‘Desi’ books/CDs in county libraries

San Ramon: At the county library in my neighbourhood, in California, I was pleased/amused to note a placard in vernacular saying, 'Hindi and Gujarati books are available'. Pleased, because it was a matter of pride that our books have found a place in a ‘firangi’ library; and amused by the fact that an overwhelming number of visitors to the library would have no clue to what the placard says. If the idea was to attract the Hindi/Gujarati knowing readers, they needn’t have taken the trouble, for ‘desis’ who use libraries in this part of the world are usually familiar with plain English.

But then the vernacular placard attracted everyone’s attention; it provided a cosmopolitan touch to the setting. County libraries in the US stock foreign language books, video tapes and CDs. Fremont, Calif., library has a shelf full of Hindi and Punjabi film cassettes and CDs. So has the main city library at San Francisco. My wife and I got from Union City county library some movies we couldn’t get to watch back home, in Mysore – classics such as Guru Dutt’s ‘Pyasa’ and some Bimal Roy movies. The library had most episode-wise collection of mega serials, ‘Ramayana’ and Ramanand Sagar’s TV epic ‘Mahabharatha’.

I don’t suppose these video-tapes found their way to the library shelf because the county librarian at Fremont or Union City took a conscious decision and said, ‘Let’s get ‘Ramayana’ or a Gurdass Mann Punjabi movie’. Chances are these video cassettes and books for San Ramon library have been gifted to libraries by benevolent NRIs or local Indian community associations. Wonder if the Indian consulate in San Francisco takes initiative in gifting to US community libraries books and CDs.

The placard at San Ramon library set me thinking, if they can have Hindi and Gujarati, why not books and CDs in Kannada. Imagine Kevempu’s collection or video CD of the movie ‘Beru’ being made available in one’s neibourhood library in the US. Kannada Sanghas could take initiative in mobilizing local residents to donate books. The next time they hold a Kannada literary/cultural conference in the Bay Area, Chicago, New Jersey or wherever, an appeal should be made to the invitee writers and others from India that they would do well to mobilize collection of books and CDs in Karnataka for donation to public libraries in the US or elsewhere in the world.

When Bangalore went berserk

Alexander Zaitchaik, a New Delhi-based journalist, writing in Spiked-online.com about the Raj Kumar fans’ riots, observed that for two days in April Bangalore looked like Baghdad. And, to a bemused world, this fiery convulsion triggered by the death of an old actor was just another example of Indians' idiosyncratic, borderline-religious love for their movie stars…read his story

This is in contrast to the idiosyncrasy captured in a photo of a lady in grief posted by Mr. S R Suresh.

Disclose yourself, Mr. BOOT; Or else I shall….

Or else, I shall be constrained to name you. When I first spotted odd messages on this site being signed off as ‘Blogging One’s Own Trinkets’ (BOOT) I thought it was a crank call. Spammers usually adopt such call sign that gives no clue to whether it belongs to a she, he or an it. But then, on reading his comments in Capt. Anup Murthy’s blog and mine, I sensed BOOT is no crank. He appears selective, is sensible in what he says, and, to the point; on the ball, as they say.
He gives a bit of himself away when he makes a reference to his blog in one of his comments - http://bloggingtrinkets.blogspot.com/ . But then, you access his blog, you wouldn’t find anyone’s name on it, only his gender and zodiac sign by way of a profile. Bit of a tease, isn’t he? Maybe this is his idea of flogging his blog. Which carries excerpts of essays from a collection, titled – ‘Run of the Mind’. This proves a dead give-away. Come now, Mr Vijendra Rao, your run of anonymity must end here. If anyone cares to read more on Mr Rao’s work, Click on ‘A Mysore newsman’s debut book’.

