My Science School

Charles Dickens depicted the best of times and the worst of times through his books. Full of wit, astute observations, and autobiographical experience, they offer a realistic portrayal of the Victorian society in the 19th Century.

Hard times

Born in England in 1812, Dickens’ family fell back on hard times when his father was sent to a debtors’ prison. Just 12 years of age, Dickens was forced to drop out of school and work in a shoe polish factory to repay the debts.

A debtors’ prison was where people unable to pay their debts were incarcerated in the 19th Century. With its dingy rooms and stale food, people lived in wretched conditions in these places. They either have to do hard labour or secure outside funds to repay their debts.

At the factory, Dickens worked ten hours a day, Monday through Saturday, pasting labels onto individual pots of polish. All he received was six shillings per week. He toiled in the factory for nearly a year before his father was released from prison. Dickens recounted the harsh conditions he experienced in the factory in his semi-autobiographical novel "David Copperfield and it continued to shape his writing.

Beating the odds

Learning shorthand on his own, Dickens became a journalist and worked as a court reporter. He went on to edit a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles.

Controversy

Although he is highly regarded as a writer, Dickens’ reputation is far from unblemished. Some of his works have been criticised for their racist and xenophobic views.

Significant works

Dickens is credited with popularising serialised novels. "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (popularly known as "The Pickwick Papers”) was published in instalments over 19 issues from March 1836 to October 1837. Dickens wrote most of "The Pickwick Papers" under the pseudonym Boz. His other popular works include "Great Expectations", "Oliver Twist", "A Tale of Two Cities" and "A Christmas Carol".

Did you know?

• India connection: Dickens' second son, Lietuenant Walter Landor Dickens died in Kolkata in 1864. His original grave is located at the Bhowanipore Cemetery, while his tombstone has been moved to South Park Street Cemetery.


• More than cats or dogs, Dickens preferred the company of ravens. His pet raven was named Grip. After its death, Dickens had the bird stuffed and mounted in a display case. You can view it at the Free Library in Philadelphia in the U.S. In fact, Grip also features in his novel "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty". It is also believed that Edgar Allan Poe, a friend of Dickens, was inspired by Grip when writing “The Raven", one of his most celebrated poems.


• While working in the shoe polish factory, Dickens used to visit his parents in prison on Sundays.


• The greeting 'Merry Christmas’ became popular after A Christmas Carol was published.


• He called his favourite daughter Kate, "Lucifer Box” because her temper could flare up in an instant.


• Dickens is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing no less than 247 new words and usages into the language including "butter-fingers", "fluffiness" and the verb "to manslaughter".

 

Picture Credit : Google

With its endless grasslands and a slow pace of life, it may appear like nothing much happens in the prairies, the golden wheat-covered land in the middle of the U.S. But reading author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” reveals that there is more to this heartland than what catches the eye.

Her semi-autobiographical books set in the period between 1870 and 1894, capture the life of the pioneers, the first people to settle in the frontiers of North America.

Who were the pioneers?

Many of the pioneers were farmers, who embarked on a long and arduous journey (of about 3,200 km) to take advantage of the U.S. government’s offer to homestead land in the Midwest. Homesteading was a scheme launched to develop millions of acres of tribal land.

People left behind their family and friends as they made their way to the Midwest. Days and even years were spent on the road, travelling the length and breadth of the country in tiny wagon carts. Often the pioneers were attacked by Native Americans, who were upset about losing their land.

Wilder belonged to one such pioneer family. And though life was hard, Wilder and her family found happiness in little things such as making homemade toys and treats for Christmas, going on their first trip to town, and bringing in the harvest.

Fear of eviction, a bad harvest and ruined crops often forced the family to change towns. They moved from Wisconsin to Kansas and then to Minnesota and lowa, before finally settling down in De Smet in South Dakota.

Despite all the hardship, Wilder and her sisters felt safe and warm in their little house. And years later, Wilder drew upon these happy childhood memories to paint a beautiful portrayal of the American frontier.

A feminist

At a time when there were not many job opportunities for women, she broke the glass ceiling by taking up multiple jobs, including in traditionally male-dominated fields. To help her family make ends meet, Wilder worked as a teacher, dressmaker, and even in a financial institution that lent money to the farmers.

