Travelogue of Rameswaram: Where Sita proved her purity by entering in a burning funeral pyre

Rameswaram is city of Rama,it is the place where Sita proved her purity by entering in fired funeral pyre by orders of Lord Rama, after rescuing her from the clutches of the demon king Ravana. According to legend, after killing Ravana Lord Rama returned with his consort Goddess Sita to India first stepping on the shores of Rameswaram. 

This is my third travelogue in this series related to Rameswaram, Pamban Bridge, and Dhanuhkodi. Pamban Bridge is the entry point of Rameswaram. Do you remember a scene of film Chennai express: Shahrukh Khan with Deepika Padukone having a ride over Pamban Bridge with a song.....? 

“Kashmir tu main kanyakumari 

Fifty-fifty har situation mien hissedari”

Since then beauty of Pamban Bridge and Rameswaram was freezed in my dream. On googling I found that this Pamban Bridge is in Rameswaram.

Incidentally, last year on a trip to Hyderabad, at  Agra Cant Railway station ,I purchased book “Agni ki udan-Wings of Fire” Autography of AP J Abd-u-l kalam,Former President of India. I finished this book in 25 hours journey of Hyderabad.

Very interesting to know that: Rameswaram was native place of APJ Abdul Kalam. His father was a boat owner and imam of a local Masjid, Who owned a ferry that, took Hindu pilgrims back and forth between Rameswaram and the now uninhabited Dhanushkodi.

So one fine day I reached Rameswaram. There were plenty of autos available outside station.Hired an auto for advance booked hotel Teertham (Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporation Hotel).



Hotel Teertham is standing just at one side of Arab Sagar at a short distance 
from Agnee Teertham Mandir. After dinner in dinning hall of hotel, other members slept. I took my camera and walked to Agniteertham Mandir. It was dark late night but, many devotees were sill there to perform religious rituals.I clicked some shots and soon back to my room.

So next early morning after getting fresh and charging energy with breakfast in dining hall of Hotel,We were ready with my Canon 600 D, to roam on streets of Rameswaram. Naturally first place of visit was Agni Teertham Temple.

Thousand’s of devotes were in this area, many of them were busy in holy dip in soft and calm water of sea; some were busy in ritual’s and pujas. Eastern Sky was painted pink by rising Sun. 

Pandits and pujaris were blowing Conch with controlled breath, the primordial sound of "Om" emanates from it. This eternal sound is the origin of all Vedas. All knowledge enshrined in the Vedas is an elaboration of the omnipresent sublime sound of Om. It was this sound that was chanted by the Lord before manifesting the cosmos. It represents the creation and the Truth behind it.

Agni Theertham Temple in Rameswaram

The eastern sea shore opposite to the Ramanathaswamy temple is named as Agni Theertham. Every day thousands of pilgrims took bath in this holy sea .Holistic rituals such as prohithams, yangnya( yaham), tharpanam (ritual for the ancestors who were dead) has been performed in the shores of Agni Theertham.

Mythical story of Agni Theertham:

After rescuing his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana, Lord Rama told her wife Sita in a suspicion tone. “Sita I’ve rescued you from my enemy Ravan, and I’ve done my duty and satisfied the demands of honor, you may have been touched by the Ravana, and how I can know that you are pure” and he distrust her purity.

Sita got angry over Rama because of his suspicion and told to the Rama’s brother Lakshman that “Lakshman!, put a funeral pyre!  I intend to enter into the flames” .Lakshman put a pyre in order to respect the words of his brother’s wife, Rama neither stops her nor did he say anything to her. Sita enters into the flames of fire.

Instead of burning her into ashes, fire god Agni appeared before Lord Rama and said “Ram! Sita is pure, chaste and Sinless, you took her to your abode Ayodhya with you and rule the country with her”.

Because of touching a chaste, pure and sinless women fire god Agni got a sin; He prays to Lord Shiva and took a bath in the sea in Rameswaram to vanquish his sin.  The place he diminishes his sin by took a bath is called as Agni Theertham.

After a visit of Agni Teertham Temple and Arab Sagar, our next destination was Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple which is at a distance of 1.5 Km from here

Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple is one of the sacred Char Dhams temples of India. This holy shire is honored pilgrimage center due to its close association with Lord Rama and famous epic Ramayana. It is a place where, Lord Rama worshiped the Shiva Lingam and makes it one of the prime 12 Jyotirlingams. The devotees have to cover the Pamban Bridge to cover this coastline of Tamil Nadu. 

