Author: millennialmatriarchs

International day of Happiness: Caring & Sharing

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In recent times there have been a number of articles about experiments/initiatives to create ‘safe’ places for GenZ achievers where they can simply meet others of their ilk, and as one piece put it “form communities of shared interests and ideas, far away from the superficial posing of the digital world”.   

It is thought provoking, and indeed saddening to read about these. Caught in the frenetic pace of a work culture where people feel they do not have the ‘luxury of time’ that they perceive friendship demands. As one person put it “Colleagues can never be your friends in a competitive space; besides you don’t want to see them in your private time and space”.  The frequent moves from job to job, even place to place, the “stress” of meeting targets, and the long hours spent in cyberspace where the screen is king, leave little time and energy for meaningful human interactions. There is a sense of isolation, leading to a precipitous plunge towards the ultimate act of giving up everything, including one’s own life. What a very sorry state of affairs. Such futility, such a waste of the best years of one’s life. “Burning out” at an age when they should be blossoming into vibrant human beings. 

I feel so blessed that I grew up, and came of age, in an age of friendship. A time when ‘Time’ was a gift freely given and shared between human beings, and not the ubiquitous screen. When families caught up on the day’s doings and happenings over the evening meal, talking face-to-face. When the school days ended with playing with neighbourhood friends at whose homes we were fed and pandered to, as they were in ours. Graduating to college where new friendships blossomed in canteens and bonded through bunked classes. College was indeed the cradle for what was later to be described as the ‘all-round development’ for which today there are Life Coaches. Not to forget a course offered at Yale University called Psychology and the Good Life which is basically about teaching college students how to be happy! A course that “teaches” that feelings of happiness are fostered through socialization, exercise, meditation and plenty of sleep!

A bigger reminder of how far away we have come from those days is the designation of an international day by the United Nations which is called the International Day of Happiness.

The idea for the International Day of Happiness was proposed by UN advisor Jayme Illien in 2011. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which recognised happiness as a “fundamental human goal” and called for “a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all peoples”.

In 2012 the first ever UN Conference on Happiness took place, and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which decreed that the International Day of Happiness would be observed every year on 20 March. The resolution was initiated by Bhutan, a country which recognized the value of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s and famously adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. All 193 United Nations member states have adopted the resolution calling for happiness to be given greater priority.

The day was celebrated for the first time in 2013. This day aims to highlight the importance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of people around the world. 

Every year, on this day, the United Nations publishes the World Happiness Report which explores the latest research on the importance of benevolence, empathy and trust as vital drivers of both individual and national happiness. It also announces the theme for the year.

The theme for the International day of Happiness 2025 is Caring and Sharing. This is a reminder that lasting happiness comes from caring for each other, feeling connected and being part of something bigger. The theme brought for me a flashback to my years of work in a workplace where this was the very theme that ran through every day of every year. I remember how this was also the name of the precious meeting space and time that the ‘girls’ called their own—one where, in addition to “theme sari days” there was an open and non-judgemental sharing of angst, anxiety, dilemmas and doubts, highs and lows, laughter and tears. This engendered a seamless blending of many generations, and the mutual caring and sharing that made our lives so rich. This was the ‘safe space’ where bonds were built; bonds that endure even when time and distance have separated us physically.  

A more inclusive gender-neutral space and time was the twice a day tea-table time. Tea table became the venue for easing in the newcomers; teasing and ribbing the old-timers; there were no hierarchies and no bosses. The agenda was whatever the mood of the table—sharing, admonishing, admiring, agonising and venting, and yes, laughing a lot.

It was an important support system in so many ways. After just 15 minutes, one returned to one’s desk feeling much better. You weren’t the only one who struggled to keep going as you juggled work and home; your child’s behaviour was not as worrisome as you imagined it was; and yes, in-laws happened to the best of us! It was not only about chit-chat and food; it was where serious discussions took place—about work and work culture; about the state of the world and the nation; about books read and films seen, people met and to be met. It was where so many “aha” moments happened. Above all it was a sense of sharing and caring that permeated.

It is sad that people today are craving such time and space, and above all the comfort of sharing and caring. It is sad that we need a reminder that the world is a better place when we connect and care about the people around us.

Many years before such a reminder became necessary, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt who was the President of the United States during the Great Depression and World War II shared these words of wisdom:

Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could have in your personal life and in your work; the ability to love others. Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people.

–Mamata

Ants and their Homes

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For every one of us, there are about 2.5 million of them. Yes, that’s how much ants out-number us. They inhabit every corner of the world other than Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and some islands.

