Tag: music

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS

About: From the time we are born, through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and probably into old age as well, we acquire and carry a chestful of fetishes, likes, dislikes, crazy beliefs, and what not? Let us call the best of them as Favourite Things. These are a few of my favourite things, and I’m sure you will be able to relate to them, with nostalgia. Also a run, down memory lane from the 1960s, in Tamil Nadu, India.

The title itself is one of my favourites-a song from the unforgettable classic Hollywood movie, The Sound of Music, released in the year 1965, which starts with, when I am sad I remember a few of my favourite things: “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm wooden mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these a few of my favourite things…”

Recall, the Sound of Music won five Oscars from ten nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Scoring Music, and Best Sound (proved that the sound is indeed good). The movie forever trapped the Von Trapp Family and Austria’s Vienna in my memory: an enthralling musical by Hollywood’s Rodgers & Hammerstein. And of course, the tongue-keeping songs such as, Do-Re-Mi, doe a deer; I am sixteen going on seventeen; so long farewell; Edelweiss… Well, I’m not actually sad at the moment, but being in a cheerful mood, I can pack my favourite things for any gloomy times ahead.

When studying in Boarding School in the Hill Station of Yercaud, I used to come home only twice a year: a fifteen-day, Half-Yearly Holiday in the middle of the year, and a three-month Annual Holiday-beginning in November and ending in January of the following year.

I lived on a farm in the wonder years and bringing the early learnings of the Hill Station School to the farm, and mixing it up, was often incredibly crazy. For e.g., I thought the water springing in a well was because of salt (in Tamil, Thaneer ooruthu) and I dug a small hole – my own tiny well- in a field. And when Mom was not looking, stole some table salt and put it in the well along with water hoping the water will spring and overflow! I then cut down a few papaya tree branches-they have a hole running through the length-to serve as pipelines, to take out the spring water (to the fields for irrigation). I waited for days, but the water never got itself out of the well and into the papaya pipelines: it dried out leaving only the salt (for Mom to gather). And I moved on. Lesson learnt.

Those days, in the villages, the most popular means of ‘cleaning your teeth’ was with Gopal Tooth Powder (Gopal Palpodi). It was a pinkish red powder with herbal ingredients (KFC’s Colonel must have drawn inspiration or stolen parts of the formula while brushing his teeth in India?) and came in cool mini-sachets. And you took some of it in your left palm and used the right second finger to rub the cleansing powder over your teeth. I always had a sachet of Gopal Palpodi whenever I travelled, visiting Aunties and Uncles, Grandmas and Grandfathers, during the holidays. Then came the white Colgate tooth power, before toothpaste and tooth brushes bristled into action, stealing the breath and whitening the teeth of India.

In Boarding School it was always the Toothpaste and Tooth Brush combo- strictly no finger-licking tooth powder. My favourite toothpaste, without hesitation, was Binaca, which came with cute miniature collectibles of soft plastic toys in each pack. A plethora of rhinos, panthers, hippos, monkeys, cats, parrots, giraffes, foxes, frogs, penguins, fish, deer, bisons, camels, tortoises, donkeys, ducks, sea-horses, pelicans and cranes, lizards, snails, bears, chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants, creatures great and small… of all colours and shapes, they all came to me in, of all things, the toothpaste box. Oh, how I waited for the next Binaca. Of course, I did eat toothpaste to bring the animals sooner. Then there was this silent, serious-looking bitter tasting fluoride based Forhans Toothpaste, which never gave foam but was said to be a product created by Dentists and for safeguarding gums and enamel. It came in an orange pack and was fierce looking. An Aunt actually forced me to use it. I remember an advertisement when a kid asks the mother, ‘Ethil nurai varumma’ (Will this foam?)

My favourite soap was the pleasant green, Hamam, backed-up by Mysore Sandal Soap for special occasions. The transparent Pears was for the babies seeing-through, before Johnson’s Baby products toddled-in. I despised the other brands such as Margo and the ayurvedic Medimix (later it became a standard feature of almost every Hotel and Lodge).The beauty ‘girlish’ soaps at that time were Lux International and also the ’come alive with freshness soap’, Liril, featuring the bathing beauty Karen Lunel -wearing a green two-piece bikini – under a waterfall, and I did dream about her a lot!

Sunlight was the washing soap that Mom used for the dirty clothes and the pale yellow-bar could always be seen at home. I could not imagine a world without Sunlight before surfing for Surf and then Nirma Washing Powder dancing into our homes. So so did the blue Rin and Det soap, about that time.

Face power was typically Ponds, and later Nycil, with the girls going for that vintage Remy and Cuticura – dusting on the face using a puff held in a nice little powder box.

I never wore a wrist-watch until University and in those days HMT watches- Time keepers to the Nation-was the rage. Of course, I forced my uncle to part with his 24-jewelled, Made-In-Japan Ricoh Automatic Watch for a period. It had a fancy glass-cut as if it was a diamond. This diamond was not forever and I had to return it to my Uncle, after a while. My first owned watch was a Titan, which the Tata’s launched to bring ‘electronic clock’ times to India. And I still have the favourite first watch: a white checked dial base with date, day, month watch at the 3rd hour.

Going back to Films, beyond The Sound of Music, my favourite movie, that I watched and watched over and over again, was the eleven Oscars winning epic Ben-Hur. That galley-slave battle sequence, the Chariot Race, and the story of Jesus Christ without showing us his face, struck a chord and raced in the mind.

Another ‘watched again-and-again’ favourite is Bruce Lee’s, ‘Enter the Dragon’. The superb, clever Kung-Fu fight sequences are a delight to watch. And it was devastating to learn that Bruce Lee unfortunately died at age 32, six days before the movie’s premiere in Hong Kong. He never witnessed the massive ground-breaking international success of Enter The Dragon, which was his first. I would call it a cult movie of the time and thereafter Bruce Lee became a global icon.

Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, and Charlton Heston were my favourite heroes and almost all Hollywood heroines stepped into a long list. Spoilt for choice. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Sophia Lauren, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress – she was constantly in a state in undressing – and was the Bond girl, rising up from the sea, in the first ever James Bond movie, Dr No.

In our own Indian Film World, MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, Jaishankar, Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, Savithri, Saroja Devi, Sri Devi and Zeenath Amman were a few of my favourites. And music by M S Viswanathan, and later Ilayaraja, with songs sung by T M Soundararajan, S P Balasubramanian, P B Sreenivas, P Susheela, S Janaki, always hummed inside.

Over time, I became a voracious reader and comics paved the way to serious reading. Tarzan-of the Apes, Phantom-the Ghost Who Walks (Oh, I loved Diana Palmer, the Horse-Hero, and the Wolf Dog-Devil, and the Phantom rings), Richie-Rich, Wendy the Witch, Little Lotta, and later Asterix ruled this part of the world. Mandrake the magician and a local Tamil comic series, ‘Irumbukkai Maayavai’ (the man with the iron hand) was another electrifying story, which was based on Steel Claw-one of the most famous British Weekly Adventure Comics. Then there was the comic strip Axa, which featured a semi-nude, busty, sexy, sword-wielding long-haired blonde heroine. Stirred-up many a thing.

Top-gear novels were Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, The Secret Seven, and Captain W E Johns’ Biggles (James Bigglesworth) detective series. Then I delved into the Westerns such as Oliver Strange-the Marshall of Lawless -the James Green series being a favourite. Harold Robbins’s ‘Never Love A Stranger’ and novels by James Hadley Chase opened new worlds filled with smooth mountain peaks and bushy valleys. Debonair and Playboy -I never dared buy them, but borrowed – they were magazines I read-nay, looked- beneath bed-sheets or in the dark alleys of Boarding School life. In later years Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot – Murder on the Orient Express -were my favourite detectives solving crime after crime. Often I would sit down in a corner of a restaurant and ‘play’ Sherlock Holmes in the mind.

Shoes and slippers were invariably Bata, then BSC (Bata Shoe Company), and with another brand called Corona a distant competition. One of my favourites was a brown-colour, foot-covering sandal, which I used until it broke-fractured into two- and helplessly stitched together to hold for many more times, at least while walking on the farm, at home.

Studying in an Anglo-Indian English Medium School from the beginning I was naturally drawn to Western music, The Bee Gees- every song; Beatles – yellow submarine and other songs; ABBA-Dancing Queen, Fernando; Osibisa, dance the body music; Boney M, The Rivers of Babylon; and Eruption’s, ‘One Way Ticket to the Moon’; The Eagles, Hotel California; Survivor, the Eye of the Tiger; Johnny Wakelin – The Black Superman, about Muhammad Ali flying like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. Later on, Air Supply, Foreigner, Dire Straits, Police, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd-the Wall – became favourites.

In the early days – due to my ‘English’ upbringing – I struggled with the Tamil language and an Aunt of mine introduced me to two magazines, which made my Tamil almost poetic and even classic. One was ‘Kumudham’ and the second was ‘Kalkandu’. Tamilvanan was the founding editor of the then widely read Kalkandu (Sugar Crystals), which published fiction, articles about state politics, and Tamil cinema, and pages of factoids. Tamilvanan’s novels featured the detective hero Shankarlal, who travels the world solving crimes and battling criminals, much like a James Bond. The novels often contain a good deal of factual information about the settings, which educated the Tamil audience about countries to which, at the time, relatively few Indians could afford to travel. Shankarlal frequently travelled with his wife Indra and his servants, Kathrikai (the nickname means ‘eggplant’ a reference to his fat belly and tuft of hair) and Manickam. Shankarlal always wore a black hat and sunglasses and was famous for drinking great quantities of tea. Tamilvanan’s motto as a journalist was ‘courage is the best companion’ (in Tamil ‘Thunivee Thunai’). In Kalkandu, he often substantiated his facts and statistics with authorities such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and Guinness Book of World Records besides other scholarly works.

Then there was Thiruvalluvar’s 1330 verse Thirukkural, which was a must read and must study. The Public Transport Buses in Tamil Nadu had a verse, or more, painted on the inside- to educate yourself, on the move.

On the English side, I loved the cheekyThe Illustrated Weekly of India – a weekly, odd-sized magazine newspaper and The Indian Express newspaper. I hated the stubborn and serious looking, The Hindu newspaper, and it was best used for lining shelves. An Aunt (oh, the same one!) of mine even used it to line the trays when she bought her first ever refrigerator. Those days the popular brands were, Kelvinator, Godrej, and Voltas.

In the school days chewing gum was popular as was Fruitex confectioneries. In the 1960s and 70s Fruitex were known for having collectible stamps inside its wrappers. Sweets with stamps for stamp collection, and I became a Stamp Collector.

I was always fascinated by Mermaids: those mythical, beautiful long-haired, curvy, well-endowed beauties, with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish. And two years ago, when I went to Poland’s Warsaw I learnt about ‘The Mermaid of Warsaw’, which armed with a sword and shield is believed to protect the City. I bought a momento of the Warsaw Mermaid, which I keep close to my heart (might prevent a Heart Attack). Legend says that the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen is the Warsaw mermaid’s sister and they went separate ways from the Baltic Sea.

My favourite off-school games were, Marbles, Tops-Pambaram, Killi-Thandu/Gilli Danda, Snakes & Ladders (Paramapadham), Aadu Puli Aatam. Dhaayam – Daayakattai similar to the ancient Chaupur, as played in the Mahabharata, or modern-day Ludo. Chinese checkers and Chess did climb up the ladder as I progressed in School.

