Marathon runner

A marathon runner has been,  for me,  an un-understood entity ;  and there was a time when I used to think it was something Ethiopians did.  Anyway, I didn’t give a thought to the prospect of ever meeting  anyone who did 26.2 miles  in one go.  This was till I met Dr Srinivas  a couple of years back.  But then I first knew him as a research scientist (at Berkeley) before I got to learn about  his marathon exploits.

A research lab,  I would have thought,  is the least likely place to nurse a marathon runner.  That Dr Srinivas averages a 14 hour-day at his lab, seven days a week,  makes him even  a less likely candidate to be in this business of long-distance running.  What makes his case  all the more baffling is his  ‘fairly complicated’ domestic life.  Didn’t I say  I couldn’t understand marathon runners ?

I can’t say I still do,  after reading Dr Srinivas blog post describing his latest marathon at Sacramento earlier this month.  His narrative about a mindset and fighting spirit that kept him going,  against a body in revolt made  engaging read. After reading him Dr Srinivas struck me as someone capable of  invoking a mental stamina that triumphs over a battered body.

As he put it,  marathon running, was for most part,  a mentality,  as it became evident to him early in the race . At Mile-10  he already started feeling  his ‘body  falling apart’. And there were 16 more miles to go. It was  at this stage Dr Srinivas  decided to ignore his body that kept telling  him to slow down, eat,  and replenish his electrolytes.  This would have been good for  his body;  but,  would have at the same time,  made him feel a loser.

This was when  Dr Srinivas  did what his book prescribed  for marathon runners,  at the mid-way point. Determined to stay on track, he pushed himself beyond physical parameters for extreme stress.  But then he had also to contend with an   ‘ego in tatters, and a  sense of self-loathing’.  His book didn’t tell how to cope with this.

It was at this point – Mile-19 -  that Dr Srinivas had a call from wife  Maya on his cellphone.  She wanted to know how he was doing ;  and he could hear his little daughter Ila on the phone. He couldn’t  be telling them about the state of battered ego. Dr Srinivas doesn’t  tell us what he told his wife.  But her phone call did seem to work wonders on him. He swallowed some salt tablet,  ate and drank as  much as he could, and focused on making it to the finish line – still over six miles  away.

On his final mile Dr Srinivas felt his body rebel against his sprits -  he could sense his  abdominal muscles going in spasms,  calf-muscles  contracting,  and toes curling into his  shoes.  Spirit was still willing  – “If  I had to crawl the last mile, I was going to finish the bloody marathon”.  And he did – all 26.2 miles of it, in four hours.  Which was 30 minutes more than the timeline he had set for himself. But Dr  Srinivas had gained 54 minutes over his previous performance in  San Francisco.

Where would it be next, Dr Srinivas ?  My hunch is Baltimore.  Maya mailed me they are moving there  early in the new year.   Johns  Hopkins  would soon have a marathon runner on their faculty.

MUDA telecast : passing the buck

Telecast of the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA)  meetings has been shelved.  Its members  have passed the buck to Bangalore,  seeking  clear-cut directive from Karnataka government,  on whether or not the proceedings of MUDA should be open to the media via closed-circuit telecast.   MUDA isn’t particularly known for fair dealings when it comes to allotment of residential and other sites to members of the public.

To bring a measure of transparency in its public dealings MUDA chairman P Manivannan thought of opening its periodical meetings to the media.  Some MUDA members felt that presence of news reporters at the meeting hall would cramp their style. Meeting their objection Mr Manivannan  arranged for a  closed-circuit telecast of the proceedings to the MUDA press-room.

Which wasn’t okay with some MUDA members,  notably MLAs   who don’t feel comfortable with anything short of in-camera proceedings.  In the government if someone doesn’t want to get anything done,  the issue is referred to the higher authorities.  Papers are put up for approval. And a file is created,  to move from desk to a bigger desk,  till the file finds itself on CM’ s desk.

The issue whether or not to telecast  MUDA meetings has been referred to the department of law and parliamentary affairs.  The file would then move up the bureaucratic and ministerial ladders.  If the matter pertains to policy direction,  which the telecast issue,  presumably, is,  it goes to  CM.  If he deems the issue is worthy of wider consideration,  he could set up a committee.

My hunch is, a matter needing  ‘clear-cut direction’ would  call for a committee deliberation.  Besides,  if they  okay MUDA ,  you can’t stop  GUDA,  DUDA and BUDA (Bellary)  wanting  to  go  ‘live’ in the interest of transparency .

Mysore: Airport in search of flights

Now that the city has an airport with no flights,  Mysore is faced with the problem of generating passenger and cargo traffic that would make it worthwhile for airlines to come in here.  A recent seminar on the issue came up with the idea that Mysore-based IT corporates and other business establishments should hold out a promise of minumum seats occupancy to lure the airlines.

