Reader's Digest India - February 2018 (Gnv64)

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Contents JANUARY 2018
Cover Story
50 EXTRAORDINARY INDIANS
Seven amazing stories of real-life
heroes. TEAM RD
64 YOUR HEALTHIEST (AND

HAPPIEST) YEAR EVER
Expert-backed advice for a
better you. GAGAN DHILLON
74 THE PRISONER AND THE

ENCYCLOPEDIA EDITOR
A misprint forges a surprising
friendship. DA N I E L A . G R O S S
86 A STAR IS BORN
India’s favourite cricketer shares
memories from his childhood.
SAC H I N T E N D U L KA R
P. | 86
Drama in Real Life
92 ANATOMY OF A PERFECT 114 THOSE WERE THE
HAND TRANSPLANT DAYS
A groundbreaking surgery gives Get a blast from the past with
a man hope. A M Y WA L L AC E these unforgettable ads.
A S M I TA B A K S H I
Kindness of Strangers
102 BAND OF BROTHERS; 124 FROZEN
AMAZING GRACE A couple embraces the cold
Help always comes when you to catch the aurora borealis.
least expect it. PETER HELLER
106 BACK TO THE FUTURE Classic Bonus Read

Preserving archaeological 133 CHARACTER STUDIES
ALA MY
treasures through technology. Stories on connections that

S U SA N N A H H I C K L I N G transformed lives.
READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 5

Vol. 59 | No. 1
JANUARY 2018
VOICES & VIEWS
New Year Special

22 Absurdly Positive
India’s most-loved comedians
tell us their wish for 2018.
AY U S H I T H A P L I YA L
Department of Wit
24 Putting My Word-of-the-
P. | 22 Day Calendar to Good Use
The author launches his year
READER FAVOURITES
with new vocabulary.
J E R E M Y WO O D CO C K
16 Humour in Uniform
18 See the World Differently
Finish this Sentence
26 Points to Ponder 32
LEF T: I LLUSTRATION BY NISH AN T CH OKS I, TOP LEFT: MA NDAR DEODH AR

“I will be happy this new
30 It Happens Only in India year if I can …”
48 Life’s Like That
72 All in a Day’s Work
122 Laughter, the Best Medicine
132 As Kids See It
154 Quiz
157 Word Power
164 Quotable Quotes
REGULAR FEATURES
13 Dear Reader
14 Over to You
28 Good News
37 Shocking Notes
40 News from the World of Medicine
81 Laugh Lines
P. | 24
163 Studio
➸
6 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST
Vol. 59 | No. 1
JANUARY 2018
WHO KNEW?
149 What Makes a Funny

Word Funny
M I C H A E L H I N G STO N
152 Anatomy of a Sneeze

B R A N D O N S P E C K TO R
Me & My Shelf
159 Namita Gokhale’s favourites
on the bookshelf
P. | 42 Entertainment
161 Our Top Picks of the Month
ART OF LIVING
33 Pump Up Your Willpower

SW E TA PA L
Health
38 Surviving Substandard
Sleep SA M A N T H A R I D E O U T
W I T H G AG A N D H I L LO N P. | 161
Total number of pages in this issue of
Food
TOP LEF T: PHOTOGRAP H BY RALP H SM ITH,
Reader’s Digest, including covers: 166

42 8 Clever Shortcuts
STYLI ST: SARAH GUI DO FOR HA LLEY
To Peel & Slice

K E L S E Y K LO S S
Home
44 Germ Hotspots
N I T YA R A M AC H A N D R A N
Beauty
RESOURCES
47 Everyday Essentials
AY U S H I T H A P L I YA L COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY
BANDEEP SINGH

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VOL. 59 NO. 1
JANUARY 2018
Editor Sanghamitra Chakraborty Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie

Deputy Editor Chitra Subramanyam Group Editorial Director Raj Chengappa
Features Editor Suchismita Ukil Contributing Editor Gagan Dhillon
Senior Features Writer & Researcher Ayushi Thapliyal
BUSINESS
Editorial Coordinator Ruchi Lodha
Group Chief Marketing
Officer Vivek Malhotra
Art Director Sadhana Moolchandani
Chief Designer Keshav Kapil AGM, Marketing &
Circulation Ajay Mishra
Production Gajendra Bhatt
Shovan Banerjee Chief Manager,
Operations G. L. Ravik Kumar
Marketing Manager Kunal Bag
IMPACT (ADVERTISING) Deputy Manager,
Publishing Director Manoj Sharma Marketing Anuj Kumar Jamdegni
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Bengaluru: GM Upendra Singh NEWSSTAND SALES
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Dear Reader
Heroes Among Us
MEETING AYISHA FALAQ, you would never
guess her secret. Anyone could be fooled by her
diminutive frame and large beautiful eyes, as
were the two criminals she roundly defeated in a late-
night operation. Colin Gonsalves could have used his
IIT degree to build a life of comfort anywhere in the
world. Instead, he chose to become an advocate of
human rights, for those who have none. Jamuna Tudu
was an ordinary village girl when she decided that the
forest beyond her village must be saved. Today this
feisty woman has galvanized her entire district to do
so, pushing back the timber mafia.
We often lament the lack of heroes in our lives. That courage, compassion,
idealism, a giving heart and selfless public service are rare in today’s world. Our
P HOTOGRAP H BY ANA ND GOGOI, HAI R & MA KE-UP BY ROLIKA PRA KASH
New Year cover story (p 50) is proof that there is hope still. There are heroes who
live among us, who may not come dressed in capes, brandishing swords, but are
just as intrepid. These are everyday people, often faced with enormous challenges
themselves, who chose a life less ordinary, changing the world a little, in the
process. Reporting on the stories of seven such men and women from different
corners of India, each of us in the Reader’s Digest team were moved, inspired and
filled with admiration. It is our wish that you too start the year with hope and a
big smile.
This issue also has inspiration from sporting legends Sachin Tendulkar and
Jesse Owens. Tendulkar, who has achieved cult status with his prodigious talent
and hard work, shares stories about his boyhood (p 86) along with some solid life
advice. Our Classic Bonus Read (p 133) has an unforgettable story from the Ameri-
can athlete Owens, among others, that only the Digest can bring from its rich
archives. Please do not miss ‘The Prisoner and the Encyclopedia Editor’ (p 74).
Of course, there’s health inspiration in ‘Your Healthiest (and Happiest) Year’,
p 64, in trademark RD style and excellent advice on how to build willpower (p 33)
so you can meet your goals and make the year even better.
Send an email to
Have a super 2018, folks!
[email protected]

Over to You
FEEDBACK ON OUR NOVEMBER ISSUE
WRITE
&
WIN!
THE SECRET
TO SUCCESS WITH AN
Satya Nadella’s life [‘The OPEN HEART
Empathy Code’] inspires I grew up in Nigeria,
many to live their dreams of and as I read ‘The
being the best. At a time when Student Saviour’
engineering students are the [Kindness of Strangers],
butt of many jokes, there’s no I was reminded of the
better way to boost their mo- time when our car
rale and answer the question, accidentally hit a boy
‘What can an engineering who suddenly crossed
graduate do?’, than by pointing the highway in that
to the man himself. He stands as a country. People from the nearby
pillar of inspiration. His advice, to village surrounded us. My father
“live mindfully in the moment”, may rushed the boy to a hospital,
sound like a cliché, but is important to while my mother, siblings and
remember in our journey towards I waited by the highway, shaken.
success. SREEHARI P. V., Kannur, Kerala Though it did not seem strange
to the nine-year-old me, the
THE RING THING villagers were actually trying to
I agree with the verdict in the case comfort us, after we had just
of the engagement ring [You Be the knocked down a child from their
Judge] because the use of sarcasm village. They even stayed with us
was probably an afterthought. The until my father returned.
judge let Christa Clark retain the ring. This is why it is painful to read
Was it a man’s ego that compelled about the senseless violence
Louis Billittier Jr to claim it? Why against Africans in my own
would he reimburse the wedding country. Can we not be like
expenses, then? Was that chivalry? those villagers? Does it hurt so
I was appalled that a woman, whose much to actually put atithi devo
engagement was called off via a text bhava into practice?
message, was fighting to keep the ANU VARGHESE, via email
ring. It seems the ring’s monetary
Anu Varghese gets this month’s
value far outweighed the dignity of ‘Write & Win’ prize of `1,000.—EDS
matrimony. REKHA MENON, Mumbai

TO THE RESCUE “Thatha, why aren’t you using your
M. K. Balachandran’s story ‘The walking stick?” The doctor has told
Student Saviour’, touched my heart. I me not to, I explained. “So Ben and
can never forget how a stranger res- Juli will go on talking just like us,
cued my wife and me, during a visit Thatha,” she noted.
to the Tirupati temple. We carried a I finished the story and explained
letter from a friend to the executive how Juli was to go to another place
officer requesting him to provide us (instead of saying he passed away)
a cottage for the night. But at 11 p.m., and that he had left his walking stick
when we reached his office, we were as a gift for Ben. Her reply: “That’s
told that the officer was on leave. We good, now Juli Thatha also can walk
were at a loss when, suddenly, a without a stick!” I was at a loss for
stranger, coming out of the office, words. Thank you, Lisa Fields for this
offered to share his room with us. memorable narration.
It felt like divine intervention. DR N. GOPALAKRISHNAN, Bengaluru
P. S. SUBRAHMANIAN, Chennai
MEMORIES OF A FATHER
SAYING SORRY Joe Posnanski’s ‘An Evening Drive’
When we say ‘sorry’ we often don’t made for an emotional read. I real-
mean it [‘How to Say I’m Sorry’]. It ized the harsh truth that my daugh-
frequently sounds more like a for- ter was growing up, after receiving
mality than from the heart. And the notifications of old photos from
best part is we are quick to say ‘sorry’ Google. I hold on to old memories—
for small misdemeanours, but when her first days at school, scribbles on
matters are grave, our ego prevents the walls of our home, fancy school
us from apologizing. A prompt and bags, her loving “Bye Pappa” …
sincere apology can strengthen every they are etched in my heart forever.
relationship. Posnanski writes about the different
VIJAI PANT, Kashipur, Uttarakhand stages in his daughter’s life, and in
India, a father usually wonders about
BOND OF LOVE his daughter’s wedding. How un-
My wife and I share a unique rela- bearable it is to part from one’s
tionship with our granddaughters, daughter. It is the photos and videos
especially four-year-old Meenakshi. that become a father’s only treasures.
Reading ‘Something to Lean On’, VIMAL THAKER, Ahmedabad
I promised Meenakshi, that I would
tell her the story once done. Her Write in at [email protected]. The
best letters discuss RD articles, offer
immediate response on seeing the criticism, share ideas. Do include your
lovely picture of Ben and Juli was: phone number and postal address.

Humour in Uniform
“He is a creature of the web. He must log on to survive.”
AS I WAS PASSING through the who did not wear his, instead stood
Delhi Cantonment area on my up and pointed to his lapel and the
way to work, I spotted an extraordi- First Cavalry Division emblem he
nary placard on the gate of an army had received in Korea.
officer’s quarters. He then explained sheepishly,
The sign read: “The Dog is OK, “This is the only part of my
Beware of the Owner!” uniform that still fits.”
AMIT TANWAR, Ne w D e l h i PAT QUESENBURY
IN DI API CTURE
Reader’s Digest will pay for your funny

THE VETERANS WHO attend our
anecdote or photo in any of our jokes
church were invited to wear their sections. Post it to the editorial address,
uniforms one Sunday. My husband, or email: [email protected]

18
|
JANUARY 2018
|
READER’S DIGEST
FOTOS: © JIM DEN EVAN /BARC ROFT USA /GETTY IMAGES
SEE
THE WORLD ...
Turn the page

... DIFFERENTLY
Even if this looks like the work
of extraterrestrials, these circular
shapes are purely human in origin.
After more than two years of plan-
ning and 15 days of hands-on work,
the American artist Jim Denevan
and three of his colleagues created
this spectacular piece of art in
the desert sands of Black Rock,
Nevada. A circumference of more
than 14 kilometres not only gua-
rantees that this work is visible at
an altitude of 12,000 metres (as on
this page), but also makes it the
largest sand drawing in the world!

VOICES VIEWS
Seven comedy stars kick-start 2018 with their new year wish
Absurdly Positive
BY AY US H I T H A P L I YA L
NOT SO LONG AGO news debates where people get their point
broke that scientists had discovered across using wit rather than sheer lung
a virus that caused stupidity. Given power? The world would be a better
the epidemic levels of half-witted place if everyone took themselves just
behaviour, online and off, it took a little less seriously. If that’s too much
time for people to believe it was to ask for, then I wish for a special wing
fake news. It was simply too close in hospitals to treat people with hurt
to home. Yet again, human stupidity sentiments and a special cell for serial
was in the forefront in 2017. Times offence-takers.
like these make bright people,
who also make us laugh, more SORABH PANT
precious to us. @hankypanty
We asked some of the country’s In 2018, let’s start using
most-loved comedians to share this technology called
their special wish for 2018. talking. It’s archaic, but
free. Let’s stop with the scream-
NEETI PALTA ing, threats and offering money for
@neetipalta people’s heads, noses or other body
There should be special parts. Talk. Debate. Have discussions.
gyms where people can Additionally, it would be good to see
develop a beefy sense of balanced people speak up more. Let’s
humour. Wouldn’t it be more fun to not get so jaded that we only hear the
watch parliamentary or news channel loud voices of violent lunatics.

SAPAN VERMA and focus their outrage on making
@sapanv the country better, safer and way
I wish people would stop friendlier than what it is. We need to
wasting time on social learn to outrage less and laugh more.
media and do something Hope that happens soon.
productive instead. Every platform
is designed to make you insecure RADHIKA VAZ
and anxious! Twitter is toxic because @radvaz
trolls thrive on negativity. Facebook I wish that all men who
is depressing because it looks like feel the need to let us
everybody is happier than you are. know that #NotAllMen
And Instagram is just sad because are sexist, misogynistic half-wits
there are SO many hot models and would just stop. We know not all
I know none of them. So get off men are idiots. But the ones who
the internet already (but continue feel the need to remind us of that
TOP: INDIAP ICTURE, VIR DAS P HOTO: MA NDAR DEODH AR
watching my videos). constantly most certainly are. I wish

for women to stop caring what any-
MALLIKA DUA one, least of all a dude, thinks. It’s
@MallikaDua precisely what got us into this patri-
Stop electing the wrong archal mess in the first place.
people in power. Stop
letting them tell you what VIR DAS
is good for you. And stop tolerating @thevirdas
trolling! My wish is that any
opinion of any kind is
SAHIL SHAH met with tolerance. For
@SahilBulla us to find our ability to ‘agree to
I wish that this year Indi- disagree’ once again. If none of the
ans become less worked above is possible ... free biscuits
up over senseless issues for everyone.

DEPARTMENT OF WIT
Putting
My Word-
Of-the-Day
Calendar To
Good Use
BY J E R E M Y WO O D CO C K
1 JANUARY
A new year ahead, full of auspicious and promising things!
Think I’ll stop by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, but is that too
auspicious this early in the year? Hard to say. Hard to say.
ILLUSTRATI ON BY JOE MCKENDRY (WOODCOCK)

2 JANUARY
Had a fun breakfast with my girlfriend, Meredith. Risible, even.
Later, I had a risible chat with Jeff at the water cooler. It’s nice
ILLUSTRATI ON BY NISHANT C HOKSI ;
JEREMY to be back at work, though my holidays were pretty risible, too,

WOODCOCK
won the
by which I guess I mean a situation or thing having qualities
Canadian by which to provoke laughter and/or amusement.
Comedy Award
for Best Writing 3 JANUARY
in a TV Series Packed some pasta puttanesca for lunch today. I had a big
or Special
presentation to make, which didn’t go so great. It went
in 2015.
downhill when I described our first-quarter profits as having
“the consistency of a pasta puttanesca”, and my boss kept

asking me to clarify what I meant. I really glean why. I said, “Meredith,
tried, but he just got angrier, turning can you please move your stuff off
red like you know what. the kitchen table? I can barely see
the newspaper I’m reading to glean
4 JANUARY what happened in the world today!”
Today’s page was missing from my Next thing I could glean, she’d lost it.
calendar! That’s quite vexing ! Mere-
dith had said that might happen, 9 JANUARY
since the box seemed to Got fired today. It
have been opened when happened in a really
I bought it. I didn’t find pusillanimous way.
it vexing at the time, but Today’s page I’m just working at
I guess I should have was missing my desk when my boss
because now it’s very suddenly comes over
vexing to have had this
from my and starts asking me
happen! In the end, calendar. That’s whether I’ve been feel-
I just skipped to quite vexing! ing OK. I mentioned
tomorrow’s word. my recent break-up but
insisted it would be
5 JANUARY pretty pusillanimous to let that get
Another vexing day. me down. Next thing I knew, all my
possessions, including my calendar,
6 JANUARY were in a box, and I was headed out
Meredith asked whether I’d go to the the door.
new Jennifer Lawrence movie with
her. I said sure, but she’d have to 10 JANUARY
check the times, since I’m not a sooth- I’m still hopeful, despite recent
sayer. Suddenly she asked me to sit dyspeptic events. I’m using my
down. She said I’d been acting weird extra time to hasten my pilgrimage
and insisted that things had to change. through my calendar. Now I can take
OK, so just tell me that next time! I a minute, an hour, or even a yocto-
can’t guess—I’m not a soothsayer. second to really ruminate over that
thing. I’ve been a bit itinerant lately,
7 JANUARY but I can vouchsafe that things will
Today’s events can be summed up ameliorate from here.
in one word: esplanade.
11 JANUARY
8 JANUARY Lost my word-of-the-day calendar.
Meredith broke up with me. I can’t Oh boy. This is vexing.

Points to Ponder
THERE’ SOMETHING really empower-
ing about standing up for what’s right.
It’s a badge of honour.
SUSAN FOWLER,
f o r m e r Ub e r e n g i n e e r a n d w h i s t l e - b l o w e r,
who exposed how Uber and Silicon Valley companies
handle cases of sexual harassment, in Time
TO ME, 2018 will be all about process-

ing #MeToo. The next step in the
movement will be helping women
navigate what happens after they dis-
close an experience. It’s about what
happens if someone posts #MeToo
and nobody ‘likes’ their status and
how to be advocates in our communi-
ties. How to talk to children about this.
Discussing the sexual harassment
Why does man
teenagers deal with in school. need bread? To
TARANA BURKE, survive. But why
activist and creator of the
#MeToo campaign, in Glamour
survive, if it is only to
ARTISTS FACE THESE kind of situa-
eat more bread? To
tions because of the talent and live is more than just
ROHI T CHAWLA/IN DIA TODAY
desire they have. That extends to

filmmakers too. They should not stop to sustain life—it is
innovation in their work because of
adverse conditions. to enrich, and be
MAJID MAJIDI,
enriched by, life.
Ira n i a n f i l m m a k e r, at the 48th International Film SHASHI THAROOR,
Festival of India, in The Indian Express author and politician, in Bookless in Baghdad

WHY SHOULD I keep quiet? While I PARTITION HAD BEEN reduced to
never asked for it, I was pushed to the a distant memory for a whole
forefront. I realized that people listen generation, both Hindu and Muslim,
to what I say. And if I have something but the Babri Masjid dispute ended
positive to say, why shouldn’t I say it? up helping cement the line of control
within, temple and mosque
GURMEHAR KAUR, becoming markers of what kind of
student activist, in Time Indian you were.
STORIES CAN ENTERTAIN, sometimes SEEMA CHISHTI,

teach or argue a point. But, for me, journalist, on 25 years after the Babri Majid
demolition, in The Indian Express
the essential thing is that they com-
municate feelings. That they appeal to
what we share as human beings I BELIEVE THE WORLD is in just as
across our borders and divides … sto- dangerous a state as it was when I was
ries are about one person saying to a teen, watching democracy dissolve
another: This is the way it feels to me. all across Europe …
Can you understand what I’m saying?
Does it also feel this way to you? HARRY LESLIE SMITH,
a 9 4 - y e a r- o l d S e c o n d Wo r l d Wa r v e t e ra n ,
in The Globe and Mail
KAZUO ISHIGURO,
author and Nobel Laureate, while delivering the
2017 Nobel Prize in Literature lecture THE FACT IS THAT climate change
deliberations are not about the
environment; these are intensely
FEELING GOOD REQUIRES an upbeat economic negotiations … [and]
attitude, confidence and a wicked climate change negotiations show
sense of humour. the world at its worst behaviour: The
already rich do not want to share …
BOBBI BROWN
make-up artist, in her book Pretty Powerful
As a result, climate negotiations are
not just about cutting emissions but
also about negotiating the right to
THE PARADOX OF an education is development … the task is to agree
precisely this—that as one begins to on how the carbon budget of the
become conscious one begins to world will be apportioned, based
examine the society in which he is on equity.
being educated.
SUNITA NARAIN,
JAMES BALDWIN, envrionmental activist,
a u t h o r, in A Talk to Teachers in her book Conflicts of Interest

SOME POSITIVE STORIES THAT CAME OUR WAY
Good News
BY AYUS H I TH AP LIYAL
Better connectivity
GREEN TRANSPORT By November
2018, 2,000 new CNG buses will run
on Delhi’s roads (there are around
5,500 of them plying currently).
Electric buses will also be intro-
duced to help with last mile con-
nectivity between metro stations
and residential areas. The sizes of
the buses will vary from standard,
midi to mini, and will run within a
radius of five kilometres from metro
stations. Delhi transport minister
Kailash Gahlot said that the CNG
buses will roll out within the next
10 months. These will hopefully More CNG buses to ease public
ease the dangerous levels of pollu- transport woes
tion in the national capital region.
Cycling for a cause metres to speak to women in 57

GENDER Four policewomen from tehsils on crimes against women,
Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district domestic violence, trafficking and
IN DI API CTURE; ZOOM.TY ROL (RI GH T)
traversed steep ghat roads and for- sexual assault. The 45-day ‘cycle yatra’,
ested areas, pedalling 1,250 kilo- which began on 24 October, was
“She is here because she is beautiful, and because

she has huge potential as a model.”
J a cq u e l i ne Mi k ke l se n , a d mi ni strati v e d i re ct o r o f Uni qu e Mo de l s, o n th e ag en c y’s de c isio n
t o hire 2 1 -y e ar-o l d Ami n a A d a n, D e nm a rk ’s f i rst hijab-w e a r i ng p ro f e ssio n al m o del .

aimed at giving women the confi-
dence to file police complaints. Con- HEROES
stables Nirmala, Tirumala, Nagaratna PENSIONER SAVES COACH
and Bhargavi are members of She PARTY FROM PLUNGE
Team that handles the women and
juvenile wing. They participated in The 43 tourists travelling by
awareness programmes organized coach over the Austrian Alps
were enjoying the view when
across nearly 100 locations. Their
suddenly potential catastrophe
passion for the cause is evident. struck. The driver fell ill and
While Tirumala postponed her wed- collapsed into the aisle—and the
ding, Nagaratna braved a leg injury coach began heading straight
to do her job. Let’s hope their mission towards a 100-metre deep ravine.
to dispel women’s fears about ap- French pensioner Gilbert Sand,
proaching the police with their 65, didn’t think twice. The retired
grievances is a success. forest ranger leapt from his front-
row seat and jammed his foot on
the brake pedal. In doing so, he
Female fire fractured his tibia, but saved the
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY For the first coach party. He had acted just in
time in its history, the Mumbai fire time. “According to the experts,
brigade has recruited 97 young another 20 cm and the coach
women to join its ranks. Until would have toppled over the
recently, there were only 18 female edge,” says Sand (pictured below
personnel posted at the Byculla with thankful fellow passengers).
“It was a hair’s breadth from
headquarters. The new recruits will
catastrophe,” says a police spokes-
work across 34 fire stations in the man. Sand is very modest about
city. The training began last June what he did: “I didn’t think about
and, now, the newly appointed fire- it. I just acted instinctively.”
fighters are ready to report for duty. —TIM HULSE
All in their 20s, the women are from
rural Maharashtra. Chief fire officer
P. Rahangdale, while acknowledging
that this was the first time women
were being hired in large numbers,
told The Times of India: “It is good to
see the enthusiasm in almost all these
women and their readiness to take
on the toughest tasks they are being
trained to face.”
Sources: Green Transport: timesofindia,com, 18 November 2017; Gender: The Hindu, 8 December 2017;
Equal Opportunity: timesofindia.com, 14 November 2017; Heroes, The Local (France), 24 September 2017.

IT HAPPENS
Only in India
IT’S TOUGH TO ESCAPE the long arm Good thing Kamlesh was on hand to
of the law. Eight donkeys found out control him. Source: indiatoday.intoday.in
the hard way, after they were detained

for four days in Urai jail, Jalaun dis- AS SHAKESPEARE WROTE in The
trict, UP. They had been caught eating Merry Wives of Windsor, “there was
plants worth ` 5 lakh. The expensive the rankest compound of villanous
foliage, according to news reports, had smell that ever offended nostril”. The
to be planted within the jail complex. foul stench, in this case, was noticed
The culprits were released only after after 27-year-old Prakash Kumar
the owner, Kamlesh, turned to a local took off his socks and shoes on an
politician for help. As the donkeys overnight bus from Delhi to Dharam-
RAJU EPURI
filed out looking chastised, one swung shala. The passengers protested, ask-
his mane defiantly and tried to gallop, ing him to shove the offensive socks
presumably towards more plants. into his bag. When he refused, they

stopped the bus at Bharwain police
CORNERED?
station, Una, and lodged a complaint.
Kumar was arrested for causing a pub-
lic nuisance, but he maintained that
his socks were definitely not smelly.
Source: bbc.com
THE QUIET BANMORE railway sta-

tion, Gwalior, was recently abuzz with
nearly 1,500 bewildered and angry
farmers, courtesy a bizarre muddle.
They were supposed to be on their
way to Maharashtra, but ended up
travelling 160 kilometres in the wrong
direction, and to a different state,
before the mistake was discovered.
The farmers, members of the All India
Submitte d b y URVASHI ASHAR, Bengaluru
Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Com-
mittee, were returning from Delhi af-
ter a protest, in a specially chartered KRISHAN KUMAR ROY, a first-year
Swabhimani Express. Instead of taking student at Lalit Narayan Mithila Uni-
the Western Railway route, the train versity’s J. N. College in Darbhanga,
ended up on the Central Railway cross-checked all his personal details
tracks. Still in protest mode, the farm- before registering for the exams. But
ers took to the tracks to protest, until when he printed his admit card, he
their train was quickly rescheduled found the picture (and signature)
and pointed the right way around. of the deity Ganesha. “Will Lord
Source: ndtv.com; The Times of India Ganesha write the exam instead of
Spotted by M.V. APPARAO, Hyderabad me?” he asked plaintively. University
officials, however, blamed the people
A COUPLE IN KANNAUJ in Uttar at the cyber café where the cards were
Pradesh had to stop their wedding created. Perhaps they thought a touch
rituals and report the matter to a local of divinity was needed for a bit of
police station, after a fight broke out good luck? Source: ndtv.com
between two guests. They ended up —COMPILED BY CHITRA SUBRAMANYAM

exchanging garlands at the very
(un)romantic location, surrounded Reader’s Digest will pay for contributions
to this column. Post your suggestions
by smiling cops. How is that for a des- with the source to the editorial address,
tination wedding? Source: timesnownews.com or email: [email protected].