Mythical story of Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple--According to the Ramayana, Rama, the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu, prayed to the god Shiva to absolve him of the sin of killing a Brahman, committed during his war against the demon king Ravana in Sri Lanka. Ravana is believed as a great grandson of Brahma, and also he is a son of Brahman. 

As advised by by rishi agashthya Rama decides to install a shivalinga on the shore of Rameswaram and perform the rituals mentioned by saint to wash off the Brahmahatti dosha. The auspicious time for performing the rituals were fixed, Rama sent Hanuman to The Mount Kailas to fetch a Shiva Linga. The time moves on, the auspicious time for the installation of linga was getting nearer; But Hanuman was not yet reached.

After the rituals had completed Hanuman returns from Kailash with two Lingas. He is disappointed that the ceremony is already over. In anger, he tries to uproot the sand Linga with his tail, but he can’t able to did so, He fell in the ground with his tail broke (the place he fell in the ground with damage in his tail is called as Hanuma kund.

Rama pacified Hanuman and installed a Linga brought by Hanuman from Kailas to the left of Ramalinga, and ordered that all pujas be first performed for this Linga, called Vishwalinga. This priority in puja is followed till today. 

The second linga brought by hanuman is installed near the Hanuman Temple inside Ramanathaswamy temple and referred by the name “Athma linga”. The linga installed by Rama is called as Ramanathaswamy, and the moolavar, main deity of the temple.

After performing the rituals and taking bath in the Teerthas Rama with his crew flew to Ayodhya by pushpaka vimana.

House of Kalam

Located at the Mosque Street in Rameswaram, this was the house where APJ Abdul Kalam, son of Jainulabdeen and Ashiamma was born. His father Jainulabdeen was a boat owner and Ashiamma a housewife. The son of this boat owner grew up to become one of India’s most respected scientists and later, a revered President. The place just oozes with inspiration and exudes an indomitable, totally insurmountable wave of positivity and determination.. 

Photography is not allowed inside the house. This place is absolutely worth the visit, mainly for the vibe it gives you - that if a man from such a humble, small hut in a remote area of India can make it to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and anything on earth is possible through sheer sincerity, hard work and determination!

Here I am ending this “Travelogue of Rameswaram: Where Sita proved her purity by entering in a burning funeral pyre”. Actually Rameswaram is a holy city famous for temples; the land of Lord Ram.It has nothing special food to mention. So finally we were back to home with a trip to cherish forever with camera full of memories.

Written with help of Wikipedia and materials available on net, photographed and posted by Engr Maqbool Akram.

Data Scientist: New job opening---India has most jobs opportunities after the US.

This blog will talk about the how data scientist came into a picture.With a tsunami like amount of information being generated by firms on a daily basis; it becomes difficult for them to make sense of it. This is a sneak peak to the future that is there with “the sexiest job of 21st century”.

India is the second-biggest analytics jobs hub after the US, a recent study by skilling platform Edvancer and Analytics Magazine India revealed. The figure marks a 76% jump from the previous year. Most colleges have not added these newer courses to their curriculum.

According to the report, some of the leading organisations with the most number of data science job openings this year are JP Morgan, Accenture, Microsoft, Adobe, Flip kart, AIG, Wipro, Deloitte, EY and Vodafone. Some of the top advertised job designations are analytics manager, data scientist, and data analyst and analytics consultant, among others.

Who is a Data Scientist?

Data science is a complex field. It involves dozens of different skills that make defining the profession a constant struggle. There are too much information for the average person to process and use, data scientists are trained to gather, organize, and analyze data, helping people from every corner of industry and every segment of the population.

Essentially, a data scientist is someone who gathers and analyzes with the goal of reaching a conclusion. They do this through many different techniques. They may present the data in a visual context, which is often called “visualizing the data,” allowing a user to look for clear patterns that wouldn’t be noticeable if the information was presented in hard numbers on a spreadsheet.

Essentially, a data scientist is someone who gathers and analyzes with the goal of reaching a conclusion. They do this through many different techniques. They may present the data in a visual context, which is often called “visualizing the data,” allowing a user to look for clear patterns that wouldn’t be noticeable if the information was presented in hard numbers on a spreadsheet.

They often create highly advanced algorithms that are used to determine patterns and take the data from a jumble of numbers and stats to something that can be useful for a business or organization. At its core, data science is the practice of looking for meaning in mass amounts of data.

