CULTURAL QA 12-2022-09 BEING A COMPILATIONTHERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 Where does the Godavari Riveroriginate? A1 Ajeet Singh, BA ,MA ,BTC in Geography &History, University of Lucknow (Graduated 2016)Nov 29 Godavari River,sacred river of central and South Eastern India. One of the longestrivers in India, its total length is about 910 miles (1,465 km), and it has adrainage basin of some 121,000 square miles (313,000 square km). The GodavariRiver rises in North western Maharashtra state in the Western Ghats range, onlyabout 50 miles (80 km) from the Arabian Sea , and flows for most of its coursegenerally eastward across the broad plateau of the Deccan (peninsular India). After traversing centralMaharashtra it enters northern Telangana state northwest of Nizamabad andcontinues through a broad valley and forms a short stretch of Telangana’s northeastern border with Maharashtra. The river then turns southeast ward forthe last 200 miles (320 km) of its course, flowing through a gap in the EasternGhats ranges and then across Andhra Pradesh state before reaching the Bay ofBengal. There it emptiesvia its two mouths: the GautamiGodavari to the north and the Vasishta Godavari to the south. My note- Our Upakarma mantra includes Godavariworship. Recollect –Narmada Sindhu Kaveri, Godavari Namosthuthae... Q2 How can railroad engines pull heavyloads since they have metal wheels on metal rails? A2 James Collier, Former Long-haulTrucker Tue Indeed, if youwatch some old Westerns or any other film where a steam locomotive is used,you’ll notice some wheel spin when the locomotive first attempts movement. I actually transported crews fora local railroad a few years, and I learned that there are times when crewshave to put sand on the rails for traction to get moving. Several times they had to call it a day because theycouldn’t get up a mountain because of a “wet rail” that just couldn’t givetraction in bad weather. This usually is due to bad weather and hilly terrain. But to answer yourquestion, the reason this works at all is the insane weight on the wheels.Average locomotive weighs 212 tons. The average rail freight car weighs 125tons. That means thewheels are literally pressed into the rails with about 17 tons of force each. The weight of the train literally flexes the rails andpresses the ties into the ground. You can see thisif you watch the rails and ties when a train is coming through. If the train ismoving fast enough, it can look like the old “rubber pencil” trick. That’s why rails actually do wear out and haveto be replaced from time to time. What keeps the whole thing fromcoming apart is the gravel ballast bed between the ties and the spikes holdingthem together. It’s no cause forconcern, though. Train derailments are actually quite rare when you considerhow many are running every day. The odds are right up there with a plane crashin terms of probability. Q3 Is there any railway retiring roomsor dormitory rooms available at New Delhi railway station in India? A3 BB Arya's Space, Answered by BedabrataArya, Sun Yes - this facility is available at New Delhi station asit is the most important railway station in India as it's also the capital ofIndia. You can easily bookretiring rooms or dormitory rooms with a confirmed railway reservation ticketat either source or destination station. You can also easilyget direct trains to other parts of India from New Delhi station. Q4 Is Maharashtra in North India orSouth India? A4 Sonal Kaur, Studied at AmritsarCollege of Engineering and Technology (Graduated 2011) Updated Tue I am Punjabiand when I visited Maharashtra it felt not too different from Northern states. Their language issimilar to ours as they speak an Indo Aryan language not a Dravidian one. The Maharashtrian people arefairer like North Indians. Their music is also Hindustani style likeours, food is wheat based, Hindu temples use north Indian nagara architecture. Basically the point is Maharashtra is not that different from North Indiabut it’s completely different from South. But Maharashtra is geographically located lower downso I would say it is not a North or South Indian state but actually aWest Indian state along with Gujarat, Goa and Rajasthan Q5 Why are some water bottles soft orflimsy, as if they don't have any air in them, while others are stiff and makethe noise that indicates they were also filled with air, and not just water?Are they both safe to drink? A5 Nick Fi, I know nothing abouteverything.2y If the bottles are commercially packed and the cap breakswhen you open it, that should be enough to indicate the water is safe to drink.The way the plastic feels has nothing to do with thequality of the water inside the bottles. Some bottles may be made with thicker plastic,others may have been pressurized (to provide more resistance when multiplecases are placed one on top of another). If the water is clear and it does nothave an unpleasant smell or taste, it should be ok to drink. My note- Most cool drink bottles are made withthicker