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Navya Nair is Dhanya Nair’s screen name. Born in 1984 in Alappuzha, Kerala, she has worked in Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada films. Her father works in the Telecom industry and mother is a teacher.
Movies:
Malayalam
• Navya debuted in the Malayalam film Ishtam, and was an instant hit.
• The next year she gave another hit, Mazhathullikkilukkam.
• In 2003 she had a spate of releases, like Gramaphone and Vellithira.
• Sethurama Iyer CBI , Jalolsavam, Azagiya Theeye are her major 2004 releases.
• Pathaka, Ali Bhai , SMS, Calendar are some of her latest films
• Violet and a few more films are yet to release
tamil
• Her first Tamil film was Azhagiya Theeye (2004), followed by Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy (2005), Pasa Kiligal (2006), Maya Kannadi (2007), Sila Nerangalil (2008), Aadum Koothu (2009)
• Her film Rasikkum Seemane is under production.
• Boss is being filmed, and may release in 2009.
Movies:
Malayalam
• Navya debuted in the Malayalam film Ishtam, and was an instant hit.
• The next year she gave another hit, Mazhathullikkilukkam.
• In 2003 she had a spate of releases, like Gramaphone and Vellithira.
• Sethurama Iyer CBI , Jalolsavam, Azagiya Theeye are her major 2004 releases.
• Pathaka, Ali Bhai , SMS, Calendar are some of her latest films
• Violet and a few more films are yet to release
tamil
• Her first Tamil film was Azhagiya Theeye (2004), followed by Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy (2005), Pasa Kiligal (2006), Maya Kannadi (2007), Sila Nerangalil (2008), Aadum Koothu (2009)
• Her film Rasikkum Seemane is under production.
• Boss is being filmed, and may release in 2009.
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Womens power
What does that mean? Women who openly display their power, knowledge, and skill, receiving public recognition and honor. But also females who manage to wield power in societies that try to limit it or decree female submission; where their leadership is stigmatized and their creativity disdained. And women who resist and overthrow oppressive traditions and regimes. Who break The Rules in defiance of unjust legal and religious "authorities." Who pursue their vision in spite of the personal cost.
Women have determined the course of events and the forms of human culture. We originated, founded, governed, prophesied, created great art, fought for our rights, and for our peoples. These are the women edited out of history, their stories omitted, distorted, and replaced with an endless litany of men (and the occasional queen or meddling concubine). Our ignorance of these women is greatly compounded by the omission of information on societies which accorded females power in public life, diplomacy, religion, medicine, the arts as well as family structure and inheritance. Both racism and sexism are implicated in these silences and gaps.
So we need a remedial history that reconstructs the female dimensions of human experience and achievement, and recovers the distorted and obliterated past of Africa, the Americas, and all other regions neglected by the standard textbooks and mass media. This will be a provisional history, because all the facts are not in yet, and previous interpretations are being reevaluated for gender, race, and colonial bias. More importantly, the indigenous oral histories have only barely begun to be integrated into mainstream narratives.
Women have often been relegated to the footnotes of history, and even those are highly selective. As Sandra Cisneros wrote of her search for Latina sheroes, "We are the footnotes of the footnotes." Yet the heritages of women of color, especially the indigenous cultures, supply the most dramatic examples in recent history of open embrace of female power. But even Europe looks different when we look at the common women and encompass places like Bulgaria, Estonia, Corsica, or Iberian Galicia.
Women's history demands a global perspective. There's far more to it than Queen Elizabeth I or Susan B. Anthony. We need to refocus historical attention from the school of "famous women" (often royal females) to encompass broader groupings of women with power: clan mothers and female elders; priestesses, diviners, medicine women and healers; market women, weavers, and other female arts and professions. These "female spheres of power," as I call them, vary greatly from culture to culture. Some of them, particularly the spiritual callings, retain aspects of women's self-determination even in societies that insist on formal subordination of female to male in private and public space.
There's a striking interplay between women's spiritual and political leadership, especially in many indigenous societies. I'm thinking of of the Evenki shaman Olga who was both chieftain and religious leader of her Siberian village about a century ago, and the machis of Chile, shamans who are deeply involved in the Mapuche sovereignty effort. But this overlap occurs even in imperial contexts, as when the aged mikogami Pimiko was chosen as ruler to save Japan from a chaotic struggle for power in its early history. Another example would be the important role the Candomblé maes de santo have played in the African-Brazilian community since early modern times.