FINISH THIS SENTENCE
I will be happy this

new year if I can ...
… catch up with my … leave last year’s
friends offline! bitterness behind,
and reduce the gap between
KHYATI BHEDA SAVLA, via Faceb o ok
dreaming and actually doing.
SHRUTI DIGGAVI, B engaluru
… learn a
new skill. … stop smoking.
KYNA SINGH, R anchi ANANDASUBBU VELIAH,
Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu
… learn to be happy by myself

just like a child.
VANDANA VERMA, New D elhi
... be happy
… be more honest —because
happiness comes
with myself from within,
not without.
and take care of my mental
ANGELICA ROSARIO,
and physical health.
Mumb ai
DR VIDYALAKSHMI P. R., B engaluru
IN DI API CTURE
… finish writing my first novel

and get it published.
SIDDHI KAMBLE, Mumb ai

ART of LIVING
PUMP UP YOUR
WILLPOWER
Strengthen your resolve with these
expert-backed habits
IN DI API CTURE
BY SWE TA PAL

P U M P U P YO U R W I L L P OW E R
IN AN IDEAL WORLD, you’d Meditate

2
jump out of bed with the sound of Meditation trains the mind to
the morning alarm, not miss a single resist its natural urge to wander. “Just
morning walk, stop after just one 15 minutes of meditation for five to
piece of chocolate … you get the six days can make your brain focus
drift, right? Instead, do you often better and you will be less stressed,”
lament not being able to drum up the says Dr Shalini Anant, clinical
willpower to follow through on your psychologist and faculty member
plans? Is there a way to cultivate the at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social
essential ability that allows you to Sciences. And it doesn’t matter what
resist short-term temptations in order your preferred method is, as long
to meet long-term goals like closing as you are aware of your breath and
an online shopping app that is calling body sensations without an effort
out your name to buy stuff? But here’s to alter them in any way. Another
the good news: Your willpower is like method is to focus your attention on
a muscle. All it needs is a a word, mantra or the
bit of exercise. Experts tell flame of a candle.
us how to build it up so Your willpower
Reward
you can stay strong.
is like a 3 yourself
Avoid muscle. “Incentives can work
1 temptation wonders,” says Anant.
Limiting screen time
All it needs Say, you love binge-
takes determination, is a little watching Stranger
not just for children but bit of exercise. Things. Devote some
adults too. Try the “out time to your goal—
of sight, out of mind” be it reading, family
principle, says Aparana Samuel time or meeting a deadline, and
Balasundaram, Gurugram-based then reward yourself to one episode.
psychotherapist. Consider muting “Build willpower by first resisting
social media and group-chat the temptation for as long as you
notifications during work hours. can and dangle the reward when
At home, put your phone on ‘do you fail,” she says. Use this trick
not disturb’ mode. That way, you’ll when you’re trying to curtail certain
only be alerted to permitted calls undesirable habits. For example, if
and notifications. If that’s hard to you’re hooked to shopping, promise
achieve, “try and mentally picture a to reward yourself if you manage to
‘stop’ sign to remind yourself what resist it for a week or a few days, after
your goal is”, says Balasundaram. planning ahead. You’ll be surprised

R E A D E R S D I G E S T. C O . I N
how well you deliver when there’s an

enticing reward waiting for you.
Procrastinate
4 Yes, you heard right. There
are merits to reining in your impulse.
When trying to choose between
ordering a juicy cheeseburger and
a salad, take your time and think
about your current choices. Research
published in Psychological Science
says weighing the pros and cons
can help you avoid self-destructive
behaviour. For bigger decisions, it is
best to sleep on them. Break up the task
into small
achievable steps.
Make SMART goals
5 Specific, measurable, achie-
vable, realistic and timely—that’s done, especially all at once. Don’t be
SMART. Essentially, this means surprised when you’re overwhelmed
intelligent planning. For instance, just after one day. Instead, change
if you are stressing about a deadline, one habit at a time, suggests Anant.
break up the task into small achie- Rather than thinking “I will not lose
vable steps. “Set targets that are my cool today”, think “For the first
practical for you,” says Dr Sameer half of the day, I will take three deep
Malhotra, director, Mental Health breaths before reacting”. Increase the
and Behavioural Sciences, Max duration gradually once you succeed.
Healthcare, New Delhi. Write them Before you know, 20, 40, 60 days have
down so you can see them every day. passed and you have come farther
In fact, announce it to the whole than you expected to.
world, says Balasundaram. This
makes you accountable to a group Anticipate obstacles
of people that matter to you. 7 Struggling to be punctual?
“Think of a time when somebody
Take it one by one
6 stood you up or came so late that it
IN DI API CTURE
Trying to do it all is never a derailed the rest of your day. Tap into
good idea. Quitting smoking, reducing your empathic side and use it as an
sugar and being calmer in stressful emotional reminder that you do not
situations—are easier said than want to be the one responsible for

P U M P U P YO U R W I L L P OW E R
putting someone else through that Challenge yourself

kind of stress,” says Balasundaram. 9“There’s a Chinese philosophy
In such situations, think ahead of the for making a change, known as qi-
obstacles you will face. “Tell yourself gong. To condition yourself to a new
that delays will happen. So, as you habit you need to purposefully do the
set out for a meeting, prepare for task for 100 days at a stretch. This ‘re-
delays and plan to leave 20 minutes wires’ your brain in such a way that it
earlier than you would,” becomes second nature,”
she explains. explains Anant. The
To condition only caveat: If you skip a
Live healthier single day of this 100-day
8 It’s hard to say no yourself to a change, you’ll have to
to a savoury treat or drag new habit, start over from day one.
yourself to the yoga mat
do the task Find
when you are cranky,
hungry or sleep deprived. purposefully for
10
inspiration
In other words, you We have all experienced
lose the ‘power’ in your
100 days at a the feeling of great inspi-
willpower. Getting seven stretch. ration that has jolted us
to eight hours of sleep is into action. When we are
necessary for your brain motivated, we get a rush
to think more responsibly. Similarly, of energy. Our own brain receives the
as you exercise and eat healthily, your “if she/he can do it, so can I” message
body and mind will begin to work that sets us in motion. “And once you
together to ensure that you live a begin, it inspires you to keep going
healthier lifestyle. further,” says Anant.
ADAPTED FROM PREVENTION INDIA. © MAY 2015 LIVING MEDIA INDIA LIMITED.
GONE GREEN
Arugula is my favourite vegetable whose name also sounds
like an old-timey car horn.
@SUBTLE_PRETEXT
If you see me eating a salad, know it’s just a pile of whatever

fell out of my tacos.
@HORDIE (ALLY HORD)

Shocking Notes
RINGING TRUE
BY M EAGAN BO ISS É
LOVEBIRD her daughter-in-law

In 2013, Sonia Cadman plucked a carrot from
decided to surprise her the family’s vegetable
soon-to-be husband, patch with the missing
Andrew Matley, by diamond ring wrapped
hiring an unusual ring firmly around it. “I had
bearer: a barn owl such a happy feeling
named Darcy. when I saw it,” says Grams, now
Unfortunately, on the day 84. “The garden is rotavated
of the couple’s ceremony twice a year, and it’s a miracle
in Wiltshire, England, the that the ring didn’t get cut up.”
specially trained bird chose to fly the
coop. When it came time for her FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
delivery, instead of heading down A Sotheby’s auction piece proves
the aisle, Darcy promptly darted into that one person’s trash is another
the church rafters to enjoy an hour- person’s treasure. The article in
long nap. Luckily, Cadman had question, a 26-carat cushion-cut
entrusted the owl with imitation diamond ring from the 19th century,
rings, so the ceremony continued as sold for an incredible $1,093,300 in
planned. As for the groom, he June. Its provenance wasn’t quite so
thought it was a hoot! glamorous: The vendor, a woman
from West London, bought it at a
BURIED TREASURE trunk sale in the 1980s for only £10.
While weeding a plot of potatoes For decades, she believed it to be a
on her farm near Armena, Alberta, cheap piece of costume jewellery.
Canada, in 2004, Mary Grams lost her But earlier this year, a jeweller caught
PI ERRE LORANGER
beloved engagement ring. After days sight of the bling and encouraged
of frantic searching, she gave up and the woman to get it appraised, so she
bought a replica in hopes that her brought it to Sotheby’s, where she
husband would be none the wiser. learnt its true value. Talk about a
Thirteen years later, she got a shock: diamond in the rough.
$1 was `64.44 and £1 was `85.89 at the time of going to press.

HEALTH
How to cope after a bad night’s slumber
Surviving
Substandard Sleep
BY SA MA N T H A R I D E O U T WITH GAGAN D H ILLO N
After hours of tossing and turn- get some daylight so your body
ing, surviving the day ahead feels like knows it’s time to be awake, or step
a tall order. “Sleep is essential for out for some fresh air.”
immunity, mental clarity and body Eat a hearty breakfast to beat the
functions,” says Dr M. S. Kanwar, energy slump brought on by poor
sleep medicine specialist, Advanced sleep. Just steer clear of fatty foods
Sleep Disorder Institute, Indraprastha that sap energy during digestion, and
Apollo Hospitals, Delhi. simple carbs that cause a sudden
When sleep deprived, your first spike in blood sugar. Energy drains
instinct might be to reach for a vat just as quickly with a sudden crash-
of coffee. This may pick you up tem- ing of blood sugar. Choose complex
porarily, but caffeine could negatively carbs like oats with a side of protein
affect your sleep quality up to 16 hours such as nuts or eggs for sustained
later. Feel free to grab a cup, but be energy through the day.
reasonable in your consumption to Next, tackle the toughest tasks
avoid a second rough night. first. Sleep deprivation slows down
“The best thing you can do is our brain cells, particularly affecting
just hit the ground running,” says visual perception and memory.
Neil Stanley of the European Sleep Nature Medicine reported that poor
Research Society. “You’re going to sleep hampers the ability of neurons
ISTOCK P HOTO
feel some sleep inertia [otherwise in the temporal lobe to communi-

known as grogginess and disorienta- cate with one another. This delays
tion] for a while, but don’t let that reaction time and makes you prone
frame your day. Open the blinds and to mental lapse. Cut your risk of

goofing up by focusing on one task
at a time.
If you’re struggling when the after-
noon rolls around, a short snooze
could help you over the hump. The
ideal nap is 20 minutes—longer
ones put you at risk of entering,
and then interrupting, deep-stage
sleep, causing you to feel even fuzzier
than before. “Power naps for 15–20
minutes help you recharge easily,”
Kanwar says. Don’t be too concerned
about whether or not you actually
doze off: In a study from the sleep
research centre of Loughborough
University in the UK, fatigued people
who had consumed 200 milligrams get enough rest.” So, before bed,
of coffee (equivalent to two cups) unwind with a relaxing activity such
and then rested without sleeping for as reading, meditation or listening to
15 minutes still reaped benefits. quiet music. If you’re feeling worried,
Physical activity—even just taking try putting your concerns aside by
a brisk walk—could also give you an writing them down and telling your-
energy boost. If you’re self they can always
engaging in more wait until tomorrow.
active exercise, how- Sleeping poorly for Above all, don’t stress
ever, do it at least three
hours prior to bedtime one about the previous
night, which won’t
so your body has a
chance to cool down
before your next
month
or longer is considered
cause any long-term
problems—unless you
let it propel you into a
attempt at getting chronic insomnia and vicious cycle of sleep-
some shut-eye. may require cognitive lessness caused by
Fractured sleep behavioural therapy or anxiety over lack of
builds up over time other treatments. sleep. Instead, lie
and, says Kanwar, “in Source: Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology
down, close your eyes
INDIA PICTURE
the long run, it can and allow your mind

also lead to anxiety and depression. to wander. A night or two of superior
While everyone’s sleep requirements slumber will have you back to normal
are unique, it helps to ensure that you in no time.

NEWS FROM THE
World of Medicine
Speed training for elderly uncomfortable and can trigger aller-
To reduce your risk of dementia, gic reactions. An experiment from
try the computer game Double the University of Sheffield in the
Decisions. It tests the speed of UK suggests that the pests travel on
decision-making and helps enhance dirty laundry found in hotel rooms.
neural connections. The Advanced Researchers left out eight sets of
Cognitive Training for Independent clothing—four clean and four with a
and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) Study, few hours’ wear—and released bed-
the largest of its kind on cognitive bugs nearby. Most of them flocked to
functioning, found that adults who the sullied laundry, suggesting that
underwent this “speed of processing mere traces of human body odour
training” over a period of 10 years are enough to attract them.
reduced the risk of dementia by
29 per cent. Head to brainhq.com Dancing slows brain ageing
to train your brain. Physical activity is shown to temper
the effects of ageing on the brain.
Bedbugs spread via laundry But are some types of exercise better
Bedbugs have proliferated across than others? German researchers
the globe in recent years. While they compared an endurance and flexibi-
don’t carry disease, their bites are lity programme (cycling, Nordic
walking, stretching) to a dance
course (jazz and salsa). After 18
weeks, people in both
programmes gained
volume in the
hippocampus,
a brain region
related to
IN DI API CTURE
memory and
balance and
prone to
age-related

decline. But only the dancing group DI G EST TH IS
showed a measurable improvement
11
in balance. Extra challenges, such
as learning steps and adapting to
changing rhythms, likely account
for the extra benefits. The average number
Risks of working long hours of months added
A review of eight studies from across
to your lifespan
Europe found that people who regu- with every year
larly work more than 55 hours per of education,
week are 40 per cent more likely to say scientists.
develop atrial fibrillation over
Source: Nature Communications
10 years compared to people who
work up to 40 hours. AFib, a type
of irregular heart rhythm, can some- also had a five per cent lower chance
times lead to stroke. It wasn’t clear of becoming overweight or obese.
whether the association could be Nuts are very filling, one of the
explained by work-related stress, authors observed, and can substitute
lifestyle factors, both or neither; for animal products in a meal.
subjects who worked more hours
may have been more prone to Cows and HIV protection
unhealthy habits such as a lack A study published in Nature showed
of exercise and overconsumption that the immune systems of cows
of alcohol. were able to adapt and combat HIV
at an unprecedented rate. Cows
Nuts reduce weight gain neutralize 20 per cent of the virus
Conventional wisdom has it that strains at 42 days and 96 per cent at
nuts, which are high in fat and 381 days. “In humans,” one of the
energy, aren’t useful for people study authors noted, “it takes more
who are concerned about their than five years to develop the anti-
weight. However, in a recent bodies we’re talking about.” Cow
European Journal of Nutrition antibodies are naturally long and
observational study of more than loopy in structure, which turn out
3,73,000 subjects, those who ate to be similar to antibodies that can
the most nuts (including peanuts, block infection. Researchers hope
which are technically legumes) this is the first step towards develo-
gained fewer kilos over five years ping an effective vaccine for HIV
compared to nut-abstainers. They infection and/or AIDS.

FOOD
8 Clever Shortcuts
To Peel & Slice BY KELSEY KLOSS
P HOTOGRAPH BY RALP H S MITH , STY LIST: SARA H GUIDO FOR HA LLEY RESOU RCE S
FAN AN
ORANGE
Peel the top and
bottom of the orange
so only a belt of skin
remains in the middle. Use
your fingers to make a slit in
I LLUSTRATI ONS BY ELLAP HA NT I N THE ROOM

the rind, then unfold the fruit
and separate each piece. You’ll
have a strip of juicy slices ready
to pick off the skin.
CUP A MANGO
Cut the mango in half
along its pit. Next, place
the fruit at the rim of a
glass cup (to divide where
the skin and inner flesh meet).
Push down. The finicky thin

skin will peel off in one piece, and HALVE CHERRY TOMATOES FAST
fresh mango will be left in the cup. Save time on your next salad: Find
two similarly sized storage container
SKIN A PEACH lids. Place cherry
For a quick, naked fruit tomatoes on top
perfect for your pie, boil of one, then
peaches for two firmly hold the
to three minutes. other lid on top
Then immediately of the tomatoes. Use a very sharp
place them in a bowl knife to slice through the entire
of ice water (this bunch at once.
will prevent them
from cooking and loosen the skin). DICE AN AVOCADO
Once the peaches are cool, make Instead of making a gooey mess,
a small slit in the skin with a knife, follow four easy steps:
then peel it off with your fingers. Cut the avocado in
half, lengthwise.
SLICE SPUDS IN Cautiously spear
AN INSTANT the pit with the
Use your apple heel of your knife
cutter to slice and remove. Slice
a potato. You’ll intersecting horizontal
have perfectly and vertical lines—like a grid—into
sized pieces to bake as wedges. the flesh (but don’t cut all the way
through the skin). Use a spoon to
SHUCK CORN CLEANLY remove all the cubes at once.
Getting rid of that silk can be tedious
business. Slice off the stalk one inch SPOON OUT KIWIS
above the last row of kernels. Micro- Chop off each end of the kiwi,
wave for two to four minutes (add then insert a spoon
time to this for multiple ears). Then between the fuzzy
gently shake and squeeze the husk skin and the
(wear an oven mitten—it will be hot) flesh. Slide it
until the corn slides out. The around the entire
steam will separate kiwi, then push
threads from the out the tasty
kernels, and you’ll inner fruit.
have a freshly Source: huffingtonpost.com, buzzfeed.com,
thekitchn.com, simplyrecipes.com, Bon Appétit,
cooked cob. livestrong.com, youtube.com, America’s Test Kitchen

HOME
Our experts tell you what to watch out for,

and how to keep infections at bay
Germ Hotspots
BY N ITYA R A M AC H A N D RAN
1 HOTSPOT: KITCHEN MOP,

WIPES AND SPONGE
microwaving sponge and scrub pads
for a minute rid them of most germs,
“Kitchen mops are infected with nasty including tough ones like E. coli.
bacteria,” says Dr Narender Saini,
India representative, Global Hygiene
Council. “They expose you to diseases
like diarrhoea, skin boils and UTI.”
In fact, Dr Charles Gerba, a microbio-
logist at the University of Arizona, US,
in a study found kitchen sponges to
be amongst the most contaminated
objects in the home.
Fix it: Wet mops and sponges pro-
2 HOTSPOT: THE CHOPPING
BOARD
vide perfect breeding places for Pathogens, worms and fungi hide in
bacteria since they thrive under the veggies and meat that you slice
damp, warm conditions. So wash the on your chopping board. “When trans-
mop with a liquid deter- mitted, these may cause typhoid and
gent or bleach solution stomach problems like amoebiasis, di-
and dry it out in arrhoea and gastroenteritis,” says Saini.
ALL IMAGES: INDI API CTURE
the sun every Fix it: Always wash the vegetables well
day. Research before cutting them. Germs make their
published in homes in the cracks and grooves of the
the Journal board. Cleaning it after each use with a
of Environ- dishwashing detergent under running
mental Health water takes care of most germs. If you
found that are cleaning with a potassium perman-

Kitchen sponges are
amongst the most
contaminated objects
at home.
ganate solution or bleach, make sure especially if you are going to eat or
you wash it thoroughly so the chemi- cook soon after,” says Dr Murali
cals or their odour don’t enter the Chakravarthy, director of clinical
food. If the board is criss-crossed affairs and chairman, Central Infec-
with deep gouges, buy a new one. tion Prevention and Control Commit-
tee at Fortis Hospitals, Bengaluru.
3 HOTSPOT: TV REMOTE
AND KEYBOARD
Researchers at the University of 4 HOTSPOT: FLOOR CARPETS
Microbiologist Philip Tierno,
Virginia, US, found that six out of author of The Secret Life of Germs, has
10 remotes they tested were buzzing found that carpets contain almost
with the common-cold causing 2,00,000 bacteria per square inch.
rhinovirus. Worse, Gerba’s survey More than infections, carpets
found that keyboards contain about harbour ticks, mites and
five times more germs than a toilet spores—allergens
seat. These devices are the breeding that can
grounds for cold and flu viruses— trigger respira-
and the more the users, more the tory problems like
germs on them, say doctors. wheezing and asthma
Fix it: Clean keyboards, mobile as well as allergic reac-
phones and remotes with a surface tions, like watery eyes.
cleaner or cleanse with a disinfec- Fix it: Ban shoes on carpets to keep
tant wipe. “More importantly, wash them free of bugs and faecal matter.
your hands before and after While vaccuming takes care of dust,
using these sunning your rugs and carpets rids
devices, them of ticks and mites.

G E R M H OTS P OTS
5 HOTSPOT: DOOR KNOBS

The door handle is touched
by countless people through the day
and can spread cold, flu or stomach
infections, says Chakravarthy.
Fix it: Since you can’t disinfect
the door handle with an antibac-
terial wipe each time you grab it,
Chakravarthy advises frequent wash-
ing of hands to keep the bugs away.
Health in Your Hands
The World Health Organization
recommends washing hands
as the easiest way to prevent
infections, since disease-spread-
ing germs often pass from one
person to another through the
hands. Studies published in The
Lancet have found that the simple
act of washing hands can cut the
risk of diarrhoea by 50 per cent, 6 HOTSPOT: YOUR HANDBAG
A study found handbags
and respiratory tract infections by
contain three times more germs than
45 per cent. So here’s the right
way to wash your hands (do it the average toilet seat. Initial Wash-
for at least 20 seconds): room Hygiene, which conducted the
study, says it’s because handbags
1. Wet hands, apply soap. Rub come into contact with a number of
palms until the soap is bubbly surfaces—restaurant tables, wash-
2. Rub each palm over the back of room counters and floors and seats
the other hand in public transport. And since we al-
3. Rub between your fingers on most never clean them, there’s germ
each hand build-up. Touching the contents of
4. Rub backs of fingers the bag with unclean hands contami-
(interlocked) nates them too, says the study, the
5. Rub around each of your dirtiest being bottles of cream.
thumbs Fix it: To reduce the risk of infection,
6. Rub both palms with finger tips clean the bag regularly with an anti-
then rinse and dry your hands bacterial wipe and rub your hands
Source: Global Hygiene Council with a sanitizer before using any
cosmetic product from your bag.
ADAPTED FROM PREVENTION INDIA. © AUGUST 2013 LIVING MEDIA INDIA LIMITED.

BEAUTY
Don’t leave home without these
items this winter
Everyday Essentials
BY AYUS H I TH AP LIYAL
Sunscreen The sun may be hiding away but in winter it’s closer to
Earth. A sunscreen with SPF 20 is a must. Studies show that sun ex-
posure accounts for up to 80 per cent of visible signs of ageing!
Hand cream A combination of low temperature and windy

weather can strip away moisture. Stock a hydrating hand
cream packed with rose oil extract in your beauty arsenal.
Tinted lip balm Tackle chapped lips with a bit of colour.

Look for balms with natural ingredients like shea butter
and botanical waxes.
Mascara One flick will give your lashes volume and brighten
up the face. Opt for a long-wearing formula and smudge-
proof mascara to keep racoon eyes at bay.
Highlighter Just add a sweep of a highlighter from the

temples to the tops of cheekbone in a C-shaped curve.
Lip and cheek stain A dual-purpose product keeps the

make-up bag trim. Use it on lips for a bright pout and
dab it on to the cheeks for a nice rosy glow.
Dry shampoo A spray that instantly

volumizes the hair. It has starch
which absorbs oils and silica that
boosts volume.
Perfume The colder months call for

INDIA PICTURE
fragrances that evoke warmth and

last longer. Look for perfumes with
woody, amber, patchouli, vanilla notes.
A palm-sized mirror, wet wipes and a

hair brush are, of course, must haves.
Sources: Indian Journal of Dermatology; University of Iowa
Hospitals & Clinics; allure.com

Life’s Like That
AS I PULLED INTO the gas station, WINTER’S SNOW JOKE

I noticed a woman trying to push Q: Why don’t mountains get cold
her car towards the pump. Having in the winter?
always considered myself a Good A: They wear snowcaps.
Samaritan, I parked and joined Source: funology.com
her in pushing her car. Q: How often should you wear

“What are you doing?” she asked. gloves in the winter?
“I’m giving you a hand,” I said. A: Intermittenly.
IN DIA PICTURE
Source: reddit.com
“What are you doing?”

“I’m stretching before my run.” AS ANY AMERICAN KNOWS, there’s
JIM SHAW nothing like a backhanded compli-

ment from a proper southern lady. job. I will message you when I finish it
Here are some favourites from the and you can send the text,” I emailed.
Alabama-based website al.com: Once done I sent him a message.
■ “I just love how you don’t care Autocorrect played truant and I never
what people think. That takes a spe- heard back from the gentleman. The
cial person.” message read “Finished my job. Wait-
■ “I bet those shoes are comfortable.” ing for sex.” USHA SUBRAMANIAN, C h e n n a i
■ After you tell her you lost four
kilos: “Well, that’s a wonderful start.” AMERICAN SONG LYRICS always
■ After you arrive for a visit: “What’d confuse me. One goes, “I’ve got soul,
you do, sugar, drive all the way here but I’m not a soldier.” On the face of
with the windows down?” it, it sounds pretty cool, but then you
■ After you’ve cooked: “That was analyze it and realize it’s just mean-
good. I must have been hungry.” ingless rubbish. It’s like saying, “I’ve
■ “I bought this the other day, but got ham, but I’m not a hamster ...”
it’s too big on me. Do you want it?” BILL BAILEY, c o m e d i a n
A GENTLEMAN FROM an ad agency Reader’s Digest will pay for your funny
asked me if I could freelance for them. sections. Post it to the editorial address,
“Right now I am busy with another or email: [email protected]
Lucky in love? A romantic at heart?

Or simply a great storyteller?
We want to hear your
Tale of Love
Tell us about the shy glance, the clever line or the
stroke of serendipity that made your racing heart
whisper, “This is it.”
Share your original, unpublished, real-life stories, along
with photographs, if any, and your phone number.
Send your entries by 4 January 2018.

To submit, email us at [email protected].

