Of our inactive blogs, unanswered e-mail

Date: Jun 15, 2006

Of our inactive blogs, unanswered e-mail

Date: Jun 16, 2006

My sympathies are with you, Mr. GVK. It's turning out to be a cry in the wilderness - yours, Dr. Bhamy Shenoy's. Please don't lose heart. This is Mysore.

OURS is not to question why

OURS is but to blog and die

Date: Jun 16, 2006

Dear Krishnan,

you will appreciate even more Vijendra was telling if you come to know who attended and what happened at a whole day meeting with the district-in-charge minister to discuss how to promote Mysore as a tourist spot. The meeting was well advertised, but poorly attended. Not one MLA attended the meeting. Even of those former MLAs, just one attended. Not that these political heavy weights would have contributed much.

In terms of experts there were just three or four. It was poorly organized and the discussion was not all that illuminating. This is the level of interest of Mysoreans

In terms of reporting by the newspapers it was also poor. There was no critical evaluation of the meeting. On the whole it was a poor show. This is indeed Mysore.

Date: Jun 16, 2006

Those who have read my post DTJ Darshan and Dr.Shenoy's comment above are likely to notice a conflict in the two versions. Our assements of the same event are seemingly different. It is like estimating the turnout at the annual Dasara procession. Invariably, different newspapers estimate the crowd as of different numerical strength. It is highly subjective and depends on the ability of individual reporters to make such an estimate and the methods they adopt. No reporter follows the procession to the end to get an estimate. A couple of us would take a walk up to KR Circle, just before the commencement of jamboo savari, approximate the crowd before extrapolating it to get an idea about the size of the crowd down the procession route. Of course, tickets sold at tourist centres, like the zoo, for instance, over the nine days of the festival, would also give a fair idea about the overall response. At the end of it, it would still be an approximation. Since the crowd is spread over a vast area and it is not like in a stadium, where it is possible to get correct or near-correct figures based on tickets sold or on its capacity.

Further, I am influenced by Prof.C.D. Narasimhaiah, for whom numbers hardly mattered. He never complained about the thin attendance that most lectures organised at his Dhvanyaloka attracted. (Mind you, most of those lectures were high on merit and Mysore has the rather heavy tag of being the cultural capital, which is turning out to be more an anachronism though). Perhaps, they were meant to be held in the rarefied zone of Dhvanyaloka, though nobody would have complained of too much attention.

I have for years been critical of almost everything around. It has not helped. At least for my own good, I often feel I must try a different approach. I have clarified at the outset in my post that it is not an account of the event. I both saw and attempted to see some positive aspects at DTJ Darshan, even as I noticed quite a few lapses. (For instance, the thin attendance was more than made good by the number of flies that swarmed the dining hall where we ate. This, despite the fact that there was the electronic insect repellant, but, like the many arms of our system were neither effective nor efficacious). I decided to overlook them. Moreover, Dr.Shenoy, the die-hard activist he is, is more regular at these meets, and he is a better judge to decide whether the meet was a success or not. DTJ Darshan may be read along with this proviso, to avoid confusion.