The Talented Brothers

Sham S. Misri

Vikram and Betal is based on Betal Pachisi, written nearly 2,500 years ago by Somadeva Bhatt. These are spellbinding stories told to the wise King Vikramaditya by the crafty ghost Betal.

At the beginning of the frame story, Vikramaditya king of Ujjain receives, among other visitors, a mendicant who presents the king a fruit on every visit. In the fruits are later discovered orbs of ruby. Upon this discovery, the king resolves to visit the mendicant, who arranges a meeting under a banyan tree in a cremation ground beyond the city, at night, on the 14th day of the dark half of the month. At the meeting, the mendicant requests that Vikramaditya bring him a corpse suspended from another tree, with which the mendicant might achieve occult power.

Upon Vikramaditya doing so, the corpse is identified as Betal, the vampire, who narrates a story to the king, concluding that Vikramaditya must answer a moral question pertaining to the story's characters, on pain of his own death; and upon his answering the question, Betal returns to his tree. This sequence repeats 25 times until Betal reveals the mendicant's plan was to kill the king after obtaining power from Betal himself. Thus forewarned, Vikramaditya kills the mendicant after their meeting. One such story is as follows:

As Vikram carried Betal on his back, he narrated another story. Two very talented brothers, Som and Mangal, lived in the kingdom of Jaisingh. The first one had very powerful eyesight and the second one had a strong sense of smell. King Jaisingh made them his guards.

One day, the neighbouring king invited Jaisingh to his kingdom. Jaisingh saw that there was a risk to his life, so he took the two brothers with him. After a grand dinner, Jaisingh was taken to his bedroom. As he was about to go to sleep, Som spotted a thorn on his bed. When Mangal smelled the thorn he said that it was poisonous and if Jaisingh had slept on it, he would have died. Betal asked Vikram, "Which brother was more talented?" Vikram answered, "Som was more talented because his talent saved the king's life." Betal said "This is the right answer." He flew away because Vikram had spoken.

Brass

Sham S. Misri

Brass is a mixture (alloy) consisting essentially of copper and zinc in variable proportions. Brass is harder and stronger than copper and it does not wear out easily. It is also cheaper than copper. This attractive, hard wearing metal has many uses in ornamental dishes, hardware, engineering, architecture and for musical instruments. The musical instruments (such as trumpets, trombones, orchestra and tubas) are made of brass. 

 

The bright metal objects are made of brass. It finds use in brass memorial tablets, bright metal fittings, utensils, or ornaments and empty cartridge shells.

There are many different kinds of brass, but all these contain copper and zinc. The amount of copper in brass varies from 50 percent to more than 95%. The other main metal, zinc, can be added in proportions up to 50%. Small amounts of these elements are often added for special purposes. These can be Tin, Nickel, lead, manganese, aluminum or iron.

When brass has 70 % copper it is a golden yellow colour. If the alloy has about 80% copper it becomes reddish in colour, and looks more like copper. Alloys with a lot of copper in them are quite soft and can be shaped either hot or cold. Brass with less than 60% copper is seldom shaped cold because it is too hard and brittle. The more zinc that is added to the mixture, the harder the brass becomes. Small quantities of nickel and tin are often added to make the brass harder and less likely to wear out.

Brass was probably discovered some time 1000BC by people who lived near the Black Sea in Turkey. They made brass by heating copper with charcoal and powdered zinc ore. Brass was extensively used in China after 220 BC, and soon thereafter by the Romans.

By the end of first century BC, the Romans were making brass coins. In Europe up to the 16^th century, brass was used mainly for decoration and memorial plates in churches.

In ancient documents, including the Bible, the term brass is often used to denote bronze (copper/tin alloy). The malleability of brass depends on its zinc content; brasses with more than 45% zinc are not workable. Alpha brasses contain less than 40% zinc; beta brasses (40–45% zinc) are less ductile than alpha brasses but stronger. A third group includes brasses with additional elements. Among these are lead brasses, which are more easily machined; naval, and admiralty brasses, in which a small amount of tin improves resistance to corrosion by seawater; and aluminum brasses, which provide strength and corrosion resistance where the naval brasses may fail.

Making Brass

One of the problems in making brass is the difference in the melting points of the two main ingredients. Copper melts at 1083 degrees centigrade, but zinc melts at only 419 degrees centigrade. If the metals were heated together the zinc would all boil away before the copper had melted. So the copper has to be heated first until it melts. Then solid zinc is added, and most of it melts quickly in the molten copper. A small extra amount of zinc is added to make up for the little that melts away.