EXTRAORDINARY
INDIANS Seven amazing tales of real-life heroes—
and how they became the defenders
of the powerless
BY TE AM READ ER’S D IGE ST
MOTHER COURAGE
Ayisha Falaq, 33
Ayisha Falaq was at a relative’s place when her husband Falaq

Sher Alam got the call, roughly around dinner time. Md. Akram,
her husband’s “muh bola bhai” had phoned to say his brother
Md. Asif had been abducted. The kidnappers called from Asif’s
mobile, demanding a ransom of `25,000 and threatening to kill him
if the police were informed. Getting another desperate call around
11 p.m. they decided to go over to Akram’s house. There Ayisha
and Falaq, along with other family members, heard the kidnappers’
demands on Akram’s speakerphone. Falaq and Akram were to
deliver the money and free Asif. The petite and slender Ayisha,
mother of two little girls, decided she would accompany them.
00
50 | JANUARY
JANUARY 2018
2018 | READER’S
READER’S DIGEST
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2018 51
EXTRAORDINARY INDIANS
Asif, 22, was an undergraduate student

and drove the family sedan as a cab,
part-time. On the evening of 25 May
last year, he had accepted a booking.
He picked up two men, Akshay* and
Md. Rafiq*, from near a bank. As they
approached their destination in Anand
Vihar, the men instructed Asif to keep
driving towards the Delhi–UP border,
to Bhopura village. They had picked up
alcohol en route and started drinking
in the car. In an unknown area, off the
main road, late in the evening, Asif was
getting nervous.
Suddenly, the men grabbed him
from behind and made him pull over.
Beating him up, they took away his car Ayisha, with Falaq (left) and Asif (right)
keys, watch, wallet (which had `150)
and two mobile phones. They were called back with more threats. Falaq re-
debating whether to tie him up and kick assured the thugs: They had not called
him out, or put a bullet in his head and the cops, they were being questioned
drive off, when Asif begged them to take because of the lone woman in their
his savings but let him go. Greed got the car. When the abductors learnt about
better of them. And they made the call Ayisha’s presence, they demanded that
to his family. she be the one to do the exchange.
New location: Bhajanpura Chowk.
Falaq spotted Asif ’s car and pulled
PREVIO US SP READ AN D ABOVE: YASIR I QBAL
*** up behind it. He parked his car at an
Two cars headed to the agreed spot, angle that would prevent Akshay and
a petrol pump near the border— Rafiq from driving away. Ayisha got
Ayisha, Falaq and Akram in one, and down with the money in her handbag
Rashid, Falaq’s brother in another. and approached the car on the driver’s
Plainclothesmen, who had been side. The plan was to walk up to the
tipped off, followed them at a distance. kidnappers’ vehicle, make sure Asif was
Reaching the location around midnight, safe, do the exchange and run back to
Falaq informed the kidnappers. the car. The kidnapper in the backseat,
The abductors were clearly anxious Akshay, rolled down the window and
and kept changing the meeting point. asked for the cash. But she demanded
Once they noticed a couple of cops, they to see Asif first, who, it turned out, was
*Names have been changed.
on the floor in front. That’s when the The case is now on and the accused
second car pulled up in front of the are out on bail. “Every time we went [to
kidnappers’ car, blocking its way. the police station] … we met someone
What followed was a blaze of from their side [kidnappers]. We were
action. Ayisha heard the kidnappers urged to talk to each other, to see if
shout “shoot her” and “let’s go!” and ‘something’ could be agreed upon.
noticed their gun. She had slipped the Settle, they told us, because there is
semi-automatic in her purse that night nothing to this,” says Falaq. But they
instinctively. Noticing Akshay cock his remain unfazed and are going ahead
gun, her instinct was to defend herself. with pressing charges of abduction.
She reached for her .32 mm and fired, Meanwhile, Ayisha has got her
pointing to the floor of the car. She licence back along with her car, though
had the foresight not to point at not the gun. They have heard that her
anyone, though. As the kidnapper name has been nominated for a bravery
reversed the car, it hit her, throwing award by the Delhi government. Also,
her off balance and causing her to she has received certifications from
misfire. Little did the goons know the political leaders like Manoj Tiwari and
five-foot-nothing, hijab-clad woman Arvind Kejriwal. Tiwari even offered
was a national-level shooter. Ayisha a cash prize of `10,000, which
Asif had managed to escape in the she distributed among her students.
melee. The abductors were hurt, one Ayisha has continued to coach young
in the leg, the other in the hip, and girls in self-defence and using a gun at
were given medical treatment. A first a police residents’ welfare association,
information report was filed at the free of cost—and is quick to remind
Bhajanpura police station in the wee us the values of gun safety. This gutsy
hours of 26 May. The first two days after woman, who picked up shooting from
the incident were the most gruelling for her husband after she became a mother
Ayisha, a shooting coach and national- in 2011, is a true hero. —Suchismita Ukil
level bronze medallist. Detained at
the police station for “over 30 hours
and questioned non-stop”, Ayisha PLAY IT FORWARD
ILLUSTRATIONS : KESHAV KAPI L
Akshai Abraham, 38
worried about her daughters, three Project KHEL
and eight. Her licence, gun and car
were seized. At one point she thought
T
her shooting career would be over. But he UN Charter declares every
that was before the world discovered child has the right “to engage in
her story—of exceptional presence of play”. Turns out, play is also vital
mind, composure, intelligence and, of for their development. Unfortunately,
course, bravery. it’s not always possible or encouraged.

That’s where Akshai Abraham’s Project formative years. “A lot of my life

KHEL (Kids Holistic Education and lessons, coping mechanisms and love
Lifeskills) comes in. KHEL uses the for life are rooted in sports,” he says. It
concept of play for the development was during an exchange programme
of children from underprivileged in Austria that he started thinking
communities and runs programmes about “the idea of using sports to
to help them become confident, self- achieve development goals”.
reliant and engaged. They also learn In 2013, the team met Deepak, a
about hygiene, leadership, teamwork 13-year-old introverted boy from a
and communication skills. What’s more, shelter home. He had anger manage-
schools have correlated the programme ment issues and was a slow learner. At
with improved attendance. first, he refused to participate, watching
Abraham launched KHEL with his other children play from a distance. It
own savings in 2012, in Lucknow, with was at a camp in Ahmedabad that the
two rural schools and a temporary tide began to turn. Deepak excelled in
shelter for children, with two part-time games, but shied away from perform-
facilitators. Since then, 3,500 children ing. On the last day of the camp, when
have benefited through the regular the children were invited to perform,
programme. he danced! “Initially we were wor-
Growing up in a boarding school, ried he’d go back into his shell,” says
s p o r t s h a d s h a p e d A b r a h a m’s Abraham, but the programme helped
him gain confidence and altered his
personality. Today, he works at the
shelter home he grew up in.
Children aged 8 to 19, living in slums
or shelter homes are enrolled into the
KHEL programmes. Some are school-
going, others work to contribute to
the family. The organization has
IM AGE COURTESY AKSHAI ABRAHAM
eight full-time employees, seven part-

time facilitators and 20 volunteers.
The sessions are held in open spaces
where children play and learn through
football, volleyball, kho-kho, kabaddi,
ultimate Frisbee and rugby. Activities
such as theatre, music and dance have
recently been added.
Akshai Abraham shares a “We have seen a marked drop
light moment with the KHEL kids
in verbal abuse, and improvement

in self-presentation, respectful ties Jamuna Tudu, aka Lady Tarzan,

between children, civilities and ties a rakhi around a tree
communication, personal hygiene,
academic performances and gender
sensitivity,” says up Abraham.
Take the case of Manavendra Singh,
a fast learner. He had little patience
for those who’d take time to learn,
especially girls. Five months on, after
becoming a peer educator, he made
an effort to teach them. “Friendship
and patience are his biggest learnings,
things he’ll follow the rest of his life,”
says Abraham proudly. Manavendra
is now 17 and pursuing a bachelor’s
degree in science from Kanpur
University and seeking part-time
employment at KHEL.
FOREST WARRIOR
Jamuna Tudu, 38
The biggest challenge for Abraham Van Suraksha Samity
and his team remains convincing
parents. “Their understanding of the
A
need for literacy is better than that of handful of Adivasi women,
life skills, and they take time to trust in tightly draped saris, march
us.” Once the parents observe that through the jungles of East
their children are learning invaluable Singhbhum district, in Jharkhand.
lessons during play, they allow them to Carrying pickaxes, sticks, bows and
continue. Other than Made in Maidaan, arrows, they have vowed to protect the
there are three other programmes that forest from the timber mafia. Spotting a
discuss teen issues, child abuse and bunch of loggers, they close in on them.
menstrual hygiene. There’s also one The men pause: They have heard of
IM AGE COURTESY JAMUNA TUDU
on weekend volunteering. the Van Suraksha Samity (VSS), led by

Says Abraham: “Every child is so a group of women who are feared and
much more than what they’ve been revered by all. Their leader, Jamuna
convinced they are, by the system and Tudu, aka Lady Tarzan, speaks firmly:
the environment. They should be safe, “Stop destroying these trees. If you need
healthy and happy. And my hope is firewood, pick up fallen branches. We
that they will grow up in a world free won’t let you harm the forest.” The men
of stigma, abuse and violence.” try to argue but give up, as the green
—Ayushi Thapliyal warriors leave them with no option.

Growing up in the arid badlands of Adivasi people. “These trees are like
Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, Jamuna brothers to me,” says Jamuna. Every
had seen her father toil hard, greening year, on Raksha Bandhan, they tie rakhis
their village. When Jamuna got married to the trees, celebrating the relationship
to Mansingh Tudu, from Muturkham between nature and humans—each
in East Singhbhum in 1998, its verdant protects the other from harm, not
surroundings pleased her. But soon unlike siblings. “It is the forest that has
she was shocked to find the villagers given me the strength and courage to
habitually cut down trees for firewood. take on powerful people,” says Tudu.
Even though Jamuna was only 17, she Range forest officer A. K. Singh,
knew she had to speak up. She started earlier posted to the area, says,
by talking to the women in her family “Jamuna is brave, has the capacity to
about the costs of destroying the green organize people, inspire them and do
cover. With their help, she reached out the right thing always.” The stories of
to other womenfolk. “When we called Jamuna’s courage and commitment
the first meeting, all the women turned are legion. In 2007, her home was
up. But, no one was sure if they wanted attacked by armed robbers. While
to take on the goons,” recalls Jamuna, physically assaulting Jamuna and her
the leader of VSS. husband, the dacoits had turned to
Jamuna got to work with just five her and said, “You are flying too high,
women to keep a vigil in three shifts. lady.” In 2008, Jamuna, her husband
Standing up to the crime was tough, and her associates were attacked with
given the attempts to coerce them stones while busting a group of culprits
into silence. Not relenting, they trying to load timber on to a goods
pushed back, grabbing tools, forcing train, in the darkness of the night. She
offenders to pay a fine and getting has continued her work in the face of
them arrested. Alongside, they started insults, threats and assaults.
the work of forestation. Slowly the Recognition came in 2013, when
word spread. That a small collective Jamuna won the Godfrey Phillips Brav-
of women had taken on the timber ery Award, followed by the Stree Shakti
mafia fearlessly, through peaceful Puraskar in 2014 and the Niti Aayog’s
means, impressed even the impassive Women Transforming India award last
Forest Department, which backed year. “Respect and goodwill are my
them. Today, 19 years later, there are greatest rewards,” Jamuna says. The im-
200 groups in the district, with about pact: power, water, roads and a school
30 members each, who have made in their area, at last. “Today the forest is
sure the forest mafia is pushed back. a safe haven. What’s best is that people
Covered with sal, jamun and mahua have been awakened and are standing
trees, the forest is truly a gift for the up for what is right,” she says proudly.

Jamuna does not have children; trees

are her life. She and her husband often
trek up the hill, into the forest, packing
a little food, to enjoy its beauty and
silence. “Everyone must die one day,
but if I can protect the forest while I’m
alive, my life will have some meaning,”
she says. —Sanghamitra Chakraborty
CIVIL ACTION
Colin Gonsalves, 65
Human Rights Law Network
W
hile presenting the
d i s t i n g u i s h e d a l u m nu s
award to Colin Gonsalves
in 2010, for his four-decade-long Colin Gonsalves in his office at Delhi
work as a human rights advocate, the
dean of his engineering department at looking at issues through the eyes of
IIT-Bombay remarked, “Had you seen the working class.
him in IIT, you wouldn’t think he’d win One day Gonsalves turned up at
anything!” Those who appear without Samant’s residence for work, and got
potential, or ambition, often surprise rejected outright. But Samant was
you. Gonsalves is living proof of that. quick to see the trade union needed
The early ’70s were a time of fiery an English-educated hand, and hired
student movements, seeking a new him the same day. Gonsalves started
world order, which shaped the young representing the workers, but only
Gonsalves. Upon graduation, he seriously thought about a law degree
worked briefly as a civil engineer, before after a judge told him he “could not
becoming an advocate for the rights of pretend to be a lawyer forever”. Fresh
the disenfranchised. Gonsalves plunged out of law school, Gonsalves defended
into slum work, fighting evictions and 10 labour cases a day, working on hun-
CHANDRADEEP KUMA R
getting arrested. He came into his own dreds of others. He was with the union
under Dr Datta Samant, a legendary until Samant’s assassination in 1997.
trade unionist. “The guru gives you a In the late ’80s, Gonsalves established
little piece of magic when he touches the Human Rights Law Network
your life,” says Gonsalves. For him it (HRLN), then called the Peoples’ Law
was shedding the middle-class lens and Group, a collective of lawyers and

social activists committed to the cause Livelihood Award in 2017, known as the
of human rights and ensuring access to Alternative Nobel, “for his tireless and
justice for all. It shifted to Delhi in 2000 innovative use of public interest litiga-
with the Right to Food case. tion over three decades to secure fun-
Gonsalves had started his practice in damental human rights for India’s most
response to injustice. But reaching the marginalized and vulnerable citizens”.
higher courts, he realized that the public Gonsalves has fought like a hero
interest litigation was a powerful tool, and secured landmark judgements in
which could be wielded like a sword, to Manipur’s extrajudicial encounters;
ensure peoples’ rights. Sehba Meenai, ensured treatment of acid attack sur-
who has been associated with HRLN vivors in private hospitals; prevented
since 2001, continues to be inspired by child trafficking and child labour; de-
his leadership and work ethic. “How fended Adivasis in illegal land acquisi-
many hours Colin sleeps is the question, tion cases and is currently petitioning
not the hours he works,” she says. to stop the repatriation of Rohingya
In over three decades, HRLN has Muslims from India. He has represented
fought innumerable battles, from the death-row convicts Afzal Guru and
grass roots to the Supreme Court, on the Dhananjoy Chatterjee, among others.
rights of women and children, refugees, Gonsalves’s work on the Right to Food
sexual minorities, prisoners, Dalits and case is very close to his heart—after
the disabled. It has secured housing, 17 years of struggle, it was affirmed as
labour, health and reproductive rights a constitutional right in 2017, bringing
for thousands, fighting for criminal subsidized grain to over 350 million
justice, environmental protection, anti- people below the poverty line.
trafficking, secularism and peace. The His toughest and most memorable
network now has over 200 lawyers and fight, however, remains the midnight
an alumni list of several thousands, with case of 15 death-row convicts. They
30 centres spread across the country. were to be hanged at 6 a.m., which
Funded primarily by independent Gonsalves and his team learnt about
donor agencies, most of the cases taken from a journalist the previous evening.
on by HRLN are pro bono. Only recently The prisoners’ mercy petitions had
have they started charging a small fee to been pending for about 10 years.
cover the mounting expenses. “Keeping the sword of a death sentence
Gonsalves has worked tirelessly, hanging over someone is cruel,
without any expectation of reward or inhuman and degrading. Therefore, we
glory, believing it to be his duty. He has argued that these 15 death sentences
received an honorary doctorate from should be commuted to life.” HRLN got
UK’s Middlesex University and multiple the information at 4 p.m., drafted the
awards, the most recent being the Right petition by 6, and arrived at Chief Justice

P. Sathasivam’s house to argue their

case by 8 p.m. “We stood outside until
midnight, in the rain.” The journalist
had learnt the gallows were being
prepared and the convicts being offered
chicken and new sets of clothes. “They
dress you up, they fatten you, clean the
gallows and then they hang you. It’s a
macabre tale,” says Gonsalves. That
night, CJI Sathasivam commuted the
death sentences and put an immediate
stay on the hangings. He further made
sure the superintendents in different
jails were informed. A year later, he
commuted all 15 death sentences to
life imprisonment without remission.
“What a historic act,” says Gonsalves.
The life of a public interest litigator P. V. Sandhya with the Aarti girls
is arduous and requires immense
patience. Empathetic yet detached, and Today, the 19-year-old Sowmika
completely undeterred by challenges, is happy, confident and fierce in
including frequent death threats, her determination to end gender
Gonsalves has an almost spiritual inequality and give back to Aarti and
approach to his dharma: Live and let Sandhyamma, the woman who loved
live, with dignity for all. —Suchismita Ukil her as her own. While completing her
graduation, Sowmika took a sabbatical
and joined the recently completed
Mana Bidda (our child) Project, by
HOME & HOPE the Vijay Foundation Trust (that runs
P. V. Sandhya, 65
Aarti), as project officer.
Aarti Home for Girls
IM AGE COURTESY P. V. SANDHYA
Sowmika’s saviour and that of a

thousand other girls like her—Sandhya
I
t was a rainy August day when Puchalapalli—is a quiet, unassuming
eight-month-old Sowmika crawled 64-year-old who has been working to-
in through the gates of Aarti Home wards saving and fostering abandoned
in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. She had children in the district, while also em-
been left there by a woman—in a red powering women for over two decades.
frock, with a bag containing a slate Puchalapalli’s desire was to educate
tied to her back. women and protect abandoned

girls, and make them strong and From being merely a shelter, Aarti
independent, offering them the same has expanded to rescuing children
sense of security she felt while growing from abuse and trafficking and running
up. This was significant in Kadapa, livelihood programmes and training
considering her many students who courses for women across 51 mandals
were pulled out of junior college, in the district. Volunteers from Aarti
only to get married. Also, mothers go into homes to sensitize, educate
gave up their daughters or preferred and empower families, even saving
abortions over the discrimination they lives, with the help of community
experienced every day. ‘Why should I leaders. In the course of Mana Bidda,
send my daughters to school; they only these women have stopped 67 gender-
get married and leave,’ they would say. based abortions. Aarti now plans to
The deep need to do something came expand its work to the Chittoor district
to a head in 1991 when she saw two- and step up its training programmes
year-old Radhika playing on the road. around Hyderabad.
The baby had been abandoned by her Ask Puchalapalli about the Aarti
abusive father, who had disappeared children—like Radhika, now a radiology
after killing her mother in a fit of rage. technician at Apollo Hospital in
There was only one option: to bring Hyderabad—and she smiles with great
her home. Encouraged by her family pride. “It’s the greatest reward anybody
(notably her mother) and two nieces, can have … I am happy,” she says.
Sandhya and three friends set up a Today Aarti is flourishing but the bat-
home for abandoned children—girls tle is far from over. Says Puchalapalli,
and a few boys. She called it Aarti, after “We need to empower women, change
one of her nieces—the first donor—who the attitude that girls are a burden and
died tragically, four months after the see that no child is abandoned.” The
organization became accredited. long-term solution, she says, is not
Today, Aarti Home has gone from Aarti Home. That there is never any
being a rented house to Aarti Village—a need for it. —Chitra Subramanyam
sprawling, two-and-half-acre complex
with six cottages, housing living areas,
a communal kitchen and a library. A
concrete crib has been built outside the
THE GOOD DOCTOR
Dr Thiruvengadam
gates—after a baby, left in a cardboard Veeraraghavan, 67
box, on a rainy day, died. No questions
are asked when a woman comes with
I
a baby. “Imagine, their desperation,” t is almost midnight; daily wage
she says. “Which mother would want labourers and harried mothers
to abandon their child?” carrying their sick children have

queued up outside a dispensary in a

working-class neighbourhood of Chen-
nai. They are waiting to meet the doctor
who is a known saviour of the poor.
Inside, the only spot of cheer is the
blue-and-yellow wall and, of course,
Dr Thiruvengadam Veeraraghavan,
who provides care for the needy on a
daily basis. A patient with a foot ulcer
listens intently as the doctor explains
how to change a dressing, nodding
apologetically when chided for not
Dr Veeraraghavan with a
managing his diabetes better. patient at the Vyasarpadi clinic
For the past 25 years, the doors to
Veeraraghavan’s clinics in Vyasarpadi help people live better lives.”
and Erukkancherry in north Chennai Though the doctor prefers to offer
have been open to sick factory workers his services for free, those who insist,
and labourers with limited means. pay what they can. In the early ’90s, it
Loved and admired by the local was `2, then `5, now those who can
community, the doctor often sits well afford it pay up to `50. Veeraraghavan’s
into the night, until his very last patient own upbringing may have something
has been attended to. to do with his selflessness. Says his
Veeraraghavan studied industrial daughter Preethi, “When my father
medicine to cater to the petrochemical was growing up, north Chennai
and petroleum industries in his area. was very underdeveloped. Survival
Today he has a day job at a private depended on helping each other
hospital as an industrial medicine out. No one growing up in that
officer. It is after work that he opens environment can turn away those in
the doors of his clinics to the crowds need.” This 27-year-old is also a doctor
gathered outside at Vyasarpadi (from who assists her father occasionally.
8 p.m. to 10 p.m.) and Erukkancherry Veeraraghavan’s earnings from his
(10 p.m. to midnight). clinics go into paying F. Bubealan, his
The committed doctor has been assistant, who has worked with the
treating the underprivileged ever doctor for 25 years, and procuring
since he got his degree from Chennai’s supplies for the clinic. The doctor took
Stanley Medical College in 1991. “I in this high-school dropout, and taught
got my education free, thanks to the him to clean and dress wounds. “Those
JAIS ON G.
government, and want to share this who require just a new dressing don’t
gift,” he says. “Knowledge and care can need to wait for me. They can get it

done during the day from Bubealan

and return in time for their shift,” says
Veeraraghavan.
For the self-effacing doctor, personal
wealth or recognition holds little
meaning, Bubealan explains. For him,
it’s all about lending a helping hand.
“These days medicines have become
costly and doctors also charge a lot
of money. And unfortunately, the
poor do not have the means to get the
treatment they deserve. My intention
is to offer affordable treatment to the
needy,” Veeraraghavan says.
Looking back at the six decades
of his life, Veeraraghavan is content
knowing that he is using his own
life in making a small difference to Lalthanzami, looks on from
her safe house in Aizawl
someone else’s, just as his parents did.
In these times, where many doctors discovering he was already married,
are focused on profits rather than while pregnant with their child. But
patient care, Veeraraghavan is living he forced his way back into her life
by his Hippocratic Oath, in word and a couple of years later. The man she
spirit, and keeping alive the faith in this loved had turned into a “beast”—he
noble profession. —Gagan Dhillon would threaten to kill their son, or take
him away if she refused the needle. He
never worked, instead stealing from her
and keeping a watch on her constantly.
SHE HERO But one day, she managed to escape
C. Lalthanzami, 47
with her three-year-old. Later, she had
Grassroots Development Network
her husband arrested, but also spent a
year in prison for her own addiction.
E
JOHNY NGURTHANSANGA
very night as Lalthanzami She was determined to turn her life

went to bed, she thought she around, but that came after fighting her
wouldn’t live to see the next day. addiction, losing the battle, and fighting
As her alcoholic husband put a knife it again with rehabilitation. “Even
to her neck and forced her to take the though I had lost my way, I believed
heroin injection every day, she feared it was my life and my future and that I
for her son. She had left her husband, could get back on track,” she says.

Lalthanzami, widely known as at the Society for HIV/AIDS and Lifeline

Zampuii, could have been lost to the Operation in Manipur (SHALOM), an
world. But, at 47, she is an example of NGO , and later started working for
how a survivor can turn around the grim them. On the job, Zampuii encountered
events of her life to fight back and bring other abused women.
hope to hundreds of women like her. She re cal l s m e et i ng a si ngl e
A finalist for CII Foundation’s Woman mother being forced into a physical
Exemplar Program, 2017, for her work relationship by a man. He threatened
with Grassroots Development Network to kill her child if she didn’t give in.
(GDN), she and her team run a safe “At the local police station they said,
house for survivors—battered women ‘Stop meddling in other people’s
and their children. These survivors of business’.” Zampuii realized that
domestic violence are also provided vulnerable women routinely faced
legal aid and enabled to rebuild their such shocking apathy—this spurred
lives. “Everyone has unlimited power. her on to launch GDN , where she
Cowards die every day, courageous draws on her own life experiences to
people die only once,” Zampuii says. build and drive the programmes.
Since 2008, GDN has also fought for Her work with survivors puts her
human rights of the undocumented at constant risk: “I’ve had my doors
migrants from Myanmar. broken, and I’ve been threatened
Zampuii grew up in Myanmar where with weapons by victim’s partners.”
she became involved with the struggle Even though the nor th-east is
for democracy while at Rangoon seen as relatively safe for women,
University. Her brother’s sudden death patriarchy abounds here too. “Gender
brought her to Mizoram in 1994, where discrimination runs in everybody’s
she started a small grocery shop and veins. Mizoram is a male-dominated
met her husband-to-be. The downward society—domestic violence is treated
spiral began soon after her marriage, as a private affair,” explains Zampuii.
and she left him. Despite the many challenges and
After giving birth to her son, the limited resources, Zampuii has battled
desperate single mother, with no steady on fearlessly. Says Namrata Goswami,
income, was pushed into drugs after programme manager at Foundation
her ex-husband reappeared in her life. for Social Transformation, that works
Looking back she says, “The addiction with her, “Being a survivor herself,
was a very difficult phase.” There were Lalthanzami understands these women
times when the haze lifted and she wept and their circumstances. She is breaking
looking at her son. This eventually gave the silence in areas where women
her the strength to fight her addiction. have not been able to.”
In late 2002, she sought rehabilitation —Suchismita Ukil and Naorem Anuja

Your
HEALTHIEST
(and Happiest)
Year Ever
Expert-backed tips and tricks to
supercharge your life
BY GAGAN D H ILLO N
P HOTOGRAP HS BY M ICHA EL LEWIS

Outwit your brain
Research shows that our brain
functions at its peak when we
are in a positive frame of mind.
Being upbeat or finding joy in
the present makes us better at
whatever we do. “Happiness is
the precursor to success, not
merely the result. And happi-
ness and optimism actually
fuel performance and achieve-
ment—giving us the competi-
tive edge,” writes Shawn
Achor, a positive psychology
researcher, in his book, The
Happiness Advantage.
Get your health checked Kiss and tell

n Start the year with an The reason we remember our first kiss
annual screening for diabe- is because it is so addictive. Kissing
tes and heart disease, sug- releases a powerful cocktail of dopa-
gests Dr Ambrish Mithal, mine, oxytocin and serotonin. These
chairman and head of activate the pleasure centres of the
endocrinology and diabe- brain, fostering the feeling of being
tes division, Medanta— loved and appreciated. So grab your
The Medicity, Gurugram. better half when you can to keep the
n Schedule blood tests to good vibes flowing.
check levels of haemoglo-
bin, cholesterol and blood
glucose; and liver, kidney MIND YOUR DRINKS
and thyroid function. In 2016, the UK changed
n A routine electrocardi- its recommendation for
ography (ECG) is essential
alcohol consumption and
for individuals over 40.
Those with a family lowered its cut off to no
history of heart disease more than 14 units of
or other risk factors like alcohol a week—about
diabetes and hypertension
should get a periodic
five pints of beer a week.
treadmill test at least Though India has no fixed
once every 2–3 years. guidelines, the general
n Don’t forget a dental
rule is no more than two
and eye check-up.
n Ladies, do schedule an
units (60 ml) for men and
appointment with your one unit (30 ml) for
gynaecologist. women per day.