A reader-driven news web initiative

Another web news/views monthly is out on the Net. Its editor, Shivangi Sharma, in an e-mail announcing www.wenewsindia.com says its content would be based on contributions from citizen-journalists. Which is one way of saving money you would otherwise pay staff writers/reporters. A skeleton staff of re-write persons would do. What’s more, WeNews offers to share ad. revenue with contributors. Reader-reporters can have it both ways – have their pieces published on the web and get paid for it as well.
It is an imaginative venture; and can be a win-win one, if it works. I am rather skeptical about a web initiatives in India making money, unless they are about ‘shaadi’/’naukri’. The stories we read about odd bloggers making millions on their spare time obsession with the web are relevant to a San Francisco setting. In our scenario a blog has yet to become a saleable business model. A web-print media synergy is quite another matter.
Another aspect that may not be the best bet to generating ad. revenue, I believe, is ‘WeNews’ periodicity. A monthly update may not be conducive to retaining readership. A month is too long a time to expect readers, who first access the site, to make repeat visits. The widely read weblogs are those that are updated on an on-going basis, even several times during a day.
If WeNews folk have money in mind, they could try a syndicating arrangement with some newspapers for the articles WeNews generate. The web-to-print grassroots journalism is something Shivangi Sharma could work on. The syndication concept has been adopted in Denver, where publishers of The Denver Post bring out a print weekly – YourHub.com – comprising stories from 42 web sites. The Newspapers & Technology website runs a feature on it. To read it click on ‘Grassroots Web Concept’.

Cremate your worries at a price

San Ramon, CA, Apl.10: Read about this resort at Sedona, Ariz., where they say, you can ‘burn’ your worries. They keep pencils and slips of paper outside the meditation room called Crystal Grotto in Enchantment Resort (ER). You write your worries on a piece of ER issue stationery and drop it in a basket kept at Crystal Grotto. The papers are then consigned to flame, releasing your cares, says NYT travel writer Dwight Garner – ‘I scribbled something about my credit card not being declined and tossed it in’. As media guest Mr.Garner might have done it on the house. Others pay room tariff of $295 night (minimum) for the privilege of burning worries. You do things in style at ER. A bottle of Absolut vodka from room service sets you back by $ 135.

‘Churmuri’, not so ‘chutputi’ with comments turned off

I know it’s none of my business, but I wonder why Mr Krishna Prasad appears averse to comments in his blog – ‘Churmuri’. He shuts them firmly with a ‘No comments’ tag on all his postings. My sense of journalists is that they thrive on feedback. For a journalist, the only thing worse than not writing is not being read and commented upon. Besides, interaction is what web culture is all about. Comments make blogs ‘chutputi’. In blogs, they say, it isn’t just comments that are free. Even facts aren’t sacred. Blogs are about perception; about subjective reality that may not tally with facts. But then in a widely accessed blog, where comments are free, you don’t normally get away with blatant untruth without someone taking you on it.
‘Churmuri’, we know, blogs facts and, presumably, has little use for such comments-driven corrective device. And Mr Prasad, I am sure, has his reason for turning off comments. An open forum has its snags. There is no way, short of a turn-off, to prevent people posting spam, promoting their own agenda, crank messages posted by sick minds. We get our share on mymysore.com (look up ‘What's the idea, Elena’) But then we simply can’t do without feedback at MyMysore. Comments are its life-blood.I find ‘Churmuri’ is in the illustrious company of the Washington Post blog, which has shut off comments because, as its exec. editor Jim Brady put it, a significant number of those who posted on the washpost blog had refused to follow the ground rules, which say ‘no personal attack or use of profanity’. Brady articulates his case in ‘Blog Rage’ (click on this to read article).

Dr Sathya Raja in Sierra Leone

I wonder if anyone in the Mysore medical community remembers Sathya, who did medicine in Mysore. I read about his good work with Concern, an international healthcare agency engaged in Sierra Leone that is at the bottom end of the 177 countries on on the UN’s human development index.
To quote a ReliefWeb document, “Indian medical doctor, Sathya Raja is from Bangalore and studied medicine at the University of Mysore in India. He later did post graduate work in community medicine.
Sathya, who works for Concern in Sierra Leone, is convinced that the agency is making a difference for the impoverished people of the country. “I believe passionately this is where we belong and right now we are in a great position to make a difference in health care,” he stresses….Click on to Read More

An idea for our print media

San Ramon Valley Times, our neighbourhood daily in California, has put out an appeal to readers - ‘The Times is looking for reader-written dispatches’. The idea is to encourage local residents who are away from home; interested in writing about their experiences; and in sharing them with newspaper readers at home. “It doesn’t have to be all visits to castles and hidden Mayan temples,” says The Times, “sometimes just a visit to a grocery store in an exotic city provides an interesting tale to tell”.
I recall Star of Mysore carried some time back dispatches from Mr Srihari during his stretched out vacation in the US. We could do with more such ‘Letters Home’ from Mysoreans studying/working/visiting abroad. Such features, I am sure, would have a wider appeal, if adopted by the vernacular media. Wonder if ‘Andholana’ would give it a shot?

