Category: Meena Raghunathan

The Bee’s Knees and Other Curious Creatures of Language

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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

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

Jack de Sequeira: The Man Who Helped Goa Choose Its Own Future

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In the story of modern India, there are some leaders whose influence stretches far beyond the offices they held or the elections they won. They altered the direction of history itself. One such figure was Jack de Sequeira — often remembered as the “Father of the Opinion Poll” in Goa.

At a time when the newly liberated territory of Goa stood at a crossroads, Jack de Sequeira championed something radical for the era: the right of ordinary people to decide their political future directly. His efforts culminated in the historic Goa Opinion Poll of 1967 — the only referendum-like exercise ever conducted in independent India on a major political merger question. Its consequences continue to shape Goa’s culture, language, identity, and politics even today.

Goa After Liberation: A Question of Identity

When Indian forces ended Portuguese colonial rule in Goa in December 1961, the region entered a completely new political reality. Goa, along with Daman and Diu, became a Union Territory of India. But soon another question emerged: should Goa remain distinct, or should it merge with neighbouring Maharashtra?

The merger proposal was not merely administrative. It involved deeper questions of language, culture, identity, and history. Many leaders in Maharashtra argued that Goa’s Konkani-speaking population shared cultural ties with Marathi-speaking Maharashtra and should therefore be integrated into it.

But others feared that Goa’s unique identity — shaped by centuries of interaction between Indian and Portuguese traditions — would disappear within a much larger state.

This was the moment when Jack de Sequeira emerged as a defining voice.

The Rise of a Reluctant Hero

Born in 1915 in Portuguese Goa, Jack de Sequeira was not a fiery revolutionary in the conventional sense. He was measured, thoughtful, and deeply democratic in temperament. Yet beneath that calm exterior was remarkable political courage.

He founded and led the United Goans Party, which became the principal force opposing Goa’s merger with Maharashtra. At the time, this was not an easy or universally popular stand. Powerful political groups supported merger, including influential sections of the ruling establishment.

But Sequeira argued that Goa possessed its own cultural personality — expressed through Konkani language, local traditions, village institutions, architecture, cuisine, music, and social life.

Today this argument may sound obvious. In the 1960s, it was fiercely contested.

The Historic Opinion Poll

Rather than allowing politicians alone to decide Goa’s fate, Jack de Sequeira demanded that the people themselves should choose.

This was a bold democratic idea. Independent India had never before conducted a public vote of this nature on whether a territory should merge with another state.

After intense political campaigning and negotiations, the Government of India agreed. On January 16, 1967, Goa held the historic Opinion Poll.

Voters were asked a straightforward question:
Should Goa merge with Maharashtra, or remain a separate Union Territory?

The campaign was emotional, passionate, and deeply personal for many Goans. Villages debated the issue intensely. Families argued over it. Public meetings drew huge crowds.

Jack de Sequeira became the symbolic face of the anti-merger movement. His speeches often emphasised dignity, self-respect, and the importance of preserving Goa’s individuality.

When the votes were counted, the anti-merger side won decisively.

Goa would remain separate. The Opinion Poll permanently altered Goa’s trajectory.

Saving Konkani and Goan Identity

The Opinion Poll strengthened the long campaign for recognition of Konkani as a distinct language rather than merely a dialect of Marathi. Decades later, Konkani would gain official recognition in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

Equally important, Goa retained a political structure that allowed local culture to flourish on its own terms. Its distinctive blend of Indian and Lusophone heritage survived not as a museum piece, but as a living social reality. (BTW, Lusophone refers to any person, country, or community that speaks the Portuguese language. Derived from the ancient Roman province of Lusitania (roughly modern-day Portugal), the term is also used as an adjective (Lusophone Africa) or to describe the global Portuguese-speaking culture and community –the “Lusophone world”.)

Many Goans today — whether Catholic, Hindu, urban, rural, Konkani-speaking, English-speaking, or Marathi-speaking — continue to see the Opinion Poll as a foundational moment.

A Legacy Larger Than Politics

Jack de Sequeira later served in Parliament and remained respected across political divides. But his greatest legacy was not electoral success. It was helping a small territory articulate confidence in its own identity.

Interestingly, his leadership style contrasts sharply with modern political culture. He was not known for theatrical populism or aggressive rhetoric. Instead, he relied on persuasion, consensus-building, and democratic principle.

That may partly explain why his memory still carries unusual moral weight in Goa.

Today roads, institutions, and memorials honour him. Yet perhaps the most enduring tribute is Goa itself — a state that still retains a distinct cultural voice within India.Top of Form

Any time you visit Goa, don’t forget to give thanks to him—Goa is what it is today because of him!

And as the debate about the identify, administration and control of Ladakh are ongoing, it is a good time to remind ourselves of how we handled such situations in the past.

–Meena

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In the story of modern India, there are some leaders whose influence stretches far beyond the offices they held or the elections they won. They altered the direction of history itself. One such figure was Jack de Sequeira — often remembered as the “Father of the Opinion Poll” in Goa.

At a time when the newly liberated territory of Goa stood at a crossroads, Jack de Sequeira championed something radical for the era: the right of ordinary people to decide their political future directly. His efforts culminated in the historic Goa Opinion Poll of 1967 — the only referendum-like exercise ever conducted in independent India on a major political merger question. Its consequences continue to shape Goa’s culture, language, identity, and politics even today.

