Very correct Mr Sekar. We worship nature which makes our living
possible.Gopalakrishnan
On Saturday, 4 November, 2023 at 08:31:30 am IST, 'N Sekar' via KeralaIyers
<[email protected]> wrote:
I just remembered (how I forgot?) That we in T N celebrate (I know various
states celebrate these festivals under different names but the purpose is the
same).
Pongal - to thank the Sun God, fields and the Pancha Poothangal ( neer, nilam,
neruppu, katru and Akayam)which make our existence possible.
Mattu Pongal - where we thank the cows, buffaloes, bulls etc which help us in
various ways.
AYUDHA POOJA - where we worship the tools of trade which give us our
livelihood.
We worship our books that enable us to acquire knowledge.
We should feel proud we belong to this rich culture which has few parallels.
N Sekar
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Sat, Nov 4, 2023 at 7:23 AM, 'N Sekar' via
KeralaIyers<[email protected]> wrote: I got a response in my
personal mail id from another member and he rightly points out:
"Bharatanatyam dancers ( my comment - may be all artistists in my opinion)
touch the stage with reverence before they enter it to perform".
" Modi prostrated to the Parliament building in 2014 before he stepped in".
While reading the above I thought how i forgot to mention our own Grahapravesam
where we prostrate before the newly built house which will become our home,
praying for its blessings.
Our culture is so rich we respect all - animate and inanimate as we believe all
have lives of their own.
I remember my mother putting kumkumam to the new dress, placing them in the
Pooja area ( there was no separate room) and asking us to prostrate before them
before we wear them for the first time.
But those were the days where we got a new dress only for Deepavali and perhaps
the birthdays, a rarity to be cherished and remembered.
What a rich, noble culture is ours but instead of taking pride in it, it is
fashionable now a days to ridicule them, without an iota of understanding the
meaning behind these acts.
At least some of us have, as elders, failed in our duty to keep the younger
generation informed about these gestures and why we do them. We can't let this
rich legacy of ours be forgotten or given up - they are too valuable.
N Sekar
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 7:09 PM, 'N Sekar' via
KeralaIyers<[email protected]> wrote: Thanks Sri G K.
Yes I am responding to your post after about a month as we were visiting
various temples, having our base at Kumbakonam. Also, the Internet connectivity
was not all that good at times.
We returned to Chennai about 3 days back and will stay for about 2 weeks.
Nice to read about Tulasi Matam - in the olden days every house had one and
doing Sandhya Vandanam sitting near it was considered very auspicious as also
doing it near rivers and goshalaas.
Regarding feeding the cows with biscuits, I learnt about it a few years ago
when we were at Rameshwaram and the shop keeper suggested we feed the cows with
Marie biscuits as too many people were feeding them with bananas. To our
surprise they seemed to relish eating biscuits.
In Kumbakonam Adi Kumbeswarar temple the elephant ate apples and at Uppliappan
koil it ate seedless dates. The vendors gave extra qty free when they learnt it
was for the elephants. Nice of them.
N Sekar
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 6:46 PM, 'gopala krishnan' via
iyer123<[email protected]> wrote: Dear Mr Sekar,
Thank you for the response with your experience , surely after a month, I
think. Certain things are actually inborn by birth. One such is worshiping holy
basil.
Unless the basil location is well kept, no light is kept near it in the evening
sandhya, watered, my mind is disturbed. Where ever basil grow, we grow it. In
fact there are more well growing plants in the compound than in Tulsimatam in
my home.
Similarly the cows after grace in the front grown grass and rest in front of
the home.
As a matter of fact crows craw early morning and some sit on compound wall
waiting for biscuit. They never move while I offer biscuit pieces as if very
familiar to me. Probably crows recognize me than I could
Gopalakrishnan
On Friday, 3 November, 2023 at 05:46:33 pm IST, Narayanaswamy Sekar
<[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: 'N Sekar' via iyer123 <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, Nov 3, 2023, 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [iyer123] CULTURAL QA 11-2023-03
To: <[email protected]>, Kerala Iyer <[email protected]>,
Rangarajan T.N.C. <[email protected]>, Chittanandam V. R.
<[email protected]>, Mathangi K. Kumar <[email protected]>,
Yeddanapudi Markandeyulu <[email protected]>
Thanks Sri G K.
Re Q 1: Several years ago my boss, of British and S A origin asked me why we
worship rivers and trees. He was really curious and used to ask me lot about
our religion.