What’s in a name?

I wish when my grandson Sidharth grows up he shouldn’t work for a call centre in Bangalore, where, I hear, anyone with a perfectly sensible Asian name has it distorted into something popsy and western. I dread the prospects of Sidharth being truncated to ‘Sid’, ‘Sidney’ or ‘Saddy’. I am told the tabloid version of Bollywood actor Madhavan is ‘Maddy’. Founder of the Mysore-based software company SPI is Sid Mookerji, though I suspect they ‘namkaran’-ed him as Sidharth.
My own name got distorted, during s stay in England in the sixties; Krishnan became ‘Kris’. There was this elderly lady who had problem rolling her tongue to say ‘zh’ (for ‘sh’) and so, settled on calling me ‘Kristian’. Mercifully, such mutilation didn’t survive my UK stint. But then, a Wodehouse-mad neighbour of mine in Coonoor insists on addressing me ‘Geeves’.Another Coonoor friend, Ashika, couldn’t figure out why my grandson is named after a hotel. Sidharth is a hotel in Mysore; and she knows of no other Sidharth. Ashika, aged three, goes to pre-school.

Making life a little less miserable

My advocate in Chennai, Mr Santhoshkumar, forwarded the following. A lawyer is, perhaps, not a person one would associate with giving you tips on how to make your life less miserable. But then Santhoshkumar has been pursuing my writ plea in the Madras High Court for so long that we became friends. Here, then, is his 10-point programme to better our lives:
1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height.Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. (Keep this in mind if you are one of those grouches;)
3. Keep learning: Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening,whatever. Never let the brain get idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's!
4. Enjoy the simple things
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and LOTS of time with him/her.
6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is our self. LIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love: Whether it's family, pets,keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable,improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

Holi hai

Residents at my block of 60 flats got together at the basement parking lot, Sunday (March 12), to celebrate holi. They invited as chief guest our apartments builder, Mr M B Nagakumar. Which is uncommon, considering that builders/contractors generally do not retain a high reputation among has-been clients. Few apartment owners have zero-complaint against their builder at the end of the day. Builders are not known for delivering whatever they promise, within the timeline they set.
Mr Nagakumar is not Mr Perfect, but he appears to retain a good rapport with his clients. That the residents of Devaraja Mohalla Premier Residency chose to invite him as chief guest at their holi get-together speaks for his reputation. In a way, The Premier Residency holi celebrations made a social statement on builder-client relationship. For the rest the function was marked by the usual fare of song and dance, contest and prizes, and, of course, ‘dandiya’.
Among key players in organizing this ladies-driven 'do' were Ms. Lata Mehta, Anu, Manju, Seema, Hema, Nandiini, Neelam, Priya, Pinky and another Pinky.
Word of advice: Organisers in future would do well to make sure that every child in the block wins a prize. On Sunday Master Nipul Jain was very upset because they didn’t give him a prize. His scream turned into a smile when someone focused her camera on him throwing a tantrum. The photograph was Nipul’s ‘consolation’ prize for the evening

A blog is like a shark

If it stops moving, a shark dies. So does a blog, without fresh postings on a daily basis. So says Clive Thompson in a longish New York Magazine piece. (Click ‘Blogs to Riches,if you have the patience to read). A Thompson tip to blogging success is – post wittily, and frequently. It helps if you have a team of post-persons working at it, as they do at Boing, Boing, a top-hit in global blogdom. Boing is steamed by a five-member team, all part-timers. They wouldn’t give up their day jobs, though Boing makes more than enough for them all, by way of ad. revenue. As a Boing blogger and novelist Cory Doctorow put it, “I always figured my life was fueling my blogging, so I didn’t want to be just a blogger’.
Blogging isn’t seen a mainstream occupation by most successful bloggers. Folks are journalists, doctors, aviators, and all of them, bloggers. An arm-chair thumb-twiddler wouldn’t have much to blog about, would he? Everyone on the myMysore blog list leads a full life, which would only enrich the blog. But then many of us need to get our blog going first. Clive Thompson writes of three categories – A-list blogs are an elite few drawing massive readership. B-list blogs are the ones that make a promising start, giving rise to a rising curve of readers. But somewhere along the way the curve flattens off as the blogger fails to sustain enthusiasm. A vast majority of blogs come under the C-list of bloggers who toil in relative obscurity.
I wonder where you would slot mymysore.com and its blogs. My sense is we can’t pigeon-hole many of our bloggers into any of the three accepted categories. They belong to the N-list – blogs that may well die a non-starter. People stop checking out on your blog, after having stared at the blank space under your name, whenever they were there before.

