aditya kumar's weblog

Yesterday was Blog Quake Day. I have been off blogosphere for the past few days and I missed. But it’s never too late to do a right thing.

My request to fellow bloggers is to link and tell about the earthquake and the relief operations. Do every little thing that you can. Link to the sites, spread word, request for donations, anything that you think can help in any way. Mind you, this is much worse than the Tsunami that happened last year.

DesiPundits page on the quake. Uma’s latest post on this. Sujatha’s effort here.

Online donations here. United Nation’s appeal.

More links here

Help.

I am not (yet) a fan of Vikram Seth, simply because, and forgive me for this, I have not read his work. But yes, over the years I have seen his books in almost all the bookshops that show some interest in the prose of Indian authors. One of them, “The Suitable Boy”, is the longest novel written by an Indian (The author took a decade to write it) and according the Wikipedia, its the 7th longest novel ever. But frankly, length of any book has never impressed me — infact, to me it is of the least significance.

For Indian writing, two events of prime significance happened earlier this month. Salman Rushdie’s “Shalimar the Clown” and Vikram Seth’s “Two Lives” were published. Seth’s new work almost made a silent debut amidst the fanfare Rushdie received.

But now, it appears, with all the interviews that Vikram Seth has given, add to it, his sense of humor and timing, I have a feeling he would end up impressing more people than any Indian author has done so in a long, long time.

The author launched his book in the 5 major cities of India. Starting from Chennai and ending it in Delhi, covering Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai in between. He gave interviews and came up with interesting and funny quotes like “I’m a slow writer and I respect trees” (when asked why he spent six years writing his latest book) and, here is more, “I will pretend to read from the book for a while and you take your photos,” (when asked for a photo session) and the best quote of all, here:

“what is important for a writer is when a reader is gripped by a book and delays his dinner to read a few more pages.”

That is just so true.

I have always believed that reading is something that helps build a better society, it is much more than just a way to ward off boredom. I hope the efforts Vikram Seth undertook will make people get up, take notice and read. We need more authors coming out, talking to people and signing autographs.

We need more of this.

Postscript: If this post interests you, I suggest you to please check out the links above.

I dug up this from the rediff.com archives.

In a link that I will soon reveal, Amitava Kumar, in a column written in 1999, asserts that most Indian writers in English, are reporters to the west.

Barring Arundhati Roy, of course.

Now, I hope that you have read Arundhati Roy’s essay “The End of Imagination”.

An excerpt:

The jeering, hooting young men who battered down the Babri Masjid are the same ones whose pictures appeared in the papers in the days that followed the nuclear tests. They were on the streets, celebrating India’s nuclear bomb and simultaneously “condemning Western Culture” by emptying crates of Coke and Pepsi into public drains. I’m a little baffled by their logic: Coke is Western Culture, but the nuclear bomb is an old Indian tradition?

It is not anything else that I wish you read but this. Please take some time out and read it if you still haven’t. See for yourself, what you missed for 7 years.

And here, Amitava Kumar praises Roy’s stance and is also “slightly” critical of her.

If you shall need more matter on this subject, and something less emotional than Roy, please read about this book here.

“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I would have our young men and women with literary tastes to learn as much from English and other world-languages as they like, and then expect them to give the benefits of their learning to India and to the world like a Bose, a Roy or the Poet himself. But I would not have a single Indian to forget, neglect or be ashamed of his mother tongue, or to feel that he or she cannot think or express the best thoughts in his or her own vernacular. Mine is not a religion of the prison-house.”

As evident, that was Gandhi’s message to all those who have come to believe that Hindi is our second language.

More here. Also on Wikipedia, here.

Frankly, I have not read enough about the Mahatama that I may arrive at a conclusion on him. But it saddens me when I see people of his own land attributing him with “majboori” (helplessness) while people in the west find solace in his words, his life and times. It is perfectly okay to have an opinion about someone but that opinion should be backed with fact, truth and rationalism- something which I see missing in all the people who have come to criticise Gandhi.

update: Check out Dinesh’s take here.

So what’s the latest slime at The Times of India?

After being overly concerned about Sania Mirza’s sleeveless shirt and her skirt, could there be any better masala for The Times of India than the Chappell-Ganguly row!

