Desicritics Category: Media: Blog-a-Thon

Barkha Dutt And NDTV, The Joke Is On You!

Sandeep — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:54:51 EST

So Chyetanya Kunte is the latest victim of media intimidation. I'm not going to rehash the same excellent points made by other bloggers. Here's a partial list:

NDTV's Assault on Free Speech (the best)

When 'free speech' bears a price tag

Shame on NDTV and Barkha Dutt

A bedtime story about blog freedom

Throw the Constitution Away

The Indian media--specifically, television ranks at the top for its King-sized conceit. It bulldozes its way into people's tragedies and increasingly, sees itself as the final arbiter of national justice. Its anchors assault the ears 24/7 with nothing but meaningless shrillery under the illusion that loudness=news. Its talk shows are crude exercises in self-aggrandizement. However, all these traits don't even measure up to even a knee-length of Barkha Dutt epitomizes. There's no better proof for this than the fact that a Facebook Group (Can u please take BARKHA off air!) is dedicated to her. It is by far one of the most popular groups there with over 4500 members and about 900 posts in just over a month!

Barkha Dutt owes her heady taste of fame to her "reporting" during the Kargil war. Ignoring the controversy surrounding her actual role in the reporting, she was made out to be a bigger hero than the valiant soldiers that fought in the war. I recall reading some review that Preity Zinta's unconvincing histrionics in Lakshya was modelled after Barkha. However, for Barkha, there was no looking back after Kargil. Today she stands almost unchallenged in both fame and skill at compensating incompetence with loudmouthedness. She spins self-righteous yarns about free speech and media-professional hazards when her nonchalant reporting style is criticized. You tend to normally ignore such yarn because she has to defend her actions, etc. But then, you should sit up and give it back when she goes beyond that. In a shocking display of arrogance and strong-arm tactics, she has threatened legal action against blogger Chyetanya Kunte for voicing his opinion about her "shoddy journalism" which is what her antics on 26/11 were. Chyetanya was forced to take down his post thanks to NDTV's threat.

Neither is this the first instance. Remember Mediaah, which was shut down thanks to a similar legal threat by TOI (aside: read an excellent piece on the whole episode). Or the infamous IIPM online hooliganism that threatened to choke Rashmi Bansal's (also Gaurav Sabnis') right to freedom of speech? Despite all this, the Indian media just doesn't get it. Here's the thing beautifully articulated:

The success of [The Times'] case depends wholly on the hope that Maheshwari will not fight back against a gargantuan media conglomerate," said Rohit Gupta, a freelance writer and engineer in Mumbai. "That's where the Times of India reveals its ignorance of changing times and the nature of the blogosphere. Maheshwari does not need to fight this himself -- this concerns the freedom of all bloggers from Indian origin, so we will fight the battle for him."[...] "The Times of India has simply shown how far they've come from being a respectable newspaper to being a common school bully. If bloggers can collaborate to provide humanitarian assistance for the greatest natural disaster the living world has seen, they can certainly tackle the Times of India, a man-made ethical disaster.

Which takes us back to the same question: why do they hate us so much? From India Today to TOI to Outlook and now NDTV, the media has on numerous occasions ranted against bloggers with undisguised contempt, which stems from their appalling ignorance of what blogging is all about. Their typical terms for bloggers: brash, 20-something, angry, furious, seething, venting, cyber-Cinderellas, pretentious, and the like. Is this because they feel somehow threatened? Or is it because some bloggers write far better prose, articulate opinions way better than many so-called mainstream observers and columnists? Or is it because bloggers are unconstrained by word-limit, editorial stance, or business interests? For all their ire against bloggers, the media doesn't hesitate to steal content from bloggers. Here's a lovely post that chronicles this plagiarism (scroll down till you reach this: Indian Media Plagiarizing from Bloggers [or, bloggers highlighting cases of MSM misdeeds]). TOI leads the pack in this plagiarism, the selfsame TOI that sent the self-righteous legal notice to Mediaah didn't seem to examine the crap in its own backyard. There's yet another angle to this. In the breath that they rant against bloggers, most of these media houses have their own blogs, or have set up a blog service on their sites--TOI, IBN, Indian Express, and the now-defunct blog service from NDTV. The main reason I think, for the Indian media's angst against the blogsphere is the fact that till blogging caught popular imagination, media houses were used to their monopoly over news and opinion--they were virtually unchallenged--any "letters to the editor" that didn't toe their byline were simply not published. Now that bloggers on a colossal scale have begun to call their bluff, their fragile sensibilities have taken a severe blow. While they strut around invading people's privacy, and making grand pronouncements at random on everybody, they need to understand that freedom of speech is not their exclusive privilege. People will exercise the same right upon them. Patrix puts it beautifully:

When the reporter becomes the reported, it is usually time to take a closer look at your life and wonder what happened.

However, if bloggers can sit alone at their keyboards, type out their honest opinions, and network with each other on noble causes, they can also fight back against such strong-arm tactics. In this, they're far more courageous than the media, which infamously crawled when asked to bend. I'm sorry, but Barkha Dutt and her NDTV team cannot gag my right to free speech on the pretext of protecting her right to free speech. If I don't like a newspaper, I won't buy it and I'll say why I don't like it. The newspaper cannot sue me for that. While we're on the subject, since NDTV is listed on the Stock Exchange, how about selling its shares if you have bought any?

What's next, Barkha Dutt and NDTV, are you going to sue the entire Indian blogsphere, and Facebook?

