On India.

So I was browsing through this website to gather some facts about our country when I stumbled across this page here.

For the ones who would not care to click on the links, the page contains a list of interesting facts about India. And for the very non- curious and lazy ones, who still have not clicked on the link, here are some of the facts that I found rather appealing-

•India never invaded any country in her last 100000 years of history (Know you know, why you were lazy to click on the link!)

•Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.

•The ‘Place Value System’ and the ‘Decimal System’ were developed in India in 100 B.C.

•Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the Sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. According to his calculation, the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun was 365.258756484 days.

•The value of “pi” was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, long before the European mathematicians.

Comment- Why can I not do the Math? Tell, tell. Why? Are you also asking the same question now? Sigh!

•There are 300,000 active mosques in India, more than in any other country, including the Muslim world.

•Islam is India’s and the world’s second largest religion.

Note to all of us- Why on earth do we have riots? It all works. It also functions somehow with all the chaos. It’s someone’s way of telling us that this is all meant to co-exist. And we should always stand united. Always. Even with all our differences.

•The oldest European church and synagogue in India are in the city of Cochin. They were built in 1503 and 1568 respectively. (Anyone seen them? I want to see pictures!)

•The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. (And Ladakh IS the place where I am going next! The pictures nearly killed me!)

•The Vishnu Temple in the city of Tirupathi built in the 10th century, is the world’s largest religious pilgrimage destination. Larger than either Rome or Mecca, an average of 30,000 visitors donate $6 million (US) to the temple everyday.

•India has the largest number of Post Offices in the world. (Yes you, are you smirking about the efficiency? Huh? Huh?)

•Until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds in the world
(Source: Gemological Institute of America). (And then? Whatever happened? Where did all the diamonds go?)

•The largest employer in the world is the Indian Railways, employing over a million people. (And I rest my case)

Pretty amazing, huh? Especially that bit about Maths which I absolutely cannot get over. And should we also not add “the discovery of importance of zero” to that list?

Do you have any other interesting facts about India or any other country? I am very excited about this exercise I am doing currently and would love to know! Feel free to post them here or tag yourself, if you wish.

Obama.

Last night I witnessed history in making.

I saw some 100,000 people gathered in Grant Park, Chicago.

I saw people screaming and cheering in Times Square, New York.

I saw the MSNBC reporters go beserk and Fox News with its air blown out.

Virginia turned blue. Florida turned blue as well.

I read about people who waited for 11 hours to cast a ballot.

A 106 year old woman from Georgia who voted on time.

I witnessed the smiles, the enthusiasm and the happy tears.

I have never felt this excitement for anything except India and a “certain neighbouring country” cricket match.

For the first time, I went out in the cold and rain to get a drink to celebrate a President elect.

Barack Obama. Yes, we can. And yes, we did.