Mixed Shots

Bandhavgarh Baby Boom

When the world slowed down, the tigers of Bandhavgarh got busy—apologies for the pun, but here’s some good news amid the deaths and depression. The touristy tiger sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh has recorded a baby boom—nearly 41 cubs, newborns to year-olds. The data comes from camera traps and sightings by foresters, including five cubs of the T-17 tigress spotted at an area called Tala beat. This 716 square km park—known for having the highest density of tigers—is also called the cradle of Royal Bengals. Adult tigers are often shifted to parks with a low cat count to avoid territorial fights, which can turn fatal. This also gives the young ones space to survive since adult males kill cubs.

In This Life, Sometimes Not

Two weddings and a funeral—one headlined across the planet, another buried in the news glut. British PM Boris Johnson, 56, and his fiancée Carrie Symonds, a 33-year-old environmental advocate, married in a private ceremony in London. They have a son together and the marriage is her first and Johnson’s third. The last British PM to marry in office was Lord Liverpool in 1822. Around the same time, a groom in UP’s Etawah had to make a choice. His would-be Mrs suffered a cardiac arrest while they was preparing for the pheras. She collapsed and died. The families counseled and quickly replaced her with her sister. The original bride stayed supine in another room all along—waiting her sister’s wedding out, and the baraat to leave, for her last rites.

Keep The Ring, Lady

In what’s equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, freediver Angus Hosking, 21, scooped out the lost engagement ring of an Indian-origin couple from the muddy bottom of England’s largest lake. It was a happy trip to the Lake District for Viki Patel and Rebecca Chaukria, and happier still when he popped the question on the jetty of the Windermere Lake on May 24. He gave her a diamond ring set in white gold, but it slipped off her finger and fell into the water. Angus heard about the couple’s plight from a friend, rushed down to the jetty, dived into the cold, dark lake with a metal detector and after a few false positives, it’s voila. Patel couldn’t praise him enough and his fiancee was “speechless”—and she promises to never take it off.

Her Little Chubby Child

This bonny baby must have weighed her mother down—Ouch! That back of yours, Lady! Raksha Kushwaha, 29, must have cried her lungs out in relief and joy after giving birth to a girl tipping the scales at 5.1 kg in a Mandla district primary health centre, Madhya Pradesh. For the uninitiated, the normal weight of a newborn is between 2.5 kg and 3.7 kg. The baby is 54 cm tall as well. Both mom and child are doing well. Mothers having diabetes, obesity and hormonal imbalances birth overweight babies, but Raksha is not a diabetic.

Unequally Priced Equality

Spain’s postal service is feeling a backlash from its attempt to highlight racial inequality. State-owned Correos España had issued a set of four stamps in different skin-coloured tones. The lightest colour costs 1.60 euros, the darkest costs 0.70 euros. The darker the stamp, the lower the price—and herein lies the gripe. That the darker stamps have a lower value gives the impression that a light skin colour is worth more. The postal service calls them “Equality Stamps” and introduced them on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officer in Minneapolis. But the goal of shining a light on racial inequality has come with accusations of the company having a tin ear for racial issues.

Brevis

Illustrations: Saahil, Text curated by Alka Gupta