Witty Scribble

'Where words fail music speaks'. A famous quote, from a renowned author 'Hans Christian Andersen', is undoubtedly true. Music/Sound transcends the language-barrier to work as a common medium to elicit happy, melancholy, annoying, devotional, calm, energetic etc. feelings. Though oldest musical instrument is contested, the records definitely ascertain the fact that music is much old than we generally think it to be. The contested slice of history is w.r.t. two finds in recent times. One is called the " Divje Babe Flute ", discovered in Slovenia and estimated to be 43,000-67,000 years old. The other is the pair of flutes found in Germany and estimated to be around 40,000 years old. These flutes, made of Mammoth's ivory and Swan's bone, are generally accepted as the oldest musical instruments. Divje Babe Flute (Source: Wikimedia) So much on the musical instruments history. Let's come to the present, in the world where Hip hop/Rap &

I raised my hand as high as I could, sitting in the third row of benches in my class, hoping that our chemistry teacher will notice me and ask me for the answer which I believed I had calculated correctly before rest of the class. I strategically chose third row of benches throughout my student life as I believed that third row students got just the right attention from the teachers and were at lower risk of being asked to produce the homework and classwork assignments that teachers could show to the rest of the class as examples of good or bad work. “27.9”, I said, beaming with confidence when Pandey Sir nodded at me after seeing me raising my hand. Waiting for my appreciation from him, I never anticipated the kind of mockery I was going to become in next minute. Pandey Sir being one of the strictest teacher, yet a fun-loving person who would not miss any opportunity to crack a joke, asked me back, “27.9 Kilometers or 27.9 metre per second square?”. The whole class burst int

Billions of years ago, life on Earth started in a primordial soup. With the single celled organism, life eventually sprang up in water. Later, it evolved into creatures living on land, until we, the most intelligent (though I believe as most complex) found our mojo & began to rule the planet (& hence destroy it). Well this blog doesn’t speak about our wrong doings on the Mother Earth but is on an interesting thought put forward by one of our own kind. Since the origin of Life can be traced to a single organism, it is pretty much self-evident that all of us are somehow related to one another. But how close are we actually? In the sense, if you have to reach to another unknown person somewhere at the opposite side of planet, will you be able to reach out to her/him? If yes, how many threads have to be cut to reach the person holding the fleece?  Continue reading to know more.. Six degrees of separation The Idea- Six degrees of separation There have been many ideas/s

“Uncle, why is this ‘Anaar’ giving red and green color light, why not some other color?”, asked Aadi, my friend Vijay’s 5-year old, who is a bundle of joy and child curiosity. We were celebrating Diwali in our society in Hyderabad as we could not go to our respective hometowns this Diwali. Someone in near vicinity was lighting up an “Anaar”, the flower pot or the fountain cracker, which was emitting stars of red and green color that fascinated Aadi. Firecrackers are age old tradition across the world. For many, firecrackers are an integral part of Diwali celebration. Let us know a bit more about firecrackers, their history and try to find answer to Aadi’s question. Firecrackers and their history: Firecrackers originated in China around 200BC, initial versions of firecrackers were made of a special type of bamboo which will explode on prolonged heating producing a ‘bang’ sound. Firecrackers in Chinese are referred as “ baozhu ”, literally meaning exploding bamboo. Aft

"I am looking for a good perfume bhai", said Kushagra, my younger brother. "Perfume? But why..since when have you started buying these stuff?", I queried him. "Since the day I have started cycling & any-which-ways the sweltering Faridabad heat demands one." "Ok..Which deo are you looking for?"  "Not Deo bhai, but perfume. Technically speaking Eau de Perfume. You really don’t know much about these na. Maybe you can write your next blog on the difference between Eau de Perfume, Eau de Toilette etc." said Kushagra correcting me. So here it is. My next blog on the sweet topic of fragrance. How is a Deodorant different from Perfume? While both Deodorant and Perfume create good aroma around, there is a major difference in the application, function and composition of the two. So to start with, let us understand the reason of generation of bad smell. The reason we emit a foul smell is attributed to the doings of bacter

“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