Taj Mahal - Tomb or a Temple?

Prof.P.N.Oak of New Delhi, put forward a theory in 1965 that the Taj Mahal was not a mausoleum built by Shahjahan, but by Rajputs. In 1968 he found a confession to that effect in Shahjahan's official chronicle Badshahnama* and in 1974 he came across Aurangzeb's letter of 1652 [the year when Taj Mahal is supposed to have been just completed] complaining that Taj Mahal was leaking all over.

Mr V.S.Godbole, who was intent on cross referencing stated:
"For the next two years I went through all the references and was convinced of his assertion. My paper Taj Mahal- Simple Analysis of a Great Deception was appreciated by some prominent European scholars in 1980."

Professor P.N. Oak, who believes the whole world has been duped. In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story, Oak says the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz Mahal's tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya). In the course of his research, Oak discovered the Shiva temple palace was usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodeled the palace into his wife's memorial. Today we can see the fact that captured temples and mansions, as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers. For example, Humayun, Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions.

In his book he continues to say:
"The term "Mahal" has never been used for a building in any of the Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria. "The unusual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani," he writes. "Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters 'Mum' from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name for the building."

So after reading all these quips, I was perturbed. Today, we pride ourselves in drawing hypothesis more sensibly, we have techniques right form Carbon dating to what-nots which can determine the age of any material. So why do the authorities who agree with Prof.P.N.Oak, wait? Why not find a means to clarify the ambiguity and give the world the truth.

Then I found more articles (including ones about Carbon dating) saying:

• Marvin Miller of New York took samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.
• European traveler Johan Albert Mandelslo, who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's death), describes the life of the city in his memoirs, but makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built.
• The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest that the Taj was a noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan's time.

Don't we deserve to know the truth?
At least tell us which story we should believe, please.

*Badshahnama - Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial

To install or not to install.

Registry Cleaners and the hype. They are software utilities that attempt to remove configuration data from the Windows Registry that is no longer in use or that is unwanted. These claim to increase the performance of the computer by optimizing system resources and minimizing erroneous registry files.

Such a hype and I did fall for it!
Of course, don't you want your computer to function in snaps??
I did want it to work at the snap of my finger,
lest what the registry cleaner did to my system was it snipped it.

Of recent amongst all the abuses will emerge a brand new abuse named "Computer abuse". No, i'm definitely not talking about installing pirated softwares or using utorrent to download movies (U to A category, both pirated and original). Computer abuse will be a noun (or rather a verb) that defines the torment a computer has to undergo, when its user (me) opens at least fifteen windows at a time and multitasks in multiples, causing the CPU usage to go over 100, ultimately causing the system gasp for breaths and the definition doesn't end there.. Finally blame it on the OS.
"Ah my system is such crap! It is so slow!"

Such was the pathetic abuse my system was undergoing until I decided to
help it by installing Registry cleaner. Voila??
In spite of the cautiousness some of my good old system files are gone for a six!
So finally as I am writing this, realization hit me.
The OS is SO forgiving. A hyped-something is definitely unwanted for my OS.

Collisions - Sub & Satellites

Of recent, two collisions in different elements, space and sea, kept the world glued to the media.
First, the collision between Britain HMS Vanguard and France's Le Triomphant, one of the few SSBNs (Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear) in the world. These vessels are designed to carry 16 missiles each weighing 35 tons, which in turn carry 6 warheads.
The first thought that occurred to me, when I saw the flash news, was that : "Even if the sensing equipment of one sub fails, the other would probably do the detection". My theory failed me when I realized that the modus-operandi of most SSBNs is to operate stealthily and to proceed undetected.
Yet given the fact there are so few SSBN, it is SO improbable to think of two vessels deciding coincidentally on the same depth and ordinates. Each sub had a crew of approx 250 members that in case of a fatal accident, would have been a immeasurable loss of confidential sailors and the thought of nuclear leakage or worse explosion clouds my imagination. We have to now feel happy that misfortune of running into one another didn't prove a mishap and thank God that they were friendly nations.

Secondly, the telecommunications satellite owned by Iridium Satellite (Iridium 33) and a defunct Russian military communications satellite (Cosmos 2251) were destroyed on mid-space collision. Statistics say they were destroyed about 780kms above the Russian Arctic and the collision has thrown out about 18000 debris of which 500 are now being tracked by Joint Space Operations Centre. The Federal Aviation Authorities (FAA) issued an advisory to aircraft pilots alerting them of the re-entering debris.
All that is known now, is the plight of the Iridium customers (approx. 3 million) who would be facing network issues. In my opinion the consequences faced by destruction of Cosmos 2251 would be higher, though again stealth mode prevents them blowing their trumpets.

Mother earth would have to be ready to accept a few craters,
while men on earth would pray for traceless damage over NA.
“Pray, and let God worry”

The first post

This blog is created on the belief that I will have some space to spit out technical jargon. Jargon nonetheless, if not technical. Do things work as I've planned? Let me wait and watch. Let me voice and watch.