Balanced and well-designedDear Sir,I was the medical reporter on the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg years ago and have been involved in journalism/health communication after leaving the newspaper. Our CEO, who attended the International Society for Quality in Healthcare conference in Qatar recently, brought back a few issues of Gulf Times to Cape Town.It was a pleasure to read a balanced, well-designed and comprehensive newspaper such as yours.Congratulations to all your staff on such a professional and superb publication.Marilyn KeeganCommunications ManagerThe Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa NPC 13 – 15 Lonsdale Building Lonsdale Way Pinelands 7405 South Africa
A great artisteDear Sir,Manorama, a veteran comedian, singer and a stage performer, who died in Chennai on Saturday, was a quintessential artiste. Besides Tamil films, she acted in other South Indian language and Hindi movies too. She appeared in more than 1,200 films in a career spanning nearly six decades.She had acted with five actors and actresses who later became chief ministers of the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. As a legendary actress, she could play any role with ease and comfort. Manorama was admired for her inimitable ability to speak in different dialects of the Tamil language to perfection. While she became famous for her comedy roles in films, she became a character artiste in the later part of her illustrious and enviable career.“The most difficult thing is to make people to laugh. It is easy to make them cry,” Manorama once said in an interview. With her death, she has made millions of her fans cry. As an ardent fan, I express my heartfelt condolences and share the sorrows of various others over her death.V Kalyanaraman(e-mail address supplied)The end of an era Dear Sir,Manorama’s death ends an era in Tamil films. This is a huge loss to the male-dominated Tamil film industry where very few actresses have managed to continue their career for so many years. Fondly called “Aachi”, she has acted in nearly 1,200 films, as many stage plays and dozens of television serials that have earned her a place in Guinness Book of Records. At a function held in Chennai a week ago, she repeated a seven-minute dialogue which she had said in a film almost 50 years ago. This showed her dedication and commitment to her profession.She will be remembered for years for her perseverance, commitment and versatility. Vidhyasankar S(e-mail address supplied)