Witty Scribble

“You guys have started to pick up some interesting topics lately”, commented Shikhar in our college whatsapp group in response to our last blog post on how lizards manage to cling and move on walls. While the post, due to obvious reason of being about lizards, made few of our readers go ‘eww’, Shikhar and few others found it really enlightening. While we were thanking Shikhar for his kind words, he asked a question. “Is the spider’s web really as strong as they show in the spiderman movies?”. Well, I told him, that I will find that out for you. And here I am, fulfilling my promise. Spider webs are a common sight around us. Small webs made by spiders near the corners of walls and ceilings. These webs are multipurpose device created by spiders sometimes to protect their bodies and eggs, but primarily to catch their prey. However, there are few species of spiders who do not built webs at all or catch prey using other methods as well. Spiders (along with few other insects and la...

'Is the box heavy? Should I get it down?', asked my brother Kushagra, with a wry smile. Though younger, he was well built while I was the slender, skeletal one. For good reason, I was given a nickname 'Hanger'; t-shirts just hung down on me. Well that was when I was in 5th standard. I wish someone could call me 'Hanger' today. 'Don't try to be a hero. Will give you a choke-slam, then only will you understand my power. Let mom & dad go, we will have the WWF fight and I will show you who is the boss', standing on a stool, I looked down at Kushagra, my eyes sharp gazing into his with raze.  'We will see bro, first you try to get the carton down'.  'Ok. Be quiet. Let me do my work'. Standing on stool, as I pulled the carton from the attic surface, I felt something slithering on my hands. A loud scream followed when I realized that a lizard had jumped out of the carton, onto my hands, and was moving so smoothly towards my...

Swapna Burman , a name that was hardly heard of a week ago, is a popular household name now and a name that means national pride, and a story of fighting against circumstances to achieve success. Manjit Singh, Jinson Johnson, Neeraj Chopra, Arpinder Singh are few among many more such champions who have inspiring stories of success despite adverse circumstances. That’s what sports do best, bring out the real-life champions, who not only excel at their discipline of sport but also are great fighter and exhibit exemplary perseverance when conditions and circumstances do not favor them. All they need is a stage to express themselves while the world watches. The 18 th edition of Asian games provided that stage and revealed a new generation of Indian sports-persons, who are the new generation role models. As I write this, the closing ceremony of the Asian games is about to commence, and India for sure will be a proud contingent. Asian games , the quadrennial multi-sport event ...

'Are you able to see that star-like glowing object coming out from behind the clouds?. That…..is the ISS', Rajarshi's eyes gleamed like a star as well. 'Seriously? That really looks like an another airplane', said I, gazing up in the not so starry Bangalore night. 'Han bhai, that is the ISS. It doesn’t flicker like other plane's light and travels much faster', the gleam in Rajarshi's eyes too wasn't flickering.  Raj (short for Rajarshi) is my ex-roomie and an avid star gazer, a reason for which he is also known as 'Star Uncle' amongst kids in our society. He had summoned all of us to be at terrace exactly at 19:30 hours; as at 19:32, ISS was to pass directly over us. We, quite fascinated by Sandra Bullock's Gravity and later McConaughey's Interstellar, were really excited to witness the ISS, when Raj told that it can be seen from our naked eye. And finally, the vision of the object moving high up in the sky, left us thrilled...

“Bro, watched that new Alia Bhatt movie, Raazi? If not, leave everything and watch it now.”, Prakhar said with his signature excited tone when he talks about something he really believes to be good. I strongly believe, he should be in sales and marketing. “No, I haven’t yet. But I think I’ll watch it today evening. It is already on Amazon Prime”, I responded and told myself to watch it ASAP, for two good reasons: One, when Prakhar recommends a movie, it ought to be good and you don’t want to miss it. Two, he was going to ask this again, and if I haven’t watched it before he asks next time, I am doomed. We continued our phone conversation about various other things including future of our blog, WittyScribble(which by the way, rests is our hands as you read this. Please show us some love by liking and sharing our posts 😊 ). I watched the movie later that day. As expected from a movie recommended by Prakhar, I liked it a lot and so did Himanshi(my better half). So, I am going to...

"When was the First battle of Panipat fought?", asked Professor Sreeram in our Marketing class, during my second year of MBA. Not a marketing question definitely, but Sreeram sir, a learned man he is, had a knack of asking such questions (my perception 😊). "17th century", "16th century" and some other replies from our classmates didn’t make sir happy. "1526", came out a reply amongst the chorus of other responses. "Who said that ?", asked the professor. I, generally a backbencher, since the days height-wise seats allocation wasn’t the norm anymore, slowly raised my hand. "That is correct. What's your name?" "Prakhar". Brimming with confidence, gazing at my colleagues Shubham, Mrigendra and Ritesh, I proudly exclaimed. "That is correct. And when was the second battle of Panipat fought?" All the confidence shattered just like a mirror struck with stone. The cool expression ...

What comes to your mind when I say ‘Australia’? The mighty world champion cricket team of past few decades, and a lot of sad evenings because of Indian cricket team’s lost matches to them, right? The heart-breaking defeat of WC 2003 final is still etched in our minds, even after the WC win of 2011. Their cricketing supremacy over a span of so many decades raises no doubt. It got them a lot of haters, especially Indian cricket fans, but that’s just another testament of their achievements. But while Indian cricket team in touring England, why are we talking about Australia? The reason is not cricket. Cricket is what we know most about Australia. Many of us can talk about cricket stats for Ind-Aus encounters, in our sleep. So, we will not talk about it today. What we will talk about instead, is another world champion stuff from Australia. The Great Barrier Reef . The Great Barrier Reef located off the coast of Queensland, in the Coral Sea, is the largest coral reef system in ...