murali – Page 9 – Random Ramblings

A tale of two indians

In the past month, I read two books with similar settings , but diametricaly oppposite story lines., “the White Tiger ‘ by Arvind Adiga and ‘a tale of two Indians ” by Maharshi Mehta. Both the stories are set in rural India and have protagonists struggling to break out of a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, casteism … Continue reading “A tale of two indians”

In the past month, I read two books with similar settings , but diametricaly oppposite story lines., “the White Tiger ‘ by Arvind Adiga and ‘a tale of two Indians ” by Maharshi Mehta.

Both the stories are set in rural India and have protagonists struggling to break out of a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, casteism and feudalism .

That is where the similarity ends.The white Tiger, from rural Bihar finds his way to Delhi through cunning and deceit and finally obtains a fortune by murdering his employer. He then goes on to use his ill-gotten wealth to bribe the powers that be and become what he calls an entrepreneur.

The second story, set in rural Gujrat, follows a course diametrically opposite. Our hero, loses both parents early in life; and he is particularly upset that he could not save his mother as medical help could not reach her in time due to poor roads. Fired by his mission to participate in building good roads in rural areas, he struggles through his way , through sheer grit and handwork to become an engineer in Goverment service. Through out his life he faces more than his quota of tragedies and yet finds ways to overcome his personal grief by serving his fellowmen. It is also significant that most of the characters in the novel are based on real people , as mentioned in the ‘acknowledgments’.

The ‘white tiger ‘ won the Man Booker prize, while ‘the tale of two Indians’ is hardly known. Is it necessary to expose the dark underbelly of the country for an Indian work to win an Oscar or a Man Booker prize?

Freedom to break laws

This is cartoon from DNA, on 26 Jan 2012, when our nation celebrated the 63rd Republic Day. In India, if you are a big shot, you have to break more laws and with more impunity to prove your worth in the society. It is not as if we live in a lawless area like a tribal belt in … Continue reading “Freedom to break laws”

This is cartoon from DNA, on 26 Jan 2012, when our nation celebrated the 63rd Republic Day.

In India, if you are a big shot, you have to break more laws and with more impunity to prove your worth in the society. It is not as if we live in a lawless area like a tribal belt in a frontier region. We have plenty of laws, as any civilized society should.

Oprah Winfrey, on her recent visit to India, exclaimed, “…No, like, what is it with the red lights ? I mean, does the red light mean stop or not ? or is it just for your entertainment ?” . Ma’m we know what a red light is meant for . It is just that we like to break a few rules wherever we can. It is a land of ‘speed breakers’ not ‘sign posts’. If a motorist is to be stopped it has to be through speed breakers or better still barricades. A ‘Chaudhary‘ is simply not intimidated by a mere red light.

The higher you go in the social hierarchy, you need to break more laws. It also rubs off on the kith and kin. The children can merrily cheat in their school exams and where else can you find news headlines like “IAS officer’s wife slaps cop ” ?

Encroaching on public property is a birth right, it is our country, our land, isn’t it ? If you own a DDA flat, a one bedroom flat with some ingenuity can be converted into a three bed room flat with overhangs here and there.

Intellectual property is a great joke. IP lawyers can fret and fume, but we reserve our right to buy and sell pirated books and CDs at pavements, railway stations, inside the trains and well, wherever we can. And now we have become tech savvy. A computer buyer, demands a long list of software to go with it. Shops selling mobile hand sets in small towns, invariably flash a sign board saying “Downloading done here” . Even simple rural folks are not happy with just the handsets ( having 32 GB, storage capacity, all for under Rs 3000/-). They want their handsets with plenty of songs and Video clips of all kinds !

Not every one can break every law every time. A beggar sleeping on a pavement is promptly chased away. A hawker is tolerated as long as he follows certain ‘conventions ‘(not laws, mind you). Then comes an ambassador car with a red light on top, and it can be parked wherever for however long.

When you are really big enough, and when you can get away with a murder, not just figuratively, you are ready for bigger roles in the society. Run out of laws to break, some of the law breakers, even mange to become law makers, so that they can make more laws to break!

