Uncle Pai

Anant Pai was born in Karkala, Karnataka to Goud Saraswat Brahmins Venkataraya and Susheela Pai. At the age of two, he lost his parents. 

He moved to Mumbai at the age of 12 and studied at the Orient School, Mahim.His first interest was to contribute for journalism. 

"He was not interested in pursuing engineering. But his elder brother forced him to do it anyway. That is how he passed out from the University of Bombay's Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT).But the day he graduated, he joined a magazine called Maanav in the 60s. This was before his marriage.Later, he joined The Times Of India (TOI) where he was in-charge of the comics section," recalled his nephew Prakash Pai.

He was extremely concerned about the fact that Indians seemed to know very little about their tradition, culture, heritage or mythology and were wooed by British and American comics. 

"When we met him on one Sunday morning, he simply asked us a few questions about Indian mythology. We simply had no answers to his questions, though we knew everything about Archie comics. 

That was when he told us that he would start a movement to enable us to know about our own heritage," said Prakash.

Prakash added that he gave up his job at TOI and set up Amar Chitra Katha and was supported by G L Mirchandani of India Book House. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Amar Chitra Katha sold 18 lakh copies per issue.

He also started Tinkle comics, and worked with well-reputed illustrators like Prabhakar Wairkar.

After that, he went on to start the Partha Institute for Personality Development aiming to mould characters of youngsters in the age group of 10-15. He also started a magazine called Partha for the same purpose.

Anant Pai suffered a heart attack and passed away on 24 February 2011 at 5 pm.His remains have been taken to the Shivaji Park crematorium by his relatives.

We can access his creations and contributions for comics from here http://www.amarchitrakatha.com/

The Great Emancipator

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back ! - These were the words of Abraham Lincoln published in the Newspapers The Lexington Observer & Reporter.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party's nomination for President, he sketched his life:

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

As President, Lincoln built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial:-

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Sculpted by Gutzon Borglum and later by his son Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents (in order from left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km²) and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region at Mount Rushmore.

The Saint Of Science

Charles Robert Darwin; born on February 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England was a British naturalist known for his contributions for Theory of Evolution and Bio-diversity.

He studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas (1831–36). His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird, for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and that if such traits were passed on to new generations, they would be predominant in future populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which advantageous variations were passed on to later generations and less advantageous traits gradually disappeared. 

Darwin worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The book was immediately in great demand, and Darwin’s intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin’s ideas were modified by later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory. His many other important works included Variation in Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) and The Descent of Man (1871). He died of a Heart Attack on April 19, 1882. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Harriet the Tortoise :-

Harriet; a Tortoise was found in around 1830; was a Galápagos tortoise who had an estimated age of 175 years at the time of her death in Australia. Harriet is the third oldest tortoise ever authenticated, behind Tu'i Malila, who died in 1965 at the age of 188, and Adwaita, who died in 2006 at the age of 255.

She was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin during his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands as part of his round-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then brought to her final home, Australia, by a retiring captain of the Beagle. However, some doubt was cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had never visited the island that Harriet originally came from.

Harriet died on June 23, 2006 of Heart failure following a short illness

.

The Wizard Of Menlo Park

Remembering one of the greatest personalities of our history; Thomas Alva Edison who has contributed many useful inventions for the world.

Thomas Alva Edison; was an American inventor, scientist, and a businessman who developed some devices that greatly influenced life of people  around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (which is now called Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he is one of the first inventors to apply the principle of mass production and large teamwork to the process of invention.He is credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

Edison is one of the most prolific inventors in history, he has 1093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. His advanced work in these fields is an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison originated the concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York.

After being asked on how he failed many times and managed to invent the Electric Bulb; Edison replied - I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work !

Today Google has celebrated Edison's 164th Birthday with a Doodle.

The Doodle shows a blinking light bulb in the place of the letter L. It moving belts, a flashing light bulb and other moving elements but it is all done in a nostalgic way – a fitting tribute to a man who gave birth to the earliest versions of today’s Modern Marvels.

The World's Master Storyteller

Sidney Sheldon; was an Academy Award - winning American novelist.  Sheldon's first novel, The Naked Face was sold to William Morrow after being turned down by five different publishers. A critical success, it was described by the New York Times as "the best mystery novel of the year". His second novel, The Other Side Of Midnight was a huge hit and firmly established him as a best-selling author. Each of his successive novels, A Stranger In The Mirror, Bloodline, Rage Of Angels, Master Of The Game, If Tomorrow Comes,Windmills Of The Gods, The Sands Of Time, Memories Of Midnight, The Doomsday Conspiracy, The Stars Shine Down, Nothing Lasts Forever, Morning, Noon & Night,The Best Laid Plans, Tell Me Your Dreams, The Sky Is Falling and Are You Afraid Of The Dark? have been bestsellers in both hardcover and paperback. He also wrote a memoir,The Other Side Of Me.

Sheldon has written around 21 novels and an autobiography The Other Side Of Me (2005).He has also written works for around 8 films which have been nominated for academy awards & some have also been won.

A master storyteller, Sheldon regarded his becoming a writer as something of a miracle. "I was born in Chicago during the Depression and both my parents were third grade drop-outs," he recalled. "My father never read a book in his life and I was the only one in the family to complete high school."

Prepare For The Year Of Awesomeness !

Po; now a Dragon Warrior, is fighting alongside Master Shifu and The Furious Five — Monkey, Crane, Tigress, Viper, and Mantis. They have to join forces with another group of Kung fu Masters—Thundering Rhino, Soothsayer, Croc — in order to defeat Lord Shen, an evil albino peacock, who has emerged with a deadly new weapon which threatens the very existence of kung fu. Along the way, Po will have to uncover the secrets of his origins to defeat Lord Shen.