#26 How the Saree became an Air Force Uniform, and M.S. Subbulakshmi at the UN
Also, Jonas Salk's discovery of the Polio vaccine
They say India has only 2 religions - Bollywood and Cricket. One has all the glitz, the glamour, foreign locales, designer clothes and the other is Bollywood.
We celebrate the return of IPL to our lives with our Ultimate IPL Quiz. Hosted by Ultimate Indian international Sohan Maheshwar, along with panelists - legit India international cricketer Snehal Pradhan, and an Indian known internationally Gautam Bhimani. True to the form - this is a 49 minute quiz so there’s no time to ‘get your eye in’ before the field spreads out.
Three things we learnt this week:
October 24th is the birthday of one of humanity's greatest saviours - A̶r̶n̶a̶b̶ ̶G̶o̶s̶w̶a̶m̶i̶ Jonas Salk. His birthday is celebrated as World Polio Day. The polio vaccine is a story of a competition between Jonas Salk who pioneered the “killed-virus” principle of vaccination and Albert Sabin, who focussed on the “live-virus” principle. In the end, polio has been nearly eliminated due to a combination of both approaches.
October 24th also marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations charter. In 1966, on the eve of United Nations Day, MS Subbalakshmi became the first Indian to perform at the UN General Assembly. Did you know that her famous hymn ‘Maitreem Bhajata’ was composed by Acharya Sri Chandrashekharendra Saraswati of Kanchipuram specially for MS to sing. Read more about her concert at the UN here.
On 18th October 2020, we lost a true trail-blazer. Wing Commander Vijayalakshmi Ramanan was India’s first woman IAF officer who paved the way for the likes of Gunjan Saxena to fly. She designed the saree air-force uniform after several correspondence with air force headquarters.
Things we’re reading / watching / listening to:
Decoding Data with Gaurav Sundararaman - Listen to this podcast if you are a fan of cricket stories and this episode specifically if you are interested in understanding how cricket uses data analytics to prepare strategies for batsmen and bowlers. PS - Useful preparation for the IPL Quiz.
Bad Boy Billionaires - Three episodes that cover the lives and times of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Subrata Roy. How they got big, got greedy, circumvented laws and then became fugitives. Small teaser, a famous quizzer makes an appearance and talks about the quizzing community…we think.
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❤️ IWTK