Great stories by Great authors….

 

The U.S. Postal Service will honor the 150th anniversary of the birth of O. Henry with a 2012 Forever stamp. The design of the stamp is beautiful. Here I just wish to share his most famous story “The Gift of Magi” and  famous  Hindi film ‘Raincoat’ based on this story……The great story by great author….This is all in this Post….Have a Nice Time !

O. Henry is the pen name of writer William S. Porter, 1862-1910. The O. Henry drawing is based on a photograph of the author as a young man. The background image is the elevated rail in New York City, where many of O. Henry's stories were set. O. Henry wrote nearly 300 stories, including "The Gift of the Magi," "The Ransom of Red Chief" and "The Cop and the Anthem." O. Henry has an annual anthology named after him, The O. Henry Prize Stories. The O. Henry stamp will be the 28th stamp in the Literary Arts series by USPS.

A postage stamp on O Henry was also issued by then USSR in 1962,

 O. Henry (1862-1910) was a prolific American short-story writer, a master of surprise endings, who wrote about the life of ordinary people in New York City. A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories. O. Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter and he was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September 11, 1862. At age of 20 (1882) he moved to Texas, where he had various jobs.

In 1894 while working for First National Bank in Austin, Porter was accused of stealing $4000. He went to prison in Columbus, Ohio for 3 years eventually.While in prison Porter first started to write short stories and it’s believed that he has found his writer’s pseudonym there. After Porter was released from the prison in 1901, he changed his name to O. Henry and moved to New York in 1902.From December 1903 to January 1906 o. Henry wrote a story a week for the New York World magazine, and published several short stories in other magazines.O. Henry’s short stories are famous for their surprise endings and humor.O. Henry's wrote such classic short stories as The Ransom of Red Chief, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”.In his last years O. Henry had financial and health problems.  O. Henry died on June 5, 1910 in New York City. 

"The Gift of the Magi" is a popular Christmas story about love and sacrifice. The work is one of the most famous stories by O. Henry.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story written by O. Henry , about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been a popular one for adaptation, especially for presentation during the Christmas season.

 

Young married couple Della and James "Jim" Dillingham Young are very much in love with each other but can barely afford their one-room apartment due to their very bad economic situation. For Christmas, Della decides to buy Jim a chain for his prized pocket watch given to him by his father's father. To raise the funds, she has her long, beautiful hair cut off and sold to make a wig. Meanwhile, Jim decides to sell his watch to buy Della a beautiful set of combs made out of tortoiseshell and jewels for her lovely, knee-length brown hair. Although each is disappointed to find the gift they chose rendered useless, each is pleased with the gift that they received, because it represents their love for one another.

Read full orignial story….

Raincoat is a 2004 Hindi film directed by Rituparno Ghosh, and starring Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai. It tells the story of two lovers, separated by destiny, who meet again one day. This encounter allows each to realize the truth about the lives they are living. It is an adaptation of the short story The Gift of the Magi (1906) by O Henry .

The story begins with unemployed Manu (Ajay Devgan), from Bhagalpur in search of money to finance his new business as he has lost his earlier job at a jute mill. On his quest, he visits Neeru (Aishwarya Rai) in Calcutta, to whom he was engaged six years ago. During the rainy evening, the couple reminisce about their former love and how each ended up in their current situation.

Neeru pretends to lead a happy and prosperous life. She gestures to her former lover during various instances, particularly when the door bell rings and she persuades Manu not to open the door. They go on talking about their past and present with multiple flashbacks.

The raincoat comes to play when Neeru wears it to fetch some food. The landlord speaks of the real situation of the household, and prompts Manu to give his borrowed money as rent for the house. Manu leaves a letter under the bed sheet explaining things. When Neeru returns he does not say anything about his encounter with her landlord. After some time Manu leaves. Later, when he puts his hand inside the pocket of his raincoat, he finds a pair of gold bangles that belonged to Neeru, along with a letter saying that she had a lot of money and he should have told her about his financial situation. She had actually read a letter that was inside the raincoat that informed her about Manu's condition.

RAINCOAT: An excellent touching movie to heart with its most simplicity based on O Henry’ s story “ The Gift of Magi”