Y O U R H E A LT H I E S T ( A N D H A P P I E S T ) Y E A R E V E R
Tackle sugar
A kitchen staple, fenugreek
seeds are abundant in
protein, soluble fibre and
omega-3 fatty acids. Fibre
from these seeds reduces the
absorption of glucose. Just
25 g of fenugreek seeds in
Secure the heart your diet can do the trick.
Cinnamon shields the body with its anti-
inflammatory properties. It is rich in manga-
nese, which helps the body metabolize fats
and carbohydrates, absorb calcium and regu-
late blood sugar. Studies have also linked it to
lower levels of the bad LDL cholesterol and
triglycerides. “Add a pinch to tea or coffee, or
infuse it with water,” suggests Rekha Sharma,
Delhi-based registered dietician.
Turn up your BASK IN THE SUNLIGHT

turn-down The British Journal of Nutrition reported low levels
skill
of vitamin D in expectant mothers had a negative
The upsides
to saying ‘no’ impact on the social and motor skill development
are plenty. In The of preschool children. Spend time outdoors and
Book of No: 250 choose fortified milk and cereal. Do speak to your
Ways to Say It— doctor if you need to supplement your diet.
And Mean It and
Stop People-
pleasing Forever,
author Susan
Newman, reveals
that often
yes-people are
unhappy or
angry with
themselves
because they
feel trapped.
Saying ‘no’ can
help you prior-
itize time and
effort, prevent-
ing a burn out.

Tune in HEAL WITH YOGURT

The National Association The benefits of gut-
of Music Merchants
friendly bacteria in
Foundation (USA)
throws light on the yogurt go beyond
many benefits of immunity and
listening to music. digestion. Yogurt is
Studies show that rich in nutrients like
music enhances
memory in
potassium, magnesium,
Alzheimer’s and calcium and vitamins B2 and
dementia patients. B12. A potent combination of
Moreover, teens who protein and carbohydrates, it is
listen to music believe
an ideal snack, post light exercise.
that it diminishes ethnic,
cultural and age-related
boundaries between people.
DISCOVER YOUR INNER CHILD

Play enhances creativity and intelligence
while letting us de-stress. A round of
Scrabble or Monopoly with friends and
family will not only help you bond but
also keep your brain sharp.
Make H20
your hero
It nourishes your
skin, keeps your
brain sharp and
ensures your me-
tabolism is high.
A healthy person
should have at
ALL I MAGES: INDI API CTURE
BEET IT
least 1 to 1.5 litres
of water daily Beetroot is known to lower blood pressure and
through the day. is excellent for digestion. Its high nitrate content
Remember, long helps increase blood flow to deoxygenated areas
periods without
of the brain in senior citizens. “If you are diabetic,
fluid intake com-
promises memory do keep in mind beetroot’s high sugar content,”
and attention. Sharma warns.

Oils well Cut tension

Not all fats or oils are villains! Choose healthier ones—olive, Bad mood can
mustard, soya bean and safflower oils. Packed with the be contagious.
goodness of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, they boost Although we
heart and brain health. Stock your pantry with flaxseed oil, can’t control our
also good for the heart and the brain. Have a teaspoon daily environment, we
to make the most of its anti-inflammatory properties. can change how
we react to it.
“Deep breathing
Get moving START A DETOX RITUAL and visualization
A Brain, Behavior and of a calming
Tulsi is a potent herb that
Immunity study asked scene or activity
subjects to walk or protects against toxins. can help get rid
jog on the treadmill Sip it as tea to boost of some of the
depending on their immunity or chew a few negative energy,”
fitness level. Research- leaves to ease acidity. says Dr Vijay
ers found that just Nagaswami, a
20-minutes of mode-
Research shows it coun- Chennai-based
rate exercise protects ters stresses—chemical psychiatrist.
against cardiovascular (industrial pollutants),
disease, diabetes, physical (exposure to
certain cancers and
cold) and psychological
neurodegenerative
conditions. While and metabolic (blood
cardiovascular exercise pressure and lipid levels).
can help build stamina,
maintain weight and
reduce belly fat, daily
yoga improves flexi-
bility and balance, and
calms the mind.

BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY

Pollution compromises our immunity and can damage our DNA. Kamala
Krishnaswamy, researcher and former director of National Institute of
Nutrition, Hyderabad, found in a study that consuming turmeric is benefi-
cial due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties.
GET BUSY
A study by
the universities
of Oxford and
Coventry suggests
getting intimate
often is linked to
improved brain
function in older
adults. It ensures
good sleep, better
heart function and
a stronger immu-
Save more money nity. Plus, it counts
Avoid impulse buys. Cut up credit cards to trim the bills.
as exercise!
Bit extreme? Use cash only. Researchers found spending
paper currency is especially painful because we feel the
‘pain of payment’. Subconsciously, we don’t perceive
cards as real currency, which is why we overspend, focus-
ing only on the benefits and not the cost of the item.
GREEN ZONE IT
Invite Mother Nature indoors to
breathe life into your day. A long-term
study of 10,000 individuals found that
living near or within green areas has a
30 per cent positive impact on life
satisfaction, akin to that of being
married. Take the edge off daily stress
with indoor plants such as areca
palm, rubber, money or snake plant.

BE BUDDHA-LIKE
Give mindfulness a try. Think of it like a
sieve that filters the background noise.
Start by focusing on the ‘now’ and
being aware of the task at hand. Studies
show that it is possible to rewire the
brain to truly live in the moment. It
frees up your mental space, enabling
you to think clearly, experience joy and
act on inspiration.
Keep a journal
Write down three new things that you are thank-
ful for. Do this for 21 days to train your brain to
SPREAD THE LOVE
look for happiness even when the chips are
Kindness is contagious. down. As J. K. Rowling wrote in Harry Potter
Researchers at the and the Prisoner of Azkaban: “Happiness can
Stanford and Harvard be found even in the darkest times if one only
remembers to turn on the light.”
universities found that
people tend to imitate
each other’s positive
actions—what they term
prosocial conformity.
Your generosity can
convince others to be
more giving, empathic
and kind. Go ahead,
start the chain.
Build better bones

Studies suggest that there is a positive association
between the intake of polyphenols and better bone
mass. Dried plums or prunes are rich in polyphenols.
Eat a couple of prunes, adding to your cereal or as
a mid-morning snack, to boost bone density.

QUIT A BAD HABIT

Peter M. Gollwitzer, psychol-
ogy professor at New York
University, USA, offers a sim-
ple approach to achieving
goals that could be nixed by
procrastination. Plan in ad-
vance when, where and how
you will achieve the goal.
For example, if you want to
limit weekend drinking, plan
to switch to juice or water
after your second drink.
DE-CLUTTER AND SIMPLIFY Try something new

Pick a hobby to protect your brain.
Marie Kondo, the queen of de- Learning new skills fires synapses in
cluttering, believes that we the brain. Read a book, learn to paint
should only hold on to things or play an instrument to undo the
that spark joy. In her book, The damage of ageing.
Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

Up, she shares how shoeboxes
can be reutilized to organize
hairbands and clips to deter-
gents and garbage bags.
WRITE THANK-YOU NOTES

Reach out to those who make you smile with their acts
of kindness and support. Brighten their day with a
handwritten thank-you note. It can help connect, mend
relationships and strengthen bonds. Who knows, it
could even be the start to a new friendship!
Sources: Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition; Scientific American; Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine;
Psychology Today; Harvard Health Publishing; time.com

ALL IN
A Day’s Work
MY BOSS, who lives in a pre-Civil I’D RECENTLY WRITTEN an

War home, mentioned to her friend academic book, which my six-
that she didn’t use city water. Instead, year-old son asked to see. I handed
when it rained, the water on the roof him a copy, and he carefully exam-
drained into gutters, which led to ined the pages. When he was done,
a cistern. he closed the book and, looking
“What do you do if there’s a perplexed, asked, “Dad, do you
drought?” her friend asked. understand any of this?”
“I call a water-hauling company TANNI HAAS
IN DI API CTURE
to bring me water,” she said.

The friend looked perplexed. anecdote or photo in any of our jokes
“How do they get the water from the sections. Post it to the editorial address,
truck on to the roof?” CHRISTY ROLF or email: [email protected]

WHEN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA MISPRINT
BRINGS TWO BOOK LOVERS TOGETHER,
THE ONLY THING THAT STANDS BETWEEN THEM
IS THE BARS OF A MARYLAND PRISON
Th�
PRISONER
and th�
ENCYCLOPEDIA
EDITOR BY DANIEL A. GROSS FR O M N EWYORKER.COM
ILLUSTRATION BY BRI AN STAUFFER
NE DAY IN MID-2016, phone dozens of times. But they had

Robin Woods drove never met in person. Woods, who is
seven hours from his bald and broad-shouldered, parked
home in Maryland to his car and walked along a tree-lined
visit a man named street to Stevens’s house. He seemed
Mark Stevens in Amherst, Massachu- nervous and excited as he knocked
setts, USA. The two had corresponded on the door. A wiry man with white
for years, and they’d spoken on the hair and glasses opened it.

T H E P R I S O N E R A N D T H E E N C YC LO P E D I A E D I TO R
Within a few minutes, Woods, 54, a letter. “I am writing to you at this

and Stevens, 66, were sitting in the time to advise you of a misprint in
living room, talking about books. your FINE!! Collegiate Encyclopedia.”
The conversation seemed both apt He described the error and offered
and improbable: When Woods had his thanks for Merriam-Webster’s
first written to Stevens, in 2004, reference books. “I would be lost
he was serving a 16-year prison without them,” he wrote, unsure
sentence in Jessup, Maryland, for whether he’d ever get a response.
breaking and entering. What Woods didn’t mention in
And yet it was a book that had his first letter to Stevens was that
brought them together. the encyclopedia represented the
At Jessup, Woods had bought culmination of his self-education.
a n d b e gu n re a d i ng Me r r i a m -
Woods grew up in a housing project
Webster’s Collegiate Encyclo pedia, in Cumberland, Maryland. Cumber-
a nearly two-kilo tome that starts land was once an industrial centre
with an entry on the German city but has become one of the poor-
of Aachen and ends with zymogen, est metropolitan areas in America.
an inactive protein precursor to Woods was first sent to prison at
23, for firing his
grandfather’s rifle
“EVEN THOUGH I WAS CONFINED through an apart-
ment window
IN A CELL, MY MIND WAS FREE,” after a drug-related
WOODS SAYS. “I COULD ESCAPE.” d i s p u t e. H e w a s
young, embittered
and almost comp-
enzymes. He hoped to read all its letely illiterate. “I had never read
alphabetical entries, which exceeded a book in my life,” he says.
25,000, and he spent hours flipping Woods remembers enjoying first
through the pages. One day, he was grade, but he says he was bullied
puzzled to read an entry stating that because of his light skin. (Woods
the 11th-century ruler Toghrïl Beg was raised by his mother, who was
had entered Baghdad in 1955. He African American. His father was of
quickly realized that it should have mixed race.) In second grade, he de-
been 1055. “I read it several times to veloped an antagonistic relationship
make sure,” he says. Then he turned with his teacher, who made him sit in
to the masthead, which listed the a coat closet whenever he annoyed
editor, Mark A. Stevens. her. Eventually, the school transferred
“Dear Mr Stevens,” Woods wrote in him to a special-education pro-

through the lock-up tiers,

shouting, “Library call!”
Woods wasn’t interested at
first, but his boredom won
out : He decided to bor-
row The Autobiography of
Malcolm X and The Sicilian,
a Mafia novel by Mario Puzo.
The autobiography proved
“too complicated”, and The
Sicilian was only slightly
easier. Still, Woods per-
sisted. “Many, many words
Stevens (right) asked the prison to return
Woods’s books, vouching for his character.
I had to skip over because I
couldn’t read them,” Woods
gramme. As he progressed through recalls. Each page took him about five
the grades, instead of learning to minutes but left him with a glow of ac-
read and write, he was given chores complishment. By the time he got to
such as collecting attendance slips the end, about a week had passed. “I
and stacking milk in the cafeteria remember that I wept,” Woods says—
refrigerator. These tasks earned not because of what he had read but
him mostly As and Bs. “Of course, I because he had succeeded in reading.
didn’t learn nothing,” he says. “They Woods soon bought his first
say it takes a community to raise a dictionary at the prison commissary
child. It takes one to destroy a child and began etching words into his
too.” Woods ultimately dropped out memory by copying them down and
of high school. reading them aloud. He read into
During his first stint in prison, the early hours of the morning.
Woods began his own course of “Even though I was confined in a
study. He was sent to a notoriously cell, my mind was free,” Woods says.
harsh prison in Hagerstown, Mary- “I could escape.”
land. He resented authority figures For a brief time, Woods also
and often directed outbursts at the regained his physical freedom. In
guards, who responded by putting 1987, he finished his sentence and
him on lock-up. For 23 hours at a moved back to Cumberland, where
DANI EL GROSS
time, and sometimes longer, Woods he lived in a shack and worked

would be alone in a cell that had no occasionally for a man who cleaned
television or radio. One day, a man offices. Books had expanded Woods’s
with a cart of books wound his way world, but they hadn’t made it any

easier for him to stay out of trouble. or that “may facilitate criminal
One night, Woods says, he drove to activity”. Many prisons also add their
one of the offices he’d helped clean, own idiosyncratic rules.
knocked out a window and stole Even so, Woods managed to
several thousand dollars’ worth assemble a small library in his cell.
of equipment. “A lot of prisoners put emphasis on
The next day, he went to a local how many Nike shoes they have,”
club and, over a game of pool, tried he says. “I would wear a pair of
to sell some of the equipment. When prison tennis shoes if necessary, but
a group of state troopers [Ameri- I had eight or nine hundred dollars’
can state police] walked in the side worth of books.” Woods ordered his
door, he didn’t put up a fight. Not encyclopedia through the mail
even two years had passed since after reading about it in a catalogue.
his release, and Woods was once When it arrived, he says, it was
again incarcerated at the prison carefully inspected for contraband.
in Hagerstown— an institution he
had come to detest. Because of N LATE NOVEMBER 2004, when
his prior record, Woods received Mark Stevens received his first
a harsh sentence: 16 years for two letter from Robin Woods, he
counts of breaking and entering. responded on Merriam-Web-
In 1991, after Woods got caught up ster, Inc., letterhead. “I believe
in a prison riot, his sentence was you’re the first to have spotted the
extended by seven years. error in the Toghrïl Beg entry; by 1955
Toghrïl was no longer exactly in his
HERE ARE A FEW WAYS prime,” Stevens wrote. “Please stay on
that books enter prisons. the lookout for more.” Woods was
They’re sold at prison thrilled, and soon he wrote again,
commissaries and lent highlighting errors in the entries
by prison libraries ; for Edward the Confessor and
non-profits also distribute donated ‘Uthmān ibn ‘Affān—“not as a critic,
books to prisoners. There are state but as a friend”, he explained in his
and federal restrictions, of course: In letter. “For I believe that MWI. is the
some institutions, hardcover books crème de la crème. I would like to
may be sent to an inmate only if help it to stay that away [sic]!”
they’re from a publisher, a book club Over the next two years, Stevens
or a bookstore; the US Bureau of sent 18 letters to Woods; Woods
Prisons also prohibits texts that are sent several dozen to Stevens. They
“detrimental to the security, good discussed the life of Cleopatra and
order or discipline of the institution” the self-education of Malcolm X, but

Woods barely discussed his criminal does he know Mr Stevens? As it turns

record, and Stevens never asked. out, Stevens had written to two prison
“They were perfectly executed let- wardens, and eventually word had
ters, and very courteous,” Stevens gotten to the commissioner, who
says. “It still seems astonishing to called him. They spoke about Woods
me.” One letter concluded, “I have and the encyclopedia. Not long
the honour to be, Sir, your most obe- after that, the commissioner offered
dient servant.” Woods a deal. If he would end his
But in 2005, it seemed as if all of hunger strike and follow the rules
that was about to change. Woods for a year, the commissioner would
learnt that he would be transferred, cut short the extended sentence and
without a clear explanation, to a send Woods home. In the meantime,
supermax prison in Baltimore. his books would be restored to him.
Officials told him he wouldn’t “I feel like a kid getting out of high
be allowed to bring
his books. “I’VE GONE CRAZY AND WILL
Woods protested.
Within days of
NOT EAT UNTIL THEY ALLOW
arriving at his new ME TO KEEP MY BOOKS,”
cell, he went on a HE WROTE TO STEVENS.
hunger strike. “I’ve
gone crazy and will
not eat until they allow me to keep school,” Woods wrote to Stevens
my books,” he wrote to Stevens. Sev- near the end of 2006. “The whole
eral weeks later, he wrote another let- world is waiting for me!” In Janu-
ter, this one short and despondent: ary 2007, 18 years after the start of
“I look like walking death. But I’m his incarceration and five years be-
hard-headed and shall not give up.” fore the scheduled conclusion of his
Locked in a single room, Woods lost extended sentence, Robin Woods
about 31 kilos. was discharged from prison. He had
One day, as Woods remembers it, about $50 to his name, the minimum
he saw a shadow on the wall of his required by law.
cell. It was the Maryland commis- Woods once more moved back to
sioner of corrections, who asked Cumberland, where he was given
about his health. “He had a very housing by a local pastor. Every few
curious look on his face,” Woods months, he called Stevens. The calls
recalls. Finally, the commissioner continued for a decade before they
asked, “Who is this Mark Stevens?” finally arranged to meet.
Woods remembers thinking, How When Woods visited Stevens at his

home in Amherst in June 2016, they partly, he says, because it takes con-
were soon acting like old friends. siderable effort just to pay the bills
“I never met you until today, but I and keep clear of the law. But he still
love you very much,” Woods told keeps a copy of Merriam-Webster’s
Stevens. “You’re a good man.” They Collegiate Encyclopedia close.
took hikes, went to a play and visited “While my body is here in prison,
my mind has seen
the world,” Woods
“I NEVER MET YOU UNTIL TODAY, BUT I once wrote to
Stevens. “ There
LOVE YOU VERY MUCH,” WOODS are a lot of places
TOLD STEVENS. “YOU’RE A GOOD MAN.” that I hope to
see that I have
read about in my
the home of Emily Dickinson, many books.” Stevens responded by
where a plaque quotes her lines: quoting another book, T. H. White’s
There is no Frigate like a Book / To The Once and Future King.
take us Lands away. On Sunday, “The best thing for being sad,”
after a goodbye hug, Woods began Merlyn says in the novel, “is to learn
the long drive home. something. That is the only thing
Woods rarely reads anymore— that never fails.”
NEWYORKER.COM (13 SEPTEMBER 2016), COPYRIGHT © 2016 BY DANIEL A. GROSS.
SUPER FLY
Last year [2016], complaints about airlines [in the US] increased 22 per
cent. There were probably more complaints, but the airlines lost them.
@CONANOBRIEN
This day in hyperbole: Delta flight attendant just announced

they’re about to begin their “legendary beverage service”.
@CARRIE_RACHEL
Good thing most planes have TVs. Nothing’s worse than having to look
out the window at earth’s sacred majesty from the view of angels.
@PHARMASEAN

Laugh Lines
HIGHER RESOLUTIONS
Forgot to make
resolutions?
Just write out
I bought a
everything you
treadmill
did last night,
because my
and at the be-
New Year’s
ginning, add
resolution is
the word stop.
to have more
things to put @PETEHOLMES
my laundry on.
@DANWLIN
(DANIEL LIN)
For those of you

who have already
failed your New
Year’s resolution,
like I have, there
I’ve seen six people post that their is always the
New Year’s resolution is to “loose Chinese New Year
weight”. I can think of a slightly to try again.
more useful resolution for them. @THOMASPANKONIN
@FUNNYBRAD (BRAD WILLIAMS)
LINAVI TA /SHUTTERSTOCK
My New Year’s resolution

is to be more assertive if
Resolution: don’t let someone that’s OK with you guys?
take up emotional real estate
@MEGANKCOMEDY
if they aren’t paying rent. (MEGAN KELLY DUNN)
@KAYSARAHSERA (SARAH KAY)

`100
R E A D E R ’ S
NOVEMBER
2017
D I G E S T
KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
|
SAVIOUR STUDENT
SAT YA NAD E LL A
PAGE 114
HOW TO SAY I’M SORRY

PAGE 37
SATYA
NADELLA
●
TH E E M PATHY CODE
… on Success, Leadership and Empathy

PAGE 60
GROWING UP GIFTED
PAGE 100
8 SILENT SIGNS STRESS IS

MAKING YOU SICK
PAGE 44
|
CLASSIC BONUS READ

N O V E M B E R
OUT OF THE BLUE

PAGE 138
KEEPING CHILDREN SAFE ONLINE ....................... 28

EASY HIKING TRAILS IN INDIA .............................. 54
LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE ......................... 98
2 0 1 7
13 NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES ...................... 152

WORD POWER—GO GET IT! .................................. 157
RD005234
A
Staris
Born BY SACH I N TE ND ULKAR
FR O M C H AS E YO U R DR E AMS
SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR, BORN INTO A

HARD-WORKING, MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILY, WENT ON
TO BECOME A CRICKETING LEGEND. HERE, VIGNETTES
FROM HIS BOYHOOD AND WHAT INSPIRED HIM

ALA MY

A S TA R I S B O R N
Son, life is like a book. It has many chapters. It also has several lessons in
it. It is made up of a wide variety of experiences and is like a pendulum
where success and failure, joy and sorrow, are only two ends of reality …
Often, failure and sorrow are bigger teachers than success and
happiness. You are a cricketer and sportsman. You are fortunate to
represent your country. But never forget that this, too, is just another
chapter. Let’s say a person lives for 70 years. How many years will you
play sport? Twenty years; if you are good, maybe 25. Even by that
yardstick, you will live the larger part of your life outside of professional
sport. This clearly means that there is more to life than cricket. I am
asking you, son, to be pleasant and maintain a balanced nature. Do not
allow success to breed arrogance in you … As a parent, I would be happier
hearing people say, ‘Sachin is a good human being’ than ‘Sachin is a great
cricketer’ any day.
y father’s words, which I often My brothers, Nitin and Ajit, have

heard grow ing up, sum up my always backed me in my efforts,
life’s philosophy. especially Ajit. He is 10 years older
I was born to a close-knit and was a good club cricketer but
Maharashtrian family in Mumbai’s decided to sacrifice his career to help
Bandra East and lived in Sahitya me achieve my best. Ajit and I lived
Sahawas, a cooperative housing the dream together and he was always
society for writers. I am one of four my most trusted critic and sounding
children, with two brothers and a board. I may have scored the runs,
sister. Not only am I the youngest but he was always there with me in
in the family but I was also the spirit, trying to put me right whenever
worst behaved. I made a mistake. Ajit is not just my
My father, Ramesh Tendulkar, was brother, but my closest friend as well.
an acclaimed Marathi poet, critic and Savita, my sister, gave me my first
professor, while my mother, Rajani, cricket bat. She travelled to Kashmir
worked for an insurance company. for a holiday when I was five and
Humility and modesty were their brought me back a Kashmir willow
qualities and I owe a lot of my bat … When she got married, I insisted
personality to my upbringing. Despite that my brother-in-law come and stay
the trouble I often caused them, my with us rather than Savita having to go
parents never gave up on me. away. I did not want to let her go.

Fun and Games

My early years were never boring.
One of our regular tricks was to dig a
deep hole in the sand and cover it with
newspaper before further disguising it
with sand. Then we would lure people
to walk over it. As they sank into the
crater, we’d be in fits of laughter.
Another was to pour water on
i n n o c e n t p a s s e r s - b y f ro m o u r
apartment. Feasting on mangoes
p i c k e d f ro m t re e s w e w e re n ’ t
supposed to touch was also a favourite The making of the
pastime. The fact that it was forbidden Master Blaster
made us do it all the more and the
complaints that followed did little to easy bringing up four children in an
put us off. Finally—and this is very expensive city like Mumbai, but our
embarrassing—my friends and I parents never let us feel any pressure.
would lock up people in their flats. Not knowing what they had to go
I was a good enough student: Never through, I refused to go outside and
a class-topper, but not at the bottom play till I had a new one to show off.
either. The best time of the year was the I just stood in the balcony and guilted
two-month-long summer break. During my parents into buying me a bicycle.
the holidays, I’d hurry down from our It was on one of those days that
apartment at 9 a.m. and be out in the I gave them a real scare. Ours was a
sun, playing for the rest of the day. fourth-floor apartment that had a
The sweltering heat was never a small balcony with a grille. As a small
problem and I’d be out playing till late child, I couldn’t see over the top and I
in the evening … There were seven would try to get my head through the
or eight blocks in the colony and grille to look out. One day I succeeded
sometimes I’d run seven or eight laps in pushing my head through, but
around them barefoot, just to burn up couldn’t pull back out and was stuck
IN DIA TODAY ARCHI VES
my energy. there for more than 30 minutes!

Seeing my desperation and worried
Dreaming of a Bicycle what I might be up to next, my father
While most of my friends had their bought me a bicycle. I still don’t know
own bicycles, I did not and was what money adjustments he had to
determined to have one … It wasn’t make to do so. Nor was I concerned

A S TA R I S B O R N
at the time. All I cared about was warm turmeric over the wound, an
the bicycle. age-old Ayurvedic treatment for cuts
and bruises. The injury healed faster
Small and Big Battles than I expected.
I had many adventures as a child, but That wasn’t the only time I got hurt
one that stands out happened while while playing cricket as a child. We
playing at Shivaji Park, the breeding played on half-baked and overused
ground of cricketers in Mumbai. I was pitches, and our coach insisted we bat
captaining my team in a match. I was without helmets and learn to leave
12. After our wicketkeeper got injured balls by swaying out of the way. Injuries
I asked my teammates if anyone could were frequent, but they hardened us
keep wicket. No one came forward so for the grind ahead and as a result I
I stepped up, somewhat reluctantly, was never scared of getting hurt. It was
never having tried it before. I was all part of being a sportsman.
uncomfor table standing in the
unfamiliar position behind the stumps Turning to Cricket
and soon missed a nick. The ball came Besides cricket and music, I was also
at me fast and hit me smack in the a big fan of tennis as a child. John
face, just missing my eye. The cut was McEnroe, the legendary American
deep and there was a lot of blood. player, was my favourite. As a 10-year-
I didn’t have the money to pay for a old I would mimic McEnroe’s look
taxi home and was embarrassed to get and antics, growing my hair into a
on a bus with a bloodied face. I asked curly mop, and walk around wearing
a friend to give me a lift on his bicycle, a headband. I was so fascinated by
and anyone who knows Mumbai will the battles between Björn Borg and
realize what a difficult task that is, McEnroe that I even thought about
especially with heavy cricket kitbags choosing tennis over cricket.
in tow. There was a busy flyover Ajit knew about my obsession with
between East and West Bandra, which tennis but had also seen me play
my friend found too steep. So I had cricket. My natural bat swing had
to walk it, while people gaped at me led him to believe that I might turn
in shock. A young kid with blood all out to be a good batsman if groomed
over his face and shirt, lugging his properly—though he never forced
cricket kit over a flyover wasn’t an anything on me.
everyday sight. He would give me a tennis racket
When I got home, I was relieved and a cricket bat and take me to the
to find my parents out at work. My terrace for a few hits. He threw tennis
grandmother, who was at home, put balls towards me while I took turns

SACHIN’S SUPER-TIPS!
◗ Try to play every ball that life throws at you. Some will beat you, but
there will also be those that you hit out of the park.
◗ Welcome competition, because it’s in challenging situations that you

learn to improvise, improve and be the best you can be.
◗ Winning is most worthwhile when it is against a strong opposition.

