CULTURAL QA 05-2024-24 All the below QA is from Quora digest to me on 24-05-2024.
Quora answers need not be 100% correctanswers. Compiledandposted by R. Gopala krishnan, on 24-05-2024 Q1 Can youtell about the Crown of the Tsar of Russia A1 T Shiv Tandon,14h he Russian imperialcrown, also known as the Grand Imperial Crown, was the principal symbol ofpower of Russian monarchs and the main imperial attribute between 1762 and1917. It was worn by all the country's sovereigns, beginning with Catherine IIand all the way up to Nicholas II. Created by court jeweler George FriedrichEckart and diamond craftsman Jeremiah Posier, it is adorned with no less than4,936 diamonds (a total of 2,858 carats), 75 large Indian matt pearls and a398.72 carats spinel. Following theRevolution, this incredible object fortunately remained in the country andsurvived the tumultuous events. Nowadays, however, it is on lock in the DiamondFund collection, in the Moscow Kremlin, and is not accessible to the publicbecause its value is simply too high to take any risk. In order to showcase thesplendor of this crown, however, a replica of it was made in 2012 for about onebillion rubles (13.22 million euros) and was exhibited throughout Russia andeven beyond its borders. Q2 What is thelegend- Gone to Worship Lord but got Entangled in the world A2 Dushyant, May 11 This is an oldstory. A seeker searched for Lord Vishnu and finally found him one day. Hegrasped his feet, overjoyed and thrilled, thinking, "I've got what Iwanted!" He thanked Lord Vishnu profusely and said, "Dear Lord, Justone more thing, Please let me do some small service for you, let me serve youin some way." You've given me so much - life, the ultimate celebration oflife, and now this eternal life too! Please Let me do something for you, so Idon't feel like I haven't done anything for you despite all that you've donefor me. Grant me a little bit of good fortune of serving you. I know you don'tneed anyone or anything, but my mind will be at peace if I can do something formy Lord too. Lord Vishnu said:“But can you do it? It will be very difficult.” But the devotee was stubborn.So, Lord Vishnu said: “Alright, I'm thirsty. Go and get me a bowl of water. Afterthat, the devotee rushed off to take water for Lord. You might think, "Whynot just take the water from the Kshirsagar, which is right there?" Butwhat's nearby is often left unseen. The devotee went down to the earth andknocked on a door. A beautiful young woman opened it and the devotee asked,"Devi, can I have a bowl of cool water?" The beautiful young womanreplied, Yes, Ofcourse! But Please come in!Bless my home with your presence. Don't go away like that. My father has alsogone out, and I'm alone at home. If he returns and finds out that a Brahmincame and I didn't welcomed him in our home, he'll be very angry at me.” For a moment, theBrahmin devotee feared. The woman was beautiful, extremely beautiful, and hehad never seen a woman as beautiful as her. Even lordvishnu himself seemed to fade away for a moment to the brahman devoteeand how much time did it took for Lord Vishnu to fade away. The devotee wasfrightened and worried, thinking, "Oh no, How can I forget the LordVishnu". The voice of the Lord seemed to be fading away. The devotee said,"No, no, this can't happen!" and sweat appeared on his forehead. Butthe young beautiful woman wouldn't listen and took the Brahmin devotee’s hand,saying, "Come inside, I won't let you go like this." As soon as shegrasped his hand, he completely forgot the Lord Vishnu. She led him inside andsaid, "You'll take the water, but first, please have somerefreshments." She offered him snacks and water to drink." Solitude! Thebeauty of the young woman. The Brahmin was captivated by his charm and theservice given to him. Slowly Lord Vishnu was lost from his mind. Sometimes hewould remember that Lord Vishnu was thirsty, but then think “What thirst canthe lord have?, He had only said it for the sake of my request. So what thirstcan he have. He is in the state of supreme satisfaction, so there’s no hurryand he can wait for two moments” Then the YoungBeautiful woman invited him to stay, saying :- “Now that you've come, my fatherwill also arrive soon and you can meet him too.” He readily agreed and theyoung woman continued to serve him. The beauty and form of the young womancaptivated his mind. Evening fell, but the father didn’t returned. The womansaid, “Please have dinner at least, where can you have dinner now.” Dinner wasprepared and the dinner was had. Night fell, the woman said, “where can you gonow in the night?” Even the Brahmin thought, “Where can I go now in the night?”He then decided to leave