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Your Proofness: Sarah Munir Master Storyteller: Nudrat Kamal Creativity Analysts: Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Talha Ahmed Khan, Munira Abbas, Omer Asim and Umar Waqas
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
Hi light
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Halloween is just around the corner, and the air is buzzing with werewolves howling, ghosts shrieking and zombies moaning. But did you know that there are more scary monsters and creepy creatures in the world than just the usual witches, ghosts and demons? Here are some of the lesser known – but no less terrifying – monsters that can be found in different cultures around the world. These imaginary monsters have been created by various folktales and their scary stories have been passed down thorugh generations.
Djinn are supernatural creatures that are a part of Muslim belief. They are said to be made of fire and smoke and inhabit an unseen world in a dimension beyond the universe which we are a part of. Djinn are the only beings apart from humans that have free will so they can be both good or evil. Naturally, the most famous Djinn are the evil ones which can take various forms, including those of snakes and dogs. Some Djinn are even able to fly, and may even appear as dragons. Others may also take human form to trick humans. In Indonesian mythology, Pontianik are evil women spirits who prey on men. They are said to be the spirits of women who died during childbirth. They disguise themselves as beautiful, pale-skinned women with long dark hair and their presence is announced by the sound of a baby crying. The closer the Pontianik comes, the softer the baby’s cries become. When they get close enough to you, you will smell a very nice fragrance after which you are doomed. Pontianik are said to eat the organs of men and to suck the eyes out of people who look directly at them.
Jikininki belong to Japanese mythology and their name means ‘human-eating ghosts’ which automatically tell you how creepy these creatures are going to be. They are spirits of cursed humans who were greedy in their lives, and are now forced to go out and seek dead corpses to eat at night. Probably because they eat dead people, the Jikininki are said to look like decomposing corpses, with sharp claws and glowing eyes. And if all this wasn’t scary enough, the Jikininki also have the ability to disguise themselves as normal human beings and live a normal life during the day.
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
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3 According to Irish legends, Dullahan are headless horsemen who ride black horses and carry their heads under their arms – the heads which move their eyes around and have creepy smiles plastered on their faces. If this image is not terrifying enough, add a human spine in the hand of each of these Dullahan which they use as a whip. Whenever a Dullahan stops riding his horse, it means that somebody is about to die. It calls out the name of the unlucky person, who is then instantly killed. There is no gate strong enough to keep out the Dullahan. The only defence against them is gold, which they are afraid of.
Have you ever had a nightmare? According to Persian folklore, your nightmare may be caused by a Bakhtak, an invisible creature that sits on your chest while you sleep and turns your pleasant, happy dreams into terrifying nightmares. The Bakhtak may be invisible, but their power is deadly and monstrous. They weigh so much that when they sit on a person’s chest, they can induce sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is when you are just about to fall asleep or just about to wake up and you are temporarily unable to move, speak or react. So not only does the Bakhtak give you nightmares, it also makes you unable to move or jerk yourself awake to get rid of the nightmare.
You cannot talk about evil creatures and scary monsters without thinking about Halloween, a festival that celebrates all things horrifying. Halloween is an ancient festival, celebrated originally by the Celtic people 2000 years ago. These people lived in what is now Ireland, France and England, and their lives were revolved around harvesting their food. They considered the end of the harvesting season to be the end of the year, and they held a festival to celebrate the occasion. This festival was held on October 31st and was called Samhain (pronounced as ‘sow-in’). The people in charge of Samhain were the Celtic priests who were called Druids. Samhain, apart from indicating the end of the harvest season, was also a festival to mark the beginning of winter, which the Celts associated with death. The Celts believed that on the night which divided summer and winter, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead got blurred. This allowed ghosts of the dead to return to earth. To celebrate Samhain, the Druids built huge sacred bonfires around which the Celts gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to their ancient gods. During the celebration, the Celts dressed up in costumes made of animal heads and skins and tried to tell each other’s fortunes. When Christianity spread in these lands, a Christian festival called the All Saints’ Day (called All-Hallows or Hallowmas) began to be celebrated on the day after Samhain. The two celebrations combined over time and the new name Halloween was born.
What would you like to see in Hi Five? Send an email to hifive@tribune.com.pk and let us know!
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
Reading corner
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Why are graveyards so noisy? Because of all the coffin.
Why are skeletons so calm? Because nothing gets under their skin.
Why didn’t the mummy have any friends? Because he was too wrapped up in himself.
What did the beaver say to the tree? It’s been nice gnawing you.
What did the ocean say to the shore? Nothing, it just waved.
Why do bears have hairy coats? Fur protection.
Horror Stories This Halloween, curl up with a deliciously scary book or gather your friends for a night of watching horror movies. Here are some suggestions. The Graveyard Book When his parents are murdered, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other resident supernatural beings agree to raise him as their own. Nobody Owens, who is called Bod by his ghost family, grows up to be a completely normal boy — apart from the fact that he grew up in a graveyard. He was educated by ghosts and his guardian is a being who is hanging between the worlds of the living and the dead. The graveyard is full of adventures and danger for Bod, but the world outside is even more sinister — the man who killed his family is looking for him. Read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and join Bod’s creepy adventures. Johnny and the Dead Johnny can see the dead, and frankly, he’s sick of it. Dead people keep harassing him about their dead people problems. And things are about to get worse. The city council wants to sell the graveyard as a building site, and the dead are angry. They make a plan to get their graveyard back and drag Johnny into it, waiting for Halloween night to put the plan in motion. If you like your horror stories with a dash of comedy, read Johnny and the Dead by Terry Prachett and find out how the dead take back their graveyard.