We humans swing between appreciation of these insects for their qualities of team work and hard work, and irritation when they invade our homes or kitchens. The ants probably swing between the same two emotions—appreciation of the humans who feed them, and disapproval of clumsy or mean humans who step on them or kill them.

Beyond human approval or disapproval, ants have a huge role in the ecosystem. They serve as seed dispersers for plants, hosts for a wide range of associate organisms, and act as both predator and prey. The role of ants in nutrient decomposition and soil turnover is enormous–they are estimated to excavate up to 13 tons of soil per hectare annually and increase local nutrient availability by a significant order.  Moreover, they create and maintain of microhabitats for a variety of other organisms.

The subject of today’s piece is their homes. They make their homes in a variety of places, and these structures are made with an enormous amount of labour by thousands of the creatures working together.

Most species of ants are soil-nesters. Soil meets their needs for food, moisture and protection. Since these ants move a lot of soil in the process of building their nests, they provide a valuable service to the soil-based ecosystem they occupy by their tunnelling and de-compacting of the soil. Some soil nesting ants construct a simple nest with one vertical tunnel, which has branches on either side for ant food, eggs and larvae. But other ground nesting ants build elaborate below-ground galleries going several metres below ground, with a network of interlocking interconnecting tunnels.

Wood-nesting ants are the next category. Carpenter ants are the best examples of these. They nest in wood that is rotting, dead, dying, or with a high moisture content. The ants bore into the wood and make elaborate nests. They do not eat the wood but deposit the wood they bore outside the nest. While they usually build outdoors in trees, it is not unknown for them to build in wooden structural elements in our houses.

There is category of ants which are called opportunistic nesters. These will nest almost anywhere, including under rocks, concrete slabs, air conditioners, inside holes in walls etc.

Ant nest

A fourth category, which are most visible to us at the moment are arboreal ants which construct nests on trees using leaves. These light red ants Oecophylla smaragdina, popularly known as weaver ants, stitch together individual leaves using larval silk to form nesting cavities.  The nests are round-oval and use leaves of different sizes ranging from 8-32cm. About twenty leaves are used to make each nest. These ants are aggressive in defending their territories, and a colony may take over an entire tree with nests distributed throughout.   Incidentally, these ants, called “Rukkung” in Arunachal Pradesh, are consumed in various forms in some of the North-eastern states.. 

I see these every evening on my walks—the falling leaves in this season leave the trees bare, which make the nests very visible. And marvel at the intricacy of the nests and the hard work that goes into each of them. What wonders there are around us, if only we take a minute to look!

–Meena

Broken Frames, Broken Lives

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Today, each one of us harbours doubts and fears about the rapid rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI), smart robots, driverless cars etc., especially whether these will take away jobs from people and give them to machines.

This has happened with every new technology since the industrial revolution. Maybe the time of maximum anxiety around technology and jobs was in the late 1700s to early 1800s, a time when quite a few people in the UK depended on the cotton, wool and silk industries for their livelihoods. This was based on the labour of framework knitters, who like some of our weavers even today, worked in their own homes. Though the hours were long and they got small wages, they were at an equilibrium. 

In the early 1800s, there were around 30,000 knitting-frames in England. But change had already started to set in. Change of fashion (men moving from stockings to trousers) and increasing exploitation of weavers by the middlemen were two major factors. But perhaps the most important was the mechanization and wide-frame machines that were coming in to make production faster. Production moved from homes to factories with this mechanization.

As more and more people lost their livelihoods, anger and frustration boiled over, and mill-owners and the new machines were targeted. The scale of the sabotage that occurred in England between 1811 and 1816 was beyond anything seen before.  In the peak three months of the riots, 175 of these new frames were broken per month! The people involved in these riots and destruction called themselves ‘Luddites’. The origin of the name is not quite clear, but some said it was after Ned Ludd, a legendary weaver who in 1770 was supposed to have smashed such machines.

Governments then, as today, were heavy-handed. Their response to the riots was to pass the Frame-Breaking Bill in the House of Commons in February 1812. The Bill was drastic– it proposed transportation or the death penalty for those found guilty of breaking stocking or lace frames. Not everyone was happy with the draft Bill– in the House of Lords, the poet and social campaigner Lord Byron argued against it saying that it was placing the value of life at “something less than the price of a stocking-frame”.  But such passionate appeals did not help, and the Bill was passed.

The Government would have expected all such riots to stop after the Bill. But exactly the opposite happened. The riots actually became more violent and rioters started using arms. The logic was that if they were going to be punished by death or deporatation for breaking frames, then they might as well do something that really deserved such drastic measures. A popular rhyme at the time was “you might as well be hung for death as breaking a machine”. A few mill owners were in fact killed. Government response also got harsher and several Luddites were hanged.