Goa After Liberation: A Question of Identity

When Indian forces ended Portuguese colonial rule in Goa in December 1961, the region entered a completely new political reality. Goa, along with Daman and Diu, became a Union Territory of India. But soon another question emerged: should Goa remain distinct, or should it merge with neighbouring Maharashtra?

The merger proposal was not merely administrative. It involved deeper questions of language, culture, identity, and history. Many leaders in Maharashtra argued that Goa’s Konkani-speaking population shared cultural ties with Marathi-speaking Maharashtra and should therefore be integrated into it.

But others feared that Goa’s unique identity — shaped by centuries of interaction between Indian and Portuguese traditions — would disappear within a much larger state.

This was the moment when Jack de Sequeira emerged as a defining voice.

The Rise of a Reluctant Hero

Born in 1915 in Portuguese Goa, Jack de Sequeira was not a fiery revolutionary in the conventional sense. He was measured, thoughtful, and deeply democratic in temperament. Yet beneath that calm exterior was remarkable political courage.

He founded and led the United Goans Party, which became the principal force opposing Goa’s merger with Maharashtra. At the time, this was not an easy or universally popular stand. Powerful political groups supported merger, including influential sections of the ruling establishment.

But Sequeira argued that Goa possessed its own cultural personality — expressed through Konkani language, local traditions, village institutions, architecture, cuisine, music, and social life.

Today this argument may sound obvious. In the 1960s, it was fiercely contested.

The Historic Opinion Poll

Rather than allowing politicians alone to decide Goa’s fate, Jack de Sequeira demanded that the people themselves should choose.

This was a bold democratic idea. Independent India had never before conducted a public vote of this nature on whether a territory should merge with another state.

After intense political campaigning and negotiations, the Government of India agreed. On January 16, 1967, Goa held the historic Opinion Poll.

Voters were asked a straightforward question:
Should Goa merge with Maharashtra, or remain a separate Union Territory?

The campaign was emotional, passionate, and deeply personal for many Goans. Villages debated the issue intensely. Families argued over it. Public meetings drew huge crowds.

Jack de Sequeira became the symbolic face of the anti-merger movement. His speeches often emphasised dignity, self-respect, and the importance of preserving Goa’s individuality.

When the votes were counted, the anti-merger side won decisively.

Goa would remain separate. The Opinion Poll permanently altered Goa’s trajectory.

Saving Konkani and Goan Identity

The Opinion Poll strengthened the long campaign for recognition of Konkani as a distinct language rather than merely a dialect of Marathi. Decades later, Konkani would gain official recognition in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

Equally important, Goa retained a political structure that allowed local culture to flourish on its own terms. Its distinctive blend of Indian and Lusophone heritage survived not as a museum piece, but as a living social reality. (BTW, Lusophone refers to any person, country, or community that speaks the Portuguese language. Derived from the ancient Roman province of Lusitania (roughly modern-day Portugal), the term is also used as an adjective (Lusophone Africa) or to describe the global Portuguese-speaking culture and community –the “Lusophone world”.)

Many Goans today — whether Catholic, Hindu, urban, rural, Konkani-speaking, English-speaking, or Marathi-speaking — continue to see the Opinion Poll as a foundational moment.

A Legacy Larger Than Politics

Jack de Sequeira later served in Parliament and remained respected across political divides. But his greatest legacy was not electoral success. It was helping a small territory articulate confidence in its own identity.

Interestingly, his leadership style contrasts sharply with modern political culture. He was not known for theatrical populism or aggressive rhetoric. Instead, he relied on persuasion, consensus-building, and democratic principle.

That may partly explain why his memory still carries unusual moral weight in Goa.

Today roads, institutions, and memorials honour him. Yet perhaps the most enduring tribute is Goa itself — a state that still retains a distinct cultural voice within India.Top of Form

Any time you visit Goa, don’t forget to give thanks to him—Goa is what it is today because of him!

And as the debate about the identify, administration and control of Ladakh are ongoing, it is a good time to remind ourselves of how we handled such situations in the past.

–Meena

Nature’s Rule-Breakers: Flora and Fauna That Refuse to Behave “Normally”

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When we are children, nature is explained to us in neat categories. Birds fly. Fish swim. Spiders spin webs. Plants make food from sunlight and quietly stay rooted in place. Mammals give birth to live young.

And then, slowly, nature begins to reveal its mischievous side.

A spider hunts like a tiger instead of spinning a web. A fish walks on land. A plant eats insects. A mammal lays eggs. A mushroom traps worms. The more one studies biology, the more one realises that evolution has very little respect for the tidy boxes humans create.

Take the Huntsman spider, for instance. Most of us imagine spiders as patient architects sitting in intricate webs, waiting for prey to blunder in. The huntsman spider does something entirely different. It stalks and ambushes prey, relying on speed and agility rather than silken traps. In many ways, it behaves more like a tiny leopard than a conventional spider.

It is not alone.

The Jumping spider has remarkably sharp vision and leaps onto prey with astonishing precision. The Wolf spider actively chases its victims across the ground. The Trapdoor spider lives in underground burrows and springs out like an ambush attacker in a war film.

