synchronization with modern and contemporary issues of life.


title: Indian literature

text: During the early Muslim period, Persian became the official language of the northern part of Indian subcontinent, used by most of the educated and the government. The language had, from its earliest days in the 11th century AD, been imported to the subcontinent by various culturally Persianised Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. Several Indians became major Persian poets later on, the most notable being Amir Khusro and, in more modern times, Muhammad Iqbal. Much of the older Sanskrit literature was also translated into Persian. For a time, it remained the court language of the Mughals, soon to be replaced by Urdu. Persian still held its status, despite the spread of Urdu, well into the early years of the British rule in India. Most British officials had to learn Persian on coming to India and concluded their conversations in Persian. In 1837, however, the British, in an effort to expand their influence, made a government ruling to discontinue the use of Persian and commence the use of English instead. Thus started the decline of Persian as most of the subcontinent's official governmental language, a position to be taken up by the new language of the British Raj, English. Many modern Indian languages still show signs of relatively heavy Persian influence, most notably Urdu and Hindi.


title: Indian literature

text: English literature from North East India refers to the body of work by English-language writers from North-East India.They included many sub-categories, such as Naga literature, Assamese literature, Meitei or Manipuri literature, among others. Ancient India has many intensive examples, like that of the incredible verses translated from the Ramayana, named "Saptakanda Ramayana". Choral songs known as Oja-Pali, and theater performances, known as "Panchali", were also an extensive part of Assamese literature.


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: "There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase closely associated with P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid-19th century, although there is no evidence that he actually said it. Early examples of its use are found among gamblers and confidence tricksters.


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: Barnum's biographer Arthur H. Saxon tried to track down when Barnum had uttered this phrase but was unable to verify it. According to Saxon, "There's no contemporary account of it, or even any suggestion that the word 'sucker' was used in the derogatory sense in his day. Barnum was just not the type to disparage his patrons."


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: Some sources claim that it is most likely from famous con-man Joseph ("Paper Collar Joe") Bessimer, and other sources say that it was actually uttered by David Hannum in reference to Barnum's part in the Cardiff Giant hoax. Hannum was exhibiting the "original" giant and had unsuccessfully sued Barnum for exhibiting a copy and claiming that it was the original. Crowds continued to pay to see Barnum's exhibit, even after both it and the original had been proven to be fakes. A circus competitor to Barnum, Adam Forepaugh, attributed the quote to Barnum in a newspaper interview in an attempt to discredit him.


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: Another source credits late 1860s Chicago saloon owner Michael Cassius McDonald as the originator of the aphorism. According to the book "Gem of the Prairie: Chicago Underworld" (1940) by Herbert Asbury, McDonald was equipping his gambling house known as "The Store" when his partner expressed concern over the large number of roulette wheels and faro tables being installed and their ability to get enough players. McDonald then allegedly said, "Don't worry about that, there's a sucker born every minute."


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: Early uses of the phrase refer to it as a catch-phrase among gamblers. In an 1879 discussion of gambling in Chicago, an "old-timer" is quoted as saying, "[G]oodness knows how they live, it’s mighty hard times with the most of them; in the season they make a bit on base ball, or on the races, and then, you know, 'there’s a sucker born every minute', and rigid city legislation drives the hard-up gambler, who would be a decent one of the kind, to turn skin-dealer and sure-thing player." The use of quotation marks indicates that it must already have been an established catch-phrase.


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: The phrase appears in print in the 1885 biography of confidence man Hungry Joe, "The Life of Hungry Joe, King of the Bunco Men".


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: In a slightly different form, the phrase shows up in the January 1806 "European Magazine": "That there vash von fool born every minute.'"