The climax of the Luddite Rebellion took place at midnight on Friday 28 June 1816. Sixteen men raided the factory of Heathcoat and Lacy at Loughborough, with around 1000 sympathisers cheering them on.  They destroyed nearly all of the fifty-five lace-frames.  Subsequently eight men were sentenced to death and two were transported.

The protests died down after that. Mechanization marched on, and the thousands who were involved in their traditional occupation lost out.

Technology will come. But how do we make the changes so we can reduce the negative impacts? How do we make the world a more inclusive place? Surely we cannot let history repeat itself!

–Meena

Photo-credit: historicalbritain.org/

A Woman of Many Parts: Sarojini Naidu

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In a week when women are being celebrated, and their achievements extoled, it is fitting to remember that in every era of history, in every part of the world, there have been women who have broken boundaries and glass ceilings, and have excelled in numerous fields. This is a good week to celebrate a woman who combined seemingly contrary abilities, and played a significant role in several fields of endeavor. This is Sarojini Naidu.

Textbooks traditionally describe Sarojini Naidu as the Nightingale of India. But she was far more just a singer of songs. A poetess, patriot, fierce nationalist and freedom fighter, politician, eloquent orator, inspirer of masses, perfect hostess, and a feminist and firebrand leader in every sphere.

Sarojini was born on 13 February 1879 in a Bengali Brahmin family, the eldest of eight siblings. Somewhat of a prodigy, she entered the University of Madras at the age of 12; she composed 1000-line poems at 13. After graduating in 1895 with the highest rank, she was awarded a scholarship by the Nizam of Hyderabad, and she spent three years in England, studying at King’s College London, and later at Girton College in Cambridge. During this period she also became involved with the suffragist movement in England. She returned to India in 1898 and married Dr M Govindarajulu Naidu whom she had met in England, (the inter-caste marriage attracted opposition) when she was 19. By the age of 25, Sarojini was mother to four children. Her first major collection of poems was published when she was 26. She had literary fame, and a comfortable lifestyle in Hyderabad where she played the perfect hostess.But this was hardly a deterrent to what was to be an extremely active political life.

Sarojini and Gandhiji shared a special relationship. She had first met him in 1914 in London just as the First World War had broken out. That was the start of a long and close bonding between the two. Sarojini was one of the few who could joke about, and with, Gandhi (she nicknamed him Mickey Mouse!). The two exchanged witty repartees, and reproaches, which were totally free from malice. She could stand up to Gandhi and never hesitated to speak her mind. Yet she remained one of his staunchest supporters all her life, and revered him as a guru.

Sarojini Naidu was drawn to Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and in 1924 travelled across the world to spread the word about the movement. She was a sought after public speaker. In 1925 she became the first Indian President of the Indian National Congress. She was a front-line participant in the Independence movement. Her participation in the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement was deemed as ‘anti-British activity’ and she was imprisoned several times for this.

Sarojini Naidu believed that the nationalist cause could not be separated from the movement for women’s rights. She helped establish the Women’s Indian Association along with Annie Besant and a few others, in 1917, which championed women’s right to vote. The same year, along with Annie Besant she went to London to represent the case for women’s franchise before the Joint Select Committee.

She was elected to the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution of India. After India achieved independence on 15 August 1947, Sarojini Naidu was appointed governor of the United Provinces, making her the first woman governor in the country. She remained in the post until she passed away on 2 March 1949.

Sarojini Naidu’s contribution to the freedom movement and to the early years of our new republic was marked by her total dedication combined with her boundless energy and multi-faceted brilliance. This was summed up thus by her fellow freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru: She began life as a poet, in later years when the compulsion of events drew her into the national struggle, she plunged into it with all the zest and fire she possessed…. whose whole life became a poem and a song and who infused artistry and grace in the national struggle, just as Mahatma Gandhi had infused moral grandeur to it.

Despite her active political life Sarojini’s literary output was also prolific. She published several volumes of poetry, and held ‘salons’ which attracted an array of intellectuals. She led a hectic and productive life despite suffering from a variety of ailments throughout her life. Her zest for life was undiminished till the end, when she passed away at the relatively young age of 70.   As she wrote to her youngest child a few years earlier: One is not so concerned with a long life as with a ‘merry one’—merry as the sum of worthwhile, rich, full, interesting, and who can say that mine has not been and is not in that sense ‘merry’ as well as long?

