I wonder why D.H.Lawrence’s novel “Sons & Lovers” was considered highly subversive? Was it because sex was taboo in the times it was written? Or rather, was it because discussing sex so openly was? Well, whatever the reason, I still remember the ‘cheap’ thrill we got reading that book, hiding it beneath the desk and glancing at it furtively between boring parts of class. I must confess though, I remember nothing of the book save the title.
Suns & Lovers
In fact, it has been indelibly imprinted in my brain, and I always associate it with young lovers hiding behind an umbrella on the wide stretch of Mumbai’s scenic boulevard – Marine Drive.
Yes, strange as it may sound, though PDA or public display of affection is frowned upon, Mumbai’s people in love remain undaunted.
While I’m glad that people aren’t openly displaying their affection as though their lives depended on it, I feel sorry for the young kids who have no option but to sit on Marine Drive in the hot sun. Even under the blazing sun, they don’t mind toasting their butts on the concrete, canoodling behind an open umbrella.
[Tweet “Isn’t it ironical that love has to be hidden behind umbrellas while defecation, urination or ablution in full view and in broad daylight is perfectly acceptable ?”]
I got this beautiful message on Whatsapp last week and I just had to share it.
While walking past Babulnath Temple I noticed the stumps of an old tree, blackened and stripped of all its glory. Till as late as last year it was showing signs of old age, though it was hacked here and there to prevent it from breaking, falling and damaging other structures around it .
It was a grand old tree, with a huge canopy that gave shade in the sun and shelter in the rain. Sadly, it grew too big and became a potential danger, having fallen branches during several rainstorms. So it had to be hacked and its threat contained.
Alas! In their effort to preserve things around it , the tree itself is now dead .
Isn’t that a real shame ?
I’m linking this up with Parul’s #ThursdayTreeLove. Do join in on Thursday with a photograph of a tree and the hashtag.
Hope the trees still standing don’t fall in the current monsoons!
My grandmother-in-law was one of seven sisters and the funny thing is that her father’s brother had seven sons! I don’t know anything about the seven brothers but I do know that the Seven Sisters were quite a formidable group of siblings. Each one of them was a strong, progressive woman ahead of her time in attitude and thought.They all met regularly in their maternal home with their broods and even today, though geography has divided the families, the bonds between their progeny and their descendants are strong.
More groups of seven sisters
Today, I found seven amazing facts about some other seven sisters. In fact they aren’t even sisters to begin with!
Seven Sisters is the common name for The Jungle Babbler which is native to the Indian subcontinent . Surprisingly, this gregarious and very social bird is even seen in concrete jungles and spotted in cities, making quite a racket with their constant chirruping. They feed mainly on insects, but also eats grains, nectar and berries. Though they are tiny, they live long – some of them for as long as 16 + years ! They generally live in a group of 7-10 hence the name Seven Sisters.
The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel. They form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England and are the remnants of dry valleys in the chalk South Downs, which are gradually being eroded by the sea.
Source The Pleiades – aka the Seven Sisters – captured by Greg Hogan in Kathleen, Georgia on October 31, 2016.Seven Sisters is the name of a cluster of stars named after the Pleiads who were the seven daughters of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, protectress of sailing. The sisters were Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. The Pleiades were sometimes said to be nymphs in the train of Artemis.The Pleiades star cluster – also known as the Seven Sisters or M45 – is visible from virtually every place that humanity inhabits Earth’s globe. It can be seen from as far north as the north pole, and farther south than the southernmost tip of South America. It looks like a tiny misty dipper of stars.
The Seven Sister States are the contiguous states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura in northeastern India. I have only visited Arunachal Pradesh as a child . Those days it was called NEFA and Meghalaya was still a part of Assam.
These states cover an area of 255,511 square kilometres (98,653 sq mi), or about seven percent of India’s total area. As of 2011 they had a population of 44.98 million, about 3.7 percent of India’s total. Although there is great ethnic and religious diversity within the seven states, they bear similarities in the political, social and economic spheres.
“Seven Sisters” was a common term for the seven multinational oil companies of the “Consortium for Iran” oligopoly or cartel, which dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970, that prior to the 1973 Oil Crisis controlled almost 85% of the world’s petroleum reserves. The industry group consisted of:
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP)
Gulf Oil (later part of Chevron)
Royal Dutch Shell
Standard Oil Company of California (SoCal, now Chevron)
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (Esso, later Exxon)
Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony, later Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil)
Texaco (later merged into Chevron)
The seven are: Hotel Ukraina, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Apartments, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs main building, the main building of the Moscow State University, and the Red Gates Administrative Building. There were two more skyscrapers in the same style that were never built: the Zaryadye Administrative Building and the Palace of the Soviets.
Twenty- five Seven 