Mixed Shots

Sukhdeep Means Deeply Happy

He was just 20 days old when he tested positive for COVID-19, and it took infant Sukhdeep Singh 10 more days to defeat the virus—becoming probably one of India’s youngest Covid survivors. Whoops of joy rang out when Sukhdeep was discharged from the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences in Jalandhar. The parents—both negative—couldn’t believe their baby was infected. The couple from Kapurthala thanked the doctors and nurses for bringing their baby back from the clutches of death. “Doctoran ne usda bahut khayal rakheya (The doctors cared a lot),” the baby’s grandmother said.

Auschwitz Is Fun For Family, Eh?

Hate can pierce through any filter and travel website TripAdvisor found it the hard way. It has removed an insensitive review of the Auschwitz Museum after initially saying it complied with its submission guidelines. The museum at the site of the Nazi concentration camp in Poland tweeted that it had asked the Massachusetts-based travel website to take down a review in which the writer said they went to Auschwitz to “test the chamber” and called the site “fun for the family”. TripAdvisor later reversed course, removing the review and banning the user who wrote it.

It Has To Be Made In China

IT’s out of control. It has to be Chinese. Well, a 100-foot-tall, 22-metric-tonne Chinese rocket re-entered Earth and splashed down on the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. The “out-of-control” Chinese Long March 5B rocket was the talk of talk shows around the world, and the butt of memes and stand-ups, as it appeared when the world is grappling with another Chinese product—the novel coronavirus, first detected in Wuhan. The Long March 5B rocket that launched the first chunk of Beijing’s new space station could not be manoeuvred or controlled. Sounds much like Covid, eh? 

The Stud And A Moo

Trust M.S. Dhoni to get a stud on his farm. He brought Chetak, a shiny black stallion, to his seven-acre farmhouse on the outskirts of Ranchi to add to his growing list of pets—that includes big dogs. Dhoni has a Belgian Malinois, a white husky and a German Shepherd. Dhoni is the second cricketer after CSK team-mate Ravindra Jadeja to keep a horse as pet. Jadeja has not one but three. And in other animal news, reality TV star Kim Kardashian has an Indian cow named after her! Well, PETA India rescued a cow that has flashing eyes and long, dark eyelashes, and named her Kim—the American mother of four who promotes dairy-free diet among her more than 200 million social media followers.

The ‘Over 8,000m’ Sherpa

Some good news in the middle of a ­pandemic—mountaineer Kami Rita Sherpa of Nepal climbed Mount Everest for a record 25th time on May 7. With the weather favouring climbers in a small May window, Kami was among 12 climbers who reached the summit. Kami broke his own world record of climbing Everest 24 times since his first in May 1994. He has also scaled K2—the world’s second tallest—and Lhotse once, Manaslu thrice, and Cho Oyu eight times. He holds the record for “most climbs over 8,000m”.

Brevis

Illustrations: Saahil, Text curated by Alka Gupta