These creatures remind us that even within a single group, evolution can produce wildly different lifestyles.

Then there are mammals — supposedly the most familiar class of animals to humans. Mammals, we are taught, give birth to live young. Except some do not.

The Platypus looks as though it was assembled from spare parts: duck bill, otter feet, beaver tail — and it lays eggs, and it is a mammal! The male even has venomous spurs. Its cousin, the Short-beaked echidna, also lays eggs despite being a mammal covered in fur.These monotremes are evolutionary oddities, survivors from a far older branch of mammalian history. If they were discovered as fossils rather than living creatures, many scientists might have assumed them to be fictional hybrids.

Birds, too, refuse to follow the script.

We instinctively associate birds with flight, yet the Ostrich abandoned the skies to become the world’s fastest running bird. The Penguin transformed wings into underwater flippers and effectively “flies” through the sea instead of air. The Kiwi of New Zealand behaves almost like a nocturnal mammal, shuffling through forests at night with a powerful sense of smell.

And some creatures seem unable to decide whether they belong on land or in water. The Mudskipper spends large amounts of time outside water, “walking” across mudflats using its fins. The Walking catfish can wriggle across land between ponds. The Climbing perch survives out of water for surprisingly long periods.

Plants provide perhaps the most startling examples of all because we rarely think of them as active or predatory. The Venus flytrap snaps shut on insects with startling speed. Pitcher plant species lure prey into liquid-filled traps where victims drown and decompose. The Sundew uses sticky tentacles to ensnare insects. The underwater Bladderwort employs tiny vacuum traps. These carnivorous plants evolved in nutrient-poor soils where ordinary plant life struggled. Instead of relying solely on the earth for nourishment, they turned to meat.

Some plants go further still and become outright thieves. The parasitic Dodder wraps itself around other plants and steals nutrients directly from them. The Indian pipe is ghostly white because it lacks chlorophyll almost entirely.

Even fungi refuse to stay within expectations. Certain fungi trap microscopic worms using tiny snares and digest them alive. The common Oyster mushroom can behave like a microscopic predator. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis goes a step further, infecting ants and manipulating their behaviour before killing them in locations ideal for fungal growth.

Nature’s rebels are not limited to these. The Electric eel generates electricity powerful enough to stun prey. The Leaf sheep, a tiny sea slug, steals chloroplasts from algae and briefly becomes “solar-powered.” The New Caledonian crow manufactures tools, while the Naked mole-rat lives in colonies resembling ant societies, complete with a queen.

The deeper one looks into nature, the clearer it becomes that “normal” is mostly a human invention. Evolution does not work toward ideals or categories. It experiments endlessly. If a strange adaptation improves survival — whether that means a spider abandoning webs, a fish walking on land, or a plant eating insects — nature keeps it.

In fact, these biological rebels may teach us the most important lesson of all: survival often belongs not to the strongest or fastest, but to the adaptable, the unconventional, and the creatures willing to break the rules.

–Meena

Pic: Hunstman spider, Meena Raghunathan

State Vs. Plate: India’s Long History of Food and Consumption Restrictions

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent appeal asking citizens to avoid unnecessary foreign travel, cut discretionary fuel use, postpone non-essential purchases, and embrace restraint in consumption has revived an old Indian political tradition: the call for austerity in moments of uncertainty. The appeal, made in the context of global tensions and fears over fuel and supply disruptions linked to West Asia, was framed as a precautionary economic measure.

By no means is this new. India has heard such calls before.

Since Independence, governments across political ideologies — Congress, socialist coalitions, Janata regimes, and even regional administrations — have periodically attempted to regulate what people eat, how much they consume, how lavishly they celebrate, and even how many guests they invite. Sometimes these restrictions emerged from genuine shortages. Sometimes they reflected wartime economies. Sometimes they were moral projects tied to ideas of discipline, simplicity, Gandhian restraint, or anti-elitism. And at times, they became deeply political.

The Era of Scarcity: Rationing and Food Controls

In the first decades after Independence, India was a food-deficit country. Grain shortages, droughts, foreign exchange crises, and dependence on imports shaped policy thinking.

The ration card became one of the defining documents of Indian life. Urban Indians especially grew up in a world of controlled sugar, kerosene, rice, and wheat distribution. The Essential Commodities Act of 1955 empowered governments to regulate production, storage, transport, and distribution of key goods.

This was not merely administrative economics; it shaped everyday culture.

Families planned meals around availability. Weddings became simpler in drought years. Restaurants faced restrictions on serving certain foods. In many states, governments imposed “rice control orders” limiting movement and stocking of grains. Hoarding and black marketing became criminal offences.

During severe shortages in the 1960s, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri famously urged Indians to skip one meal a week. “Monday fasts” became a patriotic exercise in many households. Restaurants in several cities reportedly shut on Monday evenings in support of the campaign.

The symbolism mattered as much as the economics. Food restraint was projected as national duty.

Wedding Restrictions: When the State Counted Your Guests

Perhaps the most striking example of state intervention in private consumption came through attempts to regulate weddings.

India’s long-standing anxiety over “wasteful expenditure” often found weddings at the centre of policy debates. Lavish feasts were criticised not only as economic excess but also as drivers of social inequality.

