The Golden Mystery: Amber and the Lost Amber Room

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Every year, 26 June is observed as International Amber Day, a celebration of one of nature’s most extraordinary creations. Unlike gemstones that are forged under immense heat and pressure deep within the Earth, amber begins life as something far more ordinary—sticky tree resin. Over millions of years, this resin hardens and fossilizes into a warm, golden substance that has fascinated people across cultures for thousands of years.

Amber is often called “sunshine trapped in stone.” Its rich honey, butterscotch, cognac, and cherry hues have inspired myths, jewellery, medicine, scientific discoveries, and one of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries—the disappearance of the legendary Amber Room.

Nature’s Time Capsule

Amber is not tree sap, as is commonly believed. Sap carries water and nutrients within a tree. Resin, on the other hand, is a protective substance produced when a tree is injured, sealing wounds and defending against insects and disease.

When resin flows over small insects, spiders, feathers, leaves, flowers, or even tiny lizards, these organisms can become trapped. If conditions are just right, the resin is buried under sediments and, over millions of years, transforms into amber. Unlike most fossils, which preserve bones or shells, amber often preserves entire organisms in astonishing three-dimensional detail.

These inclusions make amber invaluable to scientists. Tiny air bubbles reveal the atmosphere of prehistoric forests. Preserved pollen helps reconstruct ancient ecosystems. Even microscopic bacteria and fungi have survived inside amber for tens of millions of years.

For palaeontologists, amber is less a gemstone than a perfectly preserved archive of life on Earth. In fact, amber entered popular imagination through Jurassic Park, whose opening premise is that a mosquito that had fed on a dinosaur millions of years ago becomes trapped in sticky tree resin, which later fossilizes into amber, supposedly preserving the dinosaur’s blood—and its DNA—inside the mosquito’s abdomen. Scientists in the story use this DNA to clone dinosaurs, making amber the unlikely hero of one of cinema’s most iconic scientific adventures. While the preservation of insects in amber is entirely real, the survival of usable dinosaur DNA for 66 million years is not supported by modern science. Even so, the film brilliantly transformed a little-known fossil into a symbol of prehistoric mystery, inspiring countless people to take an interest in palaeontology and the natural world.

The Gold of the Baltic

Although amber is found in several parts of the world—including Myanmar, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada, and even parts of India—the finest and most abundant deposits occur around the Baltic Sea.

For over 5,000 years, Baltic amber travelled across Europe through the famous Amber Road, an ancient trade route linking northern Europe with the Mediterranean. Long before the Silk Road became famous, merchants carried amber southwards in exchange for wine, glass, spices, and precious metals. The Romans valued amber so highly that it sometimes fetched prices exceeding those of gold by weight.

Many cultures also believed amber possessed healing powers. It was worn to ward off illness, ground into powders for medicine, and even carried as a protective charm.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

If amber itself is remarkable, its most famous artistic creation was extraordinary.

The Amber Room was one of the most lavish interiors ever built.

Constructed in the early eighteenth century in the Kingdom of Prussia, it featured over six tonnes of amber painstakingly carved into intricate decorative panels. Craftsmen combined amber mosaics with gold leaf, mirrors, gemstones, and exquisite carvings to create walls that glowed with warm golden light.

In 1716, Frederick William I presented the room as a diplomatic gift to Peter the Great, symbolizing growing ties between Prussia and Russia.

The room was eventually installed in the magnificent Catherine Palace, where generations of visitors marvelled at what many described as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

Sunlight reflecting from thousands of amber tiles created an almost magical glow unlike anything else in European architecture.

A Treasure Lost During War

The Amber Room’s greatest chapter is also its saddest.

During the Second World War, German forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Conservators attempted to protect the fragile amber panels, but the material had become too brittle to dismantle safely. Instead, they covered the room with wallpaper in the hope that occupying forces might overlook it.

The attempt failed.

Specialist German units removed the entire room in just over a day, packed it into dozens of crates, and transported it to the Königsberg Castle, where it was publicly displayed once again.

Then, it vanished.

As Allied bombing intensified and the war drew to a close, the Amber Room disappeared. Whether it was destroyed in fires, hidden in underground bunkers, loaded onto ships that later sank, or concealed in forgotten mines remains unknown.

Despite decades of investigations across Germany, Poland, Russia, and the Baltic region, no verified trace of the original Amber Room has ever been found.

The mystery has inspired countless books, documentaries, archaeological expeditions, and treasure hunters. Every few years, reports emerge claiming that the room has finally been located in caves, tunnels, castles, or shipwrecks. None has yet been confirmed.

The Amber Room remains one of the greatest missing treasures of the twentieth century.

Recreating a Masterpiece

The story, however, did not end with its disappearance.

In 1979, Soviet conservators embarked on an ambitious project to recreate the Amber Room using surviving photographs, architectural drawings, and traditional amber-working techniques.

The painstaking restoration took more than two decades. Craftsmen had to relearn skills that had nearly disappeared, sourcing thousands of kilograms of Baltic amber and hand-carving each decorative panel.

The reconstructed Amber Room was formally inaugurated in 2003, coinciding with the 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg.

Visitors today can once again experience something close to the original splendour, even though the fate of the authentic masterpiece remains unknown.

Why Amber Still Matters

On International Amber Day, perhaps the greatest lesson is that the most valuable treasures are not always those that glitter the brightest. Sometimes they are those that preserve the memories of worlds long gone—whether hidden inside a tiny fossilized drop of resin or concealed somewhere, perhaps still waiting to reveal the final chapter of the Amber Room’s remarkable story.

–Meena

PIC: SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE

Every Word Counted: Postcards

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Long before automatic word counts, and apps that restrict the number of words, people used to carefully pen the maximum number of words that would legibly fit onto the surface area of a rectangular piece of stiff paper, not counting one fourth of the space that was kept blank for the address of the intended recipient, and the stamp of the post office. A unique medium of communication that allowed messages to be sent out without the need for an envelope. This was the ubiquitous Postcard.

