The story of the Maverick from Mandovi: a thread on Angelo da Fonseca - Born in 1902 in Santo Estevao, the smallest island on the Mandovi, Angelo da Fonseca was clearly not cut out for the usual (Pic Source: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) (1/n)
As a young man, he enrolled at Grant's Medical College to study medicine but soon realized his calling lay elsewhere. He left Grant's & enrolled at J.J. School of Art. But his hopes were soon dashed (2/n)
The regimentation restricted his creative mind. He detested the overt Western influence in the teaching methods. Once more, he quit and this time, moved to Santiniketan determined to learn from the best, Abanindranath Tagore (3/n)
Under the guidance of Abanindranath, the artist in Fonseca finally took to the skies. He was personally tutored by Nandalal Bose, a pioneer of Indian modernist painting. (4/n)
When time came for Fonseca to leave Santiniketan, the disciple was paid the highest compliment by the guru. Abanindranath told him "you have mastered…art. Go forth and seek your treasure." Fonseca the artist was all set to explode (5/n)
Fonseca found traditional Christian art stifling and wanted to revolutionize it. His paintings were steeped in Indian-ness. His Mary was brown skinned, wore a saree, sat in padmasana & held a lotus in her hand (6/n)
Fonseca's paintings drew heavily from Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist and Jain religious motifs. But in Portuguese ruled Goa, it was akin to career suicide. The Catholic newspaper, The Examiner, ran articles denouncing him as ‘pagan’ (7/n)
Both Portuguese and Goan voices attacked him with virulence, and Fonseca was forced to leave his native land and settled in Poona (Pune) where he kept producing more wonderful art forms (8/n)
Pic source: indigenousjesus.blogspot.com/2014/10/angelo…
Fonseca remained prolific till his death in 1967 and his amazingly unique body of work, depicting rich cross-cultural pluralism is a very important part of 20th century art. Or should have been (9/n)
Neither India's independence nor Goa's liberation changed Fonseca's fate. This maverick artist and his amazing creations till date largely remain mired in cruel obscurity (10/n)
Why does sugarcane taste so sweet in India today? India’s sugarcane wasn’t always this sweet. The reason it tastes the way it does today goes back to the stubborn brilliance of one woman who fought prejudice, doubt, and even war. Thread.
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Janaki Ammal was born in 1897 in Kerala. At a time when most girls were expected to marry early, she chose science.
Botany became her world.
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Janaki grew up in a large family with 19 siblings. Her father was not a scientist, but he loved tending gardens and writing about nature. From him, Janaki absorbed a way of looking at plants not just as crops, but as living wonders.
Open a Crayola box today and you’ll find hundreds of shades. But if you grew up in the 80s or 90s using Crayola art supplies, you might remember a crayon called Indian Red. And then, one day, it just disappeared. What exactly happened?
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To answer that, you have to travel way beyond the Crayola factory in Pennsylvania…
all the way to a small town in Kerala, India.
In 1807, a Scottish man named Francis Buchanan was surveying the region for the East India Company.
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So, who was Buchanan-Hamilton? think of him as a one-man research institute on foot: surgeon, botanist, surveyor. after Tipu Sultan’s fall, he was tasked to map and describe the south.
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This year, a controversy broke out over a scene in Kesari 2. It allegedly misrepresented one of Bengal’s greatest freedom fighters, Khudiram Bose, by calling him Khudiram Singh. To understand why that name matters, we have to take a train to a small station in Bihar. Thread 1/19
The station has two platforms and is located in Samastipur district, part of the East Central Railway’s Sonpur division. To understand why the name mix-up hurt so deeply, we have to look beyond cinema. This small, unassuming train station may hold the answer. 2/19
It has worn several names over the years — Waini Railway Station, then Pusa Road Waini after the nearby agricultural university was built. Later, Waini was dropped. For decades, it was simply “Pusa Road.” 3/19
Rahul Gandhi’s startling claims of voter list fraud have sparked intense debate over India’s election integrity. Nearly a hundred years ago, a small West African country experienced one of the most extraordinary election frauds in history. What exactly took place? Thread 1/18
In 1927, Liberia went to the polls. On paper, it was just another general election. In reality, it would become a masterclass in how far those in power will go to hold on to it.
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Liberia was small. Tucked away in West Africa. Founded a century earlier by freed African Americans.
Its ruling class — the Americo-Liberians — controlled everything: the courts, the military, foreign trade, and land.
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Mujib’s 1974 Lahore visit was a watershed moment in Bangladesh and subcontinental politics. Hoping to gain recognition from Pakistan and China, he tried to distance Bangladesh from Indo-Soviet axis. But that it would bring greater doom never crossed his mind. Thread. 1/17
Mujib's decision to attend the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Lahore in March 1974 - trading Pakistan’s diplomatic recognition of Bangladesh for dropping the trial of 195 heinous Pakistani war criminals - opened the flood gates of conspiratorial politics. 2/17
This decision not only destabilised Bangladesh but also helped in the resurgence of banned pro-Pak Islamic forces who fuelled communal tension and anti-India sentiments. 3/17
When a plane crashes, the world demands answers. The recent Air India tragedy left millions searching for truth. But, when all goes quiet, one device speaks: the black box. A device nobody wanted until it started telling the truth. Thread on the birth of the Black Box.
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Today is Dr. David Warren’s birthday – a fitting day to remember the man behind the “black box.” It’s hard to believe now, but his life-saving device almost never meant to be built. It’s remarkable that something so essential to safety was buried under layers of red tape. 2/15
Warren’s path to inventing the black box began with tragedy. He was born in 1925. When he was nine, his father Reverend Hubert Warren mysteriously disappeared in a tiny biplane over Bass Strait. The last thing his father gave him before the flight was a crystal radio set. 3/15