Maltitvi bird information in Marathi

Maltitvi

Maltitvi bird information in Marathi

Making a house from trash, water from air and Aussies going green in a slum...

While many of us have just woken up to the idea of a climate emergency, some have worked hard to kick the CO 2 habit. Ketaki Desai profiles three such people to see what we can learn from them

SECOND-HAND LIFE

What makes a 40-something sell their car and start cycling to work? In G V Dasarathi’s case, the motivation was his daughter’s childhood respiratory problems. “My daughter was five, and had awful asthma. I was contributing to the very pollution that was the cause of her illness. When I can’t make changes in my own life, then how can I blame anyone else,” says the 59-year-old, who ten years ago built his dream home — from kachra.


“We took many of the materials from demolished homes,” says the mechanical engineer who cut building cost to half. From tiles to commodes, everything in their bathroom is second hand. An award-winning architect helped them turn waste into a home that draws many curious visitors in Bengaluru.

The sustainability doesn’t stop with the house. The family does not have air conditioning, cars, or a TV connection. Dasarathi also harvests their grey water — water that comes out wash basins, kitchen sinks and bathwater. “We use that for the garden, or for commode flushing. We also drink the rainwater we harvest, which one can do with a UV filter,” he adds. His blog, Low Carbon Life, is where he collects all the learnings from the last few years of dedicated environmentalism in his everyday life. “There are plenty of little things all of us can do to help, such as buying clothes that don’t need ironing or buying thin bath towels that dry easily. That reduces the load on water bodies and our groundwater.”

BARE NECESSITIES

Mark and Cathy Delaney were college students who wanted more from life than the average middle class Aussie (stable job, expensive car, fancy vacations). The couple wanted to be able to make a difference in the lives of people in the developing world. That’s why they not only packed up and moved to India in 1995, but decided to spend two decades living in slums in Delhi, mostly in Janta Colony. “The essence of good community work is understanding the lives of the people you’re working with,” says Mark.

Living without air conditioning, a washing machine, a fridge, as well as any form of private transport, the Delaneys didn’t even realise they were living a low-carbon life. It wasn’t until their son Tom took an interest in environmental issues, and an article about them in an Australian daily mentioned the sustainable aspect of their lives, that they began to focus on it.

Tom Delaney, 22, and his father cowrote a book about their lives titled Low Carbon and Loving it. In it, they identified six ways to break down one’s carbon footprint — the items we buy, our diet, local transport, long-distance transport, and electricity. That’s why they don’t drive, don’t eat meat, and try to take trains over flights as much as possible. Tom, who works in an NGO in Lucknow and lives in a slum, says, “The gist of our book is that things like flying, driving, and eating meat are luxuries, not essential to live a happy life.”

The book stemmed from the family’s frustration with the thoughtlessness with which other Australians lived back home. Mark notes that they just assumed that Australians must be working to reduce their very high carbon emissions, but the reality was that they

were more focused on the newest car model, or whether their football team is winning. Tom says, “The average carbon footprint in Australia is 20-22 tonnes of CO2 a year, whereas the average Indian is closer to the sustainable level of two tonnes.” Mark and Cathy are back in Australia for a year to settle their younger son into college, and it hasn’t been easy to keep their footprint as low as it was in India. When travelling to Melbourne or Sydney from Brisbane, where they live, they opt for 12 to 20-hour train rides instead of hopping on a plane, and they still don’t use a car. “The list of what is essential in the modern world keeps getting longer, but part of our purpose is to challenge those assumptions,” says Tom.

THE AQUA MAN

While most residents of Chennai were grappling with water shortages this summer, D Suresh — referred to as Solar Suresh by many — was flooded with H2O. “It started 25 years ago, when I saw water stagnating in my house, and how it was breeding mosquitos, so I started harvesting rain water,” says the 72-year-old.

The next project on his green docket was the one that lent him his nickname — he installed a rooftop solar plant after years of searching for the right vendor. In 2012, he finally managed to install it, and the 1 kilowatt solar set-up provides the electricity needed for his computer, refrigerator and everything else. “Now, I am part of a new scheme called net metering, where people like me who have excess solar power give it back to the grid. And in the evenings, I can take power from the grid in return,” he says. Other than his domestic biogas plant that he uses to produce manure to grow organic veggies on his terrace garden, his most recent acquisition is an air-to-water machine. “The machine, produced in Mumbai through a tie-up with an American company, compresses the moisture in the air to give cold water. It runs on electricity, and my next goal is to put the machine on solar energy.”

