Anuradha Pittie traces the journey of the gritty para badminton world champion Manasi Joshi, who has earned a string of accolades, blazing a trail of hope and courage for para athletes around the world. Then life throws lemons at you, make lemonade’, is the popular adage, and this is exactly what a spunky 21- year old, Manasi chose to do, when she met with a dreadful accident. Manasi’s childhood is something many a Mumbaikar can relate to. Her father, Girishchandra Joshi, worked as a scientist at the prestigious Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Even though academic performance was a priority…
Author: oiop
The urge to make a change, led Aarti Naik to become a tutor to over 300 underprivileged girls in Mulund, Mumbai. She is a shining beacon for several other youngsters who could spearhead small projects in their own towns, cities and villages. G. Venkatesh tells us her inspiring story. It takes guts and supreme goodness, imbued with something bordering on the divine (which is said to reside within all human hearts), to dream of helping future generations to surmount those very obstacles which impeded you when you were young. This is obviously what parents would do for their children, but…
Musicians in India and their tribe across the globe have been entertaining fans on social media throughout the lockdown. However, freelance artists are struggling for survival in the rough and tumble of the crisis brought in by the pandemic. Rashmi Oberoi urges people to support their favourite bands and musicians till such time live concerts return. Social media is full of beautiful musical tributes as the world battles with COVID-19. It is remarkable how musicians across various genres have got together virtually and fused their pieces for an experience of a lifetime – all for us. My personal favourite is ONE WORLD……
Walking in freezing temperatures on a frozen sheet of ice for four days, a group of adventurous trekkers have one of the most challenging but exhilarating experiences of their life in Zanskar Valley in Ladakh. At the end of the trek, they were rewarded by the most spectacular sight – a mighty, frozen waterfall and wonderful memories to last a lifetime. Text & Photographs : Sucharita D. & Ankur K. Chadar means a sheet. Imagine a river flowing with all its might. And suddenly it freezes… and you can walk on that sheet of ice. Isn’t that cool? Well, this…
He is a multi-faceted maverick. Venugopal Rao Nallamothu has been a journalist, writer, author, trekker, hiker, cycle traveller, farmer, positive thought practitioner, etc., and is at peace with himself and the world. A. Radhakrishnan ferrets out his world views. How would you describe yourself? I am a learner on the loose. Hailing from a small village in Andhra Pradesh, like every other villager I was also born with the notion that I know nothing. And fortunately, since I really knew nothing, I wanted to learn everything that I came across. That curiosity took me to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New…
The Partition hero (1922 – 2012) Stanley Leslie Menezes was born in a Goan Catholic family on 13 November 1922 in Mumbai and graduated from St John’s College, Agra. He wanted to join the civil service but recruitment in the civil service had been suspended so he joined the Army. He was commissioned into 4th Grenadiers on 30 May 1943. At the time of Independence, his battalion was located at Thal Fort in Kurram Valley in NWFP(North West Frontier Province, Pakistan). There was wide spread violence in the country following Partition. The Commander-in- Chief of the newly-formed Pakistan Army, General…
Chronicler of simple romances (1927 – 2020) Basu Chatterjee was a legendary film producer, director, screenplay writer, dialogue writer, and a master of middle-class minutiae. Ajmer born Chatterjee discovered humour in the commonplace, a streak often attributed to his 18 – year phase, as an illustrator and cartoonist with the Bombay weekly tabloid Blitz of Russi Karanjia, before switching paths to filmmaking. Fondly called Basuda, his interest in filmmaking was nourished by the 1960s film society movement. A quiet, soft – spoken, gentle human, who delved into social and moral issues, he was a director ahead of his time, an effortless genius, and…
A brilliant legal mind (1935-2019) N.R. Madhava Menon, the legal luminary was born on 4 May 1935 at Trivandrum to a law graduate father. He enrolled for his graduate studies at the SD College in Alappuzha and passed out with a BSc in Zoology. A keen interest in law saw him take up a course in law in the Government Law College in Trivandrum from where he completed his Bachelor of Law degree in 1955. He then apprenticed under a local advocate before appearing for the Civil Services Exams which he cleared and found placement in the Central Secretariat in New…
We lost two fine actors Sahabzade Irrfan Khan(53) and Rishi Kapoor(67) to cancer in April 2020. G. Venkatesh pays a tribute to them while hoping that the medical fraternity finds a cure for cancer that has been taking away so many lives, year after year. Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive,” wrote Anton Chekhov. Very true. It is only that we are not really equipped to comprehend the other 95 so easily. One needs to evolve higher into the spiritual…
India’s mango diversity is the envy of botanist the world over. According to historians, the king of fruits, whose botanical name is Mangifera Indica originated in India, having been cultivated in the Assam – Burma region before travelling to other countries. The flavour and quality differs from region to region depending on the location of the orchards. Hiren Kumar Bose help us know our mangoes. Mango grower Syed Ghani Khan of Kirgaval village in Mandya district in South Karnataka has mangoes in his orchard which were the favourite of the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of the…