It is important to encourage bicycle riding in a city like Mysore, which is still manageable and where people can get around on bicycles. I do not know whether Manivannan’s move will result in anything concrete but I commend any bureaucrat who took a moment to notice the traffic on our roads and especially, the plight of bicycle riders.

Manivannan himself promises to ride a bicycle as from November 1st as long as he is posted in Mysore and use his official car only when necessary. Good for him.

At a district-level review meeting of officials and people’s representatives at Zilla Panchayat, Ms. Karandlaje said that the fertilizer crisis is not serious.

Then, in a second meeting on Dasara preparations, Ms. Karandlaje outlined her vision of Dasara. Let me quote from the SOM report:

Mysore Dasara is very much a personification of kings and Goddess Chamundeshwari and in this context, the kings of other countries would be invited and felicitated during Dasara.

This is the vision put forth by District in-charge Minister Shobha Karandlaje for this year’s colourful Dasara. Talks have been held with the Union Government for the realisation of this vision, during which a list of the kings and kings of other countries were sought, thus paving the way for a new trend, she said.

Dasara as the personification of Gods and Kings? Does the honorable Minister not realize we live in a modern, democratic era? Why felicitate kings? Is there any reason to recognize and honor royalty today? It is unconscionable for a democratic representative such as Ms. Karandlaje to make such a suggestion.

What bothers me is simply this. On the one hand, Ms. Karandlaje et al seem to be incapable of recognizing the reality that stares them in the face. Hence the reality denying statement on fertilizer crisis. On the other hand, they are keen to take us back to a medieval period. Do they not even realize how reactionary and backward looking they sound when they speak of honoring kings?

What’s wrong with these people?

I can only hope that the University of Mysore will be more prudent and better prepared than the Mysore Corporation, which has squandered ADB loan and has shown itself to be ill prepared to make use of JNURM grants.

So to identify areas of priority, the University administration should take the entire university community, including the alumni. More generally, this could also be a fantastic opportunity for the University to come up with a comprehensive plan to recreate itself, now that it has a substantial grant. The University could invite its faculty members and students to write memorandums on their pressing needs. A public debate involving the community at large in townhall meetings, newspapers and blogosphere will be essential.
I realize that the University has an acting Vice Chancellor but all of us also know that the University administration may not have much to offer. This has to be a movement from below, both to produce a vision for the University and to identify areas of priority. Moreover, we all have a responsibility to ensure the grant administration is transparent and above the board.

In that spirit, let me make the following suggestions.

The first priority has to be to the University library (and the department libraries too), which is in a disgraceful state. The collection needs to augmented, catalogue computerized entirely and the infrastructure completely modernized. There are also serious maintenance issues, starting from the completely incompetent and uncooperative employees. The University Library badly needs trained personnel, who are computer literate and are well versed in using electronic databases. We cannot have untrained attendors in the library, who if transferred within the University might be relocated to clerical duties elsewhere or will be bringing tea to faculty members.

The library also needs to subscribe to electronic journal databases. It is absolutely essential to buy subscriptions to JSTOR and such databases, especially to facilitate research. We need to take advantage of concessional rates that are often offered to the Third World universities.
An enhanced Computer lab, which offers enough Internet enabled computers to students, is also a must so that the students could access these electronic databases along with hundreds of thousands of digitized books, all of which would absolutely crucial in enhancing the quality of education and research in Mysore University.
I know that both the Information Systems and Library Sciences departments have some really good faculty members, who need to be used extensively to modernize the library and to train library staff, University faculty and students in using electronic databases. It is not enough to create this infrastructure, if faculty and students aren’t taught how to use it. Conduct workshops and training programs, extensively.
A second area of priority has to be the science labs. Even with my limited knowledge, I know that the quality of labs is uneven. If Applied Botany and Geology have been building their infrastructure through grants and foreign collaborations, the same hasn’t been true of other basic science departments.
Thirdly, we now have an opportunity to redefine the University’s publishing mission, by radically re-envisioning Prasaranga and introducing new ways of publishing. Prasaranga must become an IT hub for the University, an important site for Kannada software development as well as open source publishing movements. It should no longer should be wedded to publishing only printed books but consider online publishing, especially encyclopedias.

