title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Once the solar park has been commissioned, the owner usually enters into a contract with a suitable counterparty to undertake operation and maintenance (O&M). In many cases this may be fulfilled by the original EPC contractor.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Solar plants' reliable solid-state systems require minimal maintenance, compared to rotating machinery. A major aspect of the O&M contract will be continuous monitoring of the performance of the plant and all of its primary subsystems, which is normally undertaken remotely. This enables performance to be compared with the anticipated output under the climatic conditions actually experienced. It also provides data to enable the scheduling of both rectification and preventive maintenance. A small number of large solar farms use a separate inverter or maximizer for each solar panel, which provide individual performance data that can be monitored. For other solar farms, thermal imaging is used to identify non-performing panels for replacement.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: A solar park's income derives from the sales of electricity to the grid, and so its output is metered in real-time with readings of its energy output provided, typically on a half-hourly basis, for balancing and settlement within the electricity market.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Income is affected by the reliability of equipment within the plant and also by the availability of the grid network to which it is exporting. Some connection contracts allow the transmission system operator to curtail the output of a solar park, for example at times of low demand or high availability of other generators. Some countries make statutory provision for priority access to the grid for renewable generators, such as that under the European Renewable Energy Directive.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: In recent years, PV technology has improved its electricity generating efficiency, reduced the installation cost per watt as well as its energy payback time (EPBT). It has reached grid parity in most parts of the world and become a mainstream power source.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: As solar power costs reached grid parity, PV systems were able to offer power competitively in the energy market. The subsidies and incentives, which were needed to stimulate the early market as detailed below, were progressively replaced by auctions and competitive tendering leading to further price reductions.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The improving competitiveness of utility-scale solar became more visible as countries and energy utilities introduced auctions for new generating capacity. Some auctions are reserved for solar projects, while others are open to a wider range of sources.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The prices revealed by these auctions and tenders have led to highly competitive prices in many regions. Amongst the prices quoted are:


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Solar generating stations have become progressively cheaper in recent years, and this trend is expected to continue. Meanwhile, traditional electricity generation is becoming progressively more expensive. These trends led to a crossover point when the levelised cost of energy from solar parks, historically more expensive, matched or beat the cost of traditional electricity generation. This point depends on locations and other factors, and is commonly referred to as grid parity.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: For merchant solar power stations, where the electricity is being sold into the electricity transmission network, the levelised cost of solar energy will need to match the wholesale electricity price. This point is sometimes called 'wholesale grid parity' or 'busbar parity'.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Prices for installed PV systems show regional variations, more than solar cells and panels, which tend to be global commodities. The IEA explains these discrepancies due to differences in "soft costs", which include customer acquisition, permitting, inspection and interconnection, installation labor and financing costs.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: In the years before grid parity had been reached in many parts of the world, solar generating stations needed some form of financial incentive to compete for the supply of electricity. Many countries used such incentives to support the deployment of solar power stations.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Feed-in tariffs are designated prices which must be paid by utility companies for each kilowatt hour of renewable electricity produced by qualifying generators and fed into the grid. These tariffs normally represent a premium on wholesale electricity prices and offer a guaranteed revenue stream to help the power producer finance the project.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: These standards are obligations on utility companies to source a proportion of their electricity from renewable generators. In most cases, they do not prescribe which technology should be used and the utility is free to select the most appropriate renewable sources.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: There are some exceptions where solar technologies are allocated a proportion of the RPS in what is sometimes referred to as a 'solar set aside'.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Some countries and states adopt less targeted financial incentives, available for a wide range of infrastructure investment, such as the US Department of Energy loan guarantee scheme, which stimulated a number of investments in the solar power plant in 2010 and 2011.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Another form of indirect incentive which has been used to stimulate investment in solar power plant was tax credits available to investors. In some cases the credits were linked to the energy produced by the installations, such as the Production Tax Credits. In other cases the credits were related to the capital investment such as the Investment Tax Credits


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: In addition to free market commercial incentives, some countries and regions have specific programs to support the deployment of solar energy installations.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The European Union's Renewables Directive sets targets for increasing levels of deployment of renewable energy in all member states. Each has been required to develop a National Renewable Energy Action Plan showing how these targets would be met, and many of these have specific support measures for solar energy deployment. The directive also allows states to develop projects outside their national boundaries, and this may lead to bilateral programs such as the Helios project.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The Clean Development Mechanism of the UNFCCC is an international programme under which solar generating stations in certain qualifying countries can be supported.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Additionally many other countries have specific solar energy development programmes. Some examples are India's JNNSM, the Flagship Program in Australia, and similar projects in South Africa and Israel.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The electrical output of a solar park will be related to the solar radiation, the capacity of the plant and its performance ratio. The income derived from this electrical output will come primarily from the sale of the electricity, and any incentive payments such as those under Feed-in Tariffs or other support mechanisms.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Electricity prices may vary at different times of day, giving a higher price at times of high demand. This may influence the design of the plant to increase its output at such times.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The dominant costs of solar power plants are the capital cost, and therefore any associated financing and depreciation. Though operating costs are typically relatively low, especially as no fuel is required, most operators will want to ensure that adequate operation and maintenance cover is available to maximise the availability of the plant and thereby optimise the income to cost ratio.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The first places to reach grid parity were those with high traditional electricity prices and high levels of solar radiation. The worldwide distribution of solar parks is expected to change as different regions achieve grid parity. This transition also includes a shift from rooftop towards utility-scale plants, since the focus of new PV deployment has changed from Europe towards the "Sunbelt markets" where ground-mounted PV systems are favored.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Because of the economic background, large-scale systems are presently distributed where the support regimes have been the most consistent, or the most advantageous. Total capacity of worldwide PV plants above 4 MW was assessed by Wiki-Solar as c. 220 GW in c. 9,000 installations at the end of 2019 and represents about 35 percent of estimated global PV capacity of 633 GW, up from 25 percent in 2014. Activities in the key markets are reviewed individually below.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: In 2013 China overtook Germany as the nation with the most utility-scale solar capacity. Much of this has been supported by the Clean Development Mechanism.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The distribution of power plants around the country is quite broad, with the highest concentration in the Gobi desert and connected to the Northwest China Power Grid.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The first multi-megawatt plant in Europe was the 4.2 MW community-owned project at Hemau, commissioned in 2003. But it was the revisions to the German feed-in tariffs in 2004, which gave the strongest impetus to the establishment of utility-scale solar power plants. The first to be completed under this programme was the Leipziger Land solar park developed by Geosol. Several dozen plants were built between 2004 and 2011, several of which were at the time the largest in the world. The EEG, the law which establishes Germany's feed-in tariffs, provides the legislative basis not just for the compensation levels, but other regulatory factors, such as priority access to the grid. The law was amended in 2010 to restrict the use of agricultural land, since which time most solar parks have been built on so-called 'development land', such as former military sites. Partly for this reason, the geographic distribution of photovoltaic power plants in Germany is biased towards the former East Germany.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: India has been rising up the leading nations for the installation of utility-scale solar capacity. The Charanka Solar Park in Gujarat was opened officially in April 2012 and was at the time the largest group of solar power plants in the world.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Geographically the states with the largest installed capacity are Telangana, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh with over 2 GW of installed solar power capacity each. Rajasthan and Gujarat share the Thar Desert, along with Pakistan. In May 2018, the Pavagada Solar Park became functional and had a production capacity of 2GW. As of February 2020, it is the largest Solar Park in the world. In September 2018 Acme Solar announced that it had commissioned India's cheapest solar power plant, the 200 MW Rajasthan Bhadla solar power park.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: Italy has a large number of photovoltaic power plants, the largest of which is the 84 MW Montalto di Castro project.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: By the end of 2017, it was reported that more than 732 MW of solar energy projects had been completed, which contributed to 7% of Jordan's electricity. After having initially set the percentage of renewable energy Jordan aimed to generate by 2020 at 10%, the government announced in 2018 that it sought to beat that figure and aim for 20%.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The majority of the deployment of solar power stations in Spain to date occurred during the boom market of 2007–8.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The stations are well distributed around the country, with some concentration in Extremadura, Castile-La Mancha and Murcia.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The US deployment of photovoltaic power stations is largely concentrated in southwestern states. The Renewable Portfolio Standards in California and surrounding states provide a particular incentive.


title: Photovoltaic power station

text: The following solar parks were, at the time they became operational, the largest in the world or their continent, or are notable for the reasons given:


title: Public expenditure

text: Public expenditure is spending made by the government of a country on collective needs and wants, such as pension, provisions, security, infrastructure, etc. Until the 19th century, public expenditure was limited as laissez faire philosophies believed that money left in private hands could bring better returns. In the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes argued the role of public expenditure in determining levels of income and distribution in the economy. Since then, government expenditures has shown an increasing trend. Sources of government revenue include taxes, and non-tax revenues.


title: Public expenditure

text: In the 17th and the 18th centuries, public expenditure was considered a wastage of money. Thinkers believed government should stay with their traditional functions of spending on defense and maintaining law and order.


title: Public expenditure

text: Several theories of taxation exist in public economics. Governments at all levels (national, regional and local) need to raise revenue from a variety of sources to finance public-sector expenditures. The details of taxation are guided by two principles: who will benefit, and who can pay. Public expenditure means the expenditure on the developmental and non-developmental activity such as construction of roadways and dams, and other activity.


title: Public expenditure

text: The criteria and pre-conditions for arriving at this solution are collectively referred to as the principle of maximum social advantage.


title: Public expenditure

text: Taxation (government revenue) and government expenditure are the two tools. Neither of excess is good for the society, it has to be balanced to achieve maximum social benefit. Dalton called this principle as “Maximum Social Advantage” and Pigou termed it as “Maximum Aggregate Welfare”.


