Of inflation and the current cost-of-living crisis

ara was the purest being in the world. She moved with a silent grace, and everything about her was fitting and harmonious. She does not wish to please or look beautiful. It's as though she were punishing herself for being lovely. But this proud hostility to herself makes her more attractive than ever," wrote Boris Pasternak of Lara in Doctor Zhivago.

- SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

The epic novel is a love story of a Russian doctor torn between his dutiful wife Tonya and passionate and beautiful Lara in the backdrop of a revolution, a civil war and two world wars. Through the novel, Pasternak gives a powerful message to mankind: that violence is futile as a means of change, that love can triumph over all human misery and that only love and compassion can bring about lasting peace and happiness to mankind.

Those who have read the novel cannot forget the character of Lara and those who have seen David Lean's 1965 film adaptation of it cannot forget Julie Christie's portrayal of it. Julie Christie, daughter of a British tea planter in India and born in Assam, became so popular after playing Lara that LIFE magazine named 1965, 'The Year of Julie Christie.'

Such was Lara's appeal that the leitmotif of the film's Oscar-winning background score by Maurice Jarre came to be called 'Lara's Theme' when actually the film's soundtrack album lists no track by that title. Anyone with even half-an-ear for music cannot forget the melancholy composition after watching the movie.

So was Lara for real? To this question, Pasternak had replied, "Lara exists...I want you to meet her. Here is her telephone number..." and directed the quizzer to his associate and mistress Olga Ivinskaya.