In Golli Gundu -as it was called in Tamil -we used glass marbles to hit and capture other players’s marbles placed in a circular area. As in a form of ‘rudimentary golf’ we shoot marbles into a small dug-out hole. I’m unable to recall the exact rules of the game, but I do remember pivoting my left fingers on the ground, holding a marble in the middle or index finger with the right hand and releasing it with precise aim, much like a catapult. Also a kind of ‘ground billiards’. And I could aim and hit another marble at quite a distance.

Pambaram (Top – made of wood) where we spin it as long as possible with a deft sting pull and a clever nail on which the Top spins. Sometimes we attack another top placed in a circle on the ground, by hitting it in a top strike. And I was an expert in making the top spin on my palm (with a flat nail). Perhaps this became the basis for the Hero spinning a Pambaram on the Heroine’s bare belly, in a popular Tamil movie. That was tingling, for sure!

In Gilli-Danda, a two-team game, a short stick with tapering ends is lobbed into the air by the longer stick the Danda, and hit as far as possible. The distance from the ‘hit point’ to the spot where Gili lands is measured in Dandas. If the Gilli is caught by the opposite team, while in the air, he is considered out (sometimes the whole team) or if he fails to strike the Gili on three consecutive attempts he is declared out. Some kind of ancient baseball?

During my school days electricity had yet to arrive at home, and we used simple wick-Kerosene lamps or the pressurised Kerosene Petromax Lamps. The latter was a special feature for lighting up Weddings. I particularly enjoyed fitting the incandescent filament, lighting it with a match-stick and then hand-pumping the lamp (pressurising) until the filament glowed a brilliant white light.

As electricity creeped into our Homes, other favourites occupied my mind: the ‘slowly heating-up’ valve-radios, the mobile battery operated Transistor Radios, the Vinyl record-players, he Philips and Bush brands were a huge hit until the National Panasonic cassette players took our world by storm. You can delve into them at

https://kumargovindan.com/2025/05/03/radio-blaa-blaa/

I started writing this article with few things in mind and as it opened and flowed, the few began growing – overwhelmed – and I thought maybe ‘many’ would be a better word but certainly not ‘less’. Should I plan a sequel as ‘much more’ Favourite Things stack-up?

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-33

About: the world this week, 13 August to 19 August 2023; a charged Trump; the Taliban; rain fury in India; caste problems; Inflation; Moon mission; brainwave music; Women’s Football, and Men’s Hockey.

Everywhere

United States

Former United States (US) President Donald Trump ‘refuses to quit’- the headlines, for the wrong reasons. He and 18 others were indicted in the State of Georgia for trying to overturn the Presidential Election Results in 2020, which culminated in his supporters storming the US Capitol Hill in January 2020. This week, the jury laid out a 41-count indictment against Trump and others.

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating Georgia’s RICO Act, (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) soliciting a public officer, and conspiring to file false documents. Some of the others indicted include former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former White House lawyer John Eastman.

The RICO Act enables prosecutors to target people in positions of authority within a criminal organisation, not just lower-level people doing the dirty work. But its use was never meant to be limited exclusively to organised ‘Gangster’ crime.

On expected lines, Team Trump called the prosecutors in the case ‘rabid partisan’ and called the indictment ‘bogus.’ It’s the fourth time he’s been criminally charged in four months. Trump has maintained that the other indictments are politically motivated.

Educating The Taliban

It’s close to 700 days since the Taliban banned teenage girls and women from schools and they continue to be denied the right to an education in Afghanistan. Now, in another onslaught on women, a Taliban Official said this week, “Women ‘lose value’ if men glimpse their faces in public”. Hence the necessity for them to cover-up!

India’s Rain Fury

Intense rain and cloudbursts wreaked havoc in India’s northern State of Himachal Pradesh for the second time since July, resulting in multiple landslides that claimed more than 50 lives across the hill state.

The devastation in the Hill Station of Shimla was Biblical with buildings collapsing like the proverbial ‘house of cards’ washed away by the avalanche-like gush of water down the hill sides.

The situation was grim in the neighbouring State of Uttarakhand too, as a continuous spell of torrential rain caused three deaths and left five people missing. The fatalities have pushed the state’s rain-related death toll this monsoon to over 63, with many unaccounted for.

The extreme rain spells came during a break in the monsoon over India, when the monsoon trough runs close to the Western Himalayas, making the hill states vulnerable to heavy showers.

India’s Inflation

India’s retail inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which was relaxing around 4.81% in June for quite a while, surged to a 15-month high of 7.44% in July. Vegetable prices, notably tomatoes, and other food items are major contributors to the spike. This marks the highest figure since April 2022, when inflation was at 7.79%.

The two indices that are used to measure inflation in India are the CPI and the WPI (Wholesale Price Index). These two measure inflation on a monthly basis taking into account different approaches to calculate the change in prices of goods and services. The study helps the Government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to understand the price change in the market and thus keep an eye on inflation.

The CPI analyses the retail inflation of goods and services in the economy across 260 commodities. The CPI-based retail inflation considers the change in prices at which the consumers buy goods. The data is collected separately by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation and the Ministry of Labour.

The WPI analyses the inflation of only goods across 697 commodities. The WPI-based wholesale inflation considers the change in prices at which consumers buy goods at a wholesale price or in bulk from the Manufacturer/Producer’s Factory, Mandis, etc.

India’s CPI rose, the WPI continues to remain in the negative territory for four straight months and was (-)1.36% in July 2023.

Tamil Nadu’s Caste Problems

In a shocking, brutal incident, a 17 years old student, Chinnadurai and his 14 years old sister Chandraselvi, studying in a Government-aided School, were attacked with sickles by six of his classmates at his house in Nanguneri, in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli District, late last week.