title: Public expenditure

text: "Dalton’s Principle of Maximum Social Advantage" – maximum satisfaction should be yield by striking a balance between public revenue and expenditure by the government. Economic welfare is achieved when marginal utility of expenditure = marginal disutility of taxation. He explains this principle with reference to


title: Public expenditure

text: It was introduced by Swedish Economist “Erik Lindahl in 1919”. According to his theory, determination of public expenditure and taxation will happen on the basis of public preferences which they will reveal themselves. Cost of supplying a good will be taken up by the people. The tax that they will pay will be revealed by them according to their capacities.


title: Public expenditure

text: At the end of the 19th century average public expenditure was around 10 percent of GDP. In USA it was only 7 percent and in countries like United Kingdom, Germany or Netherlands it did not exceed amount of 10 percent. Australia, Italy, Switzerland and France had public expenditure over 12 percent of GDP. It was considered as a significant involvement of government in economy. This average share of public expenditure increased to almost 12 percent before the start of World War I. Due to the World War I anticipation, the share increased quickly in Austria, France, United Kingdom or Germany.


title: Public expenditure

text: The World War I caused a global growth of the public expenditure share in GDP. In United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France, which were affected a lot by the war, the share of public expenditure even exceeded 25 percent. In interwar period the average share of the public expenditure was still slightly increasing. The United States increased its public expenditure with the New Deal. Other governments also increased public expenditure in order to create more employment. The increase was accelerated by World War II anticipation in the second part of the 30s among European countries. In 1937 the amount of average public expenditure share was between 22 and 23 percent, twice as much as before World War I. However, it is fair to mention that part of this increase of public expenditure share was caused by GDP fall. Most of industrialized countries had its GDP over 15 percent before the World War II. Only Australia, Norway and Spain had less than 15 percent of GDP.


title: Public expenditure

text: From the start of the World War I until 1960 the average share of public expenditure in GDP increased slowly from 22 to 28 percent. Most of this increase was given by growth of military spending caused by World War II. Spain, Switzerland and Japan had their public expenditure still below 20 percent of their GDPs.


title: Public expenditure

text: The average public expenditure, as a share of GDP, increased rapidly between years 1960 and 1980 from around 28 to 43 percent. No industrial country had this share below 30 percent in 1980. In Belgium, Sweden and Netherlands it was even over 50 percent. In last two decades of 20th century share of public expenditure kept increasing, but the growth significantly slowed down. In 1996 the average public expenditure was around 45 percent, which is in comparison with 1960-1980 period slow increase from year 1980. During 1980-1996 period the public expenditure share even declined in many countries, for example United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands etc.


title: Public expenditure

text: Since the late 1980s, the average public expenditure to GDP ratio is increasing slowly. The only industrialized countries that reduced significantly are New Zealand, Ireland and Norway. One of the reasons is growing skepticism about governmental intervention in the economy.


title: Public expenditure

text: There are several factors that have led to an enormous increase in public expenditure through the years


title: Public expenditure

text: 1) Defense expenditure due to modernization of defense equipment by the navy, army and air force to prepare the country for war or for prevention causes-for-growth-of-public-expenditure.


title: Public expenditure

text: 2) Population growth – It increases with the increase in population, more of investment is required to be done by government on law and order, education, infrastructure, etc. investment in different fields depending on the different age group is required.


title: Public expenditure

text: 4) Wars and social crises – fighting amongst people and communities, and prolonged drought or unemployment, earthquake, hurricanes or tornadoes may lead to an increase in public expenditure of a country. This is because it will involve governments to re-plan and allocate resources to finance the reconstruction.


title: Public expenditure

text: 5) Creation of super national organizations – E.g., the United Nations, NATO, European community and other multinational organizations that are responsible for the provision of public goods and services on an international basis, have to be financed out of funds subscribed by member states, thereby adding to their public expenditure.


title: Public expenditure

text: 6) Foreign aid – Acceptance by the richer industrialized countries of their responsibility to help the poor developing countries has channeled some of the increased public expenditure of the donor country into foreign aid programmes.


title: Public expenditure

text: 7) Inflation – This is the general rise in the price level of goods and services. It increases the cost of all activities of the public sector and thus a major factor in growth in money terms of public expenditure


title: Public expenditure

text: Public expenditure can be divided into COFOG (Classification of the Functions of Government) categories cetris pari bus. Those categories are


title: Public expenditure

text: 1.      Social protection – pensions, subsidies for family and children, unemployment subsidies, R&D (Research and Development) on social protection.


title: Public expenditure

text: 2.      Health - public health services, medical products, appliances and equipment, hospital services, R&D on healthcare.


title: Public expenditure

text: 3.      General Public Services - executive and legislative organs, financial and fiscal affairs, external affairs, foreign economic aid, public debt transactions, R&D related to general public services


title: Public expenditure

text: 5.      Economic Affairs - general economic, agriculture, fuel and energy, commercial and labour affairs, forestry, fishing and hunting, mining, manufacturing, transport, communication etc.


title: Public expenditure

text: 8.      Recreation, culture and religion – Recreational and sporting services, cultural services, broadcasting and publishing services, religious services etc.


title: Public expenditure

text: 9.      Environmental protection - waste management, pollution abatement, protection of biodiversity and landscape etc.


title: Public expenditure

text: 10.  Housing and community services - housing development, community development, water supply, street lighting etc.


title: Public expenditure

text: Public expenditures represented 46.7 percent of total GDP of the European Union in 2018. Countries with the highest percentage of public expenditure were France and Finland with 56 and 53 percent, respectively. The lowest percentage had Ireland with only 25 percent of its GDP. Among the countries of the European Union, the most important function in public expenditure is social protection. Almost 20 percent of GDP of European Union went to social protection in 2018. The highest ratio had Finland and France, both around 24 percent of their GDPs. The country with least social protection expenditure as percent of its GDP was Ireland with 9 percent. The second largest function in public expenditure is expenditure on health. The general government expenditure on health in European Union was over 7 percent of GDP in 2018. The country with highest share of health expenditure in 2018 Denmark with 8.4 percent. The least percentage had Cyprus with 2.7 percent. General public services had 6 percent of total GDP of European Union in 2018, Education around 4.6 percent and all other categories had less than 4.5 percent of the GDP.


title: Public expenditure

text: Rules or principles that govern the expenditure policy of the government are called canons of public expenditure. Findlay Shirras has laid down the following four canons of public expenditure:


title: Public expenditure

text: 1.Canon of Benefit – public spending must be done in a manner that it brings greatest social benefits.


title: Public expenditure

text: 2.Canon of Economy – it says that economy does not mean miserliness. Public expenditure must be made productively and efficiently.


title: Public expenditure

text: 3.Canon of Sanction – public spending should not be made without sanction of an appropriate authority.


title: Public expenditure

text: 4.Canon of Surplus – public expenditure should be done in a way avoiding deficit. Government must prepare budget to create a surplus.


title: Public expenditure

text: 5.Canon of elasticity- it says there should be enough scope in expenditure policy.government should be able to increase or decrease it according to the period.


title: Public expenditure

text: 7.Cannon of equitable distribution - expenditure policy should minimize inequalities and it should be designed in a way to benefit poorer sections.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Vanquish is a 2021 American action thriller film directed by George Gallo. The film stars Morgan Freeman and Ruby Rose.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Retired disabled cop Damon (Morgan Freeman) forces Victoria (Ruby Rose), a former drug courier and his caretaker, to collect bags of money around the city during a single night by holding her daughter hostage. As the night progresses, Victoria finds out that at every stop point she makes, various enemies from her past attack her. Meanwhile, a cop breaks into Damon’s home, but Damon kills him.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: At her final stop, Victoria is captured and taken to the home of the corrupt Governor. The Governor asks for Victoria’s help in taking down Damon, but Victoria refuses and kills the Governor instead.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Upon finally returning to Damon’s home, Victoria is reunited with her daughter. Then Damon explains that he had no need for the money that Victoria had collected; instead, this night was a part of his plan to eliminate all of Victoria’s enemies along with the corrupt Governor, thus cleaning the city of crime and corruption.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: As the dawn breaks, Damon lures all the corrupted cops that had been working for the Governor into his home, where he blows himself up along with them. Meanwhile, Victoria and her daughter escape safely.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Principal photography occurred in September 2020 in Biloxi, Mississippi. Filming wrapped in January 2021.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: "Vanquish" was released in select theaters starting from April 16, 2021, as well as on-demand and digital on April 23 and on DVD and Blu-ray April 27.


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 5% of 64 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 3.10/10. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 22 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Vanquish (film)

text: Writing for "RogerEbert.com", Peter Sobczynski described the film as “a rehash of genre cliches that is so dull, threadbare, and bereft of thrills that the one time that its one moment of genuine excitement comes when our heroine enters a bar where danger is allegedly afoot, and the television in the background is showing curling” and “the kind [of film] that almost makes the DTV drivel that Steven Seagal has been churning out for the last couple of decades seem focused and committed by comparison”, rating it only one out of four stars.


title: Big room house

text: Big room house or simply big room is a fusion subgenre of house music (notably progressive house and electro house) that gained popularity in the early 2010s. Characterized by its simple instrumentation yet complex structure, big room house soon evolutionized the EDM scene into multiple subgenres that we know today.


title: Big room house

text: Although the term "big room" started appearing in news articles circa 2007, the current state of this subgenre emerged around 2010—12 and was popularized by songs such as "Epic" and "Cannonball". From 2013 on, artists like Martin Garrix, KSHMR, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Hardwell, Nicky Romero, Afrojack, and R3HAB began experimenting with this sound in their compositions.


title: Big room house

text: The genre is generally set at a tempo that falls between 126 and 132 bpm. Songs typically include long buildups followed by an electro-style drop accompanied by the four on the floor kick drums typical of house music. Melodies are often simple and minimal, though a trance-inspired supersaw is frequently used.