The idea doesn’t seem all that bright or workable because no airline can be expected make its business decisions on the minimum seats guaranteed  by a few corporates. Anyway,  no such assurance can be binding on individual companies.  Besides, airlines are reported to be looking for a state subsidy by way of a cut in fuel tax (27 perecent in Karnataka).

Air-traffic projection by Infosys has it that 800 of its employees  would use air services every week to Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. To be meaningful such projection ought to be able to give a break-down, city-wise, and also in terms of seat-occupancy on weekdays,  and weekends.

It doesn’t require much study to say that much of the corporate employees traffic out of Mysore is on weekends. Check the Chennai Shadabthi bookings from Mysore on Friday/Saturday. Viewed in this perspective, Mysore could at best function a weekend airport, to start with.

Among other wild ideas that spring to mind:
1) Make Mysore a cargo hub for carrying  vegetables, fruits, flowers, and other perishables from distrcts and nearby Nilgiris to  major market centre. This would need deep-freeze storage facility.
2) Airlines operating from Mysore would do well to  look at traffic to tier-2 destinations such as Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy, Bellary, Mangalore, Tirupathi, Cochin.
3) The Airports Authority of India  could consider developing  a shopping complex for air passengers and also local residents, in view of the relative proximity of the airport to the city limits.
4) Doubling the railway track could attract air traffic from towns on railway route.
5) Early completion of the Mysore-Bangalore expressway would make Mysore a credible alternative for air passengers in Bididi, Kengari and other Bangalore suburbs on the Mysore-end.

Heard this word ?

I hadn’t heard of this word , till I read it in The Hindu this morning . Which doesn’t mean that the word doesn’t exist.  In fact,  ‘incentivise’  is a word coined in 1968  and is recognised  in OED and Merriam-Webster.  But then a Google search showed up this entry under Urban Dictionary , which said the only respectable form of the word was the noun “incentive.”  And it added that those who say  “incentivize”  ought to know they  ‘come across as a jargon-spewing a-hole’.

Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet

Photo-journalist  T S Satyan’s  work for Life magazine  included  numerous  assignments of events of historic importance.  On his recent demise I looked for something I wrote on Satyan on the occasion of the release of his memoir – Alive n Clicking – in Mysore.
Excerpts from  Zine 5  column :

Among the more exciting assignments Satyan covered for Life was the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet in 1959. The Dalai Lama, then 24 years old, disguised as one of his bodyguards, escaped out of Tibet.  After three bitter weeks on the run crossing snow capped passes, he reached the last village in Tibet before entering Assam.  Satyan was among those who took position at a place near Tezpur  to capture the drama for Life.

An American newsman,  in his book,  gives an amusing account of  world media  coverage of the Dalai Lama escape by two other photographers. The Associated Press (AP) and the United Press International (UPI) were fierce competitors,  who went to great lengths in their bid to reach their news pictures faster than the other,  to newspapers around the world.

Dennis Lee Royale of AP and the UPI man chartered planes,  set up motorcycle relays for a frenzied race from the point where Dalai Lama crossed into India to the nearest photo-transmitting point. UPI was the first with the pictures.

A dejected AP man,  Royale,  got a cable from his office in New York,  saying  “opposition’s  Dalai Lama has long shaggy hair. Yours, bald.  How please?’.

Royale cabled back,  ‘because my Dalai,  right Dalai’.

As it happened,  the UPI photographer in haste  had mistaken the interpreter for Dalai Lama. Which was how AP won the day.

You will find this account in a book by the then  AP Bureau Chief in Paris,  Mort Rosenblum.  Its title: Coups and Earthquakes : Reporting the World for America

Satyan, T S, no more

Heard about Satyan’s  demise from  his  neighbourhood  friend Mr Bapu Satyanarayana ;  shared an auto-ride with  Satyam’s long-time media colleague  Mr Krishna Vattam to his Saraswathipuram residence, Mysore , for the last glimpse of Satyan. His  mortal remains were placed for public homage on his frontyard.  Within  half hour after our arrival  he was carried away to the crematerium.

A graduate from the Maharaja’s,  of 1944  vintage,  Mr Satyan took to photography at a time when most others in his profession were not even schooled  enough to write a photo caption in grammatical English. Satyan  rose to represent Life magazine,  an odd sized and picture-filled weekly founded by Henry Luce in 1936.  As someone accredited to Life , Satyan enjoyed the status of an aristocrat among the Delhi press corps those days.  But this  photo-man from Mysore retained his common touch.

To quote him ,  “My people are not the rich and the famous; they are simple ordinary folk…..(who) were there when I picked up the camera six decades ago, and they have been there every time I have gone back to capture the interesting moments in their lives” So wrote Satyan in 2002, when his In Love with Life -  a photo journey through life -  was released.

