Witty Scribble

Sachin Tendulkar.  Hearing the name, the thing that comes to mind is 'GOD of Cricket'.  Roger Federer . Tennis/Wimbledon is where you are transported to.  Lionel Messi . A guy dribbling the football, making fool of the best of defenders.  Pankaj Advani . A genius, with a cue stick in hand, standing next to a Pool table. Or is it a Snooker table? No, it's a Billiards table. Ahh.. Let's find out.  Pool, Billiards and Snooker look almost the same on the face of it. A pair of sticks, a group of balls and a plush, exquisite green table. Collectively, they refer to a class of games known as  Cue sports . Cue sports, invented around 15th century, were invented as the indoor versions of the outdoor games such as Golf, Croquet, Trucco. These outdoor games were prominent among the elite, the royalty and no surprise, even the Cue sports were the favourite time pass for the  rich . What are Cue Sports? Cue sports, also called Billiard sports, are played with a Cue

Merry Christmas. And since it is Christmas week, we are going to talk about the most popular and most loved Christmas tradition. Yup, you guessed it right, it is the Santa Claus. Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa, as all of us know, comes to visit us on the Christmas Eve, climbing down the chimney with gifts for the kids who have been good throughout the year and the ones who have been naughty get coal from him (I believed this throughout my childhood and probably still carry a part of it in me today as well J .) Let us dive into the history to see how the tradition started and evolved through time. A Santa Figure Who was Santa Claus? Santa, as we know him today, is significantly inspired by Saint Nicholas , a Greek bishop from 4 th century. He had a habit of secretly gifting the things of use to the needy and this turned in to the gift giving tradition of Santa. However, the appearance of Santa as white bearded man, wearing red fur was adopted from the illustration for Santa in

Long ago in the dense forest lived a rabbit. Quite fast and agile, the rabbit challenges a Tortoise for a race...... This is too common a tale not to be a part of anyone's childhood bedtime stories. At the end, was a life long advice from the story.... Slow and steady wins the race. As we grew up (90s kids specifically), bedtime stories gave way to addictive video games. Ninja Turtles was one of them. The turtles had to fight the likes of powerful 'Shredder' to save the city and win the game...   Well this article isn't about stories or games or lessons learnt etc. I suppose you must have guessed it. Yes, it is about the difference between Tortoise and Turtles.  What is the difference between a Tortoise and a Turtle? For the very first difference, Tortoise dwell on land while Turtles mostly live in water. This can be easily correlated with the story of Rabbit and Tortoise. Since the race was on land, we can infer and also remember that Tortoise is a la

Imagine you are driving your lovely car at a decent pace and suddenly see an animal on road. You hit the brake hard and as Newton’s law of inertia has it, you get a jerk forward, about to collide with the steering wheel, while your beloved sitting next to you spills the coffee cup and is about to hit the dashboard and the windshield. But you are not tensed in that fraction of second, because you ‘belted up’. Yes, the seat belt comes to rescue, saving the driver and passenger from colliding in to the car’s body. Masterpiece! You can pull it all the way to the buckle while you pull it slowly, but it senses the jerk and lock itself, so that people in the car are safe. Let us talk a bit about this life saving engineering masterpiece. Seat belts were first invented in mid-19 th century and the credit goes to an English engineer, George Cayley. However, the first patent for using belts as a ‘safety measure for humans using hooks or other equipment to secure the body w

'What's in the name? A rose by any other name would still smell sweet' , says Juliet to Romeo. People literally feel it right when they think about the 2 island nations: Greenland and Iceland . Ever wondered why Greenland is called Greenland and not Iceland, while Iceland is called Iceland and not Greenland ?? Does it sound confusing ? It is.. But really, do you know the reason why? Greenland is covered with more than 80% of ice, which is greater than ice cover in Iceland. But then, why are they named like that? What is the reason for the anomaly? Well, the legend goes like this…. The story dates back to the year A.D. 982 when a young Norwegian, named ' Erik The Red ' was exiled from Iceland. He travelled up north to reach an uninhabited, dry, snow covered land. On returning to Iceland post his exile, he wished to inhabit and settle in the exiled place, which has been his home for 3 years. But to bring people along, he calls the newly found