Convergence

A typical academic year begins with the ritual of form verfication and admission. The university has announced many teaching vacancies this year and I am toying with the idea of applying for professorship. Lets see what happens.

I transfered the content from my other blogs to this one. The blog which highlighted my personal life was on 360 Yahoo and they say they are going to close it down. The blog dealing with my life as a writer was on spaces.live.com . This blog was a kind of freestyle one for commenting on whatever I wanted. Now I will stick to this one to save hassles and headaches.

Moving to our new house is also on our cards and wondering when to start doing it. By the end of this year? The Divali vacations? When?

On Blogging once again

Some days back, I chanced to see `We, The People' on NDTV, a programme anchored by Barkha Dutt. The issue of the day was whether blogs should be censored. What was more interesting however was the discussion on why people blog at all. There was this obvious paen to Freedom of Expression. But what was curious was the way people express their private lives in a public domain. They would not talk about many things to their friends, but the things would appear on their blogs. Blogs give a certain amount of anonymity and allow people to hide behind their confessional screen. This can take away the inhibitions.

My own experience with the Net is lot similar, though not directly with blogs. My friends tell me that I open up a lot and I am a different person while I am chatting. I am less inhibited and flirt and say things which I would not have said during face to face meeting. You see I am very often shy.My friend says that this is a symptom of multiple personality disorder. The Net and techology can indeed proliferate identities. Digital identities can act like a maskand liberate.

In the programme, there was also discussion about various types of blogs and bloggers. Blogosphere is ahetereogenous sphere where you have all sorts of blogs and bloggers. Like a library catalogue, you can locate and access the kind you are looking for.

As I have discovered lately as a writer, that blogs can be liberating even from suffocating literary culture. Pathare's diatribe against bloody blogging postmodern poets like us can be seen as an example of the bewilderment of the establishment to the liberating potential of the new media.

Blogging can even be a challenge to the traditional publishing business in future. Publishing houses worked asnewer forms of patronage and constraints on the writer. Blogging will be a threat to the older forms of literary politics and probably give rise to newer forms of politics. What form? Lets wait and see for ourselves.

Appointing Authors The Pathare Way

Ranganath Pathare a well known novelist, short story writer and critic in Marathi in the latest issue of New Quest, has attacked young urban poets in Marathi like Manya Joshi, Hemant Divate, Salil Wagh and myself among others saying, `They dont recognize any authority other than themselves. Barring one or two exceptions, their reading and understanding of the Marathi literary tradition is doubtful. Based on their pseudo-witty remarks, one tends to feel that writing poetry at deeper levels is not their cup of tea.....These are self styled dons and "Mafiosi", who live in their own shallow, illusionary universe. Obviously, nobody other than themselves and their samll coterie has any reasons to question their "junky" theories or their "funky" observations.They are their own self appointed critics and thinkers. They are a new post-1990 band of postmodern flag bearers, who make use of modern means of communication like blogging on the internet or websites of their own.' ( New Quest: 169, July Sept 2007 pp. 19-20)

I would like to know from Pathare if the `post' of a writer and critic or thinker is `appointed' after an ad in newspaper, interview, `fixing' and all that. Probably thats how he got `appointed' as a novelist and critic. With friends in high post in Sahitya Akademi and academia, Prof Pathare himself has managed to `post' himself as a `major' voice in fiction. Apart from one good novel, Pathare has written extremely mediocre short stories.

Using technology for publishing our writing and thoughts also seem to have hurt the old man. If he and his goons cant keep up with the changing technology, its too bad for him. It is also interesting how contemporary technology can become anti-establishment and liberating.

I would also like to know if we require Pathare's under-the table-recommendation to get an `appointment' in literary scenario.
I feel that people like Pathare are the ones who claim to be authorities ( we dont accept authority means that we dont accept people like Pathare) are self appointed, or are appointed by their friends in academia, official institutions and award-giving organizations. Otherwise, how come after writing mediocre stuff they manage to become `reputed' and sole bearers of Marathi traditions? If we are behaving like Mafia dons, they are behaving like milatary Junta and rejecting them involves rejections from their chamchas and `appointment' walahs. Any wonder we are not getting any awards etc and most ridiculous thrash is being celebrated as `great writing'?

Sorry Mr Pathare, cant help it. We dont recognize you or your agents as our authorities and neither do we need your `appointments' for the post of writers and thinkers.

Intimations of Digital (Im)Mortality

Some days ago, during an academic meet, a senior professor professed that blogs confer immortality of sorts upon people. What shall I do with this immortality of my Digital Soul, when my second-wave Ist Generation Soul experiences mortality every moment?

But it is true that this world wide web phenomenon is a very liberating one as Chitre once rightly observed. The World Wide Web is a small place too, and you bump into the same people- as on Orkut or Facebook-often!

The Net will change the way people relate to each other and to things. It will also change the way writing relates to society and the way society relates to writing. But how and in what way? Who knows? time alone will tell. It will change the way people `publish' things and the way people `read' stuff probably. No,the old fashion first generation `book' wont give way to ebook, but probably in some other way. How? Well who can tell?