I have always said- Good publications take a stand and stick to it.

But what does TOI do?

On wednesday, reports this in the print edition:



…and taking a U-Turn in under 24 hours, has this on the TOI website, Thursday:



How convenient! What a way to make everybody happy!

Sick, cheap journalism.

I see the people who cross the roads in Bangalore. They try to sneak in within gaps of the never ending traffic. They look for opportunities that last a few seconds to cross the road. They run. I see that and I wonder why this seemingly simple act of crossing a road is literally life threatening.

And once someone takes the wrong foot ahead I see that person reaching out and making eye contact with the driver of the vehicle with straight arms and hands open, signifying a last, lame attempt to put an end to the motorist’s speed and almost begging all of them to slow down, have mercy… “I just want to cross this road; It won’t take more than 7 seconds. Please.”

I know this happens, I do it myself. Many times a day. Each time someone or the other on the road puts the wrong foot ahead and is trapped in the middle of the road. The final, “begging-like” rescue act is executed. Some get hit, most do not.

I can safely claim that being a pedestrian in this city is more stressful than being behind the wheel. It may sound strange, but I am serious. I was once hit by a speeding autorickshaw. I was not on the road, I was on the footpath. Apparently, the driver thought all his counterparts on the road were foolishly waiting for the signal to turn green so he took on the footpath.

An article that was published sometime ago in Deccan Herald claimed the city had to be made “Pedestrian Friendly” and suggested measures for it by modifying and making provisions in the city’s “Infrastructure”. I am not sure. I think the problem lies somewhere else.

In a city that has it’s infrastructure crumbling to an extent that echos are heard as far as Hongkong– “Pedestrian friendliness” is a concept unheard of.

In fact, I do not have a vehicle and since I have to walk everyday, what I face on the street as a pedestrian could be termed as “Pedestrian enmity”. When the signal turns Green- the vehicles are not merely “machines that carry human beings”- they become those highly motivated soldiers of the army and charge in as if they are at war.

So, you see, it is not any “infrastructure” problem at all- If a driver chooses not to slow down for the pedestrian who is in the middle of the road, crossing it, there is less the “Infrastructure” can do about it.

Is it so difficult for the speeding driver to realise that he was once a pedestrian? Or should the driving schools also teach that pedestrians are not to be run over and saving those 7 seconds are not worth threatening a life?

Saw this sticker on the back of a car. It said:

“Mr Chief Minister…
WASSSUP?
What about the work on the Airport Road Flyover?”

Since the last 2 years, the flyover has been as is- no work whatsoever. The road crossing there which normally should not take more than 6-7 minutes by car in normal traffic usually renders the car useless. It’s better off walking there. Meanwhile, hope is there since the work resumed last month.

One more incident. Yesterday while our CM was touring Jayanagar in an Air Conditioned Bus, a group of ladies came in the way and stopped the bus. Their demand? “Let the CM out. Let him come out and walk with us on this road.” A heavy rainy day and all we have here is just mud.

I have lived in so many cities across India, but this has the worst infrastructure. Hell, it seems the Government is adamant to keep it that way.

More examples?

The 80 Ft road in Koramangala- this long road is the main road in this part of the city and all we had there till 2 months back was a mixture of stones and sand. Then they fixed it- only a temporary solution as now I see that the road is rapidly coming back to it’s “usual self” and driving regularly on it could cut the lifespan of the tyres by half besides testing the driver’s driving skills. We have a dirt-road adventure, right in the middle of the city. Or for that matter, anywhere in the city for it is the same story on every road.

And here comes the biggie- Sometime before March of this year, the World Bank (YES, the WORLD BANK) paid BMC for the funding of not just this road, but all the Bangalore Roads under the Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project. (Did you notice? We have a State level reforms project going on since the last 8 months. Did you know that?) Where has all the money gone? In the potholes?

But yes, work for the malls, which are coming up like wild mushrooms, never stops. There is one opening up just opposite to “The Forum” mall. Who needs roads? Who needs a better drainage system? So what if we spend 1 hour, one way, reaching the office because of the traffic? Who cares if Azim Premji himself goes on record calling Bangalore a national calamity? We need our malls. We need those escalator clad, centrally air-conditioned malls.

Later I came to know about this. The source of the “Wasssup?” stickers.