Value a solid contest and learn from it.
◗ Whether it’s a catch or your goal, take the initiative to reach it and
stay focused on your aim.
◗ Have heroes. Wanting to achieve even a part of what they have will
drive you, both when the going is good and when you’re down.
◗ Many people will play a part, small or big, in helping you to reach
where you want to. Never forget them.
◗ Set small targets ... and you are more than likely to reach the big one.
with the racket and bat. We didn’t have classic film every Sunday. When most
too many balls and if they bounced of the residents were engrossed in the
over the terrace walls, I would run film, we would climb up the trees. As
down four floors and fetch them (there luck would have it, that day we fell
were no elevators, and that explains w i t h a c ra s h a n d w e re c au g ht
the secret behind my strong legs!). It immediately. It was clear something
was clear I enjoyed myself more while needed to be done to channel my
playing cricket. However, what led energy. Ramakant Achrekar’s coaching
me to Ramakant Achrekar’s summer camp, where many of Mumbai’s top
cricket camp in 1984, at age 11, had cricketers had learnt their game, was
nothing to do with the sport. Ajit’s answer.
The turn to cricket was prompted
when my friends and I got into a spot This edited excerpt from Chase Your
Dreams © copyright 2017 by Sachin
of trouble. At the time, Doordarshan, Tendulkar has been printed with
the national TV channel, showed a permission from Hachette India.

DRAMA IN REAL LIFE
A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS COST A

HEALTHY, ATHLETIC MAN PARTS OF ALL
FOUR LIMBS. BUT THANKS TO ONE
DOCTOR’S GROUNDBREAKING
SURGERY, THE PATIENT GOT A PIECE
OF HIMSELF BACK
P HOTOGRAP HS BY M ICHA EL LEWIS

ANATOMY OF
A PERFECT
HAND
BY A M Y WA L L AC E FR O M LOS A N G E L E S
Jonathan Koch
wasn’t a lefty
before his
17‑hour surgery.
He is now.

A N AT O M Y O F A P E R F E C T H A N D T R A N S P L A N T
N MONDAY, 26 JANUARY 2015, JONATHAN

Koch awakened feeling awful. God, I’m sweaty, he
thought. Even my knees are aching. And what’s up
with my freezing-cold feet?
Jonathan was supposed to be on the day’s first
flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.; as
the co-runner of a reality TV production company,
he was expected at an important conference that
afternoon. Instead, he headed not to the airport
but to Providence Tarzana Medical Other than a knee surgery and a

Center, where doctors—finding no history of kidney stones, Jonathan
cause for his discomfort—gave him a Koch’s body had never failed him, and
shot of morphine and sent him on his he’d always returned the favour. At
way. He made it to D.C., checked in to six foot one and 102 kg, the 49-year-
his hotel and fell into bed by midnight. old former wrestler was an exercise
The next morning, he could barely addict who led a daily predawn workout
get up. Why does my body feel like for friends. One colleague called him
concrete? he wondered. His eyes were Superman for his drive and relent-
beyond bloodshot. He stopped by less positivity. He didn’t drink or
Rite Aid [pharmacy] for some Aleve, smoke. He ate a high-protein diet and
Clear Eyes and Extra Strength 5-Hour loved his sleep; he and his girlfriend,
Jennifer Gunkel, were
“TEXT EVERYONE YOU LOVE,” THE t y p i ca l l y i n b e d by
9 p.m. Now doctors
DOCTOR SAID. “YOU’RE PROBABLY in D.C. wondered if
GOING TO DIE TONIGHT.” he had pneumonia.
Between all the tests, the
Energy, then dragged himself to his first blood draws and the pain that surged
meeting. Midway through his second, through his limbs, he texted Jennifer:
Jonathan looked at a colleague and saw “They are killing me in here, baby.”
three of her. When he stumbled in the Tuesday night fell, and the hos-
hallway a minute later, she insisted on pital admitted Jonathan to the ICU .
taking her boss to the emergency room. His condition remained a mystery,
“You’ve got work to do,” Jonathan told and the pain was beyond debilitating.
her. “I can get there on my own.” A taxi His circulation slowed; his hands and
dropped him off at George Washington feet were turning blue as his body
University Hospital around 11 a.m. His pulled blood from his limbs to pro-
temperature was 102 degrees. tect his vital organs. Around 2 a.m.,

Dr Lynn Abell levelled with

Jonathan. “Text everyone you
love,” she said. “You’re prob-
ably going to die tonight.”
By the time Jennifer arrived
in D.C. Wednesday night,
doctors had put her partner
into a propofol-induced coma.
The next day, he was in full-
blown septic shock. With his
outer extremities deprived of
oxygenated blood, gangrene
set in. Despite huge doses of
antibiotics, Jonathan’s body
“was getting ready to die”.
Chance of survival: 10 per cent.
OST OF US THINK
that patients who
are put into a medi-
cally induced coma
fall into a peaceful sleep. In fact,
many people who’ve been “put Jonathan (left) is “one of those guys you have
under” have terrifying halluci- to kill to beat”, a colleague said.
nations or nightmares. As
Jonathan lay unconscious over the school’s father–daughter dance—once
following weeks, he had both. He they’d even crashed another school’s.
believed he was being held hostage by Now he was missing the dance for
a family of ghouls with giant faces and the first time.
jagged teeth. Lashed to a wood bench, On the final day of his two-and-a-
he was bitten repeatedly by snakes. He half-week coma, Jonathan saw himself
sensed the presence of his 15-year-old in an empty, misty room with two doors.
daughter, Ariana, despite her being He understood that one door was the
nearly 4,800 km away. (With Jonathan’s way back to existence; the other, the way
condition so uncertain, Ariana, who out. Then he heard a deep voice. “If you
had bronchitis, stayed home with her choose to live, there will be a price that
mum.) Jonathan and his daughter had is so heavy that at times you’ll regret it,”
a tight bond. Each February since the voice said. “If you decide to go back,
prekindergarten, they’d attended her it will be the fight of your life.” Jonathan

A RACE AGAINST
THE CLOCK
“Hand transplants throw you curveballs,” says Dr Kodi Azari,
who performs the surgeries at UCLA. No matter what happens,
though, doctors must work quickly to preserve
the new limb. Here, a bit about what’s involved:
SKIN FLAP
MUSCLES
ARTERIES
SKIN FLAP
RECIPIENT
BONE ARM
PLATES
TENDONS
DONOR HAND SKIN FLAP

NERVES
COURTESY LOS ANGELES M AGAZI NE. ILLUSTRATI ON BY COMRADE

VEINS
SKIN FLAP
n INSIDE OUT must be sutured n HOOKING UP about 300 feet

As with building together one by Nerves are to of suturing
a house, structure one. Too few the hand as a filament, which
comes first. sutures and there coaxial cable is is a fraction of
Doctors start by may be leaks. to a TV—an the width of a
precisely attaching essential pathway human hair.
the radius and ulna n 23 TENDONS for information.
bones, or one arm Again, precision The trick is n DEEP FREEZE
will be longer than is key: The exten- attaching like All this must
the other. sor and flexor with like. be done in an
tendons on each operating room
n TINY VESSELS finger must n STITCH FIX kept freezing
Veins and arteries, match, or their For Jonathan cold in order
some as slender as function will be Koch, surgeons to preserve
blades of grass, impaired. went through tissue.

knew his answer. A fight? Bring it. did this happen?” Dr Abell’s response:
In an instant, he was propelled “Jonathan, the reason you took such
upwards like a torpedo through dark great care of yourself was not to avoid
water that grew lighter and lighter. this. It was to survive this.”
Finally he burst through. His first words Still, Jonathan’s time at Mayo was
were “How did I get here?” Then he rough; his limbs were in constant,
looked down at his feet, which were unspeakable pain. He’d lost 18 kg. His
strangely black and beginning to hands and feet, wrapped in gauze,
shrivel. “Wow,” he said. “Impressive.” looked like paws. Doctors at Mayo
began to discuss the possibility of
URING JONATHAN’S 39 amputations and, perhaps eventually,
days at George Washington a transplant for his ruined left hand.
(GW), his hands and feet Mayo had a division devoted to the
became necrotic, or as he procedure but had yet to perform one.
put it, downright “Egyptian”—leathery, On 20 April 2015, 85 days after
mummified, charcoal black. Doctors Jonathan had been admitted to GW, he
sought to discover what had thrown and Jennifer told Mayo they wanted to
his system into chaos, ruling out return to Los Angeles for Ariana’s 16th
candidates one by one. He didn’t have birthday. That was when someone
measles or Lyme disease. There was mentioned a doctor whose name they’d
evidence that he had antibodies to the never heard before: Kodi Azari.
Epstein–Barr virus, which
can result in chronic HIS FEET WERE NECROTIC
fatigue syndrome, but
95 per cent of adults
OR AS HE PUT IT “EGYPTIAN”—
have the virus and do not LEATHERY AND MUMMIFIED.
develop complications.
For a while, doctors thought he might
have a rare bone marrow cancer and ZARI, 48, IS THE SURGICAL
started him on chemotherapy. Their director of the Hand Trans-
strategy: treat every possibility at the plant Program at UCLA. The
same time. And it worked; he survived. field is still relatively new.
That March, hoping to discover The first hand transplant to achieve
what had caused his illness, Jonathan prolonged success was performed
made the difficult decision to leave 18 years ago in Louisville; by 2015, fewer
GW to travel to the Mayo Clinic in than 85 procedures had been under-
Rochester, Minnesota. “The one thing taken worldwide. But Dr Azari is at the
I don’t understand,” he admitted to forefront. He has travelled the country
Dr Abell on his last day at GW, “is, why as a lead surgeon in five hand

transplants, including the first double- fantasy patient would awaken post-op,
hand transplant and the first arm look at the new hand and be able to
transplant in the United States. move the fingers right away. Now all
The doctor had some hypotheses he he needed was the right patient.
wanted to test, provided he could find And then he met Jonathan. Dr Azari
a patient with the ideal requirements: set about examining his patient, body
excellent health, enormous self- and mind, a week after his return from
discipline, and—rarest of all—a limb Minnesota. He started with Jonathan’s
that needed to be replaced but had left hand, which was completely ru-
not yet been amputated. Most hand- ined, with a charred-looking exterior
transplant candidates have been except for a tiny patch of palm. The
injured in accidents or in battle, when right hand was better off; while the
a catastrophic event forces an emer- fingers and thumb were blackened,
gency amputation to minimize suffer- the rest could be saved. Damage to
ing. Generally that means the arm is the left foot was mostly confined to
severed closer to the elbow than to the the toes, but the right looked as if it
wrist, and the nerves and tendons are had been fashioned wholly out of
trimmed and tucked inwards to lessen charcoal briquettes. “Get rid of it,”
discomfort. All those tucked-in nerves Dr Azari said. “It’s a no-brainer.”
and tendons tend to merge over S o m e t h i n g a b o u t h i s a f f e c t—
time into a jumble that is difficult to direct, gentle, kind around the eyes—
connect to a new hand with precision. calmed Jonathan and Jennifer. “I will
make you this promise,”
“THE HARD PART HAS BEEN THE D r A z a r i sa i d . “ I w i l l
PERIOD OF SUBTRACTION,” not do anything to make
you worse.”
JONATHAN SAID. “THIS IS THE O n 23 June 2015,
BEGINNING OF THE ADDITION.” determined to save as much
healthy tissue as possible,
Wouldn’t it be great, Dr Azari Dr Azari amputated Jonathan’s left
thought, if a transplant recipient’s hand and about half of each finger on
arm could be amputated in a way that his right. Severing the left hand closer
prepped it specifically to receive a new to the wrist than to the elbow, Dr Azari
limb? How much more quickly would kept all the nerves and tendons long
a patient recover if each tendon, nerve, and extended, which would give him
artery and vein were left in place and plenty to work with later.
marked like so many coloured speaker Oddly, losing his left hand didn’t faze
wires to be hooked up to a matching Jonathan. It had been such a source of
apparatus? Dr Azari believed this pain, its absence brought only relief.

H E R E WA S M U C H T O of subtraction,” he said. “This is the

prepare for the chance at a beginning of the period of addition.”
perfect hand transplant. Eight weeks after his foot sur-
UCLA, where Dr Azari hoped gery, Jonathan was fitted for his first
to perform the surgery, required Jona- prosthesis; he walked right away. Soon
than to undergo myriad physical and he would upgrade to a Triton smart
psychological tests. Then came the ankle, a bionic contraption he could
challenge of matching a donor’s left adjust for whatever type of movement
hand with Jonathan’s in he needed to do. He’d
terms of size, skin tone also have a prosthesis
and hair pattern. The for running called a Rush
closer the match, the foot. “Eventually I’ll have
easier it would be to a special tuxedo leg for
incorporate into his life. the Emmys,” he joked.
While he waited, Dr Azari was less at
Jonathan tried to ease. “The clock is your
“scrape back” some- enemy,” he says. “Hand
thing each day, reas- transplants throw you
suming responsibility curveballs. And there
for tasks that he’d once is no cookbook on how
taken for granted. He to do it.” So like a chef
taught himself to hold Moments after Jonathan trying out a dish before
a fork using the stubs awoke from his coma, he ser ving it, Dr Azari
asked Jennifer to marry him.
of the fingers that and his team practised
remained on his right hand and Jonathan’s surgery several times in the
mastered grabbing a stylus to type texts anatomy lab.
and emails on his phone. After Jonathan’s name was formally
On 17 August 2015, Jonathan added to the transplant recipient list,
and Jennifer were married in a tiny he and Jennifer waited seven months
ceremony in their backyard. The next to get the call. On 24 October 2016, a
day, doctors amputated Jonathan’s donor candidate was found who shared
right leg midway between his knee Jonathan’s blood type and had a hand
COURTESY JONATHA N KOC H
and his ankle and snipped off the that matched his.
necrotic toes on his left foot. Jona- The next morning, Jonathan walked
than tried to joke about the horror of into the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medi-
watching parts of himself disappear, cal Center at 9:45. Dr Azari met him at
calling himself Mr Potato Head. But intake with a hug and a promise: “We’re
the loss of his foot hit hard. “The hard- going to do this.” As Jonathan went to
est part for me has been in the period be prepped for surgery, Dr Azari hit

the road, heading to another Southern the radius and ulna bones at about
California hospital. It was time to pick 11 centimetres above the wrist. But
up Jonathan’s new hand. after opening up Jonathan’s arm,
When Dr Azari arrived, the donor preserving more bone seemed possible.
was on life support, and the doctor This approach might enable the arm
had the rare opportunity to meet the to heal better and have more range of
donor’s brother and pastor. In the oper- motion, but there were no guarantees.
ating room, where the hand and other The surgeons went around the room
organs were to be removed by several and came to a unanimous decision:
surgical teams, the entire staff took a Preserve another seven centimetres of
moment to say a prayer of gratitude. each bone, affixing the hand just four
Across town, Jonathan was started on centimetres above the wrist.
an anaesthetic drip, and Jennifer pre- Tick, tick, tick. They were only a few
pared to wrap her husband in one more hours in, with at least a dozen more to
embrace before saying goodbye. go. The team sutured a few key tendons
At 3:32 p.m., the first cut was made together. Then the doctors moved on to
to prepare Jonathan’s arm. Dr Azari the arteries and veins. Here came the
arrived within the hour and joined his second curveball. Because of the gan-
team. The first curveball came right grene and the lack of use, Jonathan’s
away. The doctors had planned to sever veins and arteries were very small—
“like chives”, Dr Azari says. They were
also tough with scar tissue, which made
suturing them exponentially more diffi-
cult. As the team continued repairing
the musculature of the arm, pulling it
more tightly together, the arteries and
veins they’d attached early on began to
protrude, like a loop of extra yarn. The
surgeons had expected this. Plastic
surgeons always leave more of every-
thing than they think they’ll need on
the first pass because the excess can
always be trimmed. Those vessels were
shortened and resutured.
Various tendons were similarly
tightened, particularly in Jonathan’s
pointer, middle and ring fingers. “We
After 19 months of constant contact, went back and did these three tendons
Dr Azari (left) considered Jonathan family. many times until we got them right,”

Dr Azari says. The tendons of the fore- never know for sure. Jonathan says
arm, meanwhile, were woven into one the consensus is that exposure to the
another over a three-inch span to maxi- Epstein–Barr virus, combined with
mize strength and resist tearing. The stress, may have triggered “a one-in-
resulting bulge is permanent. 20-million event”.
At 11:01 p.m., after the doctors had Now he is focused on what’s ahead.
removed the tourniquets and clamps, At the crack of dawn every day, Jona-
Jonathan’s new hand went from white than goes to UCLA for occupational
to pink to red. The fullness returned therapy to improve his motor skills
to the tissue, and the pulse began to and flexibility. Just five months post-
pound. It was exhilarating. surgery, he was already dribbling a
For several hours, the surgeons basketball, jumping rope and teaching
worked to complete repairs on the himself how to play tennis again, hold-
remaining tendons. At 7:07 a.m., the ing the racket with his new left hand.
hospital called Jennifer
to tell her that the team JONATHAN’S NEW HAND WENT
was closing and sutur-
ing. The procedure’s FROM WHITE TO PINK TO RED. THE
official stop time: PULSE BEGAN TO POUND.
9:09 a.m. They’d been
at it for 17 hours and 37 minutes. He is back to leading intense “insanity”
Jonathan’s first words after emerging workouts for friends, and he’s learning
from the anaesthesia were “Did you to use a set of prosthetic fingers fitted to
do it?” When Dr Azari answered yes, his right hand. At some point, a tattoo
Jonathan looked down at his new hand artist will disguise the slight difference
and started singing the theme song in skin tone between Jonathan and his
from Rocky. Jennifer arrived at the new hand with a bit of well-placed ink.
hospital about an hour later. It was her Meanwhile, there is life to enjoy.
birthday, and she was ready for her gift. Recently Jonathan put on a dark suit
“Move your thumb,” she told Jonathan. and tie, a crisp white shirt, his Triton
And he did. smart ankle and a pair of shiny black
leather high-tops, and took Ariana, a
HE TOTAL COST OF JONA- high school senior, to their final father–
than’s transplant and follow- daughter dance. Fourteen red hearts
up care is impossible to decorated his lapel—one for each
measure, but some past pro- dance they’d attended together. Few
cedures have cost about $1 million. people other than Ariana knew that his
So what made him sick? He will attendance itself was a miracle.
LOS ANGELES (20 MARCH 2017), COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY AMY WALLACE, LAMAG.COM.
*US$1 was `64.44 at the time of going to press.

Siblings from another mother saved the day

on a long, arduous journey
BAND OF
BROTHERS BY N A N D I N I T H A PA
I L LU ST R AT I O N BY S I D D H A N T J U M D E
I WAS GOING TO VISIT MY AUNT, uncomfortable and smelly. Each time

posted at the military hospital in someone wanted to get to the toilet, I
Missamari, Assam, in my final year of had to give way, by moving aside. Tired
junior college. The year was 2001. of shuffling around, I was on the verge
I was travelling from Goa, where I of tears, after doing this for three or
lived, via Mumbai to Guwahati. Due four hours. I had no idea how I would
to the heavy Mumbai traffic and an survive the three-day journey without
overcrowded platform, I missed my a reserved seat. I cursed myself for
train. Never one to give up easily, I got taking the train on an impulse.
a ticket on a general compartment of As I started looking for another
the Guwahati Express that was about space to squeeze myself into, a group
to leave Dadar station. Running across of Army jawans on the other end of
the platform I jumped on to the moving the compartment offered me an entire
train. It helped that I was in jeans and upper berth to myself. Five of them
was carrying only a backpack. were heading home—to Assam and
Passengers were packed into the beyond—for a break. Calling me ‘sis-
compartment like sardines. Not an ter’, they put me at ease immediately.
inch of space was empty—even the Waking me up the next morning, they
floor under the berths was taken. even got me a cup of tea. As we chatted,
I managed to park myself in a I got to know them and learnt about
cramped space between the carriage their life in the Army. Pintu, one of the
door and the toilet. It was horribly soldiers, seemed like an elder brother

to me. When the train stopped at the a sumptuous home-cooked meal of

Patna Junction station, pandemonium chicken, made in honour of Pintu’s
ensued and two burly men jumped homecoming and my surprise visit, it
up and parked themselves beside was time to leave for Missamari.
me. Within minutes they came down, Pintu dragged out his late father’s
thanks to my new-found brothers, ab- old Vespa and after a few good kicks it
solute angels in disguise. sputtered to life. I hugged his mother
We reached Guwahati in the wee and sister and left. I rode pillion, and
hours of the fifth day (the journey was the bumpy road made me break into
extended, due to huge nervous giggles. Pintu
delays en route). The “Sister, why don’t was amused no end
first bus to Tezpur, at this.
where I was headed, you sleep? I will We finally reached
was at 6 a.m. I had bid wake you up when my aunt’s hospital
goodbye to four of my the bus arrives,” and as I asked for
brothers before we her, Pintu bid me
reached Guwahati and he said. farewell. I hugged
thanked them pro- him and thanked him
fusely before they went for his kindness. We
their way. Only Pintu, promised each other
who was going to Tez- we would meet again.
pur, stayed back at the That Christmas
station to take the bus I sent four greeting
with me. “Sister, why cards to my brothers
don’t you sleep? I will (three of them were
wake you up when the in Siachen) and got
bus arrives,” he said, as replies in inland
he laid out his military letters—all of them
green sleeping bag. I asking after me and
fell sleep while he kept watch. inviting me to their weddings. Pintu
As we got into the bus, he invited and I kept in touch on the phone.
me to visit his home, not far away Though we have never met again, we
from Missamari. When we arrived have exchanged several letters. In his
after a six-hour journey, we were last letter, around 2005, I learnt he too
warmly greeted by his family. His was being dispatched to Siachen. I
mother boiled water over firewood for think of him often, and know someday
us to freshen up. Pintu’s sister Pinky I shall go to Tezpur again and find
took a shine to me and insisted I meet my brave brother, the soldier with a
her friends, which I happily did. After golden heart.

Amazing Grace
All hope lost, help came from a stranger in the dark
BY G E O R G E A L E XA N D E R
HOW CAN I FORGET THE DAY? tap on my shoulders. As I looked back,

On 14 July 1974 I travelled in an over- a benevolent smile greeted me. “I’m
crowded bus to an unheard of mofussil Sawant, from the next town. The bus
called Shendurni in the Jalgaon district halts there for the night and returns
of Maharashtra. The next day, I was tomorrow morning. Why don’t you
to join the faculty of a junior college buy a ticket for the next stop? You can
there. I had gathered some sketchy spend the night at my place, and join
information about the place from the work tomorrow.” This was like manna
brief chat I had had with the principal. from heaven. I thanked him from my
Excited about my new job, but heart and accepted his invitation.
apprehensive too, I kept prodding By the time the bus reached the final
the bus conductor with queries, but stop, it was 8:30 p.m. The kind soul led
he just kept smiling back at me. Since me to his house, not far from the bus
he was Marathi-speaking, perhaps my stop. He stepped in first, and had a
Hindi was lost on him. A Malayali, I brief chat with his wife. They took great
was out of my comfort zone. pains to make my stay comfortable.
Around 7 p.m. it started pouring with I was provided with warm water for
rain. Wondering about my new career a bath, followed by a hot meal and a
in an unknown land, I had dozed off in comfortable bed. All this took place in
my seat. I woke up with a start to the semi-darkness. No lights yet.
sound of the conductor announcing I was up early the next morning.
the name of my bus stop. I looked out. After a shower and tea, my benefactor
It was pitch-dark. Ah, a power cut. came to see me off. I could not see his
Nothing unusual during heavy rains. face clearly, as it was dark still.
“Conductor sahab, can I get a room I made it to the college in time and
for myself here? I’m new to the place,” I taught there for almost 11 years. All this
heard myself ask nervously. “Arré bhai, while I searched for him, even deputing
get off my bus and let us go. We need to my new friends and students to find the
reach the next station on time. Where kind soul. But Mr Sawant, my saviour,
will you get lodging in this goddamned remained untraceable. Perhaps I had
town?” he shouted back. got his name wrong. My only regret:
Amid mounting panic, I felt a soft I could not thank him again.

Meet Yves Ubelmann, the man
using 3D technology to preserve the
world’s threatened archaeological
treasures for posterity
Back
to the
Future BY SU SA N N A H HIC KLING
AS YVES UBELMANN DODGES TRAFFIC ON PARIS’S

Place de la Concorde it’s clear he’s a man on a mission.
Today’s mission is taking him to the iconic Grand
Palais museum complex just off the Champs-Elysées,
P HOTOGRAP HED BY ANTOI NE DOYEN
which is hosting the first exhibition to showcase the

work of his company, Iconem, an innovative start-up
that uses cutting-edge technology to bring the glory of
the ancient world to life.
Ubelmann, 37, is an architect who specializes
in the world’s ancient monuments, many of which
are fast vanishing as a result of armed conflict,
urban development and natural disasters such
as floods and earthquakes. His work takes him
from Pompeii and Rome to Syria, Afghanistan

PHOTO/I LLUSTRATI ON CREDIT
Nunc vulputate
metus non nisl
condimentum
placerat.