Her writing career started when she took on the position of a columnist and editor for a local publication, the Missouri Ruralist. Her column, “As a Farm Woman Thinks” made her a favourite among the local farmers. She wrote on diverse topics from home and family to current affairs and travel.

"Little House on the Prairie" books

In the 1930s as America descended into the Great Depression, Wilder wrote "Little Big Woods", the first of her "Little House on the Prairie" books. But did you know that her first manuscript was rejected by every publisher she approached? In fact she was even told that writing for children was a waste of time. But she did not give up and boldly continued writing. The "Little House on the Prairie" series consists of eight books based on Wilder's childhood experiences. Some of the best books in the series are "Little Big Woods", "Little House on the Prairie", and "On the Banks of Plum Creek”.

"Little Big Woods" is about four-year-old Laura who lives in a log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Adventures of Laura and her family continue in the third book "Little House on the Prairie" as they travel to Kansas in their covered wagon until they find the best spot to build their little house on the prairie. In "On the Banks of Plum Creek", the family is forced to leave their prairie house and settle in a little house made of sod on the banks of beautiful Plum Creek.

Popular adaptations

The “Little House on the Prairie” series appealed to different generations of readers around the world.

• TV show: In 1974, the series was adapted into a television series by NBC. It ran for nine seasons until 1983. It bagged 17 Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations along with two People’s Choice Awards. It even won two Western Heritage Awards.


• Mini-series: The series was adapted into a mini-series by Disney in 2005. Directed by David Cunningham, the television series is a faithful adaptation of Wilder’s semi-autobiographical novels.

OH REALLY?

• Wilder is related to the former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and astronaut Alan Shephard.


• Wilder’s daughter Rose convinced her to write the “Little House on the Prairie” books and even helped edit them.


• Wilder was 65 when the first book in the “Little House on the Prairie” series was published.


• The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honours children’s authors and illustrators. Maurice Sendak and Dr. Seuss are among its recipients.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The author who brought toys to life

Toys, whether it is a doll, a car, or a stuffed animal, are our childhood companions. Do you remember hugging and cuddling them and hosting imaginary tea parties for them or perhaps even confiding your deepest secrets into their inanimate ears? As we grow up, however, newer toys and gizmos replace them. And so, a quintessential children’s classic, “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams Bianco chronicles a stuffed rabbit’s quest to become ‘real’ and relevant to its owner.

Writing: A legacy from her father

Born on July 22, 1881 in London, Margery became a professional writer at the age of 19. Her father Robert, who was a distinguished scholar and barrister, inculcated a love for reading in her and honed her imagination. He would often regale her with stories, making it a point to vividly describe the characters and the world they inhabited. Life struck a cruel blow when Margery at the age of seven lost her beloved father. His demise had a profound impact on Margery and her writing. Most of her work revolved around the themes of death and loss. And even though she faced criticism for the sad undertones in her children’s books, Margery maintained that these sentiments were an undeniable part of the growing up process.

Getting published

Margery published her first novel, “The Late Returning” in 1902. It was aimed at an adult audience, but it did not do well. Her subsequent novels too failed to make a mark. In 1904, Margery married Francesco Bianco and changed her name to Margery Williams Bianco. After marriage, she moved to Turin, Italy. It was only at the age of 44 that she wrote “The Velveteen Rabbit”, which gained her fame and recognition.

“The Velveteen Rabbit”

Inspired by the innocence and playful imagination of her children, Margery wrote “The Velveteen Rabbit” after the end of World War I. The book was first publishes in 1922 and has been republished many times since.

In the story, a little boy receives a stuffed rabbit as a Christmas gift. The toy lives in the cupboard of the boy’s nursery, where it is looked down upon by the fancier toys who claim to be ‘real’. “What is real?” the rabbit asks another toy, the skin horse. The horse, who always speaks the truth, tells him that toys become ‘real’ through the love of their owner. “Does it hurt?” asks the Velveteen Rabbit. “Sometimes. When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt,” says the horse.

Gradually, the bond between the Velveteen Rabbit and the boy grows stronger, and so does the Rabbit’s desire to become real so that he could be with his owner forever.