title: There's a sucker born every minute

text: According to David W. Maurer, writing in "The Big Con" (1940), there was a similar saying amongst con men: "There's a mark born every minute, and one to trim 'em and one to knock 'em." Here "trim" means to steal from, and "knock" means to persuade away from a scam. The meaning is that there is no shortage of new victims, nor of con men, nor of honest men.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Taken, also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, is an American science fiction miniseries that first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel from December 2 to 13, 2002. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, it was written by Leslie Bohem, and directed by Breck Eisner, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, John Fawcett, Tobe Hooper, Jeremy Paul Kagan, Michael Katleman, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Bryan Spicer, Jeff Woolnough, and Thomas J. Wright. The executive producers were Leslie Bohem and Steven Spielberg.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The show takes place from 1944 to 2002 and follows the lives of three families: the Crawfords, who seek to cover up the Roswell crash and the existence of aliens; the Keyses, who are subject to frequent experimentation by the aliens; and the Clarkes, who sheltered one of the surviving aliens from the crash. As a result of the decades-long storyline, not a single actor or character appears in every episode of the series, though the voice of Dakota Fanning (who narrates as well as stars as Allie Keys) is in every episode. Reception was positive. The series won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Miniseries or TV Movie.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: When the show was launched, the Sci-Fi Channel used the simultaneous establishment of the organization Coalition for Freedom of Information in its promotion campaign. Both the Sci-Fi Channel and the Coalition for Freedom of Information are clients of Washington, D.C. public relations firm PodestaMattoon, and this apparent co-mingling of clients was criticized. The Coalition for Freedom of Information is a group which seeks the release of classified governmental UFO files as well as scientific, Congressional, and media credibility for the study of this subject.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Actors starring in the series include Joel Gretsch, Steve Burton, Eric Close, Heather Donahue, Matt Frewer, Catherine Dent, Ryan Hurst, Adam Kaufman, Karen Austin, Julie Benz, Tina Holmes, Willie Garson, John Hawkes, Jason Gray-Stanford, Andy Powers, Ryan Merriman, Michael Moriarty, Michael Jeter, James McDaniel, James Kirk, and Dakota Fanning.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: "Taken" spans five decades and four generations, and centers on three families: the Keyses, the Crawfords, and the Clarkes. Nightmares of abduction by extraterrestrials during World War II haunt Russell Keys; the Roswell UFO incident transforms Owen Crawford from ambitious Air Force captain to amoral shadow government conspirator; and an alien visitor impregnates an unhappily married Sally Clarke. As the decades go by, the heirs of each are affected by the machinations of the aliens, culminating with the birth of Allie Keys, the final product of the aliens' experimentation and the key to their future.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The "Artifact" is a mysterious device connected to the aliens. The Artifact was initially on one of the alien ships flying over Earth on July 2, 1947, but the ship collided with a spy balloon and crashed, and most of its crew died. The Artifact itself was thrown clear of the ship and left half-buried in the ground. It was found and retrieved by Sue, a local woman who was the estranged girlfriend of ambitious Air Force Captain Owen Crawford.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Sue, seeing the small scrap of metal had alien writing on it and hoping it would rekindle her relationship with Owen, takes it to him. Owen, who is being phased out of the investigation into the crashed alien spaceship (which itself was retrieved), brutally murders Sue. Owen then shows the Artifact to his superior, Colonel Thomas Campbell, and blackmails him into promoting him to Major and making him head of the Roswell UFO Investigation Project.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Over the next 50 years, the Artifact remains in the possession of the Crawford family, and acts as the guide to each member's efforts to understand the aliens' mission on Earth.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The Artifact's true nature isn't revealed until 2002, when the head of the Project, Mary Crawford, discovers new writing is still being formed on the Artifact's surface. This reveals to the government that the Artifact is the recording device of the aliens' great genetic experiment: to create a hybrid being possessing the aliens' powers and more-evolved consciousness as well as humankind's emotional core, which will lead them to the next step in their evolution. It has been continuously recording the events of the aliens' experiments over the decades since its arrival on Earth.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: As part of their experiment, the aliens abducted thousands of innocent humans (exactly 46,367), mostly at night or while on airplanes, in order to find suitable breeding pairs and humans compatible with their DNA, to begin the process of creating the ultimate hybrid of human and alien. The aliens placed implants in an area of the brain that made it impossible to remove without killing or inflicting critical brain damage on the person (at least by the standards of human science). The implants also had a hand in manipulating a person's memories following their abduction, and served as tracking devices, to allow the aliens to abduct their human test subjects wherever they may be.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The implants remained undiscovered until 1962, when Russell Keys' head was x-rayed to determine the cause of his seizures. The doctors treating him initially believed it was a tumor, but his son Jesse, suspecting it might be related to the aliens, demanded he have the same x-ray, and a similar implant was discovered.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Hoping to find a way to neutralize the implants and be free of the aliens' interference, Russell and Jesse arranged a meeting with Colonel Owen Crawford. Russell, in private, offered up his implant in order to save his son from grave harm, despite knowing it would most likely lead to his death to have it removed. Owen accepted, and Russell was escorted to a secret surgery facility. Upon his arrival, Russell realized Owen had betrayed him, but he was overpowered by the guards and sedated. The project's doctor successfully removed the implant from Russell's brain. Seconds later, it was revealed that the implant exerts some form of negative psychic effect on human minds. The scientists and guards were driven insane. One guard fires his machine gun at nearby oxygen tanks, causing the entire trailer to explode, killing Russell, Kreutz, and all within.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Learning from their mistakes, the UFO Project took precautions while retrieving and analyzing more implants from other test subjects or from their corpses. Eventually, a sophisticated tracking system was created by Doctor Chet Wakeman, which was used with great effect in tracking down abductees. Essentially, the implants give off a tracking signal based on the frequency of the basic element hydrogen, which once discovered made it relatively easy for the government's UFO project to track the abductees as well.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The aliens kept using the implants as part of the experiment, ultimately using them to bring the Clarke and Keys families together to produce Allie Keys.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: After John taught Allie how to remove the implants, she used the ability on everyone that came to protect her at the farmhouse so they wouldn't be taken anymore, and would no longer be afraid.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The Roswell Gray aliens depicted in the series are about as large as a child, but possess incredible psychic powers. According to Dr. Wakeman, they do not even originate from our dimension or plane of reality, though while here they are subject to our physical laws (accidentally hitting a weather balloon during a storm was enough to make the Roswell saucer crash). Their "technology" is so far advanced that it is essentially an extension of their minds, capable of being reformed at will. The aliens can also create utterly realistic hallucinations in humans, and often use this to try to interact with abductees. Sometimes they get a bit confused however, and re-use mental projections for one family member on another.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: The reason the aliens are abducting humans is part of their hybridization experiment. When the aliens initially crashed in Roswell, it was just a scouting mission. However one surviving alien, "John", evaded capture by the army and (after assuming a projection of human form) was given shelter by Sally Clarke until he was retrieved by another ship. As Dr. Wakeman eventually pieces together, and the alien "John" confirms, Sally's simple act of kindness awoke an echo of something long dormant in the aliens. They had evolved to be millions of years in development ahead of humans, but the evolutionary tree is a branching path, so in the process they had evolved away from some of their more "primitive" aspects, such as emotions. John's encounter with Sally made the aliens realize they had evolved away from emotion and morality, and even with this knowledge they could not simply re-attain it. Therefore, the aliens decided to hybridize themselves with humans to try to recover these qualities that they had lost. While their abductions were considered frightening and invasive by humans, John explains that the entire problem was that the aliens simply had no concept of "good" or "evil", and were incapable of making such a value judgement.