Technorati Tags: Barkha Dutt's Strong arm Tactics,NDTV's Strong arm Tactics,Bad PR for NDTV,NDTV Threatens Blogger,Chyetanya Kunte is Threatened,NDTV tries to Gag Freedom of Speech,Media Watch,Indian Media,Media Tomfoolery

Kindling The E-Book Revolution

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:53:07 EDT

In the dim and distant past, I have used the Palm Pilot as well as the Sony Clie before as my e-book reader but after having moved to a Blackberry which did my PDA bits, I never could get back to getting an e-book reader. In an ideal situation, if the Blackberry can give me Windows functionality, a very good camera (5-6 MP) and some kind of e-book reader capability, I would be happy. Just one device to carry around, but in the meantime, I either had to read on my laptop or on my home pc.

But recently, on holiday in the USA, I was gifted an Amazon Kindle by my brother-in-law and his sister. This is one of the best gifts one could have hoped for and I immediately started drooling over it.

The Kindle comes in an attractive box, it looks like a book itself. Nice packaging. Something that you can easily plonk into your bookshelf without any issues, looks pretty neat, those letters and symbols floating around?

The package is clipped closed with a rubber band and opening it shows you the kindle on the right and a storage compartment on the left which contains the leather case, the charger, USB cord and the manual.

Took it out, charged it up (see the white charger? shades of Apple?). This was in the USA and I have an amazon.com account. So when I powered it up, it asked me for my amazon.com account, put that in and viola, I was up and running.

Can you see the little round button on the right hand side? looks like a wheel? It is a wheel and click mouse. The lone channel on top of the wheel with a small silver pointer running up and down is the main guidance mechanism. Pressing it brings up a context sensitive menu, you can go to the Kindle Store (I am in the UK, so the wireless network doesnt work, but in the UK, you can subscribe to newspapers, blogs, magazines and the lot, brilliant stuff).

It seamlessly connected to the Amazon.com website via the wireless cellular link, showed me my purchases and recommendations, and so on and so forth.

I did a download for my son and it was again seamless, a chapter came down, he read it and it was quite easy.

As I would be in the UK, I would not be able to connect wirelessly, so have to do the USB business. So I connected to Many Books, a site with free books in kindle and mobipocket format books and downloaded the top 10.

Here's the Count of Monte Cristo e-book. Pretty crisp to read. There are 2 buttons on the right, for next page and back. On the left, there are 2 buttons, back page and next page.

You can change the text size, this is the default big ass size, which I reduced as soon as I could. The battery life is amazing. I have been carrying it around for the past week in India without charging and have read it for about 15 hours now, and the charge meter has rarely shifted. Oh! yes, I did have a problem with it, it froze at one point. But being a good old windows user for a long period of time, simply opened the kindle's back flap, got out my trusted paper clip and gave the reset button a damn good shove. Obviously nothing happened. Still frozen. So swore at it, banged it on the desk, prayed to Ganesh, poked the reset button for 5 seconds and it worked.

I have downloaded the mobipocket creater to convert my e-library to the mobipocket format. The Kindle comes with 200MB of built in memory which is good enough for about 100-150 books, I guess. I have a few CDs full of scanned and downloaded and free and gifted and every weekend, there is a pleasurable time reading and converting those books. There is also a slot for an SD card, where you can store music and additional books if you need, although I dont see the need for it. I use my mobile phone to listen to music.

All in all, a very neat device, very hardworking and rugged (have dropped it, travelled with it jammed in my backpack for 1 week, swore at it, read it in the bog and in the dusty environs of Gurgaon, no problems) and is quite well readable in all angles and lighting.

And yes, you can read this in the bath, you have to be careful, of course, dont drop the thing into the bath, but then, you would not do that to a paper book either, would you? Some drops of water did splash on it, but a simple wipe took care of that. Only quibble? It just doesn't smell the same, but you can annotate and clip away to glory..

Oh!, the screen saver is just brilliant, the images that it throws up are very amazing, old authors, old wood cut impressions of printing presses, exotic and strange word definitions, very good. Good first impression. Anybody who is a logophile and/or a bibliophile would love this.

Technorati Tags: Bibliophilia, Logophilia, Kindle, Reviews

Bangalore Bloggers Meet And the 'Blogaloreans'

Kishore — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:33:20 EDT

"We take your fun seriously". The caption of BrewHaha was apt to describe the meeting of Bangalore Bloggers. Over forty bloggers from varied professional backgrounds, some with a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (one of them actually queued at Blossoms even before the sun rose for the day) tucked under their arms and a jubilant smirk on their face, made themselves comfortable over bean bags, low-rise chairs, carpets and designer pillows that flanked across the floor at BrewHaHa on a bright Saturday afternoon.

It was exciting to see a number of faces hitherto known only by the words in their blogs, including a number of fellow Desicritics. Some of them had suggestions for the Biz/Tech section (me being the section editor) on how we could cover more technological tit-bits and further enrich the section.

The enthusiasm was apparent and before any time lapsed we got into business with a quick round of introductions. Suddenly we began speaking another common language - the language of corporate India - where Mocha Frappes and Cappuccinos meant 'Have a good afternoon'. The coffee cups began making their rounds as the bloggers – now christened Blogaloreans – went about our stuff.

Blogging is not just a phenomenon. From the days of daily rants, blogging has evolved into a major medium of communication and information exchange that is determined to harness its power to make a difference in whatever ways it can. A few of the bloggers shared their ideas of a Web NGO, Wings – an initiative to help differently enabled individuals take up adventure sports, and a number of other ideas most of which would be formally discussed in the upcoming BarCamp.

