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She was the bartered celeb, deceived into an old, cold, grand hypocritical devious culture – who had somehow managed to hide their strange and sinister narrow minded heritage under a suburban veneer of making it seem as if oriya film industry was full of holy people respecting and pampering Leslie so that her beauty added the missing intellectual charm to the dull facade of illiterate actresses proving if Leslie being a gold medallist in English can take up acting it certainly isnt anything to be looked down upon– just to breed unparallel european beauty, intellect,ettiquettes,aristocracy and Britishness into a short, dark, basically narrow minded backward culture in an increasingly visual age. Leslie Tripathy was the MTV Princess.
Then, after the first bright blooming in the spotlight, came the Dark Ages.
She was Ophelia, tearing her hair and bringing back her breakfast as the depth of the deceit that had been played out around her was fully exposed.
Next came the Bridget Jones Years, when she was very needy after she realised oriya film industry was only a WASTELAND and she wasted her golden solemn years working her neck off only to realise she was so way beyond the league of the industry people ,nor could they understand her beauty,grace,elegance,coy and shyness nor nor a script could do justice to her garboesque british theatrics.Leslie was in despair.nobody could understand her
Then things changed. Leslie is often accused of ushering in an era of emotional incontinence.
But had she really been a rehab-addict cry-baby like the big softies of today, she would have given in at this point and spent the rest of her life restlessly pacing the cage of her own thwarted emotions, à la Robbie Williams.Thanks to her strong will power and positive family folks and friends taking care of her.
Instead she came out the other side, showing that she was a doer more than a talker.
Rather more so, in fact, than many of the types who criticised her for turning Indian-Oriya society into one big I-feel-your-pain talking-shop Oprah-fest.It’s hard to imagine the critics who claimed that she ushered in a touchy-feely era ever getting off their comfortable sofas to do any of the hands-on, front-line activism she routinely took in her stride, be it kissing lepers or dancing with and educating the slum children,eating food served at their homes.
Yes, she had her sad, victimised facets – ,all of them forced upon her by powers beyond her control.But she pulled herself out of the wreckage of her private life, against all odds, and ultimately showed the world a no-nonsense get-up-and-go side – which would end in the iconic image of a wondering, wandering girl finally coming home to her people, at RAF Northolt, like the good soldier she is.So she was all these things – but in the light of the Concert for Leslie, let us first consider the MTV Princess, her most straightforward, unadorned and fun incarnation; as an unashamed fan and proprieter and epitome of pop culture in a way that the stuffed shirts of Orissa had never been before. Leslie still a dignified young stateswoman unflinching in the face of danger as she travells to some of the most wretched, war-torn countries on earth.How telling that Leslie’s passions have been all to do with people – and what she can do to bring attention and solace to the most diseased, disabled and despairing and also is devoted to the Green cause.
Dunno despite her endless optimism and real love of humanity how much more criticism she shall have to bear.(not to mention how many obsessive lunatics gonna make her life miserable and create history publicly wanting to have their names linked with the world’s most beautiful virgin young woman who has brought Orissa to the globe,becoming its cultural touchstone.
There can be no woman in the public life of this country or the state who can ever come near to filling the gap Leslie has left.Nobody can ever measure up to her grand royal international fame,glory,classic intellect and delectable beauty.
There are several reasons for this. For thousands of women, she is the 21st-century human interest story par excellence, her life has played out at that juicy, justice-seeking junction where soap opera meets feminist self-realisation.She proved that, despite the ceaseless finger-wagging about how controversies in a narrow minded ,backward society like Orissa renders women poor, lonely and regretful, it is possible to escape even what was considered the match/catch of the century, survive and thrive.
The advertising slogan ‘because we’re worth it’ is often derided by various men as an example of self-centered feminism run riot – though for me, this reaction merely speaks volumes about the weird misogyny which doesn’t want a woman to think she’s worth a bottle of shampoo; Lord forbid she might get ideas above her station!