Chinnadurai is a Class 12 student of the School in Valliyur on the National Highway, near Nanguneri and belongs to a lower caste. His attackers-classmates from his own school- belonged to dominant upper castes. When the attackers barged into their house, Chandraselvi who had come to Chinnadurai’s rescue was also hacked. The neighbours gathered on hearing the commotion, the students fled the scene.

The brother suffered about fifteen cuts on his body while the sister had about five cuts, primarily on her hands. Both were treated at the Nanguneri Government Hospital and later at the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital. And are out of danger.

A 60 years old relative of the victims, who was among those holding a protest demanding police action against the suspects, fainted and died.

Chinnadurai was subjected to casteist harassment and bullied at school by students of Class 11 and Class 12 who forced him to run errands for them such as buying cigarettes and snacks. Unable to bear the harassment the boy complained to his parents-who are daily wage labourers-and stopped going to School.

Chinnadurai’s mother had taken him to school to complain, whereupon the students involved were called by the Headmaster and let off with a stiff warning. This seems of have angered the boys who confronted Chinnadurai on his way home and threatened him with severe consequences if he complained. And on the same night, the students gathered and entered Chinnadurai’s house and attacked him.

Tirunelveli has been infamous for caste clashes in schools in the past too and the Government had taken measures such as banning the use of coloured wristbands and other symbols that identify caste in schools. Like wristbands, students would sport tilaks and bindis in different colours – for instance, red and green for Dalits, yellow and red for Thevars. Such wristbands and also colourful T-shirts and trousers are banned in Schools in the region.

Moon Mission

India’s Chandrayaan-3 is flying like a butterfly and is getting closer to the Moon and this week it successfully completed all Moon-bound manoeuvres. The next step of the separation of the Lunar Landing Module-Vikram-from the Propulsion Module happened on 17 Aug 23. And subsequently, the de-boosting operations to slow down the spacecraft was also completed. Vikram is now as close as about 113 km away from the Moon, looking for a spot… to land.

And it’s over to the soft-kiss touch-down landing on the Moon…and of course the strolling when Vikram ‘opens up’ to reveal the Rover – Pragyan – tucked inside.

Land like a Butterfly! Sting the Moon like a Bee!

Music From Another Brick In The Wall

Scientists have reconstructed Pink Floyd’s iconic song, ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by eavesdropping on people’s brainwaves- the first time a recognisable song has been decoded from recordings of electrical brain activity.

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, published a study explaining how they reconstructed ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by decoding electrical brain activity. Scientists placed electrodes on 29 epilepsy patients’ brain surfaces as they listened to three minutes of the song. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computer models used the brain-activity patterns in each patient’s brain to help recreate the song’s lyrics, rhythm, and melody. The scientists said they decided to use music instead of voice because ‘music is universal’. Now, the success of the study could be used to help paralysed patients with neurological conditions.

Researchers found an increased reaction in part of the temporal lobe (which processes sound and memory) when playing certain notes. The scientists hope the study could help answer why some patients who struggle with speech can sing but not speak. They also believe the research could help develop devices that can do more than just rely on speech-but can instead interpret sounds and emotions as well.

The breakthrough could help tens of thousands of people who have difficulty with speech including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients and those with non-verbal apraxia.

ALS is a form of motor neuron disease, where the muscles are left ‘without nourishment’ and thereby loss of signals that nerve cells normally send to muscle cells.

The hope is that doing so could ultimately help to restore the musicality of natural speech in patients who struggle to communicate because of disabling neurological conditions such as stroke or ALS – the neurodegenerative disease that famous Scientist Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with.

Women’s Football

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is on its last legs in the joint-hosting countries of Australia and New Zealand.

Joining Spain and Sweden – last week’s Semi Finalists – were England and Australia. England beat Colombia 2-1 in regular time, and Australia beat France 7-6 on penalties, to get to the last Four. This is Australia’s first ever entry into the Semi-Finals.

In the first semi-finals Spain beat Sweden, 2-1, and in the second, England beat Australia, 3-1, to kick into their first ever final. Australia’s Sam Kerr scored a spectacular goal from around the mid-half – easily one of the best in the tournament – to level after the English scored. But Australia fumbled during an English raid, at the goal-post allowing England to slip in a goal.

The Spain versus England Final is set for 20 August 23 at ‘Stadium Australia’- Accor Stadium – Sydney, Australia. Neither have the Spanish ‘La Roja’ or the English ‘Lionesses’ reached this stage previously, and either way it will be truly be a ‘maiden win’.

The key players capable of determining the final outcome are: England’s defender Alex Greenwood, considered one of the best ball-playing centre backs in the World and along with her impeccable passing she can roar in the attacks. She will have to fend off Spain’s Jennifer Hermoso, who has a ran a total of 67.43 km in the Tournament thus far, chasing down every ball and brushing over every blade of grass to help her team win. Then there is the Ona Batlle -Lauren Hemp and Teresa Abelleria – Keria Walsh battles to look forward to.

The other stars are Spain’s Alexia Putellas and Salma Paralluelo, especially the latter. After giving up an athletics career the 19 years old has gone on to establish herself in the Spanish squad. Able to play wide or through the middle, her pace is a nightmare for opposition defenders, plus she has an eye for goals. She has scored three times in Spain’s last two games before the World Cup. Another lioness to look out for is the ‘poised for breakout’ 21 years old English star Lauren James.

England are favourites to win the Cup. The Queen of Spain is expected to watch the Finals, and maybe wave a magic wand?

The race for the Golden Boot, has Japan’s Hinata Miyazawa, at 5 goals, in the lead followed by France’s Kadidiatou Diani, at 4 goals.

