Author: Pradeep

  • When was the last time you went to a museum?

    Ashwin Baindur shared this on the Wikimedia India List yesterday. He requested comments. This let out a chain reaction of thoughts which led to this blog post.

    I don’t remember when it was I last went to a museum as a child. It was at a time when it was still called Prince of Wales Museum. Hence, it is certainly before the year 2000 when the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India became the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu Sangrahalay. The new branding calls them, “The Museum”. I don’t recollect ever having gone to the Bhau Daji Lad Museum before last year.

    My only recollection of the Museum is going there as “picnic” from school and walking around in a single file whilst having no one to explain what the thing was other than monotonous boards that said, “Toy from the Indus Valley Civilisation” or some such. There was no context. What is so special about this toy in some time long past? Why is it kept in a museum? Why is this Museum interested in this toy? Our classes were huge. Museum staff was little to invisible. There was simply no one there to satiate our curiosity. This was before the Internet became pervasive or affordable. Even the exhibits were just kept on an old table in the room under tube lights. I am amazed that even this excited our curiosity.

    The next time I went to the Museum was when Liam Wyatt came to India for building Wikipedia’s GLAM initiative in 2011. Liam had been working with the British Museum in London to enable content from the Museum to enrich Wikipedia’s articles and photographs while at the same time leading more visitors to both the website of the British Museum as well as to the Museum itself. He was in India to meet Wikipedian community members and cultural institutions in India to see if a similar initiative could be started in India. To Wikipedia, it was clear that this would increase and improve coverage of the Indian sub-continent. To the institutions, this was something new.

    I have been part of several conversations that talk about how to improve the Museums in our country. These were private conversations. I have heard Museum professionals speak about their ideas and the changing notions of what the Museum means in the twenty first century.  These were mainly their professional view points. It did not seem to be laced with feedback from the public on what they expected from the Museum.

    Above all, the Museum is a public space. It is a public space which aims to remind us of our historical heritage, something most of us lose touch with once we pass out of high school. It is a public space that points to the mechanisms by which our culture evolved over the years. It is a public space our youth can get educated. Informally, so that they know the outline without knowing too much in depth but a starting point from which they can find out more. It is a place to discover that there is such a part in our history. If it arouses his curiosity, he can always go home and look up more information on Wikipedia.

    The cultural institutions – galleries, libraries, archives and museums – are today offline spaces where we discover new things. Things we did not know existed. It then intertwines with online spaces, where we share it on social media forums and try to learn more about from Wikipedia. Here, they learn more about books where they can learn more about. These might be found in a local library. Or perhaps in an archive?

    I have felt that an important part of the conversation is missing because we speak from our perceived notions of what Museum might look like based on a visit you made quite a few years ago. So, before you read that article above – or if you’ve already read it – do give it some time. Do go and visit the Museum in your city. You never know, it might have changed, like the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India did. Once you go through the Museum, do tweet/blog/google+/facebook  about it but also write your feedback in that neglected guest’s book kept for our suggestions in the Museum. After you do this, might be a good time to speak about how we can improve cultural spaces in our country.

  • We’re bad at communicating our cultural history

    During my visit to Gandhi Ashram, Ahmedabad, I noticed that there was a major thrust towards showcasing how this was a very vital part of our cultural history. There were notes everywhere, painted, pictures etc about how we aimed to create an equal and casteless society. We’re really bad at communicating this history to the large population who visit the Ashram – the young and the foreigner, especially, who have only seen a resurgent India.

    This is the picture that greets you outside the toilet block. What is written in Hindi, translates into English as, “I asked for water, not your caste.” It is a one-liner that informs one about the caste system, the untouchability and various other practices that did exist once in India and still does exist in some form or the other in India. Yet, this is not properly communicated and hence it continues to remain a problem.

    Many people just walked by this mural. Even if you did not see any other thing in the Gandhi Museum – the Ashram rules, the letters Gandhi wrote, the various sayings pasted on the walls (which one could easily read in a book!), missing this is a crime! Yet, foreigners had no way of reading the Hindi script, the kids were just scampering – more intent on getting to the toilet. Many just avoided this space because it was a toilet block. This still smells a bit, doesn’t it? How we look down upon our civil sanitation spaces? Before we wipe out corruption and other evils from Society, the first one we must wipe out is our lack of civil sanitation. The rest will be “cleaned up”automatically, in my opinion.