The primary aim of the meet was to nail down a list of topics to be discussed in the Bloggers Collective at the BarCamp at IIM-B campus, scheduled for the coming weekend (28th, 29th July). The following are some of the topics.

1. Technical tips for non-technical bloggers
2. What do you Blog about?
3. Social responsibility of a blogger
4. Copyrights and Censorship in blogging
5. IT Laws
6. Mainstream Media versus Blogging
7. Corporate Blogging

These topics are indicative and as is the spirit of BarCamps there would be more of it. I will be co-moderating a proposed debate on Mainstream Media versus Blogging.

This is also the first formal attempt to form a professional community of bloggers in Bangalore. Arun, one of the organizer of the BarCamp conveyed to us that they have formalized certain points with IIM-B for conducting the Bangalore BarCamp every four months in its campus.

This support from the academia and the enthusiasm of the bloggers is sure to take us a long way making this a socially responsible global phenomenon that would not hesitate to raise its voice through this powerful medium and make a difference whenever it matters. And BarCamps are important events to make it happen.

Bangalore BarCamp and Bloggers Meet Unplanned

Kishore — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:17:08 EDT

From the days of just owning a tiny personal space on the vast Internet where one searches for a trivial gratification with his daily rants, blogging has evolved into not just a major medium of information exchange, but also a closely knit community in itself. A tiny glitch somewhere within this community doesn't escape the fiery eyes of the co-Bloggers, joining together and standing up to brave the force. Well, ask the Indian Government that had to eat its words and cry through its nose less than 24 hours after naive attempts to ban the blogs.

The blogosphere is today an ecosystem in itself that fosters open communication, discussion and collaboration, and to forge personal and professional relationships. Various blogging communities have been organization informal meets giving them a chance to meet people who they've hitherto known only through words.

But over the past year, there have been attempts to formalize the interactions so that such communities can be enriched further and work collectively for common causes.

On these lines, a few bloggers have volunteered to organize a Bangalore Bloggers Meet this Saturday.

Date: July 21
Venue: BrewHaHa
Near Jyoti Nivas College,
Koramangala

Anybody interested in taking part or helping in organizing the meet, edit the exclusive wiki setup for the meet and add yourselves.

This meet is a prelude to the big one coming up next week - The Bangalore BarCamp 4 (or BCB4 as it is affectionately called) to be held on 28th and 29th of July at IIM Bangalore. The BarCamp will be unplanned, in the sense that there will be no pre-planned sessions or fixed slots, anyone can form a Collective and discuss what suits their fancy. Or just show up and join in with whatever's going on.

Visit the Bloggers Collective of the BarCamp and register yourselves.

This is just the beginning of a series of events that are being planned. The following are the next few events coming up in Chennai.

Proto.in on July 21st and 22nd
BlogCamp on September 1st and 2nd
SearchCamp on October 5th and 6th

Details about them will be made available as and when they are announced. Please do participate in as many of the events as you can, so we take the blogging phenomenon from being an "online journal" thing into a society that makes a difference.

Sunday Slug Fest: Anantha Murthy and Bhyrappa

Sandeep — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 01:19:41 EDT

This was waiting to happen:

Prof U R Ananthamurthy has declared he will not take part in literary functions in future.

The decision came in the wake of strong criticism for his reaction on S L Bhyrappa's controversial novel Aavarana that appeared in a section of the media. Prof Ananthamurthy said he was "misquoted" and in the wake of strong criticism of his comments, decided not to take part in any literary functions.

Not Ananthamurthy's decision but his criticism of S L Bhyrappa.

This episode is a good jolt to shake off my sloth and post my thoughts on S L Bhyrappa's (latest) Aavarana.

Ever since Vamsha Vruksha propelled him to literary fame, every new Bhyrappa book is eagerly awaited by thousands of Kannada readers. Aavarana broke new ground purely in terms of its commercial success when it was published in February this year. It clocked three successive reprints in about two weeks, an astounding record in the small market for Kannada novels.

That however, is not Anantha Murthy's ire. And neither is his tirade against Bhyrappa recent. It is about three decades young.

Aavarana alternates between contemporary, and Aurangzeb's India. Its technique is similar to the familiar play-in-a-play in dramatics. The protagonist is a Hindu lady who converts to Islam post-marriage. She visits her father's house upon his death, and discovers his seemingly-sudden interest in studying Islam and its various encounters with India. Up to that point, she is a progressive feminist, schooled in the JNU version of the history of India.

Her studies lead her to question the history she was schooled in. Among other characters in the book is Professor Shastri, who hails from the same village and is her long-time mentor. He distinguishes himself by his staunch commitment to Leftism, fierce intellect, wiliness, intimacy with politicians, and a capacity to generate limitless funds.

Professor Shastri resembles U R Anantha Murthy in real life--complete with the Socialist beard.

Anantha Murthy is no stranger to my blog. He is vocally clear about his Communist sympathies. His Beijing Diary (?) records eyewitness events--in Kannada--during his stay at Beijing when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened. That travelogue has not a single word of reproof against the Chinese government's savagery.

Anantha Murthy's fame as a wire-puller is legendary. From securing appointments to Vice Chancellorships to chairmanships of various cultural boards to bagging the Jnanapith to obtaining free land doled out by the government, he has done it all. Interestingly, when he secured prime land in Dollars Colony when J.H. Patel was heading Karnataka, fellow-travellers like G.K. Govinda Rao yelled murder. Murthy it seems, is skillful in spotting well-ahead which way the road bends.