Postcards carried all kinds of news—from good to bad. News of a forthcoming marriage, of an exam passed or failed, of a job appointment, an impending visit from a relative, a birth in the family, as well as of a death. Post cards were cheap, convenient, easily available and transported in their thousands across the length and breadth of the country. For most people of a certain generation this was the primary means of communication. And for many, this was a very “Indian” product.

However, the postcard had already made its debut in Europe. Following earlier experiments in Austria-Hungary and Britain, the first postcard in the world was issued in Austria on 1 October 1869. This was yellow in colour; it was 12.2 cm long and 8.5 cm wide. One side was left blank for writing the message and the other side had space for writing the address.  In Britain, postcards without images were issued by Post Office, and were printed with a stamp as part of the design, which was included in the price of purchase.

In British-ruled India the postcard was officially introduced by the Post Office of India on 1 July 1897. The postcard was light brown in colour, with East India Postcard printed on it. The coat of arms of Great Britain was printed in the centre and in the upper right corner was the crowned face of Queen Victoria, printed in red brown. It was 14 cm in length and 9 cm in width.

The card was priced at one fourth of an anna or 3 paise. It was the cheapest form of post and proved a huge success. It is believed that postcards worth about ₹7.5 lakh were sold in the first three quarters of the inaugural year itself. The convenience of this form of communication led the government to also introduce postcards meant specifically for government use in April 1880. Ten years later reply postcards were introduced. In all cases the specs were uniform: The postage was prepaid in full; the weight of the card was not to exceed 5 grams; the cards shall have a legend Post Card written in Hindi or English or printed on the address side. Thus postcards, while uniform in form, took on multiple roles and uses which continued even after India became independent and do so till this day.

While today there are ‘privacy issues’ related to the sharing of data, the postcard, by its very form, was open and public. It was open to be read by anyone from the clerk in the post office, to the postman who carried it in his bag, to the actual recipient. At the receiving end, sometimes in a remote village, it was often read out loud by the postman himself, or by a literate member of the community; or the contents were shared under a tree where the elders gathered. Whether it bore good news or sad news, the emotions that it conveyed were equally shared by the community.  

The size of the postcard (which has remained unchanged since it was introduced) and the space available for writing presented a silent challenge to every writer. Squish the handwriting or condense the message? This was no place for waxing eloquent or beating around the bush! Keep it short and neat!

Postcards soon became the cheapest and most accessible form of communication, revolutionizing mass correspondence. Though introduced in India by the British, postcards played a key role in the sharing of information during the movement to gain freedom from the British rule. No one utilized this means of communication better than Mahatma Gandhi.

A prodigious writer of letters, Gandhiji actively used postcards for the majority of his vast correspondence. As a highly practical and budget-conscious communicator who constantly traveled, he found that postcards were the most efficient method to share updates with friends and relatives without wasting time or money. With his unerring logic he explained that postcards were cost-effective, as they cost much less than standard envelopes. Indeed, they did not require an envelope at all, nor the hassle of buying, keeping, and pasting stamps. They were more durable than ordinary writing paper. And their news was transparent, anyone could read the message, and Gandhiji had nothing to hide! And, as a person who could not abide waste in any form, Gandhiji appreciated that the limited space forced the writer to express themselves concisely and clearly.

While Gandhiji wrote perhaps thousands of postcards to people from all walks of life, people from all parts of India and the world also reached out to him through postcards. Throughout the freedom struggle, Gandhiji was constantly on the move, but people who wrote to him were not worried about his address. They simply wrote postcards with his name, and sometimes added “Wherever he may be”. And these postcards did reach him, wherever he was! We can still see some of these original postcards in archives and exhibitions.

Independent India’s first requirement was to collect reliable demographic statistics. A census was considered to be central to this.  But the government faced two immediate challenges: how to persuade people to participate in the census, and how to maintain communication between enumerators and census officials across a vast, poor and largely rural country. By then the postal department was the largest unified communications network available to the Indian state. In the run up to the first census in 1951, government used a bilingual pictorial postmark stamped on postcards and letters travelling across the country to educate the public and mobilize participation. The postmark showed a family of three framed by the words “Census of India” in Hindi and English. Subsequently postcards and postmarks were used for different mass pubic campaigns.

When they were first launched, only plain government postcards were permitted, printed and sold by the Indian Post Office. In 1898 the Post office formally permitted privately printed postcards, provided that adhered to size, layout and message restrictions. This opened up a large picture postcards industry in India. Publishers began printing scenic views, cultural monuments, and daily life in India, which became popular.

Almost a century later, India Post introduced Competition Postcards, following the immense popularity of Doordarshan’s show Surabhi where viewers were invited to send in answers to the quiz questions of the week. Initially viewers used the standard 15 paise postcard to send in responses. The response was so overwhelming that the postal department issued a different category of blue-coloured postcards priced at Rs 2/-  each to send in responses. These Competition Postcards were subsequently used for many competitions inviting mass public responses.  

The Competition Postcards are not currently available, but there are three types of postcards available in post offices. Normal postcards (50 paise), Reply postcards: A double card format which has an attached pre-paid flap that the recipient can detach and send a reply message (Rs 1). Meghdoot postcards wherein the address side features pre-printed colourful advertisements allowing the post office to generate revenue while subsidizing the cost (25 paise). So much to be communicated in so little, literally and cost-wise.  

While there is still a generation for which postcards evoke a lot of nostalgia, sadly there is a generation for whom communication has a whole new meaning.

–Mamata

National Insurance Awareness Day: Protecting What Matters Before It Is Too Late

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Every year, National Insurance Awareness Day, observed on 28 June, reminds us of a simple but often overlooked truth: life is unpredictable. While we cannot foresee accidents, illnesses, natural disasters or financial setbacks, we can prepare for them. Insurance is one of the most effective ways to do exactly that.

Ironically, insurance is often appreciated only after a crisis strikes. A medical emergency, a road accident, a house damaged by floods, or the sudden loss of a family’s breadwinner can instantly transform insurance from an overlooked expense into a financial lifeline. National Insurance Awareness Day encourages us to make that preparation before adversity strikes rather than after it is too late.

Why National Insurance Awareness Day?