On a more serious note, several years earlier when she was in Yervada jail, Sarojini wrote to her daughter Padmaja Naidu: In the course of a long and most variegated life I have learned one superlative truth…that the true measure of life and oneself lies not in the circumstances and events that fill its map but in one’s approach and attitude and acceptance of those things.

An inspiration, and a role model indeed!

–Mamata

Famous Women on the Wall: Happy Women’s Day

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This week we celebrate International Women’s Day.

It was in 1911 that IWD started being marked. A couple of decades after that was when something called the ‘Famous Women Dinner Set’ was commissioned. This was a set of 50 dinner plates depicting famous women down history.

Kenneth Clark (Baron Clark), the art-historian and museum director, commissioned these. (Those of an older vintage may remember the BBC serial ‘Civilization’ which discussed Western art, architecture and philopsophy. Though made in 1969, it was broadcast in India in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, and was one of the most popular art-history programmes in the world.)

Coming back to the dinner-plates, the artists given the commission were Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, of the famous Bloomsbury Group. This was the name given to a group of English writers, philosophers and artists who met between 1907 and 1930 in the Bloomsbury  district of London, the area around the British Museum , and discussed matters of art and philosophy.

It is said that Kenneth Clark got the idea of commissioning a special dinner service when he was dining off a historic blue-and-gold Sèvres service, originally made for Catherine the Great.

Kenneth and his wife did not interfere in any aspect of the creative work—what form or shape it would take, what pieces it would consist of, or even what it should portray.

In 1933 the work was completed, and after showing it to the Baroness, the artists presented the set of 50 plates to Kenneth Clark, who was probably quite surprised to see the result if his commission, because he thought he would be getting’…a wide ranging set of decorative crockery that included everything from soup tureens to mustard pots’

Picture from https://www.charleston.org.uk/event/famous-women-dinner-service

Vanessa and Duncan had selected 50 famous women down history—twelve each from four categories: Women of Letters (e.g George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, 10th-century Japanese poet Murasaki. Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Barrett Browning); Queens (including Catherine the Great, the Queen of Sheba, Elizabeth I, and Victoria); Beauties (among whom were Pocahontas and Helen of Troy); , and Dancers and Actresses (including Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry and Greta Garbo). That made 48 women. The last two plates portrayed the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The artists had hand painted beautiful portraits of their subjects on Wedgewood plates.

Though he was initially a bit confused with the dinner service, it seems that Baron Clark quite grew to like his plates. It is said that he used to select specific plates from the service for use for particular guests, depending on their interests, or to poke fun at their sensitivities.

The dinner set, after being sold and re-sold disappeared from view for some decades, but later re-surfaced. They are now housed in the Charleston Museum in the UK—the original home of Vanessa Bell.

Another major work of art involving women and dinner is ‘The Dinner Party’, a 1979 installation by Judy Chicago. This is a dinner table arranged with place settings for 39 mythical and historical women. They are seated around a triangular table. Though controversial, this is considered a classic of feminist art.

In India we do have portraits (paintings and photographs) of women. But they are outnumbered by artistic works down the ages which put females at the centre—the oldest probably being the Harappan Girl, going back to 1750 BC or thereabouts. From there, to all the art in temples, to Raja Ravi Verma and his goddesses and mythical women, to the controversial portrayals of MF Hussain, to women painted by Amrita Shergill, Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpana Caur, Bharathi Kher and others, which are all classics today.

May many more artists immortalize real women in their art. It is an apt tribute.

Happy Women’s Day!

–Meena

And thanks to all our readers on this, the anniversary of our blog! And all those whose encouragement and support keeps it going!

Missing People: The Village of Dolls

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It sounds like something out of an imaginary futuristic scenario. Entire countries with no young people, no babies being born, and the old dying out until finally there are entire countries without a human population. Incredibly, this is happening here and now. Many countries in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and East Asia are facing drastic declines in new births, even as the elderly population declines due to deaths. News reports say that the number of babies born in Japan in 2024 was the lowest since records began in 1899. The prospect of population extinction is becoming a reality in South Korea, which has been moving towards a childless society. Of the already dwindling population, young people are abandoning their rural homes and migrating to cities in search of work, leaving no workforce for agriculture and fishing. What will these abandoned villages look like?

There is a village in Japan which is an ironically graphic example of such a scenario. This is Nagoro, an isolated valley town on the Japanese island of Shikoku, the smallest and least visited of Japan’s four main islands. Originally populated by around 300 people, a few years ago only about two dozen old people remained. One of these old people was a father whose daughter moved back to the village to be with him. Tsukimi Ayano who had spent most of her life in Osaka moved back to the island in 2002. 