No harm in dreaming . If only,…if only, every Indian decided to abide by the laws of the land,..atleast there will be wider roads, cleaner pavements and no traffic jams. Revenue collection, in every department will soar, to be used for all sorts of welfare measures.

Where are the girls ?

In India, it is nothing unusual to read news stories about female foeticide or abduction of girls. But what is extremely disconcerting is that one crime feeds on the other and the entire outcome is condoned by the society at large. In a typical village in Haryana, the sex-ratio is so skewed that there are few prospective … Continue reading “Where are the girls ?”

In a typical village in Haryana, the sex-ratio is so skewed that there are few prospective brides available. So they conveniently buy ‘girls’ abducted from impoverished regions and the demand-supply chain is well established . But, why have the villagers become silent spectators to this heinous practice ? The uncomfortable truth is that every third house in the village is party to such a crime, in one way or the other.

Ironically, the relentless pursuit for male offspring has all but emasculated the society.

Men and women alike have lost the courage to stand up for justice and compassion to stand by the oppressed.

Where are the Khap Panchayats , the custodians of clan honour ? What kind of honour does, abduction or purchase of girls bring ?

More than enacting of stringent laws, the need of the hour is social reformers !

I wish, Anna hazare and his gang of four (Kejriwal, Bedi, Sisodia and Bhushan) , who have considerable influence in the region, channelize their energy to weed out this malaise . After all, what good can an anti-corruption to law do to a society where every home is morally corrupt ?

some links

traffickingnews
times of india
indian express
Shaktivahini

Religion and Music

Can a religion exist without music ? No religion can be totally cerebral and there are always some rituals which are invariably associated with some kind of music. Even in Islam, where the attitude towards music is at best ambivalent, the ‘Adhan’ , Islamic call to prayer is recited in a melodious voice rather than as a terse … Continue reading “Religion and Music”

Can music exist without religion ? Apparently, the answer is yes, as ‘kolaveri‘ is also music , having nothing at all to do with any religion. But then,if you ask a carnatic musician, you cannot even think of music without thinking of God. There is simply no room for atheists there. Certain kind of music gives rise to certain kind of emotions as joy, peace or compassion in a listener. To a practitioner of carnatic music, music is an intellectual and emotional exercise and also an expression of Bhakti and it also creates a similar feeling in a listener’s mind.

Then, we have the lyrics or sahityam . With the current generation, lyrics have taken a back seat and it is all drums and beats. Drums and beats are not great and such music is so enlivening and exhilarating. I remember , when we were in the academy, we used to have what we called ‘jam sessions’. We could hit the ceiling energized by orange squash, some eats like jalebi and doughnuts and…….. the Drums. It was all expression of raw energy and ‘OSI BISA’ (particularly, ‘ojah awake‘ and ‘dance the body music‘) was a great favourite.

While the effects of rhythm and beats are physical, it is only the words that can really get to your mind. Words are powerful and music is even more powerful, and when these powerful words are set to great music and rendered with the right bhava or emotion, it definitely does something to your innermost self. What’s amazing is that every time you here such a piece of music, the feeling gets more intense rather than follow the law of diminishing utility. To me, Bharathiyaar songs, sung by MS, or DK Pattammal / Nithyashree or Bombay Jayashree can be listened to any number of times.

Tailpiece . Recently I read AR Rahman’s biography. AR Rahman is said to avoid composing for non-sufi, religious songs. Just wondering what made Rafi sing such wonderful bhajans. Some of these works, Baiju Bawra, Kohinoor have been the combined effort of a great team, Mohammad Rafi, Shakeel Badayuni, and Naushad, with star cast including Dileep Kumar. They are professionals alright, but how does Rafi put in so much emotions into his devotional songs ?

The Solitude of Emperors

Having read Davidar’s first book, it was only natural to pick up his second book, “ The Solitude of Emperors”; to read. It is so different from his first book, yet there are similarities. If caste and racial issues were intertwined in the earlier plot, communal violence dominates this plot. The narrator of the story, young Vijay is a … Continue reading “The Solitude of Emperors”

The narrator of the story, young Vijay is a budding journalist who , due to sheer boredom of life in a small town in South India, breaks out his cocoon to take up a job with a magazine in Mumbai. Mr Sorabji’s magazine, “The Secularist”, has a small but dedicated readership of people who share his vision of a secular India.