plastic. As I understand it is because of the gas filled in it to withstand the pressure. The gas is a mixture with CO2. Q6 In what ways has London changed sinceyou were a child? A6 Nick Schön, Lives in London UpdatedDec 1 Growing up in north London in the 1950's and 60's,we were very aware of the few West Indian and Caribbean people we saw. Indians and Pakistanis were an even rarer sight. Now London is a vast,multicultural melting pot. Restaurants were mostly Italian, French or steak.You could eat at other types of places but we rarely did as a family. Food wasgenerally poor. Nowsome of the best restaurants in the world are in London. The food is better onaverage than in many continental cities. It's certainly far morediverse. Getting around by bus and tube was really cheapand easy. You could drive up to the west end and just park outside where youwanted to go. There were parking meters and I remember my parents keepingsixpences handy for them. Nowadays, forget driving in London, and six pounds won'tget you anywhere, never mind six old pence. There's thecongestion charge, the ULEZ (ultra low emissions zone) charge, the cost ofparking, the terrible and aggressive traffic, etc etc. Post war, many buildings in London were dark andcaked in centuries of grime from coal smoke. Fog sometimes virtually shutmovement down. Now many buildings have been cleaned and fog is largelya thing of the past. No one uses coal any more. I remember some areas of South and East London beingvery shabby and dangerous even. Vast tracts of Londonwere squalid and Victorian. Others were terribly run-down. Docklands? No onewithout a good reason went there.Now they are cool, smart, and glamorous. There arestill some untidy, poor areas but the change in for instance Clapham or Brixtonis astounding. It's happening still. The Elephant &Castle, once a squalid area, badly bombed in the war and redeveloped in the1960's is now being reinvented again. I remember horsesbeing used on the (occasionally still) cobbled streets of London. My maternal grandfather could remember when horses werethe most common means of transport by far, with motorvehicles being the exception. Now there are a few horses in Hyde Parkand some others used by the police, but otherwise they have vanished. Shops were oftenopen-fronted and their goods were displayed on the pavements even. Awningsprotected them in the rain. My parents had shops and I remember my mother,swathed in sheepskin, complaining bitterly about the cold. Now shops are mostly dry, warm, tidy and elegant. I remember beinginstructed by my primary school teacher to stop walking and remove my schoolcap if a hearse drove past. Now people would stare if a small, unaccompaniedschoolboy did that. In fact a small, unaccompanied schoolboy might raise a feweyebrows anyway. I used to go home by myself on the bus from Cricklewood toKilburn and walk the rest of the way when I was about 8. London is an amazing city. It's a vast, sprawlingnetwork of villages, each with their own character, constantly evolving toadapt to the challenges it faces. To think that it now has the population of anentire European country, Austria, gives you an idea of how big it is. It alwayswas significant. I wonder how it will have changed by the time mygrandchildren are in their late 60's, as I am now. My note- Justread- Still there are shabby areas and poor in London, the land of British whoruled India much more than a centuary. Q7 What are the similarities betweenMumbai and Karachi? A7 Noel, Lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra,India1y Pakistan’s Karachi is analogous to India’s Mumbai and letme tell you why Both are port cities on Arabian sea- Karachi was anatural harbour whereas Mumbai was made by reclaiming and joining the sevenislands of the Konkan coast Both are Historic cities from British times- Karachiand Bombay were important British India cities. Bombay was thegateway to Western India and Karachi to Northwest India Both cities have the best skyline in their respectivecountries- Karachi has tall and modern building which might not be as tall orwell developed when compared to Mumbai, but is the best in Pakistan. The only true skyline in Pakistancan only be seen in Karachi. Both cities are very cosmopolitan- Karachi wascosmopolitan even before partition with Hindus and Muslims from Sindh, Gujarat,Maharastra all having their businesses there. Mumbai assumedthe equivalent status post India’s freedom and Calcutta’s diminishing economy Both cities are very secular- Of all the places inPakistan, Karachi has the largest religious diversity (even though the 47% to51% Hindu majority fell to 0.86% after partition and violence ) whereasMumbai’s minority populations keeps increasing day by day with Muslims hitting20% in 2021. Sri Swaminarayantemple, Karachi is the most revered Hindu temple in the city.Haji Ali Dargah,Mumbai is the most revered Islamic place in the city Both cities have similar climate- Being situatedalmost in the same geographical region beside the sea, these 2 places