Hockey

The Indian men’s hockey team won its fourth Asian Champions Trophy title, cheered on by a capacity crowd in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. They defeated Malaysia 4-3 in the finals. Now the expectations are huge for winning Gold in upcoming The Asian Games – about a month away. With this victory, India becomes the most successful team in the Asian Champions Trophy, ahead of three-time champions and arch rivals, Pakistan.

India was down 1-3, at half-time, but clawed-back into the game to secure a 4-3 win. Jugraj Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh, and Akashdeep Singh scored the goals for India.

Japan beat Korea 5-3 for to finish third, while Pakistan beat China 6-1 to finish fifth.

More sticking stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Play with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-31

About: the world this week 30 July to 5 August 2023; Ukraine’s drones; Niger’s uranium; Permafrost’s secrets; India’s violence; Women’s football; and Music’s spill.

Everywhere

Ukraine

Ukraine is on the counter-offensive, taking the war into Russia striking deep inside their territory, reaching Moscow and threatening more attacks. A skyscraper in Moscow was attacked by an ‘unidentified’ drone for the second time in two days.

Ukraine says there will be ‘more unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts’. Of course, Russia keeps fumbling with tacit threats of the nuclear option.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia-the new growing-up kid in the world of peacemaking – is trying to get people together for talks in finding a solution to the Russia-Ukraine war, a forum that excludes Russia. The meeting is to be held in Jeddah, with national security advisers and other senior officials from some 40 countries meeting to agree on key principles for a future peace settlement to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Niger

Following last week’s coup in Niger, the military regime of General Abdourahamane Tchiani has banned, with immediate effect, the export of Uranium to France. Over 50% of the uranium extracted from Niger is used for fuelling France’s nuclear power plants. And the about 24% of Uranium imports by the European Union come from Niger.

Niger hosts a French military base and is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium.

Niger has warned of foreign interference and is garnering support for its actions among neighbouring countries.

Back To Life

Permafrost is a permanently frozen layer below the Earth’s surface. It consists of soil, gravel, and sand, usually bound together by ice. Permafrost can be found on land and below the ocean floor in thickness ranging from one meter to more than 1,000 meters. It is found in areas where temperatures rarely rise above freezing. This means permafrost is mostly found in Arctic regions such as Greenland, the US State of Alaska, Russia, China, and Eastern Europe.

Permafrost does not always form in one solid-sheet and there are two major ways in which it forms and distributes itself: continuous and discontinuous. Continuous permafrost is a continuous sheet of frozen material that extends under all surfaces except large bodies of water. Russia’s Serbia has continuous permafrost. Discontinuous permafrost is broken up into separate areas. Some permafrost, in the shadow of a mountain or thick vegetation, stays all year. In other areas the summer sun thaws the permafrost for several weeks or months. The land near the southern shore of Hudson Bay, Canada, has discontinuous permafrost.

What’s all this about?

Scientists have ‘brought to life’ a worm that was frozen 46,000 years ago – at a time when woolly mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers and giant elks roamed the Earth. The roundworm, of a previously unknown species, survived 40 meters below the surface in the Siberian permafrost in a dormant state known as cryptobiosis. Organisms in a cryptobiotic state can endure the complete absence of water or oxygen and withstand high temperatures, as well as freezing or extremely salty conditions. They remain in a state ‘between death and life’, in which their metabolic rates decrease to an undetectable level. Organisms previously revived from this state had survived for decades.

Five years ago, scientists from the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological

Problems in Soil Science in Russia found two roundworm species in the Siberian permafrost. But still, they did not know whether the worm was a known species. Eventually, genetic analysis conducted by scientists in Dresden and Cologne showed that these worms belonged to a novel species, which researchers named Panagrolaimus kolymaenis. Researchers also found that the P. kolymaenis shared with C. elegans — another organism often used in scientific studies — ‘a molecular toolkit’ that could allow it to survive cryptobiosis. Both organisms produce a sugar called trehalose, possibly enabling them to endure freezing and dehydration.

’Toolkit’ is fast becoming the word of the year – freeze it?

Violence in India

This week, a Railway Protection Force (RPF) Constable shot dead 4 people on a moving train – Jaipur Express – near Mumbai. The RPF constable had an altercation with his boss as he was feeling unwell and wanted to get off the train. His boss wanted him to continue up to Mumbai. The Constable then shot his boss first and 3 other people. The incident is being investigated on the lines of mental imbalance, hate crime, besides other angles.

Another story stayed in the news much of this week and ran riot on the headlines. But, first a flash-back to get a handle on the situation.

Nuh is one of the 22 districts in the Indian state of Haryana, previously known as Mewat District, and renamed in the year 2016. The Town of Nuh is the District headquarters and lies on the National Highway – the Gurugram-Sohna-Alwar Highway – about 45 kilometres from the city of Gurugram of the National Capital Region. Mewat is a historical region spanning areas of the States of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, hence the name change to a more specific area of Haryana.

Nuh is predominantly populated by the Meos- an ethnic group of the region who are agriculturists – and Muslims; with about 79% being Muslims and about 20% being Hindus.

In the year 2018, the Government of India’s premier policy think-tank, Niti Aayog named Nuh District as the most underdeveloped of India’s 739 districts. Despite bordering Gurgaon District, Haryana’s rich industrial and financial heartland, Nuh had the worst health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure.

Nuh is also the epicentre of cattle smuggling, illegal animal slaughter, and illegal mining, with mafias that run the business often clashing with police and ‘Gau Rakshaks’ (Cow Vigilantes). The mafia operates from the interiors of Nuh District and in the neighbouring Alwar District of Rajasthan, which is also infamous for being a cattle smuggling and illegal slaughter hub. The business is highly lucrative, with cattle stolen from farm­steads worth between INR 25,000 and 35,000 per head. Additional income ’smuggles-in’ from the illicit sale of older animals and capture of stray animals.