title: Big room house

text: By the fall of 2012, Electronic dance music's popularity had exploded and EDM-only festivals began to pop up all-over the United States with headline bills featuring internationally touring talents like acts like Skrillex, Tiësto, and Armin van Buuren. No longer restricted to underground raves and soft-ticketed club nights, electronic dance music continued to grow as festivals for progressive house, dubstep, electro house, trance, and Drum and bass all took place together. DJs began to recognize the need to make music suited for the larger venues and arenas they'd begun to play and would play for years to come. As mult-genre EDM festivals like Ultra Music Festival, Electric Zoo and HARD Summer and Swedish House Mafia-like arena tours quickly became the norm in all of electronic dance music, DJs began focusing making music specifically to be played in these new 'big', commercially-driven spaces. Backlash from other DJs, industry insiders and long-time ravers became predictable as the direct tie-in to commercial viability and music's relative simplistic composition made it an easy target. Unlike trance's richly programmed arpeggios or house music's culturally important samples, big room house didn't have any inborne unique or virtuoso qualities to it; instead much more reliant on the context in which its deployed.


title: Big room house

text: Though there are numerous classic big room house songs now, "Animals" remains among the most important. The song's emergence and subsequent coverage was the first to even make mention of the term "big room" and is responsible for the phenomenon's explosion.


title: Big room house

text: In 2016, Beatport added the Big Room genre, putting producers such as Deadmau5 and Wolfgang Gartner under the category.


title: Big room house

text: The structure of big room house songs is similar to that of American progressive house of the late 2000s. There are two build-ups complete with breaks, two drop sections, and one or two breakdowns, one of which may or may not include the intro/outro phase. Unlike progressive house, big room is adapted to radio edited format and features either the first or the second build-up usually much longer than the other one. In case of remixes, one usually features the whole vocal/riff sample of the initial song, while the other build-up is a simple break that is significantly shorter and prepares the listener for the drop.


title: Big room house

text: Big room features relative minimalism, with the sound enhanced by 'large-hall' reverb effects. One bassline, often aided by one or two highs and lows, creates the mood for the whole composition. This bassline is reverberated so that the echo is cut and spontaneously released only on 1/4 of the tab, usually the last. Unlike in electro house proper, where the bass itself is subject to additional wave effects (such as attack, threshold and sustain) to beautify the melody, in big room house, only the way the sound is released plays a major role. Henceforth, the drum beats are made minimal, sometimes with only a kick or tom and a couple of hi-hats..


title: Big room house

text: The genre has been criticized by several musicians, who have described it as 'stereotypical EDM sound lacking originality and creativity' and said that it is homogeneous and lacks originality, diversity, and artistic merit. "Mixmag" described the genre as composing of "titanic breakdowns and spotless, monotone production aesthetics". Wolfgang Gartner described the genre as a "joke", and disregarded it, alongside conglomerates such as SFX Entertainment, as "digestible cheap dance music". He also called the genre "the EDM Apocalypse", saying "real music should have some soul and authenticity to it, and not just be a big kick drum and a techno like breakdown with a cheesy one-liner and a 'big drop'".


title: Big room house

text: Writing for Complex Media, Jake Lang (808sJake) noted the song's formulaic appeal, The issue here is that "Animals" and the other tracks listed (as well as those like it) have all done exceedingly well despite a lack of originality.  It is this copycatism that seriously harms the future of dance music and potential cultural impact as a whole...In reality, they are tawdry examples of producers looking for the shortest possible path to a main stage"


