Superbug stories: Finding our place in a complex health problem

Somdatta Karak
If you thought COVID-19 was the worst pandemic to hit mankind, you will be wrong. We have another faceless enemy already amidst us and growing bigger every year. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics by man has led to the evolution of superbugs—bacteria and virus that can resist the strongest of antibiotics. We need to wage a war against Anti-Microbial Resistance right now and literature and other art forms can become powerful tools that will help us fight this pandemic.

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Like finding pieces of your soul: Books and the magic of rereading

Achala Upendran
When the number of books is so many that even if you spent a lifetime reading, you will not be able to read them all, why is it that some of us read the same books over and over again? Every time we re-read a book that has touched us, we meet a little piece of ourselves that we left behind in its pages and become whole again.

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Climate crisis and the battle for imagination

Urvi Desai
Even though climate crisis has been upon us for a while now, we don’t see any serious intent among people or governments to tackle the problem. Climate change is a unique challenge facing mankind. It is a problem whose effects will be felt not now but later. Perhaps that is why people don’t feel the need to act now? So, we need to imagine new ways to instill the urgency of the problem in people. We need to change the way we tell the climate crisis story.

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Building bridges through stories

Suroor Alikhan
We are becoming more and more selfish and less understanding and accepting of ‘the other’. In a world that is ready to take up arms at the drop of a hat, we need something that will help build bridges between communities. And the best way to understand a community that is different from us is to read their stories. So, when will you being to read the world?

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An entry to other worlds

Jamuna Inamdar
The popularity and versatility of socially and politically dominant languages such as Hindi and English is pushing minority languages into oblivion. Unless we do something to preserve them now, minority Indian languages like Maithili, Konkani, Gondi, and many more will soon become extinct with nobody speaking or reading them. Can literature be used to revive a language on the brink of extinction?

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Teenagers and the Bard

Naina Joseph
For students learning and living in the 21st century, how relevant can Shakespeare be? What can they learn from stories that were written aeons ago? Well, if students are still experiencing anger, jealousy, hatred, love, and alienation, then they have a lot to learn from Shakespeare, whose works showcased these very human emotions.

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Literature in high school

Kamakshi Balasubramanian
Your education is not complete, if you are merely literate and have laboratory and computational skills. Good education is that which nurtures a reflective, creative, and compassionate mind, for only then can you build a humane and understanding society. The arts and humanities are the best way to inculcate these skills in students, which is why even the science students must engage with literature. But how do you get them to?

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Lessons in literature

B Ajitha
The CBSE literature curriculum for high school is designed to help students gain not only life skills but also the necessary tools to engage with the world. It is therefore imperative that we teach them the subject in a manner that piques their interest. Here are a few tips and suggestions.

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