Shyamala goes digital

I have been trying for a while now to persuade my writer friend and  wife’s cousin Lakshmi Ramanan to go digital.  She has much to showcase on the web by way of her writings. But then Shyamala (that’s how she is known in family circles) stonewalls my suggestion , saying that being a housewife is a 24×7 job ; plus, as an IAS wife she has a social role to fulfil, even though her husband is no longer in service.  Mr T V Ramanan retired as chief secretary to Rajasthan govt.

Shyamala is on Facebook, but she rarely accesses it.  A message I had left on her page several weeks back still remains unread. She has an e-mail account, but she doesn’t check mail for days at a stretch.  Shaymala’s case  that she doesn’t have time for networking may have merit. But those who  see the  benefit in browsing the Net and social networking – Facebook,  Twitter, LinkedIn and  Shelffari – take time out to be online. There are writers who can’t imagine a life without a laptop.

Viewed in this light,  her phone call the other day came as a surprise ; she called me to inform that she was on the worldwide  web.  A noted writer/journalist Bakkiyam Ramasami spotted her work in recent book  and  promptly put it on his website.  Shyamala said more of her work may well show up on Appusami.com in the coming weeks.  (To access Appusami links,  open this post with Internet Explorer ;  Mozilla brings up a garbled version of the Tamil sites on my computer.)

Ramasami is  known among the Tamils the world over as creator of Appusami, a cartoon character , who,  in the four decades since his creation,  has taken varied incarnations – as student leader,  magician,  Sidha vaidyar, freedom fighter,  dacoit Veerappan chaser in the jungles of Sathy, suicide bomber and photographer. Appusami has been a lead charecter in several Tamil plays and TV serials;  he has a Chennai-based humor club named after him .

By putting Shyamala’s woes  of growing a mango tree on her frontyard on the web  Mr Ramasami has given a new  life and worldwide readership to her earlier writings.  Hopefully, more of Shayamala would be seen on Appusami dot com  in the coming weeks and months.  Lakshmi Ramanan has reason to feel pleased about the development. Her magazine pieces,  printed  in back editions pulped years ago,  get  a new lease of life on the web. The thing about having your stuff on the web is that anyone, anywhere can access,  re-visit or simply stumble on it, anytime.

Being online, on the web, has a way of keeping  your writings ‘alive’ ,  and open to comments by readers . What’s more, Shyamala  can now  review, re-write, and  put in perspective  her mango tree article, for the benefit of today’s readers.   As a writer brought up in the old school,  Shyamala still works with pen and paper and writes her articles in longhand for submission to editors.  She could do with help from the likes of Vijaya Jyotsna who has devised a five-day course in  ‘Neteracy’ for seniors.

Mrs Ramanan finds time for writing by squeezing in 26 hours in her 24-hour day as housewife -  wakes up at 4 a m or does her writing late into the night when her household is asleep.  Shyamala, who started writing in her college days at Delhi’s  Indraprastha College, keeps up a steady flow of articles for  Kumudam, Bhakti Special, Mangaiyar Malar, Vikatan and Diwali specials of some Tamil periodicals.

A Juhu mechanic and Shekar Kapur’s Blackberry

I have a grouse against  Shekhar Kapur.   He hasn’t named  in his blog the hole-in-the-wall mechanic in Juhu, Mumbai, who fixed his Blackberry.  Those accustomed to the gadget can’t live without it.  Mr Kapur, unable to find a service centre that could repair his handset, was on  way to buy a new one when he spotted a fading signboard that read – ‘Cellphoon reapars’ -  at Juhu Market.  On impulse,  he stopped the car in front of this 6′x’6′ hole in the wall,  to ask the boy minding the store,  ”Can you fix a blackberry ?”

‘ Of course ,  show me. What’s wrong with it ?”

‘Well, the roller track ball does not respond.  It’s kind of stuck and I cannot operate it”

He grabs it from my hand and looks at it – “You should wash your hands. Many customers have same problem. Roller ball get greasy and dirty, then no working”

To cut a longish post short,  the film-maker had his Blackberry fixed  within 10 minutes, while an authorised service centre guy had reckoned it would take a week – his Balckberry had to be sent to Bangalore for fault assessment and repair.

Mr Kapur’s post evoked  97 responses .   Col. Hanspal, Bangalore,  had this to say -  ‘In my restaurant I have an uneducated19 Year old Buhari dish-washer, who can strip any Nokia Phone,  make all sorts of download arrangements, very conversant with blue tooth and thorough with the Applications…”

Anshuman Acharya who blogs at  Bland Spice : ” Reminds me of the  makeshift electrician who repaired my inverter in an hour,  after the  company gave me a quote ten times higher and a time-line of few  months ;  still running after a year”.

Subhash Bhojwani recalled his road trip in 1972 when  “the broken gear lever retaining cap in my Fiat 1100 was fixed by a roadside  mechanic in Chitoor, while I was on way from Madras to Hyderabad . . .the young man re-engineered the …broken part within an hour, including the screw threads, …. (with)  well worn electric lathe and a hand held file. …it worked  till I sold the car 3 years later”.

Vivek Mundkar referred  to Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College in Rajasthan  where they teach the unlettered rural folk  skills in dentistry, solar engineering, computer repairs…. They get no degrees , but what they learn helps  improve their lives” .

Gaurav :  “When  my laptop’s power adapter broke down all the  well known dealers said there was no solution ; asked me to buy an adapter. A mechanic at a local repair shop used the jugaad technology to fix  my adapter..”

Rohit Mishra, computer engineering student in Vellore, and  blogger -  Moving Ahead :  ” If only we can get our  infrastructure right and provide  opportunities to compete,  to all, all sections of India can flourish”.

Murugan,  a Sydney-based finance professional , and blogger – Theta @ 4Hz :  “Around 30-40 million entrepreneurs –  a huge majority of them financed by their friends and relatives –  not through the regular financial  system. …. Now that you have written about him , Mr Kapur, how about going back to him and help expand his business? “