Mr Sorabji becomes a father figure for Vijay and he just soaks up the ideas and vision expounded by his mentor. But for Vijay, it is all just abstarct ideas till the time communal violence breaks out in mumbai, following the demolition of Babri masjid. He gets caught up in the violence on the streets and is a mute witness to riots and killings in all the gory details. His magazine runs a major story on the riots and riot victims as part of the campaign for a secular India.

The second part of the book covers Vijay’s experience at the Nilgiris where another disputed Shrine is under attack by the right wing activists. It is here that Sorabji’s manuscript is introduced, from which the title of the book is derived. The artcle is addressed to the young people of the country for instilling of secular values through a study of the lives of Asoka, the emperor of renunciation, Akbar, the emperor of faith and Gandhi, the emperor of truth.

There are two imposing , well defined characters to cover the two main divergent view points, viz, Mr Sorabji, the editor of ‘The secularist’ and Rajan, the entrepreneur-politician. While Mr Sorabji, believes in convergence of religions for the good of the mankind, Rajan convincingly argues that a strong Hindu rashtra alone can bring in peace and prosperity for all including the minorities.

The most lovable character in the novel, is the vagabond called Noah, who has seen it all, done it all , in his ‘ripe’ age of 36 and is now content to live in the local cemetry with his dope, flowers, a dog called’ godless’ and his great collection of contemporary european poetry. While all other characters move on predictable lines, it is this loose canon that adds life to the narration in the second part of the book.

The first part of the novel covering Vijay’s escapades in mumbai is highlighted by a gripping narration with a meticulous eye for details. In the second part, the narration is more like a tourist guide book, with long interruptions by sermons in history, ie Sorabji’s manuscript on the ’emperors’. Yet there is enough momentum to keep the readers’ interest in the ultimate fate of the shrine. Will it also go the Babri Masjid way and if so with what consequences ?

An immensely readable book, if only for the excellent characterization of Mr Sorabji and Noah.

A Meal at Gurudwara, Mhow

It was not the first time I was going to a Gurudwara. During the days when we were co-located with a unit of the Sikh Regiment, I have attended many functions at Gurudwara, but more often than not it used to be just another ‘Parade’. Last week a retired army officer, invited us; insisted … Continue reading “A Meal at Gurudwara, Mhow”

Last week a retired army officer, invited us; insisted that I should bring my mother along; to a Gurudwara at Mhow for a keertan followed by lunch, to celebrate the wedding anniversaries of his son and daughter. We were a little surprised, since the gentlemen was from south of Vindhyas and so were his son-in-law and daughter in law.

A word about the places of worship in army; in most of the places including at College of Military Engineering (MCTE) , Mhow, portions of a military barrack are used as ‘Mandir’ Masjid, Gurudwara or Church. Very often it happens that when a Jat unit takes over a barrack from a Sikh unit, the Gurudwara is converted to a Mandir overnight. The flag is changed from yellow to red and the Guru Granth Sahib is replaced by idols of Radha and Krishna. In the units having mixed troops , they have what we call an MMG (Mandir-Masjid-Gurudwara) functioning under the same roof.

Anyway, we did attend the function in full strength. The Gurudwara in the army area was clean, well maintained and very well organized. Most of the people attending were from ‘The Signals Vihar’ a colony of retired officers. One could sense a general atmosphere of peace and contentedness. After the Ardhas (Arati for Hindus) , which was attended by the pundit from the Mandir next door, among others, lunch was served outside the main hall. Everyone was seated on the floor on a long ‘chatai’ (a carpet) and food was served by volunteers . The meal was simple and wholesome. I was glad I could sit cross legged on the floor (though not as much at ease as I wished) and many of the guests were sitting on the edge of the verandah , with legs half strecthed, half folded, to ease the creaking joints . There was a distinct feeling of fraternity, though there people from all ranks, including a couple of Lieutinent generals.