Priestesses or diviners have often led liberation movements: Nehanda Nyakasikana in the Shona revolt against English colonization of Zimbabwe; María Candelaria in the Maya uprising against the Spanish; and in the Gabrieleño revolt in southern California. In 1791, the old priestess Cécile Fatiman inaugurated the Haitian revolution against slavery in a Vodun ceremony in the Bois Caiman. Even earlier, the seeress Veleda was the guiding force behind the Batavian insurrection of tribal Europeans against Rome, and Dahia al-Kahina ("the priestess") led Berber resistance to the Arab conquest of North Africa. And Gudit Isat (Judith the Fire) who overthrew the Axumite empire in 10th century Ethiopia was remembered as a religious leader as well.British Navy in the 1500s.
Female boldness has in many societies been required simply to defend personal liberty and self-determination, carving out space to act in spite of patriarchal constraints, to become what the English called "a woman at her own commandment." Agodice practiced medicine in classical Athens disguised as a man, risking the death penalty then in force against female physicians. About two thousand years later, Miranda Stuart used the same strategy to get her M.D. As Dr. James Barry, she became Chief Surgeon for the British Navy. Her subterfuge was not discovered until her death, although she came close after being wounded in a duel.
Women have determined the course of events and the forms of human culture. We originated, founded, governed, prophesied, created great art, fought for our rights, and for our peoples. These are the women edited out of history, their stories omitted, distorted, and replaced with an endless litany of men (and the occasional queen or meddling concubine). Our ignorance of these women is greatly compounded by the omission of information on societies which accorded females power in public life, diplomacy, religion, medicine, the arts as well as family structure and inheritance. Both racism and sexism are implicated in these silences and gaps.
So we need a remedial history that reconstructs the female dimensions of human experience and achievement, and recovers the distorted and obliterated past of Africa, the Americas, and all other regions neglected by the standard textbooks and mass media. This will be a provisional history, because all the facts are not in yet, and previous interpretations are being reevaluated for gender, race, and colonial bias. More importantly, the indigenous oral histories have only barely begun to be integrated into mainstream narratives.
Women have often been relegated to the footnotes of history, and even those are highly selective. As Sandra Cisneros wrote of her search for Latina sheroes, "We are the footnotes of the footnotes." Yet the heritages of women of color, especially the indigenous cultures, supply the most dramatic examples in recent history of open embrace of female power. But even Europe looks different when we look at the common women and encompass places like Bulgaria, Estonia, Corsica, or Iberian Galicia.
Women's history demands a global perspective. There's far more to it than Queen Elizabeth I or Susan B. Anthony. We need to refocus historical attention from the school of "famous women" (often royal females) to encompass broader groupings of women with power: clan mothers and female elders; priestesses, diviners, medicine women and healers; market women, weavers, and other female arts and professions. These "female spheres of power," as I call them, vary greatly from culture to culture. Some of them, particularly the spiritual callings, retain aspects of women's self-determination even in societies that insist on formal subordination of female to male in private and public space.
There's a striking interplay between women's spiritual and political leadership, especially in many indigenous societies. I'm thinking of of the Evenki shaman Olga who was both chieftain and religious leader of her Siberian village about a century ago, and the machis of Chile, shamans who are deeply involved in the Mapuche sovereignty effort. But this overlap occurs even in imperial contexts, as when the aged mikogami Pimiko was chosen as ruler to save Japan from a chaotic struggle for power in its early history. Another example would be the important role the Candomblé maes de santo have played in the African-Brazilian community since early modern times.
Priestesses or diviners have often led liberation movements: Nehanda Nyakasikana in the Shona revolt against English colonization of Zimbabwe; María Candelaria in the Maya uprising against the Spanish; and in the Gabrieleño revolt in southern California. In 1791, the old priestess Cécile Fatiman inaugurated the Haitian revolution against slavery in a Vodun ceremony in the Bois Caiman. Even earlier, the seeress Veleda was the guiding force behind the Batavian insurrection of tribal Europeans against Rome, and Dahia al-Kahina ("the priestess") led Berber resistance to the Arab conquest of North Africa. And Gudit Isat (Judith the Fire) who overthrew the Axumite empire in 10th century Ethiopia was remembered as a religious leader as well.British Navy in the 1500s.
Female boldness has in many societies been required simply to defend personal liberty and self-determination, carving out space to act in spite of patriarchal constraints, to become what the English called "a woman at her own commandment." Agodice practiced medicine in classical Athens disguised as a man, risking the death penalty then in force against female physicians. About two thousand years later, Miranda Stuart used the same strategy to get her M.D. As Dr. James Barry, she became Chief Surgeon for the British Navy. Her subterfuge was not discovered until her death, although she came close after being wounded in a duel.