From a revolution-mongering Communist, he has been spotted recently with Dalit/backward class leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge.

Anantha Murthy's fame as a littérateur rests on just Samskara. A survey of his entire literary corpus yields mediocre harvest. His non-fiction is varied, insightful and at times, original. In his heydays, he dominated the entire Kannada Navya literary movement with Gopala Krishna Adiga, a phenomenon that S L Bhyrappa records in his autobiography, Bhitti.

The Navya movement in one massive surge, uprooted the likes of DVG, Masti, Bendre, and others who drew from ancient Indian philosophy and values. It imposed a confused melange of existentialism, socialism, communism and other intellectual diseases that plagued the West at that time. It sought to introduce alien experiences in Kannada literature. It sought to prop up its popularity using spurious devices like publishing only favourable literary reviews.

Rebellion naturally followed. More outspoken writers like P. Lankesh walked out on the Adiga-Ananthamurthy clique and started the parallel Dalit/Bandaya literary movement. The Navya movement for what it is worth died soon.

S L Bhyrappa was the lone dissenter belonging to no camp. A PhD in Philosophy, he sought to find his roots in ancient Indian philosophy. His doctoral dissertation entitled Satya Mattu Soundarya (Truth and Beauty) explores complex relationships between truth, ethics, beauty, art, existence, and philosophy. Bhyrappa's celebrated novels are founded on a strong Hindu philosophical base. The author was inspired by Ananda Coomaraswamy, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi, the Upanishads, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita in his formative years.

A few literary critics focus on the Rasa element present in his works. When Vamsha Vruksha heralded his arrival on the Kannada literary stage, expected reactions erupted. The progressives called it colourful names: reaffirming Brahminical tyranny, retrograde, regressive, and backward. But the novel was wildly successful among critics and laymen alike. It earned Bhyrappa the permanent loyalty of a large base of devoted readers, something Anantha Murthy was unable to manage despite critics' encomiums.

As a curious coincidence, Vamsha Vruksha and Samskara were published at around the same time. The former examines changing values and mores at the threshold of an era from the perspective of a devout Sanatani (the protagonist of Vamsha Vruksha). Samskara seeks to show the futility of upholding traditional Indian values in the face of an undefined--at best, a crudely defined--modernism.

Further coincidence: Bhyrappa's Daatu and Murthy's Bharatipura were published at around the same time. Read Daatu if you want to understand caste in India. Bhyrappa won the Sahitya Akademi for the work. Bharatipura however, is a mere cut-and-paste job. Its overt anti-Brahminism is based on flimsy grounds. In a critique titled, Anantha Murthy's Literary Integrity (rough translation), Bhyrappa provides a firm rebuttal to Bharatipura.

Bhyrappa details the inner workings of the Kannada literary world in his autobiography, Bhitti. In the book, he provides evidence to back his claims for how Anantha Murthy tried to sabotage his novels, most notably his magnum opus, Parva. A frequent tactic that Anantha Murthy employed in order to discredit Bhyrappa's novels was to term them "popular novels" as opposed to "books with literary merit."

In Murthy's view, literary classics were those that the critics whetted their approval on. This tactic was convenient because the Kannada literary world then, was in the firm grip of the Navya writers. The theory of literary criticism ever since Independence has steadily accelerated towards the Western model. Too few critics today know--or even care to learn--about Indian literary theories of Rasa, Dhwani, Bhava and so on.

The dichotomy of "literary value" vs "popular novels" is both contrived and false. "Literary worth" is not the monopoly of a gifted few. A true classic has universal appeal that is at the same time timeless. Most epics belong to this category. Bhyrappa's Parva and Tanthu embody this epic element in them. At best, Anantha Murthy's attacks are cheap efforts to dissuade the public from reading Bhyrappa's books. On that count, Murthy's much-praised Samskara rests on dishonest premises as Bhyrappa notes in Bhitti.

Murthy characterizes the protagonist, Praneshacharya as a Brahmin scholar who had mastered Hindu Dharmashastras for 12 years in Kashi. Yet, he marries a diseased woman on the premise of finding fulfillment by serving her. She is unable to have sex with Praneshacharya, effectively ending his lineage. However, one of the fundamental goals of marriage, according to Hindu Dharmashastras is to perpetuate one's genealogy. If the wife is unable to conceive at all, the husband can marry again for the express purpose of having children but he should treat the first wife with due honour and respect.

Anantha Murthy's Praneshacharya essentially seeks salvation through suffering, a purely Christian concept. Bhyrappa questions Murthy's integrity in mischaracterizing a whole system of philosophy and value system. In addition, we could accept Murthy's premise if Praneshacharya was an unlearned Priest but not when he is explicitly described as a scholar in Dharmashastras. But then, Praneshacharya's characterization makes sense if you remember that Murthy wrote his books for the Western audience.

Given this record, Murthy shines more splendidly as a lobbyist and politician than as a litterateur. All lobbyists and politicians are fine specimens to caricature. Neither has Bhyrappa caricatured him in Aavarana alone. Anantha Murthy briefly figures as Hari Shankar Prasad in Tantu. However, he is both easily identifiable, and more prominent in Aavarana than in Tantu.

Because Aavarana uncovers the gory extent of Aurangzeb's--and Islamic--brutality, it has delivered a blow where it hurts the most: to Aurangzeb, the darling of the secularists. Understandably, Aavarana opened to stoic silence from the secularists' quarter followed by few opposing murmurs. Local Kannada rags called it the "textbook of the Saffronites," "dangerous," "divisive," "communal" and the rest. No "noted" writer wrote anything about it. Till a book release function where Anantha Murthy spoke about Aavaranada Anaavarana (The unravelling of Aavarana) for its "critical analysis" of Aavarana.

