Mousetrap – 138

Flat World
Apartment Therapy
Friends forwarded some cool staircase designs to us a while ago. Living in a rented flat, we could only forward them on to duplex-endowed friends. Then recently someone else sent us some more rad designs and we looked more closely. The site’s mission is ‘Helping people make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources, ideas and community online.’ And it has a wealth of cool ideas updated blog-style; focussed on a US homeowner, many of the ideas aren’t doable in the Indian context, but even a random search yielded ideas worth filing away for whenever we can buy our own home. Add to this its sister sites (all linked to from the top panel), re-nest which puts a green slant to the same basic goals, unplggd, which is tech-meets-decor, thekitchn, well d-uh, and ohdeedoh, for the kiddie spaces, and you’re bound to come away with an idea or two even for a Bombay 1BHK.

Uh O
Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
As the world watches, large parts of the US—or at least the bits who vote Democratic—look like being swept off their feet by a Senator only his home state knew just a year or two ago. Something about him seems to have caught voter fancy, though there isn’t much to him bar some fuzzy words about change. (Or so this column thinks; but then we don’t get the fancy pay cheques the folks on the edit pages do, so ignore us.) Anyhoo, we loved this site, which gives you, with every page-refresh, more reasons why you too should fall into the thrall of BHO. Hilarious.

..and spice.
Popsugar
A young lady we know sent this in with a note that said it was an ‘awesomely addictive portal’ adding, with a smiley that it was for women, ‘but I am sure men can get some tips from it.’ Forewarned, we were not traumatised by assault of that shade of pink prefixed ‘mithai’ when we were young and impressionable. Popsugar is a regularly updated, Hollywood-oriented gossip column, part of a larger network of sites from a company called Sugar Inc, all of which have the word ‘sugar’ in their names. They cover fashion, beauty, entertainment, finance, news, home and hearth, advice, kids, tech, humour, food, even pets. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also have a community site where you go shmooze with the other, erm, sugars. We had to leave. Perhaps its because we’re not target audience. Or maybe it’s because we gave up sugar many years ago. [Courtesy Divya Manian]

Now you see him..
Banksy
Banksy’s a cult. He (there seems to be consensus that Banksy’s male) is a street artist. Well, actually, perhaps ‘guerrilla artist’ would be better, because his exploits aren’t restricted to the streets: this column first heard of him because of a coup he pulled off in a museum, sneaking in his own subversive works and placing them amidst more, um, famous works. But it’s his street work that’s best known, part art, part social commentary, many of them have been made into prints and sold, though the originals were spray-painted onto urban walls. Banksy, it is said, doesn’t make a penny from these. The site features his art, and it’s as official as you’re likely to get with this artist.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 2nd March, 2008.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Indra Sinha

You left India as a young man. How often have you returned? Regularly since my association with the Bhopal survivors began in the mid-nineties, but before that there was a 15-year gap.

Any memorable journeys? From Kathmandu to Nepalganj, an airstrip on the Nepalese side of the border. Our tiny plane whirred into the air like a metal grasshopper; the high Himalayas rose up behind the foothills, white and shining for hundreds of miles. Nepalganj airport was a grass field, the terminal a hut; a small road vanished into fields of sugarcane, not a vehicle in sight, much less the taxi I had promised Vickie. A boy leant his bicycle against a tree, came forward shyly and said, “Indra? I am Shobha. Grandfather sent me to fetch you.” He flagged down a passing bullock cart and negotiated passage to the border. Vickie sat on the luggage, Tara (then aged 2) in her lap, Shobha on his bike, held onto the tail of the cart, I walked alongside, through the thick sugarcane fields into which Nana Saheb and his defeated army had vanished 125 years earlier. At the border, two square brick buildings, stood an amazed Indian customs officer. Ours were the first overseas passports he had seen in six months, he told us. Hearing grandfather’s name he said, “But I know him!” He telephoned Nanpara PO telling them to tell Iqbal Bahadur sahib that his family had arrived safely. Chairs were set in the shade; tea appeared, as did a photo album of his family. We passed a pleasant hour before the bus took us all away to grandfather and new adventures. I want to tell this story properly one day in a book of travel writings.

A busy advertising career, the online addiction you describe in The Cybergypsies; was there time for travel? We never had much money for travel when the children were young, but over the years we’ve seen quite a bit of Europe and of course the dear old UK. I loved living in England and love living in France. Our best family holiday was a six-week tour of France, Switzerland and Italy, with two weeks in the Lot, where we now live. In fact it is directly because of that holiday that we are now there.

You just visited the most touristy destinations in India: Rajasthan and Goa… A lot of people I know in Rajasthan are turning their houses into heritage hotels. There is a sort of build-your-own-haveli emporium where you can buy ancient carved doors, jharokas, silver furniture, rugs and hangings, everything you need for instant Rajasthan. The Jaipur Festival was Disneyworld, complete with elephants and fire-eaters; old Rajputana would have been dancing girls and opium. Goa is wonderful, when you get used to it. From Candolim to Calangute you get the same tourist tack as in Rajasthan; all that’s missing is Goa. Old Goa is still there; an outsider has to work a little to discover and get into it. Having loved John Berendt’s books about Savannah and Venice (and loved being with John too and learning how he came to write them) I keep thinking there is something to be done either on Rajasthan or Goa. Or both. But I have a number of novels to write, so I don’t know when I might get time for travel writing.