You don't need a reason to love

Heard this on a live-cast of the ‘Art of Living’ mega meet in Bangalore. An overseas visitor, in his all too brief, but meaningful, address had this to say:
My name is Hashim, but it doesn’t matter any more; I’m from Saudi Arabia, and it doesn’t matter any more.
Why am I here? And my answer to it is in two parts. The first part is: “I don’t know”. The second, and more significant, part of the answer is: “I don’t want to know”.
All I know is, you don’t need a reason to be here; to love one another.

Davos for dummies

My ‘Dateline Mysore’ column this week is on Davos. You may ask, what the piece has to do with the dateline. Little, if anything. It’s my way of pushing Mysore, calling it ‘Dateline Mysore’. It is a tag-line to sort me out from other columnists on zine5.com. Literally, the dateline refers to my operating base. My earlier zine5 pieces used to appear under ‘Dateline Coonoor’. I used to stay in Nilgiris before shifting residence to Mysore. Occasionally, I do Mysore-centric pieces, perhaps, to justify the dateline.

My Take on Mysore’s Miseries

If Pigs Have a say, They’d sue the Mayor

Importance of being T S Satyan

No Ideas Please, We’re Mysoreans

MATF: Toothless Tiger on a Thorn in the Flesh

MyMysore Dot Com

Davos fascinated me because of its coverage on blogs. It was in a blog, of The New York Times, I read about the ‘India Everywhere’ PR campaign in Davos. As they put it, there were few places (in Davos) one could go to without seeing, hearing, drinking or tasting something Indian. Davos buses carried ads. proclaiming India as the world’s fastest-growing free-market democracy. The cost of such elaborate charm offensive is estimated at $5 million… For More click on Davos for Dummies

Kissa kursi ka (nahi) ?

Sampling from a single day (Jan.25) of politico quotes our media reported faithfully:

Janata Dal (S) is not after power… Mr H D Krishnaswamy, at Kollur Mookambika temple

I am sure that question (Mr Dharam Singh resigning) does not arise…Law and parliamentary affairs minister, Mr H K Patil, to the media in Bangalore.

You have spoilt my reputation ….Mr Deve Gowda to the media in front of his Bangalore residence

He (Deve Gowda) has asked me to tell you to leave. Avoid making him angry……JD(S) spokesman to media persons hanging out in front of Mr Gowda’s residence.

Karnataka regime change and I

I claim no insight into impending regime change in Karnataka. Which enables me to write for Zine5.com, a website focused on creative, rather than fact-filled writing. Besides, it was the TV visuals that had an appeal for me. I was inspired to write on Karnataka regime change after reading about reality TV in Thailand. The TV show - ‘Backstage Show: The PM’ – features Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on a five-day tour of the poorest region in Thailand. The Thai tycoon-turned-politician is seen waving at the camera, talking at village meetings halls, plunging into throngs of villagers, always trailed by 40 cameras.
This post is pure plug for my piece on the Karnataka regime change, which I reckon is a poor-selling reality TV. In my long stint as newspaper reporter I’ve learnt this – you don’t ask politicians sensible questions on camera unless you want silly answers. There was this hotshot reporter on TV who caught up with HDK, Sat. morning, at Bangalore Oberoi, as he was about to bundle off his party loyalists in a luxury bus….Click here, if you care to read more.

It wasn’t Mr Gowda’s day

Haradanahalli Dodde Deve Gowda told The Hindu that Wednesday (Jan.18) was his political life’s ‘saddest day’. I quote him, advisedly, because Mr Gowda could change his mind tomorrow, and say, ‘No, it wasn’t my saddest'. For the benefit of those whose TV set stays always at B4U or some other movie channel, and those who skip Page One and read newspapers only for sports news, I would mention that on Wednesday there was revolt in the Deve Gowda household. One of his sons crossed the Lakshman Rekha drawn by Mr Gowda, and made a pact with his political Ravana to stake his claim to rule Gowda’s Ayodhya.
It was a day of high drama, featuring a deluxe coach ferrying MLAs through rush-hour Bangalore traffic, speeding cars fitted on top with revolving red lights, and a clutch of media mikes thrust at some ‘B’ league political players for kerb-side briefings, as they rushed from one closed-door meeting to another.
Meanwhile, at his Padmanabhanagar home the JD(S) supremo skipped dinner (raagi ball with soppu) and refused to pose for media photographs.