title: Big room house

text: Russell Smith of "The Globe and Mail" observes a "fiery friction" between fans of traditional underground electronic music and the newer, typically younger fans who have arisen as a result of big room's movement of EDM into the mainstream.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's script and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon. It premiered on Broadway in 1991 and ran for 709 performances.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: The story is set in the early years of the 20th century. Mary Lennox, an English girl born and raised in the British Raj, is orphaned by a cholera outbreak when she is ten years old. She is sent away from India to the moors of Yorkshire, England, to live in the manor of a brooding uncle she has never met. There, her personality blossoms among the other residents of the manor as they bring new life to a long-neglected garden.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: The musical had its world premiere at the Wells Theatre, Norfolk, Virginia, in a Virginia Stage Company production, running from November 28 to December 17, 1989. R.J. Cutler directed the production, with scenic design by Heidi Landesman, lighting by Peter Kaczorowski and costumes by Martin Pakledinaz.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: "The Secret Garden" premiered in New York City on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on April 25, 1991, and closed on January 3, 1993, after 709 performances. That production was directed by Susan H. Schulman, with choreography by Michael Lichtefeld. The cast featured Daisy Eagan as Mary Lennox, Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, Robert Westenberg and John Cameron Mitchell. It won the 1991 Tony Awards for: Best Book of a Musical, Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Daisy Eagan), and Best Scenic Design (Heidi Landesman). At age 11, Eagan was the youngest female recipient of a Tony Award to date. The set resembled an enormous Victorian toy theatre, with pop-out figures, large paper dolls, and elements resembling the collages of Joseph Cornell. Costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Costume Design.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: The musical was produced in Australia in 1995 in Brisbane (opened on 27 July), Sydney (opened on 7 September), and Melbourne (opened on 20 December). Directed by Schulman and with sets by Landesman, the production included Philip Quast as Neville Craven and Anthony Warlow as Archibald Craven.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: A heavily revised Royal Shakespeare Company version ran at Stratford-upon-Avon in England from 13 November 2000 until 27 January 2001, at the time breaking box office records. Philip Quast, Meredith Braun and Craig Purnell (Best Supporting Performance in a Musical, WhatsOnStage Awards 2002) starred, Adrian Noble directed, and Gillian Lynne staged and choreographed the production. The RSC production transferred to London's West End Aldwych Theatre, where it ran from February to June 2001.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Over the years, "The Secret Garden" found favor with local and regional theaters. The production mounted by Lamplighters Music Theatre in San Francisco, California, from January 18 to February 3, 2008, is unusual because it used notes from Lucy Simon's personal libretto from the original Broadway show, making it the first reconstruction of the original score since the piece opened on Broadway in 1991.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mirvish Productions staged the play at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Canada, from February 13 to March 19, 2011, as part of a tour that began at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: "The Secret Garden" returned to the West End for 6 weeks in July and August 2016 at the Ambassadors Theatre with a company of child actors, directed by Rupert Hands.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company, in collaboration with Seattle, Washington's 5th Avenue Theatre, presented the musical from November 15, 2016, to January 8, 2017, directed by David Armstrong. Michael Kahn (Artistic Director at the time) noted that this production is "an active reworking" of the musical. Daisy Eagan returned to the show as the chambermaid Martha, with Anya Rothman as Mary, Michael Xavier as Archibald Craven, and Josh Young as Dr. Neville Craven. The production has revisions that include new songs, deletions (including the songs "Round-Shouldered Man", "Quartet", "Race You to the Top of the Morning") and re-arranging. Overall, it condenses and streamlines the story to a shorter running time, with Norman and Simon's involvement. The production was performed at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle from April 14 to May 6, 2017, and at the Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, Texas, October 10–22. That January, Playbill wrote about plans for this production to go to Broadway, but the production's timeline was canceled.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: In February 2018, Playbill wrote about plans for the first Broadway revival, with Warren Carlyle as director/choreographer and with a cast, theatre, and other details to come. A lab production prior to the Broadway revival, also directed by Carlyle, was planned to run from May 19 to June 8. Participants in the lab production included Sierra Boggess as Lily, Matt Doyle as Albert, Drew Gehling as Neville, Clifton Duncan as Archibald and Brooklyn Shuck as Mary. The revival did not come to pass in the 2018–19 season and there has been no further word on the project. When Warren Carlyle was interviewed by Ken Davenport for The Producer's Perspective Podcast in May 2019, he said that the revival was still on the table. They had a cast lined up, they were just waiting for the right theatre to be available. The revival's workshop streamed from May 6-9, 2021. The production is scheduled to premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and will run from February 19 through March 26, 2023. Sierra Boggess has been announced to star as Lily.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Opera Australia and the Gordon Frost Organisation intended to stage the 25th-anniversary production, again directed by Susan H. Schulman, opening in Sydney in August 2020, with a Melbourne season to follow. Anthony Warlow was expected to reprise the role of Archibald Craven. Opera Australia cancelled the 25th anniversary production in April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: "The Secret Garden" was The Third Annual World AIDS Day Benefit Concert, held on December 5, 2005, at the Manhattan Center Studios Grand Ballroom, New York City. This was the first NY revisitation of the show since its original Broadway run. The concert was directed by Stafford Arima and produced by Jamie McGonnigal. The cast featured Laura Benanti as Lily, Steven Pasquale as Archie, Will Chase as Neville, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Martha, David Canary as Ben, Jaclyn Neidenthal as Mary, Struan Erlenborn as Colin, Max von Essen as Albert, Sara Gettelfinger as Rose, and Michael Arden as Dickon. The cast also included Matt Cavenaugh, Jenny Powers, Ben Magnuson, Shonn Wiley, Reshma Shetty, Deborah S. Craig, Nehal Joshi, and Kate Shindle, with Barbara Rosenblat returning to the role she created, Mrs. Medlock.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Manhattan Concert Productions presented a concert production of "The Secret Garden" at Lincoln Center for two nights on February 21 and 22, 2016, with Sydney Lucas starring as Mary Lennox. She was joined by the original "Mary Lennox", Daisy Eagan, who now plays the role of Martha, and Barbara Rosenblat, returning to her original role of Mrs. Medlock. Also in the cast were Ramin Karimloo as Archibald Craven, Sierra Boggess as Lily, Cheyenne Jackson as Neville Craven, Ben Platt as Dickon, Jere Shea as Ben, Oscar Williams as Colin Craven, Nikki Renée Daniels as Rose, Josh Young as Captain Albert Lennox and Telly Leung as Fakir.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Rebecca Luker (the original Lily) appeared in a benefit concert for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York and Western New York at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on January 11, 2016. The concert was originally scheduled to be one night only, but a second performance was added for January 17. Daisy Eagan, the original "Mary Lennox" was the host for the concerts.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: "The Secret Garden" (in concert) was presented in Toronto, Canada, in January 2017 as the inaugural show of a newly formed theatre company Podium Concert Productions, headed by Producer Peter da Costa and Conductor Mark Camilleri.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: In February 2019, "The Secret Garden" was presented by the Virginia Stage Company in the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in a concert to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary. This is the first time that "The Secret Garden" has been staged there since the World Premiere in 1989.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: A one night concert version of the musical played at the London Palladium on August 28, 2022. This has been postponed twice due to COVID-19. The cast has Westlife's Mark Feehily and acclaimed West End actor Hadley Fraser as the two brothers, joined by rising star Darcy Jacobs as Mary. The concert follows the original Broadway version, which has never been performed in the U.K until now.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: This synopsis describes the original Broadway production; the reworked London production altered this sequence by moving or omitting several scenes and songs.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mary Lennox, a sickly 10-year-old English girl who has lived mostly in isolation in India since birth, dreams of English nursery rhymes and Hindi chants ("Opening"). Survivors of a cholera outbreak discover Mary and inform her that her parents and nearly everyone she knew, including her Ayah, have died during the epidemic ("There's a Girl").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mary is sent to live in England with her mysterious uncle Archibald Craven, a reclusive hunchback who has spent years grieving the death of his wife, Lily. Due to Archibald's introversion, the management of his manor house, Misselthwaite, is largely left to his manipulative brother, Dr. Neville Craven. The housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, coldly welcomes Mary to Yorkshire ("The House Upon the Hill"). Due to Archibald and Mary's lingering grief, the house is haunted by ghosts from their pasts (identified in the libretto as "dreamers" who sometimes act as a Greek chorus of narrators, including the ghosts of Mary's parents, Rose and Albert). Lonely and misbehaving, Mary despises her new surroundings and her first night there hears echoes of crying voices ("I Heard Someone Crying"). The next morning, Mary meets Martha, a young chambermaid who encourages Mary to go play outside by telling her about the surrounding moorland and, in particular, a hidden garden ("If I Had a Fine White Horse"). Archibald remains submerged in his ghostly memories of Lily ("A Girl In the Valley").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mary explores the grounds' Victorian-style topiary maze, discovering the walled garden overgrown with ivy. She encounters the old gardener Ben Weatherstaff ("It's a Maze"), who says the garden has been locked since Lily's death, as it reminds Archibald of her, and its door has been lost somewhere behind the weeds. Martha's mystical brother, Dickon, invokes the spring ("Winter's On the Wing") in a rustic druid-like fashion. When he comes upon Mary, he gives her some seeds, claims that he can converse with animals, and teaches her to speak the Yorkshire dialect to a robin, which guides Mary to the garden's secret key ("Show Me the Key").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Inside the manor, Neville and Archibald are discussing how Neville abandoned his medical practice to take care of a bedridden boy when Mary suddenly enters. She asks Archibald for a bit of earth to plant a garden of her own. He allows it and, after she leaves, confides to Neville that his dreams of Lily have been worsening, which Neville blames on the arrival of Mary, who bears a strong physical resemblance to her aunt Lily. Curious at the simple modesty of Mary's request for some earth, Archibald muses on Lily and Mary's shared interest in gardening ("A Bit of Earth"). As the Yorkshire gloom turns to a fearsome storm ("Storm I"), Archibald and Neville grieve separately over Lily; thus, it is revealed that both men were in love with her ("Lily's Eyes"). Mary again hears crying ("Storm II"), but this time she uncovers its source: Colin, a secret cousin of hers who has been confined to bed since his birth, when his mother Lily died. Colin has been in bed his entire life because his father Archibald, probably following Neville's misleading medical advice, feared that Colin would also become a hunchback. Colin confides in Mary that he nightly dreams of a man who comes to him and reads from a magical book ("A Round-Shouldered Man"). However, just as Mary and Colin embrace each other's long-desired company, Neville and Mrs. Medlock burst in and angrily tell her she is never to see Colin again because of his fragile medical condition. As the storm reaches its peak, a distraught Mary runs outside, where the ghost of Lily reveals the location of the hidden door to the garden, and Mary inserts the key ("Final Storm").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mary has a reverie about her loved ones and her desire for the garden to offer her privacy and the chance to discover herself ("The Girl I Mean to Be"). Neville's musings are darker; enviously recalling his unrequited love for Lily, Neville wants Archibald to leave Misselthwaite entirely to him. The two brothers' thoughts are interwoven with ghostly echoes of old arguments between Lily and her sister Rose (Mary's mother) about Archibald's suitability as a prospective husband and father ("Quartet"). The melancholy Archibald has decided to slip away to Paris for a while, pausing only to read a fairy tale to Colin while the boy sleeps ("Race You To the Top of the Morning"). Thus, the "round-shouldered man" is not a dream at all but merely Colin's own father, who, despite his emotional devastation, still deeply loves his son.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Mary tells Dickon that she has now been inside the garden but the plants are all dead. Dickon explains that it is probably just dormant and that, with some assistance, it will grow back ("Wick"). Mary tells Colin about the garden, but he is reluctant to go outside until he is encouraged by an inviting vision of his mother Lily ("Come to My Garden/Lift Me Up"). Mary, Dickon, and Martha clandestinely bring Colin to the garden in a wheelchair. In the garden, the exercise, fresh air, and magical incantations in both Hindi and English led by Mary, the ghosts, and the manor staff strengthen Colin, allowing him to rise from his wheelchair for the first time ("Come Spirit, Come Charm"). Ben reveals that Lily died giving birth to Colin from injuries sustained during an accident in the garden. Colin makes Mary and the staff promise not to tell Archibald about Colin's recovery until he is able to fully walk. The onlooking ghosts sing the praises of the renewed garden ("A Bit of Earth (Reprise)").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Back in the house, Neville faces down Mary as he threatens to send her away to boarding school, culminating in a violent confrontation between the doctor and the girl. Immediately after, Martha soothes Mary, telling her to stay strong ("Hold On"). With Martha's help, Mary writes to Archibald in Paris ("Letter Song"), urging him to come home. Archibald's emotional turmoil continues to dominate him ("Where In the World"); however, Lily's ghost reappears, Archibald is able to see her, and she tells him that she always loved him. They come to the conclusion that her death was no one's fault, and Archibald can finally let her go as she tells him to care for their child and go home ("How Could I Ever Know"). Returning, he enters the garden to find Colin completely healthy; in fact, he is beating Mary in a footrace when Archibald walks through the door. Archibald, a changed man, sends Neville away to his Paris flat and triumphantly embraces Mary and Colin back into his life. The spirits of Mary's parents join Lily, promising to keep the living safe for the rest of their days ("Finale").


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: Burnett's novel primarily focused on Mary and her interactions with Colin, Martha, and Dickon. The musical adds more emphasis on the adult characters by presenting (and to some extent, inventing) the shared history entwining the two families. Originally, Burnett stated that the name of Archibald's wife was Lilias, and that she was the sister of Mary Lennox's father; in the musical, Colin's and Mary's mothers are sisters named Lily and Rose respectively.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: In the book, Colin's private physician is an otherwise unnamed poor cousin of Archibald Craven; Colin privately remarks to Mary that Dr. Craven is the next heir to Misselthwaite and "always looks cheerful when [Colin's health] is worse", but Burnett also states that Dr. Craven is "not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak one, and he did not intend to let [Colin] run into actual danger". The musical heightens the doctor's conflict of interest and makes him the primary antagonist as Archibald's brother, Dr. Neville Craven, who once hopelessly loved Lily. Mary expressly accuses of him of wanting Colin to die for the sake of his inheritance.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: A full recording was made with the original Broadway cast, including all of the songs listed above as well as some interstitial material, and released on CD by Columbia Records in 1991 (catalog number CK 48817). Colin's part in the second act duet "Come to My Garden / Lift Me Up" was recorded by Joel E. Chaiken because, by the time the album was recorded, Babcock's voice had changed, and he could no longer the boy soprano range required in the song.


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: An eight-song "highlights" album with Fiddes, Ritchie, and the rest of the Australian cast was released on CD by Polydor Records Australia in 1995 (catalog number 579 997-2).


title: The Secret Garden (musical)

text: The original London production was partially reworked for production by the Royal Shakespeare Company, reducing the emphasis on the adult characters to return the plot closer to the original book. A full recording of this version was released on CD by First Night Records in 2001.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: A flaming sword is a sword which is glowing with a flame which is produced by some supernatural power. Flaming swords have existed in legends and myths for thousands of years.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: In Sumerian mythology, the deity known as Asaruludu is "the wielder of the flaming sword" who "ensures the most perfect safety".


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: According to the Bible, a flaming sword ( lahat chereb or literally "flame of the whirling sword" "lahaṭ haḥereb hammithappeket") was entrusted to the cherubim by God to guard the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3:24). Scholars have variously interpreted the sword as a weapon of the cherubim, as lightning, as a metaphor, as an independent divine being, or even as a figurative description of bladed chariot wheels.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: In Kabbalah, the flaming sword represents the order which the sefirot were created in, also known as “"the path of the flaming sword.”"


