Jagadeesh Kanna, Founder & CEO of Vaayusastra Aerospace Centre, an IIT Madras-incubated company, and author of ‘Science with Young Hanuman’, engages students in a hands-on science experiment at Higginbothams on Saturday. Also present were actor Krishnakumar Balasubramanian and Murali DP, Senior Manager. Sridhar Aranala, Vice President, Sales and Distribution, The Hindu.
| Photo Credit: B. VELANKANNI RAJ
As a group of curious children gathered on the first floor of heritage bookstore Higginbothams on Saturday hoping for an explanation of science, author Jagadeesh Kanna took the centre stage and announced he would teach them magical spells instead.
While the children were musing on what he had just said, he made a paper plane out of a sheet, and chanted a fictional spell from the Harry Potter series: Wingardium Leviosa right. The paper plane turned right; the spell worked. As he urged children to chant the second spell–Wingardium Leviosa left–the paper plane turned left. By the end of all the six spells, awestruck children started realising that spells didn’t work, it was the science of aerodynamics that controlled the paper plane. And, Mr. Jagadeesh Kanna taught them different ways of how to fold the paper to achieve precise outcomes according to Bernoulli’s principle.
“The Wright Brothers took seven years to learn how to control the airplane. You need the right teachers. All it needs is ten minutes to learn pitch, roll and yaw in an aircraft. It all started with a small dream. It will reach all over the world. You learn this in school, but not in this perspective,” he said.
After a few minutes of storytelling about young Hanuman as he taught students aeronautics, Mr. Jagadeesh Kanna made the children understand the science behind the airplane as part of The Hindu’s meet the author programme at Higginbothams Mount Road. He stressed the need for knowing the problem statement children want to solve, with storytelling as an educational tool. He spoke about the moment of spark great people had experienced and the significance of emotions in learning concepts in science without getting bored.
Mr. Jagadeesh Kanna is the author of The Hindu’s new kids book titled “Science with Young Hanuman”. To maximise awareness, The Hindu intends to organise in select schools a few interactive sessions with the author who is also the founder and CEO of Vaayusastra Aerospace Centre, an IIT Madras’s Incubated Company.
Under the Special Publications Division, The Hindu Group has published more than 170 titles since April 2017. These titles have been published under various genres like Coffee Table Book, Religious, Spiritual, History, Kids, Sports, Science and Premium series. We have published 14 titles under the Kids Series so far and Science with Young Hanuman is the latest one. Link to the book: https://shorturl.at/xJv7B
Published – August 03, 2025 01:07 am IST
