Time for a 'Conquest of Punjab' again?

In 1758, the Maratha Army under the leadership of Raghunathrao decided to drive out the Afghans from Punjab... This is referred to as the 'Maratha Conquest of Northwest India'... So from Delhi they moved northward to attack Lahore (the capital of Punjab)... After that they expanded their control to the South (up to Dera Ghazi Khan near Multan) and north (up to Peshawar). The Afghans had to retreat beyond Khyber Pass which is about 200 kms from their capital - Kabul... The orange dotted line is the current day Indo-Pak border while the blue dotted line is Af-Pak border! Given the repeated 'ungali' by Pakistan , 3M wonders if it is time to do a 'Conquest of Punjab' again?

Indian Language Quiz

An office colleague was miffed that people on streets of Vile Parle (E) refused to speak to her in Hindi... her logic was that all Indians should know the "National Language"! So 3M devised an "Indian Language Quiz" for her... and I am sure it will be an eyeopener for the readers of this blog too!

All readers are supposed to answer this quiz without Googling! The answers will be posted tomorrow...



SO HERE WE GO.....


1] Which is the National Language of India?
a) Hindi b) English c) Tamil d) None of these

2] After Hindi, which language has the most number of newspaper readers in India?
a) Malayalam b) Marathi c) Tamil d) English

3] Of the languages given below, which one has more native speakers than French in 2012?
a) Tamil b) Gujarati c) Kannada d) Marathi

4] Which of these languages has lesser number of native speakers than those of Tamil in India?
a) Bengali b) Telugu c) Marathi d) None of the above

5] Which of these Indo-Aryan languages has the oldest literary tradition?
a) Hindi b) Bengali c) Marathi d) Gujarati

6] In which Indian language was the first non-English newspaper published?
a) Hindi b) Tamil c) Marathi d) Gujarati

7] Which of these Indian languages was not included in the Voyager Golden Record sent in outer space for Extraterrestrials?
a) Hindi b) Marathi c) Malayalam d) Oriya

8] Which of these languages has the oldest modern theatre tradition?
a) Hindi b) Telugu c) Marathi d) Bengali

9] What was the mother toungue of the first man (Raghunath D) to propose in Indian Parliament that Hindi should be our national language?
a) Hindi b) Bengali c) Punjabi d) Marathi

10] Most coins of Maratha Empire were stuck in which language
a) Marathi b) Sanskrit c) Hindi d) Persian

Shivaji... just a Maharashtrian Hero???

3M gets irritated when Chhatrapati Shivaji is referred to as “Marathi/ Mahrashtrian Hero”. We have to realise that his impact was far wider and that his embryonic Maratha Empire went on to dismantle the centuries old Mughal Empire in less than half a century from his death.

But it is interesting to know that even at its peak, Shivaji's kingdom covered less that 20% of current day state of Maharashtra... essentially hugging the Sahyadri mountain range! Post coronation, he realised that his fledgling kingdom will require strategic depth in case of an all out Mughal attack. So he embarked on a southern conquest which is popularly known as “Dakshin Digvijay”. This foresighted action ensured that the Maratha capital was shifted to Gingee in Tamil Nadu by his son Rajaram during Aurangzeb’s ‘War of 27 Years’!

The above map shows that Shivaji’s kingdom (Hindavi Swaraj) was spread in current day states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu... and you still look upon Shivaji as "just a Maharashtrian Hero”???

Amrut Fusion

Whisky is undoubtedly the most preferred alcoholic drink in India. White spirits and wines still languish on the periphery of Indian ‘Boozeria’. Someone once said that the amount of ‘Scotch’ consumed in India is 3 times of that produced in Scotland! With all this near-divine status for Whisky in general, Indians are relatively at bay when it comes to ‘Single Malts’. So 3M was taken by surprise when his Scottish boss mentioned that he had tasted an 'Indian Singe Malt' in Glasgow which was excellent... he called ‘एमरूट’. This was dismissed as ‘Scottish idiosyncrasy’ by me! Must be some smart Sardar in Scotland who would have rebottled the local produce and given it some exotic Indian brand name to fool these gullible Scots… Indian jugaad at its best.

Then suddenly came the news that a Single Malt from India called ‘Amrut’ (means 'Nectar of the Gods') has be declared as the 3^rd Best in the World by none less that Jim Murray in his Whisky Bible… And now it has been declared as the ‘World Whisky of the Year’ by Malt Advocate Magazine!

Wait… it is ‘Amrut’ not ‘Amrit’… a clear give away that the owner of the brand is from a land ‘South of Narmada’! But it cannot be owned by a speaker of a Dravidian language… or else the brand would have been ‘Amrutha’. Hmmm… so 3M started to find out more about the origins of this divine golden liquid. Good ol’ Google helped me understand that the owner is a Marathi Manoos – Neelkanthrao Jagdale of Amrut Distilleries of Bengaluru. 


Chaila… a Marathi Single Malt? So should we say ‘Cheers’ or ‘चांगभलं’?

So let’s all sing 

"अमृताहुनी गोड व्हिस्की तुझी नीळकंठा..."

3Mpedia:  Before Mr. Jagadale, there have been other Marathi Manoos like Rajeev Samant of Sula Wines and Sham Chougule of Chateau Indage who have won international accolades for their wines. Also there is another Marathi family in Bengaluru which has been ruling the hearts of 'Bevdaas' in and around the Cauvery Basin for more than a century – The Khodays! 

KDMC Results

If you look at the actual votes polled in the KDMC elections you can clearly see the direction in which the wind is blowing!

Are Saamna’s boasts true?

Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece claims that Balasaheb Thackeray "rules" the Internet and his Dasara Melava Speech is highly sought after on Youtube.

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3M INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Aim – To check which Thackeray is creating the most noise on the internet

Experiments conducted -
Experiment #1: The word Thackeray was searched on Youtube (world's most popular video sharing website)… out of the top 20 videos, 17 are dedicated to Raj Thackeray, 2 to Balasaheb and 1 to Uddhav. Please note that not all videos were “pro-Thackeray”.

Experiment #2: Now let’s search the word Thackeray on Orkut (world's most popular social networking website)… We will consider fan club communities for this experiment. The top 5 Raj Thackeray fan clubs have 11991, 9245, 4672, 2454 & 1023 fans respectively… The largest Balasaheb fan club has 3811 members and Uddhav’s has 481 members. I could find only 3 other Marathi Manoos who have bigger fan clubs on Orkut than Raj… Lata Mangeshkar, Sachin Tendulkar and Shivaji Maharaj himself! (Hmm... Salman Khan may be considered, as he is ½ Marathi Manoos)

Experiment #3: Now let’s look @ Google Trends… This tool shows which word is searched more in a given timeframe on Google (world's most popular search engine). So words “Raj Thackeray”, “Bal Thackeray” & “Uddhav Thackeray” were searched and the results are seen in the diagram below.

You can see Raj’s blue line and Balasaheb’s red line… but Uddhav’s yellow line is non-existent!

The case rests with the readers!

3M Trivia – Surprisingly, Raj’s fan club on Orkut is the 2nd largest for any politician (alive) in India… way ahead of Sonia, Manmohan, Rahul, Advani, Vajpayee, Yadavs, Naidu and Mayawati…

3M Quiz - Can you guess the Indian politician (alive) with the biggest fan club on Orkut?

And you thought Hindi was our national language!

Across a lot of web forums, I have come across arguments by Hindi speaking people that non Hindi speakers should learn Hindi because it is the national language of India.

3M says - Next time someone gives you this logic, show him or her this article.