Cleopatra and Mark Antony

Brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate everyone." That was the description of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. She could have had anything or anyone she wanted, but she fell passionately in love with the Roman General Mark Antony. As Shakespeare depicts it, their relationship was volatile ("Fool! Don't you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you," Cleopatra said) but after they risked all in a war on Rome and lost, they chose to die together in 30 BC. "I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into it as to a lover's bed," said Antony. And Cleopatra followed, by clasping a poisonous asp to her breast.

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Human interaction

We are social animals. We crave contact with others for support, wellbeing and entertainment. But as our lifestyles become ever more transient and reliant on digital tools, these simple interactions are under threat. Nothing compares to living in real communities and spending actual physical time with the people we love. Why is human interaction so important? For one thing, it is important for our mental health. Social contact helps us to cope with stress and major life changes like a divorce, redundancy and moving house. And knowing that we are valued by others is an important psychological factor in helping us to forget the negative aspects of our lives, and thinking more positively about our environment. There is compelling evidence to suggest human contact is also vital for our physical health too. In a 2010 report in The Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, Debra Umberson and Jennifer Karas Montez, sociology researchers at the University of Texas at...

Dante and Beatrice

Rarely has a woman served as such profound inspiration for a writer—and yet he barely knew her. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote passionately of Beatrice in the Divine Comedy and other poems, but only met the object of his affection twice. The first time, he was nine years old and she was eight. The second time, they were adults, and while walking on the street in Florence, Beatrice, an emerald-eyed beauty, turned and greeted Dante before continuing on her way. Beatrice died at age 24 in 1290 without Dante ever seeing her again. Nonetheless, she was "the glorious lady of my mind," he wrote, and "she is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation."

Midnight date romance

Midnight date romance As a part of my work, I started interacting closely with people with disabilities and naturally even more with the visually impaired community. Breaking away from Rahul was not easy but I realised that my work gave me solace, and the disabled community found a new spot in my heart, which was very fragile and very empty at that point. And this was when I met the man who changed many definitions of life for me. Ashutosh and I knew of each other. If you are visually impaired in Mumbai and connected with the blind community, you inevitably know of most of the people and even the gossip about them whether you want to or not. I always jokingly say that I had believed, because of my incredible parents, I was out of the line of fire of the closed gossipy cultural community that I belong to, but I ended up in the blind community, which is more closed and, god save us, more gossipy. In fact, I remember that we were both at a common event where I had not introduce...

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