I was reminded of the community meal , I used to have at Divine Life Society at Hrishikesh , on my way to Harsil where I was posted for two years. A simple meal of daal, rice, roti and vegetables tastes so delicious when partaken, in a warm and friendly atmosphere.

(Photos do not pertain to Mhow, but random picks from the net)

Tail piece : An anecdote going round in army circles: A young sardar in a unit asked his ustad, “yeh Christmas kya hota hai ? chhuti kyon manate hain ?” and his Ustad, assuming a posture of prayer with bowed head and folded hands, explained “yeh isaayiyon ka Guru purab hota hai” (This day is the Guru purab of Christians)

Book Review : House of Blue mangoes

What drew me to the book was that it was set in rural Tamilnadu and that the author was my class-fellow at school. Firstly, about the author, I shall restrict myself to some trivia, which is not in the public domain, since a simple googling of the name can give you more inputs than you can read. Roll No … Continue reading “Book Review : House of Blue mangoes”

Roll No 605, Bharathi feeder house in 1968, Chera house and finally passed out from Valluvar house in 1975. In all likelihood, his writing career started with “Nonsense Rhymes” , published in the school magazine, Amarsainik 1968, If my memory serves me right, it went something like this;

there was Mr cork,

who killed a huge hawk,

with a piece of chalk,

………….

In School, David was a voracious reader and he won prizes for recitation, essay writing and short story writing.

Coming to the book, the story covers three generations of the Dorai family, set in rural Tamilnadu, in the period from 1899 to 1946. These were very turbulent and eventful years that saw more churning, in the political, economical and social life in India , as compared to any period over 2000 years of history.

The main characters are Solomon Dorai, Daniel Dorai and Kannan Dorai, who respond to the challenges of their own generations in the ‘Dorai’ spirit. If the first generation was mired in caste wars, the second was affected by nationalist movement. The third, had to tackle the social churning and the uneasy equations between, Indians, white-men and the Anglo-Indians. There is a portrayal of two strong women , Charity and Lily, who free the Dorai men to pursue their eccentric ways and to nurture their inflated egos, while they themselves toil to keep the family together as much as possible.

Narration is simple and easily flowing, particular when Tamil words are easily interposed, with no annotation, brackets or italics.

…..spinster chithis and decrepit thathas were singing along….

The rural beliefs and way of thinking is conveyed through the characters, without any commentary or moderation.

………Every villager knew that a man didn’t find soil that suited his nature would not prosper. Brahmins thrived on sweet soil, like that found in the delta at the mouth of the river, which is why Subramania Sastrigal and his ambitious young son would never thrive on the astringent soil of Chevathar. They might squeak and flail away at the Dorais but one roar from Solomon would send them scurrying for cover. But surely the kunam of the Vedhars matched the soil of the Chevathar, which was neither sweet nor sour, salty or pungent but fairly bitter-the soil of people of the earth, farmers and artisans……………

Right through the book, the blue mangoes are loved, missed, venerated, glorified; well, the blue mango is more than a fruit; it represents love for one’s native place, மண் வாசனை , family, clan honour, clan spirit and what not.

There is detailed descriptions of well jumping in rural tamilnadu, shikar and life in a tea estate. There is a vivid description of tadpole catching by a little boy, which took me back to our own tadpole catching sprees in the puddles among the rocks between Chera house and the water tank. David was very sharp and I could never catch a single one.

There are many historical events interpolated in the story, and at time it is difficult to separate facts from fiction. 1899 caste riot at Sivakasi, ‘upper-cloth’ wars of Travancore, assassination of Ashe Dorai (the collector of Thirunelvali) are the major events described in the novel. DD mentions in the Author’s note , that he had to invent three new castes so that he did not add to the caste controversies, in Tamilnadu, Kerala and the country at large. The author also says that these castes share some similarities with some of the non-brahmin casstes in the south. I must say , there is more than just some similarities. I think, in the land of ‘Satyakam’ , we should not be shy of speaking a bitter truth. David’s ‘Andavar’ is so much like nadars and one of the fictitious castes ,’ vedhar’ sounds so much like ‘dhevar‘

The acknowledgement section is exhaustive, which goes to show the kind of background research which had gone into writing of the book.