The most famous attempt came during the Emergency (1975–77), when the government imposed restrictions on the number of guests and dishes at weddings in several places. Though implementation varied across states and districts, stories abound of officials inspecting marriage halls and counting attendees.

Even outside the Emergency, states periodically experimented with controls:

  • Limits on the number of dishes served.
  • Restrictions on use of electricity and lighting during shortages.
  • Curbs on late-night celebrations.
  • Controls on loudspeakers.
  • Taxes or permissions for large gatherings.

In the 1970s and 1980s, “simple marriage” campaigns were encouraged by politicians and social reformers alike. Government employees in some sectors were informally encouraged to avoid extravagant ceremonies.

These debates continue today in different forms. Environmental concerns, food wastage, traffic congestion, and conspicuous consumption have all entered the conversation.

Ironically, Indian weddings evolved in the opposite direction. Liberalisation in the 1990s transformed them into giant economic ecosystems involving tourism, fashion, catering, décor, jewellery, entertainment, and destination hospitality.

The “Big Fat Indian Wedding” became both aspiration and industry.

Meatless Days and Regulating Food Habits

Food restrictions in India have rarely been only about economics. They are also about morality, religion, and identity.

Across decades, many Indian cities and states have periodically imposed bans on slaughter or meat sales during religious festivals.

These restrictions reveal a deeper Indian tension: food is intensely personal, but also intensely political.

The Anti-Waste Moral Economy

A recurring theme across Indian public life is the suspicion of conspicuous consumption.

During crises — wars, droughts, inflationary periods, oil shocks — governments often invoke the language of sacrifice.

In the 1970s oil crisis, many countries experimented with fuel-saving measures. India too promoted conservation campaigns. More recently, during COVID-19 lockdowns, public messaging encouraged minimal movement, reduced fuel consumption, and simplified social ceremonies.

The latest appeal by the Prime Minister fits into this long tradition. Public reactions, unsurprisingly, have been mixed.

On social media, some users compared the moment to earlier periods of austerity and wartime discipline, while others questioned whether ordinary citizens should bear the burden of global crises. Online discussions reflected anxieties about fuel prices, inflation, work culture, and economic uncertainty. (reddit.com)

This duality is very Indian.

The State vs The Plate

India’s relationship with food control differs from many Western democracies because food here is not merely nutrition or commerce. It intersects with caste, religion, region, language, ecology, and politics.

At the same time, the Indian state has historically justified intervention using three broad arguments:

  1. Scarcity management.
  2. Social reform.
  3. Public morality.

The justification changes with the era.

In the 1960s it was famine anxiety. In the 1970s it was socialism and anti-elitism. In the 1990s it became public order and urban governance. Today it is often linked to sustainability, nationalism, health, or cultural identity.

What Restrictions Reveal About India

Food and guest restrictions may appear trivial compared to constitutional politics or macroeconomics. Yet they reveal something fundamental about India.

They show how deeply the state has historically engaged with everyday life.

They also reveal a persistent belief among governments that national crises require behavioural change from citizens — not just policy change from institutions.

Whether it was Shastri’s appeal to skip meals, Emergency-era guest limits, anti-hoarding drives, meat bans during festivals, or recent calls to reduce consumption amid global uncertainty, the underlying message has remained similar:

Private behaviour is seen as part of public national discipline.

India may change governments, ideologies, and economic models — but the debate over what citizens should eat, spend, serve, celebrate, or conserve never quite disappears.

A crisis leads to innovation and change. If this debate can lead to a re-think on the obscenely lavish weddings which have become the norm, it may be one of the good things to come out of this situation

–Meena.

Pic: BBC

The First Electrical Voting Machine

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With election-fever and results-fever just abating, one the of the topics of discussion has of course been the controversial EVM—Electronic Voting Machine.

Where did it all start? Surprisingly with Edison—yes he of the light bulb fame.

In 1869, Thomas Edison patented what is widely regarded as the first electrical voting machine—an invention designed to automate and speed up vote counting. This was his very first patent–U.S. Patent 90,646 granted on June 1, 1869. It was s designed to allow legislators to vote “yes” or “no” using a switch that sent signals to a central board,

Edison’s vote recorder was technically sound. By all accounts, it worked exactly as intended. But when he demonstrated it to legislators in Washington, D.C., they turned it down. Not because it was flawed—but because it was too efficient.

At the time, voting in legislatures was a slow, deliberate process. Delays were not bugs; they were features. They allowed for persuasion, negotiation, and, frankly, political maneuvering. A machine that eliminated delay also eliminated strategy. Edison would later reflect that this rejection taught him a lasting lesson: invent only what people are ready to use. The vote recorder’s rejection wasn’t about engineering; it was about human systems resisting change.

Edison’s Curious Patent Portfolio

Edison went on to file over a thousand patents, many of them transformative, some delightfully obscure. Alongside world-changing inventions like the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph, there were also lesser-known creations: an electric pen for duplicating documents, a system for preserving fruit, even ideas for concrete furniture.

Some succeeded because they met an immediate need. Others failed because the ecosystem—technological, social, or economic—wasn’t ready. But probably sowed the seeds for many a current-day device.

The Slow March Toward Voting Machines

Despite Edison’s early setback, the idea of mechanizing voting didn’t disappear. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mechanical voting machines began appearing in the United States. These lever-based systems aimed to reduce fraud and standardize ballot counting.