Not only does the planet gain from his efforts, he does too. He pays just Rs 500 every two months for his electricity bill, and while most Chennai folks were forking out thousands a month for water tankers, he generated his own at just 50 paise a litre.

What are some interesting facts about Pakistan?

Top 10 interesting facts about Pakistan

1. To obtain a passport in Pakistan, the Prophet and his education have to declare their support in the form of Islam. Ahmadiyya has a small Muslim sect, which has a population of about 2 million in Pakistan, will have to fill a separate form because Pakistan does not consider them Muslim.


2. In Pakistan, there is no death penalty for killing Ahalya because they are Kafirs under Islamic law of Pakistan.


3. Pakistan's passport was ranked 4th worst in the world after Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.


4. Pakistan PKR currency is the weakest currency in entire Asia, weaker than Afghanistan.


5. Pakistan 72 years after independence, saw 22 Prime Ministers, 4 Army Dictators, 3 President's rule and yet is not a democratic country.


6. Dr. Abdus Salam was the first Nobel Prize winner of Pakistan whose tomb was ransacked by the Pakistan Army simply because his tomb said that he was Muslim and he was Ahmadiyya.


7. Only Pakistan Army in the world is the army that owns and operates 4 factories of sugar production and cement production to sell and export to other countries. Every country in the world has an army but the Pakistan Army has a country.


8. Although the ISRO version of SUPARCO, Pakistan, had already been installed before ISRO, it has not been able to send itself a satellite, which places the upper atmosphere alone.


9. Pakistan's army lost all 4 wars against India, they lost half of Pakistan as Bangladesh during 1971 war, but still, you can see the commander wearing the medal hell to lose those wars. Are.


10. Pakistan never won a World Cup cricket match against India and the record was consolidated in the latest edition of the World Cup held in England.

Why do Indonesia print a photo of Lord Ganesha on their notes despite being a Muslim majority country?

Ganesh ji's picture remains on the 20000 note of Indonesia country of Asia. Here 87.5 percent of the population believes in the religion of Islam and there is only 3 percent Hindu population. Despite this there is so and different reasons are given for it.

It is believed that during the economic recession of Asia in 1997, the price of currency fell in many countries including Indonesia. During this time, Indonesia's currency also fell so low against the dollar that there was a severe economic crisis in the country. It can be called a coincidence, but it is true that after the photo of Ganesh ji was printed on the 20,000 note in 1998, the economic condition of Indonesia and its currency had improved rapidly in 1999. In Indonesia, Lord Ganesha is considered a symbol of education, art and science and hence he has been given a special place on the note there.


You will be surprised to know that in this country, not only Ganesh, an airline operates in Indonesia in the name of Garuda, which is called the vehicle of Lord Vishnu. In Indonesia, stamps have been issued in the names of the Pandavas along with Ganesh, Krishna and Hanuman. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, also houses a huge statue called Arjuna Vivah, which depicts the scene of the Mahabharata. The National Album of Indonesia is also called Garuda Panchsheel.

The logo of Lord Ganesha is also on the logo of Bandung Institute of Technology, a prestigious engineering college in Indonesia. Not only this, a huge statue of goddess of learning Saraswati has been installed outside the Embassy of Indonesia in America. The mascot of the Indonesian Army is Hanuman ji, and a famous tourist destination there is a statue of Arjun and Shri Krishna. Arjun and Shri Krishna are also remembered as excellent policy makers.

Which places are good for a summer vacation in South India?

छुट्टियाँ मनाने के लिए दक्षिण भारत में अनेक जगह हैं. यह आप पर निर्भर करता है की आपको कौन सी जगह पसंद आती है. पर्यटकों की कुछ चुनिन्दा जगहों की बात करें तो ये पर्यटक स्थल काफी मशहूर हैं दक्षिण भारत में.

There are many places in South India for holiday. It depends on you which place you like. Talking about a few selected places of tourists, these tourist places are quite famous in South India.