It is definitely a readable book,

Where do Ideas Come From ?

Where do Ideas come from ?…. “Little by little, I think we build a conscious understanding of what we’re born already knowing: what the highest inner us wants to believe, it’s true. Our conscious mind, though, isn’t happy till it can explain in words. “Before I knew it, in just a few decades, I had … Continue reading “Where do Ideas Come From ?”

Where do Ideas come from ?….

“Little by little, I think we build a conscious understanding of what we’re born already knowing: what the highest inner us wants to believe, it’s true. Our conscious mind, though, isn’t happy till it can explain in words. “Before I knew it, in just a few decades, I had a system of thinking that gives me answers when I ask.”……..

“What was the question?” I said. “Oh. Where do I get my crazy ideas?

Answer: sleep-fairy, walk-fairy, shower-fairy. Book-fairy.

———–-Richard Bach in “A Bridge Across Forever

Where did Mahatma Gandhi get his unique ideas like ‘Sathyagraha and civil disobedience ‘ from ?

I have been doing some study on Gandhi literature. The complete works of Gandhi runs in to a whopping 90 volumes. He was not a prolific writer of books / novels, but he wrote regularly for Navjeevan, Young India and Harijan. But what is amazing is that he was unusually conscientious about replying to all his correspondents from South Africa, England, India and elsewhere,writing a many as 70-100 letters per day for over four decades.

In a speech , later published in Navjeevan, he explains , where he got his ideas from. Gandhiji never accepted anyone as his religious guru. Three men have had great influence on Gandhiji’s thinking. Among them he places poet Rajchandra first, followed by Count Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin.

How many of us have heard of Poet Raj Chandra or John Ruskin ? At least I have not.

Now I am a little more knowledgeable about these gentlemen.

Raj Chandra was primarily a diamond and pearl merchant, who like a true karma-yogi, sort of renounced the worldly attachments even while actively doing business.

To Quote Gandhiji …..

“During the two years I remained in close contact with him, I felt in him every moment the spirit of ‘vairagya’. One rare feature of his writings is that he always set down what he had felt in his own experience. there is in them sense of unreality……He had always a book on some religious subject by his side and a note book with blank pages. The latter, he used for noting down any thought which occurred to him….

…Whatever he was doing at the moment, whether eating or resting or lying in bed, he was invariably disinterested towards worldly things….

….I watched his daily life respectfully, and at close quarters. he accepted whatever was served at meals. His dress was simple, a dhoti and a shirt… It was the same to him whether he squatted on the ground or had a chair to sit on.

While the Poet, Rajchandra or Raichand Bhai as he was better known, influenced Gandhiji by his close association , John Ruskin and Toltoy influenced him through their writings.

To Quote from John Ruskin..,

….It is a sheer error to suppose, as is generally done, that some eduction however little or however faulty is better than no education at all. We should strive for real education alone.

………….Every human being requires three aspects of knowledge and three virtues. Anyone who fails to cultivate them does not know the secret of life. These six things should form the basis of education. Every child, whether boy or girl, should learn the properties of pure air, clean water and clean earth, and should also learn how to keep air, water and earth pure and clean and know their benefits. ‘Gratitude’, ‘Hope’ and ‘charity’ are the three desirable virtues……..

Well, at some point Gandhiji said that all we have to do is unlearn whatever we learnt in the past 50 years ( around 1850-1900).

Some ideas from Leo Tolstoy

1. In this world, men should not accumulate wealth.

2. No matter how much evil a person does to us, we should always do good to him. Such is the commandant of God,and also his law.

3. No one should take part in fighting.

4. It is sinful to wield political power, as it leads to many of the evils in the world.

5. Man is born to do his duty to his creator; he should therefore pay more attention to his duties than to his rights .

6. Agriculture is the true occupation of man. It is therefore contrary to divine law to establish large cities, to employ hundreds of thousands of minding machines in factories so that a few can wallow in riches by exploiting the helplessness and poverty of the many.