Over time, technology evolved. Punch-card systems—infamously remembered from the 2000 United States presidential election, introduced new efficiencies, along with new vulnerabilities. Hanging ‘chads’ became part of vocabulary, illustrating how even small technical flaws could undermine trust.

By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, electronic voting machines (EVMs) emerged as the next step. These ranged from Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems to optical scan ballots and, more recently, hybrid systems with paper audit trails.

Trust, Technology, and Tension

Electronic voting systems around the world have sparked debate. Critics raise concerns about hacking, lack of transparency, and the difficulty of verifying results independently. Supporters counter that well-designed systems are more accurate and less prone to human error than paper ballots.

Countries have taken different paths. While Brazil has widely adopted electronic voting, others like Germany have rolled back its use, citing constitutional concerns about transparency. The Netherlands and Ireland have also stepped away from electronic systems after public and political pushback.

Even within the United States, practices vary widely by state, reflecting a broader unease about balancing efficiency with trust.

India and the EVM

Few countries have embraced electronic voting as extensively as India. Introduced on a large scale by the Election Commission of India, EVMs were designed to tackle logistical challenges: vast electorates, difficult terrains, and the need for rapid, reliable counting.

Indian EVMs are standalone devices, not connected to the internet, which proponents argue makes them more secure. The addition of VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) systems is supposed to strengthen transparency by allowing voters to confirm their choices.

And yet, controversies and fears persist.

The Real Lesson: Technology Isn’t Neutral

Edison’s failed vote recorder reminds us of something we often forget: technology does not exist in a vacuum. It interacts with human behaviour, institutional norms, and political incentives.

Voting, perhaps more than any other civic act, depends not just on accuracy but on perceived legitimacy. A system can be technically flawless and still fail if people don’t trust it. The technical aspects may work fine, but is it still corruptible when the system itself is corrupt?

In that sense, the story comes full circle.

Edison built a machine to make voting faster. Lawmakers rejected it because speed threatened the very nature of their process. More than a century later, we are still grappling with the same tension—between efficiency and trust, innovation and acceptance.

The question is no longer whether we can build better voting machines. It is whether societies are ready to believe in them.

And if Edison were around today, he might recognise the problem instantly.

–Meena

Pic: https://edison.rutgers.edu/life-of-edison/inventions

Shades of a Purple Summer

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

The Indian summer is when our trees put up the most spectacular flower shows. Flame of the Forest—Butea monosperma whose flowers arrive in blazing orange. Different in tone, is the gulmohar—Delonix regia, with its wide, umbrella-like canopy and bright red blooms. The golden counterpart to these reds is the amaltas—Cassia fistula. Long cascades of yellow flowers hang down in late spring and early summer. The ubiquitous neem–Azadirachta indica has small white flowers which are easy to miss, but their scent. And they are an important part of New Year celebrations in many states.

Among all these are the purples. Three of them are commonly seen–the Pride of India, the loosely termed Indian Princess Tree, and the jacaranda form a quiet sequence of lilac and violet. Less flamboyant, but with gravitas.

The Pride of India or Lagerstroemia speciosa, is both widespread and rooted. Native to the subcontinent, it thrives across peninsular and eastern India, and is deliberately planted in northern cities. It is a familiar presence along older avenues, institutional campuses, and residential roads—part of an earlier approach to urban planting that valued seasonal change as much as shade.

It flowers in dense clusters of lilac, mauve, and pink when most trees recede. The effect is immediate. A single tree can alter the look of a street. The name reflects thatm rather than any scientific classification—an attempt to capture abundance and presence.

After flowering, it produces dry capsules that split open to release light, winged seeds, dispersed by wind. The process is largely unnoticed but effective, allowing the tree to regenerate in suitable conditions. Its flowers attract insects; in turn, birds move through its branches while foraging. Species such as the Red-vented Bulbul and Common Myna are frequent visitors, while others use it as a perching and nesting site, especially in dense urban areas where such cover is limited. In peak summer, its canopy becomes a resting space—shade functioning as habitat.

There is another layer to its presence. The leaves of Lagerstroemia speciosa—often called banaba—are used in traditional medicine, particularly in managing Type 2 Diabetes. They are associated with blood sugar regulation, as well as anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. This makes the tree unusual among urban ornamentals: it is not only seen and inhabited, but also used.

The Indian Princess Tree, often linked to Paulownia tomentosa, sits less comfortably in place. Despite the name, it is not native to India and is only sporadically seen—mainly in cooler hill regions or curated landscapes. The “Indian” prefix reflects randomness in naming rather than origin.

Its appeal lies in its restraint. Pale violet flowers, broader leaves, and a more open form create a softer effect than the Pride of India. The “princess” is probably drawn from this visual delicacy.

Its biology, however, is less restrained. After flowering, it produces capsules filled with thousands of fine, papery seeds, designed for long-distance wind dispersal. Given open ground and the right climate, these seeds germinate quickly. The tree grows fast, which explains both its horticultural appeal and its reputation, in some regions, as invasive. In India, its presence fortunately remains controlled and limited.

Ecologically, it plays a lighter role, probably because it is non-native. Its flowers attract insects, and birds may use it for cover or occasional nesting, but it is not a significant food source.