Although it’s a children’s story, the tale has undercurrents of poignancy and sentimentality, which are some of the trademarks of the author. It also ponders on deeper questions about existence and the meaning of life. Margery was influenced by mysticism while writing the story.

Margery also wrote many other novels and short stories in which she continued the theme of toys coming to life, conferring upon them the ability to express human emotions and feelings.

“Winterbound”

In her final years, Margery wrote books for young adults as well. Her most significant book for young adults, “Winterbound” tells the story of two teenage girls who are suddenly thrust with responsibilities of raising their younger siblings. The book was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1937, and won the Newbery Honor, a prestigious literary citation, in 1971.

With England joining World War II, Margery began writing books on patriotism as well. Her last book “Forward Commandos!” is an inspirational wartime story, acknowledging the contribution of African-Americans to the war effort. However, Margery died before the war came to an end. As the book went on sale, she breathed her last on September 4, 1944 in New York.

OH REALLY?

• Margery’s book for young adults “Winterbound” was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1937, and won the Newbery Honor, a prestigious literary citation, in 1971.


• Her daughter Pamela illustrated many of her works including “The Skin Horse” and “The Little Wooden Doll”.


• In 1914, Margery wrote a horror novel “The Thing in the Woods”. The book, about a werewolf in Pennsylvania in the U.S., is believed to have inspired future works on werewolves, including the renowned “The Dunwich Horror” by pulp fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.


• Margery was inspired by Walter de la Mare, a poet, she regarded as her spiritual mentor.


•  

Picture Credit : Google

In 1999, American author Tracy Chevalier published Girl with a Pearl Earring, a novel directly inspired by one of Vermeer’s most famous works of the same name. Set in 17th century Delft, Holland, Chevalier presents a fictional account of Vermeer, the girl in the painting and the artwork itself.

Girl with a Pearl Earring portrays a young woman sitting before a dark backdrop. Though seemingly inconsequential, this stark and shallow background beautifully contrasts the figure's cream-colored skin and translucent eyes, which are fixed on the viewer. In addition to an exquisite blue and yellow turban, she dons a large, tear-shaped pearl earring.

While, on the surface, this depiction seems to have the classic characteristics of a portrait, it is actually known as a tronie. Popular during the Dutch Golden Age, a tronie is a painting of an individual intended as a study. Often, artists opted to portray these figures in “exotic” garments, as rendering opulent fabric allowed them to show off their advanced painting techniques.

Vermeer is known for his ability to create contours and forms using light rather than line. This distinctive approach to modeling is particularly evident in the figure's face, which Vermeer rendered in planes of light and shadow. To achieve this aesthetic, Vermeer followed a meticulous four-step technique popular with 17th-century artists.

First, he would “invent,” or create an initial drawing on the canvas. Then, he crafted a monochromatic underpainting—a technique known as “dead-coloring.” Next, he added color. And, finally, in order to make the piece exceptionally luminous, he would apply a thin layer of glaze to certain parts of the painting. A recent restoration has revealed that he glazed two areas of Girl with a Pearl Earring: the blue section of her turban and the entire background (which, originally, would have been an opalescent green).

 

Picture Credit : Google

The Starry Night is an oil on canvas painting by Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village.

In the aftermath of the 23 December 1888 breakdown that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole lunatic asylum on 8 May 1889. Housed in a former monastery, Saint-Paul-de-Mausole catered to the wealthy and was less than half full when Van Gogh arrived, allowing him to occupy not only a second-story bedroom but also a ground-floor room for use as a painting studio.

During the year Van Gogh stayed at the asylum, the prolific output of paintings he had begun in Arles continued. During this period, he produced some of the best-known works of his career, including the Irises from May 1889, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the blue self-portrait from September, 1889, in the Musée d'Orsay. The Starry Night was painted mid-June by around 18 June, the date he wrote to his brother Theo to say he had a new study of a starry sky.

In the fall of 1880, van Gogh decided to move to Brussels and become an artist. Though he had no formal art training, his brother Theo offered to support van Gogh financially. 

