prelude  Paul Joseph Stankard, considered to be the father of modern glass paperweights, was born on April 6, 1943 in an Irish Catholic family. He lived in North Attleboro, Massachusetts in his early years. He graduated from the Salem Vocational Technical Institute with a degree in Scientific Glassblowing. For the first ten years of his work career, he worked as a glassblower, making scientific instruments for various chemical laboratories. Stankard, whose driving desire was to “be on the creative side”, started producing glass paperweights in his garage while working in industry to support his growing family. It was when Stankard displayed his early paperweights at a craft exhibit on the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey that Reese Palley, an internationally respected art dealer, saw his work and sponsored Stankard financially to move full time into making glass art. In the early 1960s, paperweights made by other American paperweight makers showcased brightly coloured “crafty” type flowers that were not botanically accurate. Stankard laboured to make his glass floral designs look more natural and botanically life-like. His glass flowers were so real looking that many people mistakenly thought that he had found a way to encase actual flowers in glass. Soon thereafter, paperweight makers (mostly American) were following Stankard’s lead. E-mail your questions with answers at: only4_pol@yahoo.co.uk or post at: THE COLOSSEUM, Mosaic, Friday Supplement, The Assam Tribune, Guwahati-781003 or SMS at: 9864102417.

side screen  1) Picture Clue: Identify this celebrity of yesteryears. (Prosenjit ‘Piklu’ Dutta, Nepalipatty, Tezpur)

harmonisers  2) Where in Rome does the college of cardinals traditionally meet to elect a Pope? Hint: It has a ceiling painted by Michelangelo. 3) Which famous object in United Kingdom is named after Benjamin Hall, the first commissioner of works in Disraeli’s cabinet? 4) Which singer-composer’s first album was Mahatmar Mahaprayan in 1948? 5) Which national honour did AR Rahman receive in 1999 for popularising Indian music abroad?

unities  6) Which term describes any dialogue heard when the actor or narrator is not seen to be speaking? 7) Himangshu Rai’s classic Light of Asia was based on the life of which religious figure? 8) The film Utsav, starring Shashi Kapoor and Rekha, is based on which ancient Indian classic?

do-re-me  9) If you watch TV, you should know what ‘zapping’ is. What is it? (Saroj K. Deka, MBA Department, Gauhati University) 10) Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya, was performing the Putrakama Yagna in order to have children. As a result, he received some sacred pudding to be shared by his three wives, leading to the births of Lord Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughna. By divine ordinance, a kite snatched a fragment of that pudding, and dropped it while flying over the forest where Anjana was engaged in worship. Vayu, the Hindu deity of the wind, delivered the falling pudding to the outstretched hands of Anjana, who consumed it. What happened next? (Abhra Das, Guwahati) 11) Who or what was ‘Supratika’ in the Mahabharata? (S.K. Medhi, Advocate, Guwahati) 12) Which medical term is derived from the Greek for ‘good death’? (Sibani, Maligaon, Guwahati) 13) Which Bharat Ratna awardee belongs to the Kirana gharana? (Alakananda Medhi, Guwahati) 14) This term is an English idiom used since 1834, ‘for noble birth (or descent)’, and is a translation of the Spanish phrase Sangre Azu, that described the Spanish royal family. What term? (Jyotirupa Roy, BRPL Township, Bongaigaon)

crescendo  15) This place derived its name from a Persian word meaning ‘threshold’ because it was the gateway to the Gangetic plains. Ptolemy, the Alexandrian geographer, called it Daidalas. Identify the place. (Jayanta Kumar Nath, Tezpur)

Answers  1) Mukesh 2) The Sistine Palace in Vatican City 3) Big Ben in London 4) Dr. Bhupen Hazarika 5) Padma Sri 6) Voice over 7) Buddha 8) Mrichchakatika 9) Changing channels to avoid commercials 10) Hanuman was born 11) It is the renowned elephant of Bhagadatta, the King of Pragjyotishpur 12) Euthanasia 13) Pandit Bhimsen Joshi 14) ‘Blue blood’. There is no connection between the phrase and the actual blood colour of the nobility. However, in the ancient and mediaeval societies in Europe, most of the upper class may have had their blue veins appear distinctly because of their untanned skin, unlike the working class of the time, mainly agricultural peasants 15) Delhi.