Stotting/Honest signalling (springbok)

By stotting (also called pronking), a springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) signals honestly to predators that it is young, fit, and not worth chasing.

How confident do you have to be to do this?

Part of signalling theory, this is called honest signalling.

Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between individuals, both within species and across species. The central question is how organisms with conflicting interests, such as in sexual selection, are expected to provide honest signals rather than deceive or cheat, given that the passing on of pleiotropic traits is subject to natural selection, which aims to minimize associated costs without assuming any conscious intent. Mathematical models describe how signalling can contribute to an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Thikana Na Rekhe Bhaloi Korecho Bondhu (Pulak Bandyopadhyay)

Some songs are works of poetry. That they have a melody, in their case, brings down their poetic worth. This is a Haimanti Shukla song. Haimanti Shukla isn't a particularly famous figure in the late 20th-century West-Bengali songscape -- that is unless you're into albums and not just jukebox-trivia (listening to whatever plays on community loudspeakers during "festivities") or film numbers.

The lyrics read as follows:

ঠিকানা না রেখে ভালই করেছ বন্ধু
না আসার কোন কারণ সাজাতে হবেনা তোমায় আর
বানানো কাহিনী শোনাতে হবেনা কথা দিয়ে না রাখার

হঠাৎ খেয়ালী দিনে কাছে এসে পথ চিনে
সুযোগ পাবেনা দিয়ে যেতে আর অভিনয় উপহার
না আসার কোন কারণ সাজাতে হবেনা তোমায় আর

তোমার হিসাবে কি ভুল রয়েছে নিজেই ধরেছ তুমি
ভুলে যেতে চেয়ে ভালই করেছ তুমি

আমার নিয়তি নিয়ে কোন অভিযোগ দিয়ে
আমিও পাবনা কোন অবকাশ কোন কথা জানাবার
না আসার কোন কারণ সাজাতে হবেনা তোমায় আর

I provide a sketchy translation so that English speakers may appreciate its worth:

Well done, leaving [my] address behind, my friend --
Need not weave excuses any longer for not coming;
Need not fabricate stories for words given and unkept.

On a sudden day of whimsicality, to come close, to find the way --
You will have no longer a chance -- to leave a gift of pretense;
No excuses needed anymore for not coming.

All the errors in your own calculations you have apprehended yourself --
Well done, in desiring to forget.

Blaming my own destiny, somehow --
Neither will I have the scope -- to tell you anything, anymore.
No excuses to be woven any longer for your not coming.

Riot burnt lyrics (Bangladesh, 19th Dec. 2025)

This is one of the most emotional depictions of riot/public unrest I've come upon. Taken in Bangladesh, 19th December 2025, after a masked mob burnt down Chhayanot musical academy. Chhayanaut building set on fire.

A burnt text, probably Rabindranath

What does a riot burn? It burns portions of our identity. Sometimes for the better, sometimes worse. In reality, we have no true understanding, let alone control, of our future. As we speak -- rather, as our ideologies speak through us -- we try to ascertain its course. (On the brighter side, this is an interactive process for ALL of us -- belief and observation interplay.)

More often than not, we burn that which has made us heavier all this while. This object could be insignia, which, however regal, we no longer know how to carry; the elegance of them a stark contrast to the filth of the suffering that has become our existence. So we want to eliminate the torture of their mere vision from our eyes.

I'll skip the obvious trope of burning not just a piece of paper but an entire art form, and all those related stories. In any case, art is like moss -- regenerative. There is only so much harm we can try doing to art. Art will erupt from charred manuscripts and shattered instruments -- it is not up for us to stop it.

Sometimes we burn one thing and it takes down others. The image probably depicts that. Or maybe it doesn't. Different people want to burn different things. A riot is a collective act. It is surprising that throughout history men have gathered with an intent to burn without the possibility (or realizing it?) of conflicting intents. What if one of the rioters has a sister who tries novice Hindustani classical music in her spare time? I suppose a life-necessity (an art form, a building, a picture, even an entire person!) is not a necessity after all if it hasn't permeated so deep into our instincts that we refuse to arsonize it. In other words, if there is still some consensus about destroying a sustenance, then it hasn't become staple yet. Thereby either it is not indispensable enough, or somewhere we are lacking the devotion to bring it under universal necessity.