"Bhyrappa does not know either Hindu religion or the art of story-telling. He is only a debater," says Anantha Murthy. "He does not go beyond his opinions. He constructs the plot and selects characters only to suit his opinions and end up as a debater, rather than a creative writer."

The skies opened up instantly. Vijaya Karnataka reports (free subscription to access the link; the report is in Kannada) that it received more than 2000 responses condemning Anantha Murthy's "insolence."

This grand drama ended predictably. Anantha Murthy claimed

...he was "misquoted" and in the wake of strong criticism of his comments, decided not to take part in any literary functions.

He said, "This will be my last literary function. Henceforth, I will confine my interaction regarding literature with my close associates. However, he said he will continue to participate in political debates.

Standard secularist response. When cornered...

Blogging and Bias in Mainstream Media

Sandeep — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:09:43 EDT

A Personal Journey

When I was new to blogging, there was much to know and write about. I was serious about what I wrote. I read all I could find. I dug offline for information to support and validate what I wrote. I devoted a few hours each day to learn stuff if that learning was only to defend my position. Blogging has doubtless educated and enriched my life. In a way, it helped me discover what I was most passionate about.

Then something changed.

I no longer read news and articles on the Internet like before. I've been struck by either a severe strain of cynicism or my spirit has withered. Okay, that was my dramatic best.

My incessant hollering about sodomies such as pseudo secularism have begun to sound pointless to me. I even contemplate shutting my blog down.

Version 1.0 of my blog was a disorderly heap of assorted links and disjointed muddles of bombastic text dripping with adjectives. Now read the previous sentence again.

I hadn't the faintest clue about post-1947 Indian politics. My half-baked brain idolized people I now classify under Pseudo Secularism Hall of Shame. Blogging transformed that permanently. It taught me that the coin has two sides. That there's something really deep behind the dreaded Hindu Fundamentalism. That India actually needs to revert to the fundamentals of Hinduism - Hindu Fundamentalism is one of the finest contemporary political oxymorons - to regain its primacy in the world. That the Indian media is lazy, dishonest, and actually curbs free speech. Which is where Varsha Bhosle steps in.

Not a Tribute

My intent isn't to euologize Varsha but to illustrate how even seemingly-balanced media houses play truant. I owe a great deal to her because she challenged my set convictions on several topics and changed the way I thought about things. That gave my blog its current reputation.

I admired her fearlessness bordering on effrontery. I have had serious fun reading especially, her jibes and factual rejoinders to others who challenged her articles.

Rediff didn't take long to dump her. But her combative response is characteristic:

Actually, you've got my so-called ploy all wrong. However, I don't expect guys with your mentality to understand that.
You'll be pleased to know that you 'secularists' have a successful and time-tested way of tackling free speech: I am no longer writing for Rediff since its top honcho, Ajit Balakrishnan (also involved with discredited SABRANG communications Communalism Combat), finds me 'very inflammatory.' That's surely something to rejoice over. Yes, please do post my comments on your newsgroup.

Her articles towards the end were increasingly harsh and sometimes, contumely. But they also were painfully factual.

Varsha has vanished since June 2003. To my knowledge, she's not written for other papers - which mainstream paper would touch her? I haven't seen either her messages on forums or her comments on message boards or blogs.

Which validates my original point. Claims of seamless information on the Internet doesn't really apply in the Indian context. The web site of Indian Express or Hindustan Times still publishes the same half-truths and lies. I doubt if it would touch Varsha in its online edition even if she toned her language. To that extent, the fate of opposing voices remains the same. The influence of blogs is almost zero in Indian public discourse. A seemingly-neutral portal like Rediff dumped her but it has thankfully retained Rajeev Srinivasan and Aravind Lavakere. A Subash Kak or Rajiv Malhotra also get space to write there. A staggering majority of Indians don't have Internet access, which effectively bars them from turning the coin to see the other side. The mainstream media retains its stranglehold on information.

The other side of the coin briefly, is that Sanatana Dharma faces a new assault and newer forms of assault everyday. That news is either wholly censored or reported partially or worse, misreported. My post earlier today is a good example of misreporting.

Lastly, the ugly fuss over Reservations is from a wider perspective, one of the most comprehensive onslaughts aimed at the heart of Sanatana Dharma. The most distressing element is it is engineered from within. I'll need a separate post to explain that.

Look out for Varsha's new articles till then. If she's allowed to publish them. And let's thank Rediff for retaining her archives.

Movie Review: Mungaru Male

Sandeep — Thu, 5 Apr 2007 05:54:45 EDT

I finally watched the movie that's sent the whole of Karnataka into a tizzy. I'm glad I watched Mungaru Male.The best things in life are often simple. Mungaru Male's simplicity is its success secret: when was the last time you saw the Sold Out sign for a Kannada film in an upmarket theatre like PVR for the 10 PM show?

Note: Some spoilers ahead

I don't remember the last time I went to a theatre to watch a Kannada film for obvious reasons: a title like Gunna is enough to put you off. I decided to watch Mungaru Male more out of curiosity: there must be something in a movie that's running to packed houses more than four months since its release.

The storyline though, is straightforward and almost hackneyed. Aimless rich boy, Ganesh, falls in love with cute girl Sanjana Gandhi, pursues her, and finds she's the daughter of a family friend. He stays at her house, and discovers that her wedding is a week away. He endears himself to her family all the while battling his feelings. The girl reciprocates two days before the wedding date. They decide to elope. Watch what happens next on the screen.

