New Scientist

About the author

George Cox

George Cox has lived and studied on the land of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation since 2013. His poetry has...

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Sad stories you are old enough to hear

Non-fictionThis year, a ‘news anchor’ raised a question about why Muslims participate in the garba when they don’t believe in idol worship. It’s a bit like saying people should not be allowed to put up a Christmas tree if they haven’t been baptised or taken the sacrament. Thousands of non-Catholics attend the feast of Mount Mary in Bandra. People of all faiths attend the Urs of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer and the Sufi saint Waris Ali Shah at Dewa Sharif. Hindu devotees going to the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala also visit the Vavar mosque en route. That news anchor’s question poisons the breath of our country.

Medea – towards the end

PoetryShe wanted to confuse the staff and brings in a pebble from the garden as suggested, placing it into the pocket of the man in the next room.

Into the swamp

Non-fictionSome versions of environmentalism understandably encourage an almost Swiftian misanthropy, with the ecological collapse framed as the inevitable response of nature to a pestiferous humanity, the only species that, by its very existence, destroys all that it touches. But maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be that way.