Bangalore Book Festival 2011

I had visited the Bangalore Book Festival last year (see blog post and post with photos). This year also the festival is running at the Bangalore Palace Grounds.
From the Deccan Herald article, Bangalore book fair begins today, we can learn that this festival has more than 300 stalls, of which 94 stalls have been set up exclusively for Kannada books. The festival closes Nov 27 (Sunday), and entry fees for adults is Rs 20.

The arrangements, for purchasing tickets as well as for parking, are much better this year compared to last year. Metal rails were used for four different ticketing windows to keep the queues in order. There were several people in the parking lot to help people park their cars into different rows.

They also had a large billboard put up displaying a list of all the exhibitors at the sale, and their stall locations. If you were interested in a particular publisher's stall, you could use this to go directly to that aisle. They were also selling a small booklet with a list and advertisements from all the publishers, in case one was interested.

Sahitya Akademi had stall in the first aisle. In fact they had stall number 1.

Apart from the CBT stall one other stall I was looking very much to visit was Pratham Books (book site). I had recently ordered their books and was very impressed by the quality of the printing, the illustrations, and the writing. And the prices are absolutely stunningly low. I mean, think Rs 15 and up. Fifteen rupees, and even 30 and Rs 40 for most books is a deal. It's a steal. When so many of the Barbie and Disney books sell for a hundred, two hundred, and even more, with dubious educational values, the Pratham Books are simply amazing.
They had books in English, Hindi, and Kannada at the stall - they publish in 11 Indian languages. We picked up a set (numbered Set 18) for Rs 110, which is a collection of five books, priced between Rs 15 and Rs 35. With their already amazingly low prices it was unsurprising that the books were not being sold at a discount, unlike other stalls where a 10% discount was pretty much the norm.

The Ramakrishna Math had a stall too. You could see a large poster of Swami Vivekananda. Most books are very reasonably priced. I picked one up - a collection of short stories for children written by Sister Nivedita.

How could I not snap a pic of this stall - Abhinava publishers!

The Kannada University Hampi stall.

Amar Chitra Katha publishers (ACK Media) had a stall, with a surfeit of Amar Chitra Katha comics.

Navneet Publishers had some nice  books where you could cut out pre-marked sections and construct different models. They had also put up some of those models for people to see before buying.

Interestingly enough, and I didn't know this before, but a publisher named Leftword Books had a stall. Now, the word is a dead giveaway, isn't it? Leftword Books!  And in case you still don't get it, take a look at the books on display: "A World to Win: Essays on the Communist Manifesto" - penned by, among others, Irfan Habib, a stalwart among communist hagiographers (sorry, "Marxist historiographer" or "eminent historian" (book) would be better words), and edited by Prakash Karat, a leading luminary of the Communist Party of India. Or "The Agrarian Question in Marx and his Successors", or "Imperialism" by Lenin. I imagine there are still people who hold romantically flawed notions of communism, but it is a settled question that communism killed more people in the twentieth century than all famines and wars combined.

Well, for what it's worth, I think it is good that such freedom of expression lives on in India - the space and freedom to hold differing opinions and contrarian views, a tradition that has existed and thrived for literally thousands of years in this country - where intellectual differences are settled through civilized discourse and debate. It is sad therefore to see both right-wing extremists and liberals in India today not believe in honest debate (see Sagarika Ghose for instance (this, this), a staunch liberal whose stock-in-trade tricks consist of a bag of misrepresentations, outright biases, hidden agendas masquerading as honest opinions, and sometimes outright deceit - see especially this).

The CBT (Children's Book Trust), founded in 1957 by "by one of the India’s most celebrated cartoonist Keshav Shankar Pillai"# was a good place to get some pretty good bargains. They have published excellent and very reasonably priced books for chilren in India for decades now, and their contributions in this field deserve to be told to better publicized. The books are of high quality - i.e. the content, and are very reasonably priced. Two prominently placed books were on India's former Prime Ministers from the Nehru dynasty - Srimati Indira Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

 

The Penguin stall had a large collection of classics, among other bestsellers.

I counted at least two stalls devoted to books on Islam. The "Discover Islam Education Trust" stall had a friendly and courteous gentleman handing free copies of a book on Islam.

Higginbothams used to be a very recognizable and popular fixture on Indian Railway stations, when travel on trains was much safer and cleaner. Reading paperbacks on a day or two-day long journey has been an inextricable part of so many millions of lives that a part of me feels somewhat sad and nostalgic that this is slowly going to remembered mostly through movies and songs.

One of India's oldest publishing houses, Motilal Banarsidass (Wikipedia)  was also present.

The ISKCON Bangalore book stall.

© 2011, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook

A dismal and scary picture of the tomato notwithstanding, there are some green shoots to be seen.

The Fast Food Nation for the alluring Tomato. Despite a flagging and longer than needed second section, this book is an outstanding look at the tomato and at how modern agriculture has ruined the fruit, err.. no vegetable.

The tomato we eat has undergone several changes. It is larger. It is rounder. It is redder. It is longer lasting. It doesn't taste like a tomato. It is less nutritious than the tomato. It is grown in places where a tomato should not be grown. Compared to the tomato from fifty years ago, "According to analyses conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 100 grams of fresh tomato today has 30 percent less vitamin C, 30 percent less thiamin, 19 percent less niacin, and 62 percent less calcium than it did in the 1960s. But the modern tomato does shame its 1960s counterpart in one area: It contains fourteen times as much sodium."

Idiots On Roads - 12

I present to you an idiot on a pavement. The motorcyclist at the left of the photo, sir, is an idiot.
For several reasons.
Let's examine those reasons.
Firstly, he is on the wrong side of the road. Actually he is more than just on the wrong side of the road, but let's at least establish that he is on the wrong side of the road, to begin with.

Secondly, there is not much traffic on either side of the road, is there? Not that traffic congestion should be a reason to break traffic rules, but at least you could that out as a mitigating factor in those conditions. Understandable, if still not acceptable.

Thirdly, because he has chosen to use the pavement for driving. Not the road. Not even the wrong side of the road. He is driving on the pavement, on the wrong side of the road.

Fourthly, because he is on the pavement, the lady in the yellow sari has to walk on the road. It is a testament to the infinite patience and fortitude of the forlorn pavement trodder who has to keep his or her eyes on not only the pavement to watch out for uncovered manholes and potholes and gaps in the pavement, but also on vehicles on the pavement. All in a day's work. Inconsiderate idiot.

Why is he on the pavement? Well, he did not want to go to the other side of the road, drive up, then take a U-turn to come back on to this road. So much easier to simply take a turn on to the wrong side of the road, and the ride up the pavement for convenience.

Fifthly, he is driving without a helmet. It should not matter, since the helmet would be on a head that has long since stopped working to figure out what is right and what is wrong.

It only makes you wonder in what else walks of life he has internalized the philosophy of such shortcuts. At his job? In his friendships? In his relationships?

To say it using the words from the greatest movie of all time - Sholay: "khota sikka to dono taraf se hi khota hota hai." (खोटा सिक्का तो दोनो  तरफ़ से ही खोटा होता है )

© 2011, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Brihadeeswara Temple at Thanjavur (Tanjore)

The Big Temple at Tanjore - correctly and properly known as the Brihadeeswara Temple at Thanjavur, is one of the most famous of all temples devoted to Lord Siva - the great Lord (brihad = great; eeswara = lord). It is also recognized as a World Heritage site by the United Nations. It therefore tends to attract a fair number of foreign tourists from around the world.

This temple completed 1000 years of completion. Yes, that is 1 followed by three zeroes. The temple was completed in 1010 CE - imagine the fanfare with which people would have tweeted the symmetry of the year, and there would have been polls on Facebook to debate whether the temple should be inaugurated by the King on the 10th of October, so that the date would read 10.10.1010.

Sometimes temple history is clouded in confusion and doubt. Not so in the case of the Thanjavur Big Temple. Thanks to extant inscriptions carved on the walls, we know the temple was completed exactly 25 years and 275 days after Raja Raja's ascension in 985 CE. [Temples Of South India by Ambujam Anantharaman]

From the UNESCO site, the following is listed as the justification for the inclusion of the temple in the World Heritage List:

Justification for Inscription
Criterion (i): The three Chola temples of Southern India represent an outstanding creative achievement in the architectural conception of the pure form of the dravida type of temple.
Criterion (ii): The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur became the first great example of the Chola temples, followed by a development of which the other two properties also bear witness.
Criterion (iii): The three Great Chola Temples are an exceptional and the most outstanding testimony to the development of the architecture of the Chola Empire and the Tamil civilisation in Southern India.
Criterion (iv): The Great Chola temples at Thanjavur, at Gangaikondacholapuram and Darasuram are outstanding examples of the architecture and the representation of the Chola ideology.

