Shatabdi Express Journey Experience - Coimbatore to Chennai

As usual I was getting late for train. Train is scheduled at 4.55 P.M @ Erode Jn. I just boarded a local bus in Erode bus stand to Junction. And finally I made it to get into the platform no. 6 at 4.53 pm. As expected Shatabdi Express is waiting. Train looked very different all the compartment is fully colored. I entered the train and interior looked very different. Most of the seats are filled and my seat is the very last one (seat no.67). I just rested on my seat and it felt good a push back seat. And my co – passenger is a guy and he slept most of the time, so nothing to say about him.

My first journey on Shatabdi started exactly at 4.55 P.M. And the formalities got over nothing just the ticket verification by TTR. Within few min a person gave a tray with food items. Tray contains a Samosa, Laddu, Milk powder pocket, Tea bag, Sugar pockets, Sauce pocket and Salted groundnut pocket. Later he gave a flask with hot water really very hot water.

                Ate all those snacks and had a cup of hot tea. They took away the tray after having done. Just felt little sleepy so push my seat back and started sleeping. After some time train reached Salem Jn. Few more ppl boarded the train. Train started from Jn and again started to sleep. Within few min the guy gave us an evening newspaper.

                Train was really fast very fast. No stooping after Salem Jn. I was not able to cross the compartment. It went and went on.  Around 7.30 P.M again serving started with a tray. It had a cup of veg soup, a stick and Amul Butter pocket. Within few min they cleared the entire tray. Mean while the passengers in my compartment were having fun and they are celebrating their journey.

                Around 7.45 P.M dinner was served. Again in a tray with hot dinner. Tray had Cup of Rice, Two Chapathi, Dhal, Panner butter masala, cup of curd( I preferred Veg meal).  All the meal was hot and really good. Water bottles were served with unlimited. Completed my dinner and sat relaxed for a while. Was thinking I am full. To my surprise, they again served me with 100 Ml Ice Cream. I am delighted and completed my ice cream. We all gave the service ppl with a tip. When all it got over train almost near Chennai. All passengers started preparing to get down. It was a 5 hrs Journey but never felt boring or felt travelling for very long time.

Special note about the people and their service. They are very quick and punctual and very kind too. Had a good experience and just want share with you all.

Just Experience Your Life.

World's First University

India has a long and venerable history in the field of higher education. In ancient times, the country was known to have been home to the oldest formal universities in the world.

The world's first University was established in Takshila or Taxila or Takshashila (now in Pakistan) in 700BC. This centre of learning was situated about 50 km west of Rawalpindi in Pakistan. It was an important Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist center of learning. It was not a well organized university like Nalanda.

There is some disagreement about whether Takshashila can be considered a university. While some consider Taxila to be an early university or centre of higher education, others do not consider it a university in the modern sense.

Few Facts:

• During the 800 years that the university was operational, it attained great fame

• Takshashila, located in the northwest region of India.

• More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied here.

•  The campus accommodated students who came from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Arabia and China 

• 68 subjects were taught at this university it offered courses in various field such as science, mathematics, medicine, politics, warfare , astrology, astronomy, music, religion, and philosophy.

•  Generally, a student entered Takshashila at the age of sixteen.

•  Students would come to Takshila and take up education in their chosen subject with their teacher directly.

They were supposed to pay for their expenses. However, if a student was unable to pay then he could work for his teacher. The Vedas and the Eighteen Arts, which included skills such as archery, hunting, and elephant lore, were taught, in addition to its law school, medical school, and school of military science.

Takshila was specialized in the study of medicine.

Panini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian, Kautilya (Chanakya) and Charaka, the famous physician of ancient India, and Chandragupta Maurya were the products of this university. It gained its importance again during the reign of Kanishka. It was probably, the earliest of the ancient seats of higher education. Takshashila is perhaps best known because of its association with Chanakya. The famous treatise Arthashastra (Sanskrit for The knowledge of Economics) by Chanakya, is said to have been composed in Takshashila itself.

Source : http://incredblindia.blogspot.in/2009/02/takshila-worlds-first-university.html

Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field.




Beginning of his career

                     When he was about fourteen, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as "Billy" the page boy, in support of William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes". At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company.

He scored an immediate hit with American audiences, particularly with his characterization in a sketch entitled "A Night in an English Music Hall". When the Fred Karno troupe returned to the United States in the fall of 1912 for a repeat tour, Chaplin was offered a motion picture contract.

He finally agreed to appear before the cameras at the expiration of his vaudeville commitments in November 1913; and his entrance in the cinema world took place that month when he joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company. His initial salary was $150 a week, but his overnight success on the screen spurred other producers to start negotiations for his services.

At the completion of his Sennett contract, Chaplin moved on to the Essanay Company (1915) at a large increase. Sydney Chaplin had then arrived from England, and took his brother’s place with Keystone as their leading comedian.

• When his contract with Mutual expired in 1917, Chaplin decided to become an independent producer in a desire for more freedom and greater leisure in making his movies.
• Early in 1918, Chaplin entered into an agreement with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit,
• His first film under this new deal was "A Dog’s Life"
• This he followed with "Sunnyside" and "A Day’s Pleasure", both released in 1919.
• In April of that year, Chaplin joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corporation
• "Smile", "Eternally", "You are My Song", as well as the soundtracks for all his filmsCharles Chaplin was one of the rare comedians who not only financed and produced all his films (with the exception of "A Countess from Hong Kong"), but was the author, actor, director and soundtrack composer of them as well

He died on Christmas day 1977, survived by eight children from his last marriage with Oona O’Neill, and one son from his short marriage to Lita Grey.

Source: http://www.charliechaplin.com/biography/articles/21-Overview-of-His-Life

Worlds First Ever Website / Webserver

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is where it all began in March 1989. A physicist, Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a proposal for information management showing how information could be transferred easily over the Internet by using hypertext, the now familiar point-and-click system of navigating through information. The following year, Robert Cailliau, a systems engineer, joined in and soon became its number one advocate.

The idea was to connect hypertext with the Internet and personal computers, thereby having a single information network to help CERN physicists share all the computer-stored information at the laboratory. Hypertext would enable users to browse easily between texts on web pages using links. The first examples were developed on NeXT computers.

Berners-Lee created a browser-editor with the goal of developing a tool to make the Web a creative space to share and edit information and build a common hypertext. What should they call this new browser: The Mine of Information? The Information Mesh? When they settled on a name in May 1990, it was the WorldWideWeb.

info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN. The first web page address washttp://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html, which centred on information regarding the WWW project. Visitors could learn more about hypertext, technical details for creating their own webpage, and even an explanation on how to search the Web for information. There are no screenshots of this original page and, in any case, changes were made daily to the information available on the page as the WWW project developed. You may find a later copy (1992) on the World Wide Web Consortium website.

By spring of 1991, testing was underway on a universal line mode browser, which would be able to run on any computer or terminal. It was designed to work simply by typing commands. There was no mouse, no graphics, just plain text, but it allowed anyone with an Internet connection access to the information on the Web.

During 1991 servers appeared in other institutions in Europe and in December 1991, the first server outside the continent was installed in the US at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). By November 1992, there were 26 servers in the world, and by October 1993 the figure had increased to over 200 known web servers. In February 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released the first version of Mosaic, which was to make the Web available to people using PCs and Apple Macintoshes.

... and the rest is Web history.

Source : 

http://info.cern.ch/