This would be truly the way to bring into the 21st century the institution building work that Kuvempu, Jawaregowda and Ha Ma Nayak accomplished since the 1950s.
This list could go on and on. I will expand on some of these themes later.

For now, let me just say: rebuild libraries and labs and be innovative in fulfilling Prasaranga’s mission.

While you are at it, wire the campus and turn Manasagangothri into a wireless hotspot. If the kids have money to buy fancy bikes, they will buy laptops too.

I know some of my suggestions seem fanciful, if not wasteful and impractical. They are not and they don’t cost too much money, especially wiring the campus and modernizing the library.

I also know that the University faces much more acute problems of infrastructure. Maharaja’s College, for instance, doesn’t have a fax machine in its office. That’s simply scandalous. The University administration could consider giving more money to its colleges and departments for contingency spending and ensure the basic infrastructure exists.

Hundred crores is plenty, if spent wisely.

Let the planning and dreaming begin.

Being Kuvempu’s son wasn’t a burden. He was that rare famous son, who forged his own personality and strode the Kannada literary and cultural world as a giant in his own right. He could and did easily say no to worldly positions - from professorships to MLA/MP ticket offers from all the political parties and MLC nominations until very recently - from a very early age.

Much will be written in the coming days about Tejaswi’s accomplishments as a novelist as well as that rare and gifted Kannada writer of popular non-fiction works. Tejaswi’s friends and admirers will praise his wide ranging interests, forward looking nature and more significantly, his curiosity to explore the world both in his literary works and in life. His critics will point out that his later novels weren’t as impressive as his early works and strongly criticize his formulations on globalization. I certainly found his turn away from radical politics quite troubling. More on all that later.

But in my mind, there is no doubt that his ethical self was an equally compelling aspect of his personality.

Tejaswi was my role model when I was growing up. I saw him frequently in Mysore, read everything he wrote and hung on to each word he uttered. He was that mysterious figure who would periodically show up in Mysore, only to disappear quickly. Return he did regularly, whenever he could take a break from his other preoccupation, his coffee estate. In recent times, I saw him infrequently and to my regret, didn’t engage him as much as I should have.

K. P. Poornachandra Tejaswi is no more. I wish I had gone to see him in December, as he had asked me to.

We will all miss him. It’s a sad day in the Land of Lime.

KSRTC BUS PASSENGERS STRANDED IN FOREST, RECKLESS DRIVERS

Traumatic experiences of the victims of a road mishap

Mysore, Nov. 2 (KMC)- How would you like to be the passenger of a vehicle that has met with an accident and you are stranded in the middle of a dense forest infested with wild elephants, having no means of calling for help as the cellphones have no network coverage in that area?

Well, that is exactly what happened to the passengers of a KSRTC bus travelling from Mysore to Virajpet this morning.

The green coloured bus, speeding down the slope about a kilometre away from the Ane-chowkoor Check Post, narrowly missed the Bangalore-bound red-coloured KSRTC bus, which was also speeding towards the narrow culvert, a few metres away from the dilapidated bridge.

Though the green bus had its headlights on as a sign of distress as it approached the culvert, the driver of the red bus, instead of slowing down, further stepped on the accelerator and swerved a little into the road to avoid the culvert. The driver of the green bus pulled away towards his left, causing the front left wheel to get caught in a ditch, the bus coming to halt with a nasty jolt and in a slant position, surely causing injuries to the passengers. The time was 6.50 am and the dense mist hampered visibility. Had the driver not brought the bus to a halt at the roadside ditch, the bus surely would have turned turtle on the steep road’s edge just a few feet away, killing and maiming many of its passengers.

The red bus (KA-01, F-7450) that was on its way to Mysore, did not stop after the mishap, though all the passengers had seen the sorry plight of the other bus. In fact, a couple of them also approached the driver, questioning his inhumane act. In reply, they were bluntly told by the driver Shantharaju that his bus was untouched and that the mishap was a minor one which was not his concern at all.

