In 1980s, my Tau ji and his friends went to Jammu & Kashmir. They thought they will also do some sightseeing in beautiful state.

So, they entered J&K early morning and their bus was stopped somewhere by 3 heavily armed men. Maybe driver was into it and he deliberately took them from that route.

1/ These armed men first segregated men & women. Asked them to come out of bus one by one. Checked ID cards. There were many who came specifically for some exam. These terrorists hit some of them & abused.

They saw ID cards of my tau ji & his friends. These were 5 friends. The terrorists found out these 5 boys are from Ajmer. They were made to stand separately.

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Chalo aaj ek baat batata hoon isi par jo koi book ya article me nahi milegi. Read it carefully.

In 1971, India captured 93,000 soldiers of Pakistan Army in Bangladesh Liberation War.

Most of the officers in these soldiers had direct link with the roots of British Indian Army. Someone’s father served, someone just joined in 1940s and went to Pakistan. Still remembered their commanding officers. Their Hindu & Sikh batchmates.

1/ So, in 1971 war, Indian Army treated Pak soldiers according to all conventions. Almost all officers of Pak Army got special treatment in India as POW due to their direct old linkages.

Someone’s father called to their Indian counterpart and requested. Some General here remembered their old Muslim General or friend and got to know his son is in 93,000. Treated him like a son here due to old memories and nostalgia.

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Mount Abu.

A hill station which became “Kashmir Issue” of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Once Sardar Patel did a historical injustice by cutting it from Rajasthan & gave it to Gujarat.

Rajasthani leaders fought a political battle to get it back.

Why & how all this happened? 🧵

1/ After independence, Rajasthani princely started merging with India.

Border of Bombay state of India touched borders of Rajasthan states.

Sirohi, a princely state with Mount Abu hill station was at the border. Sardar Patel merged this with Bombay instead of Rajputana.

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Swachh Bharat Mission, launched by PM Modi was the first defining moment I started to understand dehat mentality.

How dehatis have fundamental differences with people who are trying hard to make our country developed.

How? 🧵

1/ So, my grandfather left the village in his youth. Still had strong ties there. He had a huge family. In our village houses, we always had toilets. Perhaps, many brothers, nephews in government jobs helped in change of attitudes.

They worked in cities, lived in quarters with toilets, so they made toilets in village houses too.

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The biggest threat to Independent India’s integrity did not come from some leader of J&K or Tamil Nadu. It also did not come from some Naxal or Communist.

It came from a Naga leader called AZ Phizo. Even before Indian independence, he started campaigning for independent Nagaland in 1946.

After independence, he met Nehru thrice & could not reach any understanding.

1/ India (according to Nagas) had no relation with Nagaland. Indians were as aliens to them as the Martians.

Nagas were frustrated by Indian ignorance of the Naga society & were scared of huge Indian population which could completely alter the fabric of Nagaland.

Divided in 15 major tribes, Nagas had their own struggles and wars between tribes since many centuries.

2/

Seeing posts about XL condoms since yesterday. So, sharing something important about it.

Men have to understand condoms. It’s their duty.

Most condoms sold as XL or even XXL are fake. Companies play ego game.

Then what are real XL condoms? Some of you need them too!

1/ Condoms have 2 parts. Length & width. Length is manageable even with a wrong sized condom.

It is the width where you need to find your thing.

Normal condoms are 53-55 mm in width. In Asia, they are 50-53 mm.

Above 55 mm we have 55-57 mm size. That is XL.

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-Trigger warning-

These 5 criminals are monsters caught in 2022.

In Dhariyawad of Pratapgarh district in Rajasthan, police caught some tribal men in a loot case.

Their phones shocked the police. Multiple videos of gang r@pes, most with the minors.

7 men were caught.

1/ This gang had 2 real brothers Deepak & Pushkar & had daughters too.

The gang members worked normal jobs in day, used to get drunk in nights & set up an ambush on highways.

Women on bikes were targets. They used to follow the bike, beat the man, & drag the woman to forest.

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Meet Triloki Nath Kaul, one of the most famous Indian diplomats.

In 1954, he was sent to China for Indo-China border settlement and fate of Tibet.

This guy got honey trapped by a Chinese woman there. He had a wife & kids in India.

1/ Shamelessly, he asked permission to marry that Chinese woman.

Not only that, he also had the audacity to ask for 2 months leave for his honeymoon with that woman.

All that WHILE SUCH IMPORTANT INDO-CHINA TALKS WERE GOING ON.

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Why BJP has a consolidated Hindu vote bank? Why they are winning elections after elections?

It all started on 25 September 1990. A lot of people here do not have this context. So, just sharing how Ram Rath Yatra of Advani changed BJP, India, Hindus, and politics forever.

1/ In 1989-90, RSS realised that the time has come to start a movement for Ayodhya temple.
RSS thinkers were concerned that Congress can pick the issue.

Why Congress would? It is laughable some would think in present times.

So, let me tell you why Congress could.

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Few days back, I watched this movie Shatranj Ke Khilari as YouTube recommended and it never recommends a movie to me.

Nice Historical sattire. Based on a short story by Premchand.

Sharing the plot, context, and what I liked about this movie. 🧵

1/ 2 nobles of Awadh kingdom, Mirza Sajjad Ali (Sanjeev Kumar) and Mir Roshan Ali (Saeed Jaffrey) are great friends who love to play chess.

