 | Derek O'Brien |
The festive month of October is Goddess Lakshmi’s special month. Lakshmi Puja is celebrated on Kojagari Purnima. Kojagari means ‘who stays awake’ and there is a popular belief that Goddess Lakshmi visits the homes of those who are awake and showers her blessings on them. Lakshmi is depicted as a beautiful woman with four hands, sitting or standing on a lotus and holding a lotus bud, which stands for purity and fertility. Each of her four hands represents dharma or righteousness, kama or desire, artha or wealth, and moksha or freedom from the cycle of birth and death. On this day, the circular alpana is used as a holy pedestal. The alpana is traditionally white in colour as the paste is made with powdered rice. Let us welcome the goddess of wealth, prosperity and generosity into our homes.
YOUR QUESTIONS
1. Grey, red, fox and flying are different types of which animal?
Nabanita Saha, Calcutta
2. Lake Vostok, which is about the size of Lake Ontario, is approximately 2.4 miles beneath the surface of which continent?
Debashish Chakroborty, Calcutta
3. Following Richard Nixon’s visit to the country in 1972, which animal did China gift USA?
Sneha Sinha, Patna
4. The fruit pear belongs to which botanical family?
Tirthankar Ghosh, Calcutta
5. Which country is separated into its northern and southern parts by the Cook Strait?
Debasmita Roy, Calcutta
6. Which element is combined with aluminium to produce aluminium bronze?
Piyali Guha, Calcutta
7. Which famous painter created Study of a Torso, After a Plaster Cast?
Abhraneel Bannerjee, Calcutta
8. Which river rises from the confluence of the Breg and the Brigach rivers in the Black Forest mountains?
Sohini Roychoudhury, Calcutta
9. Which planet did Babylonian astronomer-astrologers call Nergal?
Sourav Bose, Calcutta
KNOW & GROW WITH DEREK
On this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was formally dedicated in New York harbour. This year, on this very day, the inside of the Statue of Liberty will be open once again to tourists.
ANSWER & WIN
In 1921, what did Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate as a pancreatic extract for the first time?
For Answer and Win, send a quiz question of your own along with the answer. The prize will go to the reader with the correct answer and the best question. Send in answers with your full name and address to: graphitiquiz@gmail.com'
Winner of the Answer and Win
Quiz published on 07.10.12
Sourav Bose, Calcutta
Who is the most quoted female author in the Oxford English Dictionary?
The Answer is: George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
For queries about Answer and Win, please contact 22804093
 | Identify this actor |  |
POINT OF VIEW
1. Identify this politician
2. Identify this music composer
ANSWERS
1. Squirrel
2. Antarctica
3. Giant Panda
4. Rose (Rosaceae)
5. New Zealand
6. Copper
7. Pablo Picasso
8. Danube
9. Mars
WHO AM I ? 
Huma Qureshi
POINT OF VIEW 1 Paul Ryan
POINT OF VIEW 2 Amit Trivedi