So what made this film a monster hit? In one word: screenplay.

Mungaru Male literally means pre-monsoon rain. From a cultural standpoint, pre-mosoon rain holds a special, unique significance in Karnataka. It is typically identified with the densely-thicketed areas of Malnad, stretching all the way to Coorg. The pre-monsoon rain is usually celebrated in much the same way as Spring is celebrated in Europe. In the Malnad region, the pre-monsoon rain is usually fierce. A couple of such rain spells, and you see the colour returning to the lush greenery there.

Kannada romantic poetry abounds with references to mungaru male. It is the season of tenderness, and the season when love sprouts. And this is precisely what Mungaru Male brings to life on screen.

Mungaru Male is one of the really rare movies that has used the rain metaphor from start till end. It sets the mood for the entire film, takes hold of you and never lets you go. Even after you walk out of the cinema hall. Unsurprisingly, the most effective scenes of the film are shot in rain with some great landscapes in the background. The best example of this is when a drunk Ganesh pours out his feelings to Sanjana. The rain has thinned down, the sky is a depressed ash, and the large lake in the background is similarly coloured. The scene is intense with superb histrionics by Ganesh. Yogaraj Bhat, who has written the screenplay, brings out several layers in this scene.

For a romance movie, Mungaru Male moves at an amazing pace. Yogaraj Bhatt, also the director, sustains suspense in every scene. He has also written the dialogues, which are pretty breezy and set in a highly casual tone. It takes a special talent to express your hurt in a casual manner: no yelling, hair-pulling, or chest-beating. Ganesh says this with a smile but it stuns you with its intensity:

Nang gottaghoytu ri neev nang sigalla yaakandre nann time kharaab aagide...time ketthodre tale kerkondru taleli gaaya aagi gaaya cancer aagi doctor tale ne tegi beku antaare...antadrall naanu...ee hrudya...heart antaaralla adann kai haakond para para para anta kerkond bittideenri...prema devate ri neevu...tumba novv aagutte...male...male nintre kanneer kaanutte nachke aagutte

Perhaps the most unexpected moment of the film is its climax, one of the realistically best endings I've seen in a long time.

Ganesh who graduated from a TV-show anchor to a "hero" walks away with all the acting honours. His timing is one of the highlights of his performance. It is evident that comedy is his forte but he has excelled in emotional scenes as well. The drunk scene, and the scene where he spontaneously lays his head on his mother's lap are heart rending. Anant Nag as Sanjana's father is his evergreen self. Another great sequence is when he confesses his terminal illness to Ganesh.

It is moments like these that make Mungaru Male special and memorable.

Music is definitely another highlight of the movie. Of the seven songs, I liked just Anisutide yaako and the title track. However, Aralutiru Jeevada Geleya (the sad version of Anisutide yaako) has superb lyrics although Shreya Ghoshal could've rendered it better.

Hakkiyu haadide thanna hesaranu helade
Sampige beeride kampanu yaarigu kelade
Beesuva gaaliya hakkiya haadina nantige hesarina hangilla

and

Maathige meerida bhaavada selethave sundara
Nalumeyu thumbida manasige baaradu besara
Baala daariyali bere yaadaru chandira baruvanu namma jothe
Kaanuvenu avanalle ninnane

Very simple and profound at the same time. Jayant Kaikini reminds us of the legendary Chi Udayashankar in this song.

Mano Murthy, who gave us the lilting Nooru Janmaku has only outdone himself in Mungaru Male. Full marks to Sonu Nigam for Anisutide especially. He has sung it with the appropriate Bhava (feeling, emotion), which is a tough task for a singer who doesn't know the language. More so, a song loaded with tender feelings.

Dialogues deserve a second mention here because they're powerful in their simplicity:

Yeno Devdasa, life alli modalne saari ista pattu ondh mombathi hachidhe, male huydbidtu...

Ee mungaru maleli istondh benki idhe antha gothirlilla devdaasa

The cinematography is just mindblowing. The cameraman's hard work shows in the scintillating landscapes of Coorg and Malnad although there's a factual error. Most of the movie is set in Coorg but Sanjana chooses to confess her love to Ganesh standing on the edge of Jog Falls. There's no explanation how they got there because the journey from Coorg to Jog Falls is considerable. But the lovely camera work more than compensates for this factual error.

All right, I'm heavily biased in favour of Mungaru Male. This is by no means a "balanced" review. Nor did I intend it to be. The film has its drawbacks but its positives outweigh the drawbacks by light years. Name just three Kannada films over the past 10 years that use a metaphor. Or any other subtlety. Speaking of which, Yogaraj Bhat excels in adopting an excellent symbolism in the film. In the form of a rabbit. Nicknamed Devdas, Ganesh first discovers the rabbit at roadside. He adopts it, and makes it his accomplice to woo Sanjana. The rabbit symbolizes Ganesh's quest from start to end. Its death mirrors Ganesh's fate. Its burial near the tip of the Jog Falls is equally consistent with the shaping of events in the movie, and symbolic, again. The death of Devdas is intensely moving.

Ultimately, Mungaru Male appeals because everybody recognizes in it, something common to their own experiences of falling in/out of love. The way it is told makes the difference: the tenor is casually intimate, like the small bits of routine conversation among friends that metamorphose into fond memories to be recalled long after the conversation is over, and when the friends are no longer physically in touch. The movie has a lingering quality, which makes you want to watch it again, for the experience that it gives you. That partly explains why the movie is running to packed houses even today. A huge chunk is repeat audience. Little wonder that rumour mills have already declared this as the biggest grosser in Kannada cinema history. A whole blog has been dedicated to the movie. Wikipedia also has an entry on the film.

