FUTURE OF PRINTED BOOKS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

 

Books in olden days played a major part in human development and knowledge. Gone are those days when we penned down to write and read books. The digital era has changed our habits of reading books and involving ourselves into the world of comics and fictions. The consumption of cyberspace has created a number of transformations on readers.

Today, most of the libraries are digitalized which once had books piled up for the readers. Digitalized e-book reading facilities and books on CD’s are on move today. Also few book lovers attitudes have changed and they do not impel themselves to rush and buy a book once it gets published. Rather, they sit back and wait to download the book online in pdf format for free and read them on their PC’s. 

Also, the arrival of tablets and e-readers does not mean people read less; it is more likely they will read more, as access to content has become so much easier and cheaper. New technologies are delivering the same product in a different format and different ways, for a fraction of the cost. Also, digital technologies don’t have those high costs as compared to that of book publishing companies and they therefore can deliver the product significantly cheaper. Cory Pressman, who is the founder of Exprima Media, a software design and development firm based in Portland, has been writing some incredibly interesting blog posts about how the digital book age is reviving writing and reading conventions from our distant past. When asked about the digital reading methods, he said, “Reading is an old and varied behavior, and the new digital reading patterns, values, and assumptions with which we are familiar are themselves relatively new.”

A trend has developed among the younger generations today where they proudly say that they are e-readers. This trend on a positive side gives them a lot of exposure and opportunity to explore and choose from varied options of digital book available instead of going to a library and choosing them. Thus it is time consuming. On the contrary, there are health issues in it. Upon continuous reading from monitors or tablets, heat generated from these gadgets is hazardous to health and also continuous looking and reading from screens and monitors might strain our eyes.

Another major advantage of digital and e-learning is that, it gives us the access to external pages and extra information through links. While reading an article or a book, it takes us though the background of the story then and there necessary via links to external pages. This eases our work to search and understand the background and helps us move smoothly throughout our reading. Also the references and bibliography provided on the article enables the readers to go to the actual reference page and read the content to understand it deeper.

Apart from these, there are many differences between browsing real books with physical presence in a real bookstore as compared with endless scrolling through subject categories of two-dimensional cover illos. Some on-line sellers allow you to open a page of contents or even to browse a few specimen pages. Others merely offer you one version or another of back cover blurb or worse.

Though the essence of book industry has a good future, the future “books” are predicted to be bundled with soundtracks, musical leitmotifs, 3-D graphics, and streaming video. They’ll be enhanced with social bookmarking, online dating, and alerts from geo-networking apps. The future youth generation, though will be more eager to read will prefer audio books or digital notebooks to read.

A GRUESOME SACRIFICE

 

She was decorated… She wore ornaments… She had variety of foods kept before her to munch from… She was overwhelmed… But she never knew this would be the last moment in her life.

In the Hindu folklore, killing animals in the name of fallacy is common. Deep interior in the state of Karnataka lies Sandur known for its rich iron and manganese ore mines in the district of Bellary. During a visit to report on mining, I had a good rapport with the villagers around. I learnt a lot about their lifestyle, food habits, the main occupation and their major source of income.

It was a Sunday morning when I remembered to attend a grand temple function that evening as invited by the villagers. I always love to cover religious and cultural beats. The village was lit with festive mood. People from nearby districts were also there to pay their respects to 'Muniamma’ who was the presiding deity there. She was worshipped as goddess of security, safety and prosperity. The huge idol of the goddess was given due respects, decorated with garlands and people offered food, fruits, milk and sweets which will later be distributed to others as prasaad.

I stood in a corner closely observing their culture when hundreds of villagers ran to welcome the village head who had a huge sickle in one hand and was pulling a cow by a rope on the other. Within seconds, the respects turned to the cow. She had huge varieties of food to choose from. Drums rolling and ladies screaming, the pooja started. The cow was taken inside a hut and moments later, the head of the village came out of the hut. Something was bizarre. For a second, I did not realize what it was. He had the same sickle in one hand but was dipped in blood and drops flowing down from the sharp edge of it.

On the other hand was the cow. This time it was not pulled by the rope. It was just the head of the cow and the body of her came behind carried by another man. Blood gushing from the cow’s head, the village leader kept the head of the cow in front of the deity and shouted his prayers offering the meat to the goddess. Stunned by their culture and superstitions, I quietly moved away from that place.

On my way back were a herd of cows grazing not far from where the sacrifice happened. I was helpless to see the state of these cows who are so called the goddess of prosperity ‘Gomatha’ in Hindu mythology, living a life, fearing of when they will be slaughtered by these people in the name of god’s prasaad.