“What if some of those passengers were your near and dear ones?” they asked of Shantha-raju, who curtly told the passengers to mind their own business.

The issue here is not about which driver is at fault, but about the safety of the passengers who are at the mercy of such arrogant and reckless KSRTC drivers. Because of their job-security and the general tendency of officials to cover up the faults of their own subordinates, most KSRTC staff are audacious in their attitude towards passengers, not fearing of any disciplinary or legal action, in the present inert system.

The other issue is the pathetic condition of the road between Hunsur and Gonikoppa, passing through the Nagarahole Forest. Imagine the plight of those getting stranded under such circumstances in the night.

The bridge near the checkpost had been declared unsafe by the PWD a few years ago itself and a temporary bypass was constructed. But the bypass road, being washed away by the incessant rains, is not usable at all and the dilapidated bridge, on which thousands of heavy vehicles traverse every day, appears like ready to cave in any moment.

Does the government need to act only after a disaster has occurred, at a time when they could be prevented by timely action?

Again, no commentary necessary.

Honestly, I have been obsessed with the tragic life of this extraordinary playwright and I will share my notes within the next day or so. But here is a very nice and insightful profile that Subramanyam wrote. It’s a short piece and very well written. I may be violating some copyright laws by posting thisbut this piece should be widely read and it also complements what I want to write soon on Samsa.

Samsa: A Recollection

by

A. N. Subramanyam

A tall, lean and straight figure with receding hair and wide forehead. Frequent knitting of eyebrows. In repose, a hawklike and distant expression. An occasional deaf ear to someone or something. Soft, yet matter of fact, voice, sharp in argument. A sardonic smile reserved for lesser mortals like relatives, successful scholars. Non-descript three-piece dress (dhoti, shirt and towel) of the intelligentsia of the times. that didactic thrust of the index and middle fingers of the right hand while driving home a point or reciting a poem. That essential shyness of the litterateur: After the command performance of Vigada Vikaramaraya, when requested to appear on the stage, he left the palace remarking that the play is the thing.

His circumstances were unhappy, if not sordid. They contained no ingradient of success. He was too unsophisticated to make the grade. The successful astrologer in him, who made many a famous astrologer wince about his future, was quite indifferent to his own fortunes. His ability to bear hardship and his utter unconcern to comfort made him a stoic. This and a passion to avoid personal obligations, checkmated every move to help him. Frustrated well-wishers became part of his unsettled life. All this made him a non-conformist. Instability dogged him, whether as a Pandit in a southern college or as a white collar worker in Quetta. Because of his unstable temperament, he was wont to speak of crossing over to other religions.

Out of this welter emerged, a capacity for sustained literary work and a purposeful literary career. His non-age saw Kaushala, a novel in Kannada. Followed in those phlegmatic days, a piece in English: Sherlock Holmes in Jail, a novel which ended in an Indian, a mere native, rescuing the great one. He composed Samsapadam, a style-book on prosody, on the lines of Nagavarma’s classic. He evolved and perfected the technique of historical drama, with an idiom all his own. There was a method in his madness, which meant long hours with manuscripts and inscriptions in the Oriental Library. Otherwise, how could reel off, from memory, derivations of old Kannada words from Classics, giving cross references and meanings from Kittel’s Dictionary?

A conflict between literary work and personal disillusionment tore his later years. A verse in Samsapadam describes the world as a stage for play of the wanton, half-way house for straggling souls, an inn to drink from the mirage of pleasure. With the passage of time, in his last days, this wayward thought hardened into an obsession that an alien police machine was unjustly persecuting him. Perhaps it had no basis in fact. But it did damage and brought about his tragic end. That he cared to live to write his plays was the fault, not of himself, but of his stars.

