The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen with eyes, they are seen with the heart.
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
A classic that not quite many of us have come across, The Little Prince is an enchanting story, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I first read the book when I won it as a prize, for winning first place in Vidya Mandir’s Library Contest, back in 5th Grade. I felt so proud to receive the book as a prize at first, but when I finally looked at the book, I was not too impressed by the title, and I assumed it would be something of a fairytale.
And I am so glad that finally did read the book, because despite it being labelled a children’s book, there are many lessons that people of any age can learn from the book. It is a really deep reflection on human nature, as told from the eyes of a young boy.
The Little Prince is about the short meeting of a pilot, whose artistic spirit had been crushed by the world long ago, and of course, a charming boy whom the narrator introduces as the Prince. As the story is told from the aviator’s point of view, the author has cleverly avoided revealing his name.
The aviator’s military plane (holding only him) crashes into the Sahara desert, with only a week’s supply of food and water. He then meets a young boy, about seven years old – nicknamed the Prince.
The Prince tells him stories of every planet he’d been to, as well as his adventures on Earth. He speaks of six planets he’d been to before Earth, each of which was inhabited by a single, irrational, narrow-minded adult, each meant to critique an element of society. Here not only does the Prince learn of new things, but also talks to us through the aviator, as to what his thoughts about it are.
At first glance, it is interesting to see how a young child interprets these experiences, but beneath the surface, they are truly words of wisdom, simplified to the point that even a child would understand them easily. After all, the prince insists that “Grown-ups always make things more complicated than they really are.”
The Prince’s input makes a big difference to how we would perceive it otherwise. A child’s opinion or thoughts may be, for lack of better word, childish, but the innocence and the wisdom that comes with childhood is lacking in almost every grown up. What a regular adult would most likely use big words when describing, and finally not understand at all, a child could put into simple words that everyone understands, which is exactly what the Prince has done here.
This book also has a chapter where the Prince meets a fox on Earth. It might be hard to believe, but this fox might have taught him the most important knowledge of all. It seems to be nothing out of their ordinary conversation, and the fox utters these thoughts easily, but the meaning they hold is exceptional. “For the most beautiful things in life are invisible to the eyes, and visible only to the heart.”
This story was originally meant to be a work of non-fiction, but many analyses on the story prove that it was impossible for the story to take place in real life because of all the fantasy elements included. However, continuing with the story’s theme, the story is based on children’s beautiful imaginations, rather than the realism of adults.
Rich with timeless lessons that are cushioned behind layers of delightful story-telling, The Little Prince is the kind of book that will inspire wonder and reflection, even in the most world-weary adult. I hope this inspires you to read the book, too!
I was probably frozen for a solid 2 minutes. I couldn’t believe what I saw in front of me, I knew that I had to be more careful from then on. Every decision I made from then on could be the difference between life and death.
I started walking slowly and cautiously scanning the ground every step of the way as if I was playing a game of minefields, but it was for real. I was sweating bullets and felt butterflies in my stomach, but this time the butterflies were like moths, and messing up would cost me my life. I didn’t know what I was running from, but I felt something chasing me. It was a gut feeling, maybe I was wrong, but something told me to run.
So I did. I ran as fast as I could, even faster than yesterday maybe, my lungs ached and my face was red. I didn’t stop until I physically couldn’t run anymore. I collapsed and fell onto the ground, I looked up and saw the sky, I realized that I had run past the forest. I almost forgot the things that I had a glimpse of in the forest, horrendous things that I wouldn’t wish upon even my worst enemy.
I heard something, something like an earthquake. After a few seconds it was quiet once more, the only thing I could hear now was my heart thumping loudly. One of the bushes near me shook violently and out came a cat. I sat there in disbelief. The cat came closer to me, it wasn’t scared at me at all, in fact it rubbed against me and started to purr quite loudly. The cat’s fur was soft and clean, it was a dark shade of grey, black and a little bit of orange and since most calicos were female I assumed it was a she. Her eyes looked like the ocean’s waves overlapping against the shore, they were green with accents of blue and yellow here and there, the paws were as black as coal, very rare as most cats have white paws. And her ears and nose as pink as the lip of a sea shell. I wanted to name her so I named her Clawdia.
She had a name tag around her neck that said “The Medicine”. I was ecstatic, I had come so far, but I had quite the journey ahead of me. The cat had started walking away, I followed her all the way until we were near some hills. It was getting quite dark and I was exhausted so I used my backpack as a pillow and went to sleep with Clawdia huddled next to me. I wasn’t alone anymore.
I woke up refreshed the next morning and headed over to one of the hills, and saw what I had failed to recognize last night. It was a greenhouse. I crawled up the hill and peered inside the greenhouse. There was a box, and it had a red X on it. It was the box in which the medicine was kept. I tried breaking one of the windows with a rock but I didn’t manage to get even a scratch on the glass. I resorted to rattling the greenhouse’s door, despite the fact that a bulky lock was keeping me out.