Between these two sits the Jacaranda—Jacaranda mimosifolia—not native, but now visually embedded in cities such as Bengaluru. Its lavender-blue flowers arrive earlier, often bridging spring and summer. For a brief period, roads are edged and sometimes carpeted with fallen blooms, before other trees come into flower.

Jacaranda’s role is largely aesthetic, but not only. Its spreading canopy provides filtered shade, and like the others, its flowering attracts insects, drawing in birds that follow.

Together, these trees complicate their own names. One is called “of India” and is largely at home. One is called “Indian” and is not. One carries no such label and yet feels entirely part of the Indian landscape. Naming suggests belonging; ecology tells a more precise story.

These three trees also differ in how they are encountered. The Pride of India tends to define a street, its flowering visible from a distance. The Princess Tree, where it appears, is noticed more gradually—through proximity, through shade. Jacaranda sits between the two, its colour spreading outward, often first seen on the ground before it is traced back to the tree.

What they share is timing. Each blooms when the landscape offers little else. Their flowering is staggered, creating a sequence rather than a single event. Jacaranda fades as the Pride of India strengthens; elsewhere, other species take over. The effect is not continuous bloom, but continuity of change.

In older Indian neighbourhoods especially in Bangalore, such trees point to a different planning logic. Streets were planted not just for shade but for variation—for shifts in colour, density, and light across months. As urban density increases and tree cover becomes more functional than expressive, these older plantings remain as records of that intent.

A shift in colour. A canopy that briefly interrupts heat. And, overhead, a dry capsule opening—unseen, but already carrying the next season forward. That is the Indian summer.

–Meena

When Prizes Change the World: What Innovation Contests Teach Us (and Why India Should Care)

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Most prizes are given to those who have already changed the world: the Nobel, the Magsaysay, any number of national recognitions. These prizes are ways in which the world recognizes a lifetime’s work, a breakthrough discovery, timeless writing, selfless humanitarian aid. The awards in these instances are however collateral benefits. For these greats, often the wok is their own reward.

But in some cases, the prize itself is the motivator, it is the way to spur developments to change the world. Some of the most transformative technologies in human history were sparked by something deceptively simple: a prize.

A problem recognized. A deadline set for its solution. A reward announced for the solution.

And then—an open invitation to anyone bold enough to try.

Take the British Parliament’s Longitude Prize of 1714. Navigation at sea was perilous because sailors could not accurately determine longitude. The reward on offer was up to £20,000—an astronomical sum at the time. The solution did not come from a celebrated astronomer, but from a self-taught clockmaker, John Harrison. His marine chronometer worked—but recognition did not come easily. Payments were staggered, disputed, and delayed. Even when innovation succeeds, institutions do not always know how to respond.

A century later, war catalysed innovation. Napoleon Bonaparte, seeking to feed his armies, offered 12,000 francs for a reliable food preservation method. The result? Nicolas Appert’s pioneering work on canning. With his innovation, food for armies could be preserved for months and years, and could keep armies fed on long campaigns to distant lands. Explorers and sailors started depending on them, opening up new frontiers of discovery. Canned food gave a fillip to farmers, now that their produce could have extended lives. And brought convenience to dining. One competition, one process, many benefits!

These early contests reveal something important: prizes work best when the problem is urgent, the goal is clear, and the reward is meaningful enough to sustain effort over time.

Rainhill Trials

Fast forward to the industrial age. The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had originally intended to use stationary steam engines to pull trains along the railway using cables. However, their engineer George Stephenson strongly advocated for the use of steam locomotives instead. As the railway was approaching completion, the directors decided to hold a competition to decide whether locomotives could be used to pull the trains. The Rainhill Trials of 1829 offered a prize of £500 for the best way to haul the trains. George Stephenson’s Rocket won decisively, and its design quickly became the standard for locomotives. Here, the feedback loop between competition and adoption was almost immediate.

Then came the age of flight. The Raymond Orteig Prize promised $25,000 for a nonstop transatlantic flight. Charles Lindbergh claimed it in 1927—but only after multiple failed attempts and fatal crashes by others. The prize went to Lingberg, but more importantly, it accelerated aviation as an industry.

By the late 20th century, competitions had evolved into global innovation platforms. The XPRIZE Foundation’s Ansari X Prize offered $10 million for private human spaceflight—and catalysed over $100 million in investment before it was eventually won. The DARPA Grand Challenges, with prizes of $1–2 million, helped lay the groundwork for self-driving cars.

And in the digital age, contests have become even more distributed. The Netflix Prize offered $1 million to improve its recommendation algorithm—successfully claimed, and now foundational to digital platforms. Competitions on Kaggle for machine learning and data science challenges are designed to solve complex, real-world problems using crowdsourced predictive modelling. They routinely offer prizes ranging from a few thousand dollars to over $1 million, with winning models often deployed in real-world systems.

Not all prizes, however, are claimed. The Google Lunar X Prize, sponsored by Google, famously went unawarded when no team met the deadline. And yet, several participating teams went on to become serious space ventures. More recently, the rebooted Longitude Prize on antibiotic resistance—run by Nesta with a purse of £10 million—was eventually awarded after years of global effort.

Enter the Hackathon: The New-Age Contest

If prizes defined earlier centuries, hackathons define ours.