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls Victoria and Lawrence may be best friends but they are complete opposites. Where Victoria wants things neat and tidy, Lawrence is a mess. Victoria wonders why she is even friends with him. But then Lawrence goes missing. And he’s not the only one. Victoria discovers the culprit to be the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, where kids go in but come out…different. Or they don’t come out at all. Read The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand and find out whether Victoria will be able to rescue Lawrence from the horrors of this home.
Coraline Coraline is bored with her life. Her house is quiet and her parents don’t pay any attention to her. So when she finds a hidden door leading to a secret passage, she’s thrilled. On the other end of the passage is a house just like hers. Even the people living there are remarkably like her own parents, except they have creepy black buttons for eyes. Still, these Other Parents are more interesting than her own and Coraline loves visiting them. But then these parents make it clear that they want to keep her as theirs forever, and Coraline is trapped in this strange parallel world. Watch the creepy and suspenseful Coraline to find out what happens.
The Nightmare before Christmas Jack Skellington is the pumpkin king of Halloween Town. But he is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween. What happens when creatures that are meant to be scary try to create a festival that is completely non-scary? Watch The Nightmare before Christmas and find out.
Do you have a favourite book or movie you would like us to review? Write to us at hifive@tribune.com.pk and tell us all about it.
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
Get your weekly dose of the unusual and funny news from across the globe!
Largest underwater sculpture In the sea of Nassau, Bahamas, an 18-foot tall girl made of stone rests on the ocean floor. Created by artist Jason deCaires Taylor, this sculpture weighs 60 tonnes and is the largest underwater sculpture ever created. It is called Ocean Atlas, which is a reference to the ancient Greek myth of Atlas, a Titan who held up the celestial bodies of the universe. Taylor has made several other underwater sculptures as well. According to Taylor, his sculptures are created from “sustainable pH-neutral material that encourages the growth of coral and other marine wildlife”, which means they will transform into a coral reef, so they are not harmful to marine life. This particular piece was commissioned by the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation to honour its founder, Sir Nicholas Nuttal. BUZZFEED.COM
Hovering above Fans of Back to the Future II will be happy to know that the ‘hoverboard’ shown in the film is now a reality. The hoverboard is a skateboard which hovers above the ground so that you can nearly fly while riding it, and the classic ’80s film shows the main character, Marty McFly, riding it over a fountain. Now, a California tech company called Arx Pax has created a working model of the hoverboard which it is calling Hendo. The Hendo uses magnets to hover about an inch over any surface made of non-ferrous metal — copper or aluminum. It can hold about 300 pounds and run for 15 minutes. Although the surfaces over which this hoverboard can work are limited, it is still being hailed as a great invention. MIC.COM
World wide weird
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King Tut reborn
Tutankhamun, or King Tut, was a famous ancient Egyptian pharaoh whose almost perfectly preserved tomb was discovered in 1922. His burial mask, which is made of gold, has become a popular icon for ancient Egypt. This month, advanced imaging technology has allowed scientists to re-create the first life-size image of the famous young king, giving historians a new perspective on his life in around 1330 BC. This image, which was developed with the help of CT scans of his mummified remains, shows that King Tut died when he was just 19 years old. The image also shows that he had a rare bone disorder which deformed his left foot. More than 100 walking sticks were found in Tut’s tomb; historians originally thought they represented his power, but it’s more likely that King Tut used them to get around. CNN.COM
Flying man Passengers on an airline over the north of England were baffled when a man ‘flew’ past their aircraft at 3,500 feet. The Airbus 320 was over Macclesfield as it came in to land at Manchester Airport when people on board noticed something whiz past the left-hand side of the plane. Pilots and passengers were mystified to see a ‘flying man’ shoot past the aircraft less than 100 metres away, with pilots saying nothing appeared on the radar and further checks failing to show any paragliders, parachutists or balloonists in the area. “They first sighted the object a few hundred metres in the 11 o’clock position 200 to 300ft above,” said the Airprox Board, which deals with near-misses. Investigators have failed to yield any real results about the man, who has been dubbed the “Macclesfield Superman’. ‘It’s a complete and utter mystery,” aviation expert Chris Yates told MailOnline. METRO.CO.UK
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
6 Did you know? Why is Diwali celebrated? Diwali, the festival of lights, is one of the most significant festivals in the world. This year’s Diwali was celebrate on Thursday, October 23. The word ‘Diwali’ means a ‘row of lighted lamps’. The festival is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains for a number of reasons, but the main theme which runs across these different religions’ Diwali celebrations is the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. To celebrate Diwali, there are huge fireworks displays, houses are decorated with candles and colourful lights and family members exchange gifts. The festival is a five-day long event, with the actual day of Diwali being celebrated on the third day of the festival. The day coincides with the Hindu New Year, so the festival celebrates new beginnings. The festival usually falls between mid-October and mid-November, although this is decided upon by the Hindu lunar calendar. Hindus celebrate Diwali in remembrance of the celebrations that took place when, according to legend, King Rama and his wife Sita returned from exile and imprisonment, to their kingdom in northern India after defeating the demon king Ravanna in the 15th century BC. The story goes that the locals were so happy about Rama and Sita’s return that they set off fireworks. Those who celebrate Diwali light a special type of candles, the traditional earthen diyas, and decorate their houses with colourful rangoli, which are special floor patterns created with coloured rice or powder. Children and grownups also light sparklers called phooljhariyan.