title: Taken (miniseries)

text: Unfortunately, long-term contact with the aliens and their extra-dimensional technology leads to various health problems in most humans. For reasons even the aliens aren't quite sure of, the Keys family is genetically able to be unaffected by these problems. Sally Clarke did not possess these genetic traits, and thus her hybrid child fathered by John was unable to fully harness his alien powers. All of this culminated in Allie Keys, the daughter of Charlie Keys and Lisa Clarke, who was capable of fully using her alien abilities.


title: Megacolon

text: Megacolon is an abnormal dilation of the colon (also called the large intestine). This leads to hypertrophy of the colon. The dilation is often accompanied by a paralysis of the peristaltic movements of the bowel. In more extreme cases, the feces consolidate into hard masses inside the colon, called fecalomas (literally, "fecal tumor"), which can require surgery to be removed.


title: Megacolon

text: A human colon is considered abnormally enlarged if it has a diameter greater than 12 cm in the cecum (it is usually less than 9 cm), greater than 6.5 cm in the rectosigmoid region and greater than 8 cm for the ascending colon. The transverse colon is usually less than 6 cm in diameter.


title: Megacolon

text: External signs and symptoms are constipation of very long duration, abdominal bloating, abdominal tenderness and tympany, abdominal pain, palpation of hard fecal masses and, in toxic megacolon, fever, low blood potassium, tachycardia and may lead to shock. Stercoral ulcers are sometimes observed in chronic megacolon, which may lead to perforation of the intestinal wall in approximately 3% of the cases, leading to sepsis and risk of death.


title: Megacolon

text: Also called Hirschsprung's disease, it is a congenital disorder of the colon in which nerve cells of the myenteric plexus in its walls, also known as ganglion cells, are absent. It is a rare disorder (1:5 000), with prevalence among males being four times that of females. Hirschsprung's disease develops in the fetus during the early stages of pregnancy. A genetic predisposition to Hirschsprung's disease has been linked to chromosome 13 where a missense mutation at an ultraconserved region impairs functionality of the W276C receptor. Seven other genes seem to be implicated, however. If untreated, the patient can develop enterocolitis.