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: Eastern Orthodox tradition says that after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, the flaming sword was removed from the Garden of Eden, making it possible for humanity to re-enter Paradise.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: Dumah is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical literature and popular in Yiddish folklore. Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Short Friday" (1964), a collection of stories, mentions Dumah as a "thousand-eyed angel of death, armed with a flaming sword". The sword is otherwise associated with various angels, such as the archangel Uriel, Camael or Jophiel.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: The ancient Gnostic codex "On the Origin of the World" predicts that the kings under the archons will be drunken from the flaming sword during the end times.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: In Norse mythology, the weapon wielded by the giant Surtr is referred to as a "flaming sword" () by Snorri Sturluson in "Gylfaginning" 4, " of the Prose Edda". Snorri immediately afterwards quotes a stanza from his poetic source, ("Völuspá" 52), where it is stated that Surt has fire with him, and that his sword shines with the "sun of the gods of the slain". However, it has been argued that the poem might be stressing the fiery glare of Surtr himself more than the sword. The relevant kenning from the quoted poem, "svigi lævi" ("destruction of twigs"), is usually interpreted to mean "fire". However, Henrik Schück interpreted the kenning as referring to a sword, emending the phrase to "svigi læva" to identify it with the sword Lævateinn in "Fjölsvinnsmál". Snorri paraphrases the strophe of the poem a second time in "Gylfaginning" 51, merely saying: "Surt rides first, and before him and after him is burning fire", afterwards requoting more extensively around the same strophe ("Völuspá" 48–56). The possibility that this sword imagery was inspired by Christian writings have been speculated.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: According to the Welsh triads, the "Dyrnwyn" ('White-Hilt'), one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, is said to be a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain. When drawn by a worthy or well-born man, the entire blade would blaze with fire. Rhydderch was never reluctant to hand the weapon to anyone, hence his nickname; "Hael" (the Generous), but as soon as the recipients learned of its peculiar properties, they always rejected the sword.


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: The deity Acala (known as Fudō Myōō in Japan) is depicted in Buddhist art holding a sword which may or may not be flaming and sometimes described only generically as a or as a , as the pommel of the sword is shaped like a talon-like .


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: In Hinduism, Kalki (Sanskrit: कल्कि) also called Kalkin or karki, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of Hindu God Vishnu to end the Kali Yuga, one of the four periods in the endless cycle of existence (Krita) in Vaishnavism cosmology. The end of Kali Yuga states this will usher in the new epoch of Satya Yuga in the cycle of existence, until the MahaPralaya (the Great Dissolution of the Universe).


title: Flaming sword (mythology)

text: Kalki is described in the Puranas as the avatar who rejuvenates existence by ending the darkest and destructive period to remove adharma and ushering in the Satya Yuga, while riding a white horse with a fiery sword. The description and details of Kalki are different among various Puranas.


title: Urumi (film)

text: Urumi is a 2011 Indian Malayalam-language epic historical drama film written by Shankar Ramakrishnan and directed as well as co-produced by Santosh Sivan. It features Prithviraj Sukumaran in lead role with an ensemble supporting cast.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film is set in the early 16th century, when the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean. The story follows Murikkancheri Kelu (Prithviraj), seeking to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the colonizers, and his cohorts Vavvali of Nagapattinam (Prabhu Deva), princess Ayesha of Arackel (Genelia D'Souza) and princess Bala of Chirakkal (Nithya Menon). The plot incorporates the intrigues of the Chirakkal Royal Family, where Kelu serves as commander-in-chief, its rivalry with the house of Arackal, and the assassination of prince Bhanu Vikraman (Ankur Khanna). . The plot also incorporates such historical figures as Estêvão da Gama (Alexx O'Nell), Vasco da Gama (Alexx O'Nell & Robin Pratt) and Chenichery Kurup (Jagathy Sreekumar).


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film was made on a budget of more than ₹20 crore, making it the second-most expensive Malayalam film at the time, after Gokulam Gopalan's "Pazhassi Raja" (2009). The film also marked the debut of Prithviraj Sukumaran as producer. "Urumi" was released in Hindi as "Ek Yodha Shoorveer," in Tamil as "Urumi: Padhinaintham Nootrandu Uraivaal" written by Sasikumaran and dubbed in Telugu with the same title, "Urumi".


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film was critically acclaimed. It won two Kerala State Film Awards, for Best Background Music (Deepak Dev) and for Best Sound Recordist (M. R. Rajakrishnan). It also won the Best film and Best Director in Imagine India Film Festival in Barcelona. It was also the opening film of the Panorama Section in Goa Film Festival. Urumi is widely regarded as one of the defining movies of the Malayalam New Wave.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The executives of the multinational mining corporation Nirvana Group inform Goa-based Krishna Das (Prithviraj Sukumaran) that his ancestral property in north Kerala that was leased out to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) by his late grandfather, is rich in minerals and can be sold since the lease period has expired. Nirvana Group offers him a large sum of money as an advance on the purchase. The NGO currently runs a tribal school on the property, which is situated inside the Kannadi Forest Range. When Krishna Das and his friend Thanseer (Prabhu Deva) visit the property, they are kidnapped by the tribal men and taken to a cave deep in the forest. There, Krishna Das meets the tribal chief Thankachan (Arya), who explains to him that he is the descendant of a certain Chirakkal Kelu Nayanar.


title: Urumi (film)

text: In the early 16th century, Portuguese sailors under Vasco da Gama (Alexx O'Nell) captures a Muslim pilgrim ship and take all the passengers as prisoners. The general of Chirakkal kingdom (northern Kerala), the Kothuwal, sends a Brahmin negotiator and his own son, Kelu (as per the customs of the land), to the captured ship to negotiate the prisoners' release. However, Vasco da Gama viciously rejects their attempt at negotiation, cutting off the negotiator's ears. He then orders that the prisoners be locked in the hold and the ship set on fire. Kothuwal storms the burning ship to rescue his son, Kelu. Although Kelu escapes, Chirakkal Kothuwal is killed during a fight that ensues. Vavvali, a Tamil Muslim boy, takes the orphaned Kelu with him to his home and treats him as his brother. Kelu crafts an urumi from the leftover ornaments of the dead women and children of the pilgrim ship. He takes an oath to kill Vasco da Gama one day.


title: Urumi (film)

text: Many years later, Kelu and Vavvali are hunting in a forest somewhere in Chirakkal. During their hunt, they rescue the princess of Chirakkal, Bala (Nithya Menen), from a group of abductors, armed with Portuguese pistols, who apparently have been organised by her cousin, Bhanu Vikraman (Ankur Khanna). Under the orders of Bhanu Vikraman, Kelu and Vavvali are captured by the Chirakkal guards at Puthoor Ferry and tried before the king of Chirakkal (Amole Gupte). During the trial, Bala reveals that the two young men in fact saved her life from the goons. Chenichery Kurup (Jagathy Sreekumar), the king's minister, convinces the king that the abductors might be from the Arakkal kingdom.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The king grants Kelu and Vavvali an audience. During the conversation, Kelu learns that Vasco da Gama is scheduled to return to India as the Viceroy. They plan to infiltrate and capture Gama at the execution of "pirate" Balia Hassan at Fort Arakkal. Instead, they capture Estêvão da Gama (Alexx O'Nell) and bring him as a prisoner to Chirakkal. In the process, Kelu and Vavvali come across and are helped by Ayesha (Genelia D'Souza), a fiery warrior princess of the Arakkal palace. With the help of Ayesha, Balia Hassan is also freed from the gallows and chaos ensues. Unknownst to Kelu and Vavvali, a group of Chirakkal warriors simultaneously raid the Arakkal palace, assassinates the Harabichi Beevi and take a large number of women from the palace as prisoners. Back in Chirakkal, the king bestows Kelu with the honour of being the new general ("Kothuval"). Vavvali, however, is somewhat unhappy as the king neglected to acknowledge his role in the capture of Estêvão. Princess Ayesha - among captives from the raid in Arakkal - is presented to the spoiled prince Bhanu Vikraman as a concubine. She tries to kill the prince in his chamber, but Kelu saves him. Vasco da Gama, in Cochin, is enraged upon learning of the capture and mutilation of his son Estêvão. Later, Kelu helps Ayesha escape from Chirakkal and asks her to flee from "this cursed land". Ayesha, with the help of Kelu and Vavvali, manages to rescue all the women locked up in Chirakkal and smuggle them to a secret cave in Puthur.


title: Urumi (film)

text: With princess Ayesha, Kelu and Vavvali set out to the villages in the kingdom and succeed in garnering support from the common folk against the Portuguese. A large number of people join with Kelu and Ayesha to form a resistance. Kelu also induces the king of Chirakkal to seek assistance from the Syrian Christians in Kodungallur. Meanwhile, with the help of minister Kurup (Sreekumar), Bhanu Vikraman conspires against his uncle and joins forces with Estêvão da Gama. Bhanu Vikraman assassinates his uncle with a Portuguese pistol. Kelu returns to Chirakkal palace to discuss with Vikraman, now king of Chirakkal, what actions to take against da Gama, but Bhanu hesitantly states that the army will no longer take orders from Kelu. Chirakkal Bala, the princess of Chirakkal, now joins with Kelu and his cohorts. Meanwhile, da Gama (Robin Pratt), accompanied by Estêvão da Gama among others, arrives at the Chirakkal palace. Chenichery Kurup, whom da Gama remembers, at first sight, welcomes him. During the audience, Bhanu Vikraman is killed by Estêvão da Gama. As a mark of respect for his allegiance to the Portuguese crown, the empire offers Kurup the post of the Governor General of the Laccadives.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The Chirakkal army, led by Angadan Nambi, attacks the rebel hideout. Rebels under Kelu, Vavvali, Ayesha and defected Chirakkal general Kaimal, fight back. Soon, an Estêvão da Gama-led Portuguese unit arrives in the village as reinforcement for the Chirakkal force. The rebels manage to defeat the combined forces, but Vavvali is killed in action. The rebels now launch an attack on the Chirakkal palace. A terrible battle ensues. The rebels are immediately put on the defensive by the Portuguese cannons. Kelu manages to breach the perimeter set up by Estêvão and enters the palace. He manages to attack da Gama but is killed by the musketeers.


title: Urumi (film)

text: After hearing the moving story of his ancestors, Krishna Das decides not to sell his land to the multinational mining corporation and instead, he decides to start a new life in Kerala.