Hurray for a subway ?

No way. That’s what I said when they raised the matter in April last. They are at it again, kite-flying the idea, with a news item that the Mysore civic body’s standing committee on town planning and development has given approval to a pedestrian subway opposite the city bus stand. No blueprint has been prepared. Nor has the cost estimate been worked out. Maybe there is some other basis on which our standing committee gives project approval.
Anyway, a subway, to my mind, is one way we can start heading the ‘Bangalore-way’, in terms of smell, squalor, and the snarls of a big city. To be sure, this wouldn’t be the only subway Mysore would have, if our city corporation is allowed to have its way.
A city subway brings to mind trash and litter, patches of dirt and stain on the flooring and subway walls, and stench (if our sanitation and conservation staff go on strike as routinely as they do). Hawkers and beggers find a subway the most convenient place for business. Well-lit to start with, a subway tends, before long, to have the bulbs stolen and electrical fittings vandalized. Waterlogging wouldn’t be uncommon in a subway after sharp showers.
Our civic body, I gather, is justifiably concerned about traffic congestion. Subway is a solution, if we don’t count the maintenance problems a subway creates. But then, I reckon, our civic body has another standing committee to address problems arising out of creating a subway.

(Click here for the item: ‘A subway? No way’)

Is Mr Ibrahim the source of all ills?

Must say this right away. I don’t know Mr A B Ibrahim well enough to wish him ill. In fact, I haven’t had occasion to meet our city commissioner. But he seems to emerge a no-good guy, if we go by media reports. Says a newspaper, citing an association of concerned and informed citizens, that our city is badly in need of a ‘good’ commissioner and ‘sincere’ officer. And here I am, blissfully ‘uninformed’ about this dire need. What’s worse, I wasn’t aware that Mysoreans were fed up with Mr Ibrahim’s ‘misrule’ (Deccan Herald), and that he stood accused of ‘a series of mistakes, including mismanagement’ (The Hindu).
In a democracy we are all entitled to our opinions (read noises). And we have a hand-out driven media in which anything goes as reportage. I am into citizen journalism. And I have no views, only some naïve questions.
Is Mr Ibrahim the source of everything that has gone wrong in our city? Don’t we have anyone else in authority capable of mucking things up?
Is transfer of the municipal commissioner, if warranted, such a hassle that it calls for people-powered initiatives, such as those of the mayor, our councilors, not to speak of the association of concerned and informed citizens (no less, I guess) ?
Incidentally, does this association speak for the Mysore citizenry? Don’t you think they should really call it A(S)CICM ( ‘S’ for ‘some’ or ‘so-called’) ?
Should postings and transfer of bureaucrats be the concern of an association of citizens, however concerned and well informed they be? Weren’t such things the prerogative of the administration ?

Why I fancy Mr Prasad

I am a fan of Krishna Prasad. He has a flair for picking telling things to write about. And, he really got down to the root of it in his latest Deccan Herald edit-page column. Mr Prasad refers to a screening of ‘Beru’ in Shimoga. The award-winning Kannada film wasn’t evidently much of a hit. The Shimoga show reportedly attracted an audience of two. Yes, there were just two persons in the hall.
It’s the kind item that sets one thinking (now, do you sense why I fancy Mr Prasad?) The column prompted me to read up on ‘Beru’. Must clarify here, I am unfamiliar with the Kannada film scene; am even less familiar with the language. But then the Beru theme is provocative, and you wouldn’t need to know the language to get the drift of storyline. Maybe corruption is a theme about which pretty much everything had been said before, in the media and cinema, but not everyone has said it. What appeals to me about ‘Beru’ is that it’s a co-operative endeavour of Karnataka film artists and technicians. It was Mithra Chitra’s third film, after ‘Munnudi’ and ‘Athithi’.
P Seshadri-directed Beru’ portrays the degradation of values in the bureaucratic system, and the impact on common man, of a corrupt, insensitive and indifferent administration, says R G Vijayasarathy. For more on his Rediff.com review click here.