Sunday, December 31, 2017

10Q (December 31, 2017)

[For most of the images, larger versions can be viewed by clicking on them]

1. A writer, journalist, photographer, filmmaker and graphic designer who has been associated with various people's movements since 1990, Sonia Jabbar took over this family business a few years ago, and has been trying to revitalise its image using innovative marketing and promotion initiatives such as this sort of commemorative mug. What business, whose name has been part of the social, economic and political discourse of the country for the last 40-odd years?

2. Psalm 58 of the Bible has a reference to an ancient belief that this snake (the only venomous snake in the UK, if that helps) is able to stop up its ears to avoid hearing the snake charmer called in to drive it away. This belief gave rise to what four-word phrase?

3. This is a photograph of the Hollywood Ten waiting to be fingerprinted in the US Marshal's office in November 1947. Who were the Hollywood Ten? [A broad explanation will do, no names required.]

4. One of van Gogh's favoured pigments was Indian yellow, a transparent pigment with an element of fluorescence used in oil painting. Likely first used by Dutch artists, its origin was unknown until an investigation in the year 1883. The method of production, reported by a Mr. T.N. Mukharji of Calcutta who claimed to have studied the process in Bihar, was found to be inhumane and was outlawed in 1908. From what was Indian yellow made?

5. The Khoisan people are an aboriginal people of southern Africa who have lived there for millennia. By what name, now considered derogatory, did  European colonialist settlers refer to them?

6. This is a scene from the 1959 German adventure drama film 'The Indian Tomb' ('Das Indische Grabmal' in the original German), based on Thea von Harbou's novel of the same name. Who directed the film?

If you have any problem viewing the YouTube video above, you can access the clip here.

7. Who said this about his recent (October 2017) book: "...we as individuals are dealing with change all the time, and we're hitting refresh -- we learn from it. The same is true for organizations, and the same is true for our society."

8. This English word, a variant of the Italian word for 'baby'; first came up in early 20th-century American theatre dialogue. It originally referred to a stupid, inconsequential man, but soon switched sexes. In 1920, composer Frank Crumit recorded "My Little _____ Down on the Bamboo Isle", in which the term is used to describe an island girl of questionable virtue. What's the bad word?

9. The term used for this method of differentiating bacterial species into two large groups comes not from a unit of measurement or a type of food ingredient, but from the surname of Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian [X], who developed the technique. What is [X]?

10. In his journal, the best-known denizen of the shore of this water body philosophised upon the wintry sight of Frederic Tudor's men at work on it: "The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well ... The pure ______ water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges." (a) Name the water body (b) Who wrote these lines? (c) What were Tudor's men doing?

Answers
1. The Nuxalbari Tea Estate (where the Naxalite movement started)

2. Deaf as an adder
3. They were the victims of the first systematic Hollywood blacklist.
On November 25, 1947, the day after these ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a group of studio executives, acting under the aegis of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the artists. The blacklist was effectively broken in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo, an unrepentant member of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly acknowledged as the screenwriter of the films 'Spartacus' and 'Exodus'.
4. The urine of cattle fed only on mango leaves and water. 
The urine would be collected and dried, producing foul-smelling hard dirty yellow balls of the raw pigment. The process was outlawed as the cows were extremely undernourished, partly because the leaves contain the toxin urushiol which is also found in poison ivy.
5. Bushmen
6. Fritz Lang
7. Satya Nadella

8. Bimbo
9. Gram
10. (a) Walden Pond (b) Henry David Thoreau (c) Harvesting ice to send around the world, including to India. Tudor was known as the Ice King.

15 comments:

  1. 1. Wagh Bakri Tea?
    2. Deaf as an adder.
    3. Artistes suspected to have communist leanings.
    4.
    5. Negroes?
    6. V. Shantaram?
    7.
    8. Babe?
    9. Gram
    10.
    (a) Walden Pond?
    (b) Henry David Thoreau?
    (c) Building a canal or something?