Unlike many officially designated observances, National Insurance Awareness Day appears to have originated as an industry-led initiative to encourage people to review their insurance needs and better understand the role insurance plays in financial security. Over time, it has gained wider recognition as an occasion to promote financial literacy, preparedness and responsible planning.

The day is particularly relevant today because the risks confronting individuals and businesses have become more complex. Healthcare costs continue to rise sharply. Climate change has increased the frequency of floods, cyclones, heatwaves and other extreme weather events. Cybercrime threatens businesses and individuals alike, while economic uncertainties can disrupt livelihoods with little warning. Insurance cannot prevent these events, but it can prevent them from becoming long-term financial catastrophes.

At its heart, insurance is about sharing risk. Millions of policyholders contribute relatively small premiums into a common pool, enabling those who suffer losses to receive financial support. This principle has made insurance one of the cornerstones of modern economies, helping families recover from setbacks, businesses resume operations after disasters, and communities rebuild after crises.

The State of Insurance in India

India’s insurance sector has expanded dramatically over the past two decades. Today, the country has 74 insurers operating across life, general, health and reinsurance businesses. Together, they offer protection against a wide range of risks, including life, health, motor, property, travel, crop, marine and cyber risks.

Yet, despite this growth, India remains significantly underinsured.

According to the latest data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), insurance penetration—measured as insurance premiums as a percentage of GDP—is about 3.7%, almost half the global average of roughly 7%. This suggests that millions of Indians either have no insurance at all or lack adequate coverage.

Health insurance presents a similar challenge. While government schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, employer-provided insurance and private policies have expanded coverage, only about 40–45% of Indians have some form of health insurance. Consequently, out-of-pocket medical expenditure remains among the highest in the world, often forcing families to dip into savings, borrow money or even sell assets to meet healthcare expenses.

Recognising this protection gap, IRDAI has articulated a vision of “Insurance for All by 2047.” Achieving this goal will require not only greater availability of insurance products but also improved financial literacy, stronger consumer confidence and wider public awareness of the role insurance plays in protecting financial well-being.

More Than Just a Financial Product

Many people still view insurance as something they purchase only because it is compulsory. Motor insurance is mandated by law. Health insurance may come through an employer. Home insurance is often bundled with a housing loan.

But insurance is far more than a legal requirement or a financial product. It is a vital component of sound financial planning.

Savings help meet planned expenses and short-term emergencies. Investments help create wealth over the long term. Insurance serves a different purpose—it protects against low-probability but high-impact events that can wipe out years of accumulated savings in a matter of days.

The COVID-19 pandemic offered a powerful reminder of this reality. Families with adequate health and life insurance were generally better equipped to cope with hospitalisation costs, income loss and financial uncertainty than those relying solely on savings. Insurance cannot eliminate hardship, but it can prevent adversity from turning into financial ruin.

A Good Time to Review Your Cover

National Insurance Awareness Day is not simply about buying another insurance policy. It is an opportunity to review whether existing protection is still adequate.

It is important to understand that as life changes, so do insurance needs. Equally important is understanding what a policy covers—and what it excludes. Reading policy documents, updating nominees and checking whether the sum insured remains adequate can save considerable stress later.

A few simple questions are worth asking:

  • Is my health insurance sufficient given rising medical costs?
  • Does my life insurance adequately protect my family’s future?
  • Are my home and valuable assets insured?
  • Have I updated my nominees?
  • Do I fully understand my policy’s terms, exclusions and claim process?

Investing in Peace of Mind

Insurance ultimately provides something that is difficult to quantify—peace of mind. It allows individuals, families and businesses to pursue opportunities with greater confidence, knowing they have a financial safety net should the unexpected occur.

On this National Insurance Awareness Day, perhaps the wisest investment is not simply buying another insurance policy, but understanding the protection we already have, identifying the gaps that remain, and taking timely steps to safeguard what matters most.

–Meena

Kempegowda: The Visionary Who Gave Bengaluru Its Soul

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Many cities have founders. Few have one whose vision continues to shape the city nearly five centuries later. As Bengaluru marks the anniversary (27 June) of its founder, Nadaprabhu Kempegowda, it is worth pausing to reflect not merely on the man, but on the remarkable administrator, planner and leader whose foresight laid the foundations of a city that would one day become India’s technology capital.

For most Bengalureans, Kempegowda is a familiar name. His statue greets travellers at the airport, major roads bear his name, and schoolchildren learn that he founded Bengaluru in 1537. Yet the true significance of his achievement lies beyond the simple fact that he established a town. What makes Kempegowda extraordinary is the quality of governance and urban planning he brought to his vision.

Born into a family of local chieftains under the larger framework of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempegowda inherited responsibility for a region that consisted largely of villages, agricultural lands and trading settlements. Instead of merely ruling over existing territories, he imagined something larger—a thriving urban centre that could serve as a hub of commerce, culture and administration.

The Bengaluru he envisioned was not a city that grew by accident. It was carefully planned. Historical records suggest that he built a mud fort, established marketplaces, encouraged trade and developed infrastructure to support economic activity. In an age when rulers often focused on conquest, Kempegowda focused on creating conditions for prosperity.

Perhaps his most famous contribution to urban planning was the establishment of the four watchtowers that marked the city’s boundaries. Today, Bengaluru has expanded far beyond those limits, but the towers remain symbols of a leader who understood the importance of defining and managing urban growth. In modern governance language, we would call this spatial planning. Kempegowda practised it centuries before the term existed.

His administrative wisdom is equally noteworthy. Successful governance requires balancing multiple interests—farmers, traders, artisans, religious institutions and local communities. Evidence from historical accounts suggests that Kempegowda actively promoted trade and agriculture while ensuring public works were developed for the common good. Tanks and water bodies received attention because he understood a truth that remains relevant today: cities cannot flourish without secure water resources.

Indeed, one of the lessons modern Bengaluru can learn from Kempegowda concerns sustainability. Long before urban planners spoke of environmental resilience, he recognized the importance of lakes and irrigation systems. Many of the tanks developed during his period supported agriculture, groundwater recharge and community life. As Bengaluru grapples with water shortages and environmental challenges, Kempegowda’s approach offers a reminder that good governance means planning not only for today’s needs but also for future generations.