He began taking lessons on his own, studying books like Travaux des champs by Jean-François Millet and Cours de dessin by Charles Bargue.

Van Gogh's art helped him stay emotionally balanced. In 1885, he began work on what is considered to be his first masterpiece, "Potato Eaters." Theo, who by this time living in Paris, believed the painting would not be well-received in the French capital, where Impressionism had become the trend.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Bruno Munari was an Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art, and in non-visual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity.

Bruno Munari joined the 'Second' Italian Futurist movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in the late 1920s. During this period, Munari contributed collages to Italian magazines, some of them highly propagandist, and created sculptural works which would unfold in the coming decades including his useless machines, and his abstract-geometrical works. After World War II Munari disassociated himself with Italian Futurism because of its proto-Fascist connotations.

In his later life, Munari, worried by the incorrect perception of his artistic work, which is still confused with the other genres of his activity (didactics, design, graphics), selected art historian Miroslava Hajek as curator of a selection of his most important works in 1969. This collection, structured chronologically, shows his continuous creativity, thematic coherence and the evolution of his aesthetic philosophy throughout his artistic life.

Munari was also a significant contributor in the field of children's books and toys, later in his life, though he had been producing books for children since the 1930s. He used textured, tactile surfaces and cut-outs to create books that teach about touch, movement, and colour through kinesthetic learning.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Ganga Devi was an Indian painter, considered by many as one of the leading exponents of Madhubani painting tradition. She is credited with popularizing the Madhubani painting outside India. She was born in 1928 in Mithila in the Indian state of Bihar in a Kayastha family and took to the traditional painting craft, specialising in the kachni (line drawing) style. She traveled abroad with her art and was a part of the Festival of India in the United States, which yielded a number of paintings under the title, America series, including Moscow Hotel, Festival of American Folk Life, and Ride in a Roller Coaster. The Government of India awarded her the National Master Craftsman Award[3] and followed it up with the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1984.

When Ganga Devi was still a child, she was handed her first brush by her mother, which was made of rice straw and a few threads drawn from the hem of her sari. Ganga Devi took soot scraped from the bottom of a cooking pot, or from the chimney of a hurricane lantern and used it as ink. It was a common practice to mix the soot with cattle urine, gum arabic dissolved in water, or sometimes even goat's milk. She learnt this from her cousin sisters and aunts, their mothers and grandmothers. Due to lack of paper in the village, she used to practice on a canvas made from the pages of her school notebook that were often glued onto cloth.

Ganga Devi got selected for the "Festival of India in US". She represented Indian art from in Russia and Japan. She narrated all her experiences through paintings, after which she was honored with the a National Award for Crafts by the Indian Government.

When Ganga Devi was detected with cancer, in the 1980s, she could not go back to Mithila as she was prescribed regular Chemotherapy.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Amrita Sher-Gil was a Hungarian-Indian painter. She has been called "one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century" and a "pioneer" in modern Indian art. Drawn to painting from an early age, Sher-Gil started getting formal lessons in the art, at the age of eight. She first gained recognition at the age of 19, for her oil painting titled Young Girls (1932).

In 1923, Marie came to know an Italian sculptor, who was living at Shimla at the time. In 1924, when he returned to Italy, she too moved there along with Amrita and got her enrolled at Santa Annunziata, an art school at Florence. Though Amrita didn't stay at this school for long and returned to India in 1924, it was here that she was exposed to works of Italian masters.

At sixteen, Sher-Gil sailed to Europe with her mother to train as a painter at Paris, first at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Pierre Vaillent and Lucien Simon (where she met Boris Taslitzky) and later at the École des Beaux-Arts (1930–34). She drew inspiration from European painters such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, while working under the influence of her teacher Lucien Simon and the company of artist friends and lovers like Tazlitsky. While in Paris, she is said to have painted with a conviction and maturity rarely seen in a 16-year old.

In 1931, Sher-Gil was briefly engaged to Yusuf Ali Khan, but rumors spread that she was also having an affair with her first cousin and later husband Viktor Egan. Her letters reveal same-sex affairs.