Words in Different Languages that Don’t Exist in English There are so many ideas, emotions and views in the world that any one language cannot possibly encapsulate them all. Here are some words in different languages that describe certain things that the English language has no specific word for. Pochemuchka (Russian): A person who asks too many questions. Tsundoku (Japanese): The act of leaving a book unread after buying it, piling it together with other such unread books. Schadenfreude (German): Enjoyment obtained from the misery of others. Hanyauku (Kwangali): The act of walking on tiptoes across warm sand. Friolero (Spanish): A person who is especially sensitive to cold weather. Shlimazl (Yiddish): A chronically unlucky person. Tingo (Pascuense): The act of taking objects one desires from a friend’s house by gradually borrowing all of them.
Fun Facts about Outer Space The light hitting the earth right now is 30,000 years old. The moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth. The galaxy we live in — the Milky Way — is moving through space at a speed of 530 kilometres per second. The density of Saturn is so low that that if it is put in a giant glass of water, it would float. If two pieces of metal touch in space, they become permanently stuck together. This process is called cold welding and the reason why it doesn’t occur on Earth is because the Earth’s atmosphere puts a layer of oxidised material on all metals. The planet Uranus was originally called George’s Star. This is because the planet was discovered by Sir William Herschel, who had the honour of naming it and who named it after his patron King George III. The planet Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered by a telescope. The sun loses up to a billion kilogrammes per second from its surface due to solar winds. Solar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun.
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
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Artwork
Notable Entries for the Liberty Books Cards Competition
Chakar Khan Winner Azhan Ahmad Bin Shafiq Winner
Saif Ali Shah
Tehreem Zubair
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2014
You will need: • Water • A large container • Liquid dishwashing soap PHOTO: NADEEM HADI KHAN
• Wooden ice cream sticks
Name: Hasham Hadi Age: Nine and a half years Star power: The world’s highest scorer in an international scrabble competition.
Scrabble is a family passion for Hasham. Growing up with two brothers who were already experts at scrabble, Hasham had to learn the skills and excel from a very young age if he wanted to keep up with them. “I have been playing scrabble since I was six years old,” says the now nine-and-ahalf year-old scrabble champ. And it seems like his early introduction to the competitive word game has paid off. In August 2014, Hasham became the youngest member of the Pakistani scrabble team to take part in the World Youth Scrabble Championship (WYSC). The international tournament was held in Columbo, Sir Lanka, and it was there that Hasham’s talent reached an impressive height. In a game against Sri Lanka’s Matheesha de Silva, Hasham scored a total of 876 points, which is the highest score that anyone has ever achieved in a scrabble match. In fact, in all of the international scrabble tournaments that have been held throughout the world, no score higher than 800 has ever been recorded. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest score ever registered at a scrabble match was by Singapore’s Ton Wei bin 850 in 2012. The Guinness World Records is currently in process of officially declaring Hasham’s score as the highest score ever. Hasham is, understandably, over the moon about this great feat. “I am very excited to have broken the record,” he says. Upon breaking the re-
cord, Hasham was personally congratulated by reigning World Champion of scrabble, Nigel Richards. When asked about how he got so good at scrabble, Hasham says he has learnt a lot from his older twin brothers, Hammad and Hassan. And as for how he learnt so many difficult words that he can use in his scrabble games, Hasham says, “I use the word-learning software Zyzzyva.” Moving forward, Hasham says he will continue to compete in more scrabble tournaments, hopefully achieving greater and greater feats.
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What to do: 1. Fill your container with a couple of centimetres of water. 2. Place the ice cream stick on the surface of the water. It will float. 3. Add a little dishwashing liquid at one end of the stick. 4. Watch the stick zoom off.
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What is happening: This little investigation is a great demonstration of surface tension. When you have a container full of water the water molecules below the surface are distributed equally in all directions. But the molecules on top of the surface are pulled together more tightly, forming a kind of ‘skin’ which is called surface tension. It is the surface tension that stops the ice cream stick from sinking. When we added the dishwashing liquid, it disrupted the arrangement of the water molecules on the surface of the water where it touched the stick, which decreased the surface tension beneath the stick. Water molecules move from areas of low surface tension to high surface tension and so the stick moved forward to an area of water which had greater surface tension. PHOTO: PAKISTAN SCRABBLE ASSOCIATION SCIENCE-SPARKS.COM