I said the environmental concern was only a few decades old but we Hindus knew
its importance thousands of years ago.Anything we worship, we treat it with
respect, take care and do not harm.
Hence by inculcating the habit of worshipping Nature we automatically preserve
and protect it with no one telling us what to do or teaching us about the
importance of environment but it was ingrained in our culture from our
childhood. We considered rivers sacred and hence made sure they remained pure
and clean but that was another time and age.
Worshipping Nature is ingrained in our culture and as the answer in Quora
said, we show our reverence and gratitude to Mother Nature.
As an aside, have you seen how some players touch the field before they enter
it? - to show respect and reverence and ask for its blessings as that's where
they will play and earn their livelihood.
Protecting Nature - That's why Sri K M Munishi started the Vana Mahotsav - to
protect and nurture the trees and Nature. He is forgotten as also the Vana
Mahotsav as it was given a religious colour.
We are hurtling towards disaster - man made - which Sri Y M refers to
repeatedly in his posts.
N Sekar
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 3:07 PM, 'gopala krishnan' via
iyer123<[email protected]> wrote:
CULTURAL QA11-2023-03
All the BELOW QA are from Quora DIGEST to me on 03-11-2023.
QUORA ANSWERS NEEDNOT BE 100% CORRECT ANSWERS.
Compiled and posted by R. GopalaKrishnan, 80, on 03-11-2023.
Q1 Today my boss asked me, do peopleworship a monkey in India? What
could have been my best response?
A1 Mukund Arya, Follower of a MysticReligion called Hinduism Updated 6y
Tell your Boss, wedon't just worship a Monkey......
or a"Cow": or an Elephant: or a Dog: or a Snake: or a Bird (Garuda):
or a Fish(God Matsya):
or Even trees,Tulsi (Basil): or a River(Ganges): or Sun: or Mother
Earth:
or Various form ofHumans, Man with normal two hands, one head and two eyes
(Lord Krishna):
or a Man with 4Hands (Lord Vishnu, the Maintainer):
or a Man withthree eyes (Lord Shiva, the Destroyer):
or a Man with 4heads (Lord Brahma, the creator):
or a"Lady" with 10 hands (Goddess Shakti):
but we worship every forms of nature, Air (Vayu), Water(Lord Varuna), Rain(Lord
Indra),Food (Goddess Annapurna) etc. that made our ecosystem livable for humans.
Basically Sir, Weworship everything that keeps you alive.
Q2 What level of atmosphere do planes flyin? What is the highest
altitude a plane can fly?
A2 Rebecca Williams, Experience inAviation Tue
The atmosphere is divided into five layers: the troposphere, the stratosphere,
the mesosphere,the thermosphere, and the exosphere. The troposphere is the
lowest layer, where most of the weather occursand where we live.
The stratosphere is the secondlayer, where the ozone layer protects us from
harmful ultraviolet radiation.
The mesosphere is the thirdlayer, where meteors burn up as they enter the
atmosphere.
The thermosphere is the fourthlayer, where auroras and satellites occur.
The exosphere is the fifth and outermost layer, where theatmosphere gradually
fades into space.
Most commercial planes fly in the lower part of thestratosphere, between 30,000
and 40,000 feet (9,000 and 12,000 meters).
This is becauseflying at higher altitudes reduces air resistance and fuel
consumption, as wellas avoiding turbulence and bad weather in the troposphere.
However, there are limits to how high planes can fly,depending on their design
and performance.
The highest altitude that a commercial plane can flytoday is 45,000 feet
(13,700 meters), which is achieved by some private jetsand military aircraft.
This was notalways the case.
In the past, someplanes could fly higher than that. For example, Concorde, the
supersonicpassenger jet that was retired in 2003, had a cruising altitude of
60,000 feet(18,300 meters). And some military planes could fly even higher than
that. Forexample, the SR-71 Blackbird, a reconnaissance plane that was retired
in 1998,had a record altitude of 85,069 feet (25,929 meters).
These planes used special engines and materials towithstand the extreme
conditions at such high altitudes.
Most planes todayuse jet engines that require oxygen to burn fuel. At higher
altitudes, the airbecomes too thin and cold for jet engines to work
efficiently. Also, the air pressure drops significantly at higheraltitudes,
which puts more stress on the plane’s structure and cabin pressure.
Most planes today are designed to fly at optimal altitudesin the stratosphere.
My note- The QA isadded for the information in addition to height the planes
can fly, about the different layers above earth.