Looking at the Indian art with a fresh eye, Amrita Sher-Gil became excited by the Indian miniature traditions as well as the Mughal and Ajanta paintings. While traveling to the southern parts of India, she became deeply moved by the plight of the unprivileged people she met along the way. This propelled a dramatic shift in her visual language and subject matter. She started using a palette saturated with intense reds, ochres, browns, yellows and greens and depicting her land and its people, giving voice and validity to their experiences.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, opened to the public in July 1997, eleven years after the death of our namesake artist. A visit to the O’Keeffe Museum offers insight not only into the artist’s paintings, but also her creative process and the light and landscape that inspired her. In addition to the main Museum campus in Santa Fe, the O’Keeffe Museum maintains O’Keeffe’s two homes and studios in northern New Mexico, a research center and library, and a variety of collections relating to O’Keeffe and modern art.

The Museum’s collections of over 3,000 works comprises 140 O’Keeffe oil paintings, nearly 700 drawings, and hundreds of additional works dating from 1901 to 1984, the year failing eyesight forced O’Keeffe into retirement. Throughout the year, visitors can see a changing selection of these works. In addition, the Museum presents exhibitions that are either devoted entirely to O’Keeffe’s work or combine examples of her art with works by her American modernist contemporaries.

In 2006, the Museum took responsibility for the care and preservation of O’Keeffe’s home and studio along the Chama River in Abiquiu, New Mexico, about an hour north of Santa Fe.  A national historic landmark and one of the most important artistic sites in the United States, the home where the artist lived and worked is open for tours by appointment. O’Keeffe’s first home in New Mexico, about 30 minutes northwest of Abiquiu at the Ghost Ranch is also cared for by the Museum though it is not currently open to the public.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

Cassatt grew up in an environment that viewed travel as integral to education; she spent five years in Europe and visited many of the capitals, including London, Paris, and Berlin. While abroad she learned German and French and had her first lessons in drawing and music. It is likely that her first exposure to French artists Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Corot, and Gustave Courbet was at the Paris World's Fair of 1855. Also in the exhibition were Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, both of whom were later her colleagues and mentors.

Cassatt traveled to Chicago to try her luck, but lost some of her early paintings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Shortly afterward, her work attracted the attention of Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Domenec of Pittsburgh, who commissioned her to paint two copies of paintings by Correggio in Parma, Italy, advancing her enough money to cover her travel expenses and part of her stay. In her excitement she wrote, "O how wild I am to get to work, my fingers farely itch & my eyes water to see a fine picture again". With Emily Sartain, a fellow artist from a well-regarded artistic family from Philadelphia, Cassatt set out for Europe again.

Cassatt saw that works by female artists were often dismissed with contempt unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to curry favor. Her cynicism grew when one of the two pictures she submitted in 1875 was refused by the jury, only to be accepted the following year after she darkened the background. She had quarrels with Sartain, who thought Cassatt too outspoken and self-centered, and eventually they parted. Out of her distress and self-criticism, Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first.

In 1877, both her entries were rejected, and for the first time in seven years she had no works in the Salon. At this low point in her career she was invited by Edgar Degas to show her works with the Impressionists, a group that had begun their own series of independent exhibitions in 1874 with much attendant notoriety. The Impressionists (also known as the "Independents" or "Intransigents") had no formal manifesto and varied considerably in subject matter and technique. They tended to prefer plein air painting and the application of vibrant color in separate strokes with little pre-mixing, which allows the eye to merge the results in an "impressionistic" manner. The Impressionists had been receiving the wrath of the critics for several years. Henry Bacon, a friend of the Cassatts, thought that the Impressionists were so radical that they were "afflicted with some hitherto unknown disease of the eye". They already had one female member, artist Berthe Morisot, who became Cassatt's friend and colleague.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Artist Frida Kahlo was one of Mexico's greatest artists who painted mostly self-portraits after she was severely injured in a bus accident in 1925. During her recovery from the accident, Kahlo began her painting career. Kahlo later became politically active, fighting for the rights of the working class and poor people, and the rights of women. She exhibited her paintings in Paris and Mexico before her death in 1954.

Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico.

Kahlo's father, Wilhelm (also called Guillermo), was a German photographer who had immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. She had two older sisters, Matilde and Adriana, and her younger sister, Cristina, was born the year after Kahlo.

