Zilfer's Blogs

The Pregnant Man of India   Have you ever heard of a pregnant man?! Well, now today it might be possible due to advanced technologies but back in 1999? No, right? Meet Sanju Bhagat- ‘The Pregnant Man From India’. Only at 2 year old, he showcased the most visible sign of pregnancy that is a very big stomach. As he grew old, so did his stomach. The villagers would always tease him that he looked nine months pregnant. In June of 1999 when Sanju was 36 years old the growing stomach made it difficult for him to breathe and so he was immediately rushed to a hospital for a surgery. Doctors thought it might be a case of tumor. Little did they know what was next to follow! During the surgery, the doctor said he could feel a lot of bones inside, then a limb came out and then did the whole mutated body of a fetus. The doctors could not believe their eyes. Doctors found that Sanju Bhagat suffered from one of the world’s most bizarre medical conditions- fetus in fetu. It is an extremely rare abnorm

  The Well of Death. In Ancient Greece, infants weren’t seen as complete beings from the moment they were born. This is because there was a belief that most babies died before the seventh day, so a naming ceremony that solidified their position in Ancient Greek society was deferred until around the tenth day following their birth. At which time, the father would decide whether the infant lived or died. You see, it wasn’t uncommon for a father to decide that a child shouldn’t be reared, whether that be because the child had a deformity, the cost of raising it would overreach their means or even just because the child was the “wrong” sex. What would follow for a rejected baby was disturbing to say the least — exposure. Dumped outside on the doorstep, in a clay pot or near the roadway, it was likely that the baby would starve to death or suffocate. There was a chance that a baby would be picked up and adopted by someone else, but really, it was a horrid lottery. Athenian agora. For babies

The people in the picture were called  punkhawala  (पंखा-वाला). Simply said, their job was to “work” the fans by pulling on the rope which were attached to a  pulley  system   which produced a draft when flapped, similar to the wings of a bird. These  punkhawallah  were mostly deaf so they couldn't hear any confidential conversations of the britishers. They helped the British officers to sleep comfortably by lying on the balcony with their feet tied with ropes and doing the movements.  

 Animal Rain; A Natural Phenomena? “It’s raining cats and dogs? More like bats and polliwogs.“ ““Animal rain” is a real weatherphenomenon that happens when small animals get swept up in waterspouts or updrafts, and then fall to Earth with raindrops. Reported rains of bats, fish, snakes, birds, frogs, and jellies stretch back for centuries. “ “The phenomena most associated with animal rain are waterspouts, although many meteorologists are skeptical that waterspouts can actually cause animal rain. Waterspouts form as violent storm clouds swirl above a large body of water. These clouds form a tornado-like whirlwind (called a vortex) that dips into the ocean, lake, or pond. Waterspouts can spin up to 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), and may pull up small objects in their funnel—water, pebbles, and small aquatic animals. It is important to remember that a waterspout is not a swirling column of water—the water in a waterspout is the result of condensation, not liquid "sucke

  The Winchester Mystery House:  Sarah Lockwood Winchester—the wife of gun magnate, William Winchester—whose family created the Winchester rifle that was heralded as "the gun that won the west”—designed and oversaw the construction of the sprawling Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion that bears her name. Construction on the 24,000 square foot home, which is located at 525 South Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, began in 1886. Overcome with grief in the wake of her husband's death from tuberculosis in 1881,, the son of Oliver Fisher  Winchester , the rifle magnate, folklore states that Sarah sought out a spiritualist who could commune with the dead. While she was presumably looking for solace or closure, she was instead given a chilling warning. Through the medium, William told his widow that their tragedies (the couple had only one child, a daughter named Annie, who died at six weeks old) were a result of the blood money the family had made off of the Winchester rif

  Ireland has many  bogs . These are wetlands that are often high in acidic water, has a lack of oxygen, and often are extremely warm. As such, they have been known to mummify bodies that have been buried within them, known as  bog bodies  and can date back to thousands of years. As such, these can tell us some fascinating and disturbing ancient facts. Two of these became known as Old Croghan man and Clonycavan man. (Old Croghan man) (Clonycavan man) Old Croghan man was tall - measuring in at 6 foot 6, with well-manicured nails - suggesting that this individual never knew manual labour. Clonycavan man, however, was much shorter - coming in at 5 foot 2. Through forensic science, it was established that both men died extremely gruesomely - Old Croghan man had holes cut in his upper arms through which a rope of hazel withies was threaded in order to restrain him. He was then stabbed, his nipples sliced, before finally being cut in half across his torso. Clonycavan bog body was disembowell

  Seventeen Bodies In A Well: A Norwich Mystery Jewish bodies found in medieval well The picture above is a horrific one. The bodies of seventeen individuals, eleven of them children (the youngest two years of age) who were, at some point in the Middle Ages (dating 1150-1300), thrown down a well in the East Anglian town of Norwich. To date, the Norwich well burial is a spectacular discovery, literally one of a kind. However, a find this horrifying and this fascinating was bound to assert its own narrative and that happened in 2011 when   History   Cold Case , a British television series looked into the affair and claimed that the bodies were victims of a pogrom. [1]  Here is their very powerful version: imagine parents being hurled down the well and being followed by their screaming children; imagine how long it would have taken to die… But, through all this there are serious doubts about the ‘official’ story. The bodies were discovered in 2004 during an excavation of a site in the cen