The cattle smugglers and vigilantes are engaged in a dangerous ‘cat-and-mouse’ game: the vigilantes, acting on tip-offs, chase vehicles suspected of carrying smuggled cattle; the well-armed cattle smugglers often throw the animals off their vehicles and hurl stones when chased. The police have set up special anti-cattle smuggling cells but have been ‘unable to lasso’ the Gau Rakshaks or the criminal gangs. Confronting cattle smugglers and illegal slaughter is a hazardous job in Nuh, that puts police personnel at tremendous risk. The poor conviction rate under the state’s Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act (Cow Protection Law) has often seen the Courts pull-up the police on more than one occasion.

The region is testimony to stubborn inter-generational de­velopment deficits and has bred criminal activities that are part of the reason why Nuh is a communal tinderbox. As an example, Nuh’s Singar village has a total literacy rate of around 30% and a female literacy under 9% according to Census 2011. A large village with more than 3,000 houses, it seems to typify the lack of opportunity. And absence of government attention and exclusion has perhaps led people in Nuh to take to crime in a big way. A report in 2014 highlighted a high incidence of power theft, and government initiatives to electrify villages have faced shocking resistance with people refusing to pay for electricity and attacking Government staff on the job. It required sustained outreach to com­plete delivery of a power connection to willing households under the Saub­hagya Scheme launched by the Central Govt in September 2017.

It was a year ago, in July 2022, that a Deputy Superintendent of Police was run over by a truck driven by illegal miners after he took them by surprise near Tauru. In recent times, Nuh ‘has progressed’ to report cyber and call-centre frauds.

Now coming closer to the present situation.

Three years ago, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) started a Yatra (journey) called the Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra- to revive holy Hindu sites and Hindu religious tourism in Meo-Muslim dominated Nuh. The district is home to three ancient Mahabharata period Shiva temples. The Aravallis are also popularised as once being the grazing grounds of Lord Krishna’s cows. The temples have long existed undisturbed and even conserved but aiming to save them from ‘potential threat of being encroached by mosques’ like Kashi Vishwanath or Krishna Janambhoomi, VHP started the Yatra insisting pilgrims would keep the temples relevant.

Typically, the Yatra enters Nuh District from Sohna, begins from Nalhar Mahadev Temple in Nuh, goes to Jhirakeshwar Mahadev and Radha Krishna Temple at Shrangar village. And concludes at the Shringeshwar Mahadev Temple.

The annual Yatra, which was started as a pilgrimage has long been converted into a power show where not just VHP or Bajrang Dal members, but even cow vigilantes participated. Over the past two years, the Yatra was preceded by online ‘war of throwing challenges between participants and local men’. There was always tension surrounding the Yatra which escalated this year. However, all communities have long coexisted in Nuh, peacefully.

This year too, the police called the communities -especially the Muslim and Hindu Groups – in the region to talk to them to maintain peace while according permission for the Yatra.

This Monday the Yatra started like it did in the other two years, but violence began 10 minutes after the procession, of around 200 people, began to walk from Edward Chowk in Nuh town. As the group walked down the main road they were confronted by a group of young men who tried to stop the procession. And they were pelted with stones, rocks sticks, bottles, and illegal firearms by a large Muslim mob, which had gathered at the scene. The Hindu side initially fled, but then they regrouped and retaliated. As the mob tried to disrupt the procession, the two sides came to loggerheads. Stones were pelted and cars were set on fire, and when the Home Guards intervened, they were shot at.

More than 100 vehicles were burnt and people sort refuge in the Nalkeshwar Temple from where the procession was scheduled to begin. Over 150 new motorcycles were looted from a showroom in the area and a cyber police station was attacked. Central paramilitary forces were rushed in to get a grip on the situation in Nuh and a curfew was imposed.

It appears that the violence was carefully organised with a large number of stones and bricks stocked in parks, along roadsides and on roofs, while a number of illegal firearms were used. The police investigation reveals a familiar pattern of WhatsApp groups being formed and ‘tasks’ being allocated and directions issued about where rioters were to gather. In the videos that went viral, minors can also be seen to be part of the mobs that roamed the streets of Nuh on 31 July.

The violence was reportedly triggered after Bajrang Dal activist Monu Manesar – a cow vigilante accused of lynching two Muslim men – circulated a video on Sunday, announcing that he would be part of the procession. He along with one Bittu Bajrangi, urged people to join in large numbers. The murder-accused has been absconding since February this year, after the killings. While Manesar did not attend the Yatra his message appears to have incited locals in Nuh. They have been long demanding that the cow vigilante be arrested.

Tension has been simmering in Nuh since Sunday, a day before the Yatra was scheduled. The procession was attacked soon after it kick-started with stones being pelted from rooftops by members of another community, indicating that the violence was pre-planned.

The situation seems to be in control, and investigations have begun on the reasons, and those responsible. And how to prevent a relapse.

India to the Moon

India’s Chandrayaan-3 was put a path to the Moon with the Trans Lunar Insertion manoeuvre operation successfully completed on 1st August. The spacecraft has now left Earth’s Orbit and is expected to enter Moon’s Orbit in a few days time. Injection into the lunar orbit, so that the spacecraft is pulled into the gravity of the Moon, is a critical phase of the operation and is expected to happen over the weekend.

The next, and the final destination, is the Moon. And a 23rd August Moon Landing is in the cross-hairs of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Women’s Football

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 – the ninth edition of the quadrennial international women’s football championship- contested by women’s national teams and organised by FIFA in underway from 20 July to 20 August 2023 in the two hosting countries of Australia and New Zealand.

