Pic/Shadab Khan
Aaja Meri Gadi Mein Baith Jaa
Two young ones become one with the breeze at Bandra's Carter Road. Pic/Shadab Khan
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Saving the Asian koel
Over the past couple of months, RAWW (Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare) with the help of Thane SPCA and the Maharashtra forest department, has successfully rescued and rehabilitated over 25 Asian koels. Pawan Sharma, founder, RAWW, said that the NGO had been receiving numerous cases of Asian koels in distress.
"Changing temperatures is a reason for displacement among birds, which we saw happen during the cyclone. When the young ones fall off a tree, it becomes difficult to reunite them because their nests are inaccessible, so they need to be handraised." The complex cases are sent to Dr Rina Dev, avian expert and veterinarian, who treats them, and offers flight training so that they can be safely rehabilitated.
Of siblings and tennis world's future and past
Tracy Austin (right) of the United States, celebrates with brother John after defeating Australians Mark Edmondson and Wendy Turnbull in the mixed doubles final at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship in London on July 5, 1980. Pic/Getty Images
We can tell you that Filipino tennis siblings Miko Eala, 17, and his sister Alex, 15, will be more famous than they are at the moment.
Miko clinched the boys' singles title at the Hellenic Banks Masters Tennis Academy tournament in Cyprus last year while Alex is the 2020 Australian Open girls' doubles champion along with Indonesian Priska Madelyn Nugroho.
Wonder whether the brother-sister pair would team up for a Grand Slam and win the mixed doubles silverware some day. There was one pair of siblings who did win Wimbledon— Americans Tracy and brother John Austin, who overcame the Australian challenge of Mark Edmondson and Wendy Turnbull in the mixed doubles final at Wimbledon 40 years ago on July 5, 1980. The Austins became the first brother-sister pair to win a Grand Slam title. Tracy, then 17, lost in the singles semi-finals to Evonne Goolagong Crawley, but made it a memorable Wimbledon when her hard-fought mixed doubles final clash delayed the Bjorn Borg v John McEnroe men's final. She and her brother came back in the game after their Australian opponents claimed the first set and led 40-love in the second.
Manral on a notecard
Author Kiran Manral was in for a surprise when she received a mail from Amy McCarter of Chicago-based McCarter Design, this week. "At first, I thought it was one of those spam emails that keep flooding one's inbox and ignored it. Then I took a second look. She was designing a box set of notecards for Rohner Press, a specialty printer, and had come across a quote of mine from my book, The Face at the Window," Manral told this diarist. McCarter wanted to include her quote in the set, as she felt that it captured the "power of paper and pen over the often used impersonal technology of emojis and text today."
"I was immensely touched that words from my book resounded with someone so very far away, and of course, flattered. I'd always wanted to have my words on a card, in fact, as a child I would make greeting cards for friends and family and write what I thought were 'deep thoughts' on the front, in calligraphic style. It took me some decades, but I'm happy that my words will now officially be on a card," says Manral.
Focussing on the right things
Tia Advani, a Class 11 student of BD Somani, started a philanthropic project called Sudhaar during the lockdown. Through Sudhaar, Advani has re-employed women of the Unnati Foundation in Solapur who were the sole breadwinners for their families and had lost their jobs working in bidi factories during the lockdown. These women have been employed as manufacturers of 3 Ply masks for established brands.
Talking to this diarist, Advani said, "The pandemic has recently disrupted all of our lives and created various problems—one of them is the crumbling economy. I believe that while efforts are being made to help the struggling urban businesses, not enough attention is given to the people in the village, with comparatively lower incomes. This is why I started Sudhaar. which will provide rural families with a steady source of income in these trying times and also dissuade these women from the production of bidi."
He is a man on a (queer) mission
Parmesh Shahani is a man who likes to wear many hats. He has been heading the Godrej India Culture Lab for many years now and has successfully moulded it into a safe space for LGBTQIA+ people. Shahani's latest endeavour also advocates for the rights of queer people. His soon-to-be-launched book, Queeristan: LBGTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workspace, is part manifesto and part memoir. It is a business book combined with his personal journey and sprinkled with anecdotes involving queer people he has closely interacted with.
"Queer people have many judgments in our favour, such as the NALSA verdict which gave trans individuals the right to self-determination, the 2018 verdict which decriminalised homosexuality and the Right to Privacy verdict. It only makes sense for companies to incorporate them into their policies," explained Shahani. For instance, the book talks about a trans employee at Tata whose transition was supported by the company and the impact it had on her. According to Shahani, being LGBTQIA+ friendly makes complete sense for a company, as it results in growth and goodwill.
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