Around the age of six, Kahlo contracted polio, which caused her to be bedridden for nine months. While she recovered from the illness, she limped when she walked because the disease had damaged her right leg and foot. Her father encouraged her to play soccer, go swimming, and even wrestle — highly unusual moves for a girl at the time — to help aid in her recovery.

In 1922, Kahlo enrolled at the renowned National Preparatory School. She was one of the few female students to attend the school, and she became known for her jovial spirit and her love of colorful, traditional clothes and jewelry.

While at school, Kahlo hung out with a group of politically and intellectually like-minded students. Becoming more politically active, Kahlo joined the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots'. Yayoi Kusama tells the story of how when she was a little girl she had a hallucination that freaked her out. She was in a field of flowers when they all started talking to her! The heads of flowers were like dots that went on as far as she could see, and she felt as if she was disappearing or as she calls it ‘self-obliterating’ – into this field of endless dots. This weird experience influenced most of her later work.

Yayoi was born in Japan in 1929. She loved drawing and painting and although her parents didn't want her to be an artist, she was determined. When her mum tore up her drawings, she made more. When she could not afford to buy art materials, she used mud and old sacks to make art. This is a drawing she made of her mum when she was 10-years-old.

Eventually Yayoi Kusama persuaded her parents to let her go to art school and study painting.

In the late 1950s she moved to New York as lots of the most exciting art seemed to be happening there. It must have been a bit frightening arriving in a big city with such a different culture from what she knew. But she was determined to conquer New York. She later wrote about her feisty attitude: ‘I would stand up to them all with a single polka dot’.

She had the first of many exhibitions there in 1959. She met and inspired important artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Joseph Cornell, and her art was a part of exciting art developments such as pop art and minimalism. She was also one of the first artists to experiment with performance and action art.

As well as being an art pioneer, Yayoi Kusama put her creativity into other things including music, design, writing and fashion.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Russian author Anton Chekhov regaled generations with his short stories, which subtly blended humour and pain. His life was even more dramatic than his stories. Read on to find out..

Chekhov was born in 1860, in Taganrog, a provincial town on the shore of the Sea of Azov in Russia. The city often serves as a backdrop in his stories.

One day. Chekhov's father, Pavel, who was running a grocery store, fled the country to escape bankruptcy, leaving behind his of six children in extreme poverty.

Chekhov, who had inherited his mother, Yevgeniya's love for storytelling, started writing during this time to earn a living for his family and to pay for kiss nude studies. Making time between doses medical at the University of Moscow, he penned dramas with humorous and skits for theatres, along with short stories that he sold to magazines. In 1880, he published his first piece and treated his family to a cake bought with his earnings. By 1884, he had published 300 stories, sketches, jokes, and articles while also completing medical school.

A man of science

After graduating, he began to practise medicine in rural areas Dedicated towards working for poor families (as he had experienced poverty first hand), he did not take money from his needy patients. He even volunteered in public hospitals during epidemics. His love for the medical profession is evident from the fact that the central characters in many of his stories and plays are doctors. He often joked that "Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.

SIBERIAN ADVENTURE

On one of his notable scientific excursions, he traversed 5,000 miles of the vast Siberian wasteland to conduct a census of the exiled prisoners on the remote island of Sakhalin. He used a buggy, a horse and even a boat to reach the island. His observations throwing light on the deplorable conditions of the inmates as regarded as important works of science even today.

Changing the literary landscape

While the large volume of his work made Chekhov a popular name, he was unhappy with the quality of his early works. "Oh with what trash I began he is known to have remarked. Thus began a second stage in his writing, in which he wrote with increased seriousness.

He privately printed his first book of short stories. "Tales of Melpomene in 1884, but it went unnoticed because it was mistakenly shelved in the children's section. His next work, "Montley Stories" secured his reputation as a major Russian writer, and his short story collection "In The Twilight" won him the prestigious Pushkin Prize in 1888.

