Was Lord Rama really the greatest warrior ever born? Who is the warrior who can defeat him?

 Just reading the Yuddha Kanda, one can understand why Lord Krishna while describing excellent amongst all, said he is Rama among the weiders of weapon:

पवन: पवतामस्मि राम: शस्त्रभृतामहम् |
झषाणां मकरश्चास्मि स्रोतसामस्मि जाह्नवी || B.G 10 : 31||

Amongst purifiers I am the wind, and amongst wielders of weapons I am Lord Ram. Of water creatures I am the crocodile, and of flowing rivers I am the Ganges.

Sri Rama singlehandedly killed ten thousand chariot warriors, eighteen thousand elephants, fourteen thousand horses and two lacs foot soliders, in span of 3 hours:

Within a matter of three hours, with his arrows looking like tongues of flames, Rama killed an army of demons, capable of changing their form at will, including ten thousands chariots possessing the swiftness of the wind, eighteen thousand strong elephants, fourteen thousand horses with their riders and a full two lacs of demons fighting on foot.

When Rama was fighting, rakshasha could not even see Sri Rama, because of his swiftness in martial arts. So swift was Rama in fighting skill, that rakshhasha were confused and started to kill one another:

Those highly terrific demons dared not approach Rama, having entered their ranks, was scorching them with the flame of his arrows, even as clouds would not approach the scorching sun in the sky.

One Rama appeared to be 1000, when rakshasha saw him because of his swiftness of killing. One moment they see Rama, one moment they get killed, such was their condition:

Those demons for their part saw thousands of Rama's in the battle-field, while at other times, they saw only one Rama in that great battle.

No one in the entire epics has ever fought fiercely like Sri Rama! Such momentum he had, such force he had, that through one arrow he was able to tear 7 sal trees apart:

The golden arrow released by the mighty Rama perforated all the seven sala trees, and even the levelled areas of mountain, and then entered the earth.

He destroyed 14000 rakshashas including Khara and Dushana, single handedly:

There were fourteen thousand rakshasas who were terrible in their valour. A single one on foot slew them with sharp arrows, together with Khara and Dushana, within the space of one-and-a-half muhurtas

Rama and lakshmana together wiped out 1/3rd army of rakhasas on day one completely at night time .

Rama and Lakshmana killed the foremost of the demons, both those who were visible and those who were invisible, with their arrows resembling venomous snakes.

Rama the great warrior, merely within an instant, made the quarters and the intermediate quarters, clear of all the demons, by his arrows resembling flames of fire.

When Indra’s son Jayanta(in crow form) in lust was pecking on Mata Sita,seeing his dear wife in pain Lord Rama threw the grass blade to Jayanta, turning it to Brahmastra.

Shri Rama defeated Ravana during their 1st encounter and spared his life :

In that battle-field, Rama said to that Lord of Demons whose splendour was dimmed, the setting of his diadem river, who resembled a venomous snake robbed of its poison or like a sun its rays extinguished, bereft of lustre.

"You have accomplished a highly terrific great feat and my brave soldiers have succumbed beneath your blows. Now, you are weary and in this condition, I shall not put you under the clutches of Death."

Sri Rama’s arrow made ocean tremble:

The great jerk of water with fishes and alligators of the ocean, together with the resonance of the wind became very much dreadful.

Immediately that great ocean, became shaken by the cluster of huge waves enveloped by a multitude of conches in its rolling waves and a smoke came out

Sri Rama was capable of destroying all worlds together, and was also capable of creating the world in same manner as before:

"The renowned Rama is capable of totally destroying all the worlds together with its five elements, along with its animate and inanimate things and also to create yet again all the worlds in like manner as before."

Lord Hanuman says neither Lord Brahma nor Rudra nor Indra can protect someone from Rama in the battlefield:

Either Brahma the self-existing god with four faces or Rudra with three eyes and the destroyer of Tripura (the city built of gold, silver and iron in the sky, air and earth, by Maya for the demons and burnt by Shiva), or Mahendra the god of atmosphere and sky as also the lord of celestials would not be able to protect the one to be killed by Rama in battle."

So, there in every kanda you will find the reason why Sri Rama is greatest warrior to be ever born.