Among numerous historic events he covered for Life,  if I remember right , was the flight of Dalai Lama from Tibet in 1959.  Among the chapters in his subsequent work – Alive and Clicking – that still sticks in my mind is  Satyan’s  account of a meeting with  Satyajit Ray  for a photo assignment ,  when Ray,  a coffee house regular, took Satyan along for meeting friends at the Calcutta Coffee House.

My association with Satyan dated back to early 60s when I was a sarkari journalist with the Press Information Bureau (PIB) in New Delhi. Despite  our gap in the pecking order in the media, Satyan always found time for a chat whenever he dropped in at my office to collect photographs of government functions and other official events handed out by the PIB photo publicity unit. He had an affinity with reporters and writers in the media.  Being a photographer with a flair for writing  Satyan practised  photo-journalism at a time when they had not invented the term – photo-journalist.
Earlier this evening as I lingered for a while  in front of his residence,  after he was gone, memories of my Satyan connection flashed through  mind.  This photo of his deserted residence may well symbolize  the end of the  Satyan chapter in the book of my life.

Bangalore energy expo

A global energy expo-cum seminar is under way in Bangalore,  but Karnataka’s energy minister has no time to look in.  He is reported to  have told the show organisers that he is busy with campaigning for  the legislative council poll in Shimoga. Nearly 60 companies  related to energy – solar, wind,  biofuel,  and  hydro power – are represented at the four-day show.

Here they are  showcasing their product and equipment under one roof for the first time, and the karnataka energy minister doesn’t seem to see the  point of it.  For him Copenhagen may well be on another planet.  So  much for his  interest in the climate change issue.

Sunitha’s TED talk

Name: Dr. Sunitha Krishnan,  40,   mental health worker.

Work :  Giving voice to the voiceless sex-abuse victims ; an identiy to these ‘Anamikas’ ; helping them build up self-confidence  Has  rescued and rehab-ed  3,200 sex-abused females, aged  from three years to 40.

Motivation :  Gang-raped by eight men when she was 16 ; ostricised by society for the next two years.

Job hazard:   Has been beaten up many times by  thugs,  pimps and brothel keepers ; one of her staff members was killed in her effort to  rescue  a sex-abused woman.

Her TED talk:  12.42 mins  indictment of  our society;  scathing commentary on victimisation of victims of sexual abuse.

Her poser:   Would we accept one of these Anamikas  into  our homes as maid, house nurse or nanny ? Would we feel comfortable with  their children playing and moving  with ours ? Till such time there are not enough of us who can say,  ‘Yes, we will’,   Sunitha feels her work wouldn’t be done.

Her wish:  Each of us talks  this through to at least two others in our family and social circle. They,  in turn, could do the same with two of their contacts.

My wish:  All TV channels,  notably,  those dedicated to religious faiths, should telecast Sunitha’s TED talk.

A global edit on climate change

A Maldives cabinet meet on  seabed,  Nepal meet on Mt. Everest,  and now a common global editorial on climate change .  They are all geared to get world leaders meeting at Copenhagen to deliver, and not merely deliberate.  The common editorial has been  published on page one, of 56 newpapers from 45 countries in 20 different language.  Notably,  the only newspaper in India to carry the edit is The Hindu.

The Guardian of London that led this unique media initiative could not persuade any other paper in the UK . In the US the only English daily that published the edit is Miami Herald. The only other US paper to do so is in Spanish – El Nuevo.  In fact, the response of one US paper to the initiative was :  “This is an outrageous attempt to orchestrate media pressure.  Go to hell.”

It took the Guardian leader writiers – Tom Clark and Julian Glover – three drafts,  after much e-mail to-and-fro-ing among the participant editors to finalise the text.  Reflecting on how the shared editorial project emerged Guardian’s Ian Katz wrote , ” Given that newspapers are inherently rivalrous,  proud and disputatious, viewing the world through very different national and political prisms,  the prospect of getting a sizeable cross-section of them to sign up to a single text on such a momentous and divisive issue seemed like a long shot “.

Ian acknowledged  The Hindu was in on the project  right from the start -  ‘an early, enthusiastic,  conversation with the editor of one of India’s biggest dailies offered encouragement’.

The media initiative may not alter policy positions held by most countries,  notably,  the major ones that already have their minds  made up even before going to Copenhagen.  What is notable is that the initaiive represents a measure of  acceptance by the world media that there are  issues that  call for beyond-the-border thinking.  Next, the progressives in the media ought to come up with a common edit on combating  jihadi terrorism ; even if someone out there says,  ‘go to hell’.

Media practices

Taking the back page first,  The Hindu today carries  a report about the World Newspaper Congress calling on newspapers to focus less on profits than on their role in democratic society. And then there was a mention made about the print media accountability to their readers.
Here is the newspaper’s  Page One of the day
Pages  2 &  3
It for readers to judge whether The Hindu serves the readers interest by allowing their advt. people and accountants to have the run of their pages this way.