The Postman: An integral part of India!

I remember times, before the advent of email into mainstream Indian life, when letters used to take 6-7 days to reach, often get lost on the way or arrive opened. In general, the stated of India's Department of Posts (then, Post & Telegraph) sucked!

Nonetheless, receiving a letter used to be an event in its own right, an emotional high that shall forever remain unequalled by email. I'm not denying that receiving an email is special. That would totally depend on who it's from and how often you communicate otherwise, but all factors remaining constant, I'd rather receive a letter than an email. All I get by snail mail these days are Credit Card statements and Phone bills, which I receive five days earlier in my email anyways.

Things having changed how they have and with me not having written a letter in a few years, I don't think I have the right to grudge. But it still feels nice to see what a huge role the Postman still plays in the lives of millions. BBC has done a brilliant "In Pictures" feature on the Indian Postman. It also brings out how the government is innovating to leverage this amazing supply chain.

Definitely worth a see!

Contemporary Mahabharat: Banker's got serious competition!

Weblog; Books; Mahabharat; Epics; Mythology;

Someone pointed me to this woman's blog and she's done a hilarious job of contemporarising the Mahabharat. Seriously, I try to be funny, but she doesn't seem to be making the effort and still turns out wayyyyy funnier than I can possibly dream to. Wish I could write like that.

Now, I'm a major fan of Mr. Ashok Banker, who's Ramayan series I've been reading like crazy (Desperately waiting for Part 5 of 6!) and he does a pretty darned good job of the whole contemporarisation bit, and I hear he's working on the Mahabharat now.

Although I'm gonna end up reading both versions of the Mahabharat, to feed different regions of my brain, Mr. Banker might just find competition if this lady decides to publish her work (and a publisher agrees to do it, I hear they can be quite daft) and I really think she should. Might run into trouble with the self proclaimed moral police, but that'll be fun in itself.

Anyways, what are you doing still reading this, go read the Mahabharat ala Crystal Blur.