Gautam Sen’s book The Automobile: An Indian Love Affair (Penguin), tracks how cars shaped a young India’s rapidly evolving social structures. Cars replaced ornate carriages, and sparked a race between royals over who could procure the most over-the-top automobile.(Penguin India)
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A clear early winner was the Swan Car, originally designed for a British engineer stationed in Calcutta, Robert Mathewson. It was a 1910 Brooke with the front made to resemble a giant bird hissing steam from its nostrils.(Penguin India/ Louwman Museum)
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This 1939 Delahaye 135 was designed by Figoni et Falaschi. They came to the public’s attention when this model was introduced at the 1936 Paris Salon. The car’s low-slung rigid chassis and independent front suspension, made possible by a system of transverse leaf spring and radius rods was marvelled at. It’s now in the long-term ownership of Dalip Singh, from Jodhpur.(Penguin India/ Makarand Baokar)
This Citroën Traction Avant, from a fleet produced from 1934 to 1957, was used by Calcutta resident Minnie Pan. She also raced it during the weekends when racing was a regular scene in the City of Joy.(Penguin India/ Makarand Baokar)
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This 1949 Delahaye 175 Coupé, another exquisite design by Figoni et Falaschi has been owned by the Maharaja of Mysore and later by Elton John. It is now in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.(Penguin India/ Gautam Sen Archives)
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Modus Vivendi (1000 people – 1000 Homes), 2000: In this self-portrait, a work of mixed media on canvas, Kallat appears as a swaggering, bespectacled juggler of heart and brain. The painting is an exploration of selfhood in the city of Mumbai, where he grew up and lives. The individual, lost in the multitudes, wanders in a state of perpetual disorientation, as reflected in the work. The radiating streaks of red, orange and green, reminiscent of thermal imagery, were achieved by texturing the canvas with layers of paint or canvas and then peeling off some parts to attain the desired visual effect.
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Sheer delight: While out surveying the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago, Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists captured rare footage of a “glass octopus”, named so because it is completely see-through. What one does see when one shines a light on it is its optic nerve, eyeballs, and digestive tract. Even though this species has been known to science since 1918, scientists were forced to study about this animal through specimens found in the guts of predators, before this sighting.
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Herald / Harbinger is a permanent public art installation by Ben Rubin and Jer Thorp. It broadcasts the sounds of the Bow Glacier cracking and breaking 200 km away, to the centre of Calgary, one of Canada’s largest cities, almost in real time. The sounds and imagery shaped by data from a glacial observatory are broadcast through 16 speakers and seven LED arrays.
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Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022): The movie explores the many dimensions of parenthood and love through the story of a Chinese-American immigrant named Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) who, while struggling to run a failing laundromat business, uses her newfound powers to travel across multiple realities to save the world and work on her strained relationships with her loved ones. It’s a family drama that’s fast-paced, funny and, above all, tackles earnestly the idea of healing from intergenerational trauma.
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At first sight: For centuries, sunspots were thought to be Mercury passing across the Sun. By the early 17th century, with the invention of the telescope, astronomers could get a clearer look. In 1610, Galileo Galilei (who first used the telescope to observe space) in Italy and his British contemporary Thomas Harriot identified these as spots on the Sun. Seen here are 35 drawings of sunspots created by Galileo between June 2 and July 8, 1612.
