Prabhat Koli is now the world’s youngest Oceans Seven swimmer in an exclusive club of just 22 members.

He’s been there and done it again. But this time, with a giant leap which many have dreamed of achieving but at which very few have succeeded. For over a decade-and-a half, becoming the youngest athlete in the world to complete the Oceans Seven Challenge.

On 1 March, India’s leading open-water, long distance swimmer, Prabhat Koli (23), etched yet another milestone in his illustrious swimming career spanning 15 years. He swam across Cook Strait from the South Island to the North Island in New Zealand on 1 March and became the youngest athlete in the world to complete the Oceans Seven Challenge.

This article makes it sound easy, but it was anything but that. Prabhat clocked 8 hours and 41 minutes to cross the 28 km distance amid rough weather in 15 degree temperature. It was not the furthest distance he has covered in his swims, but this one carried the burden of an earlier failure. He had attempted it in 2020 during the pandemic. High winds and turbulent water caused his coach Minty-Gravett to abort the swim just short of his goal, after struggling for 8 hours 24 minutes. This time, Prabhat did not fail.

When he climbed the rocks at the end, Prabhat became the 22nd swimmer in the world to accomplish the rare distinction.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Prabhat Koli: World’s Youngest Oceans Seven Swimmer appeared first on The Teenager Today.

A tamasha is a traditional theatre art form of Maharashtra, prevailing since the 18th century in most parts of rural Maharashtra. Tamasha was exclusively performed by boys and young men due to varied reasons. During the reign of kings, varied stories were narrated and enacted through the medium of music, dance, acting and dialogue delivery. Playing a key role in a tamasha is the vidushak or songadya (comedian). The comedian is also the coordinator, who narrates the entire story with jokes in between that indirectly portray the ills of society in a humorous manner.

The popular folk dance of Maharashtra known as lavani forms an integral part of a tamasha. While lavani is extremely popular in urban areas, the tamasha is still more prevalent in rural areas, wherein thousands are attracted to watch and be entertained with a night-long performance. There are around 15,000 families who are practitioners of this art form, and include dancers, musicians, make-up artists and other technical staff involved in the organisation of a performance.

Significance of the tamasha and its evolution

Tamasha literally means ‘dispeller of darkness’ in Marathi. It can be traced to the 18th century when Peshwa spies picked up the art from Mughal military camps and made it their own. The traditional lavani, a forerunner of tamasha, was an amalgamation of kavya (poetry), sangeet (music) and abhinay (acting).

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Tamasha: Traditional Theatre Art Form of Maharashtra appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Adree Das, a student of New Horizons Scholars School, Thane, scored 497 marks out of 500 claiming for himself the top position in Maharashtra in the CBSE 2019 Examinations held in March, this year. He shares the top position with two other girl students — Datree Mehta from Reliance Foundation School, Koperkhairne, and Deepsna Pande from Apeejay School, Nerul.

New Horizons Scholars School, being one of the regular subscribers to The Teenager Today, we visited the School and met Adree, congratulating him on behalf of our readers, on his achievement. Adree has been a student of the School from grade 5, and his Principal and teachers say that he had shown signs of being an exceptionally talented student from his very early years, and always had the “earnest desire to do better than the best.” Excerpts from the interview we had with the topper:

You had been a student of the New Horizons Scholars School, for six years, now. Do you think that the School played an important role in your achievement?
Definitely! Our school has always taught us students that good education plays a crucial role in building a bright future for us. Moreover, the school has provided us with a healthy competitive atmosphere to shine in every sphere of activity: be it academics, sports or any other extra-curricular activities, giving all the students equal opportunities to realize their true potential, and to excel in everything, especially in our studies, while imbibing good values in us for life. The management, the Principal and all the teachers leave no stone unturned in working towards this direction. This has highly motivated me to excel in my studies and to obtain the highest possible marks in the Board Exam.