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1. Brooke Bond Tea?
    2. Deaf as an adder
    3. Those ostracized and being investigated for alleged anti-American (Communist) activities.
    4. I would hazard turmeric as a good ‘Indian’ guess.
    5. Kikuyu? Or similar.
    6. Josef Wirsching?
    7. No idea.
    8. Bambino?
    9. Gram!!
    10. Walden/Thoreau/no idea

    ReplyDelete
  3. 2. The only poisonous snake in the U.K. is the adder (aka the viper).
    3. Some recognition for entertaining the troops?
    4. Urea
    5. Zulu
    8. Bambino

    Paul
    6.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1. India resists, the open source platform.
    2.
    3. This is related to the rounding up of people who allegedly were communist sympathisers. Senator McCarthy's witch-hunt perhaps ended up rounding up these Hollywood executive and stars. The 10 were probably the most well known victims of the McCarthy era.
    4. Gall bladder of cows?
    5.
    9. Gram
    -Delson

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1. Tea plantation
    2. Turn a deaf ear
    3.The founders of the Academy Awards
    4.Human urine
    5.Negro
    6.Stanley Kubrick
    7.Satya Nadella
    8.Babe
    9.Gram

    ReplyDelete
  6. 1. Dawn
    4. Gaumutra
    5. Berbers
    6. Fritz Lang
    8. Bimbo
    9. Gram
    10. Walden, Thoreau, the cabin

    ReplyDelete
  7. 1. Hamdard
    2. Deaf as an adder
    3. Those blacklisted by the McCarthy Committee.
    4. Cow urine
    5. Hottentot
    6. Alfred Hitchcock
    7. Ramchandra Gujarat
    8. Bimbo
    9.
    10. A. Walden Lake, B. Henry David Thoreau, C. Building a railroad line.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 1. Amul?? (doesnt fit the family owned tag :-()
    2. deaf as a snake??
    3.
    4. honey bee??
    5. negro/nigger??
    6.
    7. satya nadella :-)
    8.
    9. GRAM :-)
    10.

    -AAM Aadmi

    ReplyDelete
  9. 2. Deaf as an adder
    3. Blacklisted artists during the McCarthy era
    8. Bimbo
    9. Gram stains
    10. (a) Walden (b) Thoreau, don't know (c)

    - Aditya Mallya

    ReplyDelete
  10. 1. Naxalbari
    2. Pit stop
    3. Accused by mccarthy of being commies
    4. Bile of sun bear
    5. Hottentot
    8. Babe
    9. Gram

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1. Lal Salaam
    2. Deaf as an adder
    3. These were a group of Hollywood Personalities who were indicted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, under Sen. McCarthy.
    4.
    5. Bushmen
    6. Franz Osten
    7. Sundar Pichai
    8. Bambina
    9.
    10. Hussain Sagar Lake, they were building the thing.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 1. Brooke Bond Tea
    3. McCarthy era Hollywood dudes who were not allowed to make movies because they were commies.
    4. Piss
    7. Satya Nadella
    8. Bimbo
    9. Oesterd
    10. Dal Lake?, Mirza Galib, Chillin

    ReplyDelete

  13. 1: naxalbari
    2
    3: Suspected of being commies /blacklisted
    4: Piss ?
    5
    6
    7: Satya Nadella
    8: Bimbo
    9: Gram
    10

    ReplyDelete
  14. Pamela
    1.Some tea company.
    2.fall on deaf ears, turn a deaf ear.
    3.Hollywood filmmakers who protested against Mac Cartnism, and the hounding of suspected leftists in the industry.
    4.Cattle Urine?
    5.Niggers
    6. The Bombay Talkies owner
    7.
    8.Bimbo
    9.
    10.a)Potomac b) William Falkner c)

    ReplyDelete
  15. 1. Tea estate
    2. Deaf as a snake
    3. Top producers, studio owners -- called in to prove their politics/loyalty during the era of McCarthyism
    4. Saffron flowers
    5, Negros
    6. Joseph Wirschling (not sure of the spellings -- the german guy about whom there was an exhibit in Adil Shah/Serendipity)
    7. Wendell Rodricks
    8. Vixen
    9. Anderson
    10. (a) Lake Victoria; (b) Mark Twain; (c) Building a fort

    --- Anjali Dar SenGupta

    ReplyDelete