Casting the brass

After the zinc and copper have melted and mixed, the brass is ready to be poured into molds preshaped to whatever is being made. To prevent the casting sticking to the mold a graphite coating or some oily substance is wiped around the inner side of the mold before the metal is poured in.

One of the most common types of brass is called cartridge brass. It consists of 70% copper and 30% zinc.

Nickel silver is another member of the brass family. It has no silver in it at all, but is an alloy (mixture) of copper, zinc and nickel. This metal which is also called German silver is used to make “silverware” for the table. It is plated with silver and looks just like pure silver. The plate can however wear off with use.

Some other alloys are: (Read in a rhyme)

Brass, Bronze, Bell metal,

German silver, Gunmetal,

Pewter, Solder, Type metal.

Asbestos

Sham S. Misri

What is Asbestos?

Asbestos is a mineral fiber that occurs in rock and soil.

Asbestos is a material which does not melt or catch fire when it is put into flames. It also helps to hold off heat because heat goes through it very slowly.

Because of its fiber strength and heat resistance asbestos has been used in a variety of building construction materials for insulation and as a fire retardant. Asbestos has also been used in a wide range of manufactured goods, mostly in building materials (roofing shingles, ceiling and floor tiles, paper products, and asbestos cement products), friction products (automobile clutch, brake, and transmission parts), heat-resistant fabrics, packaging, gaskets, and coatings.

Most uses of asbestos are not banned. A few are banned under existing regulations. Asbestos may be found in Attic and wall insulation, Vinyl floor tiles and the backing on vinyl sheet flooring, adhesives, Roofing and siding shingles.

Asbestos also finds its use in textured paint and patching compounds used on wall and ceilings, Walls and floors around wood-burning stoves protected with asbestos paper, millboard, or cement sheets, Hot water and steam pipes coated with asbestos material or covered with an asbestos blanket or tape, Oil and coal furnaces and door gaskets with asbestos insulation, Heat-resistant fabrics, Automobile clutches and brakes.

Other places where asbestos can be found:

•      Schools

•      Workplace

•      Soils and rock: naturally-occurring asbestos

•      Drinking water

•      Air: regulations

How Can People Be Exposed to Asbestos?

Asbestos fibres may be released into the air by the disturbance of asbestos-containing material during product use, demolition work, building or home maintenance, repair, and re modelling.

Health Effects from Exposure to Asbestos

Exposure to asbestos increases risk of developing lung disease. That risk is made worse by smoking. Disease symptoms may take many years to develop following exposure.

Three of the major health effects associated with asbestos exposure is:

•      Lung cancer

•      Mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that is found in the thin lining of the lung, chest and the abdomen and heart

•      Asbestosis, a serious progressive, long-term, non-cancer disease of the lungs

Fire resistant asbestos cement sheets are made by mixing cement and asbestos fibres in water. Some pipes are also made from asbestos cement.

Most of world’s asbestos is mined in Canada and the Ural Mountains of Russia. It is often necessary to crush one hundred tons of rock to get five tons of asbestos.

Now we know that asbestos is heat resistant.

Did you know?

The heat resistance of asbestos has been known for many hundreds of years. King Charlemagne of France even had a table cloth of asbestos. When it became stained, it was just thrown into the fire to clean it, then pulled out and used again*.

[Ref.* Growing up with Science, Encyclopaedia of Invention P-102]  

Agni and Krishna

Sham S, Misri

A Brahmin once came to Krishna and Arjun and begged for food. They promised to give him whatever he wanted to eat. Then the Brahmin took on his true form; he was actually Agni the fire-god. He wanted to eat the Khandava forest. But the king of snakes, Takshaka lived in that forest. Takshaka was a friend of Indra the rain god. So every time Agni tried to burn the forest, Indra brought rains and put out the fire.

Agni asked Krishna and Arjun, "Keep your promise and help me eat the forest." Krishna and Arjun needed good weapons for that. Agni gave Arjun a quiver from which he could take out as many arrows as he wanted.

Agni then set the forest on fire. As soon as Indra saw this, he brought rains. But Arjun shot thousands of arrows in the air and formed a cover on the forest to block the rain. Agni burnt the forest completely and satisfied his hunger.