Mountaineering, Mourning and more
February 20, 2022
Hi,
Hope you are well. This week’s recommendations are:
A slight deviation from Archer’s usual style, this novel looks at the real life story of George Mallory, the man who led the earliest English attempts to scale Mount Everest. A wonderful book, it takes you through various emotions, how time effects the world massively, what it meant to ask questions of whether Everest climbers should use the assistance of Oxygen. One of Archer’s longer works, this book might take time but is well worth the ride.
From class 6-12, my favourite thing in life was quizzing. Weekends were for quizzing, weekdays to prepare. The friendships formed and the confidence gained through quizzing are things I am always grateful for.
Back in those days, the best quizzing blog for Indian Quizzing was Infinite Zounds – a fine blog run by Ramanand. Coincidentally, right around the time I gave up quizzing, IZ also shut down. But fret not. Ramanand is now bringing back IZ as a newsletter on Substack, where he posts one fun question a day. It is a paid newsletter, but it is definitely worth paying. We should pay someone who spends precious time everyday to brighten up our day.
I am sure school and college quizzers would benefit from IZ. Even if you are a general trivia enthusiast or want to discover the joys of quizzing, you should definitely check out the newsletter.
There are some free editions every week – but I would strongly recommend the paid subscription.
When we think of Covid and the toll it took on our lives, we seldom appreciate how it affected the way we practice our religions. I recently stumbled upon this fascinating history of how the Parsi tradition of leaving their dead in the ‘Tower of Silence’. Due to Covid, the government (perhaps rightfully so) was worried that exposing bodies of those who had to died to birds of prey could lead to such birds spreading the virus. This led to state restriction of their tradition, strong opposition, and it concluded due to the intervention of the Supreme Court of India!
The last two years have been very hard on all of us. However, here is a heartwarming story of a 60 year old man who came out as gay to his son and is happy now!
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Best,
Abhinav.