  Can India succeed in normalizing relations with Pakistan?

            A big question arises when it comes to the current and future relationship between India and Pakistan. Whether the conflict and dispute between these two countries will continue or whether the nuclear installation and other bilateral ties will resolve such problems.

           
           The post-independence history of the two neighbours is also a story of conflict and seemingly unending hostility. These countries have fought four and a half wars since 1947 and numerous battles. The ongoing Kashmir dispute and other boundary issues between Pakistan and India have a physical manifestation over rivalry. “Kashmir runs in our blood” said Pakistan’s President and Army Chief, General Parvez Musharraf stated by Ayesha Siddiqa, in a publication by The Network of Consumer Protection, Islamabad. The Kashmir dispute has gained a deep salience with respect to the relationship between the two countries.

            
              The trade between India and Pakistan is more of competitive rather than complimentary and thus has a little scope of expansion. Though more than seven decades after separation between India and Pakistan, it is hard to state the mistrust between these two neighbours. Also after undergoing decades of conflicts and clashes, the countries almost assign the worst possible motives to each other. The people today in both the countries have acquired a form of hatred that even in every cricket match between India and Pakistan, there arises abhorrence as if a war is going to end with victory on one side and defeat on the other. The main reason for the antagonistic relation between India and Pakistan is due to the lack of vision in both the countries in leadership that makes in finding a solution for the Kashmir issue. Although both the governments have made a decision to resolve the issue, one is still not sure about each other county’s political and economical ability. And ego clashes too make the crisis more prevalent.

            Another constrain that these nations face is the new trend in making foreign policies like economic requirements, geographic locations, external threat etc which furthermore departs the ties. The recent killing of Indian military personnel by Pakistan army and death of Pakistan soldiers by Indian army has inculcated a mindset of insecurity regarding the border safety. Also there is a major play for religious extremism between these two countries which benefits the relationship to move further apart.                 

           
           The future of relationship between India and Pakistan can be tightly bonded if both sides employ special high level emissaries and avoid pitfalls and to enhance the foreign policies and bilateral ties and also to augment trade between these two countries.

FESTIVAL EXTRAVAGANZA- JALLIKATTU

               

             A festival or a gala occasion is often centered to a particular community or a society. Over time, the tradition and practice change as this isn’t followed in some places or the fact is that the mode of celebration and merriness changes from time to time. Many religions follow festivals constrained to them and their ritual way of commemorating it. Usually a festival is associated with a traditional dance, song, game or rituals to be performed. Jallikattu is one such game in Tamil Nadu which is nothing but the art of taming the bull.

          As a part of ‘Pongal’ celebrations in Tamil Nadu, Jallikattu is a bull taming sport which is usually played during ‘mattu pongal’ (the festival pongal is celebrated for three days. The third day is celebrated as mattu pongal, when bulls and cows are worshipped). This is a tradition old game which has evolved from popular Tamil classical period and which is being followed in villages of Tamil Nadu even today.

          This form of sport is mostly centered to Madurai district. But it has become a legendary game in villages of other districts like Alanganallur, Tiruvapur, Sravayal near Karaikudi, Kanduppatti near Sivagangai etc. There is a strenuous training of the Jallikattu bulls and are fed with complete nutritious food to compensate and withstand the preparation.

          This game today, is under a serious threat to several bullfighters and villagers who come to participate. There have been numerous deaths and severe injuries to them every time when Jallikattu happens. This has led cases to the Supreme Court concerning risk to the public safety. Copious oppose from animal activists, public and Animal Welfare Board of India were remonstrating this issue. Another reason about this sport is that, this was a game for the girls in the village or the locality to choose their apt life partner who is bold, strong and intellectual. As time passed by, this has become a business for a few. In some cases, there have been investments on this game and this has rather become like a bet game at times. The beauty of this game lies in the Vadam manjuvirattu which is a version of Jallikattu in which the bull is tied to a 50-foot-long rope and is free to move within this space. The training is not only given to the bull. But an arduous practice to the bull fighters or the matadors which has been progressed from years, involves building body and stamina.

         This sport or game is one of the age old traditions of Tamil Nadu. But the controversies behind it today, which implicated in killing and injuring hundreds of people is still on the run as many organizations and NGO’s are opposing this game.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

            “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington.