B AC K TO T H E F U T U R E
and Iraq, from Oman to Haiti and inaccessible sites,” says Jean-Luc
back again to his native France. Martinez, director of Paris’s Louvre
“Archaeology was always a big museum, which collaborated on
interest of mine,” he says. “During the exhibition.
my architecture studies and after I
qualified, I visited many archaeological UBELMANN IS ALSO A BUSINESSMAN,
sites in different countries and I was employing 10 people who turn his
shocked to see how quickly they were images into photorealistic digital
deteriorating.” models on oversized computer
Ubelmann uses drones to take screens in cramped offices in Paris’s
thousands of aerial photographs of traditionally arty Montparnasse area.
historic sites under threat. He then His family have had links to
applies computer Montparnasse and to
algorithms that can art and architecture for
t a k e m e a s u re m e nt s generations. At the end
from those images “The Iconem of the 19th century his
and transform them images take great-great-grandfather
into ultra-precise
visitors on an was a teacher of drawing
3D digital models, in in the very street where
a process known as immersive Iconem has its offices,
photogrammetry. voyage into the while his grandfather
These 3D models heart of these w a s — l i k e Yv e s — a n
can then be used to inaccessible architect who worked
make maps, provide an on the conservation of
archive for the archaeo- sites.” ancient monuments,
logists and historians of including Mont-Saint-
the future and—crucially—reveal to Michel in Normandy.
the public the architectural wonders “From an early age I was steeped in
of the past. a cultural bath that opened my eyes to
His Sites Eternels exhibition in Paris historic monuments and to drawing,”
is a striking illustration of his work. The says Ubelmann. “I draw often. I use
360-degree floor-to-ceiling projections it to enrich my understanding of
of reconstructed sites from the Middle architecture. It’s a family tradition!”
East plunge visitors in a startlingly As a teenager, he volunteered
detailed world of temples and mosques, on archaeological digs and, after
grand arches and Crusader castles. qualifying as an architect in 2006, his
“The images supplied by Iconem work took him to Italy, Syria, Iran,
take visitors on an amazing immersive Afghanistan and Pakistan, studying
voyage into the heart of these often ancient buildings and their settings.

The Sites Eternels exhibition in Paris
featured Iconem’s digitized 3D projections
of Palmyra before its demolition by ISIS.
It was in Afghanistan that he was “The majority of governments in the

really struck by what was happening to countries where we’ve worked want
the country’s remarkable heritage. He to protect their heritage, but there’s a
saw that looting of ancient artefacts, lack of funds, a lack of organization.”
coins, ceramics and sculptures Ubelmann also discovered that many
was widespread. Elsewhere in the sites were not even classified as
country, violent floods had carried off historic monuments. Some were totally
a 16th-century monument, while at unknown. “It’s very worrying,” he says.
an important Buddhist site mud walls He started to think about an
were crumbling under the desert sun. alternative to rebuilding. “That
alternative was to set up agreements
P H YS I C A L R E CO N ST R U C T I O N to document sites digitally. We might
just wasn’t feasible in many of the have lost the sites, but we will have
countries he visited. “You can’t just preserved their memory. This is
block the growth of a town, you very important, because often they
DMI TRY KOSTY UKOV
can’t provide a military guard for all are sites that have not been studied.
the sites—armies are often under What astonished me, and what
attack—so looting is inevitable. And astonishes me today, is that there
the authorities are often impoverished is no international programme of
and trying to deal with conflicts. documentation.”

B AC K TO T H E F U T U R E
UNESCO is able to focus only on the spectacular 5,000-year-old Buddhist

small percentage of archaeological complex. It was packed with treasures,
remains that are classified as World including hundreds of statues of
Heritage Sites. Ubelmann, however, Buddha, but was due to be destroyed
is also passionate about the hundreds so that copper reserves beneath the
of other sites. “These are the sites we surface of the site could be exploited.
need to protect the most. If we lose The race was on to document it
them, we lose all evidence of their before it disappeared for ever. There
history, of lives lived. was just one big problem: Mes Aynak
“I turned the problem over in my had been an Al-Qaida training camp
head for quite a while,” he continues. and home to Osama bin Laden. It was
“And it was while looking for a means still mined.
of documenting sites But with Philippe
that I found two o p e rat i ng t h e d ro n e
emerging techniques.” and Yves controlling
In the late 2000s There was one the camera from the
drones and photo- problem. Mes ground and filming
grammetry were deve-
Aynak had been manually with a camera
loping in parallel. A mounted on a tall pole,
camera mounted on a an Al-Qaida they surveyed the entire
drone could compress training camp— area in 10 days without
two months of labo- home to Osama setting foot inside the
rious surveying using bin Laden. It complex. They were able
traditional methods to reconstruct it digitally
into a few hours. was still mined. with stunning accuracy.
Photogrammetry
used software which could produce THE SUCCESS of their first expedition
precise 3D models from as few as c a u g h t t h e a t t e n t i o n o f o t h e r
two images. Ubelmann believed he countries trying to solve their own
could combine these technologies to urgent conservation problems as
measure, map and recreate ancient well as attracting investors. Iconem
sites with pinpoint accuracy. He could was launched in 2013 and in 2015
even introduce old photographs to drone manufacturer Parrot invested
show how they had changed over time. 1.4 million euros in the business.
He teamed up with former Being a private company gives
helicopter pilot Philippe Barthélémy, Iconem a flexibility not afforded to
who knew how to fly drones, and in archaeologists and others involved
2010 they set off for Afghanistan to in conservation, who are mostly
test the gadgetry at Mes Aynak, a government employees. When the

Drone technology helped Ubelmann

document Mes Aynak, an ancient
Afghan site (right) in safety.
international community suspended Later ISIS looted and destroyed

all cooperation with Syria, publicly ancient sites and several experts were
employed archaeologists were no murdered, including the scholar who
longer allowed to work there. But looked after Palmyra’s antiquities,
the ban didn’t extend to Ubelmann’s Khaled al-Asaad.
company. Based on photographs Syrian
As a result, he alone had access to archaeologists sent them, Ubelmann
some of Syria’s most important sites, and his Iconem colleagues worked
including Palmyra, the once beautiful evenings and weekends making models
and wealthy city on the Silk Road that until Yves was eventually granted a visa
has been largely destroyed by ISIS to go to Syria in December 2015 to train
(Daesh) in recent years. local experts in photogrammetry.
“The archaeologists were very moved
UBELMANN HAD BEEN WORKING in that foreigners had come,” he says. “But
Syria since 2006 and knew the archaeo- we didn’t hesitate for a second. It was a
logists, historians and scientists well. human reflex to come to their aid.”
COURTESY OF ICONEM .COM
When international funding and other Then towards the end of March
conservation support dried up after last year Ubelmann got a phone call
the civil war began in 2011, he stayed tipping him off that Palmyra was about
in contact. “They felt abandoned,” he to be liberated from ISIS control. He
says. “Before the crisis, archaeologists quickly booked a flight to Syria and
from all over the world would go there. was able to see for himself the damage
Then overnight it changed: not a soul.” inflicted on treasures such as the

An ISIS photo shows off its destruction of
Palmyra in Syria with the moment it blew
up the Temple of Baalshamin (above).
famous 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel. worth it. “We managed to digitize the
“I never thought I would see entire site. That was a great victory.”
something like that in my lifetime,” What makes their success all the
REX/S HUTTERSTOCK; WIKIM EDIA COMM ONS/BERN ARD GAGNON

he says. “I was devastated.” But after more significant is that a few months
looking more closely, he realized many later ISIS returned to reoccupy Palmyra.
of the building blocks and decorations Fortunately, they were driven out again
were intact. “Probably they could be in March last year. Ubelmann hopes
partially reassembled in the future.” that one day the evidence of destruc-
Iconem’s work would be vital to tion he has collected will also be used
any future restoration. Ubelmann had to bring the perpetrators to justice.
four days to document the site. Based
at Homs, he left at six every morning IN IRAQ, TOO, ICONEM’S ABILITY
in a battered minibus with a group to react quickly paid dividends.
of Syrian experts to make the three- They were able to fly a drone
hour trip to Palmyra, encountering 20 kilometres into territory controlled
checkpoints along the desert road. by ISIS in order to photograph the
Landmines remained inside the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud
site, so Ubelmann carried out his just days after ISIS had demolished
survey from the margins. The job the 2,600-year-old Temple of Nabu.
was complicated and exhausting—but Iconem’s images of Nimrud include a

ziggurat, a huge square-based tower Iconem’s work. “Archaeologists have

built in terraces, which ISIS bulldozed always documented sites,” he says.
shortly afterwards. “Technologies have multiplied and
“We have the only 3D image of the been used by archaeologists to capture
ziggurat in its original geometry,” as much data as possible and draw up
explains Ubelmann. “If one day the a comprehensive record. Today, it’s the
Iraqi government or controlled alliance of
UNESCO or someone else two new technologies,
wants to restore it to its t h e d ro n e a n d a n
original topography, they “I’m working for algorithm which treats
will be able to do so on the future, not the images collected,
the basis of the work we the past. I’m that allows Iconem
have done. t o p rov i d e i m a g e s
“Palmyra and Nimrud documenting that are precious to
demonstrate how useful history that can documentation.”
it is to do this work very be used by One thing is cer-
quickly. In both cases, if generations tain: the Syrian Heri-
we hadn’t done it when tage Project will be
we did, it would have
to come.” keeping Iconem busy
been too late.” Iconem for a long time to come.
isn’t alone in its work at Palmyra. Ubelmann now wants to train more
Other projects are aiming to use local archaeologists to use photogram-
crowd-sourced photos, open data metry and help local people under-
and computer technology to “rebuild” stand how precious their heritage is.
in cyberspace the so-called Pearl of “I’m working for the future and not
the Desert. for the past,” he says. “I’m documenting
The Louvre’s Jean-Luc Martinez moments in history that can be used by
is convinced of the importance of generations to come.”
€1 was `75.67 at the time of going to press.
FEEDING THE McMULTITUDE

The McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich was invented in the 1960s, when
a Cincinnati store requested a meatless menu item that Catholic
customers could eat on Fridays. CEO Ray Kroc introduced the sandwich
only after the failure of his own creation, the Hulaburger—two slices of
cheese wrapped around grilled pineapple on a toasted bun.
Source: galegroup.com

THOSE WERE
THE DAYS
By Asmita Bakshi
B
efore the era of glitzy malls, it was home-grown brands that thrived in
pre-liberalization India. Until the 1980s, the Amby (Ambassador) and
the Pad (Padmini) ruled its streets; Campa Cola and Gold Spot were the
drinks of choice (and Coca-Cola until George Fernandes, much to the dismay of
aerated drink-glugging youngsters, ordered it to leave the country due to alleged
non-compliance of a FERA provision), and an HMT watch ticked on almost
every Indian’s wrist from 1961. Growing up on Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu,
and enjoying a ride in town on your Bajaj Scooter or, if one could afford it, a
Rajdoot or Yezdi was what life looked like before the thundering Harley David-
sons were imported on to Indian roads. The late ’70s and ’80s also saw a revolu-
tion in the world of advertising. Catchy jingles, the evolution of different target
groups (the modern woman used Jaipan blenders and the VIP man wore noth-
ing but a Frenchie and dressing gown) and innovation in commercials launched
some of India’s leading actors. We go back in time to rediscover these brands,
their unforgettable advertisements and their special place in our memories.
AIR INDIA
1946
The famous Maharajah of Air India—which
adman Bobby Kooka created in 1946—was
initially designed for an in-flight memo pad. It
soon became a mascot for the entire airline.

AMBASSADOR
1964
Created in 1948, the Ambassador was modelled
after the British Morris Oxford III. Initially a family
car for the affluent that could fit in generations,
the Ambassador, white with a red beacon, was
long the vehicle of choice for politicians; as well as
most black-and-yellow taxis. It may have been the
end of the road for the Amby when Hindustan
Motors, India’s oldest carmaker, closed its factory
in Uttarpara, West Bengal, in May 2014.
MURPHY RADIO
1966
Few can forget the chubby Murphy baby, but,
in 1966, it was Sharmila Tagore who was urging
Indians to buy “a Murphy for a happy Divali”.
The reinvention of vintage transistor sets has
revived memories of Murphy. Anurag Basu, in
his 2012 film Barfi! makes a reference to it; its
eponymous lead character shares a birthday
LIFEBUOY
with the brand. 1964
“Tandurusti ki raksha” ...
with that promise
of good health and
hygiene, Lintas launched
WILLS the jingle for the chunky,
red bar of Unilever’s
1965 soap in 1964. More than
There is a ban on cigarette half a century on,
advertising in the country the catchy tagline—
now, but back then, the “Lifebuoy hai jahan,
iconic ’60s slogan, “Made tandurusti hai wahan”—
for each other”, which saw still resonates with its
several iterations, was a target audience.
massive hit for ITC.

T H O S E W E R E T H E D AY S
AMUL BUTTER
1966
Starting life in 1966, the Amul girl in the polka-
dotted dress created by Eustace Fernandes, art
director at Advertising and Sales Promotion
(ASP), has, from its first campaign of “Give us
this day our daily bread: with Amul Butter”,
gone on to document every event in our lives.
VIMAL SUITINGS
1975
After Frank Simoes
coined the phrase “Only
Vimal” in the late ’70s,
Mudra turned the label
into the go-to upmarket
clothing brand for
Indians. Ads featured
everyone from Kabir
Bedi to Blitz editor GLUCOSE-D
R. K. Karanjia to Deepak 1976
‘Nikaah’ Parashar
(seen here with model “Britannia Glucose-D.
Anna Bredmeyer). Gaon ka har bachcha
jaanta hai ki Gabbar
ki asli pasand kya
hai!” It was hard to
POPPINS dislike a brand
endorsed by the cast
1978 of Sholay, the inimi-
If one grew up in the ’70s table Gabbar Singh,
through to the ’90s, every played by Amjad
return gift goody bag, piñata Khan, in particular,
and kirana store had Poppins, as well as his entou-
the colourful, round sweets, rage of goons,
which children loved and notably Sambha
parents asked them to steer and Kaalia.
clear of to avoid cavities.

GOLD SPOT
1977
Before the age of Mirinda and
Fanta, Parle’s Gold Spot—“The
zing thing!”—was the orange
favourite. Its ads featured a
couple grooving to a catchy tune,
either on roller skates or on a
scooter, before ending with them
sipping a Gold Spot together.
HMT
1980s
India’s first wristwatch
manufacturers gave us
the Tarun and the
Nutan, among others,
which are now
collector’s items. It
was indeed the
“desh ki dhadkan”,
as the brand’s tagline
said, used by a
majority of the popula-
tion to tell time.
CHERRY BLOSSOM
SHOE POLISH
1980s
Advertising legend Alyque Padamsee’s
creative resulted in the iconic Cherry
Blossom shoe polish commercial, featuring
the brand’s very own Charlie Chaplin
performing an operation on dirty shoes
with a little boy as his sidekick.
The music was upbeat and the package
brilliantly executed by ad filmmaker
Sumantra Ghosal.

LIRIL
1985
Karen Lunel in a
lime-green bikini,
frolicking under
a waterfall,
dominated TV
screens through
the late ’80s, and
even inspired the
lead character in
LIJJAT PAPAD Anuja Chauhan’s
newest fiction
1980s bestseller, Baaz.
The Liril tune still
The manic bunny and “karram-kurram” jingle has recall for
remain in the collective consciousness, but the ’80s
the product itself has an inspiring history. generation.
Lijjat Papad was created by the Sri Mahila
Griha Udyog, which was founded by seven
Gujarati women who borrowed `80 to start
a papad business, which grew from a turnover
of `6,196 in the first year to `300 crore over
the next four decades—the journey involves
over 43,000 women now.
NIRMA
1980s
Hema, Rekha, Jaya, Sushma and
an entire generation that grew up
watching the catchy ad for Nirma
washing powder has it as their pasand.
So popular was it that though every-
thing in the commercials changed, the
jingle remained the same. Nostalgia
and the ’90s still sell.

MAGGI
1980s
The now-controversial—but still loved—noodles
began their ‘mother feeds children’ advertising
trope in the ’80s, sending the message that it is
“fast to cook” for mums and “good to eat” for
children, and all in two minutes.
PAN PARAG
1982
Pan Parag continues to
be popular, as does its
old commercial featur-
ing veteran actors
PALMOLIVE
Ashok Kumar and
Shammi Kapoor. The
SHAVING CREAM
“baraatiyon ka swagat 1983
Pan Parag se kijiye” line The World Cup victory made 1983
remains unforgettable. a big year for Kapil Dev. It was also the
year he pushed the trend of cricketers
endorsing brands with the famous line,
“Palmolive da jawab nahin”.
SURF
1984
A typical middle-class, value-

conscious, slightly aggressive
woman who insists on getting
the job right. What’s not to like
about Lalitaji?

RASNA
1984
The widely adored

Rasna Girl (played by
Ankita Jhaveri) and
the ad created by
Mudra Communica-
tions made Rasna a
popular drink. The line,
“I love you, Rasna” in
that famously childish
tone is still uttered by
several little ones
across the country.
ONIDA
TV
1985
The “Neigh-
bour’s Envy.
Owner’s Pride”
campaign was
the first of its
kind to push a
feeling of envy
among non-
users. David
Whitbread as
the horned
TITAN WATCHES ‘devil’ and the
tagline were
Late 1980s conceptualized
That breathtaking tune continues to embody by the advertis-
a class and grace that truly set the Titan ads ing agency
and timepieces apart. The brand is still Avenues.
around, as is the tune.

ZANDU
BALM
COMPLAN 1990s
1980s
Shahid Kapoor and Ayesha Takia (as chil-
dren) gleefully proclaim: “I am a Complan
girl. I am a Complan boy ... and we love our
Complan mummy.” Sweet and simple.
BAJAJ The tune is still paro-

SCOOTERS died today, not least
in “Munni badnaam
1989 hui” from the
“Buland Bharat ki 2010 blockbuster
buland tasveer” was Dabangg. The
oddly rolling off every- commercial with
one’s tongues in the an unwell mother
’90s as the “Hamara having Zandu Balm
Bajaj” campaign cre- massaged on her to
ated by Alyque Padam- relieve her of her
see took off. The vast aches and pains by
Indian middle class her little daughter
took the ad line, and was perfect for its
Bajaj scooters, to heart. target audience.
DHARA VEGETABLE OIL

1990s
A naughty child runs away from home, an old man
reminds him about the hot jalebis his mother is
making, the child sheepishly hops on to the old
man’s bicycle, putting off running away to another
day. The ad by Mudra Communications was lauded
as one of the best of the decade.
INDIA TODAY (21 AUGUST 2017). COPYRIGHT © 2017 LIVING MEDIA INDIA LIMITED.

Laughter
THE BEST MEDICINE
“Let us take a few moments to release the stress from our bodies.
In your case, it may require a few decades.”
MY BROTHER JUST broke my DEEP TRUTHS: *Heaven*

favourite lamp. I’m not sure I’ll be GOD: You may ask me one question.
able to look at him in the same light ME: Why aren’t there lower case and
again. GARY DELANEY, c o m e d i a n upper case numbers?
GOD: What?
I WONDER IF there’s an alternate ME: I want to write loud numbers.
universe out there where zombies tell @LEBEARGIRDLE
stories about ‘non-dead’ humans:
“And then it was July and Linda TWO MEN ARE STUCK on opposite
realized she was three months late sides of a river. The first man shouts
IN DI API CTURE
on declaring her taxes.” to the second, “How do I get to the

“Mummy, I’m scared.” other side of the river?”
“Its just a story, baby ... it’s just The second man shouts back, “You
a story.” BRANDON CALDER, c o m e d i a n are on the other side!” From the internet

ON POINTE: Say what you will about “You do?” exclaimed the patient.
ballet, but those people know how to “With oil and vinegar or just a
put tu and tu together. squeeze of lemon?” TRACY DAVIDSON
@JWPENCILANDPAD
YESTERDAY AT A job interview,
ORIGIN STORY: *Creator of Charlie I filled my glass of water until it
Brown sits down to draw a cartoon* overflowed a little.
“What do eight-year-old boys look “Are you nervous?” asked the
like again? Bald? It’s bald, right?” interviewer, kindly.
@THENATEWOLF “No,” I replied. “I always give
110 per cent.” From the internet
SCIENCE LESSON
Q: Why don’t ants get sick? A BOY WAS HAVING a lot of diffi-
A: Because they have little culty in his French class. To encourage
antybodies. Source: reddit.com him, his teacher said, “You’ll know
you’re really beginning to get it when
THE NAUGHTY GENIE punished the you start dreaming in French.” One
three musketeers by sending them to day, the boy excitedly ran into class
the middle of the desert for a week. and said, “Sir! I had a dream last night
They were only allowed to take one and everyone was talking in French.”
thing with them. So, the first took a “Great,” said the teacher. “What
bottle of water. The second carried were they saying?”
an umbrella. The third musketeer “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I
took along the air conditioner didn’t understand a word of it.”
remote, to switch it on just in case GRAHAME JONES
it got any warmer. RAJIV NAIR, Ke ra l a
ETYMOLOGICALLY the word ‘quinoa’
A PSYCHIATRIST WAS talking to a is really interesting. It originally comes
new patient. “Your form says you’re from the noise that people make when
here because your family is very they’re told how much it costs in a
worried about your taste in socks. café. ANDY ZALTZMAN, c o m e d i a n
Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” replied the I’M SO OUT of shape the only exercise
patient. “I only like woollen socks.” I do is ‘in futility’.
“But that’s perfectly normal,” JENNIFER McAULIFFE, s t a n d - u p c o m i c
replied the psychiatrist. “Many peo-
ple prefer woollen socks to those Reader’s Digest will pay for your funny
made from cotton or acrylic. In fact, I sections. Post it to the editorial address,
myself like woollen socks.” or email: [email protected]

FRO
In the Arctic wilderness of Swedish Lapland, an other-worldly

Z EN
communion with nature awaits anyone willing to brave the cold
BY P ETER H ELLER FRO M TRAVEL + L EISU RE
The author and his wife take their first

dog sledge adventure en route to the
Fjellborg Arctic Lodge.

FROZEN
O
UR PL ANE NOSED After showing us how to use the brakes
down through a layer on our sledges, he gave a mittened
of ice fog and shud- thumbs-up and mushed off into the
dered hard, as if at snowy woods.
the sudden view: a Our Alaskan huskies barked and
mist-shredded scrap yowled and strained against their
of forest, all but buried in snow. “Wel- ropes. Another guide yanked the lines
come to the Arctic,” the pilot said, as loose, the sledges jerked, and we were
we bumped down on a runway of ice off, running free over the fresh snow,
and packed powder. into the heart of Swedish Lapland.
It was the end of January, and we had What we had come for, aside from
arrived in Kiruna, the northernmost the northern lights, was a taste of the
town in Sweden, 144 kilometres above indigenous, historically nomadic,
the Arctic Circle. Around us, snow-clad Sami culture and an understanding of
forest spread away for nearly 3,90,000 why the northern Swedes are so crazy
square kilometres. Squalls shook the about winter. We’d stay first at a remote
cabin as we taxied. The storm was out lodge accessible in winter only by dog
of the north-northeast, and I tried to team or snowmobile, then we’d take
picture where that wind had recently a train some 260 kilometres south to
been: a strip of Finland, a ribbon of sleep in Sami-style canvas tents. From
Norway, the Barents Sea, and before there we’d move to the vertiginous
that, probably the polar ice cap. Brrr. Treehotel. We’d be outside most of the
We had been travelling from time, and we’d try not to lose any digits
Denver [in the US] for 18 hours straight. to the cold.
“Tell me again,” I said to my wife, Kim. My dogs were the size of border col-
“Why are we coming to the Arctic in lies—two piebald sisters up front, two
the winter?”
“To see the aurora borealis,” she
answered cheerfully. She loves the Clockwise from top left: guests at Kenth
cold, she says—it wakes her up. Fjellborg’s Arctic lodge return from an
Minutes later, we were escorted expedition; the UFO room at the
ALL P HOTOS BY F ELIX ODELL
out of the squat airport build- Treehotel is one of several suspended

ing towards a pack of yelping dogs. above the ground, including the
An apple-cheeked guide named Mirrorcube and the Bird’s Nest; the
aurora borealis lights the sky over the
Espen Hamnvik, who wore a fur-
sauna cabin at the Aurora Safari Camp,
trimmed parka, handed us each a coat, located just south of the Arctic Circle;
heavy snow pants, a hat and boots. Lars Eriksson, a member of Sweden’s
“There is your sledge, Kim. Pete, this is indigenous Sami population, has been
yours,” he said. “There are your dogs.” working with reindeer for six decades.