title: Urumi (film)

text: According to director Santosh Sivan, "Urumi" is his comment on globalization. He adds that the film resonates with people today as corporate lobbies are causing displacement of indigenous people across the world. "I have travelled across the world while shooting for films and documentaries and I have seen first hand the displacement and exploitation, the side effects of globalisation being suffered by the people who live in close contact to nature. The film centres around a similar situation, but it is removed by a few centuries," said Sivan. The film also focuses on a new perspective of storytelling. "History is written by the victors, the powerful who won. So was Vasco da Gama a brave explorer or an invader after gold." he added.


title: Urumi (film)

text: "The film is designed in such a way that it talks about the present and the past. In the past, some people came and exploited our land and it is happening even now. Perhaps the people who lived then are the people who live now. Still we are not united and our progress is not uniform. The film has also portrayed this aspect in a different manner.", Sivan pointed out to Jyothsna Bhavanishankar of "Behind the Woods".


title: Urumi (film)

text: Shankar Ramakrishnan, who wrote the story and screenplay for "Urumi" after conducting extensive research, said that the film presents history from a different perspective. "Even a small child in Kerala perceives Vasco da Gama as an explorer, who made the first-ever colonial invasion in any part of the world. But there's more to him than that. "Urumi" is an attempt to portray or rather discuss the many realities that could have affected the course of our history," he said. Shankar Ramakrishnan added that the title is not just suggestive of Kelu's weapon urumi, but "the feeling of vengeance that we carry in our hearts".


title: Urumi (film)

text: In April 2011, Prithviraj Sukumaran explained the genesis of his production company: "Santosh [Sivan] and I used to keep discussing a historical film during the making of [2010 Tamil film] "Raavanan". We roped in Shaji Nadesan, a friend of ours, and thus was born August Cinema." "I like the idea of recreating the bygone era. It is interesting to think of the characters you have heard as real. Also, it excited me to have cannons, swords, and urumi (curling blades) in a film." Santosh Sivan was quite enthusiastic about the idea.


title: Urumi (film)

text: Santosh Sivan and Prithviraj Sukumaran have acknowledged the vital role played by the script writer Shankar Ramakrishnan in the shaping of the film. Ramakrishnan, who had been working for some time as film-maker Ranjith Balakrishnan's associate director, had scripted a tale for a competition based on the medieval history of Kerala. "Called "Chekavar", it was on the gallant warriors of Malabar and the pageant of the Mamankam. I had shown it to Prithviraj [Sukumaran] during the shooting of "Thirakkatha". He was quite taken up with the script and mentioned it to Santhosh [Sivan] when the two were working on "Raavanan". That is how Santosh [Sivan] got in touch with me," explains Shankar Ramakrishnan. "I was nearly imprisoned in Santosh Sivan's flat in Mumbai for about two months when I was writing the story of "Urumi". Finally, I told him the one-line story of a boy who wanted to kill Vasco da Gama and the movie took off smoothly from then on. I did not see it as a period film as I felt that the issues it dealt with were contemporary", reveals Shankar Ramakrishnan. Shankar spent two years gathering the material for his script and doing research to flesh out his characters, some of whom are familiar names in Indian history. He went to Kannur and read old ballads and stories of the region.


title: Urumi (film)

text: Alexx O'Neill, who hails from Connecticut in the United States, was cast as Estêvão da Gama. "When I had signed "Urumi", it was basically for a single character Estêvão Da Gama, but later I played [young] Vasco Da Gama's role, too, and had to speak only in Portuguese", O'Neill said. "I wanted to be very true to the accent and the way the character would speak at that time. So I hired a person in Mumbai before the shooting began. Even during the dubbing I had someone to assist me, so that I don't go wrong with the pronunciation", he added.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The 16th century costumes were designed by debutant Eka Lakhani, with make-up by Ranjith Ambady. The clothing worn by the characters, particularly that worn by the women, differed slightly from what would be historically accurate attire. "You cannot re-create exactly how it was then, as women were topless in those days. So, you stylise the kind of dresses they wore in that era," Sivan said to Rediff. Shooting for the film started on 17 August 2010. The production design was carried out by Sunil Babu. The main locations were Kerala and the forests of Malshej Ghat in Maharashtra. Most of the scenes were captured in mostly natural light with a modest of budget and minimal visual effects. "It was tedious and the terrain was difficult. On screen, it looks beautiful but we shot standing in slush almost 24/7. People got foot infections. It was laborious", says Nithya Menon, who played a Chirakkal princess. The film was shot with a combination of various formats. The Canon EOS 5D was extensively used, especially for the sensuous song featuring Vidya Balan. The shooting lasted a period of seven months in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra.


title: Urumi (film)

text: "Urumi" was filmed by three cinematographers – Santosh Sivan (who is the director of photography as well), renowned wild-life photographer Alphonse Roy, and national award-winning Anjuli Shukla. "Shooting in the mist-laden Harishchadragad in Malshej valley is a difficult task as the light keeps changing constantly. It rains incessantly and the entire area is covered in slush. So each scene is a challenge. It is great to be a part of such a talented team," says Anjuli. Sunil Babu, the set designer for movies such as "Ghajini, Lakshya" and "Ananthabhadram", was art director for the film. Visual effects were carried out by Mumbai-based Reliance Mediaworks.


title: Urumi (film)

text: Santosh Sivan was heavily involved in bringing out a "tailored version" of the film in Telugu 2011, and in Tamil in 2012. Many scenes in the film were re-shot to avoid lip-sync problems.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The English version is expected to be just 110 minutes long, which is 55 minutes shorter than the Malayalam film. The director confirmed that the English version will showcase the brutal side of the Portuguese invader. The English version will be released in 2015. "The English flick, titled "Vasco Da Gama", is totally different from the Malayalam version in terms of structure and story. "We will be retaining only 30% of the scenes from the original", said Santosh Sivan, adding that the extra sequences are already shot. The script is being sponsored by a forum of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The first exclusive sneak preview of the film was held exclusively for Mani Ratnam. After watching the film, Mani Ratnam was all praise for Santosh Sivan, saying, ""Urumi" is huge. It is entertaining and the performances are very convincing. It's simply Santosh [Sivan] magic."


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film opened to positive reviews from both critics and viewers. It earned accolades as "arguably one of the best historical fantasies Malayalam cinema has ever seen" and was critically acclaimed at film festivals around the world. "The Hindu" described the film as "a landmark film in Malayalam". Sarswathy Nagarajan describes, "It is a decisive turn for Malayalam cinema because 'Urumi,' while broadening the horizons of Mollywood, is also an attempt to reach out to a global audience. The lavishly made 'Urumi' brings together a host of talented actors and technical personnel from Indian cinema." Times of India praised the film's acting performances, technical details, cinematography.


title: Urumi (film)

text: "Nowrunning" gave the film a 3/5 rating and comments that the story is "timeless, the images magical, the acting solid, the script first-rate, the romance delightful, the action deadly and the energy raw – in short, the kind of film that one loves to see, and then animatedly write about." Rediff also gave a 3/5 rating for the movie. Sify gave a 4/5 rating with its movie verdict being "Very Good". According to Sify, ""Urumi" is a fairy tale fantasy film that has a heart and technical artistry." Indiaglitz rated the movie as a "must see" and commented: "All in all, "Urumi" is a must watch for all those who love quality cinema. Redefining the traditional qualities of period dramas, "Urumi" is sure to become a movie that will be respected and adored by Mollywood for its creative panache, tremendous performances, and great technical wizardry."


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film was also one of the seven Malayalam films selected to be screened at the Indian Panorama section of International Film Festival of India.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The Tamil version released by Kalaipuli S Dhanu's V Creations opened to positive reception by critics as well as audiences. "The Hindu" wrote of the Tamil version, "From the very first scene of this film to the last, director-cum-cinematographer Santosh Sivan proves to be on top of this technical masterpiece. The songs, waterfall sequences and the war scenes evoke a feel of realism due to its stunning visuals and brilliant re-recording. Certain portions in the film become very melodramatic to suit the Indian audiences thereby derailing the pace. The brilliantly choreographed action sequences seem to be a tad too loud for the ears." Notable websites and Tamil magazines praised the dialog of the Tamil version. The film was released as "Ek Yodha Shoorveer" in Hindi in 2016 and was widely criticised for "laughable dubbing".


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film has also caught the eye of Oliver Stone. "I had met Stone while he was in Mumbai a few months ago and he was curious when he came to know that I was doing a film on Da Gama. We had a discussion about it and he wanted me to send him a copy once the film was done," said Santosh Sivan.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The film fetched over The film had collected from 3 days at 77 theatres from Kerala and it had broken previous record of Prithviraj Sukumaran film "Anwar" (2010). The film became a notable hit in Tamil and Telugu as well. The film collected 7,023 from UK box office.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The songs and the background score for the film were composed by Deepak Dev, with lyrics by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri, Rafeeq Ahammed and Engandiyur Chandrasekharan. The music album consists of nine songs. According to Deepak Dev, composing songs for "Urumi" was a challenge as Santosh Sivan had proscribed all electronic music, as the film is set in the sixteenth century. It was Prithviraj who suggested Deepak Dev to Sivan. The songs encompass many genres, including folk, lullaby and ballad. The vocalists range from the most experienced K. J. Yesudas to newcomers Job Kurian and Reshmi Sathish. The song "Chimmi Chimmi" is done as a tribute to composer Deepak Dev is said to have admired.


