India & History

Sometimes I wonder how did so many languages get formed. Who wrote the rules, the grammar, the phonetics. Would it be right to say that there was only one language in beginning and then different people speaking it differently some making mistakes led to different languages. Well couldnt find the truth about this notion but I did find something that was quite surprising atleast to me. All of us know that Sanskrit is considered as mother of all Indian languages. But very few of us know that if obsereved closesly Sanskrit is very close to Greek and Latin. For e.g Mother is Matr in Sanskrit mater in Latin. Father is Pater in latin and Pitra in Sanskrit.

With these similarities between foreign language and Sanskrit can we surely say that Sanskrit orignated in India. Aryans were believed to speak Sanskrit but Aryans came from deserts of Iran and are believed to settle in different parts on India specially on the coast of Ganges. Rigveda talks lot about Sanskrit and about people who spoke it. There is a mention of a holy drink called Som in Rigveda. This drink is made of a plant called som which is very small without leaves and dark brown in color and this is not an Indian plant. Some people still use it in Pakistan. It is boiled in water and honey is added to lessen the bitter taste. It is believed to have lot of medicinal values.

Aryans then fought among themselves for supremacy. An epic that crystalizes all these fights is Mahabharata. Its the longest poem written in Sanskrit. It is believed to have happened in 3100 BC. Mahabharata tells us variety of things about Indian culture. It has duties, sacrifices, religion, ambition, culture, gods, art, war, weapons, war tactics and every human emotion. Often its said that stories become identity of a nation. Its very evident how Indian society is bound with variety of culture , religion and variety of people speaking different languages and yet united. (Well I know it looks very dramatic to say these things with riots and bombblasts happening in all parts of the country. But this is all political and terrorist activities. I am talking about those Indians who stay in a small colony of a village or a city and might be sharing their dishes or their evening gossips with a neighbor of different religion. I am talking about that Rama who takes a break to offer Namaz :-) )

But is Mahabharata an epic or was it a real story. To find this lets talk about Hastinapur. Today's Hatinapur is a small town in the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh, called Hastinapur, 37 km from Meerut and 110 km from Delhi. Looking at this town you will find it similar to as described in Mahabharata. It was believed to have washed away in flood and you can see that with the layered land found in Hastinapur. What is found inside its grounds is same as on the top. People still use the same stones to make their houses. You can also find the Mahabharata ancient pottery called greywares remains in present Hastinapur. Well I would continue reading on this and posting it. Till then bbye

Aptitude Questions

1. Every day I struggle at Auto Stand to give exact denomination to Auto Driver. This was recognized by Indian government (as most ppl struggle with denominations). The problem was to print minimum number of different notes, so that with their combination user should be able to give any number below 1000. But condition is to get the number he should use one note only once.
Ex: To get number 8. I can use 1+2+5..... No repitions are not allowed.

2. There are 2 cities A and B, dist. between them is 1000 Km
we have 3000 bananas in city A and a elephant can carry max 1000 bananas at
any given time and it needs to eat a banana every 1 Km.
How Many Max. No. of bananas one can transfer to city B?
Note : the elephant cannot go without bananas to eat.

Answers
1. Here’s my solution – 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512. – (10 notes)
2. Let 3 elephants carry it e1, e2, e3. e1 becomes donar till 334 km. e2 then becomes donar till 834 km. Then e3 starts having from his own for 166 km. So he can cary 835 bannanas.