FROZEN
brown brothers behind. Bred for rac- team into the woods. A few minutes
ing over long distances at great speed, later, he raised his mitten and called
they were running so fast that I had to a halt. In the trees there was a small
grip the handlebar as hard as I could. conical hut with a snowmobile parked
The trail was narrow and twisting, in front. Pale smoke wreathed from
through trees with limbs bent with the stovepipe. We tied up the sledges
snow. There were sudden swoops and and went inside to find a popping
dips, branches to duck under. The dogs open fire, and a veteran dog sledge
careened around the corners and we racer and master chef named Stefan
almost capsized; they charged down Lundgren, who served us reindeer stew
hills. My eyelashes were sticking to- and lingonberry cider. I glanced at Kim.
Her cheeks were chafed red with cold
and her smile was bright. “Magical,”
she said.
AS THE SNOWMOBILE At dusk, which fell at 2:50 p.m., we
SURGED, AND MY ran the sledges up to a cluster of low,
CHEEKS BURNT pine-clad buildings at the edge of
another lake. This was Fjellborg
WITH FROST,
Arctic Lodge, our accommodation for
I FELT A PROFOUND the night. The storm had spent itself,
SENSE OF GLEE. and candles flickered in carved ice-
block sconces outside the half-dozen
cabins arranged around the lodge. Un-
gether. Every time I stepped on the claw der two feet of fresh snow, the world
brake to slow down, one of the lead looked like a scene from a Christmas
dogs threw a look back over her shoul- card. A blazing campfire burnt, and
der, and I could read her thought like a there was Stefan, ladling more lingon-
cartoon balloon: Dude! Let me run! berry cider into birchwood cups.
We swished out of the trees and We sat on reindeer skins around
on to a wide frozen lake. It was the fire as the last traces of light
10:05 a.m. and the light was muted, like faded behind the treetops, and the
the onset of dusk. The wind was driv- temperature plummeted. The only
ing the snow sideways, and I lost the sounds were the crack of flames, the
lead sledge in the squall. Then there creak of snow-laden trees, the murmur
was only white—above, below. Only of quiet conversation.
the smooth slip and jostle of the wood Our cabin had a sauna and we baked
runners underfoot, the biting frost on in it. Then we sat outside in a hot tub
cheeks, the panting of the dogs. and peered into the lidded sky, hoping
We followed Espen as he turned his it would clear for the northern lights. It

didn’t. I admit I wasn’t too bothered: beaten track marked with storm poles.
For dinner Stefan had made us cured- Our faces froze, our eyes squinted
reindeer brioche, arctic char and a against the blast. There was Kenth’s vil-
dessert with three kinds of chocolate, lage, Poikkijärvi, just a string of small
served with rich black coffee. houses along the southern bank.
N
Across the river was the hamlet of
EXT MORNING, the Jukkasjärvi, home to the Ice Hotel, the
sky had cleared. Kenth famous hotel that melts every spring
Fjellborg, the propri- and is rebuilt every autumn, when art-
etor of Fjellborg Arctic ists from all over the world come to
Lodge, showed up on a each carve one of the dozens of rooms.
snowmobile, and as Espen had done There is an ice bed with a reindeer skin
with the sledges, he kept it simple. inside each of these ice sculptures—
“This is your machine. Here is the igni- essentially an ice cave with a steady
tion, the throttle, the brake. Keep your temperature of around minus 5°C.
feet tucked in here in case you tip over.” Kim and I walked into a room with
Big smile. “Let’s go!” a bunch of ice sheep jumping over
Kenth is a master dog-sledger and an ice fence, their fluffy wool made of
a consummate storyteller. At age 19, thousands of little ice balls stuck
he apprenticed under the legendary together. We laughed. The artist,
dog-sledger Joe Runyan, in Alaska. Luca Roncoroni, said he created it so
Kenth ran the Iditarod in 1994—about that guests who were worried about
1,600 kilometres through Arctic sleeping in sub-zero temperatures
Alaska—and finished in the top 20. could count the sheep and fall asleep
In 2006, he guided Prince Albert II of more easily.
Monaco to the North Pole. Kenth’s In the Ice Bar, we sipped elderberry
family has lived in the area for nine juice from ice glasses, then drove back
generations, and it’s second na- as night overtook the forest. Above us,
ture for him to make camp at minus stars began to glitter like ice chips. It
6.6°C. I asked him what he did in his got seriously cold. As the machine
free time. “Moose hunting. It’s my surged, and my cheeks burnt with
Arctic-male version of yoga.” frost, I felt a profound sense of glee.
Off we went. The forest shimmered That night, no aurora. The next
with rime, and the trees cast shadows morning I woke very early to see if I
that were long and blue. We throt- could catch it. The Swedes have a name
tled out of the woods on to the white for the polar twilight, usually at its
expanse of the lake, where two rein- most pronounced around dusk, when
deer were sunbathing. We zoomed on the long shadows merge. They call it
to the river Torne and along a well- blå timmen, the blue hour. At dawn, as

FROZEN
I stepped out of the cabin and walked mercury pegged at minus 5°C for two
to the edge of the lake, that name came days. At night, Kim and I traded off
to me. The sky was the softest blue. And stoking the little woodstove every hour
the snow. And the trees. Every shade of and a half, stepping outside each time
blue—blue merging to slate beneath to scan for northern lights—and seeing
the trees, to ultramarine in the water- only icy stars.
clear sky overhead. And in the south- The camp was perched on a wide
west, a silver-blue half-moon was set- river covered with snow. One morning
ting. I felt giddy, like a kid. So often, we took out snowmobiles. The sun, just
when we travel, we come for one thing over the treetops, was brilliant, and it
and are blindsided by something else. I turned the distant rime-frosted ridges
realized that I was loving winter again, to gold. On the islands, the trees were
the way I had as a child, when there sheathed in ice. I hit the throttle and ac-
was nothing better than sledging. celerated over the unbroken, glittering
snow. Behind me, a plume of powder
THE AURORA SAFARI CAMP outside sprayed six metres into the sunlight,
of Luleå, just south of the Arctic Circle, where it blazed with gold.
was our next stop. The name of the That night, Fredrik Broman, the
place virtually guaranteed a sighting. camp’s exuberant proprietor, fired up
It was also a chance for even deeper his sauna: a big tent with a woodstove,
immersion, because we were staying on a float, frozen into the river. Outside
in conical tepees with cloth skins that were blocks of clear virgin ice. I sweated
are inspired by traditional Sami lavvu away happily, before flipping back the
[a temporary dwelling] shelters. The cloth door and tumbling out into the
sub-zero darkness in a gush of steam.
But still no lights. Four nights down,
two to go. We’d been ice fishing with
TRAVEL TIPS
Kenth, snowshoeing with Fredrik, and
Fjellborg Arctic Lodge, located on the today we were going to see a legendary
shores of frozen Lake Väkkärä, starting Sami named Lars Eriksson. He came
at 1,850 euros per person, all-inclusive, out of his clapboard house in tradi-
fjellborgarcticlodge.com; tional dress of dark blue felt trimmed
The Ice Hotel, doubles from 250 euros, with strips of yellow, green and red—
icehotel.com; sun, earth, fire—and reindeer-fur
Aurora Safari Camp, 400 euros per
boots. He had a flowing white beard.
person includes meals, aurorasafari-
“It’s Santa Claus!” Kim whispered.
camp.com;
Treehotel, doubles from 515 euros,
We walked in chill sunlight into a
treehotel.se field among Lars’s reindeer, where he
fed them handfuls of spongy moss. “My

family has been here for seven genera- ladder descended. Inside, the pod had
tions,” he said. “In 1958 I started with a projector that threw swimming galax-
the reindeer.” When the animals mi- ies on to the curved walls. We lay in the
grated up to the forests in the west, his dark and drank tea and watched them,
family would move behind the herd on knowing that this might be as close as
skis and camp for weeks at a time. we would get to a light show.
“We follow nature and how we feel— At 10:30 p.m. we put on long under-
slow, slow, no stress.” Now, he said, the wear, boots and parkas, and climbed
3,000 Sami families that still herd rein- down from the UFO . We tromped
deer move them with ATVs and trucks; through the snow to a clearing. Noth-
they have to take other jobs to pay for ing. Not nothing—a billion heedless
the machines and fuel, and there is too stars. We climbed back into our space-
much stress. “Not good for the deer.” ship. “It’s okay,” Kim said. “This whole
He took us into an old log cabin for trip has been like a dream—who needs
lunch, and Kim asked him if anyone still the aurora borealis.” But she woke me
joiks, or practises the Sami singing she up at 1 a.m. anyway, and again we
had heard about. Lars inhaled deeply, tramped up into thigh-deep snow.
then he sang. A deep, strong descant Stars, stillness. At 3:30 a.m. she started
with the broken melody of a forest awake from a dream. “C’mon,” she said.
wind. He stopped and smiled. “Wow,” “One more look.” We trudged back up
Kim murmured. “What does it mean?” to the clearing.
“Having friends,” he said. “The sun “Oh,” I murmured. There was Orion
is out.” shooting his arrow, Cassiopeia, the
Pleiades. And there was something
OUR LAST NIGHT was at Treehotel. moving between us and them. A scrim
It’s on par with the Ice Hotel in terms of pale light, almost like a cloud, except
of its weirdness. Kent and Britta that it was crowning over the trees and
Lindvall, the owners, commissioned shooting rays across the sky.
different architects to build rooms up Slowly, without sound, it was
in the pines. The most famous may be cascading in great waterfalls of light,
Mirrorcube, which is skewered on a shimmering in curtains the colour of
single tree, with mirrored surfaces that clouds. It felt, to me, like the spirit of
reflect the sky and boughs such that it winter, who has sung silently to these
seems to disappear. forests since the beginning of time. Kim
But we were staying in the UFO . reached a mittened hand for mine, and
Standing at the base of a pine tree in we stood in the clearing, transfixed,
the sub-zero darkness, we pushed a until we could no longer feel our
button on the trunk and zmmmmm, a fingers or toes.
FROM TRAVEL + LEISURE (FEBRUARY 2017), COPYRIGHT © PETER HELLER, TRAVELANDLEISURE.COM
€1 was `75.67 at the time of going to press.

As Kids See It
“Here’s my report card and here’s my personal disclaimer.”
WHENEVER I travel with my young the other kids in your class will be
children, I’m always reminded of an promoted at the end of the year, leav-
important lesson: Never travel with ing you alone in Class II.”
my young children. @JIMGAFFIGAN Anant: “But Dad, why will I be left
alone? Won't Class I students get
MY FIRST-GRADER was learning promoted to Class II?”
about mammals. When I asked her ANIL SHARMA, S i r o h i , R a j a s t h a n
if she was a mammal, she said no, so
I told her to look at her arm and see I MISS THE days when my youngest
if there were any hairs on it. was afraid of skeletons and cried
She replied, “Whoa! I am a mam- when I told her she had a skeleton
mal. And Papa is REALLY a mammal!” inside of her. @KELLYOXFORD
IN DI API CTURE
Source: buzzfeed.com
ME: “Anant, you must start taking sections. Post it to the editorial address,
your studies seriously otherwise all or email: [email protected]

CLASSIC BONUS READ
Character
Studies
THESE CLASSIC TALES ABOUT LARGER-THAN-LIFE
FIGURES ARE A REMINDER THAT THE CONNECTIONS
WE MAKE—WITH FAMILY, FOES OR FRIENDS—CAN
TRANSFORM OUR LIVES FOREVER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIKE ELLIS

CHARACTER STUDIES

My Greatest
Olympic Prize
BY J ESSE OW EN S
F R O M READER’ S DIGEST, O C TO BER 1 960
IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1936. The time came for the broad-jump trials, I
Olympic Games were being held in was startled to see a tall boy hitting the
Berlin. Because Adolf Hitler insisted pit at almost 7.9 metres on his practice
his country’s athletes were members of leaps! He turned out to be a German
a “master race”, nationalistic feelings named Luz Long. I was told that Hitler
were at an all-time high. had kept him under wraps, evidently
I wasn’t too worried about all this. hoping to win the jump with him.
I’d trained and sweated for six years I guessed that if Long won, it would
with the Games in mind. While I was add some support to the Nazis’
going over on the boat, all I could think Aryan-superiority theory. After all, I
about was taking home one or two of am black. A little hot under the collar
those gold medals. I particularly had about Hitler’s ways, I determined to go
my eye on the running broad jump. out there and really show der Führer
A year before, as an undergraduate and his master race who was superior
at Ohio State University, I’d set the and who wasn’t.
world record of 8.13 metres. Everyone An angry athlete is an athlete who
kind of expected me to win that event will make mistakes, as any coach will
hands-down. tell you. I was no exception. On the
I was in for a surprise. When the first of my three qualifying jumps, I

CHARACTER STUDIES
leapt from several centimetres beyond in the Nazi youth movement, he

the take-off board for a foul. On the didn’t believe in the Aryan-supremacy
second jump, I fouled even worse. Did business any more than I did. We
I come 6,000 kilometres for this? I laughed over the fact that he really
thought bitterly, To foul out of the looked the part, though. He had a
trials and make a fool of myself? lean, muscular frame, blue eyes,
Walking a few yards from the pit, I blond hair and a handsome, chiselled
kicked at the dirt in disgust. Suddenly, face. Finally, seeing that I had calmed
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned down somewhat, he pointed to the
to look into the friendly blue eyes of take-off board.
the tall German broad “Why don’t you draw a
jumper. He had easily line a few centimetres in
qualified for the finals back of the board and
on his first attempt. make your take-off from
He offered me a firm DESPITE THE there?” he said. “You’ll
handshake. FACT THAT be sure not to foul, and
“Jesse Owens, I’m ADOLF HITLER you certainly ought to
Luz Long. I don’t think GLARED AT US ju m p f a r e n o u g h t o
we’ve met.” He spoke FROM THE qualify. What does it
English well, though STANDS NOT matter if you’re not first
with a German twist. A HUNDRED in the trials? Tomorrow
“Glad to meet you,” METRES AWAY, is what counts.”
I said. Then, trying to LUZ LONG The tension seemed
hide my nervousness, I to ebb out of my body
added, “How are you?”
SHOOK MY as the truth of what he
“I’m fine. The ques-
HAND HARD. said hit me. Confidently,
tion is: how are you?” I d re w a l i n e a f u l l
“What do you mean?” 30 centimetres behind
I asked. the board and proceeded to jump
“Something must be eating you,” he from there. I qualified.
said. “You should be able to qualify
with your eyes closed.” THAT NIGHT I WALKED over to
“Believe me, I know it,” I told him— Luz’s room in the Olympic village to
and it felt good to say that to someone. thank him. If it hadn’t been for him, I
For the next few minutes, we talked. probably wouldn’t be jumping in the
I didn’t tell Luz what was “eating” finals the following day. We sat in his
me, but he seemed to understand my quarters and talked for two hours—
anger, and he took pains to reassure about track and field, ourselves, the
me. Although he’d been indoctrinated world situation, a dozen other things.

Newly minted pals Carl Ludwig

‘Luz’ Long and Jesse Owens at
the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
When I finally got up to leave, we away, Luz shook my hand hard—and

both knew that a real friendship had it wasn’t a fake smile with a broken-
been formed. Luz would go out to the hearted grip, either.
field the next day trying to outdo me if You can melt down all the gold
he could. But I knew that he wanted medals and cups I have received,
me to do my best—even if that meant and they wouldn’t come close to
beating him. outshining the 24-carat friendship
As it turned out, Luz broke his own I felt for Luz at that moment. He was
ULLSTEIN BI LD/GETTY IM AGES
past record. In doing so, he inspired the epitome of what Pier re de

me to deliver a peak performance. I Coubertin, founder of the modern
remember that at the instant I landed Olympics, must have had in mind
from my final jump—the one that set w h e n h e sa i d , “ Th e i mp o r t a nt
the Olympic record of 8.06 metres— thing in the Olympic Games is not
he was at my side, congratulating me. winning but taking part. The essential
Despite the fact that Hitler glared at us thing in life is not conquering but
from the stands not a hundred metres fighting well.”

CHARACTER STUDIES

A Feathered
Friend
BY J O COU D ER T
F R O M READER’ S DIGEST, M AY 19 9 1
“I AM G OING NUT S HER E by fish don’t have a whole lot to say.”

myself,” Pat Myers confessed to her “Birds do,” said her daughter. “Why
daughter, Annie. Pat had been virtually not get a parrot?”
confined to her house for a year as And so it began.
she was treated for an inflamed artery
in her temple that affected her vision PAT AND ANNIE visited a breeder
and stamina. of African Greys and were shown two
A widow with two adult children, little featherless creatures huddled
Pat had been happily running a chain together. Pat was doubtful, but Annie
of dress shops. But now that she had to persuaded her to put a deposit down
give up her business, her home began on the bird with the bright eyes.
to feel oppressively silent and empty. When he was three months old and
Finally, she admitted to Annie how feathered out, he was delivered to his
lonely she was. new owner, who named him Casey.
“Do you think I should advertise for A few weeks later Pat told Annie, “I
someone to live with me?” Pat asked. didn’t realize I talked so much. Casey’s
“That’s such a gamble,” Annie said. picking up all kinds of words.”
“How about a pet?” “I told you.” Her daughter smiled at
“I haven’t the strength to walk a the pleasure in Pat’s voice.
dog,” Pat said. “I’m allergic to cats, and The first sentence Casey learnt was

CHARACTER STUDIES
“Where’s my glasses?” followed by “One potato, two potato—and don’t

“Where’s my purse?” poo on the rug.”
Whenever Pat began scanning “Oh dear,” said Pat. “L et me
tabletops and opening drawers, introduce you to Casey.”
Casey chanted, “Where’s my glasses? Casey saw them coming. “What’s
Where’s my purse?” When she going on around here?” he said.
returned from an errand, he’d greet At that moment, Pat sneezed. Casey
her with “Holy smokes, it’s cold immediately mimicked the sneeze,
out there” in a perfect imitation of added a couple of Pat’s coughs and
her voice. finished with her version of “Wow!”
Casey disliked being caged, so The plumber shook his head slowly
Pat often let him roam the house. and crawled back under the sink.
“What fun it is to have him,” she told
Annie. “It makes the whole place ON E M OR N I NG while Pat was
feel better.” reading the paper, the phone rang.
“I think you’re beginning to feel She picked it up and got a dial tone.
better too,” said Annie. The next morning it rang again, and
“Well, he gives me four or five again she got a dial tone. The third
laughs a day—they say laughter’s morning she realized what was going
good for you.” on: Casey had learnt to mimic the
Once, a plumber came to repair a phone faultlessly.
leak under the kitchen sink. In the Once, as Pat opened a soda can at
den, Casey cracked seeds in his cage the kitchen table, Casey waddled over
and eyed the plumber through the and snatched at the can. It toppled,
open door. Suddenly the parrot broke sending a cascade of cola on to her lap
the silence, reciting, “One potato, two and the floor. “*#@!” Pat said. Casey
potato, three potato, four.” eyed her. “Forget you heard that,” she
“What?” asked the plumber. ordered. “I didn’t say it. I never say it,
“Don’t poo on the rug,” Casey and I wouldn’t have now if I hadn’t
ordered, in Pat’s voice. just mopped the floor.”
The plumber pushed himself out Casey kept his beak shut.
from under the sink and marched Later, a real estate agent arrived to
t o t h e l i v i n g ro o m. “ I f y o u ’ re go over some business. She and Pat
going to play games, lady, you can were deep in discussion when Casey
find yourself another plumber.” screamed from the den, “*#@!”
Pat looked at him blankly. The Both women acted as though they’d
plumber hesitated, “That was you, heard nothing.
wasn’t it?” Casey tried it again. “*#@!” he said.
She smiled. “What was me?” And again. “*#@!” “*#@!” “*#@!”

Pat put her hand on her guest’s arm. But Pat did decide to have Casey’s
“Helen, it’s sweet of you to pretend, sharp talons clipped. To trim them
but I know you haven’t suddenly gone without getting bitten, the vet wrapped
deaf.” They both broke up laughing. Casey tightly in a towel, turned him
“Oh you bad bird,” Pat scolded on his back and handed him to an
after the agent left. “She’s going to assistant to hold while he went to work.
think I go around all day saying four- A helpless Casey looked at Pat and
letter words.” said, piteously, “Oh the poor baby.”
“What a mess,” Casey said. Pat often wondered if Casey knew
“You’re darned right,” Pat told him. what he was saying. Sometimes
his statements were
CASEY’S favourite s o a p p ro p r i at e t hat
perch in the kitchen she wasn’t sure, like
was on the faucet; his “CAN YOU SAY, the time a guest had
favourite occupation: ‘I LOVE YOU, l i ng ere d o n a n d o n
trying to remove the PAT MYERS?’” talking in the doorway
washer at the end SHE SAID TO and Casey finally
of it. Once, to tease THE PARROT. called out impatiently,
him, Pat sprinkled CASEY “Night, night.”
a handful of water Ye t w h e n e v e r Pa t
COCKED AN
over him. Casey wanted to teach him
c e a s e d h i s at t a c k
EYE AND something, Casey could
on the washer and
SQUAWKED, be so maddening.
swivelled his head “I LIVE ON Once, she carried him
towards her. “What’s MALLARD to the living room and
the matter with you?” VIEW.” settled into an easy
he demanded. chair as Casey sidled
If he left the kitchen up her arm and nestled
and Pat heard him say his head against her
“Oh you bad bird!” she knew to come chest. Pat dusted the tips of her
running. Casey was either pecking fingers over his velvet-grey feathers
at her dining room chairs or the and scarlet tail. “I love you,” she
wallpaper in the foyer. said. “Can you say, ‘I love you,
“Is it worth it?” her son, Bill, asked, Pat Myers?’”
looking at the damage in the front hall. Casey cocked an eye at her. “I live
“Give me a choice between a on Mallard View,” he said.
perfect, lonely house and a tacky, “I know where you live, funny bird.
happy one,” said Pat, “and I’ll take the Tell me you love me.”
tacky one any day.” “Funny bird.”

CHARACTER STUDIES
Another time, Pat was trying to there!” she said. More silence. Pat
teach Casey ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ before dropped her coat and hurried into the
her children and grandchildren den. Casey glared at her.
arrived for Christmas dinner. “It’ll be “Hey, aren’t you glad to see me?”
your contribution,” she told him. The bird moved to the far side of
“Where’s my glasses?” the cage. “Come on, don’t be angry,”
“Never mind that. Just listen to Pat said. She opened the door of the
me sing.” But as Pat sang “Jingle cage and held out her hand. Casey
bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock” and dropped to the bottom of the cage and
danced around the kitchen, Casey huddled there.
simply looked at her. In the morning Pat
Finally Pat gave up, t r i e d aga i n . Ca s e y
and Casey was silent refused to speak. Later
all through Christmas that day he consented
dinner. When it came “WERE YOU to climb on her wrist
time for dessert, Pat AFRAID I and be carried to the
extinguished the lights WASN’T living room. When
and touched a match she sat down, he
COMING
to the plum pudding. shifted uneasily and
As the brandy blazed
BACK?” seemed about to fly
up, Casey burst into
ASKED PAT. away. “Please, Casey,”
“Jingle bell, jingle bell, CASEY MOVED Pat pleaded, “I know
jingle bell rock!” UP HER ARM. I was away a long
FINALLY, time, but you’ve got to
PAT’S health improved AFTER A LONG forgive me.”
so much that she SILENCE, THE He took a few
decided to go on a BIRD SPOKE. tentative steps up her
three-week vacation. arm, then moved back
“You’ll be all right,” to her knee. “Were
she told Casey. “You you afraid I was never
can stay with Annie going to come back?”
and the kids.” she said softly. “I would never do that.”
The day her mother was due Casey cocked his head and slowly
back, Annie returned Casey to the moved up her arm. Pat crooked her
apartment so he’d be there when Pat elbow, and the bird nestled against
got home from the airport. her. She stroked his head, smoothing
“Hi, Casey!” Pat called as she his feathers with her forefinger.
unlocked the door. There was no Finally, Casey spoke.
answer. “Holy smokes, it’s cold out “I love you, Pat Myers,” he said.

A Story About My
Larger-Than-Life Uncle
BY ST EP HEN L EACOC K
F R O M READER’ S DIGEST, JU LY 19 41
IN 1876, WHEN I WAS six years old, intimately”—with no further expla-

my father settled on an Ontario farm. nation. It was an impressive trick
There, we lived in an isolation the like he had.
of which is almost unknown today. In that year, 1878, there was a general
We were 50 kilometres from a railway. election in Canada, and E.P. was soon
There were no newspapers. Nobody in it up to the neck. He picked up the
came and went, for there was nowhere history and politics of Upper Canada
to come and go. in a day, and in a week, he knew
Into this isolation broke my dynamic everybody in the countryside. In
uncle, Edward Philip Leacock, my politics, E.P. was on the conservative,
father’s younger brother. E.P., as aristocratic side, but he was also hail-
everyone called him, had just come -fellow-well-met with the humblest. A
from a year’s travel around the democrat can’t condescend because
Mediterranean. He was about 25, he’s down already, but when a
bronzed and self confident, with a conservative stoops, he conquers. E.P.
square beard like a Plantagenet king. spoke at every meeting. His strong
His talk was of Algiers, of the Golden point, however, was socializing in bars,
Horn and the Egyptian pyramids. which gave full scope to his marvellous
To us, who had been living in the talent for flattering and make-believe.
wilderness for two years, it sounded “Why, let me see,” he would say to
like The Arabian Nights. When we some modest r ural resident in
asked, “Uncle Edward, do you know the threadbare clothes beside him, glass in
Prince of Wales?” he answered, “Quite hand, “surely, if your name is Framley,

CHARACTER STUDIES

you must be a relation of my dear old boom, and E.P. rode the crest of the
friend General Sir Charles Framley of wave. There is a magic appeal in the
the Horse Artillery?” rush and movement of a boom town—a
“Mebbe,” the flattered fellow would Carson City of the 1860s, a Winnipeg
answer, “I ain’t kept track very good of of the 1880s. Life is all in the present,
my folks in the old country.” all here and now, no past and no
“Dear me! I must tell Sir Charles that outside—just a clatter of hammers and
I’ve seen you. He’ll be so pleased.” saws, rounds of drinks and rolls of
money. Every man seems a remarkable
THUS, IN A FORTNIGHT, E.P. fellow; individuality shines, and
had bestowed distinctions on half character blossoms like a rose.
the township of E.P. was in everything
Georgina. They and knew everybody,
lived in a recaptured conferring titles and
atmosphere of honours up and down
generals, admirals E.P. WAS Portage Avenue. In
and earls. How could PRESIDENT six months he had
they vote any other OF A BANK a great fortune, on
way but conservative! (THAT NEVER paper. He took a trip
The election was a OPENED) AND east and brought back
walkover for John A. SECRETARY– a charming wife from
Ma c d o n a l d . E . P. TREASURER Toronto. He built a
might have stayed to OF A RAILWAY large house beside the
reap the fruits, but COMPANY Red River, filled it with
Ontario was too pictures of people he
THAT HAD
small a horizon for said were his ancestors
him. Manitoba [a
NO TRACK. and carried on a roaring
province north-west hospitality inside it.
of Canada] was then He was president of a
just opening up, and bank (that never
nothing would satisfy E.P. but that he opened); head of a brewery (for
and my father should go west. So we brewing the Red River); and secretary–
h a d a s a l e o f o u r f a r m , w i t h treasurer of the Winnipeg, Hudson Bay
refreshments for all comers, our lean & Arctic Ocean Railway. They had no
cattle and broken machines fetching track, but E.P. received free passes for
less than the price of the whisky. Off to travel over all of North America.
Manitoba went E.P. and my father, He was elected to the Manitoba
leaving us children behind at school. legislature; they would have made him
They hit Winnipeg on the rise of the prime minister but for the existence of

