Archive for January, 2006
Immortal picture stories - or Amar Chitra Katha
charukesi January 6th, 2006
I remember childhood Saturday afternoons with great happiness; my parents who worked in a bank would be back home by one and we could have lunch together. But that is not why I remember Saturdays; they would bring for me one Amar Chitra Katha comic each week. At one stroke, they had devised a way of keeping me occupied on week-ends and subtly instilling a love for books and reading.
I spent countless happy days immersed in AKCs; stories of gods and demons, brave freedom fighters, poets and dreamers, valiant kings and queens (when I visited Jhansi on work, and my tourist guide took me around the fort, I had vivid memories of the story I had read many years ago; a sense of comic deja vu, if you will), foolish and loyal commoners, sly animals and stupid ones, extremely irritating goody-goody young boys and girls, questions and answers on science thrown in carefully…
And the characters on Tinkle I have stayed in love with to this day: clever Kalia, foolish but lovable doob doob, Shikari Shambu and his hunter hat, stupid Supandi, the forever plotting Tantri the Mantri…
Innocent days when I was actually quite happy to be sermonised to, Panchatantra and Jataka tales with their now-unpalatable morals. Animals and birds that could think and talk, the baddies who never won and the goodies who were always rewarded, wise men who could perform miracles, thieves who had sudden change of hearts… As I said, they were more innocent days…
I don’t ever remember buying one of those comics on my own. My “collection” was built over years through these Saturday afternoon gifts. Or borrowed, as recently, when I found a AKC on Kalpana Chawla.
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It is very interesting to see the way Amar Chitra Katha has kept in touch with the changing role models for kids of this generation; no longer kings from the distant past or even freedom ighters from the recent past but real people with real achievements (I also noticed on their list JRD the quiet conquerer). I wonder what other titles they will come up with in future…
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Elsewhere : check out god’s own greens and blues on Itchy Feet and The seven Cs and research methods on Mindspace.
Braille’s birthday
charukesi January 4th, 2006
Of all that google has done so far, this I think is the best…
Hover over the logo on google and it says Happy Birthday Louis Braille!
And here is a small piece I found - on google of course - on Louis Braille…
Mousewives and email users
charukesi January 4th, 2006
Came acorss this recent report from the Pew internet and American Life project… For what claims to be a ‘wide-ranging study’, the report seems to me full of stereotypes-exist-therefore-will-reinforce statements and worse, “findings” which really say nothing new…
A wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies.
Among other things, we are told that women like to chat, use email, forward jokes and are are more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And even in email, women tend to use it more for personal communication while men communicate with various kinds of organizations. And indicentally, men also use the internet more to search for information, are more tech-savvy and more interested in technology generally…
Woman the gossipy nurturer and man the intelligent provider - can never go wrong…
But where are the insights? Dimensions that have changed (since the last report, in the last few years, whatever), trends that are being seen, and things that can be expected in the future…?
Somehow, this report reminded me of another study I had read about on Lorenz’s Antropologi a while ago… From housewife to mousewive - Anthropological study on women and Internet (although Lorenz does wonder about exactly how anthropological the study was)
A recent anthropological study (combined with nationwide polling) by Demos shows the traditional housewife has been transformed into a ‘mousewife’ as women drive forward the increasing use of computers in the home.
- Technology , - Gender issues
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On the road in India
charukesi January 2nd, 2006
The travel back to Vishakapatnam for my return flight to Bombay was exciting - not the drive itself, but for the many mild adventures it presented… The first one hour was through crowded villages struggling to be small towns, much like small children wanting to grow up quickly and immediately; people out in their Sunday best, the narrow roads where life and commerce were thriving despite the traffic, the glare of basic and bright colours… the heady smell of Sunday excitement and shopping everywhere, even in the narrow lanes…
The rest of the journey was on a excellent four lane high-way, except that people there seemed to hold extremely liberal views - to them, there appeared to be no right side and wrong side of the road… At any point on the road, there were tractors and trucks looming on to us from ahead… As for lanes, the very concept did not exist in the minds of the thousands who use the highway everyday; bicycle riders and scooterists - what were they doing on a highway in any case - merrily inched their way ahead on the extreme right lane, and glared at us when our driver honked them out of their wits and the lane…
We did not stop at Dolphin Dhaba, which had neither dolphins frolicking on show, nor a typically pungent dhaba atmosphere. Instead, our driver followed the norm there and crossed the road - on a state highway, mind you - to Krishna Bhavan Udipi Hotel on the other side. KBUH incidentally offered customers lodging and bodging facilities; we duly bodged there on coffee and vadas and continued on to Vizag.