Another aspect of his leadership was inclusiveness. The markets and settlements he established attracted people from different communities and occupations. Bengaluru’s reputation as a welcoming city—a place where people from across India come to work, study and build new lives—can be traced back to these early foundations. The cosmopolitan spirit for which the city is celebrated today did not emerge overnight; it has deep historical roots.

What also stands out is Kempegowda’s ability to combine vision with execution. Many leaders dream of transformation, but fewer possess the administrative capability to turn ideas into reality. Founding a city required mobilizing resources, maintaining law and order, coordinating construction, encouraging settlement and ensuring economic viability. These are not merely political tasks; they are governance challenges. Kempegowda appears to have met them with remarkable effectiveness.

For citizens of modern Bengaluru, his legacy extends beyond monuments and commemorations. It is visible in the city’s enduring role as a centre of enterprise and innovation. Bengaluru’s global reputation as a hub for technology and entrepreneurship reflects qualities that Kempegowda himself valued: openness, opportunity and a willingness to build for the future.

Of course, no historical figure belongs entirely to the present. Kempegowda lived in a different era, under different political circumstances. Yet certain principles are timeless. Strategic planning, investment in public infrastructure, stewardship of natural resources and a commitment to creating opportunities for people remain the hallmarks of good governance today, just as they were in the sixteenth century.

As Bengaluru celebrates Kempegowda’s anniversary, the occasion should be more than a remembrance of the past. It should also be an invitation to reflect on the kind of city we wish to build. Rapid growth has brought immense opportunities, but also challenges of traffic, water, housing and environmental sustainability. Addressing these issues requires the same blend of vision and administrative competence that Kempegowda demonstrated centuries ago.

The founder of Bengaluru gave the city more than its beginning. He gave it a blueprint: plan thoughtfully, govern wisely and build for generations yet to come. That is why, nearly 500 years later, Kempegowda remains not just a historical figure, but a living presence in the story of Bengaluru.

Thank you, Kempegowda! Help us do justice to your vision!

–Meena

Pic: Courtesy The Hindu

Flying Solo: Amelia Earhart

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In an age when women were not only earthbound, but also largely homebound, a young woman not only took to the skies but soared high. Amelia Earhart started challenging traditional roles and stereotypes from an early age. Born in Kansas on 24 July 1897, as a young girl she played basketball, took an auto repair course, and briefly attended college. During World War I she served as a Red Cross nurse’s aide in Canada. She spent a lot of her time at a local airfield in Toronto watching pilots in the Royal Training Force train. After the war she returned to America and enrolled in a pre-med course at Columbia University.

In December 1920 she was in California when she took her first airplane ride with the famed World War I pilot Frank Hawks. She was hooked. She knew that the sky was where she belonged, not as a passenger, but as a pilot. “As soon as I left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly”.

A month later she started flying lessons with a female flight instructor Neta Snook. She worked as a photographer and filing clerk at the Los Angeles Telephone company, to pay for the lessons. Later that year she purchased her first airplane. She named the second-hand yellow plane The Canary. She passed her flight test in December 1921, and obtained a National Aeronautics Association license. Two days later, she participated in her first flight exhibition at the Sierra Airdrome in Pasadena, California. Her days of breaking records were on the horizon. And June was always a significant month in her flying career.

However, her first brush with fame as a “first” achiever was not as a pilot but as a passenger. On June 18 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger in a flight piloted by Wilmer Stultz and Lou Gordon from Newfoundland to Wales. She had, in fact, been promised that she would get a chance to fly the plane over the Atlantic, but the men flew the whole way. Earhart did fly the plane on the final hop from Wales to England. 

In 1929, she helped organize the All-Women’s Air Derby—the first transcontinental air race for women. Women pilots proved that they could fly in difficult and competitive conditions. After the race many of the women decided to form an organization to support women pilots.  Earhart helped to form the Ninety-Nines, an international organization for the advancement of female pilots. She became the first president of the organization of licensed pilots, which still exists today and represents women flyers from 44 countries.

Amelia Earhart was always guided by her strong belief that “Women can qualify in the air as in any other sport. Their influence and approval are vital to the success of commercial aviation. Women and girls write to me by the thousands to learn the truth about aviation and what women’s chances are. There is nothing in a woman’s make up which would make her inferior to a man as an air pilot. The only barrier to her swift success is her lack of opportunity to receive proper training.”

Her solo feats followed. In May 1932 Amelia took off from Newfoundland. The flight was fraught with danger; the sides of the engine spewed flames, while the ice formation on the wings of the plane necessitated that she fly at a lower altitude, almost skimming the waves of the Atlantic. Undeterred and determined, fifteen hours later Amelia landed in Norther Ireland. She became the first woman (and second person after Charles Lindbergh) to fly non-stop and solo across the Atlantic.

 Amelia Earhart went on to set a number of records as a solo woman flier and became internationally renowned. Even as she took wings, literally, Amelia was a down-to-earth supporter of similar rights for all women. She lectured across the country on aviation and women’s causes. She was a visiting professor at Purdue University where she lectured on aeronautics. She wrote several books about her flights. She was also politically active; she lobbied American Congress for aviation legislation, birth control rights and support for women in business and politics. She even designed a line of functional women’s clothing and a line of light-weight luggage. All by the age of forty years.

But then her story took a mysterious turn. On 1 June 1937 Amelia, accompanied by navigator Fred Noonan boarded a twin-engine Lockheed 10E Electra at Oakland, California to embark on a flight that was Amelia’s second attempt to become the first pilot ever to circumnavigate the globe. The two flew to Miami, then down to South America, across the Atlantic to Africa, then east to India and Southeast Asia. On June 29 the pair reached New Guinea. They had successfully flown 22,000 miles. They had 7,000 miles to go before completing the circuit and returning to Oakland with a world first record. On July 2 the two took off from New Guinea, heading for their next refueling stop, a tiny island called Howland in the Pacific Ocean. But before they reached their destination they lost radio contact and never landed on the island. The plane and its crew literally disappeared into thin air.