CHARACTER STUDIES
the grand old man of the province, he entered the banker’s private office
John Norquay. At that, in a short time, he would exclaim, “I say! Do you fish?
Norquay ate out of E.P.’s hand. Surely that’s a greenheart casting rod
To aristocracy, E.P. added a touch on the wall?” (E.P. knew the names
of prestige by always being apparently of everything.) In a few minutes the
about to be called away—imperially. banker, flushed and pleased, was
If someone said, “Will you be in exhibiting the rod and showing trout
Winnipeg all winter, Mr Leacock?” flies. When E.P. went out, he carried
he answered, “It will depend a good $100 with him. There was no security.
deal on what happens in West Africa.” He dealt similarly with credit at
Just that; West Africa livery stables and
beat them. shops. He bought
Then the Manitoba with lavish generosity,
boom crashed in 1882. never asking a price.
Simple people like my E.P. FLOATED He never suggested
father were wiped out ON HOTEL payment except as an
in a day. Not so E.P. CREDIT, LOANS afterthought, just as
Doubtless he was left AND UNPAID he was going out. “By
utterly bankrupt, but BILLS. A the way, please let me
it made no difference. have the bill promptly.
BANKER WAS
He used credit instead I may be going away.”
of cash; he still had
HIS NATURAL Then in an aside to me
his imaginar y bank
VICTIM; WHEN he’d say, “Sir Henry
and his railway to the HE LEFT ONE, Loch has cabled again
Arctic Ocean. Anyone HE CARRIED from West Africa.” And
who called about a $100 WITH NO so on. They had never
bill was told that E.P.’s SECURITY. seen him before and
movements were wouldn’t again.
uncertain and would When ready to leave
depend a good deal on a hotel, E.P. would call
what happened in Johannesburg. That for his bill at the desk and break out
held them another six months. into enthusiasm at the reasonableness
of it. “Compare that,” he would say
I USED TO SEE HIM when he made in his aside to me, “with the Hôtel
his periodic trips east—on passes— de Crillon in Paris! Remind me to
to impress his creditors in the west. mention to Sir John how admirably
He floated on hotel credit, loans and we’ve been treated; he’s coming here
unpaid bills. A banker was his natural next week.” Sir John was our prime
victim. E.P.’s method was simple. As minister. The hotelkeeper hadn’t

known Canada’s elected leader was and friends turn away. Little by little,
coming—and he wasn’t. E.P. sank down. Now a widower, he
Then came the final touch. “Now let was a shuffling, half-shabby figure who
me see … $76 …” Here, E.P. fixed his would have been pathetic except for
eye firmly on the hotel man. “You give his indomitable self-belief. Times grew
me $24, then I can remember to send hard for him and, at length, even the
an even hundred.” The man’s hand simple credit of the bars broke under
trembled, but he gave it. him. My brother Jim told me of E.P.
This does not mean that E.P. was being put out of a Winnipeg pub by an
dishonest. To him, his bills were angry bartender. E.P. had brought in
merely “deferred”, like four men, spread the
the British debt to the fingers of one hand and
United States. He never said, “Mr Leacock.
made, never even Five.” The bartender
contemplated, a broke into oaths.
crooked deal in his life. THIS DOES NOT E.P. hooked a friend
All his grand schemes MEAN E.P. WAS by the ar m. “Come
were as open as sun- DISHONEST. away,” he said. “I’m
light, and as empty. TO HIM, HIS afraid the poor fellow’s
E.P. knew how to BILLS WERE crazy, but I hate to
fashion his talk to his MERELY report him.”
audience. I once “DEFERRED”. Free travel came to
introduced him to a ALL HIS GRAND an end. The railways
group of my college SCHEMES found out at last that
friends, to whom WERE AS OPEN there wasn’t any Arctic
academic degrees AS SUNLIGHT, Ocean Railway. E.P.
meant a great deal.
AND AS EMPTY. managed to come east
Casually, E.P. turned to just once more. I met
me and said, “Oh, by him in Toronto—a trifle
the way, you’ll be glad bedraggled but wearing
to know that I’ve just received my a plug hat with a crêpe bandage
honorary degree from the Vatican— around it. “Poor Sir John,” he said, “I
at last!” The “at last” was a knockout. felt I simply must come down for his
A degree from the Pope, and overdue funeral.” Then I remembered that the
at that! prime minister was dead and realized
that kindly sentiment had meant free
O F C O U R S E , i t c o u l d n o t b e transportation.
sustained. Gradually faith weakens, That was the last I ever saw of E.P.
credit crumbles, creditors grow hard Finally, someone paid his fare back

CHARACTER STUDIES
to England. He received from some representing the brothers. British

family trust an income of two pounds officials were easier to handle than
a week, and on that he lived, with such Ontario hotelkeepers.
dignity as might be, in a remote village The brothers got a lot of money.
in Worcestershire. He told the people In gratitude they invited E.P. to be
of the village—so I learnt later—that his their permanent manager. So there
stay was uncertain: It would depend a he was, lifted into ease and affluence.
good deal on what happened in China. The years went easily by among
But nothing happened in China. gardens, orchards and fish ponds as
There he stayed for years, and there old as the Crusades.
he might have finished but for a When I was lecturing in London in
strange chance, a sort of poetic justice, 1921 he wrote to me. “Do come down;
that gave him an evening in the sunset. I am too old now to travel, but I will
In the part of England whence send a chauffeur with a car and two
our family hailed there was an lay brothers to bring you here.” Just
ancient religious brotherhood with like E.P., I thought, the “lay brothers”
a centuries-old monaster y and touch. But I couldn’t go. He ended
dilapidated estates. E.P. descended his days at the monastery, no cable
on them, since the brothers seemed calling him to West Africa.
an easy mark. In the course of his If there is a paradise, I am sure
pious retreat he took a look into the unbeatable quality of his spirit will
the brothers’ finances and his quick get him in. He will say at the gate,
intelligence discovered an old claim “Peter? Surely you must be a relation
against the government, large in of Lord Peter of Titchfield?” But if
amount and valid beyond doubt. he fails, then may the earth lie light
In no time E.P. was at Westminster, upon him.
RETORT CARD
A teacher was having trouble with his bank. Neither the bank’s
accuracy nor its mode of expression lived up to his standards.
The last straw arrived in the form of a letter from the bank that read:
“Your account appears to be overdrawn.”
The teacher wrote back: “Please write again when you are certain.”
JOHN C. CREEDOM, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, from Reader’s Digest, September 1988

WHO KNEW
What can science really tell us about humour?

Just a load of blablesoc and hablump
What Makes a Funny

Word Funny BY MI CHA EL HI N GSTON
FR O M TH E WA L RU S
PROFESSOR CHRIS WESTBURY that has also provided insights into

may be a respected psychologist, the nature of humour. As part of his
but his latest research is nothing but inquiry, Westbury presents patients
nonsense. At the University of Alberta, suffering from aphasia—a condition
Canada, Westbury has been exploring in which the comprehension of words
the connections between language and speech is often impaired—with a
difficulties and brain function, work string of letters and asks whether or

W H AT M A K E S A F U N N Y W O R D F U N N Y
not it constitutes a real English word. particular way. So when they come
One day, a graduate student pointed across unusual clusters of letters or
out something curious: Certain syllables, their expectations are
nonsense words consistently made violated. Laughter is the by-product
patients smile and sometimes even of that violation.
laugh out loud. “Particularly,” To prove this, Westbury ran two
Westbury says, “snunkoople.” studies. In the first, he presented
He started checking with friends participants with a computer-
and colleagues to see generated list of some
whether they had 5,928 made-up words
the same reaction, to see which ones they
and the response was As Dr. Seuss found comical. The
nearly unanimous. knew, less likely ones that sounded rude
Snunkoople was funny. shot straight to the top
But why? In a 2015 combinations of the scale; four of the
paper published in the of letters are six funniest were
Journal of Memory and whong, dongl, shart
Language, Westbury more likely to and focky. Westbury
presents what he make us laugh. decided that those
believes could be the quasi-vulgarities had
answer: The inherent to go because they
funniness of a word, or at least of triggered associative biases. He
stand-alone nonsense words, can be wanted nonsense in its purest form.
quantified. Just as fascinating: When In the second study, the
it comes to inspiring a chuckle, not researchers made sure that the non-
all nonsense is created equal. suggestive non-words were easily
According to Westbury, the less pronounceable and didn’t violate
statistically likely it is for a certain typical English spelling rules.
collection of letters to form a real Participants then ranked them on a
word in English, the funnier it is. scale of funny to, well, not funny.
(The playwright Neil Simon seemed The results were clear: Participants
to grasp this implicitly in his 1972 consistently judged the same non-
work The Sunshine Boys, in which an words to be funny. Among the
old vaudevillian tells his nephew, “If winners were hablump, jumemo
it doesn’t have a k, it’s not funny!”—k and finglysiv. And the less plausible
being one of the least frequently the word sounded, the funnier the
used letters in the alphabet.) Fluent participants deemed it to be.
English speakers, Westbury says, are The results square intuitively
accustomed to words sounding a with our everyday lives as English

speakers. Many of the funniest fake his results as further proof that,
food products from The Simpsons, for like any other sense, our sense of
example—including Duff Beer and humour might be an important
the intriguingly vague TUBBB!—would survival adaptation. “One of the
score high on Westbury’s scale of main functions of emotion is to alert
improbably funny constructions. us to unusual, dangerous and
Dr. Seuss elevated the creation of unpredictable aspects of the world
ridiculous words to an art: Even kids that might harm us,” he says. When
with a loose grasp of English we laugh at an unpredictable word,
understand that Wumbus and Yuzz‑ joke or comedy routine, we may be

a‑ma‑Tuzz are meant to be laughed alerting ourselves and others that
at. In fact, Westbury analyzed 65 of something unusual is afoot but it
Dr. Seuss’s made-up words and isn’t a true threat to our safety.
confirmed that they, too, were reliably Westbury isn’t certain if his
(and humorously) improbable. research will lead to anything more
This is all good for professional substantial, but it’s fine if it doesn’t.
purveyors of nonsense, but what He has created enough snunkoople
about the rest of us? Westbury sees to keep himself happy.
REPEAT AFTER ME
Here are 20 of the top-scoring nonsense words from Westbury’s study.
■ anywhapp ■ dockles ■ goork ■ howaymb ■ rembrob

■ blablesoc ■ finglam ■ groctsi ■ nothrog ■ scrunne
■ cruppies ■ fityrud ■ hablump ■ pachang ■ sobbles
■ dando ■ frunc ■ himumma ■ proomper ■ whook
WALRUS (18 DECEMBER 2015), COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY THE WALRUS, THEWALRUS.CA.

WHO KNEW?
1 Like a blast of bird shot,

the initial “jet phase”
of a sneeze lasts only milli
seconds but can send an
estimated 40,000 droplets
of various sizes scattering
outward as fast as a car on
a highway.
Anatomy of a Sneeze
BY BR A N D O N SP E C KTO R
Simultaneously expressing itself as a solid, liquid and gas, the common

sneeze is one of nature’s grossest miracles. MIT researcher Lydia Bourouiba has
a different name for sneezes, though: violent expiratory events. That’s also the title
of a recent study in which her team analyzed sneezes, millisecond by millisecond,
with a high-speed camera and sophisticated computer models. What did they find?
There’s more to a sneeze than what you see in your hanky—and that could
influence our understanding of the way diseases spread. Here’s a closer look at
what scientists see when you say a-choo! (For more, visit lbourouiba.mit.edu.)

3 In the “puff phase” of
a sneeze (illustrated
in red), a turbulent cloud
of warm, moist air swirls
2 The largest droplets

(illustrated in green)
rocket out of the sneezer’s
through the air, carrying the
sneeze droplets with it.
mouth and rapidly plummet

under their own weight
within a few seconds.
Average distance travelled:
3 to 6.5 feet.
COURTESY LYDIA BOUROUIBA, PHD, MASSACHUS ETTS IN STITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
4 The cloud grows and

slows as it pulls in air
from the environment,
carrying the smallest
droplets up to 26 feet
from their point of origin.
5 Buoyed by the cloud,
small droplets can
easily stay airborne long
enough to reach overhead
vents (and thus anywhere
in a building). It’s a big
problem. But there’s a solu
tion an arm’s length away:
Cover sneezes with a sleeve
or tissue, wash your hands
regularly and keep those
germs to yourself.

Quiz
BY PAUL PAQ UE T
1. What mountainous home of mytho- 8. Dee Snider wrote ‘The Magic of

logical gods is found on the border Christmas Day’ for Céline Dion. He
between Greece and Macedonia? is best known as the singer for what
heavy metal band?
2. Some fans objected to whose cast-
ing in The Hunger Games, complain- 9. Found in the Horn of Africa,
ing she wasn’t emaciated enough to which is the only country whose flag
be from the very hungry District 12? contains no red, green or black?
3. The modern version of what “an- 10. In 1952, in Superman #76, the
gelic” stringed instrument, found in Man of Steel teamed up for the first
many orchestras, has seven pedals? time with what other iconic hero?
4. What fictional race eats seven 11. What actor spoke only 16 lines in
meals a day, including second break- the starring role of Mad Max 2?
fast, elevenses and afternoon tea?
12. Amino acids are found in which
5. Keke Rosberg won the Formula kind of macronutrient: carbohy-
One World Championship for Fin- drates, proteins or fats?
land. His son, Nico, is a dual citizen
13. One of Europe’s most fabled
who races for which country?
soccer teams is PSG, who play
6. Which capital’s Old in which city?
City is divided into Jew-
14. The world has two
ish, Armenian, Christian
cities that are named
and Muslim quarters?
London and situated on
7. What was the first 15. In 1894, what notable a river called the
city to be awarded inventor made the first-ever Thames. One is in the
both the Summer and cat video when he filmed two UK and the other is
Winter Olympics? cats in a boxing ring? in which country?
I STOCKPHOTO
10. Batman. 11. Mel Gibson. 12. Proteins. 13. Paris. 14. Canada. 15. Thomas Edison.
The Lord of the Rings. 5. Germany. 6. Jerusalem. 7. Beijing. 8. Twisted Sister. 9. Somalia.
ANSWERS: 1. Mount Olympus. 2. Jennifer Lawrence. 3. The harp. 4. Hobbits, from

IT PAYS TO ENRICH YOUR
Word Power
Life in the polar regions requires skill and determination, as well as
a warm coat. Test your resolve with this hardy northern vocabulary.
BY LINDA BE S NE R
1. inukshuk (ee-nook- to indicate distance. 11. firn (fee-urn) n.—

shook) n.—A: seal-meat B: bear scratch marks. A: granular snow at least
stew. B: warm hood C: stripes left on bed- a year old. B: yearling
for carrying a baby. rock by moving glaciers. walrus. C: soft ice.
C: stones stacked to
7. peat (peet) n.— 12. taiga (ty-ga) n.—
form a landmark.
A: alcoholic drink. A: forest just below the
2. septentrional B: smoked caribou meat. tundra. B: mossy insula-
(sep-ten-tree-o-nal) C: soil-like substance of tion. C: mortar made
adj.—A: tusk-bearing. decayed plants. with spruce gum.
B: Siberian hunting
8. sastrugi (sass-troo- 13. cryosphere (cry-o-
song. C: of the north.
gi) n.—A: ice block sphere) n.—A: region of
3. white coat (hwyte used to build an igloo. Earth where the surface
kot) n.—A: young harp B: blubber for lighting oil is frozen. B: instrument
seal. B: frothing ocean lamps. C: snow formed for measuring ice thick-
wave. C: novice moun- into dunes on top of ice. ness. C: distance a polar
tain climber. bear can swim.
9. mukluk (muck-luck)
4. hummock (hum- n.—A: beaded pouch. B: 14. fjord (fyord) n.—
muck) n.—A: humpback high boot made of seal- A: sledge used by Samis.
whale. B: Swedish snack skin. C: game played B: deep inlet caused
of pickled herring. with notched bones. by glacial erosion.
C: hillock or knoll. C: seasonal village.
10. umiak (oo-mi-ack)
5. pemmican (pe-mi- n.—A: northern lights 15. tundra (ton-dra)
kan) n.—A: dried meat in spring. B: open boat n.—A: reindeer-hide
cake. B: jug. C: layer of of skin stretched on drum. B: treeless Arctic
bird waste. wooden frame. C: song area with frozen subsoil.
6. chatter marks (chat- sung at the first sunrise C: Inupiat cross-stitch
ter marks) n.—A: cairns after the winter. embroidery.

WORD POWER
Answers
1. inukshuk—[C] stones stacked to 9. mukluk—[B] high boot made
form a landmark. Elisapie found the of sealskin. David’s mother gave
cache of food near the inukshuk. him mukluks to wear on his dog
sledge excursion.
2. septentrional—[C] of the north.
The aurora borealis is visible only in 10. umiak—[B] open boat of
the septentrional sky. skin stretched on wooden frame.
Mary’s motorboat was in the shape
of a traditional umiak.
3. white coat—[A] young harp
seal. It has been illegal to commer-
11. firn—[A] granular snow at least
cially harvest white coats in Canada
a year old. The firn had not yet
since 1987.
been compressed into glacier ice.
4. hummock—[C] hillock or knoll. 12. taiga—[A] forest just below the

Einar pointed out an Arctic fox tundra. Caribou herds browsed the
standing on a hummock. taiga for twigs and flowers.
5. pemmican—[A] dried meat cake. 13. cryosphere—[A] region of

Zaynep packed pemmican for her Earth where the surface is frozen.
long hiking trip. Scientists keep a close eye on the
cryosphere to measure the progres-
6. chatter marks—[C] stripes left sion of climate change.
on bedrock by moving glaciers.
The chatter marks showed where 14. fjord—[B] deep inlet caused by
ancient glaciers had scraped stones glacial erosion. Abraham explored a
against the ground. 1940s shipwreck while scuba diving
in a Norwegian fjord.
7. peat—[C] soil-like substance
of decayed plants. Morag cut 15. tundra—[B] treeless Arctic area
a block of peat to fuel the fire. with frozen subsoil. Joanasie and
Simionie searched the tundra for
berries.
8. sastrugi—[C] snow formed into
dunes on top of ice. The wind VOCABULARY RATINGS
7–10: fair
shaped sastrugi along the coast 11–12: good
of Siberia’s Lake Baikal. 13–15: excellent

Me & My Shelf
NAMITA GOKHALE’S MOST THUMBED BOOKS
Author of several fiction and non-fiction books,

publisher of many more as a founder–director of
Yatra Books and co-founder of the Jaipur and Bhu-
tan literary festivals, Namita Ghokhale has donned
multiple hats in a career spanning three decades.
Her well-known works include Paro: Dreams of
Passion and Mountain Echoes among others.
ABHIJNANASHAKUNTALAM: THE RECOGNITION OF
SHAKUNTALA, Kalidasa, Penguin, `499. The most popular
and well known of classical Sanskrit plays, this is a heart-rending
and masterfully constructed narrative of forgetting and remem-
bering. I have written a novel Shakuntala: The Play of Memory,
which is a tribute to this great work.
THE TALE OF GENJI, Murasaki Shikibu, Everyman’s Library,

`2,420. Considered the first novel ever, this marvellous work of
Japanese literature was written in the 11th-century Heian era by
the noblewoman Lady Murasaki. I have read and reread the
classical translation by Edward G. Seidensticker several times.
WAR AND PEACE, Leo Tolstoy, Penguin Classics, `550.

The depth and range and craftsmanship of this massive novel
PHOTO COURTESY: NAM ITA GOKH ALE
is staggering. A philosophical chronicle of change and endur-

ance, it is a truly universal work of art, with a unique place in
world literature.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Vintage

Classics, `499. I have been deeply influenced by the great
Russian novelists, and Crime and Punishment, an intense
psychodrama that takes the reader deep into the mind of the
protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov, remains one of the most
compelling novels I have ever read.

ME & MY SHELF
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, Muriel Spark, Penguin

Modern Classics, `350. I love Muriel Spark’s novels because
they are whimsical and enigmatic, yet rooted in deep religious
and mystic understanding. This is perhaps her best and most
iconic novel.
TUGHLAQ, GIRISH KARNAD, Oxford India Perennials, `195.

This historical play about the crazed 14th-century despot
Mohammed bin Tughlaq and his turbulent reign remains a rele-
vant commentary on India’s rulers and ruled. From failed Nehru-
vian idealism to providing insights into the present-day politics,
it is an enduring classic that survives successive interpretations.
MOHANDAS, THE WALLS OF DELHI, Uday Prakash, translated

by Jason Grunebaum, Hachette India, `350. The Hindi writer
Uday Prakash is a friend whose work I admire. His novella
Mohandas (the English translation is part of the book The Walls
of Delhi) is a parable for our times, about the loss of identity,
and the voices that go unheard in our society.
ANNA KARENINA, Leo Tolstoy, Modern Library, `499.

Written as a serial novel, it documents the heart and mind of
a woman as no other male author has ever done. Dostoyevsky
declared it “flawless as a work of art”. I recommend the excel-
lent translation by Constance Garnett.
ONE PART WOMAN (MADHORUBAGAN), Perumal Murugan,

Penguin India, `299. This controversial Tamil novel, translated into
the English by Aniruddan Vasudevan, which shot to fame because
it was banned for hurting sentiments within the community, is a
deeply tender novel about love, trust, sexuality and the stigmati-
zation of childlessness.
THE MAHABHARATA, Bibek Debroy, Penguin (box set), `4,999.

Literally the greatest story ever told, this ancient epic, through
its many versions and recensions, contains the essence of
human nature and the battles of human striving with fate and
destiny. There are several excellent translations, including the
recent one by Bibek Debroy.
—COMPILED BY SUCHISMITA UKIL
Book prices are subject to change. All book details are as seen on Amazon.in.

Entertainment
OUR TOP PICKS OF THE MONTH
Films
Celebrate India’s very own super-
hero, Padman (Akshay Kumar,
Radhika Apte, Sonam Kapoor),
based on Coimbatore’s Arunachalam
Muruganantham, who invented a
low-cost sanitary pad-making ma-
chine for women in rural areas. Above: Akshay Kumar as the Padman;
Then, dive into Steven Spielberg’s Below: A still from The Post
The Post, a thrilling drama that taps
into the core of journalistic ethics and Pentagon Papers on the US govern-
responsibility (think All the President’s ment’s role in the Vietnam War. It’s a
Men and Spotlight). Starring Meryl relevant movie for the age of fake news
Streep (as The Washington Post pro- and when the freedom of the press has
prietor Kay Graham) been gagged.
and Tom Hanks (editor Watchlist: Keep an
Ben Bradlee), the eye out for the wild
movie traces the chal- Saif Ali Khan-starrer
lenges the paper faced Kaalakandi and Anurag
in 1971 as it got ready Kashyap’s gritty boxing
to publish the secret drama Mukkabaaz.
EVENTS
Pamper the bookworm within and indulge your
BOTTOM : INDIAP ICTURE
grey cells with the Jaipur Lit Fest and the Kolkata
Literary Meet. Culture vultures, take a trip down
south to Kerala for the 10-day music festival
Swathi Sangeetholsavam. Take in the desert
sun while in Jaisalmer for its Desert Festival,
or Bikaner for the colourful camel fair.

E N T E R TA I N M E N T
BOOKS
inhabit, one that Mumbai as it is about
thrives on queues and a tribal boy from
form-filling. Poonachi Odisha stuck looking
or The Story of a Black after two cranky
Goat (Westland) is Brahmins. There’s also
a fascinating, yet Indira by Devapriya
deeply political novel, Roy and Priya Kuriyan
BOOK COVE R COU RTE SY: AMAZON WE STL AND

ostensibly about the (Westland), a beauti-
coming-of-age of an ful graphic novel
animal struggling to and biography of
understand her place Indira Gandhi.
Perumal Murugan in a land that seems Also for the book-
returns from a self- scarily familiar. Then shelf: Do give Sanjoy
imposed exile with there is Clouds by Hazarika’s brilliant
the tale of a goat, the Chandrahas Choud- Strangers No More?
elderly couple that hury (Simon & Schus- New Narratives from
looks after her and a ter), as much about a India’s Northeast
strange world they Parsi divorcee leaving (Aleph) a shot as well.
Television
After Philip K. Dick’s Man in The High
Castle, Amazon Prime returns with a
very Black Mirror-esque 10-episode
sci-fi series Electric Dreams. The
anthology has an impressive cast,
including Steve Buscemi, Terrence
Howard and Anna Paquin. There is A still from
also American Crime Story, this time Electric
on the 1997 murder of designer Dreams
Gianni Versace, based on Vulgar
Favors, a book by Maureen Orth. based on Douglas Adams’ novels,
Returning: The superbly mad Dirk returns for another rip-roaring
Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency season on Netflix.
(Samuel Barnett, Elijah Wood), —COMPILED BY CHITRA SUBRAMANYAM
All release dates are subject to change.

Studio
MUSEUM OF CHANCE (2014),

BY DAYANITA SINGH
IM AGE COURTESY: DAYAN ITA S INGH ; (C) 2014 DAYANITA S INGH FOR THE
MOBILE MUSEUM
Photographer Dayanita Singh is

known for her graceful portraits,
candid shots, book covers and more
recently elaborate installations, like
the Museum of Chance (top). It
consists of two large and 26 smaller
wooden structures with a tapestry of
IM AGES, BOOK P UBLISHED BY STEI DL 2014
168 inkjet prints. She began working

on these mobile museums as she was
looking for another medium which
“changed continuously and was not
static or fixed in any way”.
We zoom in on a particularly striking still (above) in her trademark black-and-
white style. The photograph has the coming together of the many elements
(blowing curtains, open window, furniture and the incoming sunlight) illustrating
continuity that echoes in every individual work and the full installation. Her aim is to
make the images “open-ended enough for the viewers to build their own story and
emotion from the images”. That’s where true magic in her art lies. “As the works are
so varied, yet they have to work in any combination,” she says. —AYUSHI THAPLIYAL

Quotable Quotes
BE A RAINBOW Believe you
IN SOMEBODY can and you’re
ELSE’S CLOUD. halfway there.
M AYA A N G E LO U,
TH E O D O R E R O OS E V E LT,
poet and civil rights
26th US President
activist
NO ACT OF KINDNESS, NO MATTER

HOW SMALL, IS EVER WASTED.
A E SO P, G r e e k f a b u l i s t a n d s t o r y t e l l e r
The politician is not your

leader. You are not sheep,
F ROM TOP: E. N EITZ EL/GETTY I M AGES, BANDEEP SIN GH, M I LIN D SHELTE
you need no shepherd.
K AMAL HA ASAN , a c t or
Shun idleness.
It is a rust that Art, when it decides
attaches itself to
the most brilliant
to provoke, asks
metals. uncomfortable
F R A N ÇO I S - M A R I E
A R O U E T, ‘ VO LTAI R E ’, questions.
French Enlightenment
writer and philosopher S H A BA N A A Z M I , a c t o r
We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded

to the truth, but like other married couples
they sometimes live apart.
H E C TO R H U G H M U N R O, ‘ SA K I ’, B r i t i s h s a t i r i s t

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64 YOUR HEALTHIEST (AND

74 THE PRISONER AND THE

106 BACK TO THE FUTURE Classic Bonus Read

treasures through technology. Stories on connections that

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VOICES & VIEWS

New Year Special

LEF T: I LLUSTRATION BY NISH AN T CH OKS I, TOP LEFT: MA NDAR DEODH AR

149 What Makes a Funny

152 Anatomy of a Sneeze

33 Pump Up Your Willpower

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To Peel & Slice

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Visit www.indiatoday.in/apps for more information

Editor Sanghamitra Chakraborty Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie

TRUSTED MEDIA BRANDS, INC. (FORMERLY RDA INC.)

President and Chief Executive Officer Bonnie Kintzer

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“He is a creature of the web. He must log on to survive.”

Reader’s Digest will pay for your funny

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Turn the page

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watching my videos). constantly most certainly are. I wish

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 23

ILLUSTRATI ON BY JOE MCKENDRY (WOODCOCK)

JEREMY to be back at work, though my holidays were pretty risible, too,

24 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 25

TO ME, 2018 will be all about process-

desire they have. That extends to

26 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

STORIES CAN ENTERTAIN, sometimes SEEMA CHISHTI,

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 27

Cycling for a cause metres to speak to women in 57

“She is here because she is beautiful, and because

28 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 29

the hard way, after they were detained

30 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

THE QUIET BANMORE railway sta-

between two guests. They ended up —COMPILED BY CHITRA SUBRAMANYAM

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 31

I will be happy this

… learn to be happy by myself

… finish writing my first novel

32 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 33

IN AN IDEAL WORLD, you’d Meditate

34 | JANUARY 2018 | READER’S DIGEST

how well you deliver when there’s an

READER’S DIGEST | JANUARY 2018 | 35

putting someone else through that Challenge yourself

If you see me eating a salad, know it’s just a pile of whatever