early in the morning in the BrahmaMuhurta hour. Then, several months passed, years passed but he didn’t leavethat place.The Brahmin stayed there and so did his family. His sons andDaughters grew up, and the family expanded. Fifty-Sixty years passed.His sons had children. Then, a flood came to the village. A terrible flood! Thebrahmin had grown old till that time. He tried to save his children and grandchildren from the flood, but the entire village was drowning. The flood wasterrible! Unseen and Unheard of! While trying to save his family, his wife (whowas the young beautiful woman before) was swept away by the flood. He ran tosave her, but the hand of the child he was holding slipped away. As he reachedthe shore, the entire family was lost in the flood. On the shore, the Brahminwas stood up on a stone slab and a massive wave of the floodwater wasapproaching towards him. Onthe crest of the wave, Lord Vishnu was seated and said “I am still thirsty, andyou haven’t brought water for me yet? I had told you earlier that you would not beable to do it because you had abandoned the world and ran away. One who abandonsthe world and runs away like you did are left with attachments. This Story is verydear……because you had abandoned the world without realising and rising aboveit. You had just closed your eyes and ran away from the world. So, even for asmall task, if you go into the world, you will get entangled. You had gone tofetch some water but settled the whole world there. You had gone to worshipLord Hari but got entangled in the world and kept getting more and moreentangled. The entanglement of world is such that it never ends! Q3 What aresome amazing one liners on India? A3 Gopalkrishna Vishwanath, I know lotsof them. But most can't be narrated without spoiling my good name.22h Enjoy these, whichI received in a WhatsApp forward. One-liners about India that are completelytrue : 1. If you want to know how divided we are,just look at the matrimonial page in our newspapers. 2. India is running the software oftomorrow on the hardware of yesterday. 3. If the mobile gets spoiled, blame thechild, if the child gets spoiled, blame the mobile. 4. If someone is asking for a dirty clothto clean something, then you are in India! 5. It's the only country where people fightto be termed 'backward'. 6. In India, you don't cast your vote, youvote your caste. 7. An incredible country where actors arehugely involved in politics and politicians are always acting. Q4 Whoinvented the well? Where was it invented? A4 Silk Road, Studied at Generative PreTraining Tue No oneknows exactly for sure. I doubt somecaveman woke up one morning, rubbed his knuckles together, and said,"Eureka! I shall invent the well! The well, myfriend, is older than the dirt you walk on. It's a primal,gut-level response to thirst, a survival tactic as old as humanity itself. Go back far enough– way before iPhones and electric toothbrushes – and you'll find our ancestorsfiguring this stuff out. Evidence suggests that wells were in use as early as theNeolithic period (approximately 10,200 to 4,500 BC),appearing independently in various parts of the world. And they didn'tneed a blueprint or a degree in hydrology. They saw the waterpooled after a rainstorm, scratched their heads, and thought, "Hey, maybeif we dig down a bit..." Likely developedthrough trial and error by communities rather than individuals. But, it's not justabout who, it's about when and where. And the answer iseverywhere, and probably since the Stone Age. The Middle East, the Indus Valley – these places werelike the Silicon Valley of well technology. They didn't justdig holes; they built entire civilizations around them. Q5 What aresome traditional Russian jokes translated into English? A5 Dražen Pečnik, May 4 American, Frenchand Russian are talking about the definition of happiness in life. American: “Plentyof money, big house, blonde wife with huge titis, big car, couple of cute kids,and a fine bottle of bourbon, that's what I call happiness” French: “No, no,no… Happiness is when you have a beautiful wife, even more beautiful mistress,and a full cellar of fine vine in a nice house in Provance!” And the Russiansaid: “You two don’t even have a clue what true happiness is. When you hearknocking on your door at 4 AM, and you look through the peephole to see somemean people with hats in leather coats, and they ask “Does Ivan Ivanovich livehere?”, and you tell them “No, Ivan Ivanovich is one floor up”, now that is areal happiness!” -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to thatha_patty+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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