To me however, Mungaru Male will remain one of the finest pieces of poetry on celluloid.

Plagiarism: Desi Food Bloggers Take On Yahoo! India And Win

DesiGirl — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 02:23:54 EST

March 5 was a big day in the desi blogosphere; on that day, a horde of desi bloggers took on that giant named Yahoo! (India) and toppled it. Three cheers for these strong women!

What had happened was this: these enterprising yummy ladies have set up some fantastic food blogs, complete with great pictures of some mouth-watering creations. One of them, Mahanandi even won the IndiBloggers award for the Best Food Blog! If you see her blog, you'd know why - fantastic pictures, simplistic instructions the most inept cook can follow and some great recipes are what this food blog comprises of. The blogger, Indira, obviously takes great pains with her content and its authenticity.

But one of the foodie bloggers, Surya Gayathri, got a rude shock one day when she discovered that Yahoo! had pilfered images and content from her blog and posted it on the Yahoo! website - with no permission and certainly no acknowledgment. This tale of woe was narrated by fellow foodie bloggers Indira and Inji Pennu.

What this plucky bunch did next is super: they got round all their friends and used the power of the blogosphere to gun down the mighty Yahoo! They started a 'Remove Plagiarism' campaign, which quickly gathered momentum and on March 5th, staged an online protest.

One has to just click the links above to see how many people joined them in this protest. The blogs also put up some nifty cartoons to drive the message home. It is no wonder that Yahoo! quickly capitulated and ended with egg on their faces. They retracted their filched recipes and sent an apology to Surya Gayathri.

Of course, they used the time-tested defense of pointing the finger at some other partner website.

The reproduction of the recipes, which were taken from a blog in Malayalam run by a housewife in Kerala, in Southern India, sparked an online protest among bloggers.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said the reproduction of the content was inadvertent and blamed the incident on a company it hired to develop content for its Web site, Webdunia.com (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Yahoo! is not the only site to go down the filching route to beef up its content. According to these bloggers, sites like Sify, Bawarchi and other food websites are not above lifting the images and using the content to suit their purposes.

This win hasn't come easy for these bloggers. When first notified of this content theft, Yahoo! reacted by deleting the offending content and hoping that no one would notice. When that didn't work, the bloggers say the tactics took a turn for the worse:

they [sent] their trolls, insulting many bloggers out there who supported us, very well knowing, we are 'Indian girls', we cannot stomach insults and we would cow down! I haven't read so much filth which were put as 'comments' in my entire life. It caused me a lot of pain and anger and tears, especially when I saw the same type of filthy comments on couple of my friends blogs too! I [at] one time even thought of just disappearing from it all. It was that bad.

When that failed and news of the March 5th protest reached Yahoo!, apparently they tried to have a mini discussion with a select few. Bloggers like Inji Pennu stayed away from this and went on with their mega protest - and won!

This is definitely a big win for these spunky ladies and for us bloggers as well, who have been victims of plagiarism before. The precedent has been set and I can safely say, with due apologies to Neil Armstrong, that 'this is one small step for a woman but a giant leap for bloggers'.

But the reality is, these bloggers may have won the battle but the war is far from over. Combing through Yahoo! content, many more instances of such pilfered content can apparently be found, dotted across the website. It seems that we have barely scratched the surface of this copyright issue.

How are we bloggers to protect our content? Can anyone tell?

Edited to add: According to the latest blurb from Mahanandi, Indira's blog, Surya Gayathri hasn't received a personal apology from Yahoo! Furthermore, there are more instances of content and image theft by several Yahoo portals. So, these bloggers have decided to up the ante. Visit their discussion board at Dining Hall to join them in their protest.

Textbook Controversies: A Rejoinder to Diganta

Sandeep — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:07:04 EST

This interesting post on Desicritics seeks to examine the controveries surrounding the rewriting of, or the politicizing of history textbooks by governments around the world. Diganta, the author of the article digs up several interesting findings related to this controversy. I'm not knowledgeable enough about textbook controversies around the world.

The controversy around Indian history textbooks however, is an area I have observed closely for more than five years.

The controversy actually became a...well, controversy when Arun Shourie's Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, and Their Fraud was published in 1998.

Eminent Historians actually awakened a whole generation of Indians to the fact that accurate history-writing is crucially important for a nation to preserve its faith in itself. The book itself deals with several scandal-worthy episodes in the professional and private lives of a group of historians who had formed a clique and highly recommended each others' works. These worthies called each other "eminent" historians--hence the title. But that is just by the way.

What is significant is Arun Shourie's questioning of their credibility as historians fundamentally, much less scholars. The facts that emerge are interesting: we find is that all of these were invariably Marxists, who used Marxism to "interpet" Indian history. None of them had any knowledge of Sanskrit, yet wrote several tomes about Vedic civilization. They whitewashed the brutal record of Islamic invasion and reversed the roles of victim and oppressor. When challenged on factual, they resorted to ad hominem attacks.

Romila Thapar led this group as a sort of leader.