About defeat, no one can defeat Lord Rama. Sri Rama himself says, only Mahadev is his equal:

Then, the virtuous Rama spoke also to Sugreeva, Vibhishana, Hanuma the monkey, Jambavan, Mainda the foremost of monkeys and even Dvivida, who were in close proximity to him as follows "Such wonderful power of this missile exists either with me or with the three-eyed Rudra the lord of destruction."

Siyavar Ramachandra ki Jaya!

Why is Nandi the greatest devotee of Lord Shiva?

 Nandi is not just Vehicle for Shiva, but Shiva's great devotee, Kailash’s gate keeper and His best friend :)

• Nandi was born to Sage Shilada, after doing rigorous penance for several years. When Nandi learns from his father, that he is short lived, he starts his tapasya for Shiva. Shiva, very happy with Nandi grants boon of him becoming His vehicle and grants him immortality. Nandi’s selfless devotion to Mahadev makes him the greatest devotee of God Shiva.
• When Devas and Asuras did Samudra Manthan, churning of the ocean for celestial nectar. Foremost, poison oozed out of the Ocean and Shiva drank the poison to save the Universe, and along with Shiva, Nandi too drank the poison but nothing happened to Nandi. Since Nandi surrendered to Shiva completely, he became an immortal.
• Shiva pleased with Nandi gave a boon that, whoever visits Shiva temple first have to pray to Nandi, please Him, and see Shivling through Nandi’s horns (the space between his two horns) and tell the purpose of their visit or wishes in Nandi’s ears, since it will for sure reach Shiva.

• According to few Puranas , Nandi has bull/Ox face and a Human body which symbolises that of Shiva(as Shankara and Pashupatinath). This means that Nandi can take the form of an Ox or any human form as per his wish. When Shiva wants to travel, then Nandi takes an Ox form and Shiva chose Ox as His mount since it is a hard working animal and is never lazy.
• The entire Universe resides in the Mahadev, and when Ravana lifted the Kailash mountain, Shiva just pressed His toe and Ravana’s hands get crushed under the mountain. So we can imagine the strength of the Mahadev. But Nandi can carry Shiva on him, as he has surrendered completely to Shiva, so because of Nandi's selfless devotion, he can carry the immense powerful Mahadev.
• Nandi is born only to do service to Shiva, so he doesn't want to miss even one second of seeing Shiva, so he always sits facing Shiva so that he doesn't miss even a blink of an eye moment of seeing, worshipping and doing service to his God Shiva.

Om Nandeeshwaraya Namaha

Om Swetha-vrishabha-vahanaya Namaha

What was Lord Krishna's greatest life lesson?

 As per my understanding, his life’s greatest lesson was that Dharma is above all and everything. He believed in this and proved this by his conduct all through his life.

In the childhood, he killed the tyrant king Kamsa, who was his uncle, as he was a great adharmi. Before that he killed many rakshasas sent by Kamsa to kill him because they also were all adharmis, just like Kamsa.

After killing Kamsa, he installed Kamsa’s father Ugrasen as the king of Mathura again instead of becoming king himself.

When Jarasandh attacked Mathura to take revenge on him for killing Kamsa, he killed his entire army but spared him so that he could again collect more adharmis and come again to kill him.

When he saw that people of Mathura could not live peacefully due to repeated attacks of Jarasnadh, he decided to leave Mathura and established the new city of Dwarka in between the sea so that none could attack it easily.

When he fled from Mathura in front of Jarasandh, Jarasndh insulted him and called him ‘ranchhod’ but Lord Krishna did not care for his insult as for him the welfare of people was much more important.

He married all 16,100 girls who were kept in captivity by Narkasur so that they can lead a respectful life in the society as nobody else was ready to accept them.

He helped Pandavas whenever they were in distress as they were righteous people.

He went to the Hastinapur royal court as the peace messenger on behalf of Pandvas as a last attempt to avert the war where he was insulted by Duryodhan and also tried to capture him.

He helped preserve the modesty of Draupadi when she was being disrobed in the Hastinapur royal court.

He was strictly against taking of any pledge by any person as the pledge may prove to be harmful in future.

In case of Bhishma, his pledge of leaving the throne of Hastinapur for his step mother Satyavati’s future sons proved to be very harmful for Hastinapur.

