#21 Pronouns on degree certificates, and Pyramids in India
Also, a chance to relive 2020 with Ashish Shakya!
It feels like two years have passed since the start of this year and it’s only September. (If you made a ‘Wake me up when September ends’ joke, please give yourself -5 points). What better way to get over 2020 blues by, reliving it in all its glory.
Join Ashish Shakya - writer, comic and member of All India Backchod, for a quiz on everything about this one-star year. Joining him on the panel are Anuya Jakatdar, founder of Books on Toast, and Vivek Tejuja - author of So Now You Know: A Memoir of Growing Up Gay in India .
Three things we learnt this week
This past week Dominic Thiem became the first Austrian since Thomas Muster to win a tennis Grand Slam but did you know that Muster’s last ever match on the tour was against a 18-year old Thiem! He initially retired in 1999 but pulled an Afridi and returned to the tour in 2010 aged 43, before bowing out at the Austrian Open in 2011.
If you live in India and have always wanted to see the pyramids, maybe you don’t have to travel all the way to Egypt. Charaideo in Assam houses 42 pyramids which are burial mounds of the Ahom kings and Ahom royalty.
Here’s the story of A. Lalitha - India’s first woman electrical engineer. Take a close look at a word that was replaced on her degree certificate.
Things we’re reading / watching / listening to:
Difficult Women by Helen Lewis - This book revisits the feminist movement of the 19th and 20th century as it is - a bunch of imperfect women who worked towards a common cause. She presents to us, women from history in the context of their time, often unorthodox and prejudiced themselves. In order to combat the idea that people, mostly women have to be perfect to deserve equal rights. The book, surprisingly starts with the right to divorce and explores topics such as work, study, sexual health, politics etc.
Talking Politics - This political podcast hosted by David Runciman and Helen Thompson that tries to make sense of all things political. In keeping with the 2020 theme, listen to the episode with Michael Lewis (of Moneyball fame) on why the whole world needs a civics lesson.
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Stay safe and see you at the quiz 👋
Team #9