Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (officially Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) (station code: CSMT (mainline)/ST (suburban)), also known by its former name Victoria Terminus (station code: BBVT/VT), is a historic terminal train station and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

The terminus was designed by British born architectural engineer Frederick William Stevens, in an exuberant Italian Gothic style. Its construction began in 1878, in a location south of the old Bori Bunder railway station,and was completed in 1887, the year marking 50 years of Queen Victoria's rule, the building being named, Victoria Terminus.

The station's name was changed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (station code CST) in March 1996 to honour Shivaji, the 17th-century founder of the Maratha Empire, whose name is often preceded by Chhatrapati, a royal title. In 2017, the station was again renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (code CSTM), where Maharaj is also a royal title. However, both the former initials "VT" and the current, "CST", are commonly used.

The terminus is the headquarters of India's Central Railway. It is one of the busiest railway stations in India,serving as a terminal for both long-distance- and suburban trains.

                                          

History

Victoria Terminus

This famous landmark which has become a symbol of the city, was built as the headquarters of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway.

The railway station was built to replace the Bori Bunder railway station, in the Bori Bunder area of Bombay, a prominent port and warehouse area known for its imports and exports. Since Bombay became a major port city at the time, a bigger station was built to meet its demands, and was named Victoria Terminus, after the then reigning Empress of India, Queen Victoria. The station was designed by Frederick William Stevens, a British born engineer architect, attached to the Bombay office of the Indian colonial Public Works Department. Work began in 1878. He received ₹1,614,000 (US$23,000) as the payment for his services.Stevens earned the commission to construct the station after a masterpiece watercolour sketch by draughtsman Axel Haig.The design has been compared to George Gilbert Scott’s 1873 St Pancras railway station in London, also in an exuberant Italian Gothic style, but it is far closer to Scott’s second prize winning entry for Berlin's parliament building, exhibited in London in 1875, which featured numerous towers and turrets, and a large central ribbed dome.The style of the station is also similar to other public buildings of the 1870s in Bombay, such as the Elphinstone College but especially the buildings of Bombay University, also designed by G G Scott.

The station took ten years to complete,the longest for any building of that era in Bombay.

                                   

Missing statue

During its construction, a marble statue of Queen Victoria was installed in the main façade of the building, in a canopy under the clock. In the 1950s, authorities had begun to remove statues of the British figures from government buildings and public spaces based on a directive from the Government of India.^[Most of the statues, including that of Queen Victoria, were sent to Victoria Gardens (later renamed Rani Baug) where they were left lying on the grass in the open until at least the 1980s. A Right to Information report was filed, but had no records of the missing statue being exported out of India. Historians now believe that the statue was smuggled out, sold by politicians, or destroyed. The symbol of Progress, another statue, featured on the top of the dome, is often mistaken for that of Queen Victoria.

Renaming

The station has been renamed several times. It was built to replace Bori Bunder, the terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway from 1853 to 1888, and was named Victoria Terminus to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. In 1996, the station was renamed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in honour of Emperor Chhatrapati Shivaji, founder of the Maratha Empire.

In December 2016, the Modi Ministry passed a resolution to change the name to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in the Maharashtra Assembly and in May 2017, the home ministry officially sent a letter to the state government denoting the name change, following which the station was yet again renamed as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. However, both the former name "VT" and the current name "CST" are popularly used.

2008 Mumbai attacks

On 26 November 2008, two terrorists entered the passenger hall of the CST, opened fire and threw grenades at people. The terrorists were armed with AK-47 rifles. One of the terrorists, Ajmal Kasab, was later caught alive by the police and identified by eyewitnesses. The others did not survive. The attacks began around 21:30 when the two men entered the passenger hall and opened fire,The attackers killed 58 people and injured 104 others,their assault ending at about 22:45 after they exited the station via the North FOB towards the west to Cama hospital back entrance. The CCTV evidence was used to identify and indict Kasab.In 2010, Kasab was sentenced to death for his role in the attack, and in 2012 he was hanged.                                 

Structure

The station building is designed in the High Victorian Gothic style of architecture. The building exhibits a fusion of influences from Victorian Italianate Gothic Revival architecture and classical Indian architecture. The skyline, turrets, pointed arches, and eccentric ground plan are close to classical Indian palace architecture. Externally, the wood carving, tiles, ornamental iron and brass railings, grills for the ticket offices, the balustrades for the grand staircases and other ornaments were the work of students at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art. The station stands as an example of 19th-century railway architectural marvels for its advanced structural and technical solutions. The CST was constructed using a high level of engineering both in terms of railway and civil engineering. It is one of the first and finest products of the use of industrial technology, merged with the Gothic Revival style in India. The centrally domed office structure has a 330-foot-long platform connected to a 1,200-foot-long train shed, and its outline provides the skeleton plan for the building. CST's dome of dovetailed ribs, built without centering, was considered as a novel achievement of the era.