At the intersection of Tuni and the Vizag highway is a sign in red that is as imperious as it is sudden; it says STOP in bold letters. Stop and what, please? And why STOP in the middle of a highway? Further ahead was an even more intriguing sign that said, GIVE WAY. If you have visions of drivers politely giving way to each other, banish them; the entire journey was one long cacophonic medley of horns. Sometimes sharp and staccao and at others, one long ceaseless hoot; hard to say which is more grating on the nerves…
Thinking about it, such a drive is not an unusual thing in India; national highways run through villages, children run in front of your car and bicycles meander and wobble dangerously. Bullock carts and tractors appear suddenly out of nowhere in front of your car and state buses try to run you off the road, as they breathe down your neck menacingly.
The entertainment for the entire journey is often an orchestra of blaring horns and colourful curses in local languages. There are numerous Krishna Bhavan type Udipi hotels dotted across the country, in the north these are substituted by dhabas; all of them offering customesr bodging and more…
Then the inscrutable and confusing road signs, cows and even bulls gazing placidly at you unaware of the chaos they are causing, decorated trucks bearing messages including the evergreen buri nazar waley tera muh kaala. And if happen to be unlucky enough to pass through small towns (where there is no “bypass” available), then market scenes and choc-a-bloc traffic assailing your senses; young girls selling plasticware, old women selling jasmine and kankambaram, young men selling glass bangles, old men selling coloured powder, and all this on both sides of an already narrow road…
Road journeys in India can be full of surprises, even shocks; never predictable, never boring… Who can say what the bend in the road holds… (picture taken on the way from Bangalore to Hogenanakkal flls - when we got lost, as a matter of fact - also my icon on flickr)…
Numchucks and kubatons
charukesi January 2nd, 2006
My flight from Vishakapatnam to Bombay was delayed yesterday and since there is nothing much by way of entertainment at the Vizag airport, I spent time looking at the board which contains the list of banned items for passengers in hand baggage - and when I say I spent time, believe me, I mean it - my wheelchair was parked right in front of the sign board for over half an hour.
There were all the usual suspects (literally) - a wide inventory ranging from revolvers, pistols, rifles, hand grenades to swords, sabres, seisscors (sic) and knives [any length] to pickles and chilly powder and (to be on the safe side) all kinds of powders. Not content with ordinary knives and scissors, sorry, seissors the list also contained all household cutlery and nail clippers.
Fair enough. No saying when a crazed passenger might strike with a pair of nail clippers or a dinner fork.
Then there were the more unusual (and unexpected) items - scuba knives - excuse my ignorance, but what is a scuba knife?, Mace, martial arts devices, toy transformer robots (yes), meat cleaves, bows and arrows (yes again) and throwing stars. Now I have heard of shooting stars, but what are throwing stars?
There were also some really violent sounding ones billy clubs - along the lines of Wooster’s Drones Club where “young blood” is often to be found throwing sugar about in the larger smoking room?, cattle prods and bull whips - all I can say is, if you are not allowed to carry bull whips with you on the flight, then you better make sure the bulls you are taking along with you are perfectly docile creatures.
Oh, I forgot stun guns[sic]/shocking devices. Personally I don’t know what the airport authorities would find shocking, but believe me when I say that I don’t want to take a chance.
And finally the ones that had me really puzzled. Kubatons. And Numchucks. What are kubatons? Or for that matter, numchucks? After that, I spent a restless afternoon worrying about whether I was unwittingly carrying a kubaton in my hand baggage. Would they believe me if I told them, oh, this is what a kubaton is. I never knew…