Shri D. T. Jayakumar

Minister for Housing, Government of Karnataka, District-in-charge Minister, Mysore

Dear Shri Jayakumar,

Greetings from a warm, sunny Chicago. May I state at the outset that unlike many of our fellow countrymen, I am big admirer of politicians and their genuine desire to do something good for India within certain limitations. Sure, politicians are corrupt and nepotist but who amongst us isn’t, especially when we have an opportunity to act on it. On the contrary, I am genuinely suspicious of bureaucrats, intellegentsia, tehnocrats and entrepreneurs, who I believe serve their class interests (upper or middle class) and are accountable to nobody. Politicians have to face the electorate every once in a while and face the music, so to speak.

Now having said this, let me quote a little from this morning’s Star of Mysore and do a reality check of sorts. These are the statements attributed to you:

Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) is a bogus and land-mafia company. The main aim of Ashok Kheny, Managing Director of NICE, is not cons-truction of the Expressway but building Townships along the route to rake in huge profits, said Housing and District In-charge Minister D.T. Jayakumar.

Guess what, Mr. Minister? You are right, daitribe aside! Did you realize the truth about NICE only now? Did you think Ashok Kheny is in the business of philanthrophy?

If NICE was a genuine company, the Expressway project would have been completed by now. It had purchased land for less than five lakh rupees per acre from the helpless farmers and selling the same for over one crore rupees per acre, making huge profits, particularly in Bidadi region, Jayakumar argued.…… Moreover, the company had pledged the land Ealready purchased and raised loans of more than Rs. 150 crore, he said.

Mr. Minister, Expressway would have been completed if you had allowed NICE to build it because NICE too wants to make as much profit as it can and as quickly as it can. As far as raising money by pledging land is concerned, that’s how the (capitalist) system works. Businessmen do this routinely. If you realized this only now, you are not as smart as you seem to be. If you are putting it out for public consumption, then you are also not being smart.

Speaking to reporters at the Government Guest House here today, the Minister disclosed that a Bill will be placed in the Karnataka Assembly seeking to redeem the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project from the vice-like grip of NICE soon. ….. In case NICE refused to execute the Project, after the Government decides to arrest the Expressway Project from NICE, global tenders would be invited and the project awarded to the most deserving company, Jayakumar disclosed.

You want to invite tenders again? If you want to build the road, build the damn road. We are all tired of this repeated song and dance show. NICE isn’t the problem here. You need to be clear about your public policy objectives. If you want to protect the farmers and farming land, then do it. If you want to build just the road, do it. If you want to also build the townships, do that too. If you don’t want to do any of the above, that’s fine too. We have given you the responsibility to do any or all of this for the next three years. If you slip up, then we will ask questions during election time.

But please don’t take us to be fools. I have this sneaking suspicion that you realize this. Well, you have lost your share of elections and you should know.

Sincerely,

Why am I obsessed with the ‘ghost’ of ministership, when I should be getting ready for a long friday evening-partying? Read on.

So Da Vinci Code wasn’t banned. But the I&B minister, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi did want to review the film himself before clearing it. What’s up with ministers pronouncing judgments on cinema and such matters? I don’t mean to suggest that this is a matter for specialists and if you have read any academic works on films, then you would run away from film studies people as quickly as you can. Perhaps, our democratically elected minister has a duty to protect public order and may be even a better understanding of the damage an irresponsible film might cause. But most of these ‘this offends our religious sensibility’ cases could just be treated as amusing events but for the violence and public disturbance that leads to loss of life and property every once in a while.

I am no big fan of experts running the show in most matters. But a minister or even a King pronouncing verdict on all matters scares me even more. How about this gentle suggestion by the Saudi king that Saudi newspapers not publish any photos of women, since that would incite the young men?

Do any of us want to comment? Feel free to pick the ridiculous Bose saga too. Poor guy died some place long time ago and why not let him go peacefully? Why use Bose to beat up Nehru and Congress? We could surely come up with some better stuff!

Anyway, let me offer another Minister story, this time from Mysore, where the district minister in charge, D T Jayakumar, wants to comment on the history of Mysore. Former Sub Inspector of Police and professional politician, he is. But a thinker on matters of the past, he is not.