Have you seen any great writing about India? I am rather sick of books about India. I would rather read books about Brazil, or Cuba, or the Congo, or somewhere I’d like to visit.

Published in Outlook Traveller, in a section called ‘Fellow Traveller,’ March 2008.

Tags: Outlook Traveller

Siteseeing – 16

The Indian Railways Fan Club

In these days of budget airlines and frequent flyer miles, and to hell with carbon footprints, this site is almost like leafing through an old picture album and finding photos of an old flame. Wait, did we say leafing through an album? Jeeze, we almost let on how old we are. ‘Browsing,’ we meant. So there. Like we were saying, this site brought back a rush of soft, fuzzy memories, of coal and steam and lonely whistle-stops in the middle of the night. The IRFCA is ‘a mailing list for discussing all aspects of railways in India.’ Started in the late eighties in the old Usenet days, hosted on various American university servers (the ‘A’ is a relic of its origins in America), became a mailing list, and, later, members consolidated material from personal sites and brought them all together in this domain. You can still join the list, or just have a great time wandering the existing content: maps, passenger services, routes, timetables, technical and seriously geeky stuff, travelogues, historical notes, and a treasure trove of photographs to warm any rail-lover’s heart. (There are also audio and video galleries.) There’s even a set of simulations, and screensavers. And cellphone wallpaper! No ringtones though. What I’d give for the sound of a train horn in the distance on a quiet night…

Published in Outlook Traveller, March 2008.

Tags: Outlook Traveller, Siteseeing

Mousetrap – 137

Remember
Bhopal-Delhi Padyatra
Twenty-three years, two months, twenty-one days have passed by. Half a million people were exposed to the gas. 3,800 people died that night, as per the most conservative report (more than the 2974 killed in the 9/11 attacks); the number was closer to 15,000, say others. 20,000 have died to date as a result of that exposure. 120,000 still suffer from the accident and the continued environmental pollution ailments caused by the accident and the subsequent pollution at the plant site. No one has gone to jail. Very little compensation has been paid. Promises have been broken. (See International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal & The Bhopal Medical Appeal for reams of information about that disaster and the terrible, unending aftermath.) Two years ago, our government made promises about economic, social and medical rehabilitation, and simple things we take for granted, like clean drinking water. Those promises haven’t been kept. So, four days ago, on the 20th February, 60 survivors started a padyatra to Delhi, 800km away, to remind the government of those promises. If you can’t join them, you can track their progress on the blog.

Halt!
Danger
If you suffer with vertigo, this is not a site you want to visit. Your columnist has no head for heights, but, ever a slave to duty, he braved this site just for you, dear reader. Put together by a Texan, the tone of voice here is distinctly gawrsh-these-third-world-countries and slightly hysterical to boot; overdone somewhat, because the content is truly scary. He features four of the most treacherous roads in the world, three of them motorable (just about), the fourth a hiking trail. Each section is a collection of pictures culled from all over the web—the quality’s somewhat patchy as a result—accompanied with that overwrought text, and some first person accounts. The Russian road doesn’t look like that bad, but I warn you, don’t eat a heavy meal before checking out the other three.

Hot air
The Balloon Project
A city. A couple of guys. A bunch of balloons. A camera slung under said balloons. Balloons released drift over city. Guys chase balloons. Eventually balloon lands. Guys upload video to YouTube. Guys become latest web meme. Go see. (All the vids are here, by the way.)

Which way is North?
Strange Maps
Among one’s many, many weaknesses, we have a pash for maps. If a book one is reading has maps, one checks them out before one checks out the se.. never mind. This site takes that passion many levels higher, bringing you unusual maps of all descriptions, from marzipan maps to the backdrop to the Larry King show. They’re from old books and documents, from fiction, from designers, sent in by readers and there’s a new one every few days. It’s fascinating to see the many, many ways we represent our planet and, alas, attempt to slice it up and lay claim to it. The site is a mega success, with over five million visitors, and a book deal as well.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 24th February, 2008.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Indra Sinha

Indra Sinha, legendary copywriter, tireless campaigner for justice for the survivors of the Bhopal gas leak of December 1984, highly-regarded novelist (his Animal’s People was short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize), is holidaying in India with his wife. Fitting in appearances at the recent Jaipur Festival and Kala Ghoda Arts Festival between sojourns in Rajasthan and Goa, he also made time to chat informally with young writers. And to answer a few questions from Peter Griffin.