One of the things that Ayano did when she came back was to make a scarecrow (called kakashi in Japanese) that resembled her father to scare away the birds that were raiding the seeds that she planted on the family plot. In addition to keeping the birds away, Ayano liked that the scarecrow added a dash of something different in the deserted landscape. Having the time, and the skills, Ayano continued making these life-sized and life-like scarecrows for other people’s fields also. From scarecrows, Ayano moved on to making other figures. It became her hobby, and her pleasurable pastime. Initially she made the scarecrows for the fields; then she started making figures that resembled old neighbours who had passed away, or people who had moved away. Ayano felt that these gave her a sense of having some company. It was also a way of commemorating the erstwhile residents of the village, while infusing some spirit in their rapidly vanishing village.

These figures (she calls them ‘dolls’) soon began to populate different parts of the village. They were placed in people’s gardens, at bus stops, in village meeting places—depicted as being engaged in everyday tasks. Walking around the village one could see figures of construction workers installing a road sign, a fisherman on his porch with his daughter, a couple sitting on a river bank, all looking real and ‘ready for action’. After the village school closed down as there were no students, Ayano recreated a classroom with students and teachers, with two of the dolls wearing the same clothes as the last two students who had attended the school.

As she said “I just wanted people to enjoy looking at the dolls and I want to enjoy making them.” Ayano makes all the dolls herself using wooden slabs for the base, cotton clumps for the head and rolled newspapers for the ‘skeleton’ as well as straw and fabric. The dolls come to life with the unique facial expressions she gives each one, shaping the nose and the mouth, choosing the buttons for the eyes, and meticulously crafting the ears. Ayano wants to make sure that her kakashi can hear well!  She dresses them in clothes that, in many cases, belonged to the real characters, or are donated. It takes Ayano about three days to make a doll. Each doll has a life of two to three years as the natural materials weather quickly. Ayano tries to recycle as much of the material as she can, as she makes new dolls to replace the old ones.  

Ayano’s village of dolls Nagoro remained undiscovered and unknown until 2014 when a German filmmaker made a short documentary titled Valley of Dolls. This attracted global attention, and led to an influx of curious tourists to this remote island. Ayano personally felt that the film was dark and sad, whereas for her the process of creating the dolls is a joyous one, and the village itself is a now a curiously vibrant and animated place. Ayano’s acknowledgement of the filmmaker is his replica doll as a figure at a bus stop!

For Ayano these dolls are a celebration of life, not weird reminders of the past. In her mid-seventies now, Ayano continues to live in the village with its population that she has created and continues to nurture.

–Mamata

Advocate for Invertebrates: EO Wilson

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Call them spineless, or call them creepy crawlies! As Meena wrote this week, they make up a majority of the living things on earth, and yet they are largely unnoticed (unless of course one is stung by one, or has one creeping up your leg!) Invertebrates however have had their own champions. One of whom is EO Wilson that Meena has quoted as saying that “invertebrates don’t need us, we need them!”

This was indeed the case with EO Wilson one of the most distinguished and recognized American scientists in modern history. While he began his scientific career by specializing in the study of ants, Dr Wilson became an advocate for all species, particularly invertebrates, as essential to the health of the planet and people.

While his key discovery was the chemical by which ants communicate, EO Wilson spent the rest of his life also looking at the bigger picture of life on Earth. And so, to his lifelong fascination with ants, E. O. Wilson added a second passion: guiding humanity toward a more sustainable existence. He devoted his life to studying the natural world, and inspiring others to care for it as he did.

Edward Osborne Wilson was not just the world’s foremost authority on the study of ants (a myrmecologist!) but one of the founding fathers of, and leading expert in, biodiversity. His autobiography titled Naturalist traces his evolution as a scientist. Young Wilson knew early that he wanted to be scientist. A childhood accident left him with weak eyesight and hearing, so instead of studying animals and birds in the field, he concentrated on the miniature creatures such as ants and bugs that he could study right under his nose through a microscope. This was the perfect tool to spark a lifelong passion for insects.  I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.

As a schoolboy Wilson was not a great reader. But he claimed that one of the few books that he read from cover to cover was The Boy Scout Handbook. (I wrote about this in my recent piece Be Prepared!) It was the Boy Scouts which nurtured his early love for nature. As he once said: The Boy Scouts of America gave me my education.