“I need a key.” I said under my breath. Clawdia started rubbing against my feet and purring. “Not now, I need to get the key”, I looked at her ocean eyes and saw a small shiny object under her in the grass. It was a key. Of course the cat had the key all along. I used it and the door unlocked, I ran to the middle of the greenhouse, there was the box. I hugged the box as tears streamed down my face. All I had to do now was to get it to grandma.
I took out everything I had left to make space for clawdia in my bag. Orange smoke bombs and a lighter.
…to be continued
The COVID 19 virus is spreading fast. People even suspect that it can fly as far as 10 meters through the air. Now, why is it doing so? Has it got any other characteristics that other, old viruses lack? What is the truth about these microscopic mysteries?
To know the logic, we’ll start by learning how viruses work. I’m also going to stress upon the point that they’re non-living things. Most biologists say they don’t live. Viruses are not made out of cells, they can't keep themselves in a stable state, they don't grow, and they can't make their own energy. Even though they definitely replicate and adapt to their environment, viruses are more like androids than real living organisms.
They live and grow and multiply while inside the body of a host organism, kind of like a parasite. So, to summarize, they live inside a host’s body. But out in the open, they do not live.
So, as we all know, on the 31st of December in 2019, the first covid case was reported in Wuhan, China. This strain was reported to be spreading at an alarming rate through the country (Much faster, I believe, than your average Goods Express Train). Pretty soon, the whole country of China was in lockdown, while the world lay on tiptoes expecting the worst from the affected people. Then, because of carelessness, the strain of virus infected around the globe, inducing lockdown in almost all of the two hundred and odd countries.
Fast-forwarding to the second wave, this newer, mutated form of the old virus was an evolution of the first strain, but newer and tougher. It spread much faster than the old one, too. Our main question - why’s it spreading so fast? What are its spreading agents?
The ‘Three C's’ are a useful way to think about this. They describe settings where transmission of the COVID-19 virus spreads more easily:
• Crowded places;
• Close-contact settings
• Confined and enclosed spaces
These were the advantages of the first strain. Now, super-spreaders of the second strain are these, along with the first three:
• Droplets of sneezes in the air;
• Untreated and contaminated water;
• Air conditioning, especially in small rooms.
In July last year, scientists wrote to the WHO, saying there is evidence that the coronavirus is airborne, and even smaller particles can infect people.
This is the leading hypothesis of the reason for the new strain spreading so fast. So, there’s the answer to the question in our heading.
Stay safe!
BEING HUMAN
Ego - It seems to have taken over us.
Self Esteem is needed, but not too much!
Do not become as dark as dusk,
Give to people and be happy as such!
To be human, only we can do it.
To show love, compassion and affection to all.
To bring out what we have, and give it a split
Don’t crush your heart and make it small!
The world is unbalanced, with rich and poor,
Two opposite halves, at the middle, a door.
We must open it; Let the two collide
Bringing balance, peace, standing side by side
MUSIC
Music – It’s something great, isn’t it?
Something that helps you chill and relax.
Doing your maths, or a scarf to knit,
Music will always help you kick back!
What I always do, when tensed or stressed,
Is turn to my tab, and play some songs.
After a while, I feel like the best,
Upright and ready, nothing prolonged.
The people of this world are gifted with music
It helps us to focus on happy parts of life
Even at a surgery, doing chores or at work
In the deep darkness, it’s a tiny spark.
- Arnav
THE SQUIRREL
Arching his back and sniffing the air
This little guy has loads of furry hair.
Down the muddy path he goes
Up he comes again.
Always on the lookout for foes
Loads of nuts he gains.
That coat of his has three brown stripes
Which make good camouflage and maybe save his life.
His tree is donned in nuts and seeds
That he spots with cute little eyes.
Oh, no - there’s hardly enough nuts to support his needs
So he runs off to collect more before his supply dies.
Our little friend, Mister Squirrel here safely gathers his nuts
But after this hard work, if he loses them, he’ll go nuts.
- Sriram C
HEY, NATURE!
Hail nature,
Always in the top, found in all.
Glorifying the world by your beauty,
Awe! Such dazzling looks!
Things are fading, with everything of yours being destroyed.
What hope do we have?
Exotic species being diminished,
Scarcity of common species.
Once perplexed by your appearances,
Now astonished by your rarity.
I wish you grew,
Kept Surprising everyone again.
- Arshitha
(continued from edition 2)
After having devoured the water,
I looked at her with brimming gratitude,
She, the resurrector of my failed hopes,
Was looking disheartened,
with tears clouding her eyes, making my heart bubble with questions of concern.