This is the first tournament to have more than one host nation and the first to feature the expanded format of 32 teams from the previous 24, replicating the same format used for the Men’s World Cup from 1998 to 2022.

The final is scheduled on 20 August at the Sydney Olympic Stadium, Sydney, Australia. The United States are the defending champions, having won the World Cup in 2015 and 2019.

Some of the women’s stars to look-out for are: Germany’s Jule Brand and Lena Oberdorf; USA’s Alyssa Thompson; Colombia’s Linda Caicedo; Japan’s Maika Hamano; England’s Lauren James and Denmark’s Kathrine Kuhl.

This week thhe Tournament entered the knock-out stage of the last sixteen. The teams that made it are: USA, England, France, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Jamaica, Colombia, South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, Australia, and Japan

World Cup tournaments tend to be defined by an emerging star and, this year, it’s Colombia’s 18 years old sensation Linda Caicedo who is shining brightest.

At just 14, Caicedo made her professional debut for the Colombian side, America de Cali, and finished her first season as the league’s top scorer in her side’s title win. And a few months later she earned her international call-up to the Colombian national side.

Things were progressing quickly for Caicedo, but all was about to come to a halt. At 15, Caicedo was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, shortly after making her senior debut for the national side. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy treatment. And as if it was not enough, it all happened during the Covid19 pandemic. Now she’s fought her way back and is shining like the brightest star in this World Cup.

Please Yourself

Music Throws

Last week, America felt the seismic effects of ‘Swift Quake’. And late last week, singer Cardi B exploded, hurling her microphone at a concertgoer, during a concert at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas, United States.

A concertgoer standing at the edge of the stage tossed up the contents of a large white cup, splashing her face and soaking her orange swimsuit cover-up as she performed her No. 1 hit ‘Bodak Yellow’. She shouted at the person, as security retrieved her microphone and appeared to remove the fan from the outdoor show.

The violence comes amid a wave of recent attacks against performers, including one last week in which a crowd member threw a purse at Canadian rapper, Drake. Last month, a man was charged with assault after hitting pop singer Bebe Rexha with a phone.

More thawing stories coming-up from the cold, in the weeks ahead. Sing with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-42

About: the world this week, 10 October to 16 October 2021, education in Afghanistan, wide-eyed America, a quiver full of arrows, a stabbing, lots of India, a Nobel Prize, star trekking, and a stunning Sinhala song.

Everywhere

World

Afghanistan was becoming quite silent when a suicide bomb blast in a mosque in Kandahar late this week, and another one, the week before, rocked the country. The former was deadly, killing at least 37 people, in a place of worship. I was beginning to think that the silence was a time to reflect and get the country back on track. And maybe Afghanistan was growing a beard and looking to cover-up as many things as it could (One of my favourite, worn-thin expressions is, ‘it’s so silent I can hear my beard growing’).

The Taliban’s Religious Police have been instructed to be more moderate-wonder what that means in Taliban land-but vulnerable Afghans say brutal justice is still being meted out and blood flows easily. It’s almost a month since the Taliban ban on girls returning to secondary school in Afghanistan took effect and millions of teenage girls across the country are unable to return to their classrooms. In what is a tragic exclusion, they continue to be deprived of an education. Is not right to education a fundamental human right?

America appears to be getting crazier by the week. To give an example: the Governor of Texas – of the Republican Party opposed to the ruling Democratic Party – on Monday, issued an executive order banning all state entities from enforcing vaccine mandates, the latest escalation in resistance to public health measures during the pandemic. The order also included private employers. The Governor’s argument is that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and the best defence against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced. This is using a lousy definition of freedom, and deploying politics, to fight a pandemic, instead of science.

Keeping up the act in America, removing a condom without consent – called stealthing – is now illegal, and signed into law, in the State of California. This brings attention to nonconsensual condom removal during sex. This is the first law of its kind in the United States and gives victims a legal avenue to sue perpetrators in a civil court for damages. Advocates of the law said it highlights ‘the importance of consent’, and sex-workers, who are most impacted by stealthing, applauded the measure. Wow, that’s a new word that has been rubbed-in this week: keep the word in mind, when you have the rubber in your hands or in the right place!

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics – not really called a Nobel- was announced on Sunday. They are, David Card, ‘for his empirical contributions to labour economics’ – he played his cards well: gets one half of the prize amount; and Joshua D Angrist and Guido W Imbens, ‘for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships’ – they share the second half of the prize money, in a casual relationship building exercise. Lots of economics out there! I’m but a David in a Goliath of Economics:do these head-spinning equations actually work!

China’s renewed assertiveness at the Himalayan border with India is getting worrisome. Thirteen rounds of high-level military talks aimed at easing tensions has achieved little and with the deadly winter looming ahead it’s becoming increasingly frosty on both sides. The standoff, which at times has exploded into deadly clashes along the about 3,490 km Border – the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – is now in its 17th month. India has moved more troops into the area and so has China. And the relationship between the world’s two most populated countries is at its nadir. Can it sink further? It’s a wait and watch ‘shifting’ border at the moment.

Norway

This Wednesday, a man with a bow and a quiver full of arrows, slung on his shoulder, moved about, over a period of half an hour, in several locations in the Norwegian Town of Kongsberg shooting at people. He killed four women and one man, all aged 50 to 70 years and seriously injured two, including an off-duty policeman.

Police were quick to arrest the suspect, a 37 year old Danish citizen, who lives in the town of about 28,000 people. The suspect appears to have been acting alone and the reasons behind the bow and arrow shooting are being investigated. His actions are suspected to be an outcome of some kind of religious radicalisation. It is also being talked about as an act of terrorism.