Q3 If an elephant’s brain is bigger thanours, why are they not smarter?
A3 Gary Meaney, author of Zoology'sGreatest Mystery (2022)13h
This is a goodquestion, because the answer teaches us a lot about the nature of
intelligenceitself. The average humanbrain weighs about a kilogram and a half,
which is remarkably small really.The sum of all consciousness is housed within
that little scoop of nervoustissue. On the other hand, within the cranium of an
African bushelephant sits a brain well over twice the size of ours.
It’s clear thatthere’s more to intelligence than just brain size. The baleen
whales of theoceans have brains weighing 7 kilograms, well over quadruple the
mass of ours.However, their behaviour is much less complex and sophisticated
than that ofhumans, or indeed of elephants. Baleen whales aren’t stupid - their
songs are arich and advanced form of communication, and they’ve been known to
displayaltruism - but their intelligence definitely isn’t proportional to
theirmassive brain size.
This is of coursebecause their brains are tiny relative to their bodies. A blue
whale’s brainmakes up as little as 0.005% of its total body mass! Our brains,
by comparison, are about 2.5% of ourbodyweight. So is brain-to-body mass ratio
the true decider ofintellect? It’s certainly a better metric to compare between
animals, but stillone which is deeply flawed.
It turns out that, all else being equal, brain massdoes not scale linearly with
body mass. After all, thereis a minimum number of neurons an animal needs to
function, a concept known asthe “grey floor”. Smaller animals tend to have much
higher brain-to-body massratios, without necessarily seeming any more
intelligent. A humble shrew, forexample, has a brain which constitutes one
tenth of the size of its body! Ifthe metric were reliable, the shrew would be
taming us!
While we’re on thetopic, I should mention that the species with the lowest
brain-to-body massratio of all vertebrates on this Earth is the magnificently
named bony-earedassfish. Brains consume huge amounts of precious energy, so in
the incrediblybarren environment of the deep sea, the bony-eared assfish has
done away withmost of its grey matter.
For a fish withsuch an unflattering name, it is hauntingly beautiful!
Anyway, it’s clear that raw brain-to-body mass ratio is far from a
perfectmeasure of intelligence; it is too harsh on big animals, and too kind
tosmall animals. Scientists have studied the relative brain sizes of mammals,
andcome up with a formula that adjusts for this problem. Applying this
formulagives a new, more refined metric: encephalisation quotient, or EQ for
short.
In other words, EQ is the ratio of actual brainsize to predicted brain size.
When we compare different animals’ EQvalues, the results line up a lot more
with what we would expect,intelligence-wise. Humanshave the highest score of
any animal, at about 7.6. The tucuxi, a veryinteresting type of freshwater
dolphin from the rivers of South America, takessecond place. It measures only
1.5 metres in length, and has a bright pinkunderbelly!
Manta rays haveone of the highest EQs among fish, octopuses triumph among
invertebrates, andcorvids outperform their feathered friends. These results are
all exactly whatwe would predict based on behavioural signs of intelligence.
So, isencephalisation quotient really the answer? Probably not. Once again,
thismethod seems to fall short of being perfect.
On average, birds have much lower EQs than mammals, butthere is ample evidence
to suggest that birds are incredibly smart. Infact, all the dinosaurs, not just
birds, have surprisingly low encephalisationvalues. If estimated EQ is to be
believed, Tyrannosaurus rex was lessintelligent than a slug. Believe it or not,
the sauropod dinosaurs have thelowest score of any animal in history ever
measured, at as low as 0.01!
There are severallikely reasons for this. The formula for encephalisation
quotient was basedonly on data from mammalian species, so in general it
probably shouldn’t beused to compare mammals to non-mammals. Bird/dinosaur
cells are much smallerthan mammalian cells. For its size, a typical avian brain
has twice as manyneurons as a standard mammal brain!
Raw brain size,brain-to-body mass ratio, EQ… all these metrics share a
fundamental problem:they’re all based on overall brain mass in some way, and
there’s a lot of stuffinside brains that has nothing to do with intelligence.
For example, a large portion of whales’ anddolphins’ brain mass is just
insulating blubber! There are all kinds of factorslike this that really muddy
the waters. Perhaps it’s better to just focus onthe part of the brain that
actually does the thinking.
The cerebral cortex is thought to be the seat of intelligencein mammals. This
grooved andconvoluted outer layer of tissue is responsible for processing our
senses,finely controlling our movement, abstract thought, and much more.
