What does it mean?

Two men. Both famous. Both geniuses. One Jewish from New York. One Muslim from Bombay. Can you name who they are?

And how does one explain their similarity in appearance? Leave your comments.


UPDATE 10-14-13

After getting some great comments, and thinking about them, here is my guess as to the cause of the resemblance.

First of all the man on the left is novelist Salman Rushdie, as many said, and the man on the right is filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, now deceased.

Years ago I did a post on sanskaras and forms titled Mould of the Impressions. In it I quoted Meher Baba as saying that the sanskaras (the residue of impressions left by experiences in the previous life) form a kind of mould for the shape the body will take in the next life. Thus it might stand to reason that like-impressions produce like-forms, meaning literally the shape and look of our bodies. Your sanskaras also effect your personality and interests.

How do the lives and personalities of Rushdie and Kubrick compare? Both are artists (one a novelist and the other a filmmaker; storytellers) and both are keenly intellectual and famous for it. Their work is very independent. Both are famous of course. In 2008, the London paper The Times ranked Rushdie thirteenth on its list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945, while AMCTV ranks Kubrick #2 among the 50 best filmmakers of all time. Both lived near London, though neither was born there. Both married several times.

They are not ethnically the same. Rushdie is of Kashmiri descent, while Kubrick was Jewish, so ethnicity does not seem to account for their similar appearance. The themes and genres of their work are also not similar. Rushdie wrote in the genre of magical realism, dealing with the theme of East and West. While Kubrick worked in many genres on many themes, magical realism and East and West not being among them.

I don't really know, just a guess. Thank you for the comments.


UPDATE 11-4-13

After writing the above, I realized I was grasping at straws. But where's the harm in that? Then a person commented below and gave an even more interesting suggestion, equally playful and imaginative.

I could also let my imagination run along the limits that Baba has shown and suggest that maybe in their previous lifetime they aspired so strongly and fixedly on a common teacher who looked like they ended up looking in this lifetime, though they were born so widely apart.

This got me imagining the many known traditional images of Zen masters of the past. Could they have shared a single Zen master in some long forgotten past, and having focussed on him and his teachings so strongly they came back looking just like him? (:

I conclude with some intriguingly similar images of ancient Zen masters.

But here's another possibility. It's simply an amazing coincidence.


UPDATE 8-7-14

This video I added is by my friend Frankie Paradiso. It's both funny and thought provoking.