Which is why Diganta's post both amused and appalled me. Apart from the sheer one-sidedness and gross factual inexactitudes in his post, his research comes across as flimsy:

Historian Romila Thapar pointed out correctly, "it wants to "project a unified, continuous Indian identity where Aryanism, encapsulated in the culture of the Vedas and the upper castes, is the major cultural expression of India." [Ed: removed some formatting]

No serious scholar will still try to hold on to Aryan Invasion, Aryanism, etc except "historians" like Romila Thapar. One can even excuse Thapar because the Aryan Invasion Theory is the foundation her whole career rests upon. And that is exactly why ad hominems prove handy: any talk dismissing the Aryan Invasion/migration can be easily beaten with the "BJP/RSS-agent" stick. That is exactly what Diganta does in his (her?) post, too.

Related Links on Aryan Invasion: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate | Aryans and Ideology | The Aryan Invasion Theory and Scholarship

Diganta states that he (she?) was

...involved in a research project on textbooks worldwide and the ways in which they are taught in schools.

One would perhaps understand if this post was made by a layman with limited access to resources but not to a researcher. It seems to me that Diganta has focussed on just on one side of the issue. This glaring omission is evident in his assertions about the BJP, and Romila Thapar. If I let that go, I find it hard to accept Diganta's credentials as a researcher in the Shankaramurthy debate (with which he opens the post). One, because it is very recent and two, because the debate revealed the true picture of Tipu Sultan and the politics of history surrounding him. I refer to novelist S.L Bhyrappa's detailed reaffirmation of Tipu as a mass-murdering religious bigot that appeared in the Kannada daily, Vijaya Karnataka on Oct 8, 2006. You can read a translation of the article here.

Diganta further writes about Rajasthan and Gujarat (sic):

For a little humourous touch, a Rajasthani textbook compared a housewife to a donkey... [and] ... The best of them all was not surprisingly a Gujarat textbook promoting Nazis and went onto include a chapter on the "internal achievements of Nazism"! It rubbishes the Holocaust and projects Hitler as a true leader!

I'll assume Diganta has done his (her?) homework on the Rajasthani and Gujarat textbooks. Which makes me want to use the same logic, used above (BJP rewriting textbooks to gain political mileage) and ask Diganta why he (she?) chose only Rajasthan and Gujarat? Because they're BJP-ruled states? And why does Diganta cite only these examples and not other books which have proven factual inaccuracies? For example, books written by Romila Thapar and company glorify Aurangzeb as a forerunner of modern secularism; his acts of unprecedented temple destruction are either whitewashed or suppressed, that Ghazni Mohammed's temple destruction is justified in terms of economic rationale... I can cite several instances but these will suffice.

All these lead to the inevitable conclusion that either Diganta's credentials as a researcher are suspect, or he operates from a biased agenda.

The sad fact of life is that governments all over the world attempt to rewrite textbooks; which is what happens if you politicise everything. This applies not just to history. Stalinist Russia tried to teach science (genetics to be precise) in terms of Marxism--it was rewarded with a Lysenko. This is the sorry consequence of a system which fails to maintain a respectable distance from education.

On the other hand, we can learn something from countries, which rectify errors when they're found. Several US textbooks now admit that Christopher Columbus was really a pirate. They don't brush that uncomfortable fact under the mat under the illusion that it is against secularism.

What does this attitude tell us?

Once Upon a Time There Was Blogging

Sandeep — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:31:00 EDT

I won't attempt any presumptuous education on how blogging evolved from commentary-cum-linkfests to a pervasive phenomenon that is almost perverse.

Blogging gave me a heady thrill when I began about six years ago. In many ways, it was a playground where I toyed with all of its aspects with desperate regularity. I churned out posts that in retrospect are less than juvenile, with, again, the same desperation.

What however, attracted me the most was the absolute lack of rules. I could write with abandon, tear down opinions, and damn anybody who made no sense but got published because he/she was a "popular," "respected" figure. I could call them morons, idiots, twits, imbeciles... and I positively delighted myself indulging in such evil pleasure.

And suddenly, the party-spoilers gatecrashed. It was never the same again.

These were a curious bunch of people who insisted on a "blog model" (an oxymoron: remember my remark about how there are no rules in blogging?), were appalled at my name-calling, and generally thought that it was positively disgusting to use such language--and no, I've never resorted to profanity on my blog, Mother's Promise.

I realized gradually, that these gentlemen were mostly academics and journalists who graduated, or were forged in the Indian School of Liberals. They insisted that linguistic finesse, politeness, gentility, refinement, taste, sobriety, and temperance take precedence over reasoning and logic when one debates. In other words, it is perfectly okay to present absolute bullshit (whoopie, whoops! I didn't use that word), only it should be vestured in prim-n-propah language.

That spoilt it for me.

For days after one specific attack, I ruminated, carefully, elaborately, deeply, before writing a post. Was my tone offensive? Did I just write "moron?" Was I coming on too strong? Will my readers disapprove? Does that phrase sound a trifle impolite?

What was I doing?

I realized I was playing the game by the rules set by these gentlemen in a game--blogging--where no rules are defined. Over the next few weeks, the Liberal eminences I discovered, bled for everybody, everything, and mostly for non-reasons. They insisted that there was an injustice even when there was none. Perfectly okay, to each his own. But it feels squeamish when they argue that we insist similarly.

However, it's not too late, all is not lost. My blog's (original) now-defunct tagline read: political correctness is for sycophants. My salvation from this crib-fest is to revert to it in the spirit I conceived it.

End Notes:

I haven't taken any names here because I don't want to get into the same old, endless comment exchanges that I had with these worthies. Readers familiar with my blog know what I mean.
Here's a great blog: full marks for its irreverence and in the same vein, not recommended for the faint-hearted or those who take themselves too seriously. That said, I don't agree with everything he says.