A century of disease

When the Coronavirus pandemic eventually is under control we will remember this moment in time as an unparalleled one something that didnrsquot happen before and hopefully wonrsquot occur again This is how personal memories review history But Chinmay Tumbersquos new book The Age of Pandemics 18171920 How they Shaped India and The World HarperCollins India will remind you that our history has been dotted with the horrors of many infectious diseases that killed in droves devastating communities and severely dismantling economiesChinmay TumbeWhile the first recorded plague pandemic was reported in the sixth century Tumbe a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad who previously authored India Moving A History of Migration focuses on the one century known otherwise as the lsquoAge of Pandemicsrsquo where the outbreak of cholera the plague and influenza left its deadliest impact on the Indian subcontinent The worst was the influenza pandemic of 191820 the deadliest in history which wiped out 40 million people half of them were from India he revealsMir Taqi Mir 1723ndash1810 was an Urdu poet of the 18th century Mughal India He was a pioneer of Urdu poetry and of Urdu language itselfWhat was the story behind these pandemics and what kind of crippling effect did it have Tumbe begins by revisiting the graves at the South Park Street Cemetery in Kolkata established in 1767 where the median age of the 2000plus who were buried there was 29 Most of them were victims of the 1817 cholera pandemic Itrsquos these stories which are a grim reminder of the fact that pandemics are recurringAnamika born 1961 is a prominent contemporary Indian Hindi poet social worker and novelist from Muzaffarpur BiharThe tragedy is that an old disease will replace a new one and soon There is but one good newsas Tumbe says in the opening lines of his book ldquoWe began to live longer when wehellip learnt how to control the spread of disease Between 1920 and 2020 death rates in India fell consistently from 45 deaths per thousand to seven deaths per thousand peoplerdquoamazoninArt history lesson on St John the BaptistThanersquos St John the Baptist church is steeped in history The foundation stone for the church was first laid on the banks of the Masunda Lake in 1581 which means that this structure has been witness to changes both cataclysmic and insignificant over the last four centuries But what makes St Johnrsquos most remarkable is its rich art history which got a fitting tribute in the 2018 book Witness edited and contributed by Dr Fleur DrsquoSouza former HODhistory department and retired vice principal Arts St Xavierrsquos College The parishrsquos Instagram page is now bringing chapters from the book to life with interesting vignettes and facts about Thane the church and the Parish in alphabetical order From the story of Santo Antocircnio the patron of the church depicted in a statue holding baby Jesus at the church to the Baroque extravagance witnessed in the ldquoprofusely carved retables or reredos the ornamented panel screens or backdrops to the altar tablesrdquo and the swirlycurly architectural ornamentation of the doorways inside the church known as Manueline there is loads of trivia to keep the heritagelover hookedstjohnthebaptistchurch InstagramCrowning queens of scienceBarkha and KshitigIn an attempt to inspire young girls a novel website wwwthescientificwomancom not only shares the stories of women achievers but also offers a mentorship programme to students who can seek professional guidance from them ldquoI often wondered why there werenrsquot more girls in the hysics class Yoursquod find them in larger numbers in the biology class and many went onto to opt for medicine than physics and engineering And so the positive response we have received is hearteningrdquo says Barkha Seth In an independent survey conducted by with her brother she found that of the girls planning to pursue STEM only 25 per cent wished to take up engineering 75 per cent for medicine and allied fields ldquoI have been passionate about science and learning that millions of girls donrsquot have the opportunity to experience it was shocking to merdquo Kshitij says about the birth of The Scientific WomanwwwthescientificwomancomRead Faiz in EnglishSripriya and Avichal ChaturvediPoetry in Indian languages is underappreciated globally say Sripriya and Avichal Chaturvedi a couple passionate about all things verse They believe that the genius of Rumi Pablo Neruda and Wislawa Szymborska would have gone unnoticed had someone not translated their works into English ldquoTranslations are an effective tool for readers to access art and cultures different from their ownrdquo This is what compelled the couple to start A Nation in Translation an Instagram page dedicated to translations of Indian poems ldquoThe current status of Urdu in India is unfortunate It has been wrongly stereotyped as a language of Muslims People donrsquot realise that just like Prakrit Urdu was actually born as a language that was a bridge between the royal courtswhich were conducted in Persianand the masses who spoke a slew of dialects that were not always codified And it is syntactically and grammatically indistinguishable from Hindirdquo The page has covered a diverse crosssection of poetsfrom Ghalib Faiz Bachchan Mahadevi Verma to saintpoets like Tulsidas Kabir Guru Nanak Bulleshah and even modern Hindi poets and lyricists like Gulzar Irshad Kamil Varun Grover and Piyush MishraCurated by Jane Borges and Prutha Bhosle