From college campuses to corporate offices, hackathons have become the default format for innovation challenges. India, in particular, has embraced them at scale through initiatives like the Smart India Hackathon, where winning teams typically receive ₹1–5 lakh, along with visibility and recognition.

At first glance, hackathons look like a natural continuation of the prize tradition. But look closer, and a crucial distinction emerges.

Hackathons are built for speed. Typically compressed into 24 to 72 hours, they excel at generating ideas, prototypes, and energy. They uncover talent and encourage collaboration. But they are not designed for depth.

The breakthroughs that defined earlier prize competitions were the result of years of iteration, backed by incentives large enough to justify sustained commitment. Even modern competitions on Kaggle run for months, allowing refinement and optimisation. Hackathons, by contrast, often end at the stage of a promising prototype.

This is not a weakness. It is a different role.

Hackathons are the sparking mechanisms of the tech world.

Lessons for India: Moving from Events to Ecosystems                            

India is no stranger to ingenuity—though often of the jugaad class. We could surely use the powerful lever of structured, sustained innovation contests.

1. Define Grand Challenges That Matter Locally
India’s problems—air pollution, water scarcity, affordable healthcare—require sharply defined challenges and serious prize money. Rewards must be large enough to sustain effort beyond a weekend.

2. Open Participation Beyond Credentials
Breakthroughs often come from unexpected quarters. Platforms must include informal innovators, practitioners, and non-traditional problem-solvers.

3. Build a Pipeline, Not One-Off Events
Hackathons should be the starting point, not the endpoint. Without this pipeline, ideas from initiatives like the Smart India Hackathon risk fading away.

4. Shift from Inputs to Outcomes
Prize systems reward results, not proposals—encouraging creativity and reducing bureaucratic inertia.

5. Invest in Follow-Through
Mentorship, funding, and testing environments are what convert prototypes into deployable solutions.

6. Measure Success Beyond Winners
India must move beyond a binary view of success. Even if a prize is not claimed, the ecosystem it builds can be valuable.

Because sometimes, all it takes to change the world…is not just a prize—but a prize large enough, a timeline long enough, and a system strong enough to turn ideas into impact.

–Meena                  

Pic: http://www.rainhilltrials.org/

Another Day, Another Breath

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

We mark days for everything—as we have seen over the last few weeks, serious ones like World Environment Day or International Women’s Day, and then the quirkier ones that sneak into our calendars and make us pause, smile, or wonder. Tucked quietly among them is World Breathing Day—observed each year on April 11th—a day that, at first glance, feels almost unnecessary. After all, breathing is the one thing we do without reminders.

But that is precisely the point.

Breathing is so automatic that we rarely stop to notice how we breathe. Or that something as ordinary as your nose is quietly running a sophisticated system in the background. One of its most fascinating features? The nasal cycle—a built-in rhythm that ensures your two nostrils are never quite doing the same thing at the same time.

The Nose That Works in Shifts

Try this: close one nostril and breathe, then switch sides. Chances are, one side feels clearer than the other. That’s not a cold coming on—it’s your nasal cycle at work.

The nasal cycle is a natural, unconscious process in which airflow alternates between nostrils every few hours. At any given moment, one nostril is “dominant,” allowing more air in, while the other is slightly more congested and handling less airflow. This swap happens throughout the day without you noticing.

Think of it as a relay race. One nostril takes the lead while the other steps back—not idle, but recovering, recalibrating, and preparing to take over again.

Why Two Nostrils, Not One?

It may seem redundant—why not one efficient airway instead of two? But evolution, as always, prefers nuance over simplicity.

Your nose isn’t just a passage for air. It’s a full-fledged processing unit. Before air reaches your lungs, it is filtered, warmed to body temperature, and humidified. Without this preparation, the air would irritate your airways and make breathing far less comfortable.

Having two nostrils allows this system to work continuously without burnout. While one nostril handles the bulk of airflow, the other gets a chance to restore moisture and recover from constant exposure to dust and microbes. This explanation is widely accepted, though the exact mechanisms are still being studied.

It’s like having two alternating air-conditioning units—one working, one servicing.

The Secret to Better Smelling

Here’s where it gets even more interesting: your nostrils don’t just alternate breathing—they may also influence how you perceive smells.

Air moves faster through the dominant nostril and slower through the less active one. This difference in speed can affect how odour molecules dissolve and interact with receptors.

Your brain combines these signals into a single perception, giving you a richer sense of smell than you might expect from something so routine.

Built-In Backup (and Defence)

If you’ve ever had a cold, you’ve probably noticed how one nostril feels completely blocked while the other carries on. That’s not entirely a flaw—it’s partly a reflection of how your system already works.

Because of the nasal cycle, your body is used to relying more on one side at a time. So when one nostril becomes congested due to infection, the other can often compensate more effectively.

There is also a suggestion that this alternating congestion may help in dealing with infections—for instance, changes in airflow and temperature might influence how certain viruses behave.

So your nose isn’t just breathing—it may also be quietly supporting your body’s defences, even if the details are still being understood.

What Yoga Figured Out Long Ago

Long before modern physiology described the nasal cycle, practices like pranayama in yoga had already drawn attention to the idea that the two nostrils behave differently.