They may discover that customers who use a certain amount of bandwidth are more likely to leave or that customer who are married and between the ages of 35 and 45 are the most likely to switch carriers. The cell phone company can then change their business plan or marketing efforts to engage and retain these customers.

Data Scientist Jobs

Data scientists work in many different settings, but the majority of them will work in office-like settings that allow people to work together in teams, collaborate on projects, and communicate effectively. Much of the work may include uploading numbers and data into the system or writing code for a program that will analyze the information

The world of data science is an always-changing area, so people working in this field need to constantly update their skills. They are continually training to stay at the leading edge of information and technology.

Data science educational qualification (Best choice):

A Data Scientist should have a strong mathematical background to be able to test and run the results from the data. A solid understanding of statistics, probability, calculus, and linear algebra is required. It helps in analyzing, applying data analysis techniques and implements it in a better way. 

Data scientists come from a wide range of educational backgrounds, but the majority of them will have technical schooling of some kind. Data science degrees include a wide range of computer-related majors, but it could also include areas of math and statistics. 

1.   Engineer

2.   Mathematicians or any degree in mathematics

3.   Statisticians or any degree in stat

4.   Economist

5.   Actuaries

6.   MBA

7.   Commerce Degree

8.   IIT/IIM/Ph.D

This is what you should follow first in order to become a Data Scientist:

·         First, learn the languages used for programming - To be a data scientist, having hands-on experience on programming languages such as R and Python is a must. Python offers plenty of benefits - it is now the Bank’s tool of choice for crunching financial data. Moreover, Python is easier to use. It is a powerful tool with many capabilities and gives you the opportunity to solve data problems end-to-end.

·         statistics and probability - if you are pursuing data science, you need to have basic understanding of statistics. In short, you need to be able to describe a few basic algorithms. You would need to run algorithms using R libraries. However, being able to understand the basics of statistical analysis gives your teams a better approach.

·         Having knowledge of SQL - SQL, or Structured Query Language, is a powerful programming language that adds, deletes, extracts, or operates on information within a relational database. Most data scientists use SQL because it opens the door to data science.

·         Machine Learning - Machine learning is a set of algorithms that train on a data set to make predictions or take actions in order to optimize some systems. To learn machine learning you need to have knowledge in mathematics. Machine learning and statistics is a part of data science.

·         Deep learning - is one of a kind of machine learning that involves particular kind of mathematical model.

Communication:

Communication plays a very important role. Because conveying or explaining any problem and ability to share data analytics to people is an important job for a data scientist.

Presentation or visualization:

After collecting data the next exclusive step is to how we extract that data in an attractive and meaningful manner. The tools that can be used for presentation are excel, Tableau, Qlik View, etc... Whatever the data we have, the destination is how we are presenting them.

Salary of a Data Scientist

1. International finance consulting firm, Software Engineer (Analytics), 9.5 LPA, Fresher

2. Silicon Valley based startup, Data Scientist, 12 LPA, Fresher

3. Silicon Valley based medium sized company, Member of Technical Staff, 14 LPA, one year exp

4. Bangalore based IT firm moving into the space of deep learning, R&D Engineer, 16 LPA, one year exp

5. If you are from IIT/IIM/Ph.D you can bargain more.

Hope this will help you to be a Data Scientist: New job opening---India has most jobs opportunities after the US.

Travelogue of Dhanushkodi: The haunting real story of a ghost town

This Travelogue of Dhanushkodi - The haunting real story of a ghost town is in continuation to my previous blog “Pamban Bridge: A Hair Raising Train Ride to Rameswaram”.

https://www.myishasmehfil.com/2018/09/pamban-bridge-hair-raising-train-ride.html

Finally we were standing at railway plate form of Ramesvaram. Before exit from Railway Station we refreshed us with hot coffee and some snaks. There were plenty of autos available outside station.Hired an auto for advance booked hotel Agnee Teertham (Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporation Hotel) .

 Hotel Teertham is standing just at one side of Arab Sagar at a short distance from Agnee Teertham Mandir. After dinner in dinning hall of hotel ,other members slept. I took my camera and walked to Agni teertham Mandir. It was dark late night but, many devotees were sill there to perform religious rituals.I clicked some shots and soon back to my room.