The interior of the building was conceived as a series of large rooms with high ceilings. It is a utilitarian building and has had various changes required by the users, not always sympathetic. It has a C-shaped plan which is symmetrical on an east–west axis. All the sides of the building are given equal value in the design. It is crowned by a high central dome, which acts as the focal point. The dome is an octagonal ribbed structure with a colossal female figure symbolizing Progress, holding a torch pointing upwards in her right hand and a spoked wheel in her left hand. The side wings enclose the courtyard, which opens on to the street. The wings are anchored by monumental turrets at each of their four corners, which balance and frame the central dome. The façades present the appearance of well-proportioned rows of windows and arches. The ornamentation in the form of statuary, bas-reliefs, and friezes is exuberant yet well controlled. The columns of the entrance gates are crowned by figures of a lion (representing Great Britain) and a tiger (representing India). The main structure is built from a blend of India sandstone and limestone, while high-quality Italian marble was used for the key decorative elements. The main interiors are also decorated: the ground floor of the North Wing, known as the Star Chamber, which is still used as the booking office, is embellished with Italian marble and polished Indian blue stone. The stone arches are covered with carved foliage and grotesques.Internally, the ceiling of the booking hall was originally painted blue, gold and strong red on a ground of rich blue with gold stars. Its walls were lined with glazed tiles made by Maw & Co of Britain.Outside, there are statues representing Commerce, Agriculture, Engineering and Science, with a statue representing Progress on the central dome of the station.

Platforms

CST has a total of 18 platforms—seven platforms are for suburban EMU trains and eleven platforms (Platform 8 to Platform 18) are for long-distance trains. Rajdhani, Duronto, Garib Rath and Tejas Express leave from Platform No. 18.Air-conditioned dormitories were inaugurated at CST on 16 April 2013. The facility has 58 beds for men and 20 for women facility has 58 beds for men and 20 for women.

In popular culture

The station has been the location of filming the "Jai Ho" song in Slumdog Millionaire;and the 2011 Indian film Ra.One.
                       

One must visit this railway terminus!!

Life of Pi

This article is about the novel by Yann Martel. For the film based on the novel and directed by Ang Lee, see Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian Tamil boy from Pondicherry who explores issues of spirituality and metaphysics from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger which raises questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.

The novel has sold more than ten million copies worldwide.It was rejected by at least five London publishing houses before being accepted by Knopf Canada, which published it in September 2001. The UK edition won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction the following year.It was also chosen for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2003, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee.

The French translation L'Histoire de Pi was chosen in the French CBC version of the contest Le combat des livres, where it was championed by Louise Forestier.The novel won the 2003 Boeke Prize, a South African novel award. In 2004, it won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Best Adult Fiction for years 2001–2003.In 2012 it was adapted into a feature film directed by Ang Lee with a screenplay by David Magee.

                                       

                                               Plot

The book begins with a note from the author, which is an integral part of the novel. Unusually, the note describes entirely fictional events. It serves to establish and enforce one of the book's main themes: the relativity of truth.

Part one

The narrator describes how he acquired his full name, Piscine Molitor Patel, as a tribute to the swimming pool in France. After hearing schoolmates tease him by transforming the first name into "Pissing", he establishes the short form of his name as "Pi" when he starts secondary school. The name, he says, pays tribute to the transcendental number which is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

In recounting his experiences, Pi describes several other unusual situations involving proper names: two visitors to the zoo, one a devout Muslim, and the other a committed atheist, bear identical names; and a 450-pound tiger at the zoo bears the name Richard Parker as the result of a clerical error, in which human and animal names were reversed.

Pi is raised as a Hindu who practices vegetarianism. At the age of fourteen, he investigates Christianity and Islam, and decides to become an adherent of all three religions, much to his parents' dismay, saying he "just wants to love God".^[10] He tries to understand God through the lens of each religion, and comes to recognize benefits in each one.

A few years later in February 1976, during the period when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares "The Emergency", Pi's father decides to sell the zoo and emigrate with his wife and sons to Canada.

                                        

Part two

The second part of the novel begins with Pi's family aboard the Tsimtsum, a Japanese freighter that is transporting animals from their zoo to North America. A few days out of port from Manila, the ship encounters a storm and sinks. Pi manages to escape in a small lifeboat, only to learn that the boat also holds a spotted hyena, an injured Grant's zebra, and an orangutan named Orange Juice. Much to the boy's distress, the hyena kills the zebra and then Orange Juice. A tiger has been hiding under the boat's tarpaulin: it is Richard Parker, who had boarded the lifeboat with ambivalent assistance from Pi himself some time before the hyena attack. Suddenly emerging from his hideaway, Richard Parker kills and eats the hyena.