His autobiography Naturalist also reveals how these first steps led to a lifelong journey of exploration and discovery which involved a mix of endeavour, random encounter, enthusiasm and opportunism. Underpinning all these was his sheer delight of the pursuit of knowledge. As he wrote about an expedition to Fiji in 1954:

Never before or afterward in my life have I felt such a surge of high expectation—of pure exhilaration—as in those few minutes. I know now that it was an era in biology closing out, when a young scientist could travel to a distant part of the world and explore entirely on his own. No team of specialists accompanied me and none waited at my destination, whatever I decided that was to be. Which was exactly as I wished it. I carried no high technology instruments, only a hand lens, forceps, specimen vials, notebooks, quinine, sulfanilamide, youth, desire and unbounded hope.      

Edward Osborne Wilson is widely considered one of the greatest natural scientists of our time. He is also credited for being the founding father of the branch of biology known as socio-biology and biodiversity. He was a pioneer in the efforts to preserve and protect the biodiversity of our planet and was instrumental in launching the Encyclopaedia of Life, a free online database documenting all 1.9 million species on Earth recognised by science.

In a tribute to his lifelong dedication to science, two species of organisms have been named after him. Myrmoderus ewolsoni, an antbird indigenous to Peru, and Miniopteru wilsoni, a long-fingered bat discovered in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. Wilson once told Scouting Magazine that being recognized in this way was an honour akin to being awarded a Nobel Prize because it’s such a rarity to have a true new species discovered.

EO Wilson was driven by the passion of guiding humanity toward a more sustainable existence. To do that, he knew he had to reach beyond the towers of academia and write for the public. He believed that one book would not suffice because learning requires repeated exposure. Thus he wrote several bestselling books that eloquently pleaded his case, while also providing facts and figures backed by solid research. His books On Human Nature and The Ants received the Pulitzer Prize.

While he remained a Harvard professor for 46 years, he was conferred with many accolades and honours by universities and organizations across the world. EO Wilson passed away on 26 December 2021 at the age of 92, leaving behind a legacy of conservation action that continues to inspire the global movement to end the threat of extinction.

In 2023, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) agreed to a Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) with a goal to maintain, enhance, and restore Earth’s natural ecosystems by 2030, halt human-induced extinction of known species, and by 2050, reduce the extinction rate tenfold and increase the abundance of native wild species to healthy and resilient levels. A key component to the GBF is a target to conserve at least 30 percent of land, seas, and freshwater by 2030 (known as “30×30”).

EO Wilson once wrote:

Looking at the totality of life, the Poet asks, who are Gaia’s children?

The Ecologist responds, they are the species. We must know the role each one plays in the whole order to manage Earth wisely.

The Systematist adds, then let’s get started. How many species exist? Where are they in the world? Who are their genetic kin?

EO Wilson was a rare combination of all three.

–Mamata

Spineless!

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Fountain of Bees, Rome

They make up over 90 per cent of life on earth.

There are about 1.3 million species of them.

They are found in every part of the world.

They range from one-fifth the thickness of a strand of your hair, to the 30 ft long giant squid.

These are the invertebrates—animals without a backbone. Why backbones, in fact, invertebrates don’t any bones at all! Invertebrates include ants, spiders, worms, snails, bees, butterflies, corals, lobsters, crabs…they are the spineless majority!

As the famous biologist EO Wilson put it, ‘Invertebrates don’t need us, we need invertebrates’.  Critically, they pollinate flowers, hence allowing plants to propagate so that there is food for all. They are at the base of all food-chains.  Humans also eat invertebrates—think crabs, lobsters etc. They maintain the ecological balance by eating each other and being eaten! Earthworms and some related creatures help dig up and aerate the soil, and make it fertile. They are important in another way too—most parasites are invertebrates!

All invertebrates are cold-blooded and about 80 per cent of them are terrestrial. Most of them undergo metamorphosis.

They fall into nine phyla, compared to vertebrates which all belong to one phylum.

In spite of their ubiquitous presence and the role they play in our lives, we don’t pay enough attention to these co-inhabitants of our world. For instance, while most countries have national animals or birds, few have national invertebrates. Exceptions include Denmark, which lists the Small Tortoiseshell as its national butterfly; Estonia which lists the Swallowtail; Finland which lists the Seven-spot Ladybird as its national insect and Latvia which has the Two-spot Ladybird for its. Several US states have State Insects, as does Karnataka (the honeybee). Many Indian states also have State Butterflies.

India is unique in that it has named a National Microbe—the Lactobacillus bulgaricus. This was done in 2012, based on a nation-wide completion. It was selected based on its importance in making yogurt or curd. Some US states also have State Microbes. The first state to declare an Official State Microbe was Oregon which chose brewer’s or baker’s yeast as the Official Microbe because of its importance to the craft beer industry there.