There were no clues, no signs of a crash, no signals and no sightings of the plane, intact or its wreckage. The very next day, the US Government initiated its search for the missing airplane. It ended up being the largest ever search for a lost aircraft. It yielded no results. On July 19, 1937, Earhart and Noonan were declared lost at sea.

Amelia Earhart and her plane vanished without a trace, and till date the mystery of the disappearance has not been solved. Many theories from the most obvious one of crash in the sea, to the more bizarre, including conspiracy theories, have been floated over the years.

Amelia Earhart remains an inspiration and a mystery. She raised the bar for women not only in aviation but as equal partners to men in all spheres of life. She challenged women to excel in themselves, not in comparison to others.

“Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, then failure must be a challenge to others.”

–Mamata

Surgeons’ Day and the Extraordinary History of Self-Surgery

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Every year on 15 June, India observes Surgeons’ Day, an occasion promoted by the Association of Surgeons of India and other medical institutions to recognize the contribution of surgeons to healthcare. The day is marked by professional meetings, public awareness programmes, health camps, and discussions on advances in surgical practice.

In the Indian context, it is also important to remember Sushruta, the author of the Sushruta Samhita, who over two millennia ago, described surgical instruments, operative techniques, wound management, and reconstructive procedures. His work is among the earliest known systematic texts on surgery anywhere in the world.

Self-Surgery

While surgery is usually associated with teams of highly trained professionals working in carefully controlled environments, history records unique cases in which individuals performed surgical procedures on themselves. These episodes occurred under very different circumstances, but each has become part of medical history because of the unusual challenges involved.

Leonid Rogozov: Appendectomy in Antarctica

One of the best-known cases is that of Leonid Rogozov, a Soviet surgeon stationed at the Novolazarevskaya research station in Antarctica in 1961.

Rogozov developed acute appendicitis while serving as the only physician at the base. Weather conditions made evacuation impossible. On 30 April 1961, assisted by colleagues who handed him instruments and held mirrors, he performed an appendectomy on himself using local anaesthesia.

The operation lasted approximately two hours. Rogozov recovered and resumed his duties within weeks. His case is widely cited in medical literature as a unique example of self-performed emergency surgery.

Evan O’Neill Kane and Surgical Experimentation

In 1921, American surgeon Evan O’Neill Kane carried out an appendectomy on himself at a hospital in Pennsylvania.

Kane’s purpose was not emergency treatment but the demonstration of local anaesthesia for abdominal surgery. He believed that local anaesthesia offered advantages over general anaesthesia in selected cases and used his own operation to support that view.

In 1932, he reportedly performed a second self-operation to repair an inguinal hernia. These procedures attracted significant public and professional attention at the time.

Inés Ramírez Pérez and a Self-Performed Caesarean Section

In 2000, Inés Ramírez Pérez, living in a remote rural area of Mexico, carried out a self-performed caesarean section after prolonged labour and the absence of medical assistance.

Following the delivery, she sought help from local residents and was transported to a hospital. Both she and her baby survived. Medical reports published subsequently documented the case, which is considered one of the rare recorded instances of a successful self-performed caesarean section.

Aron Ralston’s Self-Amputation

In April 2003, American mountaineer Aron Ralston became trapped in Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon when a falling boulder pinned his right arm.

After remaining trapped for several days and exhausting his supplies of food and water, Ralston amputated his own arm using a small multi-tool and then climbed out of the canyon to seek assistance.

His experience was later described in his memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place and dramatized in the film 127 Hours.

Claude Martin’s Procedure in Lucknow

An earlier and less widely known example has a connection to India.

Claude Martin (1735–1800), a French soldier and entrepreneur who spent much of his life in Lucknow under the East India Company, suffered from bladder stones. Around 1782, he devised an instrument that he used on himself over an extended period in an attempt to break down or remove the stone.

Martin later described the procedure in correspondence and records that came to the attention of medical practitioners in Europe. Historians of medicine have noted similarities between his approach and later methods of lithotripsy, the technique used to break up urinary stones without major surgery.

Today, Martin is better known as the founder of the La Martinière schools in Lucknow and Kolkata, but his medical experiment remains a noteworthy episode in the history of self-treatment.

As India marks Surgeons’ Day each year, the occasion serves not only to recognize today’s surgeons but also to remember the long and often remarkable history of surgical practice, innovation, and human resilience.

–Meena

A Pesky Problem: Pest Management

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This week we have been exploring quaint expressions that describe human situations using animal analogies. Sometimes these become ‘bees in our bonnet’ as new analogies and comparisons buzz around in our imagination! One of these analogies is our description of someone as a “pest”, and our irritated response to such a person “Don’t pester me!”

Why is the word associated with persistent irritating behaviour in human beings? For that we need to go back to nature.  

A pest is defined as any living thing which humans consider troublesome to themselves, their possessions, or the environment. This includes plants, pathogens, invertebrates, vertebrates or any organism that harms an ecosystem. In its broadest sense a pest is a competitor to humanity. Pests can cause issues with crops, human, or animal health, buildings, and wilderness areas.

Looking at insects alone, it is estimated that 900 million insect types can be ‘pests’ not in nature, but in a world where humans have modified nature to suit their own requirements. And the human species has always found ways, though not wise at times, to tackle insects and other living organisms that they did not like, or want around them. From the earliest times, the battle between humans and ‘pests’ has taken many forms.

Cave dwellers probably swatted mosquitoes or used smoke to ward off the bloodsuckers. As far back as 2500 BC, people used sulfur compounds to control mites and insects. In 1200 B.C., the Chinese deployed predatory ants against pests such as beetles and caterpillars.

With growing populations, and crowded and insanitary living conditions bed bugs and rats proliferated. One of the first publicly advertised pest control companies was the 1690 company H. Tiffin and Son Ltd. in London. The company promoted rat and bed bug control using methods and chemical compounds they invented. Their trademark was “Bug Destroyers to Her Majesty and the Royal Family.”