Frightened, Pi constructs a small raft out of rescue flotation devices, tethers it to the bow of the boat and makes it his place of retirement. He begins conditioning Richard Parker to take a submissive role by using food as a positive reinforcer, and seasickness as a punishment mechanism, while using a whistle for signals. Soon, Pi asserts himself as the alpha animal, and is eventually able to share the boat with his feline companion, admitting in the end that Richard Parker is the one who helped him survive his ordeal.

Pi recounts various events while adrift in the Pacific Ocean. At his lowest point, exposure renders him blind and unable to catch fish. In a state of delirium, he talks with a marine "echo", which he initially identifies as Richard Parker having gained the ability to speak, but it turns out to be another blind castaway, a Frenchman, who boards the lifeboat with the intention of killing and eating Pi, but is immediately killed by Richard Parker.

Some time later, Pi's boat comes ashore on a floating island network of algae inhabited by hundreds of thousands of meerkats. Soon, Pi and Richard Parker regain strength, but the boy's discovery of the carnivorous nature of the island's plant life forces him to return to the ocean.

Two hundred and twenty-seven days after the ship's sinking, the lifeboat washes onto a beach in Mexico, after which Richard Parker disappears into the nearby jungle without looking back, leaving Pi heartbroken at the abrupt farewell.

Part three

The third part of the novel describes a conversation between Pi and two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport, who are conducting an inquiry into the shipwreck. They meet him at the hospital in Mexico where he is recovering. Pi tells them his tale, but the officials reject it as unbelievable. Pi then offers them a second story in which he is adrift on a lifeboat not with zoo animals, but with the ship's cook, a Taiwanese sailor with a broken leg, and his own mother. The cook amputates the sailor's leg for use as fishing bait, then kills the sailor himself as well as Pi's mother for food, and soon he is killed by Pi, who dines on him.

The investigators note parallels between the two stories. They soon conclude that the hyena symbolizes the cook, the zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi's mother, and the tiger represents Pi. Pi points out that neither story can be proven and neither explains the cause of the shipwreck, so he asks the officials which story they prefer: the one without animals or the one with animals. They eventually choose the story with the animals. Pi thanks them and says: "And so it goes with God." The investigatorsthen leave and file a report then leave and file a report.

                                             Themes

Martel has said that Life of Pi can be summarized in three statements: "Life is a story"; "You can choose your story"; "A story with God is the better story".Gordon Houser suggests that there are two main themes of the book: "that all life is interdependent, and that we live and breathe via belief."

                                           Inspiration

Martel said in a 2002 interview with PBS that he was "looking for a story … that would direct my life".He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life, and he found that writing the novel met this need.

Richard Parker and shipwreck narratives

The name Richard Parker for the tiger was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship, and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger. Martel also had another occurrence in mind in the famous legal case R v Dudley and Stephens (1884), where a shipwreck again results in the cannibalism of a cabin boy named Richard Parker, this time in a lifeboat.A third Richard Parker drowned in the sinking of the Francis Spaight in 1846, described by author Jack London, and later the cabin boy was cannibalized. "So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something", Martel suggested.

Moacyr Scliar

Martel has mentioned that a book review of Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar's 1981 novella Max and the Cats accounts in part for his novel's premise. Scliar's story describes a Jewish-German refugee crossing the Atlantic Ocean with a jaguar in his boat.Scliar said that he was perplexed that Martel "used the idea without consulting or even informing me," and indicated that he was reviewing the situation before deciding whether to take any action in response.After talking with Martel, Scliar elected not to pursue the matter.A dedication to Scliar "for the spark of life" appears in the author's note of Life of Pi. Literary reviews have described the similarities as superficial between Life of Pi and Max and the Cats. Reviewer Peter Yan wrote: "Reading the two books side-by-side, one realizes how inadequate bald plot summaries are in conveying the unique imaginative impact of each book,"and noted that Martel's distinctive narrative structure is not found in Scliar's novella. The themes of the books are also dissimilar, with Max and the Cats being a metaphor for Nazism.In Life of Pi, 211 of 354 pages are devoted to Pi's experience in the lifeboat, compared to 17 of 99 pages in Max and the Cats depicting time spent in a lifeboat.

