Mutter with Megha: In conversation with Greatbong
In light of the Greatbong’s unprecedented landslide victory in the Indibloggies, the powers that be felt that winning an award (well actually, two) wasn’t enough of an ego trip. So they decided that one should do an interview with him as well. Perhaps a more serious, ‘getting to know the man behind the blog, his passions, his drive’ type routine. Of course, if seriousness is what one wants, one shouldn’t ask the resident flake of the blogosphere to do the interview. But now the deed has been done, and it’s time for the public to pay the heavy price for it. So here you are. Styled after her idol K-Jo and his koffee, and channeling the I-will-get-husky-voiced-for-no-reason-at-all Simi aunty, here’s Mutter with Megha. In conversation with Greatbong.
[A spotless white set. Megha in spotless white, sitting on a spotless white couch, holding a spotless white coffee cup filled with split-pea-soup, just one spotless white towel short of becoming Miss Chamko. (This part of the program sponsored by Surf.)]
M: Good evening! It is lovely to be back. Though the show has a new look (it is finally visible) the flavor of ‘Mutter with Megha’, much like this soup, remains unchanged — monochromatic, bland and with the inevitable queasiness of eating too much plant-protein.
So let me introduce our guest for today — his intellectual humor and ability to quote Neruda has the ladies swooning, but this legend of the industry is a dedicated father and especially loves to take his kids on long trans-Atlantic plane journeys. Belying his macho image, he is gentle and romantic. Oops, sorry. Wrong script. Um, say hello to .. [looks down at paper] .. Greatbong.
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March 30th, 2007 | | Permalink
Blogs cannot change India: Atanu Dey
A Hindi version of this interview is also available at the World’s first Hindi blogzine, Nirantar.
Atanu Dey, winner of the Best Indiblog at the
Indibloggies 2004 and author of
Deeshaa did his bachelors in mechanical engineering, then moved to computer science and received a master’s degree. Product marketing at HP in the Silicon Valley kept him occupied briefly for six years. He traveled in India, US, and Europe for five years before realizing that he knew nothing about economics. So he studied economics at the University of California at Berkeley and received his PhD for his thesis on the Indian telecommunications sector. In his spare time Atanu listens to classical music, practices Vipassana meditation, reads physics, gives lectures on Buddhism and maintains his blog. He is also a published poet.
Atanu was interviewed for Indibloggies by Nitin Pai and Debashish Chakrabarty.
How has been the experience winning the Best Indiblog award at the Indibloggies? Do award sites such as this do any good to the blogging world?
The experience has been very positive because the ideas that I explore on my blog got wider exposure because of the contest. This exposure was a secondary effect of the contest. For instance, Brad Delong, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley noted the award on his blog and hundreds of additional visitors started coming to my blog. Tim Worstall and Om Malik were among those who also wrote about my blog on their blogs and increased my readership.
I do believe that such contests serve a function. They reduce information imperfections. That is, more people get to know about the good blogs and this raises the bar.
Why do you think blogging provides a good platform for what you say? Do you blog with a purpose?
Blogging is a great platform for an individual’s viewpoint to be made accessible to the world at large (or at least, the connected world.) Each of us has a unique take on the world, which may be of value to others who may be geographically remote but psychically close. A web log allows a kindred spirits elsewhere to connect.
I blog for the reasons above, of course. But more importantly, it forces me to write. To me, writing is a process of self-discovery. When I write, I make explicit to myself what I implicitly know but I may not be fully conscious of.
What is that one thing you think Deeshaa achieves?
Deeshaa achieves connections. There is a core aim to the blog: discovering through dialogue, experience, exploration, observation and introspection what India is and where it is going. Deeshaa connects my efforts with others who have a similar quest.
Which are your favourite blogs?
I am not one of those people who read scores of blogs. It takes me time to carefully consider what others have written. Therefore, my reading is fairly limited, although eclectic. Mostly I read blogs of those who I know, either directly or only on cyberspace.
Rajesh Jain’s Emergic is my favourite tech blog. For India’s rural news and viewpoint, I read Suhit Anantula’s World is Green. My group blog of choice is Wetware, which was started by Reuben Abraham. Veerchand Bothra’s Mobile Pundit is a great source for mobile related content. Brad DeLong is among my favorite professors and has an incredible economics and political blog. “It is all trivial and obvious except …” by Tim Worstall of the UK is another eclectic intelligent viewpoint that I find remarkable. Sonal Vaidya writes “A potpourri of thoughts” from New York, which is guaranteed to entertain, inform and make you wonder. Oh, I should not forget Stupid Evil Bastard. Should not be missed.
