rajnikumbh

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The Cholamandalam - One of the Greatest Empires of India

If you’ve ever taken the Coromandel Express from Howrah to Chennai, dealt with Cholamandalam Finance, or heard about the Sengol that made headlines during the new Parliament’s inauguration, you’ve seen echoes of the Chola legacy. These are not just names—they are fingerprints of an empire that once dominated South India and beyond. The Cholas ruled for nearly 500 years, rising from the fertile…

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That Night!

This short story is a piece of fiction and is based on my imagination. It is not intended to be a factual account of anything that has actually happened.    My mind is racing and I am not able to sleep at all. I see that everywhere it is dark and silence was deafening. Should I live to wake up the next day or find the knife that was somewhere in the drawer and cut my wrist. I am not able to think…

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From Palm Leaves to Pixels: How Knowledge Survives Every Revolution

This story is generated using ChatGPT based on my prompts. Plot was on my mind for months but couldn’t write it down Intro In 15th-century India, as the first rumors of the printing press floated across the seas, a father and son sat under a banyan tree and debated the future of knowledge.Centuries later, in a world of glowing screens and vanishing libraries, another father and son have a…

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Qutub Minar The Iconic Structure

Qutub Minar Delhi has been center of many dynasties and been capital of Independent India. Qutub minar is a famous monument and I guess every Indian would know about it. This time I got a chance to see it and one thing stood out was that many of the pillars used in the structure around Qutub Minar were part of Hindu/Jain temples and this is very much evident from whatever has remained there. So…

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R.S.V.P.

RSVPing R.S.V.P. is a short form for “répondez s’il vous plaît” which translates to “respond please” and is actually a French phrase which is considered old fashioned and formal and not used these days. But you would see the use of RSVP in India for many wedding cards.  I am no French expert but here is a pronounciation snippet for…

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WazirX Heist and Lazarus Group

Cryptocurrency and Exchange like WazirX If you are looking for a primer on Bitcoin, I wrote this years back. Feel free to check it out. Recently on July 18 2024 WazirX, an Indian Crypto Exchange, was hacked and there was $230 million dollars heist (2000 crores in Indian rupees) which was about 40% of its over crypto assets. Indian Crypto scene is still in infancy and many earlier exchanges like…

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A tribute to Sarada Sinha

I am not sure but maybe it’s somewhere in 1990s. We used to live in a place called Boleng in Arunachal Pradesh. There were many times when our days began with music of Sarada Sinha. Imagine a morning, sun shining through the lush green hills, bright blue sky and rays coming in through the windows. In the morning sun you could see the dust in the air and it was a Philips Tape Recorder (my mother…

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Bangaluru Hero Stones or the Veeragallu

What really is Old Bengaluru? History of Bengaluru for many starts with Kempegowda and there is no doubt Kempegowda clan (Yelahanka Nadaprabhus) played a major role in 16th century building of city of Bengaluru. But the history of Bengaluru goes way back in the time. It is also true that today’s central business district MG Road or the so called old Bangalore is more like a misnomer because to be…

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De Lannoy - The Great Captain or Valliya Kappitan

Dutch the Colonizers There is a lot of noise about British rule and history being written and read about them. But have you heard about the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or the Dutch East India Company, one of the first joint stock companies. They were the most profitable companies of their time 1602 to 1796 and sent more people and ships during that period. They were the leaders and…

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Read Indian!

I write in English probably because of ease of the qwerty keyboard and also I read in English most of the times. But for long I wanted to change that. So my friends this is a request for all people who read “even today” to read Indian in Indian languages as well. This is not really just for Indian people to read in their local languages but for all across the world, but many places like China,…

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Sahib, Sindh and Sultan

Sahib, Sindh and Sultan

Sahib, Sindh and Sultan: Steam Engines of the First Passenger Train Its 3:35PM on April 16th, 1853 and Sahib, Sindh and Sultan, three steam engines of India’s first passenger train were ready, all spick and span new, between then Bombay now Mumbai, then Victoria Terminus now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to cover 21 miles in 57 minutes to Thane. The train was filled with more than 400 invited…

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Are you exercised about exercise?

Not Exercising is normal Personally I hate going to a gym and have wondered is this really something humans like doing. Exercise as we know is relatively new phenomena and probably started less than 50 years ago when humans started  to lead industrialized life which made day to day life sedentary. Running tens of kilometers of treadmill going nowhere seemed to me last thing to do. All the huffing…

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Who were the officers of Mughals?

Who were the officers of Mughals?

Mughals and Daudnagar Recently I had a chance travel through a small town of Daudnagar in Bihar, about 100 kms from Patna. I was not planning to visit that place but found out that it had a fort built between 1664 to 1673 by Daud Khan and  his grandson Ahmed Khan  and we went inside the town to see this place. Now like other places in Bihar even this place is in a dilapidated condition that you…

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Jagadish Chandra Bose - A pioneer in Wireless Tech

A brief Intro Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian scientist whom I knew more about his research on plant physiology but it never came to my notice that he was a pioneer in wireless technology. Before he changed his attention to botany he was into physics and electromagnetics. What we know today as the latest 5G technology (millimeter waves) in mobile communication, he was working on such stuff in…

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The Panchatantra Project

Panchatantra – A project  It was sometime during the Covid a thought came to my mind about starting a Podcast. I have been a listener to Podcast for a while. It was probably a lost love that I rediscovered again. As a kid, I remember listening to BBC Hindi News under the night sky. Also I remember listening to Hello Farmaish ( हेलो फर्माइश) with my mother in the afternoons after the school. I…

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Zombie Carpenter Ants

Entangled Life Recently I started reading Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and one thing that stuck with me is the Carpenter Ants and their relation with a family of fungi Ophiocordyceps. Now the world of fungi and how they affect our lives is amazing. As a kid I remember there was a sensational story of few ladies dying after eating some wild mushrooms that turned out to be poisonous. The more…

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Is QWERTY Keyboard best?

QWERTY For the story of Qwerty keyboards, we will have to go back 150 years to late 1880 when one Mr. Christopher Latham Sholes was tinkering in his lab in Milwaukee to develop the prototype for typewriters.  Now the legend has that the Sholes was trying to develop a layout such the expensive typewriting machines won’t get jammed. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that this was the case…