In techniques such as alternate nostril breathing (often called Nadi Shodhana), practitioners consciously switch airflow between nostrils, believing it balances energy, focus, and calm. Interestingly, this mirrors the natural alternation your body is already doing on its own.

Some modern studies suggest that breathing through one nostril versus the other may have subtle effects on heart rate, attention, or relaxation. But—and this is important—these effects are often small, context-dependent, and sometimes overstated in wellness spaces.

So while yoga didn’t “discover” the nasal cycle in a scientific sense, it certainly noticed something real—and built a practice around paying attention to it.

A Rhythm You Never Notice

What makes the nasal cycle so remarkable is how invisible it is. Unlike your heartbeat after a sprint or your lungs during a yoga session, this system operates entirely under the radar.

Most of us go through our days unaware that we are breathing unevenly—that one nostril is doing more of the work at any given time before switching later.

It’s a reminder that the body is full of such quiet rhythms—processes that don’t demand attention, but deserve appreciation.

So when World Breathing Day comes around, it might be worth pausing—not for a grand gesture, but for a small awareness.

Take a breath. Then another.

Notice which nostril feels clearer. Notice how the air feels as it enters—cool, filtered, softened. Notice that what feels effortless is actually the result of a finely tuned biological system working in shifts, balancing efficiency with care.

In a world that celebrates constant output, the nasal cycle offers a quieter lesson: even the body alternates between effort and recovery.

And perhaps that’s something worth marking on the calendar too.

–Meena

Is this Day for Real?

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

One day we’re marking World Environment Day with a clean-up drive, or organizing a panel discussion for International Women’s Day. These “days” exist for good reason—they shine a spotlight on important causes, create opportunities for collective action, and remind us, at least once a year, to pay attention to things that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

And then, almost without warning, the calendar develops a personality. Not a dignified, solemn type anymore, but the slightly quixotic, overenthusiastic kind that insists everything deserves a moment in the spotlight.

Because once you stray beyond the serious list, you enter a parallel universe of observances—one where seriousness gives way to sheer creativity. Days that I call ‘Silly Days’.

The original of course is All Fools Day, April 1, which has a hoary past, though the precise origin is unknown. Common explanations link it to France’s 1564 Edict of Roussillon, which shifted New Year’s Day to January 1—those who continued celebrating near April 1 were mocked as “April fools.” Other scholars trace it to ancient spring festivals such as the Roman Hilaria, marked by masquerades and mirth. But it continues to be celebrated across the world as a day of hoaxes and pranks.

But now there a day for every crazy cause! There’s ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’, which asks otherwise respectable adults to say “Arrr” in meetings. There’s ‘World Emoji Day’, a tribute to the tiny icons substituting so conveniently for words. ‘International Caps Lock Day’ is marked each year on October 22 that humorously celebrates—or mocks—the use of the Caps Lock key. It originated as a light-hearted internet tradition highlighting the overuse of all-caps text online. ‘World Beard Day’ celebrates facial hair. ‘International Day of No Dieting’ offers a brief rebellion against restraint.

‘International Talk Like Shakespeare Day’ is celebrated annually on April 23, honouring the birthday and death date of playwright William Shakespeare. On this day, participants imitate Shakespearean English in speech, writing, and social media, celebrating his linguistic influence and dramatic legacy.

There is ‘International Left-Handers Day’, finally giving lefties their moment in a right-handed world. There’s ‘World Sleep Day’, which feels less like a celebration and more like a universally shared aspiration. On the opposite end of the energy spectrum sits ‘Global Running Day’—a day that divides humanity neatly into those who lace up enthusiastically and those who scroll past quietly.

There are also the ‘International Day of Happiness’ and ‘International Joke Day’. And then, just when you think it can’t get more niche, along comes ‘International Day of Awesomeness’!

Food is a major part of this landscape. There is ‘International Pancake Day’, ‘World Nutella Day’, and ‘International Sushi Day’—as if these foods were at risk of being forgotten without formal intervention.  There is even International Coffee Day—arguably redundant, given that many already observe it daily, without prompting. In India, we have ‘World Idli Day!’

As are animals—’International Cat Day’ celebrates creatures that barely acknowledge our existence, while ‘World Penguin Day’ honours birds most of us will never meet.

There are some days which feel like gentle nudges toward better behaviour. ‘World Kindness Day’ and ‘World Compliment Day’ ask us to be just a little nicer, a little more generous with our words.

And then there are the truly puzzling ones. ‘World UFO Day’ invites us to look skyward–just in case. ‘International Day of Failure’ encourages us to celebrate our missteps—a concept that feels admirable in theory and mildly uncomfortable in practice. ‘World Password Day’ is perhaps the only observance that comes with an implicit to-do list.

But the day that has fast become my favourite is the one suggested by my 7-year old grandchild. She has the gift of being able to burp at will, and a few weeks ago, she was exercising the gift incessantly. When told that it was very rude, she countered saying that it was ‘International Burping Day’, and that she was obligated to burp. She followed this up by making a poster for the day!

My calendar now feels less like a schedule and more like a collage of human quirks—earnest, excessive, occasionally absurd. And perhaps that’s the point. In trying to give everything its day, we reveal not just what we value, but also what makes us smile, pause, or raise an eyebrow and think: really, this too?

–Meena

Art by Barnalee