have sameweather- hot and humid and both the cities rain terribly. Both cities are the richest in their respectivecountries- Karachi alone is 30% of Pakistan’s total GDP and Mumbai 6% ofIndia’s. Both cities are also the fashion capital of their respective countries Clifton, one of the most expensive Karachi areas, Worli,one of the most expensive Mumbai areas Both cities havelarge slum populations- Karachi’s Orangi town is Asia’s largest slum withMumbai’s Dharavi following the next. My note- Avery informative and interesting answer. Q8 How difficult was it in the past tostart an old car using a crank handle? How could someone drive if they were tooweak to crank it over? A8 Robert Clouse, Disable Veteran atCincinnati, Ohio, USA (2000–present)Dec 1 Much of that depends on the motor, mostly the year theengine was made. The most early crank engines were very low power, lowcompression, and relatively easy to crank start.But as they got morepowerful, the compression raised, and they were almost impossible to crankstart. All the crank carscould be started the same way any car with a manual transmission can bestarted. Just turn it on, get the vehicle rolling downhill, and pop the clutch. Most of the homesfrom the 1900s when car were first coming out were designed with the drivewayslope down away from the garage. That was for drainage, but it also worked forpop starting cars as well. That is still common today. My note- Ihave recollection of travelling in a car with a cranking handle when Iwas about 12 during a cousin’s marriage. Still I recollect transport bus withlong nose and cranking handle when I was 5-7 years in which I have travelled. Q9 What obvious feature of food has aninteresting explanation? A9 Huyen Nguyen, Lives in Australia Updated3y One of themost noticeable features of Swiss cheese is these famous “eyes”.For over a century, people believed that bacterial growth creates gases thatmake holes in the cheese. Exceptthat’s not quite true. Swiss cheese islosing its eyes, causing the so-called “cheese blindness epidemic”. Onceconsidered defects, these holes are now the signature of the popular Emmental Swiss cheese.Swiss food scientists have had an eye on this issue for years. Only recentlydid they poke holes in this old theory and discover that it’s actually hayparticles in milk that are the culprit. During the milking process, tiny hay particles stick tobuckets and stay in the milk. By controllingthe number of hay particles in milk used to make cheese, the scientists couldcontrol the size and number of holes that appeared. The specks of hay cause weakness in the curdstructure and act as a nucleation site for the carbon dioxide bubbles producedby the bacteria in the cheese to form. The rind is tough enough thatit traps the air bubbles inside the cheese and creates eyes. The traditional milk bucket being replaced with modern technologyexplains the “cheese blindness epidemic”. This is a biggerdeal than you think because the US Department of Agriculture has a gradingsystem for Swiss cheeses (defined as “cheese made by the Swiss process or byany other procedure which produces a finished cheese having the same physicaland chemical properties as cheese produced by the Swiss process”, not cheesefrom Switzerland) based on the size of the holes. Grade A requires cheese to have “uniformlydistributed well-developed round or slightly oval-shaped eyes"between 6/16 to 13/16 of an inch (1 to 1.7 cm). This rule only applies toSwiss-style cheese sold in the U.S. so accusations of US imperialism in thecomments are bizarre to me. In North America, Swiss cheese is a generic name forwhite cheese with holes, a popular imitation ofEmmental cheese made in Switzerland. (Is it misleading for the American-madeproduct to be called Swiss? Some commenters think so. The argument boils downto whether Swiss is a style or is strictly country of origin). The Swiss arealready unhappy that cheaper American products are pricing them out of the U.Smarket. The grading system gives them another headache, but maybe now they canreverse their misfortune. Better hygiene is great, but it’s not the hole story. (Sorry I can't helpthe cheesy pun, I am sharp and cultured like that ;) Note: I didn’texpect this innocuous post to be the food of thought to trigger a massive and holesome debate aboutfood origins, intellectual property, cultural misappropriation and tradedisputes in the comments. Please get some cheese and wine and entertainyourself. MY note- Aninteresting answer very beautifully drafted. Q10 Where is the Vasco da Gama railwaystation? A10 Gaurav Dwivedi, Senior Executive atSecure Value (2017–present) Dec 3 Vasco da Gama(station code: VSG) is a railway station serving the town of Vasco da Gama inGoa, India. All the above QA are from Quora website on 08-12-2022 Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers . Compiled and posted by R. Gopala Krishnan,former ITS, 79 years, on 09-12-2022 -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1668985029.2373262.1670548690572%40mail.yahoo.com.
