Safari Magazine | Gujarati Edition | July 2019 Issue | Views And Reviews

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

You must have read this idiom for many times. Do you believe in it? We (our entire team) do. When we witness anything on a visual medium there is nothing which we need to imagine. And, contrary to that, when we read about something, our brain creates a visual representation of the same using its imagination and deduction power. It makes our brain muscle function effectively leading them to be stronger.

That’s why we love reading. Be it a book or a magazine or a newspaper article; a genuine reading material is like a protein bar for the brain!

A challenge, however, remains constant. Finding the material which is worth reading. And, by worth, we don’t mean money only. Money is something you can earn again, but, it is also about the time you need to spend reading the same. Well, we all have a limited amount of time and once we spend it we cannot reclaim it, no matter what.

So, we need to shortlist a few issues to go for, from the large list of magazines published every week (or as per their periodic schedule). Safari is one of our favorite magazines as it explores factual knowledge. The articles written within are studded with informative graphics, images, maps, statistical figures, references and much more. It adds to the credibility of the magazine.

It would be interesting to explore the journey of Nagendra Vijay, the man behind “Safari”. He is a senior citizen now, but his passion to spread knowledge doesn’t let him sit silently. He does a mammoth task of running the magazine almost single-handedly.

It is worth to note that with the readers’ demand, the English edition of the magazine started twice, but met with untimely death! You can find our unbiased reviews for some of its English issues here. Anyway, there is a silver lining in the could in terms of a good news I am going to share with you. English edition of Safari is starting again from the next month. We are waiting for the same very eagerly and will sure share our views and reviews once it hit the newsstand. We, however, needs to restrict our exploration to its Gujarati edition for this month.

Mothertongue holds a really special status in one’s existence. More often than not, the first word a person hear, speak or understand in his/her life is in his/her mother tongue. Based on the geolocation of the place, the local language has some unique features which explain the situations better than any other language. We often cannot find pure equivalents of a few local words, idioms or other stuff in any foreign language.

Gujarati is a very rich language with a history of many years. The literature it has is quite unique and beyond-the-mark in many cases. Respecting mother tongue and bashing foreign languages and blindly opposing them are two different things, and we must understand that. In “Incredible India” segment, this time Nagendra Vijay brings in some unique words related to the shipping industry (with the help of a reader named Bhavin Dadhaniya). This vocabulary segment is well explained with the help of illustration of typical ancient sea-vessels.

Read this segment to know the genuine attributes of Gujarati language exploring its richness and reasons to love it and help to survive it.

The FYI segment of this issue is quite interesting. Its versatility, in terms of topics, is something that will catch your attention for sure. The topics vary from the lab mishap with the souvenirs brought by Viking-I and II to Boomerang to Albert Einstein’s stock market adventure. Definitely, a segment not to be missed.

So much is written about post World War II era and “the space exploring” competition between Russia (then USSR) and America (popularly known as US). And, it still fascinates even today’s readers!

Nagendra Vijay’s article some historical events which made luck to favor one of these nations over the other is a well researched and well-explored one. The first page of this article give you the idea about the quality and depth of the information it contains within. You can see the historical “Time magazine cover” with the title “Race for the moon”.

You will be amazed to know about the series of incidents which could have been happened in a different way and Neil Armstrong may not be the first astronaut to visit the Moon!

Here are a couple of videos from the public domain of YouTube in the same regards:

Even if space science is not your hobby, you must read this article.

How many times have you heard that “Necessity is the mother of invention”? Many times, right? But, some of the inventions are made so accidentally or as a side discovery when trying to achieve something else, that no need for those things at the point of time. It was later, a fair usage for those inventions found and implemented in reality. I found a small but interesting article in the same regards in this issue which is worth reading.

In addition, I found some really detailed informative articles in this issue. Here are some of them.

• Love hate relationships between various spieces
• Lightning and its dangers
• Monsoon forecasting and its trustability (in the context of India)

I intentionally avoid talking in detail about them to keep your reading experience unaffected. One thing, however, I must mention that all of the articles are written by Nagendra Vijay himself (under different pen names)! All of these articles are written in an interesting manner and are studded with necessary support materials like maps, illustrations, historical photographs and more.

Of course, there are a few spelling mistakes there in the issue which could have been avoided.

Last but not the least important segment of this issue is the Q/A segment. It brings in some really interesting questions (by the readers) and their fascinating respective answers. Here are some of the questions.

• Hungery’s decision to make public transport free for all is applauded by almost everyone. How will the government bear the transport cost though?
• What is the capacity of a mobile tower?
• Using mobile phone when driving result in accidents. Is it possible for the mobile service providers to restrict the usage of the phone network when the owner is driving?
• Please explain the economics of the petrol prices and government subsidy on the same.

One important attribute I would like to draw your attention towards is the obituary to Late Dr. Girishbhai Shah. He was the source of information for Ham Radio and was a key element in making a lot of readers enthusiast about “Ham Radio”. May his soul get the ultimate peace.

Summary:

Definitely, a magazine which is worth the money and time you spend reading it. It is one of those rare publications which doesn’t contain even a single third-party commercial advertisement! The only limitation of the magazine is its limited reach due to its publication is in a regional language.

Do let us know your views about this article via comments below, we like to read you. And yes, do not forget to share this article with your friends who you think are interested in quality reading. Also subscribe to our newsletter, to get notified periodically about the articles we publish.