Designating such national and state symbols is important, given that we don’t focus enough on these creatures which make up about 95 per cent of all species on earth. Creating a buzz brings attention to them, hopefully leading to more studies and research, ensuring their well-being which is so critical to ours.

In order to increase awareness about invertebrates, last year the well-known British newspaper The Guardian started an ‘Invertebrate of the Year’ contest. This was confined to the UK. This year’s competition, the second of the series, has gone international. So any of us can send in a nomination for an invertebrate, along with reasons why we favour this particular one.

To give you an idea, last year’s winner was the earthworm, which was voted in with 38 per cent of the total votes. The least number of votes was garnered by the invasive Asian or yellow-legged hornet.

Surely you have an invertebrate you love or hate. This is your chance to put it on the world map. Submit your entries at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/12/nominate-your-invertebrate-species-of-the-year by midnight (GMT) on Tuesday 4 March.

–Meena

Be Prepared! World Thinking Day

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A recent mention of World Thinking Day to be marked on 22 February set me thinking! This was the first time I had heard about such a day, and I was curious about what lay behind it. There I discovered an unusual link to a collective that was very much a part of my life in my primary school days. This was the Scouts and Guides.

The history of this global movement goes back more than a hundred years. Robert Baden-Powell a military officer who had been in the Boer War organized an experimental camp in 1907 on Brownsea Island off the southern coast of England. The idea was to immerse young boys in activities aimed at developing in them various outdoor skills, chivalrous behavior and good citizenship. This was inspired by the military “scouts” in the army who were sent out to gather information, learn survival skills, and be prepared to help others.

Baden-Powell’s idea was that boys should organize themselves into small natural sub-groups of six or seven under a boy leader. They would be trained in all skills that would be required in camping–tracking and reconnaissance, mapping, signalling, knotting, and first aid.

The camp was a success. Following this, and based on his ideas for training boys, Baden-Powell published a book Scouting for Boys. The book became one of the bestsellers of the twentieth century. Thousands of boys began to join the Boy Scouts movement. To become a scout, a boy would promise to be loyal to his country, help other people, and in general obey the scout law, which was a simple code of chivalrous behaviour.

In 1909 Baden-Powell organized a Boy Scout rally in London. It was here that a small group of girls ‘gate crashed’! The girls had been secretly following the activities that their brothers did, and they demanded that there be something similar for girls. This was radical in a period when girls were expected to be docilely engaged in domestic tasks and ‘ladylike’ activities such as needlework and art. Baden-Powell was encouraging. He asked his sister, Agnes Baden-Powell, to help him with a girls’ organization and she became the first President of the Girl Guides. Working together, the two outlined programme ideas for girls, and later produced The Handbook for Girl Guides. Visitors to Britain were impressed by this and took the idea back to their own countries. By 1910 Guiding had started in Canada, Denmark, Finland and South Africa. Within the next two years it spread to Ireland, Holland, Sweden and the United States. The movement continued to spread across the world. The girls who joined acquired many skills. During World War I they made important contributions to war efforts including growing food, working in hospitals, factories and soup kitchens.

The First World Conference held in England, in 1920 was a historic occasion that gave representatives of the Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting world the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas and experiences and shape the future and direction of the Guiding and Scouting World. As the Movement grew and expanded, country representatives began to feel that it was time to create something more solid and binding and the idea of forming a world association was proposed after the 4th World Conference in 1926. The delegates from across the world also decided to create a special day for guides and girl scouts. They selected the joint birthday of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the scout and guide movement, and his wife Olave as appropriate to mark such a day. This was 22 February, and the day was to be called Thinking Day.

The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), was formed when Delegates from 26 countries met at the Fifth International Conference in Hungary in 1928. Its Secretariat was to be located in London.

The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts grew to become the largest voluntary Movement dedicated to girls and young women in the world, representing millions of girls and young women from 152 countries. Through innovative non-formal education programmes, leadership development, advocacy work and community action, the movement has empowered girls and young women to develop the skills and confidence needed to make positive changes in their lives, in their communities and countries.

India was not far behind in this movement. The Girl Guiding Movement was started by Dr Cullen in 1911. The Boy Scouts had been established in 1910. But at the time India was under colonial rule, and no Indian boys and girls were included in the movement till 1916. A number of different Guiding and scouting Associations were formed in the following years. In 1928 the All India Girl Guide Association was admitted as a founding member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). 1951 On 15 August 1951, the All India Girl Guide Association merged with the Bharat Scouts and Guides. Following the merger, the Girl Guide Association ceased to be a member of WAGGGS.

