an old black and white photo
resting on the cream wall
silently watching us all
why is it dusted today,
the glass sprayed and
cobwebs swept away?

what is it that his legacy never dies
the bald head , the mesmerising eyes
round spectacles and a modest look
why he inspires morals in crooks?

i bring out the picture
for the kids to see
they dont ask me who is he
because they read him everyday
his thoughts is part of lessons
to earn marks in school
is he a role model too cool?

gandhi never dies in spirit i say
his photo reminds us each day
a frugal life lived well
may save us from living hell

its gandhis birthday today
that is why his picture
has been dusted and cleaned
to remind us of a life sublime.

We share the same name, same caste, same language, same cuisine, but I don't know them. I have no inside information, I do not know the secret of their Masala Dosai or do not know of eligible bride/groom from that family. I do not know their website. (It used to be kamatgroup.com) Stop bothering me!

Also, while at it, Suryanath Kamath is not related to me. He is a great man, but not related to me.

Too Many Damn Kamats

This happened in year 2000 when my dad was alive.

Ring. Ring.
"Hello?"
"Can I speak to Kamat please?"
"This is Kamat residence, everybody is a Kamat here"
"I want to speak to Dr. Kamat"
"That doesn't help, too many Dr. Kamats here"
"I want Mrs. Kamat"
"OK. There are two Dr. Mrs. Kamats"
"Just call your mother!"

Perhaps it is time to juice-up the Blog Portal. It is still one of the few directories that doesn't require registration.

I have a lot of code that I have developed for customers who wanted custom Blog Portals, stuff like LDAP integration, tracking of "Last Updated" and "Merged Blogs". Let us see... although that would mean deviation from the "Content Constellation" software I have been working on...

IIPM (I'd never heard of them before, they have fraud written all over them) apparently is suing some bloggers from India for defamation. This is because of some cross checking the bloggers did about the claims IIPM had made in their advertisements.

The problem is, IIPM has hired stealth PR who is hunting down the individual bloggers by writing to their employers, setting up Pro-IIPM blogs, and flooding the Indian blogspace with anonymous comments defending IIPM. This  has resulted is use of vulgar language, personal threats, and even loss of job for one engineer, Gaurav Sabnis.

Lenovo, the company that bought the IBM PC business, traditional print media (who had enjoyed IIPM's advertising patronage), faculty from top Indian business schools, India's constitution (which guarantees both free speech and right to own property) and hundreds of Indian bloggers  are all convolutedly involved. DesiPundit has full coverage.

I left India fifteen years ago, at that time writers who exposed shady deals or projected a negative image were punished by the powerful without a second thought. Communists tore my father's book and threatened to burn the publishing house because he wrote about their violent activities in West Bengal. Fans of a cinema actor Raj Kumar once beat up a press reporter because he wrote a bad review. 

So bashing up reporters is not new to India. What's new is the support group that has come alive for fellow reporters and writers.

My greetings to all our readers, advertisers, and patrons on the occasion of Dasara Festival.

See related topics:

• Elephants of Mysore Dasara
• Floral Decor for Dasara
• Festival Foods of India

Meanwhile, please enjoy these old entries. If you haven't seen them, they are new to you!

• When God Revealed Himself - photo-poem duet.
• Remembering NeXTStep
• Educating U.R. Ananthmurthy
• Trick of Barber of Tirupati
• How I Cured Programmer's Disease

Specifically, he pointed to the entry Librarians and Programmers, which many people thought was interesting chiefly due to the contrasting sterotyping of the two professions.

The purpose of my entry was expose the love-hate relationship among Librarians and Computer Scientists, and not so much whether people are using libraries. One of the patrons took exception (via email) to my generalization that libraries are losing their relevance in the Internet age due to the adamant librarian I depicted, and points to the following URLs as evidence on the contrary:
• http://www.mla.gov.uk/news/press_article.asp?articleid=702
• http://sils.unc.edu/news/releases/2005/04_FLROIstudy.html

I maintain that libraries and librarians have already lost their position as prime resources of information and as custodians of information, to sophisticated software systems like Google. I am not pleased about that -- just like all we humans were sad when a software defeated Kasparov (see: End of an Era) -- but it has happened, and denying it is a futile exercise.

Amma (via telephone) -- Deaths, floods, and terrorism have taken the joy out of Diwali festival this year.

© K. L. Kamat

I am using the holiday to regroup and plan for future.. ideas include re-write of our CMS and SimplyBlog applications using .NET 2.0 (supposed to be released next week), a trip to India to inaugurate the Library we have built in Bappa's memory, perhaps a vacation to New York...., perhaps a road trip with TinTin now that the gasoline prices have fallen somewhat...