Munnar, Kerala

Ooty, Tamil Nadu

Idukki, Kerala

Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu

Coorg, Karnataka

Coonoor, Tamil Nadu

Yercaud, Tamil Nadu

मुन्नार, केरल

ऊटी, तमिलनाडु

इदुक्की, केरल

कोदैकनल, तमिलनाडु

कूर्ग, कर्नाटक

कुनूर, तमिलनाडु

येर्कौद, तमिलनाडु

1.5 हज़ार बार देखे गए · अपवोट देने वालों को देखें

Abandoned cattle overrun Bharatpur bird sanctuary

Bharatpur:

At Rajasthan’s Keoladeo National Park, the Unesco world heritage site formerly known as Bharatpur bird sanctuary, tourists arrive from across the country and abroad to see hundreds of species of birds, including migratory ones, for which the protected forest is famous. These days, however, they are treated to the sight of stray cows and bulls, abandoned inside the forest by neighbouring villagers. Park authorities are now planning to raise the height of the boundary wall to 10 feet to prevent this incursion.


“It is shocking to see so many cows and bulls at a place which is touted as one of the best bird-watching sites in Asia. The government must do something to control this problem. People visit Keoladeo to watch birds in their natural habitat, not cattle,” said Anupama Bisht, a tourist who had come to the sanctuary with her friends.

Bird watchers and ecologists fear that the presence of a large number of stray cattle could drive away the migratory birds, which are a major attraction in the sanctuary.

Admitting that stray cattle have become a problem in the sanctuary, Bharatpur deputy conservator of forests (wildlife) Ajit Uchoi said, “I have submitted a project estimate of Rs 3 to 5 crore for raising the height of the park’s boundary wall. The current height of the boundary wall is 7 feet, but there are several places where it is very low because of the undulating landscape. These are the spots through which villagers bring the animals in. If the height is raised to 10 feet throughout, this problem will be solved.”

Three years before Unesco declared it a World Heritage Site in 1985, the Union government had banned grazing in the protected area. Uchoi said residents of nearby villages — Aghapur, Mala, Jatoli and Barso — usually bring cattle on trucks or tractor-trolleys late at night and let them loose inside the forest.

So far, forest officials have transported nearly 200 heads of cattle from the protected area to the ravines of Chambal, nearly 80-100 km away. It costs about Rs 100 to transport each cow.

“The presence of cattle in such large numbers can certainly disturb birds. In such a situation, the migratory birds will move away elsewhere. This could then affect the arrival of migratory birds in winters,” said ecologist, conservationist and Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) Delhi state coordinator TK Roy. The stray cattle also pose problems for hundreds of tourists, including foreigners, who visit the park every day. Around 1.5-2 lakh tourists come to the site every year.


The presence of such a large number of cows and bulls could drive away the migratory birds, fear ecologists. Officials are mulling raising the height of the boundary wall from the existing 7 feet to 10 feet

These were the ‘Google Maps’ of 16th century, now they’re lost in time

Hailed as a “marvel of India” by early European travellers, including Sir Thomas Roe, and described as an integral part of the country’s “national communication system” by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Sher Shah Suri’s kos minars, which once marked the way for thousands, are now themselves lost by the wayside.

The 30-foot-tall medieval milestones built at every kos (an ancient unit of distance equivalent to approx. 3 km) along the Grand Trunk Road in northern Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan today stand isolated, lost among villages, farm fields, slums, near railway tracks and even in zoos. Given protected status by ASI, these minars have down the centuries come to become heavily encroached upon and vandalised.


Abul Fazl records in “Ain-e-Akbari” — a detailed document on the administration under Mughal emperor Akbar — that there were around 600 minars during the Mughal period. Now only 110 remain in UP, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and other places. Taking cognisance of the historical significance of these minars, restoration work on these was initiated last year, says ASI.

Two Englishmen, Richard Steel and John Crowther, who visited Punjab in April 1615 described kos minars in detail. So did Roe, ambassador of King James I at Jahangir’s court in Agra between 1615 and 1618.

Dharam Vir Sharma, former superintendent archaeologist of ASI in Agra, said, “In the third century BC, Mauryan emperor Ashoka initiated ancient routes originating from his capital city Pataliputra that extended up to Dhaka in the east and Kabul via Peshawar in the west and further to Balkh (Bactria, in central Asia). These routes had landmarks in the form of mud pillars, trees or even wells to guide commuters. During Ashokan period, a letter from Pataliputra (modern-day Patna) used to reach Kabul in maximum seven days.