Probably one of the hardest pests to control are rats. Over the ages, methods to control rats have tried everything from chemicals, plant extracts, prayers, chants, terrier dogs, and music. Ratsbane was one of the first chemicals used. Barbers sold it in the Middle Ages. Then it became a popular item sold by street vendors. Vermin exterminators became a legitimate and in-demand profession. Till date, rats continue to pose a cheeky challenge to every counter measure to control them, and proliferate even in the most sophisticated cities of the world (New York has a serious rat infestation issue).  

Pests are a major threat to health worldwide. Many insects are the primary or intermediate hosts or carriers that transmit debilitating human diseases, ranging from malaria, to Lymes Disease, to Zika. Rodents and birds are also secondary hosts for a large number of diseases transmitted by the parasites that they carry into the human environment — ticks, lice, fleas and mites.

Crops are also at risk from pests which include aphids, caterpillars, whiteflies, locusts and mites. These insects cause damage by feeding on foliage, sucking plant sap, or transmitting diseases. These pests can devastate agricultural yields, reducing quality and quantity, and leading to significant food shortages.

Pests are equally threatening in human habitations. Termites, wood-boring beetles, carpenter ants, and rodents Termites, wood-boring beetles, carpenter ants, and rodents are the primary pests that destroy buildings by compromising structural integrity.

The universal frustration to successfully manage and control pests in every sphere of life, spurred a global effort to increase awareness about pest-related challenges and professional pest control solutions.

On 6 June 2017 the Chinese Pest Control Association hosted 300 participants including industry experts, media representatives, researchers and academic professionals to discuss how to promote awareness about the role of pest management in public health protection. In 2018, the Global Summit of Pest Management Services for Public Health and Food Safety was held in Portugal, and it was agreed to accord international recognition to an annual World Pest Day.

Since then World Pest Day is observed annually on June 6th across the world. The initiative aims to improve public, government and media awareness, strengthen the professional image of the pest management industry, encourage scientific pest control and highlight major threats caused by small pests. The day promotes scientific and responsible pest control practices while creating awareness about the threats posed by pests worldwide.

Sadly, in the past decade the threat of pest-borne diseases is growing due to climate change, international travel, globalization of trade and increasing urbanization taking over the natural habitats of disease-bearing pests. A better understanding of these diseases is essential for managing them in the future.

Parallely there is ever-growing need to produce more food, fodder, fibre and wood. The lifestyles of a number of insects seem to clash with people’s economic interests. There is a competition for resources and humans tend to describe all competitors as pests that have to be fought on a war footing. When the ‘wonder drug’ DDT was invented in 1939 we thought that the war against pests had been won. But soon insects developed a resistance to pesticides. Fighting pests with chemicals alone is not the answer as we have also learned that these chemicals can have terrible side effects on all living things including humans. We can neither turn back to a chemical-free earth, nor can we continue to poison ourselves.

While technology and researches in more effective chemical measures to counter pests continue to advance, what is perhaps being lost is a better understanding of the ‘pests’ and some traditional, and less toxic ways of meeting the challenge. One way is to take a closer look at pest species and their interaction with the environment, especially in agriculture. A combination of cultural, biological, physical and chemical techniques to manage and control pests is called Integrated Pest Management (IPM).  

IPM is an eco-system-based long-term strategy that minimizes economic costs while protecting human health and the environment by using chemical pesticides only as a last resort.  Effective IPM aims at a synergistic integration of five main methods.

Making the environment inhospitable to pests through crop rotation, planting pest-resistant crop varieties, and proper sanitation (removing food and water sources).

Using natural predators especially certain birds, parasites, or pathogens to manage pest populations (e.g., introducing ladybugs to eat aphids or utilizing bio-pesticides).

Using traps, barriers, netting, or temperature manipulation to physically block or remove pests.

Applying synthetic or natural pesticides in a highly targeted manner taking care to minimize unnecessary environmental impact.

Using genetically modified, resistant plant hybrids or crops (like Bt corn) that naturally deter specific pests.

IPM provides a sustainable, eco-friendly alternative that keeps pest populations in check while preserving ecosystem harmony.

“Pest” is a word conveniently created by us to describe whatever we perceive as a deterrent to our well-being. In Nature every creature has a role to play, the distortion of the role begins when we disturb or alter the natural balance.

In an age when technology seems to be the panacea for all ills, it would be wise to stop and remember, as well as respect, that the health of the ecosystem is the key determinant for the health of all living things.

–Mamata

The Bee’s Knees and Other Curious Creatures of Language

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Language is a strange and wonderful thing.

Every day, we use expressions that roll effortlessly off the tongue without pausing to think about what they actually mean. We wish people the “best of luck,” promise to “keep an eye on things,” and complain when life becomes “a rat race.” Most of the time, these phrases do their job so well that we never stop to examine them.

But every now and then, an expression invites a second look.

Take the phrase “the bee’s knees.”

If someone describes a new restaurant, a favourite book, or a clever invention as the bee’s knees, they mean it is excellent—something special, perhaps even the best. Yet the moment one stops to think about it, a question arises.

Why a bee?

And why its knees?

Bees are many things. They are hardworking pollinators, builders of intricate hives, and producers of honey. But their knees do not seem especially famous. No one admires a bee and immediately thinks, “What magnificent knees!”

Yet for more than a century, English speakers have happily used the phrase without demanding an explanation.

The story begins in the United States during the roaring 1920s. It was an age that loved novelty. Jazz filled dance halls, fashions changed rapidly, and language became a playground for creativity. People delighted in inventing colourful slang. Something impressive might be called “the cat’s pajamas,” “the eel’s ankle,” “the monkey’s eyebrows,” or “the bee’s knees.”

These expressions were not meant to be logical. In fact, their appeal often came from their absurdity. The more unlikely the combination, the more amusing it sounded.

Most of these phrases disappeared as fashions changed. Yet a few survived. The bee’s knees buzzed on while many of its companions faded into obscurity.

Perhaps it endured because bees themselves occupy a special place in the human imagination.