title: Urumi (film)

text: The song "Aaro Nee Aaro" in the film is alleged to be plagiarised from Loreena McKennitt's "Caravanserai" of the album "An Ancient Muse". The track also uses major hooks from Loreena's famous track "The Mummers' Dance". Loreena McKennit filed a plagiarism suit against composer Deepak Dev and the makers of "Urumi" in Delhi High Court. On 21 September 2011, Justice Manmohan Singh passed an order on a copyright infringement claim preventing the makers from releasing the soundtrack in English, Hindi, and Tamil. Since the producers failed to appear in court, Delhi High court Judge Hema Kohli passed an arrest warrant against actor Prithviraj, Santhosh Sivan and Shaji Natesan.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: Prati Roju Pandage () is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language comedy-drama film written and directed by Maruthi. The film was produced by Bunny Vasu and Sreenivasa Kumar Naidu (SKN) under GA2 Pictures and UV Creations with Sai Tej, Raashii Khanna, Sathyaraj and Rao Ramesh in the lead roles. The technical crew includes Jaikumar behind the camera, S. Thaman composing music and Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao handling editing duties. The movie depicts the relationship between a grandson and his grandfather and on how the society treats old people.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: Raghu Ramayya is over 75 years old. One day, Raghu Ramayya goes to a hospital and asks Dr. Bharath about his condition. Bharath tells him that he has lung cancer. Raghu Ramayya informs his eldest son Anand Rao that he has cancer. Anand Rao asks Bharath how much time his father has. Bharath replies that he has very little time to live. Even though Anand Rao was skeptical about it, he plans to come to India with his siblings. Meanwhile, Sai Tej gets to know the conditions his grandfather is suffering from and travels to India to stay with him and fulfill his wishes. While he was in India, Raghu Ramayya suggests him to marry his friend's, Surya Narayan, granddaughter, Angel Aarna. But Anand Rao fixes a marriage plan with his boss' (Dhamodhar) daughter. Anand Rao gets to know that Sai Tej is in love with Angel Aarna and he also gets to know that Raghu Ramayya is behind this. After a few weeks, Raghu Ramayya's kids come to India to take care of him. Raghu Ramayya gets so happy and one day he passes out. He is immediately taken to a hospital, Anand Rao thinking that his dad is dead tells this to Dhamodhar. But after a few minutes, Bharath comes and tells the real news that Raghu Ramayya was not dead but due to much happiness(of seeing his kids) had fainted, and Anand Rao realizes he is in big trouble.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: As days pass on, everyone gets frustrated because they are staying in India for too long and the workload is getting too much. To keep them here, Sai Tej creates a fake "surprise" so that they can stay here and look after their father. One fine day, the whole family does a ritual. While Nagaraju and Nagaraju's brother comes to the family to warn them they will have to take the property that Raghu Ramayya visits every day. But Sai Tej beats them up. Later that day, Dhamodhar comes to India to visit Anand Rao and console him. But he learns the truth and he scolds him. Now, Anand Rao gets angry at his father and he blames him for what has happened. Everyone leaves him and back to their home except Sai Tej.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: But Raghu Ramayya gets seriously ill and he is admitted to the hospital. Sai Tej calls his dad and tells him that his father is dead but he says that he cannot attend the death ritual. Eventually the other two brothers and the only sister of Anand Rao also deny. But they suggest that Sai Tej do the rituals and they will attend it through video call. Sai Tej gets angry after hearing this and in the video call shows that he was not doing the ritual to his grandfather but to his father,uncles and aunt. Seeing this, they get frustrated and they come back to India to confront him. But Sai Tej tells them how Raghu Ramayya contributed to their children's well-being and how he wanted that all of his kids and grandsons and granddaughters have a bright future. All of them regret for treating their father so badly in his older days and realize their mistake.To everyone's surprise, Sai Tej tells them that their father is not dead and is alive. Then, Raghu Ramayya comes and all the family reconcile. Later, Sai Tej and Angel Aarna marry. And in the end credits, it is shown that when Raghu Ramayya was going to fall all his kids hold him and save him. And when he asks to them for his stick, they say that there is no need of stick as they are his support


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: The film launched formally in June 2019 by performing pooja and muhurat shots. Dil Raju attended the event along with the film cast and crew.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: The regular filming started in early July in Hyderabad. The production moved to Rajamundry for the village sequences in September 2019.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: The film was released on 20 December 2019. It was later dubbed and released in Hindi as "Har Din Diwali" by Goldmines Telefilms on 15 November 2020.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: In the full run, "Prati Roju Pandage" collected 62 crores gross and 34 crores share worldwide and emerged as the highest-grossing movie of both Maruthi and Sai Tej.


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: Y Sunita Chowdhary of "The Hindu" wrote " The film has nice visuals and the content is strong as it focuses on sensitivity towards family values, especially in the climax. Maruti deserves a pat for his simple and straight dialogues and Sai Dharam Tej does well in disciplining the elders".


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: "Firstpost" gave 3.25 out of 5 stars stating ""Prathi Roju Pandage" into a discourse on how we engage with our parents and grandparents in their old age. It has its share of laughs and emotional moments. It manages to deliver what it sets out to achieve, even if the journey is a little shaky in a few stretches".


title: Prati Roju Pandage

text: "The Times of India" gave 2.5 out of 5 stars stating "Satyaraj, Rao Ramesh, Murli Sharma, Hari Teja and Raashi Khanna, even in the limited role, hit the ball out of the park. The cinematography by Jayakumar is apt and Thaman S' BGM works well for the film. "Prati Roju Pandaage" has ample moments that’ll make you smile and relate to the characters, if not anything else".


title: Devin Finzer

text: Devin Finzer (born 1990) is an American entrepreneur and technology executive. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenSea, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens. In January 2022, "Forbes" estimated the stakes in OpenSea owned by Finzer and his co-founder Alex Atallah to be worth $2.2 billion each, making them the first two non-fungible token billionaires.


title: Devin Finzer

text: Devin Finzer was born in 1990; his mother is a physician while his father works as a software engineer. Finzer grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Miramonte High School in Orinda, California.


title: Devin Finzer

text: Finzer matriculated at Brown University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2013. In his junior year at Brown, Finzer worked with future Figma founder Dylan Field to create CourseKick, a socially-oriented search engine for university course registration. Just two weeks after the site launched, 20% of undergraduates had registered. While at Brown, Finzer interned at Wikimedia Foundation, Google Cloud Platform, and Flipboard. After graduating, he took a job at Pinterest in San Francisco as a software engineer.


title: Devin Finzer

text: Finzer co-founded two tech start-ups, including Claimdog, a personal finance app acquired by Credit Karma for an undisclosed amount. At Credit Karma, Finzer became interested in blockchain technology. With Alex Atallah, Finzer developed and pitched WifiCoin, which would offer tokens in exchange for sharing access to a wireless router. The pair pitched the concept to Y Combinator and were accepted. Inspired by the release of CryptoKitties, the pair pivoted to the non-fungible token market, founding OpenSea in December 2017.


title: Devin Finzer

text: After a 2018 pre-seed round by Y Combinator, OpenSea raised $2.1 million in venture capital in November 2019. In March 2021, the company raised $23 million in venture capital; four months later the company announced another investment round of $100 million making it a unicorn. In January 2022, OpenSea raised $300 million in new series C funding, propelling the company's valuation to $13.3 billion.


title: Devin Finzer

text: In July 2021, Finzer was listed 19th on "Forbes" "NFTy 50" list of most influential individuals in the non-fungible token scene.


title: 7 Seeds

text: 7 Seeds (stylized as 7SEEDS) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yumi Tamura. It is set in a post-apocalyptic future, long enough after a meteorite hits Earth that new species have evolved, and follows the struggles of five groups of young adults to survive after they are revived from cryonic preservation. The title comes from five groups of individuals in cryogenic chambers along with supplies, called "seeds", laid down by the Japanese government.


title: 7 Seeds

text: The manga was originally serialized in Shogakukan's "Bessatsu Shōjo Comic" magazine, premiering in the November 2001 issue; it transferred to "Flowers" magazine in April 2002, where it ran until its conclusion in May 2017. Shogakukan collected the individual chapters into 35 bound volumes.


title: 7 Seeds

text: An original net animation (ONA) anime adaptation, produced by Gonzo and directed by Yukio Takahashi, was announced in November 2018. The first season was released worldwide on Netflix in June 2019. A second season produced by Studio Kai premiered on 26 March 2020.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In 2007, "7 Seeds" won the 52nd Shogakukan Manga Award for the "shōjo" category. Including digital sales, it has sold more than 6 million copies in Japan.


title: 7 Seeds

text: When astronomers predict that the Earth will be hit by a meteorite, the world leaders meet to develop a plan for human survival called the Seven Seeds project. Each country agrees to preserve numbers of healthy young people through cryogenics, which will allow them to survive the devastation of the impact. After a computer determines that Earth is once again safe for human life, it will revive each group. The Japanese government creates five groups of survivors named Winter, Spring, Summer A, Summer B, and Fall. Each group consists of seven members, who are not told about what will happen before they are placed in cryonic preservation, and one adult guide who is trained in wilderness survival. These groups are scattered across Japan: the Summer groups in southern and northern Kyūshū, Fall in western Honshū, Spring in central Honshū near Tokyo, and Winter in Hokkaidō.


title: 7 Seeds

text: Awoken from the cryogenic sleep many years later, the young men and women find themselves amidst a hostile environment bare of any human life. Their former home country Japan has greatly changed. Completely alone, they must depend only on themselves to survive in the new world.


title: 7 Seeds

text: "7 Seeds" takes place an unknown number of years after the collision of a large meteorite with Earth. As a result of the impact, the climate of Japan has greatly changed from what the characters knew from the present day. In the Kansai region there are only two seasons, a dry season and a longer, heavier rainy season. Takahiro of Winter group describes the winters in the northern island of Hokkaidō as being as mild as in Kanagawa Prefecture where he grew up. In addition, sea levels have risen greatly: downtown Yokohama is completely underwater, only the top hand of the statue in Nagasaki Peace Park is above the surface of the ocean. The geography of Japan has changed as well: after an eruption of Mount Aso, Kyūshū has been split into two islands, and the Kansai region is separated from central Honshū by a wide strait. The series depicts a Japan in which, as a result of the new environment and mass extinctions, ecosystems have changed and several new species of animals and plants have evolved.