All these ideas are reflected in Gandhiji’s thoughts and in his experiments with Truth that he conducted, in his ashrams and on the larger canvas he worked on, that is “India’.

the art of story telling

For the past few months I have been downloading old movies, old songs ; mostly 70s and 80s but also some from 60s, Tamil, English and Hindi. They are so different from the current fare you get. But one thing that has hardly changed over the past 50 years, if not for centuries, is the … Continue reading “the art of story telling”

For the past few months I have been downloading old movies, old songs ; mostly 70s and 80s but also some from 60s, Tamil, English and Hindi. They are so different from the current fare you get.

But one thing that has hardly changed over the past 50 years, if not for centuries, is the art of story telling, the ‘katha kalatchebam‘ way. The other day , looking for some carnatic music, I stumbled on ‘nandanaar caritiram’ by Sowmya on You tube. The clips were of ‘Margazhi Mahotsavam, 2009’ . When you download from you tube it takes a while to collect all the parts, and put it together for viewing leisurely on the TV screen.

The experience took me right back to my childhood, to a large old fashioned, house, in North Madras , Though, we stayed in a small portion , as kids we had all the open spaces for ourselves, and spent most of our time outdoors. The prominent part of the premises was a large hall, with a high ceiling, called “The Samajam “. While the main hall was cemented, a vast area extending up to the main gate, was covered with nice beach-sand where people could sit and listen to a ‘kathai’ or katcheri’ .

This Samajam was the scene of many a of social activity, mainly, kathai, katcheri and kalyanam. As I remember katha kalatchebam was organized twice or thrice in a month and occasionally we had a katcheri , Villupattu or Vikatakatchey (a kind of stand-up comedy, done sitting down 😉 ) and radha kalyanam was an annual event. The land lord I believe had bought the property in the beginning of the century. I admire his foresight. The ‘samajam’ , besides hosting Radha Kalyanam’ ‘Sita kalyanam ‘ and ‘Ramar Pattabhishekam’ , saw the ‘kalyanams’ of all four daughters of his and I don’t know how many grand daughters.

We also had a ‘Veda Class’ , as we called it . Here’s a photo of our Veda Class in the Samajam , circa 1967.

Coming back to Nandanar caritiram, nothing really has changed from the microphone less days to web camera times. The style of narration, style of singing, accompanying instruments, nothing at all seems to have changed since the first performance of the ‘musical play’ , in the times of Gopalkrishna Bharathi, the composer. Only the medium has changed. Seeing young people in Sowmya’s team, one feels that there will always be a small group dedicated to this unique art of story telling. Of course, there are changes in the external appearance. There is no one with a kudumi, and one of the singers even sports a nice french beard. Some of them may look like corporate executives, but when they sing, they are just the ‘bhagavathars’ of yesteryears.

An Ongoing Affair with Tux

What is common among Tux, Penguins, Lizards, Fawns, Gibbons, Herons and Lynx ? They all represent some version /distro of Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular. The affair started sometime in circa 2000, when I first read about linux , probably in PCQuest. It was all very romantic for a computer buff; a student finds a commercial … Continue reading “An Ongoing Affair with Tux”

What is common among Tux, Penguins, Lizards, Fawns, Gibbons, Herons and Lynx ? They all represent some version /distro of Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular.

The affair started sometime in circa 2000, when I first read about linux , probably in PCQuest. It was all very romantic for a computer buff; a student finds a commercial software too costly for him and he decides to write his own. He shoots of a mail into cyberspace asking for assistance and is overwhelmed by the number of netizens taken in by the idea. The day when another mail was sent around the world announcing the birth of a workable kernel is observed as Linux’s B’day. Geeks of the world unite, and you have nothing to lose but the chain imposed by propriety software. Till today, software developers, graphics designers and technical writers from all over the world are finding some self- fulfilment in working for the Open Source Software . Software should be free as in ‘Mukt’ if not free as in ‘Muft’.