title: Megacolon

text: Toxic megacolon is mainly seen in ulcerative colitis and pseudomembranous colitis, two chronic inflammations of the colon (and occasionally, in the other type of inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease). Its mechanism is incompletely understood. It is probably due to excessive production of nitric oxide, at least in ulcerative colitis. The prevalence is about the same for both sexes.


title: Megacolon

text: In patients with HIV/AIDS, cytomegalovirus (CMV) colitis is the leading cause of toxic megacolon and emergency laparotomy. CMV may also increase the risk of toxic megacolon in non-HIV/AIDS patients with IBD.


title: Megacolon

text: In Central and South America, the most common incidence of chronic megacolon is that observed in about 20% of patients affected with Chagas disease. Chagas is caused by "Trypanosoma cruzi", a flagellate protozoan transmitted by the feces of a hematophagous insect, the assassin bug, when it feeds. Chagas can also be acquired congenitally, through blood transfusion or organ transplant, and rarely through contaminated food (for example garapa). There are several theories on how megacolon (and also megaesophagus) develops in Chagas disease. The Austrian-Brazilian physician and pathologist Fritz Köberle was the first to propose the "neurogenic hypothesis" based on the documented destruction of the myenteric plexus in the walls of the intestinal tracts of Chagas patients. In this, the destruction of the autonomic nervous system innervation of the colon leads to a loss of the normal smooth muscle tone of the wall and subsequent gradual dilation. His research proved that, by extensively quantifying the number of neurons of the autonomic nervous system in the Auerbach's plexus, that:


title: Megacolon

text: Why "T. cruzi" causes the destruction, however, remains to be determined. There is evidence for the presence of specific neurotoxins as well as a disorderly immune system reaction.


title: Megacolon

text: Diagnosis is achieved mainly by plain and contrasted radiographical and ultrasound imaging. Colonic marker transit studies are useful to distinguish colonic inertia from functional outlet obstruction causes. In this test, the patient swallows a water-soluble bolus of radiocontrast agent and films are obtained 1, 3, and 5 days later. Patients with colonic inertia show the marker spread throughout the large intestines, while patients with outlet obstruction exhibit slow accumulations of markers in some places. A colonoscopy can also be used to rule out mechanical obstructive causes. Anorectal manometry may help to differentiate acquired from congenital forms. Rectal biopsy is recommended to make a final diagnosis of Hirschsprung disease.


title: Megacolon

text: There are several surgical approaches to treat megacolon, such as a colectomy (removal of the entire colon) with ileorectal anastomosis (ligation of the remaining ileum and rectum segments), or a total proctocolectomy (removal of colon, sigmoid and rectum) followed by ileostomy or followed by ileoanal anastomosis.


title: Kim Sang-kyung

text: Kim Sang-kyung (born June 1, 1972; ) is a South Korean actor. He is known for his leading roles in "Memories of Murder" (2003) and "May 18" (2007).


title: Kim Sang-kyung

text: Two of his films directed by Hong Sang-soo, "Tale of Cinema" (2005) and "Ha Ha Ha" (2010), screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Kim has also starred in numerous television dramas, notably the period epic "King Sejong the Great" (2008) and the family comedy "What Happens to My Family?" (2014).


title: Black church

text: The black church (sometimes termed Black Christianity or African American Christianity) is the faith and body of Christian congregations and denominations in the United States that minister predominantly to African Americans, as well as their collective traditions and members. The term "black church" can also refer to individual congregations.


title: Black church

text: While most black congregations belong to predominantly African American Protestant denominations, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) or Church of God in Christ (COGIC), many others are in predominantly white Protestant denominations such as the United Church of Christ (which developed from the Congregational Church of New England), or in integrated denominations such as the Church of God. There are also many Black Catholic churches.


title: Black church

text: Most of the first black congregations and churches formed before 1800 were founded by freed black people—for example, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Springfield Baptist Church (Augusta, Georgia); Petersburg, Virginia; and Savannah, Georgia. The oldest black Baptist church in Kentucky, and third oldest black Baptist church in the United States, the First African Baptist Church, was founded about 1790 by the slave Peter Durrett. The oldest black Catholic church, St Augustine in New Orleans, was founded by free blacks in 1841.


title: Black church

text: After slavery in the United States was abolished, segregationist attitudes towards blacks and whites worshiping together were not as predominant in the North as compared to the South. Many white Protestant ministers moved to the South after the American Civil War to establish churches where black and white people worshiped together. In Wesleyan Holiness denominations such as the Church of God, the belief that "interracial worship was a sign of the true Church" was taught, with both whites and blacks ministering regularly in Church of God congregations, which invited people of all races to worship there. In some parts of the country, such as New Orleans, black and white Catholics had worshiped together for almost 150 years before the American Civil War—albeit without full equality and primarily under French and Spanish rule.


title: Black church

text: Attacks by the Ku Klux Klan or other whites opposed to such efforts thwarted those attempts and even prevented Black or African Americans from worshiping in the same buildings as whites. In communities where black and white people worshiped together in the South shortly after the American Civil War, the persecution of African Americans was less severe. Yet, freed blacks most often established congregations and church facilities separate from their white neighbors, who were often their former owners. In the Roman Catholic Church, the rising tide of segregation eventually resulted in segregated parishes across the South, even in places where segregation had not previously been the norm.


title: Black church

text: These new black churches created communities and worship practices that were culturally distinct from other churches, including forms of Christian worship that derived from African spiritual traditions, such as call and response. These churches also became the centers of communities, serving as school sites, taking up social welfare functions such as providing for the indigent, and going on to establish orphanages and prison ministries. As a result, black churches were particularly important during the Civil Rights movement.


title: Black church

text: Evangelical Baptist and Methodist preachers traveled throughout the South in the Great Awakening of the late 18th century. They appealed directly to slaves, and a few thousand slaves converted. Black individuals found opportunities to have active roles in new congregations, especially in the Baptist Church, where slaves were appointed as leaders and preachers. (They were excluded from such roles in the Anglican or Episcopal Church.) As they listened to readings, slaves developed their own interpretations of the Scriptures and found inspiration in stories of deliverance, such as the Exodus out of Egypt. Nat Turner, an enslaved Baptist preacher, was inspired to armed rebellion against slavery, in an uprising that killed about 50 white people in Virginia.


title: Black church

text: Both free blacks and the more numerous slaves participated in the earliest black Baptist congregations founded near Petersburg, Virginia, Savannah, Georgia, and Lexington, Kentucky, before 1800. The slaves Peter Durrett and his wife founded the First African Church (now known as First African Baptist Church) in Lexington, Kentucky about 1790. The church's trustees purchased its first property in 1815. The congregation numbered about 290 by the time of Durrett's death in 1823.


title: Black church

text: The First African Baptist Church had its beginnings in 1817 when John Mason Peck and the former enslaved John Berry Meachum began holding church services for African Americans in St. Louis. Meachum founded the First African Baptist Church in 1827. It was the first African-American church west of the Mississippi River. Although there were ordinances preventing blacks from assembling, the congregation grew from 14 people at its founding to 220 people by 1829. Two hundred of the parishioners were slaves, who could only travel to the church and attend services with the permission of their owners.


title: Black church

text: Following slave revolts in the early 19th century, including Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, Virginia passed a law requiring black congregations to meet only in the presence of a white minister. Other states similarly restricted exclusively black churches or the assembly of blacks in large groups unsupervised by whites. Nevertheless, the black Baptist congregations in the cities grew rapidly and their members numbered several hundred each before the Civil War (see next section). While mostly led by free blacks, most of their members were slaves.


title: Black church

text: In plantation areas, slaves organized underground churches and hidden religious meetings, the "invisible church", where slaves were free to mix evangelical Christianity with African beliefs and African rhythms. With the time, many incorporated Wesleyan Methodist hymns, gospel songs, and spirituals. The underground churches provided psychological refuge from the white world. The spirituals gave the church members a secret way to communicate and, in some cases, to plan a rebellion.


title: Black church

text: Slaves also learned about Christianity by attending services led by a white preacher or supervised by a white person. Slaveholders often held prayer meetings at their plantations. In the South until the Great Awakening, most slaveholders were Anglican if they practiced any Christianity. Although in the early years of the First Great Awakening, Methodist and Baptist preachers argued for manumission of slaves and abolition, by the early decades of the 19th century, they often had found ways to support the institution. In settings where whites supervised worship and prayer, they used Bible stories that reinforced people's keeping to their places in society, urging slaves to be loyal and to obey their masters. In the 19th century, Methodist and Baptist chapels were founded among many of the smaller communities and common planters.


title: Black church

text: During the early decades of the 19th century, they used stories such as the Curse of Ham to justify slavery to themselves. They promoted the idea that loyal and hard-working slaves would be rewarded in the afterlife. Sometimes slaves established their own Sabbath schools to talk about the Scriptures. Slaves who were literate tried to teach others to read, as Frederick Douglass did while still enslaved as a young man in Maryland.