Question Ably - 25: Answer

Who? Antoine Lavoisier. That's who.

Widely regarded as the father of modern chemistry, he is credited with identifying oxygen. Actually, he called it 'oxygen gas' and thought of it as consisting of two elements: oxygen, which is the principle of acidity and caloric, which is the principle of heat. It was left to his great rival Joseph Priestley to set right some problems with this way of understanding oxygen.

Lavoisier's contribution to modern science can be summarized this way:
a) He helped bid goodbye to many un-/semi-/pseudo-scientific notions of modern chemistry's predecessor, alchemy.
b) He established clearly the distinction between elements and compounds.
c) Finally, he attached numbers to chemistry, so that things could be measured and therefore predicted.

(Courtesy: 'On Giants' Shoulders' - Melvyn Bragg)

Question Ably - 25

He was born into the French aristocracy and became a tax collector, a profession much hated by the people. He invited greater scorn by collecting money to build a wall around Paris, a wall which would help in collecting more taxes. Parisians felt their movements at night were restricted and hated the man for it.

When the Revolution came, tax collectors were seen as enemies of the people. He was imprisoned and eventually guillotined, conducting himself with remarkable dignity and poise till the very end.

Posterity knows him not for tax collection but for his contributions to science. It is said that when he heard the sentence, he asked for a few weeks time to complete some experiments. The judge replied, 'The revolution does not need scientists'.

A contemporary said in anguish, 'It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.'

Who?
       

Governance then and now: same difference?

I am just finishing Maharani Gayatri Devi's memoirs, 'A Princess Remembers'.

In the 1962 general elections Gayatri Devi contested on a Swatantra Party (Rajaji's party) ticket and won the Jaipur Parliamentary seat by a margin big enough to earn her a place in the Guinness Book.

Recalling the state of governance in the country at that time, she writes:

"The Congress Party in many parts of the country was beginning to acquire a reputation for corruption and nepotism. In Rajasthan, as in other places, the ministers put their proteges or people who had helped them in the elections in responsible government jobs which they had neither the education nor the experience to fill capably. It was rumoured that when government contracts were assigned to private companies, they were apt to go to whoever gave the minister concerned the most money under the table. We saw the effect of this practice in ordinary things that any tax-payer comes across. The state of the roads, for instance, was deplorable. There were potholes everywhere and in places the rains had washed out the roads entirely. Money had been allotted for repairs but where it went we didn't know."

This was in the late '50s. The only difference since then seems to be that now there are more parties doing the same things. 

Question Ably - 24: Answer

(Image courtesy: http://www.duncans-tea.com/brands/index.htm)

Runglee Rungliot - or Rangli Rangliot and so on, you get the idea - is the answer.

In this connection, one of the avid readers of this blog wrote, along with his correct answer within minutes of the question going online:

"When my sister and I were growing up, I remember we used to wonder at these tin boxes with a picture of a Tibetan lama blowing one of those Tibetan horns and 'Runglee Rungliot' written on top. There was never any tea in there, as the boxes were used to store some other things. We figured out what those two words meant only after the Google age. Your question this morning brought back fond memories and tears of happiness."

Of course, the last sentence is mine entirely. The mind's tendency to rung liot. I mean run riot.

Question Ably - 24

A Buddhist monk stepped into a tea garden and was so enchanted by the aroma, he said, 'Thus far and no further.' Not in English, Tibetan presumably. The two words he said in his native tongue is now a premium tea brand owned by the Duncan Goenka Group. The name also refers to the tea-garden itself where this tea is grown; the garden is part of the tea garden tourism in the area.

The two words please. 

Sundown at Lalbagh