Chekhov's Gun

Chekhov's genius was not limited to his plays and stories. He was a prolific letter writer. Through his letters, he offered pieces of advice to other writers. Today. his advice has come to be widely regarded as important principles of writing. One of the most famous principles is what is known as Chekhov's Gun. He defined it in a letter to his co-writer Lazarev-Gruzinsky in November 1889: "One should not put a loaded rifle onto the stage if no one is thinking of firing it. If in the first act you have long a pistol on the wall, then in the following one, it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.

OH REALLY?

• Compared to other writers of his time, Chekhov had an extremely short career. He wrote only four major plays - "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters" and The Cherry Orchard", but 800-odd short stories.


• Chekhov once crossed 5,000 miles of Siberian wasteland on a buggy and horse to conduct a census of the exiled prisoners on the remote Sakhalin island.


• He renounced the theatre following negative reviews to his play, "The Seagull" in 1896.


• "The Lady with the Dog" is regarded as the greatest short story ever written.


• Like the character Vanya in "A Classical Student". Chekhov too failed an ancient Greek exam in school and had to repeat the year.


• Failing health

In 1886, Chekhov experienced lung trouble, an early symptom of tuberculosis that would eventually kill him. He continued to practise medicine until 1898 although he could now support his family and himself on his writing. As his health deteriorated, Chekhov spent much of his time recuperating in health resorts in Germany. In 1904, he died at the age of 44 in Badenweiler. Chekhov left a lasting impact on Russian literature.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Don Bradman, byname of Sir Donald George Bradman, (born August 27, 1908, Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia—died February 25, 2001, Adelaide, South Australia), Australian cricketer, one of the greatest run scorers in the history of the game and often judged the greatest player of the 20th century.

In Test (international) matches Bradman scored 6,996 runs for Australia and set a record with his average of 99.94 runs per contest. He scored 19 centuries (100 runs in a single innings) in Test matches against England between 1928 and 1948. On his first visit to England, in 1930, he established a Test record (eventually broken) by scoring 334 runs in one innings; in 1934, also in England, he had an innings of 304 runs. In 1948 he was captain of the Australian team that was victorious in England, four matches to none. He retired from first-class cricket in 1949 and was knighted in the same year.

has described himself as being fortunate not to suffer nerves like so many other batsman.

Fellow teammates have also described his confidence and ability to concentrate his performance particularly when rising to dangers and difficulties at the crease.

Walter Hammond, former England Test Captain: “I was forced to admire the cool way Don batted. On one or two occasions, when he was well set, and when he saw me move a fieldsman, he would raise his gloved hand to me in mock salute, and then hit the next ball exactly over the place from which the man had just been moved. Reluctantly I had to admit once more that he was out of the ordinary run of batsmen – a genius!”

Bill Brown, former Australian Test batsman: “He could analyse the game much more deeply and quickly than the average player. He controlled the game so much when he was at the wicket.”

CB Fry, former England Test cricketer: “This young man owes half his perfection to an outright power of concentration”.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Kutraleeswaran Ramesh, popularly known as Kutraleeswaran or Kutral, is an Indian swimmer. He swam across the Palk Strait, in April 1994. He swam across the English Channel in 1994 when he was 13 years old and in the same year, he swam across the Rottnest Channel in Australia, the Straits of Messina in Italy, the Zannone Circeo in Italy and the Ten Degree Channel to surpass Mihir Sen's record of completing five channels in a calendar year. He received the Arjuna Award and the Guinness world record in 1996.

He is a hero of Indian sports, whose name has been totally forgotten. Kutral, eventually, got an offer from Italy to represent them in the Olympics. However, he didn’t hesitate to turn down the offer with grace. Before swimming across the English Channel in the year 1994, he swam across the Palk Strait.

For a 13-year-old, it was a phenomenal achievement and the entire country rejoiced for his feat. A total of 25 swimmers from across the world were selected for the World Series in swimming. Among them, Kutraleeswaran was the only Asian. He represented India in six global competitions and went on to win an event held at Switzerland.

This was recognized by the Indian government which bestowed him upon with the Arjuna Award in 1996, thus making him the youngest person to win the award at that time.

Despite things looking bright for Kutraleeswaran, he could not find a sponsor to support his career. His father had initially funded his training and his travel. His family approached their State government. However, he didn’t get the desired support.

 

Picture Credit : Google