 This blog is only over a trip to Dhanusukodi now a  haunted ghost town, so I will not waste time in telling about Rameshvaram. Next day after breakfast ,we left for Dhanusukodi. Hotel manager was a nice man ,he arranged a taxi ride to and fro to Dhanusukodi beach only for Rs 1500/=

Dhanushkodi was almost inaccessible till a new road that runs along the ocean was built. It extends all the way from Rameswaram to Arichal Munai or Land's End, the closest point to Sri Lanka on Indian Territory and a point flanked by the ocean on all three sides.After half hr journey of 20 Km,we saw a long stretch of Bay of Bengal, running just parallel to road.As we drove nearer to Dhanusukodi ,this lining of Bay of Bengal was coming closer and closer to road.It was life time ride ,I was seeing Indian Ocean on other side of road.wow…..now the road was in between two seas.Dhanushkodi is a Beautiful place lies as a land of sand in the center of roaring ocean (Indian Ocean) and a silent sea (Bay of Bengal). Dhanushkodi fills the visitors with the feel of awe by its spectacular view of clear Blue Sea, Roaring tides, Beach and the Lonely Devastated Ghost land.

 Dhanushkodi in Mythology

As per Hindu mythology, this is the place from where Lord Hanuman along with his army built a stone bridge (Ram Setu) to cross the sea to reach Lanka (now Sri Lanka) to rescue Sita from the demon king, Ravana. Thereafter the war, Lord Rama broke the bridge with the tip of his bow. The word Dhanushkodi can be split into dhanush (bow) and kodi (the end) literally it means “The end of the bow” in Tamil language.  

 Sri Lanka is just 31 kilometers away from Dhanushkodi. Bordered by the Bay of Bengal on one and the Indian Ocean on the other, Dhanushkodi, some 20 kilometers away from Rameshwaram, is one of the most spectacular stretches of Tamil Nadu.

Devastation: Haunting  real story of  Dhanushkodi  by  Tsunami on  Night  of  1964  December 22

If you have the ears to listen the silence too. You may hear the sounds of cries, the recitements of the prayers in the remnants of the Catholic Church, the noises from the broken pieces of busy railway station and the port office. 

 It was raining heavily… Nobody in the Dhanushkodi city realized that as a signal of Storm. On December 21, satellite images showed clouds from the storm covered 965 Km on the sky.The Storm got intense and moves towards the Gulf of mannar region.Fishermen of Dhanushkodi were warned by government not to fish inside the sea,

All the places of Dhanushkodi were filled with Darkness…The heavy rain slowed down and, the clouds started drizzled the drops. People believed that the things would get normal the next day, and went for sleep with the hope filled minds.

On that night at 23.55 hours a tsunami hitted Dhanushkodi railway station, the train No.653, Pamban-Dhanushkodi Passenger, a daily regular service which left Pamban with 110 passengers and 5 railway staff, was only few hundred yards before Dhanushkodi Railway station when it was hit by a massive tidal wave.

The entire train was washed away killing all 115 on board. A few meters ahead of Dhanushkodi, the signal failed. With pitch darkness around and no indication of the signal being restored, the driver blew a long whistle and decided to take the risk.Minutes later, a huge tidal wave submerged all the six coaches in deep water. The tragedy that left no survivors also destroyed the Pamban Bridge, which connected the mainland of India to Rameshwaram Island.The waves were energetic.

They say the sea is male in Dhanushkodi and female in Rameswaram. The pairyearns to embrace each other and devastates the seven-km sand strip separating them. Dhanushkodi was a busy township with European bungalows, church, temple and even a railway station. There were many ferry services between Dhanushkodi and Talaimannar of Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka), transporting travelers and goods across the sea. There were hotels, textile shops and dharmashalas catering to these pilgrims and travelers.

Dhanushkodi, in those days, also had a railway station, a small railway hospital, a higher secondary school, a post office, customs and port offices etc. One can still see the sad remains of the railway line, some of the ruins of the offices and the hospital and the old school, which is reused now for the 500 inhabitants who continue to stay on the island.

Before the cyclone, there was a train service up to Dhanushkodi called Boat Mail from Madras Egmore (Now Chennai Egmore), which would halt on the south-eastern side of Dhanushkodi township, where a waiting steamer transported passengers to Sri Lanka.

At Main land of Dhanushkodi beach: The last south eastern tip of Indian soil.

Soon we reached the check-post.Our jeep was running  rouh and jerky on a land mix with the mud, sand and water .We reached Dhanushkodi old town after one hour travelling.