“Later, Sher Shah Suri, and also the Mughals, restored the concept and erected kos minars on three major routes, which were called Sadak-e-Azam (later the Grand Trunk Road).”

Divay Gupta, principal director of Architectural Heritage division of INTACH, a private organisation working for the conservation and preservation of culture and heritage, said, “Urban expansion has destroyed most kos minars. Neither tourists and nor even locals are interested in it as most are not aware of their historical significance. Some of them are protected from encroachment and vandalism, but they have lost their context and stand isolated with little purpose or direction.”

A senior ASI official said, “Fortunately, courts have frequently come to the support of kos minars. Delhi high court recently ordered authorities to clear encroachments around the Mathura Road kos minar in Badarpur. Also, Rajasthan HC issued instructions to authorities to conserve the kos minar situated at Moti Doongri road in Jaipur.”

Ramesh Kumar Singh, assistant superintendent archaeologist of ASI in Agra, said, “Preservation and restoration work for nine kos minars was started in Mathura last year.”

55 yrs after grandad saved pilot, Chennai diver locates jet wreck

55 yrs after grandad saved pilot, Chennai diver locates jet wreck

Chennai diver

For years, Chandru Devadass had been hearing the tale of how in 1964, his grandfather, a fisherman, rescued the pilot of an aircraft that had crashed into the waters near his village on East Coast Road in Chennai. On Sunday, Chandru, a fisherman-turned-scuba diver, discovered 40ft underwater what appears to be the wreck of an Indian Navy Hawker Sea Hawk fighter jet carried aboard INS Vikrant in the1960s, when it was stationed near Madras.


Retired Navy Commodore T Hari remembers reports of a single-seater Sea Hawk being taken for a joyride by a young maintenance crew member, who then crashed into the Bay of Bengal, somewhere off the East Coast Road. “It was a Sunday, and there weren’t supposed to be any fighter jets in the air. The pilot landed in the sea and was rescued by fishermen,” says Hari, who confirmed, on seeing videos of the wreckage, that from certain angles it looked like the “cockpit of a Sea Hawk”.

“We’ve been looking for this wreck since 2010 because we knew approximately where it was. I’ve been fascinated by this story. This weekend, the water was clear enough for us to find it,” says Chandru, who discovered it 1.5km off the shore near his village Periya Neelankarai Kuppam, along with divers S B Aravind, Arun, and Timoth of Temple Adventures. “We have notified authorities,” says Aravind.

Pune-based retired Vice-Admiral Vinod Pasricha writes of the incident in his book ‘Downwind Four Green’, published in 2010. “On the Sunday of August 12, 1964, the Sea Hawk was taken out without permission by Naval Aircraft Ordnance mechanic A S Gill. He had dreams of joining the air force, but was rejected,” says Pasricha, a former Sea Hawk pilot. Pasricha says that Gill, who knew how to fly, had intended to return the jet, IN 163, to Meenambakkam, but didn’t know how to operate the aircraft’s air brakes and flaps, and ended up heading towards the sea, inadvertently becoming the only Indian to have landed a Sea Hawk on the water. “He ejected from the cockpit when he realized he was going to land in the sea,” says Pasricha, who adds Gill was sentenced to two years of rigorous imprisonment and later left for Canada. The aircraft, he says, was never recovered.

“I was eight years old, when my father and his friends, while returning from a morning fishing expedition, brought ashore a young man in a uniform,” says Chandru’s father Devadass, now in his 60s. “They saw a small plane crash in the water and found the unconscious pilot floating near it,” says Devadass, who remembers his father was excited because the man gave them Rs10 each. The excitement didn’t last long, as Devadass said a helicopter and officers whisked the pilot away.


A PIECE OF HISTORY: Fisherman-turned-scuba diver Chandru spotted the wreck of the Sea Hawk fighter jet 1.5km off Chennai coast near Periya Neelankarai Kuppam on the ECR Road. A S Gill, a naval mechanic, had taken the aircraft out without permission and crashed it into the Bay of Bengal on August 12, 1964

To get a ‘feel of Planet Mars’, head to Lonar in Vidarbha

Lonar has gullies and rivers like those of Mars, say members of Mars Society

Mumbaikars dreaming of setting foot on the Red Planet have a cause to celebrate: they need not get themselves strapped into a rocket and fly for eight or nine months to reach their dream destination. All they have to do is to proceed to Buldhana in Maharashtra and then head to a lake and crater called Lonar which is about 500km from Mumbai.