They are lazy, ignore their wives, and chess is their life. They think chess makes them smarter than anyone else.

2/

For a good part of my life, I have wondered why British chose Ajmer in Rajasthan to reside and make a large white settlement.

The reasons I looked for varied from climate to military but nothing made complete sense.

Recently, I found out the real reason accidentally. 🧵

1/ First, I want to clarify that White settlers in India were not living everywhere and anywhere. Railway towns did take them to more places, but they were work stations more than the natural habitat.

In Ajmer, they invested a lot. Made Mayo college, a whole new Railway city, factories, tens of hospitals, hundreds of churches, hundreds of missionary schools, public buildings, water reservoirs, and kept 2 Regiments of army here.

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A funny incident from life of Indira Gandhi as an example that her security was never taken seriously by the responsible people. 🧵

This is from a visit to US in 1983 she completed and was returning to India.

1/ PM Indira took her seat in her special plane but still the plane did not move. She observed from the window that boxes after boxes were being loaded in cargo of her plane.
It took almost half an hour after she took her seat & she was not happy about it.

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A brilliant triple-murder case solved by Kerala Police after 19 years using AI tools.

Probably the first of its kind in India. 🧵

A big lesson to police forces of India and beyond.

1/ 19 years ago in 2006, Ranjini and her newborn twins were found dead in her house. She was stabbed & her babies had their throats slit.

Ranjini was an unwed mother living separately away from her neighbours & family. One “Anil Kumar” convinced her to do so.

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Since I am posting about Delhi, let me share this last random thread about it to make sense of this city.

Many years ago, my friend Chirag was concerned about starting waves of pollution in Delhi.

Coincidentally, I was reading a book about history of New York City in those days.

1/ I told him, Delhi-NCR is on way to become New York. We will have to pay the price to become the New York. Present pollution is initial phase of it.

New York in developing phases was many ways similar to Delhi or to Mumbai. With Delhi similarities, it also has clusters of mega cities.

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A 🧵 about brilliant mind of Dr Manmohan Singh. An incident from his PM years.

First, let me give some context—LPG reforms were just the beginning of Indian reforms. In 2004, MMS got the power and immediately started working to bring next phase of reforms.

1/ In 2006, India unrolled a massive employment programme called NREGA for rural India.

It was mainly done to increase spending and demand in rural India. Rural economy of India was almost dead except the food crop production.

The massive migration problem in India was also a result of stagnant rural economy.

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Feroze Gandhi is one of the most misunderstood politicians of India.

Shadowed by Nehru & Indira, his work is sidelined.

Sharing one such incident here when he highlighted first financial scam of India & embarrassed his father in law Nehru in parliament. 🧵

1/
First, some background-

In 1958, Feroze Gandhi stood up in parliament & asked if LIC formed in 1956 has invested money in 6 troubled companies of Mundhra?

Finance ministry quickly denied such allegations.

Who was this Mundhra? Haridas Mundhra was a stock trader.

2/

2 days ago, Titan Watches completed 40 years and they brought a commendable technological achievement for India.

Titan has made India’s first flying tourbillon watch. A thing which only few companies are capable to make.

But what is a tourbillon? 🧵

1/ Watches were mostly pocket watches before the beginning of 19th century. These watches did not have a battery & ran on complex spring wheel movements. They are called mechanical watches.

But, there was one problem! Gravity.
Gravity acted on parts of the watch & cause them to show wrong time.

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The Delhi Stalker. 🧵

An unparalleled case from 2016 which will give you an idea how far a criminal mind can go in obsession.

A seemingly harmless man inspired by Hitler, Genghis Khan, & movie Darr of Shah Rukh Khan.

1/ In January 2015, Devendra saw a girl outside Vaishali metro station & “fell in love”.

He kept on thinking about her & stood outside metro station waiting for her next day. Dipti came on her usual time & took the shared auto like every other day.

Unaware of Devendra’s eyes on her.

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7 July, 1998.

The day Sourav and Sachin saved Indian cricket. 🧵

2 years later, one of the biggest sports scandal of world was uncovered. Several players of different nations were caught in Match Fixing.

But, Sachin-Sourav, Kumble, Dravid etc started their battle way before this.

1/
India was in final of Nidahas Trophy with Sri Lanka at Colombo.

Late night of 6 July 1998, coach of Indian team Anshuman Gaekwad received a call from India.

The man on call told the coach that the Indian team will intentionally lose the match next day.

2/

A suicide has shook the nation and this reminds me of a family from Jaipur.

I was their tenant once. They have a huge house in Raja Park, which is one of the richest neighbourhoods of Jaipur.

They have 2 sons. Older is married and has a kid.

He lives in a rented house few streets away and I always used to wonder why.

1/ I mean you have 3 shops in market, an agency of important FMCG product, 3.5 floor house with a basement.

Why the hell you would live separately?

One day I found the answer from the tea seller at the corner.

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A funny but scary case caught in Ghaziabad 4 days ago. 🧵

This will make you realise how easy it is to con people, that too with the help of police.

And no, this is not a case of cyber fraud.
Hardcore physical method acting level fraud.

1/ On 24 November, a man reached Khoda police station & told police that he was kidnapped 31 years ago.

Told them that a sheep herder kept him as bonded labourer in Jaisalmer and he escaped. Requested police to find his family.

Police came into action. Files were opened to help a poor guy.

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