Mixed Shots

Assam BJP legislator Mrinal Saikia was hailed as a hero after he rescued a baby from a flooded village in his constituency Khumtai.

Baby Ko Camus Pasand Hai

When Albert Camus wrote The Plague, he missed out on an important aspect of life during a disease outbreak—fun and games. Regardless, some distinguished Delhi litterateurs decided to pay tribute to his bleak masterpiece by organising—yep, you guessed it right—a party! Lest you doubt their commitment to Camus, the venue was a nightclub called Playgue—obviously, a clever pun intended as a tribute to the existentialist novel. But just like the soldiers in the book, the Delhi Police played party poopers. They raided the shindig and arrested 31 revellers. Although the owners did not have liquor licence, there was booze and hookahs too at the party.

It took Neil Armstrong’s mission about three days to reach the moon from earth. Quite impressive, especially when you consider that a truck carrying aerospace machinery took a year to go from Maharashtra to Kerala! The machine, an ‘aerospace horizontal autoclave’ is used to make a spacecraft’s structural components. It has a height of 7.5 m, width of 6.7 m and weighs 70 tonnes. The 72-wheel truck moved only 5 km a day due to the constraints of the load. But that alone was not responsible for the delay—restrictions during the lockdown added to the journey’s duration.

Doctor Oink

ACOVID-19 hospital in Kalaburagi, Karnataka, had a few unusual visitors—a herd of pigs. Their video went viral, after which the authorities removed the creatures. Poor piggies! Perhaps, they too were alarmed of reports of swine flu surfacing yet again and had come for a check-up. Considering that the incident happened after Karnataka health minister B. Sriramulu’s statement, “What can the government do? Only god can save us now,” one can’t help but wonder if the preserver entered the hospital as the vamana (boar) avatar to tackle the crisis.

Don’t Spit, Sibley, Sweat

In the brave new world that the pandemic has engendered, cricketer Dom Sibley made the gravest of mistakes—rubbing saliva on the ball. On the fourth day of the second Test against West Indies in Manchester, England’s Sibley admitted to accidentally applying saliva on the ball. Umpire Michael Gough immediately sanitised the ball. Sibley was lucky. After the ICC banned the use of spit, but allowed sweat, to shine balls, a team gets two warnings per inning on violating the law. Further violations, however, result in a five-run penalty.

It Was All Yellow

A  vibrant hue has enlivened the greys and greens of the monsoon in Narsinghpur, Madhya Pradesh. Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Service officer, shared a video of bright yellow frogs that became popular on Twitter. These are Indian bullfrogs, usually a dull green. The males of the species change colour during the monsoon to attract mates. But they’re not the only colourful creatures making news. In Odisha’s Balasore, the forest department rescued a yellow turtle. It was later identified as an Indian flapshell turtle, whose yellow tint was due to albinism.

Illustrations: saahil, Text by Alka Gupta and Syed Saad Ahmed