This was stated by Siddarth Pandey, an aerospace engineer, while talking to TOI on Saturday, after giving a presentation at Space Geeks, an organisation which focusses on astronomy and space.

Pandey, who has just become the head of the newly established astrobiology centre of Amity University near Mumbai, said that in a number of ways the environments of Lonar and Mars were similar. “I and my team members returned from Lonar last night and we are of the view that it could be a good Mars analog centre,” he said.

The other team members who were present at Saturday’s meeting held at a Khar pub were Jonathan Clarke of Mars Society, Australia; Jennifer Blank, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science; and Annalea Beattle, Mars Society, Australia.

Lonar was formed as a result of a meteorite impact which occurred between 35,000 and 50,000 years ago.

According to Pandey—also a member of Mars Society, Australia—Lonar could be utilised for training for Mars robotic missions and also possibly future manned flights to the Red Planet. “It is a natural lab for future Mars missions,” he said, while pointing out the craters of Lonar and Mars were alike in basalt rock.

He said that Lonar can yield useful data about the geology of Mars and the place can also be used for testing Mars rovers.

Jonathan Clarke said that Lonar has gullies and rivers similar to those of Mars. “Lonar gives an indication of what early Mars was like and it can help in future Mars exploration,” he said.

Experience Odisha, a perfect blend of tradition & modernity

If you are passionate about art, heritage and culture, both ancient and modern, we call upon you to join us in an exciting trip of the magnificent land of Odisha
Known as Kalinga in ancient times, Odisha is forever remembered as the place where Ashoka, a bloodthirsty conqueror became a worshipper of ahimsa. Dhauli, the site of the Kalinga war that pushed the Magadhan king into the realm of Buddhism, stands by the side of the River Daya near Bhubaneswar.

Times Passion Trails is an initiative that gives you the unique opportunity to revisit the pages of history and explore all the wonders of this enchanting state that stretches from mineralrich plateaus in the north-west to the Bay of Bengal in the south-east.


Traditionally known as a temple town, Bhubaneswar boasts of ultramodern IT parks, top-class institutions of higher learning and well-equipped healthcare facilities. The Odisha capital is one of the country’s fastest growing modern cities where the day begins with the sounds of temple bells and hymns and ends with brain-storming sessions on medical science, technology and other important contemporary subjects in various seminar halls.

Right on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar are the historic Khandagiri and Udaygiri, the twin hills famous for their rock caves built during the rule of King Kharavela about 200 years before the birth of Christ.

Inscriptions at Khandagiri and Udaygiri narrate the life and times of the great ruler. Magnificent multi-storied caves built for Jain ascetics, which dot the hills, not only represent ancient architectural brilliance but also stand as eternal symbols of peace and love.

If one is an admirer of art and crafts, one can follow our travel trail to Kalabhoomi, a pupular craft museum with a rich collection of curated exhibits. Here one can embark upon an artistic journey by having interactive sessions with qualified craftspeople. For cultural enthusiasts, there is a lot to see, experience and learn in Odisha, where 62 tribes with distinct traditions, lifestyles and food habits live. The best place that offers a peek into tribal life and practices is the Tribal Museum in Bhubaneswar.

History buffs can have a great time at Dhauli where a majestic Buddhist stupa reminds one of how King Ashoka became Dharmashoka from Chandashoka after the Kalinga war. Ashokan rock edicts located near Dhauli stand as proof of the welfare initiatives taken by the Magadhan emperor more than two millenniums ago.

A drive down to the village of Pipili takes one to a road dotted with exquisite applique works on either side.

Every house here is engaged in making colourful and attractive canopies, wall hangings, bags and umbrellas. What truly represent the grandeur and magnificence of local architecture are the temples built centuries ago across the state. The Sun Temple at Konark, a Unesco world heritage site, is a 13th century marvel that lords over Chandrabhaga, a bewitching beach lying between Bhubaneswar and the holy city of Puri. Hundreds gather here to enjoy the mesmerizing sight of the sun going down the horizon at dusk every day.

Further down south is located the seaside town of Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath, Odisha’s most revered deity.