Across cultures, bees have long been symbols of industry, cooperation, and diligence. Ancient Egyptians kept bees. Greek philosophers admired their organisation. Medieval monasteries prized beeswax for candles. Farmers depended on pollination long before anyone fully understood the science behind it.

Today, we know that bees are among the most important creatures on the planet. Their daily work helps pollinate crops, wildflowers, fruit trees, and countless other plants. A world without bees would be a poorer and less colourful place.

And in an amusing twist, bees do have something noteworthy on their legs. Worker bees collect pollen in specialised structures on their hind legs known as pollen baskets. If you have ever seen a bee carrying bright yellow clumps of pollen, you have witnessed one of nature’s most efficient collection systems at work.

So while the phrase was probably invented as nonsense, modern biology has accidentally given it a touch of credibility.

The bee’s knees are, in their own way, quite remarkable.

The phrase also reminds us of something larger: language is filled with animals.

Consider how often creatures appear in everyday speech.

When we hear information directly from the original source, we get it “straight from the horse’s mouth.” The expression likely comes from horse traders, who could estimate a horse’s age by examining its teeth.

When someone raises a false alarm repeatedly, we say they “cry wolf.” The phrase traces its roots to one of Aesop’s famous fables, in which a shepherd boy repeatedly tricks villagers into believing a wolf is attacking his flock. When a wolf finally appears, no one believes him.

If a person sends us on a pointless errand, we call it “a wild goose chase.” The expression was popularised by Shakespeare, who used it in Romeo and Juliet. Today, it describes any pursuit that is unlikely to succeed.

Then there is the curious warning not to “look a gift horse in the mouth.” Once again, horses are involved. Since age and health could be judged from a horse’s teeth, examining the mouth of a horse that had been freely given was considered ungrateful.

Some animal expressions are easier to understand.

Someone who is “busy as a bee” needs little explanation. A person with “eagle eyes” sees details others miss. A “social butterfly” moves easily from one conversation to another.

Others are delightfully baffling.

Why do we have “ants in our pants” when we are restless? Why are secretive people said to be “as sly as a fox”? Why do difficult situations become a “dog’s breakfast” in some parts of the English-speaking world?

The answer often lies in history. These phrases are linguistic fossils, preserving traces of old occupations, folk tales, observations of nature, and forgotten jokes. Long after the original context disappears, the expression remains.

In this way, language resembles an attic filled with heirlooms. We continue to use objects whose stories have been partly forgotten. Their meanings survive even when their origins grow hazy.

That may be why expressions such as “the bee’s knees” continue to charm us. They remind us that language is not merely a tool for communication. It is also a record of human imagination.

Generations of speakers have played with words, invented absurd images, borrowed ideas from animals, and passed them on. Most vanished. A few endured.

And among those survivors is a tiny insect whose unlikely knees have become a symbol of excellence.

Not bad for a creature that was probably never consulted on the matter.

The next time someone describes a book, a meal, a holiday, or a grandchild as “the bee’s knees,” spare a thought for the strange journey of that phrase. It has travelled through jazz-age slang, survived changing fashions, outlived dozens of rival expressions, and settled comfortably into modern English.

That, one might say, is the bee’s knees of linguistic success.

–Meena

Borim Kim: Climate Activist Every Action Counts

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As we get ready to celebrate one more World Environment Day, for a few days, positive stories about actions to ‘save’ the environment will share space with the daily dose of gloom and doom that have become our daily fare. This week Meena wrote about how Governments are trying to make an impact, or measure the impact of global and national efforts to mitigate the overwhelming consequences of so many wrong steps.

While these are large-scale projects undertaken on large scales, throughout the history of environmental efforts, there have also been heart-warming stories of smaller efforts by small groups, communities, and even individuals, who have taken up causes and worked relentlessly for these. Most of these do not make the headlines, but they do make a difference in their own time and space. And some of these receive recognition.

One of these recognitions is The Goldman Environmental Prize. It was founded in 1989 by San Francisco civic leaders and philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman as a way to demonstrate the international nature of environmental problems and draw public attention to the global need for action.

The Goldman Prize recognizes grassroots environmental champions for significant efforts to protect and restore the natural environment. It considers those leading campaigns locally, and effecting positive change through community participation as ‘grassroots leaders’. It is a recognition of “People of ordinary backgrounds doing extraordinary things to save our Earth”.

The Prize believes that a strong environmental movement requires diverse talents, perspectives, and leadership. Often referred to as the Green Nobel, the awards are conferred every year to outstanding environmental advocates from each of the world’s six inhabited geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island nations, North America, South and Central America.

The 2026 Goldman Environmental Prizes were announced on Earth Day this year. A unique feature of this year’s prizes is that all the six winners are women!

Let us celebrate these women this month. Starting with Asia, and young blood

BORIS KIM

Activist Boris Kim and her organization Youth 4 Climate Change won the first youth-led climate litigation in Asia.

It was the summer of 2018, and South Korea was in the throes of a record-breaking heat wave. Borim Kim had just graduated from college and was working on energy conservation in a self-sufficient community in Seoul. The heat wave took a heavy toll as people struggled in buildings with no air conditioning. Borim realized that people, as individuals, could not escape the impacts of climate change. In her search for a way to become safer in the face of climate crisis, Borim found that many young people had similar concerns, but no solutions. This led her to start Youth 4 Climate Action (Y4CA).

Y4CA wanted to move the conversation away from individual solutions to the crisis, and work toward a fundamental transformation in society. The group started by organizing climate strikes and setting up meetings with decision-makers, including South Korea’s minister of education and minister of climate, energy, and environment. But the group soon realized that that just by demanding change, their safety in the face of the climate crisis was not guaranteed.

So in 2020, Borim decided to turn to the judiciary, which could require the legislature to act. Along with Y4CA, she organized a group of 19 youth who sued the South Korean government in the country’s constitutional court. Their suit, the first of its kind in Asia, made the case that the government was violating young people’s fundamental right to live in a clean environment by failing to adequately act on the climate crisis. Specifically, the plaintiffs contended that the government’s existing emissions reductions targets at the time — which sought to reduce emissions to 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030 — were too weak. They argued that the absence of any additional planning past 2030 left future generations vulnerable. (Borim was not among the initial 19 plaintiffs, but she later joined the case, along with more than 200 others.)

