The Cosmic Conundrum

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. When it comes to catching your attention from the first line, no one does it better than Laini. She says in her book: “You’re a storyteller. Dream up something wild and improbable,” she pleaded. “Something beautiful and full of monsters.” This seems to be Laini, talking to herself. Strange the Dreamer is exactly that and more. It is a dream of a book. It is full of wild and improbable fantasies and is utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful and full of unforgettable monsters.  But the genius of Laini lies in how she blurs the lines between the good and the bad. Some monsters are a nightmare ⸺ horrible and cruel. While the others have layers so deep that they make you question things. They force you to accept the fact that sometimes life happens to you in such a way that you need to turn into a monster to survive. The book plays deftly with the concept of duality. And then goes ahead and smudges the lines...

PC: Poetry Foundation Aunt Jennifer’s tigers   prance   across a screen, Bright   topaz   denizens   of a world of green.   They do not fear the men beneath the tree;   They pace in   sleek   chivalric   certainty. Prance: leap and dance   Topaz: yellow and golden precious stone Denizen: a citizen Pace: walk at a steady speed Sleek: smooth Chivalry: the code of conduct followed by medieval knights (soldiers). Chivalry includes grace, honour, kindness, respect toward others etc. Aunt Jennifer as described by the speaker is busy sewing a forest scene on a sheet of cloth. Her needle work is definitely neat and clear as the scenery she was stitching depicted the following: 1.    Tigers leaping (prancing, jumping) around. 2.    They were golden-coloured (topaz) and shining (means a sunny day in which their yellowish-golden fur glistened) 3.    The bright colours of the tigers...

If a writer like Thomas Hardy wrote a book with a title like “Far from the Madding Crowd,” then he must have really thought it through. The need to get away as far as possible from the humdrum lives we live today simmers under the surface of each one of us. And you do a disservice to yourself by not addressing it. Private vacations are as vital to our existence now as they ever were. Their importance will never fade however far humanity may have come from the horse and buggy days when life was apparently much simpler. Travel for Pleasure Each morning we wake up, a routine that moves at a snail’s pace stares at us right in the face. The same coffee-office-coffee-home cycle is a vicious one. Work takes over each aspect of our lives so much so that we start living around it, making our life decisions to accommodate it. Your cubicle where you create your own space, trying to meet the overwhelming demands of professional and personal lives, is a desperate attempt to carve o...

John Keats, PC: Poetry Foundation A Thing of Beauty                                            John Keats A thing of beauty is a joy forever Its loveliness increases, it will never Pass into nothingness; but will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Metaphor :  Bower Keats describes what things with beauty are. ·          Before you start the poem remember the poet MOST DEFINITELY is not talking about human beauty. ·          A beautiful thing ( we are not clear right now what these things are; he will tell about them later ) gives happiness to all. ·          This happiness is never ending. Why? Because according to Keats anything which has beauty never becom...

With a massive collection of his artwork displayed in the NGMA, the city reminiscences with the artist extraordinaire. Bangalore, February 27, 2018: Balan Nambiar, the renowned veteran painter and sculptor, celebrates his artistic journey spanning six decades at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bengaluru. “I am going to come out with a book on enamel paintings. It’s too soon to give away all the details but this is something I have wanted to do since a long time,” says Balan Nambiar looking out to the serene setting for his sculptures in the National Gallery of Modern Art. The exhibition themed “Sculpting in Time, Balan Nambiar and his six decades of engagement with Materiality” was inaugurated on February 4, 2018. Curated by his long time friend Sadanand Menon, this retrospective exhibition encompasses the enormous repertoire of Nambiar. His mastery lies in the sheer variety of mediums in which he casts his creative ingenuity. “Starting out with clay and moving ...

  PC: Swarnali Chakraborty By growing an anti-malarial drug resistant parasite, Plasmodium Vivax, scientists feel new drugs can be created to counter malaria. Bangalore, March 6, 2018: In an advance that might lead to eradication of malaria, a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been able to grow and study a dormant form of  malaria causing parasite—Plasmodium Vivax. This form of parasite causes the maximum cases of malaria in Karnataka. “Plasmodium vivax causes more malaria outbreak than Plasmodium falciparum. As for eradication, we are aiming to bring down the number malaria cases in the state below 10 per cent of the population by 2025. If such a study has been conducted then it can prove useful,” says Dr. Shivaraj Sajjan Shetty, Joint Director, National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are the two parasites known to cause most human cases of malaria. While less deadly, Plasmo...

PC: Swarnali Chakraborty India State of forest Report 2017 (ISFR) showed an increase of 117 sq. km in the tree cover of Bengaluru urban area. Bangalore, March 20, 2018 : The ISFR 2017 may have given Karnataka a reason to cheer with the state recording the second highest growth in forest cover. However, urban Bangalore’s rising tree cover may not be as green as one might think. “The rise in the tree cover in Urban Bangalore could be a cumulative effect of more coconut plantation being done in some areas, or it could be any number of reasons. Sometimes trees are uprooted from somewhere and replanted somewhere else. Whether it’s because of a conscious conservation drive is hard to say,” says Sashwati Mishra, Chief Conservator of Forest, Bangalore circle. The 2017 ISFR shows the total tree cover of the urban Bangalore to be 234 sq km, which is a 50 per cent increase from two years ago. “The increase in tree cover is yet to be ascertained by a third party / independent a...

PC: Humane Society International The decision is a victory for the combined efforts of organizations like Humane Society International (HSI) and People for Animals (PFA). Bangalore, April 9, 2018: India became the latest county to put a ban on the import of seal skin and fur from Canada. This decision would help protect thousands of seals from being slaughtered by the commercial sealing industries. The notification issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade ( DGFT ), India has come as a triumph for the incessant and combined endeavors of organizations like HSI and PFA fighting for animal rights worldwide. “We are delighted that our appeal to the Government of India to take a stand against this cruelty has produced a result after four long years. With dwindling world markets for seal products, the Canadian sealing industry is counting on countries like India and China to import the seal fur, oil and meat that other nations refuse to buy and I am glad that India has ...

  PC: Swarnali Chakraborty A recent study shows that the environmental impact of firewood and dung as cooking fuel has been hitherto underestimated. Majority of people in the villages of Karnataka are still dependent on firewood as cooking fuel. This number is the largest of all  southern Indian states. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data of 2011-12 shows that out of 1000 households in rural Karnataka, 805 use firewood for cooking. This number stands at 583 for Tamil Nadu and 675 for Andhra Pradesh. A recent study conducted by researchers at University of Washington, St Louis, USA, showed that the smoke emitted from cook stoves for both cooking and heating had a definite, detrimental environmental impact. “Our project findings quantitatively show that particulate emissions from cook-stoves in India have been underestimated,” said Rajan Chakrabarty, assistant professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering, Washington Universit...

(Image Source-  Wikimedia Commons)  Today is the first Friday the 13 th of 2018 and the second one is lurking in July.   Bangalore, April 13, 2018: “ April is the cruellest month” went T. S. Eliot in his famous poem, "The Waste land." Add a Friday the 13 th to it and we have a story that would make Stephen King sit up and beg. The idea of Friday the 13 th strikes more fear in the hearts of people than the wrath of the good Lord himself. The spooky conjugation of a day of the week and a random date scares even the most die-hard Einsteinists and Newtonites. Behavourial scientist at the University of Chicago, Jane Risen believes that superstitions affect even the non-believers. She said that people who identify as superstitious and non-superstitious both believe a bad outcome is more likely when they’ve been jinxed, such as by stating they definitely won’t get into a car accident. “Even if I don’t actively believe, just that fact that Friday the 13th exis...