Suddenly but gracefully she held my hand,
let me a sneak peek of her crops,
All of them were drooping,
too weak to look at the sun and very heartbroken to look at her eyes.
I nudged at her,
trying to budge the disappointment away,
Sympathetically, she slipped me a smile.
The crops seemed parched beyond rescue,
Yet with the faint steak of hope she fed me with,
I flew away,
Leaving her behind with a promise and an indefinite tomorrow.
- Karunya venkataramanan
These thoughts were made with 2 braincells. Enjoy.
What is a raisin? A dehydrated grape. So technically if you dehydrated other fruits… What would you call a dehydrated watermelon- … airmelo- What about an orange?
Ah yes, oranges, they’re a good source of vitamin c, lack of can cause scurvy. So apparently pirates first got scurvy because they didn’t take any citrus fruits on to the ship. (Eat your oranges kids.) Anyway, the colour orange was named after the fruit not the other way around.
Technically speaking every single atom has a different life story. Let that sink in for a moment. Every single sand grain at the beach, has a completely different life story. Fascinating.
There are more living things on you than there are humans in the world, but those are only microorganisms, what we do need to be worried about are the chickens. There are more chickens in the world than humans and every day their IQ is probably rising. Soon, we’ll be human nuggets and chicken world domination will take place. What would fast food restaurants names be? Mc-Roosty? KFH? We just have to wait and sea.
Speaking of the sea (Yo, I’m on a roll with these transitions) fishing is the number one reason for oceanic dead zones and animal agriculture industry is the number one reason for water pollution so who cares if I recycled that plastic bottle, we’re all doomed anyway because people like the taste of tuna far too much.
What if we are area 51 and the so called “area 51” is the exit to the actual world. We would never know. Wait where is area 51- What if there are aliens watching our every move right now as you read this, having machines that could hack into our brain and figure out all our thoughts and future plans.
I don’t know anyone and no one knows me. Technically I could be lying to everyone about everything and they could too. I would never know what other people actually think of me and they would never know how much I hate everyone.
What if someone found a way to communicate with other species? Would we discover different senses and find out things we could never possibly imagine like how good belly rubs feel to dogs? What if we found out about different senses, maybe even mind reading? Maybe dogs and cats know exactly what we’re thinking and already made a device that allows them to understand us fully but only one way. We could technically be missing out on so many feelings and sensations in life all because we aren’t another species. This is getting out of hand.
Speaking of tongues, do you think lions’ tongues actually function differently from human tongues thus making them like the taste of meat, or is it that they can taste the same as us but just prefer meat? It’s probably the second one but I mean, has anyone experienced a lion’s tongue?
Fashion. It’s a strange thing isn’t it? V necks, T shirts but what if there were different alphabets, maybe even numbers. I really want to go to a fashion show where they have a G necks and L shirts. That would be interesting.
Discord users, warning. You might not want to read this because once you see it you can’t un-see it. The discord logo looks like Mickey Mouse’s pants- oh wait there’s already memes about it. Come to think of it, there are memes about almost everything. Almost every single thought and word has already been thought and said. So basically almost everyone is a rip off.
I should probably go to sleep now. Did you know jelly fish never sleep?
Don’t blame me. Leo made the title.
Hello? Has it been sent successfully? .
I just had the idea to send this message to a random spot on Earth on a random day and year of the 21st century. Why, you ask? I sent this on the 21st century because, firstly, Leo and I just picked a century and said it out loud. When we both ended up naming the same century, we used that one. Secondly, we learnt in history class that the 21st century was the time technology was finally beginning to arise (I mean, how did you live without robot servants, spaceships and AIPSHB?). Yep. History is still a very important subject in 2879. .
I wonder if the people will be surprised when they see this. After all, time-mail was only invented recently; it’d be surprising to see message this way back in the 21st century. .
Well, I should probably start telling you about the most bizarre thing that happened to Leo and I. .
It goes like this….
So, it was just a regular day when it all started. .
Leo and I were just regular 13-year-olds hanging out at my house, playing games. After a while, we got bored, so we went out for a drive. We buckled up our seatbelts, and I flew the ship up into the sky, unaware of the following events that would change my life forever. .
Oh wait, I should probably pause everything and tell you “underdeveloped” humans about how much we have achieved since the 21st century. .
Basically, we now have contact and alliances with many other planets of the Solar System. We have alliances with Venus, Mars and Saturn. Our only enemies are the Jupiterians, who are bent on conquering the Solar System. (Gosh, are they irritating! They think that blowing up planets will help then conquering it. But they are so primitive that all their “explosions” do is throw pink dust everywhere) How, just how did you live without experiencing zero gravity every few days or going for rides in outer space (with a spaceship license that you get at 12)? Or get to drive hovercars wherever you wanted? .
Oh, right. The bizarre event… I forgot about that for a second. .