In the 1960s and 1970s Girl Guides and Boy Scouts were part of the extra-curricular school activities. I clearly remember that as a Bulbul (as the younger guides were called in India) I struggled with learning how to tie different kinds of knots. My dark-blue Bulbul uniform with epaulets, scarf, and a brown leather belt stayed with me for many years. I am not sure if Bulbuls still have a place in the myriad of extra-curricular activities that schools offer. Today the educational system advertises that it trains children in ‘life-skills’ and ‘global citizenship’. To my mind, Girl Guiding introduced these a century ago, along with the attributes of being a good human being. The essence of these are encapsulated in its Motto: Be Prepared. And elaborated in the nine points of Guide Law: A Guide is trustworthy; A Guide is loyal; A Guide is a friend to all and a sister to every other guide; A Guide is courteous; A Guide is a friend to animals and loves nature; A Guide is disciplined and protects public property; A Guide is courageous; A Guide is thrifty; A Guide is pure in thought, word and deed.

As we approach the centenary of World Thinking Day, 22 February is a good day to reflect on these simple but powerful tenets. It is also a day to celebrate friendship, sisterhood, and empowerment, as also to take action to speak out for the millions of girls who, even today, do not have an equal voice, nor the opportunity to Be Prepared. 

–Mamata

The Other Kumbh

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The town of Kumbakonam in Tamilnadu has a hoary history. It is supposed to be the cradle of life of this yug, namely the Kali Yug. Each yug ends with a pralayam or flood which leads to the destruction of all living beings on the earth. When the last yug was about to end, Brahma put the seeds of all living organisms as well as the Vedas and Puranas, in a pot called the Amrita Kalasam or Kumbham (pot of nectar).

The pot was befittingly decorated with flowers, leaves, ausipicious cloth, sandalwood paste and a sacred thread. The Kumbham’s mouth was stopped with a coconut and it was placed on the top of mount Meru.

When the floods came, they destroyed all creatures on earth. The Kumbham prepared by Brahma was displaced, and floated on the flood waters for years and years. Finally, it settled at a spot considered to be present-day Kumbakonam.

But the seeds had to be released in order for life to start again on earth. Siva, in the guise of a hunter, discharged an arrow from His bow, breaking open the pot. The seeds of life and the Vedas and puranas in the pot were scattered around, and thus life on earth re-started.

And this spot is the site of the other great Kumbh festival. The place where the pot broke and the contents flowed out–Mahamaham kulam (tank) is where the Mahamaham festival is celebrated.  

While Masimaham is an annual event that occurs and thousands of people gather for a dip during this time, it takes on special significance once in twelve years. For it is believed that every 12 years, when Jupiter passes over Leo, the waters of all of India’s holiest rivers, including the Ganges, flow into the tank, and it is at this time that the Kumbh mela of South India is celebrated at the Mahamaham tank. Since it is believed that all the rivers of India meet at the tank on this day, a bath here is considered equal to the combined dips in all the holy rivers of India! Over 10 lakh people congregate here for the event.

Kumbakonam, meaning ‘pot’s corner’ to remind us of where the pot-of-life landed, is considered a very holy place. There are any number of ancient temples in and around the town—there is a temple wherever any shard of the pot landed. In all, there are around 188 temples within the municipal limits of Kumbakonam!

The region around Kumbakonam was inhabited as early as the Sangam Age (third century BC to third century AD), and it has played its role in the history of the region.

Down the passage of time, Kumbakonam has been a major learning center. During the British times, it was referred to as the “Cambridge of the South” with several institutions of repute, the most notable of them being the Government Arts College, considered one of the oldest colleges in Tamil Nadu. The town is home to many libraries and is considered the hub of modern Tamil writing.

Kumbakonam, relative to its size, is associated with more than its share of great achievers, including:

Srinivasa Ramanujam, the world-famous mathematician was born here and studied here. After a stint in Chennai, he went to Cambridge where he shook the world of mathematics with his uncanny understanding of numbers.

MS Swaminathan, the agricultural scientist who saved India from food-crisis and laid the foundation for food-security in our country.

Indira Parthasarathy, a Padma Shri awardee and reputed Tamil novelist whose works have been translated into many world languages.

Srinivasa Sastry, dubbed the Silver Tounged Orator of the British Empire by Winston Churchill, who played a prominent role in the Independence struggle and was an educator and administrator of repute.

2028 will see the next Mahamagam in Kumbakonam. Over 20 lakh people are expected to participate. But don’t wait till then to visit this town—it has so much to offer.

-Meena

Dedicated to Malathi Athai, whose house in Kumabakonam is the site of the most cherished memories of summer vacations.