I was then posted at Mhow. The idea so caught my fancy that, I had to try it out, at the earliest. As a first step, I visted the kajuri bazaar, the popular market for new and second hand books at Indore. It was not easy to find a book on Linux. After an hour or so of rummaging through some old stock, I found a book on installing and configuring Linux. The book came with two free CDs of Slackware Linux !

The book started with a Disclaimer in bold letters. The developers of the software promised full refund of any amount paid for purchase of the product but would not be responsible for any harm done to your hardware by following their instructions! Mind you those were the times a computer costed my four month’s pay, and a hard disk costed at least a month’s pay.So, the first two days were spent in reading through 200 odd pages of technical writing. Then more time was spent in understanding the hardware, since if you don’t know what was the model and make of the components in your system, you can’t expect a dumb CD to figure it out.

The most scary thing was partitioning the hard disk. But armed with a Jonathan Saches book on Dos 2.0, (Idiot series and Dummy series books wouldn’t touch such issues with a barge pole) I soon became an expert on manual partitioning of a hard disk. I could say, “just do a fdisk, specify the starting cylinder and sector and ending cylinder and sector , make it bootable and save it !”

Since then every comp at my home or ofice has had atleast one dedicated partition for linux and most often a PC had three partitions for the tux, for different flavours of Linux, you see.

It was a great day when I had written the root image on one floppy and the kernel image on another floppy and loaded a linux OS on my Pentium machine. Linux booting is always pretty, a series of informative, sometime funny messages scrolling up the screen before a nice little hash prompt is displayed for your next command. The better part was selecting and and installing apps using a primitive package tool.

JOE (Joe’s Own Editor) was my favourite word processor. For someone who has seen vi editor Joe was 22nd century

app. Then there was the text based spread sheet called SC (Spreadsheet calculator), its GUI version was xspread and xv was a great image viewer. All these were ‘Wow’ apps for me. In the linux world , either the app was named after its developer like Joe or it splashed the developers name like John Brodly’s xv.

Linux has X – Windows System to cater for GUI apps. It was fairly easy to set up. All you had to do was a short research on monitors and display cards and it was done! , But what a range of Window managers

2-3 days later, the internet was through. Oh, you just had to study how Point to Point Protocol (PPP) worked and had to write out a few configuration files using., ya you guessed it right, Joe (joe’s own editor). It was followed by email client called elm and a great improvement on elm ie Pine (Pine Is Not Elm)

It was pure bliss when I had configured the network interfaces and the aliases. Typing ‘d’ (for dial) would connect me to the net in precisely 22 seconds (a dial up handshake sounded so sweet ) and typing ‘dak’ would fire up the fetchmail program to display the incoming mails. (My firends using ms windows and yahoomail spent half an hour on retrieving mails, on a dial up connection.)

The next six months passed in trying out various flavours of linux. Bought a book on caldera Linux as well, It had a GUI installation and actually you could play tetris while installation was going on in the background. A great find was linux on floppy or Mu-Linux. We used it in our lab to teach unix commands. The developer of Mu-Linux, M Andreoli calls it a cardware; you are expected to send a post-card to him after installation. The entire functional OS fits in a floppy.

Then from Mhow we moved to the Kumaon hills; There was a two year period of lull or should I say “Null”, leave alone internet , even a telephone connection was erratic at Pithoragarh.

Then in 2003 we moved to Coimbatore and my affair with tux resumed. This time it was Red Hat -6 followed by 7.1. By then X- windows system had come of age and even the text consoles in Linux started looking colourful. (True Linux lovers cannot live without a text console and the # prompt which lets you do anything from command line). For the first time , Linux ie Red Hat posed a serious competition to MS windows. It was around this time Red Hat itself started behaving windowish, whatwith enterprise edition and all. The hat later became a ‘Fedora‘ . By “windowish” I mean, getting too snotty, taking decisions on user’s behalf on how you should use your comp, laying down too many Do’s and Don’ts, just as Microsoft Windows does.

It looked as if the growth of Linux had plateaued out and competition with windows on Microsoft’s own terms meant losing the personality of free thinking geeks.