          The article 19 (1) (a) in the fundamental rights say that the freedom lies in a citizen to express his/her views and opinion in any conceivable means including by words of mouth, writing, printing, pictures, banners, signs and even by way of silence. This right has a broad purpose to serve. It helps an individual to attain self fulfillment and assists in discovery of truth by making them express and communicate their desires and beliefs. An opinion is considered to be self estimation. But when it is conveyed to a broad audience, every individual has a dissimilar grab towards it.

            The presumption of a truth or a fact which is put across might have a negative impact in the society which happens often. Rather than looking it as a political right, people make it obvious that the opinion turns as a conflict among a particular community as the words might harm or hurt their community, religion, cast, creed or sect.

            Now the movie ‘Vishvaroopam’ by eminent actor, director and dancer Kamal Haasan hitting the screens all over the world after the release of the ban from screening it, people are giving multiple comments to it. The Tamil Nadu state government banned the release of ‘Vishvaroopam’ for two weeks when around 25 Muslim organizations objected to Kamal’s movie on the ground that it portrays the community in bad light. Made with the budget of 95 crores, the movie typically portrays the life of a Khathak dancer who gets aware of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group’s plot to plant a Cesium-bomb in New York City. He was later described as a Muslim RAW agent whose mission is to blast the sleeper cells in connection with the New York bomb blast conspire. In association with this, the Muslim groups in Tamil Nadu and across the country have demanded to cut 15 scenes from the movie as it depicted their community in a wrong sense.

Rasiya Banu, a student from Chennai said that, “the movie is really appealing and had brought out more than what we had expected. Though the movie illustrates a larger part of our community and terrorists from Afghanistan, it reveals the truth and there is no representation of a wrong thing about our community or god.” Few population think that its mere expression of truth. While, a larger group of public look at it as it has been directed to hurt a particular sect. This is similar to the case of the movie ‘Dam 999’ which was banned in Tamil Nadu considering “people’s safety” as it critically analyzed the Mullaiperiyar Dam dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Now since Indians are meant to be more conservative and conformists (as many of us do not include our country in the list of avant-garde countries), they are more traditioned to their society and casts. India is the country mixed with casts and creed and religion as we say ‘Unity in Diversity’. Such movies are thus seen as a disgrace to a religion or an organization and not as a fact to analyze and think.

Now coming back to the freedom of speech, all of us have the right to pose opinion on a particular topic or an issue. But we do not have the right to neither insult nor pin-point a particular group of inhabitants or utter any comments that could wound them. There have been numerous hate speeches and opinion by politicians, journalists and bureaucrats. One such news was about an Indian political psychologist and a social theorist Asish Nandy, who was in the news recently. He blamed OBC’s, SC’s and ST’s for corruption menace in the country. He made a controversial statement at Jaipur Literature Festival that "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBC and the Scheduled Caste sections, and now the Scheduled Tribes. The maximum amount of corruption these days is by Dalits, the backward and the oppressed classes," he said. This triggered a major disagreement and clash between SC, ST and dalit groups for discouraging them in public and misleading the public’s view towards their communities.

He has been quoted as “misusing his intellectual powers” by dalit writer Chandrabhan Prasad who voiced his views on him at IBN LIVE recently. However Nandy stood firm by his statement saying that his opinion was misquoted and misinterpreted by the media. Such statements which deeply throbs and insults a particular sect should not be said in public which forms a dishonor to the people belonging to the community.

Is this called freedom of speech or expression? The right is made only to raise their voice and views and opinion in any form but not identifying people or a group of people and affronting them publicly.

cartoon feature

Hi... click o the above link to see my feature documentary on cartoon.... cartoons are an art... its humorous... its hilarious... please watch it...

enjoy... :)

Heart wrenching story:


            Heart wrenching is not the word. Rather, I would say it’s most poignant instance in my life ever. It was a cold morning during the month of September.. I was walking along the asphalt road on one of the busiest streets in Bangalore. I unexpectedly came across something bizarre. Something that was appalling.

            There was an infant on the road. He was completely naked and was looking for something to eat in every trash on the street. I quietly stood over there and observed his every move.
 
            Fortunately, he got a food packet with little roti in it, thrown by a pedestrian. I could see glee lighting over his face. He sat in a corner of the pavement, comfortably to eat.

            No sooner he started eating, there was a street dog, waving its tail and expecting him to feed it. The boy gobbled few handfuls and gladly gave it to the dog and patted it over by running his fingers across its fur. The scene is etched in my mind.

            I thus learnt that however we starve; we need to first quench our thirst only after getting the pleasure of helping others to quench their thirsts. An arousing experience which was heart throbbing. I later went to the boy and gave him a huge chocolate bar. His smile spoke thousand thanks. I went away happily…