Drona also gave more importance to Dhritrashtra’s help and supported him despite knowing that Duryodhan was on the wrong path. Same was the case with Karna who gave more importance to Duryodhan’s friendship than dharma.

He agreed to become the charioteer for his best friend Arjun and guided & mentored him by reciting the divine knowledge of Geeta when Arjun was in a great dilemma about his duty.

He rebuked Arjun on the 3rd and 9th day of war for fighting very mildly with Bhishma and himself picked weapons to kill Bhishma as it was important for victory of dharma.

He helped Arjun reach Jaydrath and told Arjun about the boon of Jaydrath’s father to him and guided and motivated him to kill him before sunset.

He saved Arjun many times during the war, helped Pandavas in eliminating Bhishma, Drona and Karna.

He motivated Yudhishthir to kill Shalya and signaled Bheem to kill Duryodhan by striking his thigh to finally end the war.

What is the single greatest acting performance you have seen in Hindi cinema?

 Naseerudin Shah in Sparsh and Om Puri in Ardh Satya

Naseeruddin Shah simply blows you away with such an authentic representation of a visually challenged man who is upright, dignified and a human with his shortcomings which makes him a great character because it doesn't fall into the trap of victimisation of such characters which is so common in our films. His mannerisms, body language and expressions are so on point that you marvel at his performance. Al Pacino took notes from this performance for his Oscar winning performance in The Scent of Woman, which tells us how iconic this performance is. Anyone who loves meaningful films should watch this film once.

Om Puri has given one of the greatest portrayal of a cop ever on cinema screen. His rage was raw and intense, his suprressed anger on the injustice meted out by the society, system and his own father, turns into uncontrolled rage which costs him more than anyone else. He feels humilaued and hurt when his girlfriend reads out a poem to him which makes him realise his own weakness in an indifferent system, and the same humiliation he faces in the climax when he is made to feel like a slave in front of the corrupt criminals who holds the justice in tansom for their personal needs. His performance is outstanding to say the least.

What are some of the greatest innovative ideas?

 Swirl tap - designed by art student Simin Qiu at the Royal College of Art

(Also the winner of the Concept Design Award - 2014)

The Swirl tap uses two turbines inside the faucet to send the water into a spiral. This uses 15 per cent less water than traditional taps and the hollow jet is also more gentle on the hands.

Read more: Tornado in a TAP: New design creates water vortex that saves water
Swirl - Behance

Who was the greatest Roman Emperor?

My vote is for Augustus. The first and longest reigning emperor. I hate that we give him a retronym “emperor” (though, I confess that “Prince” doesn’t quite ring true and “Dictator” doesn’t fit either). He was more like a benevolent military dictator. Certainly, the ancient Romans didn’t speak English and we need our words to describe their positions. This is where a bit of my pedantry comes in and I have to belabor the point a bit. The title “imperator” (from which we get our word “emperor”) is a military and honorary title meaning “vanquishing general”. Of course, Augustus was an “imperator”. But he didn’t come in on his steamroller, destroying the Republic crowning himself Emperor — he wasn’t called that.

The title people called him was “Caesar” (from which Eastern Europe gets its word for emperor: “czar”, “tsar”, “kaiser”) or more appropriately, “Princeps” (pronounced prin-keps: “first citizen” — from which we get our word “prince”). But even then, his authority was personal†. He certainly held the official title of consul on-and-off during his life —and was granted tribunate powers in perpetuity, person fiefdom over Gaul [France], Spain, Syria and Egypt— but the Res Pvblica (literally “public thing” or more appropriately, commonwealth), continued existing. He was its first citizen and his power over the Roman Republic existed apart from its government institutions. His greatest trick was in fooling the people of Rome that they held all the power and that he was just looking out for them.

And as tricks go, it was a damned good one. He may have been a despot, but he was a despot who acted the part of benevolent father so totally that, no matter what he was on the inside, he really was a great leader on the outside. The Republic continued parallel to his “reign”. He began the principate (better than calling it the “Empire” because Rome was an empire for centuries before Augustus). It was the official/unofficial position of power that the Caesars held after him, “the period of hereditary supreme authority of one autocrat, frequently hereditary, but frequently not”. During his life, he obsessed over not acting like a king of Rome but a guardian of the Republic.