This 12th century shrine is one of the India’s char dhams (four holiest centres, a visit to which, devout Hindus believe, absolves one of all sins).

Every morning and evening, thousands arrive in Puri to pay their obeisance to the Lord and partake of its mahaprasad (holy offerings). The annual Rath Yatra in Puri, when the idol of Lord Jagganath is taken around in a chariot for public viewing, draws tens of thousands of visitors from within and outside of India.

Anees Salim and the swansong of a quaint small town

 
“…(her) breath like dead moths, fell on me at regular intervals.”

Pace. What does pace do to a narrative? The Russian formalists advanced the key insight that literature defamiliarises the ordinary, and by some alchemy, makes it appear like a discovery. Sometimes, it is to place the lens of observation so close, much like in Georgia O’ Keeffe’s vein, wherein the object under scrutiny leaps at the viewer with such force of minutiae as had not been noticed before, in the process morphing into a new object altogether. At other times it entails narrating the experience at a pace that completely alters it. Like “The Small-Town Sea” by Anees Salim that recreates the quintessential small town where the everyday lengthens into looming shadows, lurking in the street corner for weeks, becoming fodder for gossip, making familiar, and while offering a womb-like intimacy, also destroying with its brazen intrusiveness.

The entire first half of the narrative in “The Small-Town Sea” is given to the impending death of the terminally-ill father Vappa, a failed writer, who, in a true poetic flourish, moves his family to Bougainville, a near dilapidated bungalow by the sea where they wait for the in-articulate-able. So, it is essentially a wait for death, punctuated by several near-deaths, rumoured deaths, false alarms and close encounters of a deathly kind. And in using delay as a mechanism, he mimics a sense of lengthened time in small towns. Citrus odours intensify sadness, in an undeniable tribute to Marquez. Humour seeps in where you least expect it. Flashes of morbidity flicker unexpectedly in the mundane. Without knowing that one is humour and the other is morbidity. And without the writer fussing over either. The narrator, a boy, notices everything without the hypocrisy of the grown-ups, experiencing loss and death without the padding of adult defences, crashing down on the nails of experience. Loss and abandonment is evoked in a raw, unsentimental way. Sentimentality, a sometimes helpful attribute he shuns (or hasn’t cultivated yet), and that is precisely what intensifies the narrative, and breaks your heart.

Then there is a marked stamp of self-referentiality. “The Blind Lady’s Descendants” is an expansive suicide note and the mildly autobiographical “The Small-Town Sea” is a winding letter to one Mr Unwin, a London-based literary agent. Needless to say, it’s not benign. Salim’s father, who worked in the Middle East was a failed writer. Salim, too, waited for very long to get a publication deal and those fears might have been accentuated, being based in the small town of Varkala where opportunities were few and far between. The weight of the unwanted legacy of failure was another liability: the horror of attracting a destiny you have fought across generations to keep at bay. The vocation of writing can be treacherous that way.


Important things are always happening outside their confines, the small towns can, at best, lend them mileage through gossip. So this fear of being elided as inconsequential is constant. At best you can be part of the mass rally when an important leader does a sortie and an impersonal wave of the hand at the teeming sea of humanity. And later both the leader and venue is mythologised to a cult status borne by that rare brush with importance. There is no doubt that this inability to publish for a considerable time fostered fears which could have been disruptive but Salim refused to give in.

Salim paints the small town with the incisive detailing of a topographer, the boys biking through dappled tracts of coconut groves, the heartless cliff, bananas in people’s backyard, the clay streets together evoke a peculiar, unchanging landscape. Small town in the lineage of a Narayan or Naipaul, as an inward-looking, self-sustained unit could itself be on its way out, along with the amalgam of its unique responses developed to questions of life, a fountainhead of stories, given the all altering influence of media in these times. In a way, the Indian small town is already moving into the space of memory and nostalgia.

Salim’s reticence is in news. Like a private act of dissent in a world that is increasingly becoming driven by social media, where there is a compulsion to be constantly seen and heard, Salim has declared an avowed abstinence from award functions/events. In so doing the litterateur brings back the focus on the “word” and eschews the trappings of a burgeoning new “Literati”. This choice is an act of courage today. And this is the wry in him, along with the vulnerable in equal measure.

Anees Salim has been recently awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Blind Lady’s Descendants.