In 2024, in a groundbreaking victory for the youth, the court agreed that the right to a clean environment includes protection from harms related to climate change. On that basis, it found that the government was violating youths’ rights by failing set emissions reductions targets for 2031 through 2049, in line with an existing national pledge to meet net-zero emissions by 2050. It ordered the Korean National Assembly to set such targets by February 2026.

Though the case represented the first youth-led national level climate victory outside of Europe, the plaintiffs didn’t win on all of their claims. Also due to political instability and inertia, the set targets were not achieved.

While the specific goal could not be achieved, the youth movement and the response from the judiciary were milestones in themselves. It was an affirmation that South Korean citizens had a basic right to “exist safely in the face of climate change”. As Borim Kim said, Ultimately, it created a red line from which the country’s climate policies would not go backwards.

Borim Kim continues to work to ensure that climate action moves forward in South Korea. Y4CA is also sharing lessons learned with other youth-led groups across Asia, including a group from Japan that is bringing a constitutional climate claim there. And she’s continuing to build the climate movement in South Korea. That includes making sure that youth and those who most directly face the inequalities of climate change have a voice in decision-making.

Borim Kim is the face of the future for the new generation that must bear the heavy brunt of climate change. A true ‘grassroots leader’ and deserving winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Happy World Environment Day 2026.

–Mamata

The Report Card Nature Gives Us

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Every year, World Environment Day arrives with familiar images — children planting saplings, speeches about sustainability, green logos replacing corporate blue for a day, and social media flooded with pictures of forests, oceans, and endangered animals.

And then, by the next morning, the world goes back to business as usual.

Factories continue to pollute rivers. Wetlands quietly disappear under concrete. Species vanish before most people even learn their names. Cities expand. Forests shrink. Temperatures rise.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: if every country claims to care about nature, who is actually doing a good job?

Surprisingly, the world has no single official answer.

There is no universally accepted “Nature Conservation Score” for countries. No equivalent of a cricket points table or Olympic medal tally for ecological responsibility. Instead, scientists, universities, conservation groups, and international organisations have created different systems to measure different aspects of environmental performance.

One of the best-known systems is the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), developed by Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Columbia University. The EPI attempts to rank countries using indicators such as air quality, climate policies, biodiversity protection, water management, pollution control, and ecosystem vitality. In essence, it asks a broad question: How seriously is a country managing its environmental responsibilities?

The rankings often produce interesting results. Countries celebrated for economic growth may perform poorly environmentally. Others, less visible on the global stage, emerge as ecological leaders because of stronger conservation policies or lower environmental damage.

But the EPI is only one lens.

More recently, researchers introduced a more focused Nature Conservation Index (NCI) — an attempt to specifically measure how well countries protect biodiversity and ecosystems. Unlike broader environmental rankings, the NCI looks more directly at habitat conservation, threats to species, land-use pressures, governance systems, and future ecological risks.

This distinction matters. A country may have good urban pollution control but still destroy forests. Another may generate renewable energy while severely damaging wetlands. Environmental protection is a complex web of interconnected systems.

Then there is the Living Planet Index, produced by World Wildlife Fund. This index does not mainly rank countries. Instead, it tracks wildlife populations across the planet. And its findings are sobering. Many species populations worldwide have shown dramatic declines over the past decades. The Living Planet Index functions almost like a planetary pulse monitor. It asks: Is life itself becoming richer or poorer?

Another globally influential system comes from the International Union for Conservation of Nature — better known through its famous Red List of threatened species. The Red List categorises plants and animals according to extinction risk: vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, and so on. When a species enters those categories, it becomes more than a scientific statistic. It becomes a warning signal about collapsing ecosystems.

Meanwhile, the Convention on Biological Diversity, linked to the United Nations, tracks biodiversity targets globally. Countries commit to goals involving protected areas, restoration, invasive species control, and ecosystem protection. These are not rankings in the conventional sense, but they form a vast international attempt to monitor humanity’s relationship with nature.

Why do all these measurements matter?

Because societies pay attention to what they measure.

Governments obsess over GDP growth because GDP is measured constantly. Investors track stock indices daily. Universities chase rankings. Sports teams live by points tables.

Environmental indicators attempt to bring the same discipline to ecological survival.

Without measurement, environmental destruction easily hides behind rhetoric. Governments can announce “green missions” while rivers die quietly. Corporations can advertise sustainability while their activities may lead ecosystems to degrade invisibly. Numbers are imperfect, but they create accountability.

And they also expose an uncomfortable truth: economic success and ecological wisdom are not always the same thing In fact, they are usually contrary..

Modern economies often reward extraction more than preservation. A forest cut down for mining can increase GDP immediately. A wetland converted into real estate may generate investment and jobs. Yet the ecological loss — biodiversity, groundwater recharge, carbon storage, flood protection — rarely appears in economic accounting.

India illustrates the challenge vividly. Few countries possess India’s ecological diversity — Himalayan ecosystems, rainforests, mangroves, coral reefs, deserts, grasslands, and rich wildlife habitats. At the same time, India faces immense developmental pressures: urbanisation, infrastructure expansion, industrialisation, mining, and rising consumption.

This creates difficult questions with no easy answers.

How much forest should be sacrificed for highways?

Can renewable energy projects damage fragile ecosystems?

How should tourism be balanced against biodiversity protection?

Every country now faces versions of these dilemmas.

That is why World Environment Day should perhaps evolve beyond symbolic tree-planting ceremonies and recycled slogans. The real environmental challenge is not whether humanity loves nature in theory. It is whether nations are willing to measure honestly what they are destroying, preserving, or restoring.

Nature conservation measures try to correct this blindness. Because ultimately, these indices are not really judging forests or rivers. They are judging us. They ask whether humanity is behaving like a responsible custodian of the planet — or merely a temporary consumer exhausting an inheritance built over millions of years.

And perhaps the most unsettling reality is this:

Nature does not care about our speeches, campaigns, or hashtags.

It responds only to actions.

–Meena