This is the first such incident in a long time in Norway. In August 2019, a man stormed an Oslo mosque armed with guns before being overpowered. That year, the country’s intelligence service reported that right-wing terrorism was on the rise globally, and warned that the country would likely be targeted in the near future. Going further back, in July 2011, Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Brevik killed 77 people, many of them teenagers, in a bomb attack and gun rampage. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum possible term in Norway.

Mass killings are rare in low-crime Norway and the incident arrowed back almost forgotten memories.

United Kingdom

A ‘political surgery’ or constituency surgery, in British politics, is a series of one-to-one meetings that a Member of Parliament (MP) holds with his constituents to give people an opportunity to meet him and discuss matters of concern – to find solutions.

This Friday, Conservative Party MP, Sir David Amess, 69, representing Southend West, was holding one such surgery at the Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex when he was attacked and stabbed several times. He was treated by emergency services but died at the scene. A 25 years old man was quickly arrested after Police arrived at the scene on suspicion of murder.

Sir David served as an MP for 38 years and was knighted in the 2015 New Year’s Honours List for political and public service. He was known politically as a social conservative, a prominent campaigner against abortion, a committed campaigner on animal welfare issues, and supported a ban on fox hunting. He was a Brexit supporter and vocal champion for the town he represented, particularly in his long-running campaign to make Southend a city.

Every week brings a new kind of violence and law enforcement across the World is becoming on helluva challenging job. We need to get better with it – there is no other way. Or, do we need to get back to school and re-educate ourselves?

India

One of India’s movie superstars Shah Rukh Khan is spending sleepless nights in his vast mansion, in Mumbai. This follows the arrest of his son by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), on 3 October, after drugs were seized from a rave Party on a Goa bound cruise, where the son was an invitee. The Courts have denied him bail after the NCB established sufficient evidence for the arrest. The superstar will require all the ‘Mannat’ and superpowers to get his son back home – to the safety of his room.

Meanwhile, this Monday, India’s indefatigable Prime Minister (PM) launched the Indian Space Association (ISpA) with the objective of making India a global leader in commercial space-based excursions… and milking the Milky Way. The Virgins, the Musks, and the Amazons, beware!

The stakeholders in the Association include Government bodies such as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Bharat Electronics Limited, and private business heavyweights such as Bharti Airtel, the Tata’s, Larson & Toubro, MapMyIndia, OneWeb, Walchandnagar Industries, Ananth Technology Limited, Azista-BST Aerospace Private Limited, Alpha Design Technologies, Godrej, Huges India, Centum Electronics, and Maxar India. Get ready for a ride to Space?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected India becoming the fasting growing, post-pandemic Economy, in the World, with GDP(Gross Domestic Product) growth expected to be 8.3% in 2021 and 9.6% in 2022 – readjusted to the calendar year. Perhaps, with this in mind the Prime Minister launched the PM’s Gati (Speed) Shakti (Power) Scheme – a National Masterplan for Infrastructure, for multi-modal connectivity – on 13 October. It aims to bring together sixteen Ministries and seven core infrastructure sectors, on a single platform to synergise project planning across ministries to avoid duplication, plug gaps, and expedite clearances. It will act a multi-modal connectivity platform and will ensure seamless movement of goods and people, cutting logistic costs, increasing cargo handling capacity and reducing the turnaround time. This way, the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments will be designed and executed with a common vision. Further, the tax-payers money will be put to better use, which in the past was ‘insulted’ through a lethargic approach to development work, with departments working in silos and there being no coordination between projects.

The way I see it: Someone lays the road, someone else digs it up for laying power cables; someone else digs it up again for laying telecom cables; someone digs it up yet again for laying internet cables; someone digs it up again for laying water supply lines; someone digs it up yet again for laying sewage and drainage lines, all staggered with yawning gaps for obtaining permissions. Finally, you have everything but a road. I hope, all this is done at one time by ‘one someone’, and this is what the Gati Sakthi means!

Please Yourself

Most of us must have watched, or heard about ‘Star Trek’, the TV Series and the movie series, as well. Many must have grown up with it. It follows the voyages of the starship USS Enterprise built by the United Federation of Planets, in the 23rd century, with a mission ‘to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before’. Commander Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy and Captain James T. Kirk played by William Shatner are memorable characters in the original series.

After all the years of reel acting and living in a dream space craft, Actor William Shatner, now 90 years old, finally got his real chance to actually fly into Space – well, almost. This week he endured a 10 minute, rocket-powered ride to the edge of space in a suborbital space tourism rocket built by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. And became the oldest person ever to travel to space withstanding those g-forces and experiencing weightlessness. Anybody can become an Astronaut. Age is only a number, ask Captain Kirk!

I’ve always liked William Shatner’s role as the ‘becoming-eccentric-and-senile’ Denny Crane in the TV Series Boston Legal and enjoyed his ‘Balcony musings’ sitting with protégée Alan Shore over many drinks, overlooking the City of Boston.

Now, over to some kind of music.

Ever since I heard Yohani & Satheeshan’s adorable, bewitching, and hummable Sinhala song, Manike Mage Hithe… which broke the internet after its re-launch in May 2021, I have asked many, during start-up conversations, whether they’ve heard the song. While the oldies threw a blank white-screen look, the young ones lighted up in technicolour: caught the tune and came out grooving to the song. And a six year old girl even reeled out the lyrics with amazing ease.

The song is a ballad about a man’s admiration for a woman: her character and beauty, and how close she is to his heart. Yohani’s soprano tone, Satheeshan’s rap, and the engaging music, are highlights of the infectious song, which leaves an indelible impression on the mind.Music knows no boundaries…and there are no China Walls or borders! Mind it!

More star treks coming up in the weeks ahead. Stay with World Inthavaaram: I’ve been telling my stories -without a break-for over a year, with this post!