  • Visting all National Parks in India by 35

    National Parks in India are not as famous as they are in the United States, where there is a good National Park Service. However, this is not surprising given the fact that most national parks came into existence in the 1980s. They did not exist in the youth of our parents. They now exist and travelling pioneers are visiting these national parks and slowly word is spreading among the general public about their existence.

    As per Wikipedia, India has proposed 166 National Parks. Of these it had established only 96 by the year 2007. You see the hidden potential?

    In contrast, the US opened national parks in 1872.

    I wanted a challenge in my life that combined geography and the challenge for travel. I have enunciated it in my expectation of visiting all the National Parks in India before I turn 35. This is a strange claim for me to make – a person who has not visited a National Park which was less than 20 km away from me – the Borivali National Park. However, when I go to a National Park I would like to explore several things – interactions with villages and towns in the peripheries, the attitude of the current generation of Indian Forest Services officials, the flora and fauna of these parks and above all, enjoying the whole Park experience – knowing I am among the first few exploring these areas.

  • Going to Ahmedabad

    On Friday, 29 December, 2011, when most of the staff from my office left after half a day of work to ostensibly cast their vote in the local Panchayat elections, I asked myself how I would spend my New Year’s. For all the New Year’s till date (I’m 25 now) that I can remember, I have spent it with my family. This would be my first New Year’s alone.

    I was speaking to my boss when I shared with him my intention of visiting the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad. This came out of the blue. The only rational explanation I have is that sub-conscious mind had provided me the answer for my question about where to spend New Year’s eve. Almost with whole-hearted conviction, I announced that I was spending my New Year’s at Ahmedabad at the Gandhi Ashram. This, without knowing where exactly it is, not knowing how to get there, not knowing if I will get tickets. In short, without answering any of the “practical” questions that arise when one suggests a trip.

    That night, I worked on cleartrip and got my train tickets. The next day I remembered that I had no place to stay during New Year’s. I contacted Manoj Pai, mentioned in my last blog post, and asked him if a place called Ellis Bridge would be a workable distance. Having ascertained of this fact, I also had the hotel room booked.

    It is on these facts alone that I left on the afternoon of December 31, 2011 to Ahmedabad.

  • Gandhi Ashram

    I walked from my room at Ellis Bridge, past the Town Hall to the Gandhi Ashram. The road had a wide sidewalk on one side of the road. I walked here. I walked a little more than 4 km with just Gmaps to give directions and using the amazing tracking service to spot where I was. The roads were empty. There were very few cars.

    I reached Gandhi Ashram, visited the place where he stayed till about 1930. I saw the Sabarmati, now embanked with concrete on both the banks. It was somewhat representative of the rest of Gujarat. They have not let nature be. Rivers are dry, canals are full. But, where they have let nature take its course, the beauty is unparalleled.

    There was lots of water all over the stoned walkway that leads to the Gandhi Museum. Artificial lawns, the trees with a low wall built on their base so that people could sit. Clearly not necessary. The lawns are so clean that it does not invite one to sit there. The whole atmosphere seemed more artificial than it should have been.

    I visited the Store, purchased three books – two related to local government and one related to vegetarian diet. I have no idea when I will get around to reading these, though.

    I was here for a reason – self-introspection. I sat there and wrote for an hour – maybe two. Then, I packed up and left. The only part of the Ashram that I loved was the river proper. It looked more like a canal now but somewhere it had some part of its natural beauty left.

    I was disappointed by my self-introspection. It was not as fulfilling as I hoped and it got over rather too quickly. But, I had reached the conclusions that I wanted to and so in that respect, it was successful. Like the Ashram now, my life too is more artificial than natural. This is a thought that could have come only in that Ashram. It was the correct place to reach the conclusion. It stands up, all-in-all.

  • E-ticketing and New Age Travels

    I plan to spend New Year’s in Ahmedabad. I will have a separate post for what I did there after I return. But, preparing for the trip itself deserves a blog post. I prepared for the trip solely on phone calls with Manoj Pai, an amateur astronomer in Ahmedabad with whom I am in touch with since 2004 but have never met a single time and cleartrip.com, a site introduced to me by Kirk in December, 2010.