The placque at the temple entrance in available in English, Hindi, and Tamil.

Temples tend to have the obligatory elephant and throng of devotees waiting to get blessed by the elephant's trunk. All for a nominal payment of a rupee or two to the mahout. Or deposited to the elephant's trunk, which then makes it way to the mahout.

The vimanam marks out this temple as unique from the architectural point of view. In most temples in south India, for that matter in India, the temple gopuram (pyramidal tower at the entrance to the temple) is bigger than the vimanam. At the Srirangam Ranganatha temple and the Srivillputhur Vatapatrasayee temples, for instance, the gopuram is magnifient, while at Thanjavur and in three other temples built by Chola kings, the vimanam dominates.
The dimensions of the vimaanam in Thanjavur clearly indicate the ingenuity and skill of Chola architects. Its 13 tiers are totally 58 m tall. The square base of 29  supports the octagon-shaped shikara (cupolic dome). This dome that weighs 81 tonnes rests on a single block of granite, which is a square of 7.8m.  [Temples Of South India by Ambujam Anantharaman]

The best time to visit the temple is in the early hours of the morning or after 4PM, when the sun is shining a little less intensely, the light is softer, and the ground walkable with your bare feet.

What is fascinating, among so many other aspects of this temple, is that the Chola dynasty, that built this temple, ruled over South India and large parts of India and South East Asia, and held sway for over a thousand years, making it surely one of the longest lasting dynasties in the world. Even the vaunted Mughals could not hold on to power for more than a few hundred years. By the time the eighteenth century dawned, the empire was a pale shadow of itself.

Chola dynasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Chola dynasty (Tamil: சோழர் [ˈt͡ʃoːɻə]) was a Tamil dynasty which was one of the longest-ruling in some parts of southern India. The earliest datable references to this Tamil dynasty are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC left by Asoka, of Maurya Empire; the dynasty continued to govern over varying territory until the 13th century AD.
...
During the period 1010–1200, the Chola territories stretched from the islands of the Maldives in the south to as far north as the banks of the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh.^[6] Rajaraja Chola conquered peninsular South India, annexed parts of what is now Sri Lanka and occupied the islands of the Maldives.^[4] Rajendra Chola sent a victorious expedition to North India that touched the river Ganges and defeated the Pala ruler of Pataliputra, Mahipala. He also successfully invaded kingdoms of the Malay Archipelago.^[7][8] The Chola dynasty went into decline at the beginning of the 13th century with the rise of the Pandyas, who ultimately caused their downfall.^[9][10][11]

You will find a fair number of foreign tourists at this temple. This is not surprising, considering its World Heritage Site tag. However, despite this, the infrastructure for tourists - domestic as well as foreign - is not upto the mark. The hotels are mostly old and of the three-star variety. The staff is courteous and helpful, and the rooms themselves were clean - in the hotel we stayed at - but not where you would want to stay back for a day and lounge in the hotel. No. These hotels are strictly utilitarian. Not luxury.

The second is the pretty dismal state of parking facilities at the temple itself. There is but one small parking lot opposite the temple's entrance, which has one entry that also serves as the exit. It is not asphalted, and no parking slots are marked, leading to cars and other vehicles parking in a fairly haphazard manner. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that someone will not park their vehicle in a manner that makes it impossible for you to get your car out. That can happen - take a look at the parking lot to decide for yourself. These are small amenities that would make it a lot less stressful to the visitor and make it easier to take in and enjoy the magnificence of this edifice itself.

On the other hand, the road from Trichy to Tanjore - NH 67 - is now a dream to drive on (also see this post). It is four-laned, and makes the drive from Trichy a short 45 minute breeze.

• Temples of South India from IndiaPlaza
• Temples Of South India from Flipkart.com
• Temples Of Western India from Flipkart.com
• The Illustrated History Of South India: From Prehistoric Times To The Fall Of Vijayanagar from Flipkart.com
• Temples of South India - Amazon.com

© 2011, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.