Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #MakingofModernIndia
Most recents (6)
1/6. Mountaineering history was made on 29th May 1953, when two men summited the world’s tallest peak, Mt Everest. One was Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and the other Tenzing Norgay from India. But, wait, was Norgay really Indian? 
2/6. Even as Nepal and India claimed Tenzing Norgay as their own, the mountaineer went to England to be felicitated as part of the Everest party, with passports of both countries! He was born in Nepal but settled in India, in Darjeeling, at age 19. He lived there ever since.
3/6. Summiting Everest was a feat not only for Tenzing Norgay – it was a matter of pride for India too. Norgay was awarded India’s Padma Bhushan in 1959, and the country’s highest adventure sports honour, the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, bears his name.
Every time you sip a tall glass of sugarcane juice, spare a thought for a brilliant and gutsy woman without whom this thirst-quencher wouldn’t taste quite as sweet. Janaki Ammal was India’s first botanist, and she created the indigenous sugarcane hybrid that we savour today.
1/6
1/6
Ammal, who was born in Kerala in 1897, is likely the first woman in the US to earn a PhD in Botany, from the University of Michigan in 1931. She travelled between India, the US and the UK to study and work as a single woman who chose scholarship over marriage.
2/6
2/6
The world-renowned Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, England, has named a variety of magnolias after Janaki Ammal, to honour her work on these plants at the institute in the 1940s. Called ‘Magnolia kobus Janaki Ammal’, the shrubs still bloom on the campus.
3/6
3/6
Nicknames can be funny, sweet and very endearing. Often, they also tell a story. Can you name India’s City of Destiny or the City of Red Gold? Read on for some unusual names that India’s cities and towns have acquired and what they reveal about them.
#MakingofModernIndia
1/7
#MakingofModernIndia
1/7
Visakhapatnam – City of Destiny (Andhra Pradesh): Coined by Founder-Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University, Sir C R Reddy. He shifted the university from Bejawada to the fishing village that Visakhapatnam was back in the 1930s, so that the city could ‘meet a great destiny’.
2/7
2/7
Muzaffarpur – Land of Litchi (Bihar): The city is the single-largest producer of litchis grown in India. Its Shahi Litchi is the fourth product in Bihar to get a Geographical Indication tag, after Jardalu mango, Katarni rice and Magahi paan.
3/7
3/7
India’s first multi-media ad campaign rolled out in 1939 and it was totally offline. It promoted a vanaspati ghee brand once familiar to every Indian kitchen – Dalda. It was executed by Lintas for the Lever Brothers (later Hindustan Unilever), who then owned the brand.
1/6
1/6
The Dalda ad campaign involved sending a round, tin-shaped van to roam the streets; screening a short film in cinemas; roadside stalls where people could sample the product; roadside stalls selling tasty snacks cooked in Dalda; print ads; and leaflets for distribution.
2/6
2/6
#DidYouKnow that the Dalda ad campaign of the ‘30s & ‘40s roped in wandering storytellers in India’s villages, where they talked about the vanaspati brand and its benefits? Talk about smart product placement!
3/6
#MakingofModernIndia
3/6
#MakingofModernIndia
Sound is one of the primary elements of cinema and, ushering in the ‘talkies’ era to Indian cinema was the movie Alam Ara. The film released #onthisday in 1931 at Majestic Theatre in Bombay and was such a hit that police had to control the crowds.
1/4
1/4
Alam Ara (Ornament of the World) was directed by Ardeshir Irani, who also produced India’s first colour film Kisan Kanya (1937). Based on a play of the same name written by a Bombay-based Jewish dramatist, it revolved around an ageing king and his two rival queens.
2/4
2/4
The cast of India’s first ‘talkie’, Alam Ara, was led by Zubeida, Master Vithal and Prithviraj Kapoor. Unlike the silent era, where actors of foreign descent were often cast, Alam Ara needed actors who were fluent in Hindustani, the language in which the film was made.
3/4
3/4
Her parents called her ‘Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehalvi’ but the world knew her as the ‘Marilyn Monroe of India’. Her screen name was simply ‘Madhubala’, the most celebrated star in Hindi cinema in the ’50s and ’60s and whose 52nd death anniversary falls #OTD.
#MakingofModernIndia
#MakingofModernIndia
Madhubala was so beautiful it drove her co-stars to distraction. Shammi Kapoor said of their time on the sets of ‘Rail Ka Dibba’: “I was so nervous that I kept forgetting my lines. She was fully aware of the effect she had been having on me and was relishing it thoroughly.”
2/6
2/6
Enchanted by her, popular Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis dedicated a hugely popular song to her. He titled it ‘Mantoubala’:
“I wish I could see you and then die, my dear
My soul wants only this
Since I lost you, I’m melting
I cry out your name with pain
Madhubala, Madhubala”
“I wish I could see you and then die, my dear
My soul wants only this
Since I lost you, I’m melting
I cry out your name with pain
Madhubala, Madhubala”