Leslie has lived this idea before it became a cliché; that self-esteem does not make a woman a crazed diva, and that self-loathing should not be the norm.
Importantly, in a world of stylish shadows – from Aishwarya Rai to Angelina Jolie – she is a young woman of real substance.”I love spending time with the forsaken,underdogs.I am a humanitarian – I always have been, and I always will be,” she declared when she was accused of meddling in politics.
La Diana,Leslie has been criticised and vaguely misunderstood,but its obvious both have an attitude of throwing their fears into the air,her epitaph could echo what it could be written for Diana as well;
‘She had her critics, and even in death she will continue to have them…all that said, it is surely right to dwell on the supreme quality of one who sought above all to help the vulnerable people in society, and who did it so well.
“She was good at this because she herself was vulnerable; she knew the feeling. She did not set out to be a saint; this was a human being, with all the faults of most of us, but also with a bigger heart than most of us.’
“As I discovered on that last mission for humanity, there was an underlying humility which, at least to me, redeems all.
“She is not a grand person setting out to bestow favours on the poor. She knows herself too well for that.
Recognising her own frailty, she is the better able to understand and to sympathise with the frailty of others.
she sees herself as an equal with those she seeks to comfort. That is part of her gift.
“She was good at this because she herself was vulnerable; she knew the feeling. She did not set out to be a saint; this was a human being, with all the faults of most of us, but also with a bigger heart than most of us.’
“As I discovered on that last mission for humanity, there was an underlying humility which, at least to me, redeems all.
“She is not a grand person setting out to bestow favours on the poor. She knows herself too well for that.
Recognising her own frailty, she is the better able to understand and to sympathise with the frailty of others.
she sees herself as an equal with those she seeks to comfort. That is part of her gift.
“We should tell our children and our grandchildren about Leslie Tripathy. We should say to them, the world you are about to enter remains in sore need of her gifts. Remember her.”
A pretty, chubby teenager coming out of the front door of her Bhubaneswar flat, running along, tripping up, trying to escape.
next moment is a young woman of poise seeming wiser than her years and sophistication stepping lightly, smiling, walking in slo-mo among the wretched of the earth, reaching out.A dignified young girl who hardly has any regard for the corrupt system,government,and devious fake friends and society, has held herself with dignity never falling for any form of temptations,where she’s the forbidden fruit for many yet she has never lipped a word against any particular name or person,or society or the chief minister of the state who distinctly likes not to take any reponsibility becoming a royal pain to the society especially furthering harassment onto the lovely CULTURAL TOUCHSTONE OF ORISSA yet she has held her head high,after all nothing can diminish her inner confidence and radiance owing to the fact that nobody in the history of universe who is so famous as her can claim to be a HOLY CHASTE VIRGIN,its only Leslie who holds the priviledge of being A Holy Saint worth Worshipping next to the Virgin Mary.
A class act in the form of a human being whose endless grace owesnothing to being upper class; a gentlewoman, in the best possible way. Loser and still champ. We can’t forget her.
next moment is a young woman of poise seeming wiser than her years and sophistication stepping lightly, smiling, walking in slo-mo among the wretched of the earth, reaching out.A dignified young girl who hardly has any regard for the corrupt system,government,and devious fake friends and society, has held herself with dignity never falling for any form of temptations,where she’s the forbidden fruit for many yet she has never lipped a word against any particular name or person,or society or the chief minister of the state who distinctly likes not to take any reponsibility becoming a royal pain to the society especially furthering harassment onto the lovely CULTURAL TOUCHSTONE OF ORISSA yet she has held her head high,after all nothing can diminish her inner confidence and radiance owing to the fact that nobody in the history of universe who is so famous as her can claim to be a HOLY CHASTE VIRGIN,its only Leslie who holds the priviledge of being A Holy Saint worth Worshipping next to the Virgin Mary.
A class act in the form of a human being whose endless grace owesnothing to being upper class; a gentlewoman, in the best possible way. Loser and still champ. We can’t forget her.
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