Anyway, we were just cruising along the Earth-Moon highway when it happened. Leo said quite loudly and slowly,
“Adam.... what’s that?”
“What’s the matter?” I said, a little frustrated, as we were on a highway.
That’s when I noticed the huge fireball speeding at us.
…to be continued
Deep under the cerulean tinted sea, flawlessly camouflaged in the north of the gulf of mexico,there once lived a pod of content vaquitas.
Now, what are vaquitas?
Good question. Vaquitas are a timid member of the porpoise family. They look similar to a dolphin, but are shyer than the average porpoise.
According to a study, their population was a mere 567 in 1997, classifying the species as critically endangered.
In the year 2008, they faced a larger problem, an extremely dangerous and steep decline in population- around 49% of their species dead.
In 2015- around 59 individuals were left, and in 2016- 30, a 95% decline.
Now, there are around as few as 10, yes 10, vaquitas left in the wild.
Why?
Poachers in Mexico who scour the oceans for totoaba, a certain large fish which is highly valuable in the black markets of China, often trap vaquitas in their fishing nets, which eventually kills the mammals (bycatch).
Unsustainability in the fishing industry almost always ends in bycatch.
In ‘bottom trawling’- an unsustainable fishing method, a heavy net drags along the seafloor, removing coral and marine life.
Believe it or not, we lose 300,000 dolphins and whales due to bycatch alone, every year.
This can easily be prevented, with one large ideal.
Sustainability.
Sustainable fisheries mean leaving enough fish in the ocean, keeping in mind the natural habitat, and still, making sure that the people who depend on fishing as an occupation have enough to support themselves.
And bycatch is not the only consequence of unsustainability; in fact there are countless others, some even more disastrous like global warming, deforestation, loss of species and populations, acidification of land and water, and more.
Our world is bountiful, full of resources, something we humans often tend to misuse. How long will we be able to sustain this earth after centuries of abuse?
The dictionary defines sustainability as- ‘avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance’.
But sustainability is more than just avoidance, but an ideal; a vow; a choice- to preserve this planet and its well being, for not only us, but billions of species and their future generations to come.
Sustainability can be small, like choosing to recycle.
On the other hand, it can also be carried out on a large scale, like sustainable fisheries, advised by the United Nations.
The zero waste movement launched in 1980, is a great example of sustainability, delivered through producing no waste, achieved by composting and recycling products.
Maybe the case of the vaquitas is out of our hands. Maybe they’ll join the list of the countless species we’ve lost.
But we can always try.
So,start with something small. Try going plastic free, at least once a week. Use products that only use sustainable methods to deliver their end result. Carry a grocery bag, don’t hesitate to reuse, and never manipulate our precious natural resources. Small things add up, and if we all try together, perhaps we’ll learn from the past and change significantly.
Together, sustainability does have a chance.
And it’s a chance we need to take.
-Varsha
18 months down the memory lane when the clock strikes seven our houses will become an oven. Yes, I need to go to school. Getting outside at 7:30 makes me more energetic. At the stroke of 9 we become robots storing everything in our mind; at 3 we become birds that flock their feathers free biding adieu. Gone all those days after March 2020 when good mornings are wished throughout teams and teachers televised. The chatterboxes of our classes are now on mute and the backbenchers are asleep as usual with their videos off. The habit of handing over test papers has become sending over. I miss the feeling of checking the test papers before handing them in. Mails deliver the results not our report cards. Apparently parents forgot their signature. Beds have become benches. Annual days are online, uniforms have become an exhibit. Virtually meeting pals void of personal touch.
A real social distancing.
- Akaansha
Moukthika : Our Artist!!!! Her art skills are next level - Even buzzfeed agrees that she’s artsy and she cooks really well.
Bhargavi: She’s our editor and personal kpop spammer; expert at burning toast. She’s also everyone’s (self proclaimed) favourite unnie.
Shubhaangi : Kpop spammer #2!! She’s the photographer, and sides with Bhargavi on bad (they disagree) puns.
Vedika :The one most known for her positivity, she has a adorable lab named Lily. She also contributed to the beautiful photography along with Shubhaangi.
Aravind: Fellow youtube animator addict, he's known to be talkative and lighten the mood anywhere he goes! He contributes both articles and stories
Paddy: known by the name ‘Evil.’, She’s our evil, chaotic teammate. she’s the inventor of a language we’re proud to use. She talks equally as often as Favorite Unnie.
Sriram RC: A voracious reader with his interest in a variety of genres, his fingers can do magic with both pen and brush. He loves cooking and eats cricket for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Anhiti : The youngest here, she contributed a poem and made the website for the particle. Famous for convincing us to save the reefs – budding artist and author. (Don’t tell her, but she’s basically kpop spammer #3.)
particle0221@gmail.com