title: 7 Seeds

text: For example, on the island where Summer group B first lands, off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture, Botan notes how few of the ecological niches are filled, including no birds or flying insects, and that the limited number of species are still radiating to fill empty niches. In particular, a local rodent resembling a rabbit is in the process of speciation into herbivorous and ravenously carnivorous versions, which are still visually similar. Other dangers new to the characters include swarms of carnivorous white cockroaches and gigantic Venus flytraps, sundews, and nepenthes. Species that are unchanged but were previously unknown in Japan include banana trees and crocodiles. Semimaru notes that neither on the island nor on the Kyūshū mainland do they see any ants, bees, or similar insects.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In the Kansai region, Fall group domesticates flightless birds about the size of a chicken and sheep that have grown to resemble llamas, which can be ridden, milked and shorn for wool. Izayoi tells Natsu that a local wasp is deadly, killing with a single sting, and another species has a sting that sickens the victim for a day. According to Akio, corn is the only crop from their seed cache that grows in the area's soils, but Fall group also cultivates a variety of tobacco with a narcotic effect when smoked.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In the southern part of central Honshū, Natsu, Arashi, and Semimaru of Summer group B cross a desert with cactus scrub. Throughout the region they find remains of large reptiles that revive from estivation during the rainy season, which remind Natsu of velociraptors from "Jurassic Park". These "dinosaurs", as the characters call them, have grassland and woodland varieties, and during the rainy season are the dominant predator from the south coast to at least as far north as Tokyo.


title: 7 Seeds

text: On the island where the Spring group first lands, off the coast of the Kantō region, Hana notes that there are no vertebrates on land or in the sea, and Momotaro describes the ecology as similar to that of the Carboniferous Era. On land, there are giant insects the characters call "boat beetles" and swarms of bees with stings that are painful but not deadly, which force the group to live on rafts off-shore. In the island's swamps, there are giant praying mantis and giant dragonflies. While at the island, the group lives off shellfish and shallow-water nautiluses, but see no bony fish. The characters find the climate changed as well, as it is too overcast to see the stars for the first two weeks after they are awake, even though it is spring, a season that in the present day is noted for clear weather.


title: 7 Seeds

text: On the mainland of the Kantō region, Spring group meets large aquatic lizards living among the submerged ruins of Yokohama, which hunt in groups. Nearby, in the ruins of central Tokyo, the party from Summer group B is attacked by a giant predatory fish, which Takahiro of Winter group identifies as descended from a deep-sea fish, the only kind of bony fishes to have survived. They also meet a fungus-like growth Takahiro calls "blue mucus", which infects Hana's skin when she touches it. This growth goes dormant in the dry season, and Takahiro realizes it is intolerant to salt and uses it to cure her.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In northern Honshū near Sendai, Natsu, Arashi and Semimaru of Summer group B find the first flowers they have seen during their journey over most of the length of Japan.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In southern Hokkaidō, Winter group encounters grasslands populated by many mammals they do not know, including small-eared rodents, herds of unknown ruminants, and tigers with saber-teeth. They also meet wolves with the ability to project illusions normally used to help hunt.


title: 7 Seeds

text: The project organizers also prepared sealed caches containing seeds and instructional books near the "seven Fuji". These seven Fuji are not related to the famous Mount Fuji, but are regional landmarks also named Fuji:


title: 7 Seeds

text: In an author's note, Tamura says that "7 Seeds" was inspired by news reports that near-Earth object (89959) 2002 NT might potentially collide with Earth.


title: 7 Seeds

text: Yumi Tamura often includes certain songs in her chapter titles. If there is further info material available, you can find it using the links in the 'manga' table.


title: 7 Seeds

text: There are also songs that do not appear in chapter titles but still play a major role at turning points in the manga. Those are listed below.


title: 7 Seeds

text: The four seasons serve as the theme for "7 Seeds" , since every team is named after one of them: Spring, Summer A/B, Autumn, and Winter. The team members were chosen into their teams based on which seasons their names matched best.


title: 7 Seeds

text: Almost every "7 Seeds" chapter arc is named after one of the 24 solar terms consisting of the 72 pentads ("Shichijūni kō"). The Rainwater chapter, for example, completely consists of "Shichijūni kō".


title: 7 Seeds

text: "7 Seeds" was written and illustrated by Yumi Tamura and published by Shogakukan. It began serialization in the November 2001 issue of the monthly "shōjo" (aimed at teenage girls) manga magazine "Bessatsu Shōjo Comic". In April 2002, it transferred to the monthly "josei" (aimed at young adult women) manga magazine "Flowers". The final chapter was published in the July 2017 issue of "Flowers", released on 27 May.


title: 7 Seeds

text: Shogakukan collected the individual chapters into 35 bound volumes, printed under the Flower Comics imprint, and later, under the Flower Comics Alpha imprint. The first volume was released on 26 March 2002; the last volume was released on 10 August 2017. Each volume was divided into sections focusing on different groups of survivors, with section titles containing a "kigo" (seasonal word) appropriate for the group name. Shogakukan also published an official fanbook, titled "Edge of Emotions", on 9 December 2011. The fanbook contained detailed character profiles, a color illustration gallery, and a long interview with Tamura.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In 2008, Pika Édition licensed the manga in France, where it was marketed as a "seinen" (aimed at young adult men) manga series. In 2011, Pika announced that negotiations with the Japanese publisher, Shogakukan, had been unsuccessful, and therefore, they would cease publishing "7 Seeds" and two other titles. In total, Pika published 10 volumes of the manga in French.


title: 7 Seeds

text: In 2017, after the conclusion of the "7 Seeds" manga in Japan, Tamura announced the launch of a spin-off series in "Flowers". The first chapter was published in the magazine's October issue, released on 28 August; the final chapter was published in the December issue, released on 28 October. Shogakukan collected the chapters into a single bound volume on 10 January 2018.


title: 7 Seeds

text: "7 Seeds" was adapted into a radio drama which was broadcast in Japan from 9 December 2003 to 6 February 2004. The nine episodes were collected on three drama CDs:


title: 7 Seeds

text: A fourth drama CD was released in Japan on 10 August 2017, bundled with a limited edition of volume 35 of the "7 Seeds" manga. The story was based on an original scenario written by Yumi Tamura. Several voice actors who would later be cast in the anime adaptation of "7 Seeds" were first featured on the drama CD, including Kazuhiko Inoue as Kaname Mozunoto, Shō Hayami as Takashi Sugurono, Nozomu Sasaki as Takahiro Aramaki, and Katsuyuki Konishi as Semimaru Asai.


title: 7 Seeds

text: An anime adaptation was announced on 26 November 2018. The series is animated by Gonzo and directed by Yukio Takahashi, with Touko Machida handling series composition, Youko Satou designing the characters, and Michiru composing the music. The series was originally scheduled to release on Netflix in April 2019, but it was delayed to 28 June 2019 due to production delays. Amatsuki performed the series' opening theme song "Ark", while Majiko performed the series' ending theme song "WISH".


title: 7 Seeds

text: A second season premiered on 26 March 2020. The main cast and staff members reprised their roles, and Studio Kai producing the animation. Mone Kamishiraishi performed the second season's opening theme song "From the Seeds", which was composed by Glim Spanky, while Cider Girl performed the second season's ending theme "Synchro".


title: 7 Seeds

text: On 4 January 2021, the staff members announced that the second season's ending animation sequence has been removed after they were notified that it had similarities to the anime "Beyond the Boundary"'s ending theme.


title: 7 Seeds

text: "7 Seeds" won the 52nd Shogakukan Manga Award for the "shōjo" category in 2007. The series ranked number 10 on the top 20 list of manga for female readers in the 2018 edition of Takarajimasha's "Kono Manga ga Sugoi!" guidebook. It was nominated in the comic category for the 49th Seiun Awards in 2018.


title: 7 Seeds

text: Including digital sales, the series has sold more than 6 million copies in Japan. Volume 12 reached number 7 on the Tohan best-seller list and volume 13 reached number 10.


title: Psychonautics

text: Psychonautics (from the Ancient Greek ' 'soul, spirit, mind' and ' 'sailor, navigator') refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research cabal in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.


title: Psychonautics

text: The term has been applied diversely, to cover all activities by which altered states are induced and utilized for spiritual purposes or the exploration of the human condition, including shamanism, lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, sensory deprivation, and archaic/modern drug users who use entheogenic substances in order to gain deeper insights and spiritual experiences. Self-experimentation of psychedelics in groups may foster innovation of alternative medication treatment. A person who uses altered states for such exploration is known as a "psychonaut".


title: Psychonautics

text: The term "psychonautics" derives from the prior term "psychonaut", which began appearing in North American works in the late 1950s. The first reference that corresponds to contemporary usages of the term was in the 1965 edition of the "Group Psychotherapy" journal. A 1968 magazine, "Beyond Baroque", refers to Timothy Leary as a psychonaut.


title: Psychonautics

text: German author Ernst Jünger used the term to describe Arthur Heffter in his 1970 essay on his own extensive drug experiences "Annäherungen: Drogen und Rausch" (literally: "Approaches: Drugs and Inebriation"). In this essay, Jünger draws many parallels between drug experience and physical exploration—for example, the danger of encountering hidden "reefs."


title: Psychonautics

text: Peter J. Carroll made "Psychonaut" the title of a 1982 book on the experimental use of meditation, ritual and drugs in the experimental exploration of consciousness and of psychic phenomena, or "chaos magic".


title: Psychonautics

text: The term's first published use in a scholarly context is attributed to ethnobotanist Jonathan Ott, in 2001.


title: Psychonautics

text: Clinical psychiatrist Jan Dirk Blom describes psychonautics as denoting "the exploration of the psyche by means of techniques such as lucid dreaming, brainwave entrainment, sensory deprivation, and the use of hallucinogenics or entheogens", and a psychonaut as one who "seeks to investigate their mind using intentionally induced altered states of consciousness" for spiritual, scientific, or research purposes.