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It's been a whirlwind of a week: Bihar elections (all of five phases!), Cricket Allstars T20 (where baseball stadiums played sport to their cousin format from across the seas), tolerance and intolerance (including a protest march against a protest march), air pollution peaking to dangerous levels in Delhi (is Beijing still more dangerous though?) and Presidential campaigns rolling on as usual in the USA.
But here we take a moment to look at the lighter and possibly brighter side of life, things that are bound to get drowned in the flow of mainstream information. Consider taking a few minutes to glace at a religion older than Hinduism that's fighting a survival battle in the Middle East, a transfer of archival material from one of the oldest journals in the world and a throwback to how rains have really remained the same in a certain southeastern metro in India.
Florida fan Evelyn Stark, 86, grabs a bite while tailgating with friends at a NCAA college football game between Florida and Georgia onSaturday, Oct. 31, 2015, in Jacksonville, Fla. Stark's hat has all the ticket stubs since her first Florida Georgia game in 1956. A former school principal, Stark has attended more than 300 games of her favourite club and stood by them through wins and losses. ~Photo: Stephen B. Morton/AP
A member of a robotic team operates a quadruped robot walking on the tracks of a playground during an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the farthest distance covered by a quadruped robot, at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications in Chongqing, China, November 1, 2015. The robot kept walking for 134.03 kilometers (83 miles) and successfully broke the record. ~Photo: Reuters/China Daily
A mahout along with his elephants returns to their camp after finishing elephant safari in the Kaziranga National park in Bokakhat district of Assam on November 03, 2015. The world famous Kaziranga National Park has reopened for tourists from November 01, 2015. Kaziranga has the world's largest concentration of Indian one horned Rhino. ~Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar/The Hindu
Kerala's second largest river Bharathapuzha at its scenic best from Old Cochin Bridge at Shornur in Palakkad district on Sunday. The North East Monsoon has ensured a steady flow in the river that meets drinking and irrigation needs of Palakkad, Thrissur and Malappuram districts. The much-anticipated Bharathapuzha Revival Mission initiated by the Rural Development Department will begin in November. The Rs.76.77-crore project with Central government assistance is expected to offer a new lease of life for the river, which turns into almost a trickle during the summer months and has flash floods during the monsoon, and its watershed areas. ~Photo: K. K. Mustafah/The Hindu
A wild boar lies dead on the ground as hunters examine another dead wild boar during a hunt in Castell'Azzara, Tuscany, central Italy, November 1, 2015. Extinct across much of the country by the end of the 1800s, the number of wild boar in Italy has almost doubled over the past decade and there are now about a million roaming the country, environmental and agricultural associations say. Rampaging boar, along with other wild animals like river rats, have racked up almost 100 million euros ($110 million) worth of damage by destroying crops, killing livestock and causing road accidents in the past year, according to agricultural group Coldiretti. ~Photo: Max Rossi/Reuters
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Expedition 32 flight engineer, takes part in the mission's third session of extravehicular activity outside the International Space Station on September 5, 2012, in this NASA handout image. The International Space Station celebrates its 15 year anniversary of human occupancy on November 2. ~Photo: NASA/Reuters
People take pictures during an opening ceremony of Rome's Trevi Fountain after being restored, November 3, 2015. Italian fashion house Fendi takes down the plastic barriers that surrounded Rome's Trevi Fountain for 16 months as the stone rendering of Tritons underwent the most drastic renovation in its 252-year history. Fendi is one of a gaggle of luxury companies that have stepped in to prop up Italy's crumbling monuments as public funding for their upkeep dwindled. ~Photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
Belgian priest Philippe Goosse (L) blesses Bloodhound dogs during a religious and blessing ceremony for animals, outside the Basilica of St Peter and Paul in Saint-Hubert, Belgium November 3, 2015. Hundreds of animals get blessed during the celebration of Saint Hubert, the patron saint of hunters who is also invoked for protection of dogs and horses, organisers said. ~Photo: Yves Herman/Reuters
A sketch by Henry Luce, a cofounder of Time Inc., of the Time magazine logo, which has remained remarkably unchanged for 92 years, in the Time-Life archive storage space in New York, Nov. 4, 2015. Time Inc. has donated its entire archive, about seven million historical documents and artifacts, to the New-York Historical Society, which will organize, catalogue, curate and, in some cases, display the items. ~Photo: Sam Hodgson/The New York Times
A photographer takes a photo of carvings on a wall at the Horemheb tomb, the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015. Egypt has opened three tombs in the ancient city of Luxor to the public, hoping to spur tourism interest despite the shadow of last weekend's airline crash in the Sinai Peninsula. ~Photo: Amr Nabil/AP
Masked protesters take a selfie in front of the Houses of Parliament during the Million Mask March on November 5, 2015 in London, England. The annual anti-establishment protest — made famous by the movie V for Vendetta — is organised by activist group Anonymous and is one of hundreds expected to take place in cities across the globe this evening. The mask resembles the face of Guy Fawkes who in the late 16th century attempted to blow up the English Parliament with the help of fellow protestors (the ‘Gunpowder Plot’) but was foiled and put to death. ~Photo: Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images
Argentine Paleontologist Marta Fernandez presents the fossil of a Ichthyosaur, which acccording to the Jurassic Museum of Asturias, is the most complete found in the Iberian Peninsula and one of the few in the world, at the headquarters of the museum in Colunga, northern Spain, November 6, 2015. In the picture paleontologist Marta Fernandez shows a reproduction of a specimen of an Ichthyosaur found in Germany. ~Photo: Eloy Alonso/Reuters
A boy kisses an ancient tree in the courtyard of the Temple of Lalish, the most holy site of the Yazidi religion on November 6, 2015 in the Nineveh Province village of Lalish, Iraq. Many Yazidi visitors to the Lalish temple were displaced from Sinjar Mountain, which was overrun by ISIS in 2014, when ISIS killed thousands of the men and enslaved many Yazidi women. The Yazidis, one of the most impoverished groups in Iraq, had been widely discriminated against, even before being more severely targeted by the Islamic State. The Yazidi religion, which has some similar religious symbols to Hinduism and maintains a caste system, predates Judaisim and Christianity as one of the world's most ancient faiths. ~Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Russian servicemen dressed in historical uniforms take part in a military parade on the Red Square with St. Basil's Cathedral seen in the background in central Moscow, Russia, November 7, 2015. The parade marks the anniversary of a historical parade in 1941 when Soviet soldiers marched through Red Square towards the front lines during World War Two. ~Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
A young woman texts on her mobile phone in downtown Myanmar on November 7, 2015 in Yangon, Myanmar. Just over a year ago two international telecommunications companies opened local branches and have taken the price of SIM cards down significantly. Myanmar's urban economy is taking off, especially in Yangon, one of Asia's least developed cities. Although hundreds of foreign companies have set up in Myanmar since it first started opening up, some sanctions remain. Finding a local partner can be tough, given that there are a number of individuals who are still on the U.S. blacklist. ~Photo: Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images
It is not Venice where people use the gondolas to move from street to street. It is Madras of yesteryear; the Kamaraj Avenue in Adyar to be specific after the 1977 floods. Things don’t seem to have changed much in the city down the years as the winter clouds burst and leave the denizens of the metro hapless (even to local readers in 2015 this would not be a surprise). Here, a ferry boat reaches a family residing in the avenue so that they can commute outside. ~Photo: The Hindu archives