I can't give you anything but love

What is the feeling of being unable to unlove somebody for the sake of friendship? What is the feeling of accepting distance at the cost of closeness that has less meaning, less warmth? What is the feeling of surrender to abandonment at the cost of adoption unto platonicity? How far does man drive himself to suit his ego of having not his shoulder hugged but instead his hair gently stroked by the fingers of his lover?

This playful French melody is the answer to it. I cannot give you anything but love, it says -- it doesn't say, but sings -- or whistles. Unsure if it cannot, or it won't. Why won't it? One perception is ego. The other perception is paralysis. The giver is paralyzed in love enough to not be able to give anything else. Even love the giver cannot give; the lover lies bound in the ropes of paralysis. The flower of love has bloomed and hangs from his heart. His lover can pick it up if she wishes. (I'm sure this is not even close to the original lyrics of the song. But this is a gypsy tune, and it dictates a certain different mood for the song.)

Untranslatable words without English equivalents

Here are some words that get enshrined within you only when you become part of that culture. They refuse to be obfuscated by globalized approximations and moral common-grounds. They bear the weight of their origin, their speakers and their abiders.

Arabic

• ya'aburnee: "may you bury me"; a hope that you die before someone, because you can't live without them

Bantu

• bilita mpash: "the opposite of a nightmare"; an amazing, blissful dream
• ubuntu: "I am because we are"; the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity

Buli (Ghana)

• pelinti: to move hot food around in your mouth

Czech

• litost: torment caused by the sudden sight of one's misery

Danish

• hygge: pleasure derived from sitting around a fire in the winter with close friends

French

• l'esprit de l'escalier: "stairwell wit"; a witty retort discovered only after it's too late for a comeback. Also, treppenwitz (German).

Georgian

• shemomedjamo: "I accidentally ate the whole thing"
• zeg: day after tomorrow. Also torshu (Bengali), overmorrow (dated).

German

• backpfeifengesicht: a face badly in need of a punch/slap
• kummerspeck: "grief bacon"; refers to excess weight gained from emotional overeating
• schadenfreude: pleasure derived from someone else's misfortune
• waldeinsamkeit: the feeling of being alone in a forest

Indonesian

• jayus: a joke so bad that it's funny
• mencolek: to trick someone by tapping them on the opposite shoulder from behind

Inuktitut

• iktsuarpok: feeling of anticipation when waiting for someone to arrive, causing you to keep looking outside to see if they are coming

Italian

• cavoli riscaldati: "reheated cabbage"; the result of attempting to revive an unworkable relationship

Japanese

• boketto: gazing vacantly into the distance
• ikigai: a motivating force; something or someone that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living
• koi no yokan: "premonition of love", "love at second sight"; the foreknowledge of eventual love for someone upon first meeting them
• wabi-sabi: finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence

Persian

• mush bokhoradet: "may a mouse eat you"; an expression to mean someone is really cute
• zhaghzhagh: the clattering of teeth from cold or rage

Portugese

• cafune: tenderly running your fingers through your lover's hair
• saudade: a deep feeling of longing or nostalgia for an absent person or thing

Russian

• razbliuto: the sentiment for someone once loved but now no more
• toska: a deep, melancholic longing or spiritual anguish that often has no specific cause

Samoan

• faamiti: to squeak by sucking air past the lips to attract a dog or child

Sanskrit

• obhiman: a temporary displeasure towards a loved one that stems from feeling slighted, insulted, or hurt, but where the person also sees a valid point in the other's actions

Scottish

• tartle: the hesitation in introducing yourself to someone

Spanish

• sobremesa: time spent at the table after eating

Swedish

• uffda: an interjection of sympathy for somebody that hurt themselves. Also ahare! (Bengali)

Tagalog

• kilig: the feeling of butterflies in one's stomach

Ulwa (Nicaragua & Papua New Guinea)

• yuputka: the unsettling, phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin, especially when walking in the woods at night

Welsh

• hiraeth: a deep, nostalgic longing for a home, place, or time that is gone or may never have existed.

Yaghan (Tierra del Fuego archipelago, South America)

• mamihlapinatapai: a glance between two people, both of whom want the other person to initiate something they desire, both unwilling to start themselves (Most Succint Word, Guiness Book of World Records)

Yiddish

• luftmencsh: "air person"; an absent minded impractical person with his head in the clouds
• schlemiel/schlimazel: "coffee spiller/spillee"; prone to bad luck

They don't have proper English translations.