Non-mammalanimals don’t have a cerebral cortex per se, but they always have an
equivalentbrain region - for example, birds have their dorsoventricular ridge,
or DVR.
So far, the singlebest predictor of intelligence we have found is the number of
cortical neurons;that is, the total number of nerve cells within the cerebral
cortex (orequivalent area). Humans haveat least 16 billion, which is
exceptional! Elephants, despite having abrain twice as large, have about a
third as many cortical neurons. However, thereal world champion is the orca,
believe it or not, with an absolutely astonishing43 billion cortical neurons!
In fact, by thismeasure, humans sit at humble fifth place. There are four
species of dolphinswith more cortical neurons, the most of all belonging to the
orca. Some mightbe quick to discredit this method as soon as they hear that it
doesn’t puthumans on top, and I would encourage those people to keep an open
mind. Ifwe’re so, so sure that orcas are less smart than us, perhaps we’re
looking atintelligence in the wrong way.
But that’s a morephilosophical discussion for another answer. Anyway, for
centuries, humans have been trying to put anumber on intelligence, to find some
way to quantify it. None of the metrics we’ve come upwith are perfect, but for
now, the best we have is the number of corticalneurons. It doubtless has its
discrepancies, but overall it seems to bean extremely useful way of comparing
animal acumen.
So, going back toyour question, if an elephant’s brain is bigger than ours, why
isn’t itsmarter? Because the size of a brain, as we’ve seen, has little todo
with intelligence. Apologies if this answer was long-winded, though Ithink we
visited some interesting places on our journey through animal minds!Thank you
everyone for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and have a great day.
My note- Not toucheditem above is parrots- how they talk. I read elsewhere they
share same type of chromosomeslike humans in the brain, enabling them to talk.
Q4 Why are cars not made of aluminium;considering it is readily
available, rust-proof, and lighter than steel?
A4 Erika Fernandez, Car Lover Jul 9
Cars are not made of aluminium for several reasons,despite its advantages of
being readily available, rust-proof, and lighter than steel. Aluminium is more
expensivethan steel, both in terms of material and processing costs.
Aluminiumrequires more energy and specialized equipment to produce, shape, and
join thansteel, which increases the manufacturing costs and the final price of
the car.According to some estimates, aluminium can cost two to three times more
per kilogram than steel.
Aluminium isweaker than steel, both in terms of tensile strength and stiffness.
Aluminium has a lower resistance to deformation andfracture than steel,
whichaffects the safety and durability of the car.
Aluminium also hasa lower fatigue limit than steel, which means it can fail
afterrepeated loading and unloading cycles. To compensate for its lower
strength,aluminium needs to be thicker or reinforced with other materials,
which reducesits weight advantage over steel.
Also aluminium is less compatible than steel with othermaterials and components
used in cars, such as plastics, rubber, glass, orelectronics. Aluminium has a
higher thermal expansion coefficient than steel, which means it expands and
contracts more withtemperature changes, causing stress and distortion in the
car structure.Aluminium also has a higher electrical conductivity than steel,
which caninterfere with the electrical systems and cause corrosion or
galvanicreactions.
Q5 What are some of the best examples ofhumanity?
A5 Divya Yadav,May 6
Meet Babu Muddrappa, the 29 year old auto driver fromBengaluru.
On his way homeBabu found a pregnant woman in labour and crying for help on
Whitefield road.
He took thatunknown pregnant woman to the hospital for delivery. The woman was
in a lot ofpain so he just filled up the admission forms with his details.
Babu waited tillthe woman gave birth to a baby girl. But the baby was 2 months
premature,weighing just 850 grams and suffered from severe breathing problems.
He was asked to run the infant to Bowring Hospital fortreatment and so he did.
However, when hecame back to the hospital, he found out that the woman had fled.
Babu felt bad forthe newborn and decided to adopt the girl and raise her as his
own child. Heeven took care of the hospital bills.
He took care ofthe food and medicines and he did everything that was required
to keep the babygirl healthy. But as events turned, her health deteriorated and
the baby diedafter 18 days in the hospital.
The auto drivers inIndia, especially in the metropolitan cities, are infamous
for charging absurdamount of money and most importantly, refusing a ride.
However, even amidst their notoriety, there exist driverslike Babu Muddrappa
who set an example of striking a balance between one’s dutyand humanity.
People like him make the world a better place to live in!
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