A good Open Source Software lets the user, explore, discover, learn and enjoy the process of living with a system, being with a system. The system is user friendly for one to explore freely, customize the environment, and enjoy the whole process of learning even while working. It also lets free sharing of code among developers to modify, customize and improve. In short, it was collaboration rather than competition, just caring and sharing and helping.

Quoting the Free Software Foundation’s, ‘What is Free Software,’ the freedoms at the core of free software are defined as:

- The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs.

- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
- The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public, so that everyone benefits.
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Then came Ubuntu in 2004 and it was indeed a game changer, in every way. Ubuntu is different from the commercial Linux offerings that preceded it because it doesn’t divide its efforts between a high-quality commercial version and a free, ‘community’ version. The commercial and community teams collaborate to produce a single, high-quality release, which receives ongoing maintenance for a defined period. Both the release and ongoing updates are freely available to all users.

It was also the time I moved to Murshidabad (North Bengal) leaving my family behind at Coimbatore. My son , Sid ,was still a MS Windows user, as direct X and action games were available only in the MS World.

Linux was still not good enough for serious work as support for hardware, formatting and printing was not good enough for desktop users . It was only an exercise cycle and not a machine to take you places, but then an exercise cycle is what built your muscles.

I came across a nice article in PCQuest on MIgration from MS windows to linux. The article was aptly called seven steps to Software Samadhi. It is still a viable howto , with some changes here and there, for attaining Software Nirwana.

Sometime in 2006, I got hold of some Ubuntu CDs from Canonical , first ubuntu 5.10 and then 6.06 (those days you could ask for 5 or 10 copies of the software and it was shipped free of cost. One big difference between Ubuntu and other distros is that It is single CD installation and once you connect to the internet you have a whole universe of software appliactions, in well organized repositories. In fact the repositories are called ‘universe’ and ‘multiverse’

You just have to type “apt-get intall ‘this’ or apt-get install ‘that’ and there you are. Within a month of installing ubuntu I realized my own software nirvana. I could say bye-bye to Microsoft and the blue screen of death.

What is nirvana if you can’t share your joy with everybody ? I started distributing the CDs I had got from canonical and also burnt additional copies for friends. I sent a CD of PCLOS by snail mail to Sid. Within an hour of receiving it his PC was up and running on Linux complete with all bells and whistles. he was thrilled, “Appa , Amarok rocks !, the best music player I have seen !” he was hooked and there was no going back. It was only the question of which distro to use. He is partial to KDE (K desktop Environment) , he says, because it has oodles of apps, which is true .

But I suspect it was more so as he shares his birthday with Matthias Ettrich, the founder of KDE. Today, he is a Linux Guru in the Indian Navy.

The kind of customization linux permits is phenominal and we used to exchange screenshots of our PCs through email.

Now I am content with Ubuntu, upgrading just once in two years to the LTS (Long term Support) version, while Sid keeps experimenting with different flavours.

Of Course, still there are some important apps, for which there are no linux version available. Till lately, We had dinosaur like organizations like BSNL which insisted that only IE be used for checking broadband data usage. Then you have apps like Nokia PC suite which does not have a linux version. And there is just one great application MS Access which does not have an equivelent LInux counterpart as yet.

For all these, we still have one small partition for MS Windows , the ‘ just in case ‘ option. Wine (Window Emulator) takes care of many apps developed for windows platform, it has some limitations Recently I tried Virtual Box. This is one great option for running any number or any type of virtual machine all under a host OS , in my case Ubuntu Linux. I sign off with one screen shot of nokia running in a VM, under ubunt 10.04. Lucid Lynx.

It all sounds like a lot of tech-talk, but to me it is all , to use one of the untranslatable urdu words just ‘jazbaat‘ (may be loosely translated as ‘feeling towards anything or any person).

I convey my heartfelt thanks to Linus Torwalds, the founder of Linux, Richard Stallman, The founder of Free Software Foundation, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Project, and millions of programmers, designers, technical writers and Translators from all over the world, for whom Open Source Software is a religion, in the true spirit of Ubuntu.