                                         Characters

Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel

Piscine Molitor Patel, known to all as just "Pi", is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. He was named after a swimming pool in Paris, despite the fact that neither his mother nor his father particularly liked swimming. The story is told as a narrative from the perspective of a middle-aged Pi, now married with his own family, and living in Canada. At the time of main events of the story, he is sixteen years old. He recounts the story of his life and his 227-day journey on a lifeboat when his ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a voyage to North America.

                                       

Richard Parker

Richard Parker is a Bengal tiger who is stranded on the lifeboat with Pi when the ship sinks. Richard Parker lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to coexist in their struggle.

In the novel, a hunter named Richard Parker is hired to kill a panther that has been terrorising the people of a small village in Bangladesh and thought to have killed seven people within two months. Instead, he accidentally immobilizes a female Bengal tiger with tranquilizer darts while her cub is caught hiding in a bush. Parker names the cub Thirsty after his enthusiasm when drinking from a nearby river. The paperwork that accompanies the shipment of the two tigers to Pi's family's zoo in Pondicherry states that the cub's name is "Richard Parker" and the hunter's given name is "Thirsty" and his surname is "None Given", due to a mix-up with the names. Pi's father finds the story so amusing that they continue to call the tiger "Richard Parker".

                                             

                            Social distancing

                                           

Social distancing, also called physical distancing,is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures taken to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other.It typically involves keeping a certain distance from others (the distance specified may differ from time to time and country to country) and avoiding gathering together in large groups.

By reducing the probability that a given uninfected person will come into physical contact with an infected person, the disease transmission can be suppressed, resulting in fewer deaths.The measures are combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing.During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the reference to "physical" as an alternative to "social", in keeping with the notion that it is a physical distance which prevents transmission; people can remain socially connected via technology.To slow down the spread of infectious diseases and avoid overburdening healthcare systems, particularly during a pandemic, several social distancing measures are used, including the closing of schools and workplaces, isolation, quarantine, restricting movement of people and the cancellation of mass gatherings.

Social distancing measures date back to at least the fifth century BC. The Bible contains one of the earliest known references to the practice in the Book of Leviticus 13:46: "And the leper in whom the plague is ... he shall dwell alone; [outside] the camp shall his habitation be."During the Plague of Justinian, emperor Justinian enforced an ineffective quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea, predominantly blaming the widespread outbreak on "Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists, and homosexuals".In modern times, social distancing measures have been successfully implemented in several previous epidemics. In St. Louis, shortly after the first cases of influenza were detected in the city during the 1918 flu pandemic, authorities implemented school closures, bans on public gatherings and other social distancing interventions. The case fatality rates in St. Louis were much less than in Philadelphia, which despite having cases of influenza, allowed a mass parade to continue and did not introduce social distancing until more than two weeks after its first cases.Social distancing has also been used during the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Social distancing measures are more effective when the infectious disease spreads via droplet contact (coughing or sneezing); direct physical contact,indirect physical contact (e.g., by touching a contaminated surface); or airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods).The measures are less effective when an infection is transmitted primarily via contaminated water or food or by vectors such as mosquitoes or other insects.

Drawbacks of social distancing can include loneliness, reduced productivity and the loss of other benefits associated with human interaction.

                                            Definition

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have described social distancing as a set of "methods for reducing frequency and closeness of contact between people in order to decrease the risk of transmission of disease".During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the CDC revised the definition of social distancing as "remaining out of congregrate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately six feet or two meters) from others when possible".

Previously, in 2009 during the 2009 flu pandemic the WHO described social distancing as "keeping at least an arm's length distance from others, [and] minimizing gatherings".It is combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing, and is considered the most feasible way to reduce or delay a paramedic.

               Measures

Knowing that a disease is circulating may trigger a change in behavior by people choosing to stay away from public places and other people. When implemented to control epidemics, such social distancing can result in benefits but with an economic cost. Research indicates that measures must be applied rigorously and immediately in order to be effective.Several social distancing measures are used to control the spread of contagious illnesses.

Avoiding physical contact

School closures

Workplace closures

Canceling mass gatherings

Travel restrictions

Shielding

Quarantine

Protective sequestration

Other measures

Other measures include shutting down or limiting mass transit and closure of sport facilities (community swimming pools, youth clubs, gymnasiums).

                   

                                               History

1916 New York City polio epidemic

Influenza, 1918 to present

SARS 2003

2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic

                                            Drawbacks

There are concerns that social distancing can have adverse affects on participants' mental health.It may lead to stress, anxiety, depression or panic, especially for individuals with preexisting conditions such as anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, and paranoia.Widespread media coverage about a pandemic, its impact on economy, and resulting hardships may create anxiety. Change in daily circumstances and uncertainty about the future may add onto the mental stress of being away from other people.