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Dedicated to Bharat and Dharma

Notes from India

by · June 20, 2009

Back from a hurried and intense 5-day visit to Pune and Bengaluru. I am getting more involved in some exciting initiative(s) at Pune and foresee more frequent visits to the city…Updates in due course.

Bengaluru was at the kind invitation of Barun Mitra (Empowering India) and Zainab Bawa who hosted a round-table at CIS covering issues around Technology, Transparency and Political Activism. Expect updates on Zainab’s blog soon. Saw a number of people with whose name I was familiar – and others who are doing some tremendous work on the ground in terms of political activism, participatory governance etc. Unfortunately had to rush off early in the afternoon for the flight back to Pune…did manage to spend some time though with Jasmine Shah of Janaagraha (& campaign coordinator of Jaago Re!), Ravi Rangan (Founder and Vice-Chairman, Comat) and Sanjay Jain of Google News. (Twitter updates here)

We are trying to do a similar round-table in Pune. Fingers crossed.

Random Notes and Other Observations:

1. The relentless march of “Hinglish” comtinues. Noticed “Thoda simple socho” witten in Roman script, “Ghar shifting specialist“/ “घर शिफ़्टीन्ग स्पेशलिस्ट” (written in devanagari) and an ad for Ambuja Cement: “Viraat Stren(g)th” / “विराट स्ट्रेन्थ” (written in Devanagari)

2. Observed a group of youngsters in late teens/early 20s applying moisturiser while waiting for their flt at Mumbai airport. Three boys and two girls.

3. Become aware of increasing mistakes of “maatra“ (मात्रा) in Hindi/Marathi advertisements (samples: “tirth”/ “तिर्थ”, “nita volvo”/ “निता वोल्वो”, “pravin stores”/ “प्रविन स्टोर्स” etc)

4. 1100 am at a Mall: I notice more cleaning staff than customers.

5. Saw a mind-boggling documentary (in-flight) titled “What is the time?” (Prof Brian Cox). For those who believe everything (or almost everything) in the Universe has been explained, this will come as an eye-opener (those of you who are curious should do a google search on “The Shapiro Time Delay”, String Theory, Planks constant and Space-Time Continuum; Some of you may also find this interesting: Atoms, Neurons and Consciousness… )

6. Overheard two NRI pre-teens (from USA, judging by their accent)…after an in-flight announcement in Hindi:

Teen A: Why are they speaking in Hindi?

Teen B: Because we are in India, man!

7. Kept thinking about language and identity. Hope to explore this in some more detail at our monthly meeting on Monday (22nd June) in London.

Observations and comments welcome, as always.

P.S. Am hoping to respond to all the pending comments today and tomorrow (especially on Voter IQ and Taliban in India). Thanks for your patience.

P.P.S. You can now follow me on Twitter

Quick notes from (an earlier) India visit.

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B Shantanu

Political Activist, Blogger, Advisor to start-ups, Seed investor. One time VC and ex-Diplomat. Failed mushroom farmer; ex Radio Jockey. Currently involved in Reclaiming India - One Step at a Time.

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6 Responses

  1. Indian says:
    June 20, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    This was refreshing. Very lively post! All the Best.

  2. Vedic Indian says:
    June 21, 2009 at 3:31 am

    Hi Shantanu,

    It was re-assuring to hear your talk in Imperial colleage at London. I am saying “re-assuring” as your dedication and commitment towards saving India from itself has given me some much searched assurance that not all us Indians are rooted in our sorry bottoms watching the hard earned nation going down the pan. I have been going through your blogs in the last few weeks and, to be honest, cannot say that I agree with all yours views but, as they say, something is better than nothing.

    Will follow this blog closely from now onwards and will contribute in whatever little way I can.

  3. Bhavananda says:
    June 21, 2009 at 7:03 am

    For those who’s been reading (even a bit of) Vedic scriptures none of this should come as a surprise. Remember how, a few years back, thousands of scientists met in Europe to conclude that Pluto is not a planet – many of them may not have heard of “Navagraha stotra” and that Pluto was never a part of the Solar system. The cycle of “something being proved” followed by the same thing being “disproved” is, sort of, endless in modern science. Today we’ve one theory for something, and tomorrow something else will explain it correctly. Light used to be particles (corpuscular theory) and then it became a wave (de’Broglie’s theory) and today it is both!

    Without a unified theory for consolidate QM and relativity, it looks like that a theory of universe will settle for something that of light. On the face of it, Brian Greene’s “Elegant Universe” didn’t sound so bad to me – except that there’s not a shred of hard evidence to back it up. Last I heard, the Large Hadron collider was to probe the existence of the critical particle, graviton, but its yet to start working.

  4. Dirt Digger says:
    June 21, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    @Shantanu,
    The section about Prof. Brian Cox is a post by itself and would appreciate it if you moved it out of the unrelated topics. Recently I watched a similar program on Discovery where they discussed the search for the dimensions of space and intelligent life using the newly launched Kepler space telescope http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/23/kepler-seti-alien.html
    In some ways even the most advanced of technologies find it quite difficult to confidently answer the most basic of questions about the origin of the universe.

  5. B Shantanu says:
    June 22, 2009 at 1:35 am

    Thanks Indian!

    ***

    @ Vedic Indian: Disagreement is fine…It sharpens the mind! So I welcome it…and I hope to see you here more often.

    ***

    @ Bhavananda: “On the face of it, Brian Greene’s “Elegant Universe” didn’t sound so bad to me – except that there’s not a shred of hard evidence to back it up.”

    That is true…when it comes to these questions, so much is still speculation…

    ***

    @ DD: Thanks for the suggestion…I might just do that. Thanks for the link to the Discovery programme…I will have look.

  6. Satyabhashnam says:
    June 25, 2009 at 9:41 am

    @Shantanu: The relentless march of “Hinglish” comtinues.

    —-

    Shantanu bhai, this is exactly what annoys me the most. Check this article on the so-called Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times (नवभारत टाइम्स).
    —
    85 % ऑस्ट्रेलियाइयों ने माना, नस्ली पूर्वाग्रह है
    छात्रों पर बढ़ते हमलों के बीच एक नए सर्वे में कहा गया है कि 85 पर्सेंट ऑस्ट्रेलियाई यह महसूस करते हैं कि देश में नस्ली भेदभाव फैला हुआ है।
    —

    Just like any other Hindi newspapers or news entertainment channels they have completely dejected the use of Hindi numerals (१,२,etc.) and Purn Viram (पूर्णविराम ।). Now even percent is written in Hinglish as पर्सेंट instead of proper Hindi as प्रतिशत (Pratishat). Ha, what am I saying. Their newspaper’s name itself is in Hinglish: टाइम्स.

    I have noticed PTI is the worst of all these culprits. Most of these newspapers and channels use it as resource and they write the worst Hindi Samachar articles, so their crap is then all over the place. They are all what they call themselves, Urdu Khabar.