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R.K. Narayan
Nearly 70 years ago, India’s greatest living writer in English, took out a brand new exercise book and wrote in it: “It was Monday morning.” With those four words, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan (just R.K. Narayan to most) took off on a journey to that oddly populated fictional continent called Malgudi, with the young boy Swami and his eclectic mix of friends. “The very first line I wrote was ‘It was Monday morning.’ And then I had an idea of a railway station, a very small railway station, a wayside station....
Who Invented Traffic Lights?
Long before roads needed traffic lights, railways were using a system of signals to control train traffic. In the early railways, a single track was used for both up-going and down-going trains, and safety depended on spacing the arrival and departure of trains according to time intervals. These signals consisted of a ball and something that looked like a kite. When the kite was raised on top it indicated danger while if the ball was raised, it indicated the all clear....
From Russia with Love : Rudolf Nureyev
The most photographed male dancer in the world, Rudolf Nureyev electrified the world with his ballet for close to three decades in the second half of the 20th century. In the world of ballet, dominated by the ballerina or the female artist, Nureyev brought male dancing to the limelight, and changed the nature of 20th century ballet. From peasantdom to stardom, he twirled his way to the very top in an eventful life. Rudolf Hametovich Nureyev was born in a train near Irkutsk in Russia, when his mother was on her way to meet his father, in 1938....
Rats
Excerpts from ‘Rats’. First published by Vigyan Prasar, India Now at this time there was a great plague of rats in the London Docks. They were specially fierce rats, whose ancestors had come on steamers from Hong Kong along with tea and ginger and silk and rice. These rats ate all sorts of food which are brought to London in ships because we cannot grow enough food in England to feed all the people here. They are wheat from Canada and cheese from Holland, and mutton from New Zealand and beef from Argentina....
Do Computer Games Make You Violent?
August 12: Four children aged four and five were suspended from their nursery school in New Jersey, US, for using their fingers for guns in a game of cops and robbers. The children were heard shouting ‘I shot you’ and ‘Boom, boom’ during break time. Do Computer Games Make You Violent? [Illustration by Kusum Chamoli] “It may be just a game …but it can be taken differently by other children,” said school principal, Georgia Baumann....
Pretty bird no more
Where: London, England April 24, 2007: For 40 years, the people of London have been happy to spot in their parks a bird that seems to have made its way from the Himalayas to the capital of England. With its shocking green body, red beak, long tail and noisy screech, the rose-ringed parakeet brought a vivid splash of colour to parks in and around London. The parakeet (psittacula krameri) is native to a great belt of land stretching from Africa to the Himalayas in India....
Beef in McDonald's Fries
May 11: Fast food giant McDonald’s seems to be frying in its own fat once again – quite literally at that. Last week, an Indian-American lawyer, Harish Bharti took the fast food giant to a US court for lacing its french fries with beef flavouring, a chemical compound that mimics the taste of beef fat. Millions of Hindus from across the world freely munch its french fries believing them to be vegetarian. Beefing up Bharti’s case is information provided in Eric Schlosser’s recently published book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of An All-American Meal....
Birds!!!
October 6: If feeding pigeons is your hobby, then the place to go is London’s Trafalgar Square. With about 40,000 pigeon tummies to fill, you can be sure that demand will never outstrip supply. Trafalgar Square’s pigeons are a major tourist attraction. Thousands of pigeons can be found in the square at any given time, which has a fountain and the monument of famous English general Lord Nelson at the centre. Some tourists and residents visit the square only to feed the birds....
Eastward Ho!
Britain wants Indian engineers to help modernise their London-Glasgow railway link, and that’s a real about turn! Nearly 150 years ago, Britain was the first country to use steam locomotives. The British also built the first rail tracks in India and set up India’s railway network with one purpose – they wanted to collect raw material such as cotton from different parts of the country so that they could be shipped to Britain. And later, when the ready-made products came back to India, they used the rail network to sell them by reaching different corners of the country....
These Boots are meant for Flying!
October 21: Two weeks ago, as the Russian government was aiming to steer history by trying to reduce the tension between Israel and Palestine in West Asia, history from below was being created in its backyard, at the rundown Salavat Ulayev sports stadium, in Moscow. The fastest boots in the world were being tested out under the watchful gaze of a ‘Sunday Times’ journalist. These Boots are meant for Flying! [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] Chief boot tester Atanov was getting ready to race Russia’s 1,500 metre national champion, 22-year-old Alexei Ivanov, to see if the stilt-like petrol-powered and turbo-charged boots would enable him to take strides nine feet long, past the athlete....
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