How did your family respond to the news of your achievement? I guess they too played a major role in your journey to the victory stand.
I am the only son of my parents. My father works abroad, and most of the time, he is away from here. Both of them were extremely happy to receive the news of my topping the Board Exam. However, my mother who is my real inspiration and constant motivator was especially happy and excited when I broke the news to her. In fact, she had set the target of 99% for me, and this has motivated me beyond measure, to achieve the present score.

To whom would you dedicate this achievement?
Most evidently to my mother, as without her standing by me I would not have been able to achieve it!

How about giving a few tips to our readers preparing for their Board Exams next year?
Keep a target for you right at the beginning of the new academic year: i.e., right now. Keep reminding yourself, every day, of the target you have set for you. Studying and becoming a topper is your first priority, now. Everything else should take a back seat, at least for the moment. Work hard, believing in yourself that it is within your reach. I did not go for tuitions for any subject as I believed I can do it myself.

What was the last book that you read before you started preparing yourself for the Board Exam?
I did not read any particular book during the months, immediately preceding the Board Exam. But I always loved reading books (“He is not a bookworm, either!” adds his teacher standing by), as it is one of the best hobbies I can think of. I will now catch up with my reading, soon.

Are you going to continue studies from New Horizons Scholars School?
No, I am not. But in the heart of hearts I will always remain part of New Horizons Scholars, as the School, my principal and teachers have given me so much that I can never repay. All the more so because I belong to the first batch of students passing out of the school. I will always hold the banner of New Horizons, Thane, very high!

The post Adree Das: New Horizons Scholars School, Thane, student tops CBSE 2019 appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Located in Buldana district of Maharashtra, Lonar Lake was created around 52,000 years ago when a meteor weighing 2 million tonnes crashed into Earth at an estimated speed of 90,000 km/h. It gouged a hole 1.8 km wide and 150 m deep making it Earth’s largest and only hyper-velocity impact crater in basaltic rock. The lake is both saline and alkaline in nature and historical documents say that it produces all the elements to make glass and soap.

The post Lake created by a meteor appeared first on The Teenager Today.

“What is there to life… if man cannot hear the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?”
— Chief Seattle

Today the planet is witnessing frog die offs at unprecedented rates. Over one-third of all frogs across the globe are threatened with extinction. By some estimates, between the time Sanctuary Asia was launched in 1981 to today, we have lost something like 200 frog species. Scientists say the normal rate of frog extinction probably used to be one species every 500 years.

“While people like you worry about tigers, right under your nose Rana tigrina is vanishing,” thundered the late Humayun Abdulali, as only he could, at a Bombay Natural History Society Conservation Committee meeting we both attended in the early 1980s.

How right he was. How right he still is. Back then, giants like him battled powerful money-men who justified killing 150 million frogs each year because it earned a dollar-starved India US$ 15 million annually from the United States and Western Europe. Abdulali argued that wiping out frogs would lead to a malaria epidemic since frogs eat huge quantities of mosquitoes. Predictably, using a strategy still in play, the money-men hired scientists to counter this by planting ‘reasonable doubt’ suggesting “frogs also ate earthworms, slugs, millipedes and other smaller frogs.”

Unlike most field biologists of today, Humayun realized that a diversity of arguments would be needed to save the frogs, including the issue of cruelty. He graphically described how he witnessed hundreds of unemployed people gathering in the wetlands around Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, stuffing frogs into sacks, dipping them in a cold saline solution and transporting them to crude ‘factories’ where their legs would be cut off, and the living animals would be left to bleed painfully to death.

Abdulali’s decade-long argument won an export ban in 1985. But frogs are still in trouble. Today humans kill more frogs than ever before in the history of life on Earth, using pesticides, destroying wetlands and dealing them a coup de grace by changing the planet’s climate.

At the rate we are going, it seems clear that it’s not just the frogs… even Homo sapiens will soon be left with no legs to stand on.

This article was first published in the August 2016 issue of Sanctuary Asia magazine.

The post No legs to stand on appeared first on The Teenager Today.