Tell us about some of your early memories of holidays around the country.
Lots. The beauty of the Western Ghats in the monsoon, visiting the lake palace in Udaipur before it was a hotel, rowing across the lake to the other palace, where Shah Jehan had stayed, to find its empty dome full of pigeons… I miss my grandfather’s village in UP near the Nepal border, smells of straw, woodsmoke, an old travelling cinema kept in a hay barn…

All those years in the UK, and now in France. How often has the Colaba boy come back?
[I have been back] regularly since my association with the Bhopal survivors began in the mid-nineties. I love being in India. The pace of change is amazing, but I love to see things I remember still from the old days, like an old-fashioned bullock cart trundling along, and it was good to see that the forest is still thick on the ghats in places along the Goa road. If there is anything I can do, any organisation I can join or support to help protect the Western Ghats, I would like to do it.

Speaking of change, is it good change or bad that you see?
The pace of change is huge and the wealth in the country is enormous. What is sad and in fact sickening is that the well off seem to have closed their eyes to the vast majority of the population, who do not benefit from globalisation, the booming stock market, et cetera. The long-term result of this can only be fascism and repression; it will be the only way to preserve the continuing luxury of the wealthy at the continuing expense of those who have nothing. Writers have a duty to speak out about this and Arundhati [Roy] has recently written an excellent article on this very point.

Two of your books are set in India—well, four, to count Tantra and your Kama Sutra translation. Written, as they were, in Europe, did the distance aid perspective, or did it get in the way? How did you do your research?
When I write, I am in my imagination. It neither helps nor hinders to be in the place I am writing about, however I like to know the places about which I will write, even though the imagination transforms them. One tries to catch a reality, a feeling, that lies just beneath the skin. Lawrence Durrell was a genius at doing this. He was a favourite and formative influence when I was young.

As an expatriate, and a writer to boot, do you find yourself expected to be the font of all information on the country?
I used to be expected to be Encyclopaedia Indica, but that is less true nowadays. People’s knowledge of India varies enormously. Many people have been here and many more have some family connection. I think people’s ideas are formed largely by the television. Don’t forget there is also a huge Indian population in the UK, so Indian culture, Bollywood, “Indian” restaurants, are all pretty much part of everyday life.

Have you seen any great writing from India?
I loved Siddharth Dhanwant Shangvi’s The Last Song of Dusk, it was arch, amusing, knowing, entertaining—and underneath ran a tale of deep sorrow. The writing about sex is some of the finest I have read.

You’re scheduled to speak at the Kitab Festival. What will you be chatting about?
I propose to devote my Kitab event to talking about the Bhopal survivors who even at this moment are trudging the long road to Delhi in an attempt to get politicians to keep their broken promises. [See bhopal.net for the story.]

Indra Sinha will be speaking at Kitab today, 1p.m., Crossword, Kemp’s Corner. More about him at his website, indrasinha.com. And visit khaufpur.com, companion site to Animal’s People.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 24th February, 2008.

Tags: The Times of India,

Mousetrap – 136

Who’s the most beautiful of them all?
The Mirror Project
Verily I say unto thee, it takes all kinds. I mean, yeah, there are photo sites. And yeah, there are sites that are devoted to narcissism. But a site devoted to pictures taken of the photographers, taken off reflectove surfaces? Who’da thunk? But let’s be fair. These are not just the kind of shots we’ve all taken—y’know, aim at mirror, pretend like you’re not posing—though there are many of those. Some of these are truly imaginative, unusual and very well composed. You could browse by theme and go away happy. But hit the ‘random’ button, or, better, take a look at the link titled ‘galleries’ for user-selected mini-selections. Reflections on reflections, I could have said, but I decided not to be a smart arse today.

Per cent
The Miniature Earth Project
One simple method to simplify complex things dealing with large numbers of things or people is to state them in percentages. And this site takes that to the extreme, looking at the earth and humanity, breaking everything down into a ‘if there were only 100 people on earth’ scenario and puts them together into a short animation you can view online or download. The points the film makes are about poverty and imbalance, and, since 12 of those 100 own a computer and just three have an internet connection, it’s clear who it aims to talk to.

Help
Bhookh
You’ve heard of the Hunger site, I’ll wager, or been sent there. This is an Indian copy. This column doesn’t think kindly of rip-offs that do nothing but clothe themselves in the tri-colour and proclaim that they are novel. But in this case, despite its lack of originality and the exaggerated claims (‘India’s first online activism site’), its intentions are good. A click to help feed the hungry in exchange for viewing a sponsor ad; that can’t be a bad thing. Though I must point out that my clicks didn’t throw up any ads. So perhaps the site is dead or lacking sponsorship..

The news in your pocket
MyToday
A clean, simple site with no frills. I rubbed my eyes. It felt like the mid-nineties! But nay, this isn’t a retro site. It’s an internet portal for mobile phones, with an India focus. I couldn’t give it a real test, seeing as I’m a poor freelance hack with a decrepit cellphone (see how cleverly we work in our semi-annual whine to Editorji?) that makes calls and sends SMSes and freezes every two days, but on a computer, it loaded like lightning, even on my slow connection (see, Respected Editor? no fat-pipe broadband). The navigation is ultra-simple, the content seems pretty decent: bite-sized news, some utilities, listings and guides, with a Bombay focus. Worth a click through. Erm. Beep through? Whatever it is you do with those gizmos I can’t afford. (Your Editorness?)

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 17th February, 2008.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap