April in Udaipur (and Delhi)

We took a lot of pictures this month. Do see. Comments welcome.

Tourist Attractions, Udaipur

Mr Bond is still popular.

p.s. Anyone remember Vijay Amritraj in the movie?

Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V

The Kaavya Viswanathan thingy, which we just posted about at Kitabkhana reminded us that thanks to a combination of a bit of flu, a still-aching butt and a persistent lower back hassle (ooer, we're getting old, we are) we forgot to post about Shilpa Bhtanagar's plaint.

Y'see, the lass has been plagiarised (do read her updates on the matter), and when she fought back, the plagiarist threatened to sue, believe it or not.

Anyway, everyone seems to have posted about this, so we won't shove in our tuppence, except to point you to Shilpa's new post on the matter.

Grayblogging

Some extracts from a A New York Times article titled Elderbloggers Stake Their Claim, by Lee Roberts.

With a breadth of experience and perspective, older bloggers are staking out a place in the blogosphere — a medium overwhelmingly dominated by the young. Perhaps more attentive to grammar and less likely to use cutesy cyberspeak,

heh.

older bloggers expound on topics as varied as poetry and politics, gardening and grandmothering. According to a recent report by the Perseus Development Corporation, a research company that studies online trends, the Internet is home to approximately 54.3 million blogs, nearly 60 percent written by people younger than 19. Just 0.3 percent of blogs are run by people 50 or older, yet that's still about 160,000 bloggers.

"I'm 81 years old and this blog has opened up a whole new world to me," Mr. Reichek said. "And I'm not doing this because I'm a lonely old man. I don't lack for social interaction. I find it a fascinating hobby, and a fruitful one."In one posting, Mr. Reichek wrote about what he thought was the insanity of the Iraq war, which prompted volleys of comments from pro- and antiwar partisans. "There were 14 or 15 people using my blog to have an argument about their positions on the war," he said.

Familiar?

"It's kind of like talking over the backyard fence," he said. "Like a neighborhood."

While the 65-plus age range is notoriously tech-shy, many say that the blog-hosting companies make it simple to start and maintain one. [..] "I'm a technophobe," he said. "But 1, 2, 3 and suddenly, I've got a blog."

Read the whole thing

And visit the blogs cited:
Late Life Crisis
Time Goes By ["has links to more than 100 blogs written by people 50 and older, many of them 65 and older."]
octogenarian.blogspot.com
Milt's Muse

And then go persuade a senior citizen you know to start blogging.

Send your books into retirement

This in via email:

Just a line to say that the mumbai-headquartered Dignity Foundation is setting up a library for its township at Neral, near matheran : off mumbai.
I am assisting by way of passing around the hat : for any books you may like to donate.
In this connection, I am reproducing below the note that has appeared in the March 2006 issue of Dignity Dialogue : the official journal of Dignity Foundation.
Hiro Shroff : oral historian & journalist
mobile 98208 90764 :
Mumbai 22/04/26

Dignity Dialogue : March 2006
LIBRARY
The library, at the Dignity Lifestyle Township at Neral is shaping up well.
A few books have already come in and we would now welcome your donation by way of more books, music CDs and video films.
Hiro Shroff, oral historian and journalist, and author of the book --Down Memory Lane -- is our honorary books advisor.
Your gift packets may please be sent to Dignity Foundation addressed to :
Mrs. Umadevi Krishnamurthy
Dignity Foundation
BMC School Building
Topiwala Lane
Opp. Lamington Road Police Station
Grant Road (E)
Mumbai 400 007
Uma's tel no. 022 23885090 :
Email id : dearuma@gmail.com

Signed : Sheilu Sreenivasan
President : Dignity Lifestyle Township
Dignity Foundation, Dignity Lifestyle Township

"Don't GO Hindi" Petition

Pranay Srinivasan mails in a link to this petition:

We are a bunch of very keen, regular listeners to your Radio Station, in particular the English music. Over a period of time we have been listening to programs like “The Nightshift”, “The Midnight Shift”, “Big Brunch”, “90s on 925”, “GMM” and “College Radio”.

Each of these programs caters to a different section of English music lovers and most of us actually listen to all of the above. Therefore, it has come as a total surprise, or rather shock that your Station has chosen to GO Hindi leaving all your loyal listeners stranded. We believe that this could probably be because there are other Cities involved which may have a large following of Hindi music lovers but Mumbai, we think is a City apart. It has a total cosmopolitan feel and has a huge following of English music lovers. So in the general interest of the English music lovers we have chosen to write this letter to you.

Read – and, if you feel strongly enough about it, sign – the "Don't GO Hindi" Petition addressed to the folks at Go 92.5 FM. We're happy enough with our 40gb+ library of mp3s.

my hosts

In order of seniority...

Mara

Tiglath

Partha Pantha
Sorry. The humans here tell me that my non-Bong ears mishear the 'n' sound. The little cat, though, is indifferent to my heresy as long as I have a plate in my hand.

Delhirium

Posting from just around the corner from here. Udaipur pictures soon, once we have tried to flog them to Outlook Traveller. :)

Once more we guide you elsewhere

More good writing we should have linked to ages ago:

Samanth Subramanian's fine A writer and his web-blahg, which features some well-written essays, reviews, and his published writing. You could start with his latest piece on blogs, wikis and the web as a kind of commons.

~River~'s river's blue elephants, which features regular doses of lovely poetry and stunning art.

We're off..

..on our first-ever junket! We're feeling very important. It's so nice having tickets delivered, PR people call us to arrange pick-ups and all that. Almost makes up for having the trip postponed twice and then having to leave home at 4 ack emma.

We're a bit fuzzy on the details, but we think we're going to be resting our tired bones here for the next few days, sleeping in something like this, eating at one of these, unwinding, perhaps, here.

And then we'll have to write about it. Ah well. Tough job, but someone's gotta do it.