Here is the background. Karnataka state government has been making efforts to build on the tourism potential of Mysore. As a result, the state has been trying to promote Mysore as a heritage city, by creating a heritage fund and offering new, imaginative programs like ‘heritage walk‘ on tongas (horse carriages) and taste of native cuisine. All these projects usually gain more momentum at the end of summer, when the Dasara season is about to begin. Now though with the software boom, there is more disposable income itself in Mysore. Add visitors from Bangalore, for whom this would be a nice weekend getaway. So, all this is nice and dandy, given Mysore has been traditionally the second biggest attraction for domestic tourists too. Agra tops this list and that’s no surprise.

I digress. In addition to these ‘heritage’ measures, the Government also wanted to start a more traditional ’sound and music show’ following the Red Fort (Delhi) model. The show was to be be another appealing feature at the Mysore palace, city’s biggest landmark and tourist attraction. Presumably, the show would reflect the history and culture of Mysore kingdom. What else could it be when the show itself is set in the palace and in any case, according to an anemic and pathetic conception of history we subscribe to, history is the chronicle of kings and their good/bad deeds. Right?

So the government commissioned Lingadevaru Halemane, a Marxist playwright and well-known linguist, to write the script. Last year, during the Dasara festivities, the show ran into some difficulties and was held after the festival; I should hasten to add I can not dig out any reports or eye witnesses, except for the report cited above. But last month, Churumuri and local newspapers reported that Halemane’s narrative is being questioned, since it stops at 1947 and hence, doesn’t mention the current prince, Srikantha Datta Narasimharaja Wodeyar. Several Mysoreans objected and Wodeyar himself expressed his displeasure, behind the scenes and through his spokesmen.

In the past, I have quite clearly expressed how disappointed I am in our esteemed prince and former MP from Mysore. He is mostly harmless but also completely and utterly incapable of doing anything, constructive or otherwise. In this case, I was amused to notice some stirring in the royal household. Wodeyar demanded that he too be recognized as the ruler/Mysore palace dweller/prince of Mysore and be included in the script. Others, including many Mysoreans, acquiesced. Jayakumar, the district-in-charge minister offered his considered opinion and pronounced recently changes shall be made, whether Halemane accepts them or not.

I don’t know of anyone who has actually read the script but the entire debate as it is being staged right now is frivolous and not worthy of our attention. Churumuri’s initial efforts to to foster a discussion fizzled since nobody wanted to think through the questions. Instead, demands were made with a completely erroneous conception of history. How the hell does one respond to a demand such as this: Tell us the full, fair and undistorted story. Does the inclusion of Wodeyar’s name make it full and fair? Would someone stand up and say that no such animal exists! Where are the historians of Mysore, when we need them in action?

In the next few days, I will write a few more entries on Mysore’s history and I want to start this off by asking a few questions today.

For me, this debate should be framed in terms of self representation. A broader question a historian will pose to Mysoreans will focus on exactly that: what do you want an outsider/ tourist to know about your city and culture? And speaking of tourism, another pertinent question, if I could frame it true Kannadiga fashion, ought to be: how do you want to invite someone to your home? Here is where it gets tricky since such simple questions also disturb the consensus we have built over the years on what constitutes our history, culture and hertiage.

Isn’t it easier to just proclaim Navladi Krishnaraja Wodeyar as a progressive ruler and Mysore as the model state? Then we could celebrate them at the spectacular, brightly lit Mysore palace with a sound and music show. Why bother asking what do we mean by progressive or investigate the development strategies of model Mysore state or write on the bureaucratic and caste (to a limited extent class and communal) rivalries in Mysore? When we can just claim Mysore had representative assemblies (and hence democracy from 1890s itself), why ask questions about the nature of political representation itself?
History should chronicle our glories and achievements, right?
What then shall we re-present? Should we present only dynastic history, as some have claimed? Sure, we have a few pretty buildings all over Mysore, including our palace, but do these buildings exhaust our heritage? Even about these buildings, what is it that we want to say about their engineering or materials used? While I recognize and even appreciate (hey, I am not blind) the aeshtetic appeal, tourism potential of the Mysore palace, is that our most spectacular achievement? How about Nanjanagud Rasabale (banana) or Mysore Jasamine and the people who preserved them for centuries? I ask these questions to make us think of the purpose and symbolism of monumental architecture. A historian’s job isn’t to just to write an empirical narrative of the great buildings of Mysore and their builders. I must draw your attention to what it took to build them and yes, I mean the economic cost and a repressive kingship necessary to mobilize the surplus required to to build such structures. I must also draw your attention to the symbolic purpose of the palace as the imposing, perhaps even intimidating place where the king resided.