A little ahead, we come across the ruins of a water tank, church, post office, custom office and other buildings, once a popular town.All these were totally washed away by a deadly cyclone in 1964. The town has been rendered unfit for living and is a ghost town, but a few fishermen still live here in tents and huts.

The ruined buildings of the church, temple, school and homes around were silent testimony to the great cyclone. Lost in the surrounding, I almost tripped over only to find a glimpse of what appeared to be the lost train track concealed under sand leading to a ruined structure which has seen busy days as the local station.

It was unbelievable, the sea was so blue and so was the sky. The sand was so white, the beach was very clean, I never seen anything like this in India. I had to walk for two hours to get to the place where it used to be “Danushkodi Station”. I couldn’t find any sign of the train tracks, except a couple little piece of metal sticking out of the ground. 

I finally reached the South-Eastern tip after a brisk but a little long walk. It was absolutely wonderful! Seeing two oceans meet is a heart-warming sight and the feeling. Water from two oceans was brushing under our feet … amazing. I had been dying to see this place.This point of this tour just made my entire trip-- A golden memory.

Now it was time to say good-bye to the blue seas and white sands. I recalled the lines of this old ever green song of Film Madhumati that seems fit for this place.It is real story of Dhanushkodi, which is now a haunted ghost town due to Tsunami on 22^nd December 1964.

Aise veerane mein ek din
ghut ke mar jayenge hum
jitna ji chaahe pukaro
phir nahin aayenge hum.

Written photographed and posted by Engr. Maqool Akram

Pamban Bridge: A Hair Raising Train Ride To Rameswaram

I have traveled a lot in main colorful land of Incredible India., always preferred a train journey.I can never forget a train journey on the Pamban Bridge which connects Rameswaram Island to the mainland.In real that was hair raising train journey, which I enjoyed on way to Ramesvaram.

The Pamban Bridge is a railway bridge on the Palk Strait which connects the town of Rameswaram on Pamban Island to mainland of India. The bridge refers to both the road bridge and the cantilever railway bridge, though primarily it means the latter.

 Opened on 24 February 1914, it was India's first sea bridge, and was the longest sea bridge in India until the opening of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in 2010.

But what a beauty! You are surrounded by pristine blue waters till as far as your eyes can see. The Pamban bridge is only 1 meter wide and 2.5 km long. The speed is reduced to 20-30 km/hr while the train is on this vulnerable bridge. The experience was totally a life long hair raising Rail Ride. 

Our first glimpse of the sea was near Mandapam halt.It was early evening when train halted there for a brief period .Few passengers boarded down and few up. 

 Sea was visible on both sides, as the train moved ahead Mandapam. Road was parallel to the tracks. The landscape changed rapidly and signaled that we were approaching coastal area.

In craziness of excitement, for an uninterrupted viewing, I went to the door.The calm and peaceful Arabian sea was in my full sight.The blue sky was bowed somewhere in horizon to meet sea.There was playing a colorful magic in west of sky.

There were less of coconut palms and more of oil palms and fruit (Palmyra) palms. The terrain too changed, and the area had more of dry sand than soil.I took my camera and focused to capture this life time hair raising journey .Soon I realized, better to save the whole scenes in memory chip of my mind my heart, that will never fade with time.

This was a prized moment – a moment that I had been waiting for a long time. The train slowly crawled its way towards Rameswaram – over Pamban Bridge. The bay was green in color and very attractive unlike the brackish color seen in the Arabian Sea. Fishing activities were at its peak – Train took about 15 minutes time to cover 2.3 kms long Pamban Bridge. 

It was late evening time of sunset, Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.The mighty ocean was below my feet; suddenly a fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, touched me and drifted back to the sea again.

After Pamban bridge, the train passed through an area that closely resembles a desert – its sand dunes all around. The sidings at Pamban station was all mired in sand. The train picked up speed after Pamlban. The road still runs parallel to the tracks. We finally reached Rameswaram station at 19.30 – late about 1 hour. 

Finally we were standing at railway plate form of Rameshvaram. Before exit from here we thought to have hot coffee and some snakes. There were plenty of autos available outside station.Hired an auto for advance booked hotel Agnee teertham (Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporation Hotel).

It ends this travelogue on Pamban Bridge: A Hair Raising Train Ride to Rameswaram.Next we will meet in Rameswaram and ghost town of Dhanushkodi beach.

Written, Photographed and posted by Engr Maqbool Akram.