Legendary Balbir | Preserving mango | Musical instruments | RAW | Janaki Ammal
Five unique things about India to explore this week
Legend of Balbir Singh Sr - India’s greatest Olympian
A goal-scoring machine from the days when hockey was played on grass, Balbir Singh Sr won three Olympic golds — 1948, 1952 and 1956 — and was India’s most-decorated athlete ever. (He passed away this week at age 96.) In the Olympic finals of 1948 Balbir scored the first two goals in India’s 4-0 win against a British team - imagine, just months after independence, India beating Britain for Gold in a final at Wembley! Hear him recount the moment in his own words (of how players played barefoot when they started slipping on the grass!).
Preserving Mango - some aam ideas
By now you must be thinking about how you will soon miss that delicious mango, and how you can make the fruit last in your kitchen for as long as possible. Every cuisine in India will have its own version of aam aachaar or aam murabba or a mango squash that will try to increase its presence on your plate. Here are a few quick recipes for you to try.
Musical Instruments of India
Are you trying to learn a bit more music in this lockdown? Here’s an interesting list to get you started. From the humble shankha to the rare sursringar - check out this comprehensive list of Indian musical instruments.
RAW - India’s CIA
The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW or RAW) (ISO: Anusandhān aur Viślēṣaṇ Viṅg) is the foreign intelligence agency of India. It was established in 1968. Currently, RAW operates under the Prime Minster’s Office, and was intentionally established as a “wing” versus an “agency” in order to bypass agency reporting requirements to Parliament’s Right to Information Act! Here are 11 interesting facts about RAW that we usually don’t know.
Plant Queen: Janaki Ammal
Did you know, India’s first woman botanist EK Janaki Ammal is the reason India produces one of the sweetest sugarcanes in the world? Her immense contribution to the field of cytology is little known outside academic and scientific circles in India. She loved working on Magnolias, in fact, if you visit the Royal Horticulture society gardens in UK, you will even find shrubs planted by her! One of them is a delicate white flower they named after her: Magnolia Kobus Janaki Ammal. In India too a hybrid rose variety was named Janaki. Story goes it was also because she wore saris of only that colour in her later years! Read more about her here.
If you love our newsletter, you will also love Iconiq 10, the unique game of India that helpes families explore Indian treasures via 52 themed quizzes, stories and activities. Check it out here.