“This is an advantage that age bestows on a man even if he is an utter ass!”

What follows is a paper by the legendary Indian photojournalist, T. S. Satyan, read on October 10, 2006 in Mysore at the international seminar to celebrate the birth centenary of eminent novelist & writer, R. K. Narayan. The seminar was organized by the Central Sahitya Akademi, Indian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies and the Central Institute of Indian Languages. [Thank you Mr. Satyan for allowing this to be republished on Tiffinbox!]

I feel honoured to be asked to present a paper at this scholarly forum to mark the birth centenary of R.K. Narayan.  I am not an academic. I am only a foot soldier of Indian photography. My only credentials to speak on this occasion are that I knew Narayan since the early 1940s. I benefited from his unalloyed affection and guidance for some six decades. And I kept in touch with him till his end.

Being a photographer I am more interested in presenting a portrait of Narayan as I knew him than making an elaborate critical assessment of his works.

When I was in the Maharaja’s College in the early 1940s––where Narayan had studied earlier––I was greatly attracted by newspapers and picture magazines. I had already started contributing photographs to the Illustrated Weekly of India. Initially, I shared my father’s belief that the best way to improve one’s English was to read The Hindu regularly. However, its editorials put me off. The part of the paper that interested me most was the Sunday column by R.K.Narayan. He would write an essay or story which made delightful reading.  Reading his essays I felt that Narayan was chatting with me and making me laugh. I mentioned this to my English teacher, M.N. Parthasarathy––Pachu to his friends and students. “If you are interested in pursuing a career in freelance journalism, you better meet RK Narayan, our family friend. It might help,” he said. Pachu asked me to read Narayan’s first three novels––Swami and Friends (l935), The Bachelor of Arts (l937) and The Dark Room (l938). They had already been published in England and raised him to the status of a celebrity.

[Read more…]

Time magazine's June 26 cover story is about India emerging as an economic superpower. Check out the cover image here.

My question is this – is India the new Japan? Having lived in Japan and seen how the bureaucracy there has befuddled its economy, I really wonder what sort of reformation the Indian bureaucracy will have to go through for the economy to really blossom. And by blossom, I mean for the common man and woman to feel the benefits of the economy; not just the top-tier wealthy.

Comments?

Pssst … wanna see something truly obscene? [for the record this is kid and office-safe, but it might still shock you]

Here is my annual call to you all to spread the word about Tiffinbox. I would appreciate it if you subscribe to my RSS feed. Of course, visiting the site gives you the added bonus that makes it easy to view some of the multimedia I post here. So, do stop by from time to time or every day.

Design Changes

Across several platforms, screen sizes and browsers, I found viewing the post titles and date to be a major hazzard to my eyes. You may now notice that the post titles and the date are a whole lot more legible. Next up will be a bit of a nip-n-tuck of the long lists that envelope the central column of this site. They have become much too unwieldy and I am not even sure if anyone bothers to scroll down to check out all the options available to them. So, I am going to be “hiding” the links in a drop-down menu. You will have to click, hold down the arrow and then select whatever interests you.

Those of you who do receive the RSS feed via Feedblitz will now see that the email comes from Seshu's Pipal Productions. The subject line should read [Tiffinboxers]. You will also see the Tiffinbox mascot on the top. The feed also features something I love – a short string of links right on top that summarize all the new posts on the site.

How To Become A Tiffinboxer?

To become a Tiffinboxer is easy – simply forward the Tiffinbox website address [http://www.tiffinbox.org] to at least 15 of your friends and email me when you have done so. Let's follow the honor code on this one. I'll randomly choose people who email me at tiffinbox [at] pipalproductions [dot] com and send them a fancy shmancy silk-screened Tiffinbox t-shirt. Trust me, you will look very hip wearing one. I'll soon post a photo of yours truly wearing one to show you what one looks like.

Serving It Up

Tiffinbox is a labor of love. No doubt about that. But it costs money to manage. While I don't want to make it a habit of extending my begging bowl out to you, it would be great to have my server and other costs covered. For instance, I am heading to Boston at the end of April to learn about podcasting. That costs money. I know a lot of people get a morsel or two out of this Tiffinbox and I would really appreciate it if you could pitch in. Even if it is $1 per month, I'll accept it gratefully. I promise to use your donation wisely and responsibly. To make it easier for you to pitch in, I have created a DropCash page here.

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Let's Connect

It's truly fantastic to hear from all of you – a great mix of folks, some of whom I have known a long time and some others whom I haven't yet had a chance to meet in person. May that day arrive soon when we can get together and perhaps share a warm meal. I would like that very much.

So, who is a Tiffinboxer?

Well, if you made it all the way down here, the clear answer is – YOU. So, thank you!

I don't know how many of you have been to Tokyo and ridden in one of the commuter trains during the morning rush hour. Let me tell you that it is a trip and a half. There are white gloved train employees hired to do nothing more than thrust with all their might as many people as they can into one train car as possible. The trains take on a sometime amusing, but mostly exasperating hue on one's pysche, as you think of yourself as a sardine being slammed shut into a tin can.

I mentioned the Blank Noise Blog-A-Thon here and I had hoped to pen something substantiative on March 7, but it just didn't happen. So here is my attempt at redemption.

Boing Boing picked up the Blank Noise blog-a-thon and reading the post in my news aggregator today brought back a specific memory that may seem appropriate to narrate.

About 10 years ago, when I was a student in Tokyo, one of my classmates [name withheld] often mentioned being sexually harassed in the crowded trains. The culprits were almost always older men. As the trains swayed, so did the men into her. While usually an apology is offered and almost expected in Japanese culture for bumping into someone, she said the offending “ojiisan” [literally “grandfather”] acted as if nothing really had happened. It was a near daily ritual. She had had her butt pinched and palmed, and her breasts groped.

When the rains came she felt an umbrella handle being wedged between her legs. At that point, she had had enough. I remember her telling us that as a station approached, she turned around and stuck a safety pin in the guy [yep, she was armed and ready this time]. As he shrieked in pain and exited the train, she followed him out onto the station platform and let loose a series of Japanese epithets that are simply unprintable here. Aghast and mostly ashamed, the man did little more than turn and run away.

Listening to my friend describe her experiences were a mixed group of students from the US and Europe. It's not that sexual harassment doesn't exist in the West, but we were honestly stunned to hear about the old man's lecherous actions given all that we had heard about the extremely ethical Japanese culture. A few rotten apples always seem to sully a good experience, but we secretly agreed that the best course of action was to punish the man with pain and then public humiliation.

The question, though, is if the actions of a dirty old man is pervasive in that particular society. Does it happen enough number of times in a day to enough number of women to make it an epidemic? According to Blank Noise even one woman or girl being harassed is one too many. I have to agree. Be a real man. Support the site, support the project. Learn about this very complex issue. Now.