Well then, is dynastic history all that exists in Mysore’s past or is this all we choose to narrate in our sound and music show?

Hundred years ago, we would have had court poets singing panegyrics of kings.

Are we asking Halemane to perform the same task now?

The debate in mysore is leaning towards celebrating the aesthetic grandeur of monumental architecture or pride in the achievement of the progressive rulers of Mysore. Mysore kings were progressive compared to other many licentious sloths who masqueraded as rulers in other kingdoms. Yet, as a historian, I must raise questions about what kingship itself meant, especially from the perspective of a democratic (even as an ideal we aspire for) present?

Ask Halemane about these issues. I know he has good answers because he has thought and written on such questions. Don’t express outrage over the exclusion of Srikantha Datta. I wouldn’t also ask the minister to defer this to experts or turn this into a process question. We are all tired of ‘let the expert committee review the issue’ routine or ‘under the terms of reference given to Halemane, we find him guilty/not guilty’ acts.
Do I want to be part (hopefully an influential part) of offering a self representation of Mysore? You bet, both as a historian and Mysorean. Should this be decided by the Minister? Nope. What role does the Prince have? None as a prince but as a citizen and resident of Mysore, he can always join us for a spirited, healthy debate. Suit up, buddy.

Last week, I was reading A History of Indian Literature in English edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Of particular interest for me were two superb essays on R K Narayan (by Pankaj Mishra) and A K Ramanujan (by Mehrotra himself), the two major English writers from Mysore. As I read these two essays, I was sruck by the remarkable absence of any reference to Mysore, especially in the essay on Narayan. Immediately, I was reminded of all the recent grand claims in Churumuri by several eminent Mysoreans on how Narayan placed Mysore on the map.

Here is a simple point I want to make. Both Mishra and Mehrotra are eminent writers, with a good, reliable literary sensibility. Mishra, in particular, is a writer with the capacity to recognize the importance of a place and to genuinely appreciate a writer like Narayan. You just have to glance through his Butter Chicken in Ludhiana to realize this. However, in his essay, Mysore appears twice and both times as Mysore state. Mishra writes more on Madras and other places, than on Mysore itself. As a city that shaped Narayan’s sensibilities or provided the inspiration for Malgudi, or even as the city in which Narayan lived for nearly eight decades, Mysore doesn’t exist in Mishra’s essay. Puzzling.

Ramanujan is known more as an academic scholar, teacher, mentor and a superb translator. But no mistake. He is one of the finest Indian poets of the twentieth century. Mysore, along with Hyde Park (in Chicago) where he spent over thirty years of his adult life, is a huge presence in his poetry. For the time being, please accept this as a proposition and I will make my case in the coming weeks, as I wrote more on Raman. Yet, Mehrotra doesn’t even mention Mysore in his essay.

In the last few days, I have searched for an explanation in vain. Is Mysore significant at all to understand Narayan’s fiction and Raman’s poetry? What is the role of a place in shaping the sensibility of an author and in the creative process? I will share my thoughts in the coming days but I do want to leave you with a thought.

Both Mishra and Mehrotra should have recognized the presence of Mysore in RKN and AKR. They dont’ need any hand holding. But if they don’t see what we expect them to see, are we making a big deal out of something minor? I also wonder sometimes whether we just sit in a cacoon and not investigate how the world sees us.

By the way, how does the world see us? How do we want the world to see us?