At no point in time am I waving away the brutal things he did as Triumvir, the proscriptions and the mass murders. But if we draw a line between the time of Octavius and the time of Augustus, he really does become a different man. Pompous and stubborn throughout his life, once he had power, and sensed no threat to it, he was magnanimous and loving (refusing to seize land even from peasants —even if he paid them— to build public works). There is a veritable encyclopedia of his largesse. One example being, he paid the taxes & and emergency services out of his own pocket of entire provinces that experienced a natural disaster. As dictators go, he was one of the best. As Roman emperors go, he has the company of perhaps one or two others, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius with Tiberius and Justinian being distant behind them.

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• Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar — Tom Holland
• Augustus: The First Emperor of Rome — Adrian Goldsworthy
• SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome — Mary Beard
• The History of the Ancient World — Susan Wise Bauer

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†This is hard for us to grasp. We live in a world of official powers, granted by a legislature or a constitution. But in ancient Rome, individuals carried a cachet called “auctoritas” —prestige— that even unofficially could carry the social power of life and death. Augustus’ auctoritas was personal, not official, and it was so great that it held sway over the entire Republic.

What are some of the greatest innovative ideas?

 We recently bought a new house and now the process to make that house to a home is going on.. as a part of that process, I was looking for some furniture idea and designs in our budget.

I came across these, simply amazing and innovative.

What do you guys think?

1. Wood Couch Arm Shelf

2. Drop-Leaf Wall-Mount Table

3. An ironing board ,convenient and stylish!

4. SwitchPlate

5. Tape dispenser

6.Calendar

image source : Pinterest

What are some of the greatest upsets in cricket?

 Two matches in the 2007 World Cup which led to massive disaster and major structural changes in the history of World Cup.

First of all, the 2007 World Cup reintroduced the setup which was not in place after the 1979 WorlCup. To have 4 groups of 4 teams each with less number of Group stage matches and more number of Knockout matches. Between 1983–2003 players were playing six group matches each but in the 2007 world cup they again introduced the 3 group matches formula.

Second thing was the satellite rights of the World Cup. Sony group in India had the cricket telecast rights of the 2003 world cup when India reached the finals which meant huge profits for the Sony group. So naturally they acquired the rights for the 2007 World Cup as well.

So two major matches ruined the whole world cup and the future of this format. One was India vs Bangladesh where India failed badly against Bangladesh and got out for mere 191 runs. Half of these runs were scored by Saurav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh but they played so slowly (Ganguly scored 66 of 126 balls) that they couldn't even total 200 by the end of their innings (they got out in 49.5 overs). It was a bad decision to send Sachin at number 4 despite his constant request to let him open. This was perhaps the most forgettable world cup for Sachin Tendulkar. Similarly Dhoni scored 2 ducks in three matches, Uthappa scored 30 runs in 3 matches which worsened the cause of team India. Bangladesh was further helped by poor fielding from India and they inflicted a shocking defeat on India. Indian team made a thumping comeback against a nobody team Bermuda scoring 413 runs and winning by 257 runs. But the team again chocked against Srilanka losing by 69 runs and made a shocking exit from the World Cup. This world cup led to the end of ODI career for Anil Kumble and surprisingly the highest scorer for India Virendra Sehwag lost his opening slot as Sachin and Ganguly became the openers for the rest of the year.

Similarly fate awaited our neighbour and arch enemy Pakistan who lost against West Indies in their opening match. But shockingly they lost against Ireland who bowled out Pakistan for 130 runs and won by 3 wickets eliminating them from the World Cup. The world cup was even worse for Pakistan whose coach Bob Wulmar was found d**d in his hotel. Allegations were made of match fixing and Inzamam Ul Haq retired.

On a financial front this world cup wa shighly unsuccessful as the top 2 teams of Asia who contributed so much in revenue were ousted in the first round. Set Max and Sony lost hundreds of crores and were nearly bankrupted (interestingly that time they recovered their money by constantly re running their most popular show CID for 18–20 hours a day for about 2–3 years).

BCCI made a statement that they would make sure that such format will not be followed after this world cup and this is the same that happened. It also shows the power of BCCI in international cricket.