    The Indian Railways earlier this year introduced the concept of having electronic tickets (the official note is here). This meant that you could show tickets on your mobile phone and you did not need to carry an actual paper ticket in your hand. They claim they can save 3 lakh A4 size papers if this idea is implemented. A worthy environmental effort and I support it. I have travelled paper-less on Indian Railways.

    The problem arose when I book a ticket through a travel agent such as cleartrip. I love the formatting that cleartrip does for the ticket of Indian Railways. However, they sent me an .html attachment of the ticket and I did not have a .pdf document printer on my laptop nor did I want to buy from Adobe.

    To solve this problem, I installed CutePDF writer and Ghostscript. With their powers combined, I got a .pdf printer for my computer. The CutePDF website has pretty straight forward instructions on how to use and set it up. This solved my .pdf printing problem.

    I asked the question on Twitter on whether the email from cleartrip could be used as an e-ticket. @MumbaiCentral, @akisaxena, @girishmallya and @basrur replied and provided answers that ranged from yes to maybe. I did not get a convincing answer based on real experience. @MumbaiCentral suggested that I try this out but carry a .pdf backup – just in case. This is what I hope to do today.

  • M H Chalmers’ Walks

    This post originally appeared on http://pradx.posterous.com on December 25, 2011. Found the post using the Wayback Machine.

    While exploring the website of the Geographical Society of India – I found these gems in what is written as the history of the Geographical Society. An English gentleman, M H Chalmers, then an employee of the East Indian Railways gave three talks on what he titles as “walks”. I do not know if he means them literally or not, but these were given to the Calcutta Geographical Society back in 1934.

    They are:

    • “A Walking Tour from India to England” by M. H. Chalmers on January 13, 1934
    • “A Walking Tour through Kashmir and Middle Tibet” by M. H. Chalmers on April 9, 1934
    • “A March through the Sacred Shrines of the Himalayas” by M. H. Chalmers on 21 April 1934

    I would love to read a copy of these talks or see some of illustrated pictures that Chalmers showed off at these talks. Even more, I would love to meet others in the area around Bharuch in Gujarat who love to share such stories. Perhaps you can do something similar in your town too?

  • Vertical Urbanism

    This was originally posted on my blog http://pradx.posterous.com on December 25, 2011. Found this post on the Wayback Machine.

    For the last few days, I have been hunting for two things – various clubs/hang outs/societies related to Geography and how I can become a professional geographer. In my search, I found out this beauty of a website that speaks about the geography of flyovers and walkways of Mumbai. The website is an effort to document these features by Andrew Harris of the Urban Labs at the University College London.

    It contains lots of photographs and sound recordings from various parts of the city.

  • Hello World!

    This was originally posted on https://pradx.posterous.com on 24 December, 2011. Found again using the Wayback Machine.

    Last week, I re-discovered my love for geography. Here are my evolving 
    thoughts and how I hope to move from the pursuit of geography from my 
    background in mechanical engineering.

  • Don 2

    This article originally appeared on my blog http://lifeofpradeep.wordpress.com. I recovered the post using Wayback Machine.

    It was a quick decision made a little after we boarded the company bus heading to Bharuch. We would watch Don 2. The back rows of the cinema hall was booked and the cinema house had taken the opportunity to hike ticket prices. We got a middle row seats for 9.45 pm show. We managed a dosa before the show by way of something to eat. As the show began, we found more colleagues from work.

    Watching a movie here is an interesting experience. People are not inhibitted from whistling, passing comments loudly or clapping. Quite different from the sophisticated cinema goers to the multiplex in a city like Mumbai. But, here it’s sort of in a good way and it adds to the experience rather than subtract from it. I think if you watch a movie with opinionated Indians, you have to bear with some of their opinions as well.

    The movie itself, despite the reviews I heard was very good. It was awesome. The storyline kept rolling, there was an element of mystery involved and in the end, the jigsaw puzzle is solved for us. The camera work really added in keeping that element of mystery while trying to find out how the hero managed to pull it off at all. The director (I like Farhan Akthar’s movies and believe in the auteur theory of cinema) does do us a service by not trying to force song and dance sequences where they do not fit in. I enjoyed the car chases (though not up to Hollywood quality) and the action sequences in the filmas well. The only bit of criticism that I can offer for the movie was its lacklustre sound track and that there seem to coincidentally seem too many Indians in Germany.