Do you use any tools like w.bloggar etc to blog? Which newsreader do you use?
I use Movable type for my blog. Don’t use any newsreader.
Do you actually have a life? How does life interfere with your blogging?
I should take the 5th on that question. Answering it may incriminate me. But seeing as I don’t give a damn on my blog, I may as well answer that question. OK, I admit that I no longer have a life. Before I came to Mumbai nearly a year and a half ago, I had a life.
Do you think Indian blogs can change anything anywhere, especially in India?
Blogs change India? Are you kidding! Nothing can change India, least of all a bunch of stupid blogs that are written by a bunch of people who need to get themselves a life and read by those who desperately need to get out more often.
Blogs can bring alternative viewpoints to the public discourse
Seriously though, blogs can bring alternative viewpoints to the public discourse. In fact, blogs bring the public into the public discourse. The mainstream media can be very insular and incestuous. Blogs inject much needed diversity of viewpoints.
What do you mean by an Indian blog?
Since distance does not have any meaning when it comes to cyberspace, Indian blog means a blog that has as its major focus matters concerning India, irrespective of who the person writing is.
Tell us something about yourself.
I am just an average guy living in this material world, trying to scratch out a living without stepping on too many toes, and wondering how it is all going to come out in the end. I am on my third profession. Trained as an engineer first but did not practice that trade. Then moved to computer science and left it because I find computers artificially dumb and find natural stupidity rather intriguing. So I got a PhD in economics because economics has something to say about why people behave as stupidly as they do. Now I am concerned with what can be done to counteract the natural stupidity of people. I am working on figuring out an educational system that will make people grow up smart instead of being as dumb as doorknobs.
How do you analyse the current economic scenario of India?
India is a huge complex economy. One can partition India in many different ways and even with a huge number of partitions; each partition can be large in absolute terms even though in relative terms they may be insignificant. Depending on which partition one focuses on, one will get a different story.
For instance, take IT enabled services such as BPO. A million Indians work in that segment and things can’t be better for them. Yet, they only represent 0.1% of India’s population. The IT-enabled segment is rapidly evolving and progressing. The whole urban sector is also gaining grounds rapidly. But that is only 20% or so of India. What about the 70% of India that is in rural India? Things are not so rosy over there. What are the urgent and important problems that face rural India and how can they be addressed is the question critical to India’s future.
Overall, I am cautiously hopeful about India’s future. My guarded optimism springs from the realization that bureaucracy and politics can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory very easily as they have demonstrated in the past.
A Hindi version of this interview is also available at the World’s first Hindi blogzine, Nirantar.
March 6th, 2005 | | Permalink
I like writing, I like arguing, I like taking stands!
Jivha’s is perhaps the best known name in the Indian Blogosphere. There wouldn’t be many Indian Blogs that do not have him on their blogroll and there mustn’t be many either who never ever commented on his post or trackbacked him. Jivha emerged as the deserving “IndiBlog of the year 2003″ and we thought it was time we shed some light on the enshrouded but effervescent Indiblogger. And what could have been a better spectacle than
Melodrama, who also sponsored the prize for the winner of this category along with Meena, asking the questions. Here we go:
M: Since when have you been blogging (for those who wouldn’t bother checking your archives)?
Jivha: February 2003. Started as jivha.blogspot.com and moved over to jivha.com in July 2003.
M: How did you hit upon the pseudonym ‘Jivha’ and how is it representative of your blog?
Jivha: Jivha, means ‘tongue’ in Pali (Buddhist).
When I was starting a blog back in February 2003, I wanted a name that would be Indian in origin, and would mean something relevant to me. A mythological story that I had read in my childhood came to mind. In the story the royal barber went by the name of ‘Jivha’ and was recruited by some opponents of the king to cut the king’s throat while shaving his beard the next day. The barber meekly agreed to do so.
The next day when the barber was sharpening his blade (’ustara’) in preparation of the dire deed, the king starts humming a song which somewhat went “you move left, you move right, o jivha I know what’s on your mind!” Hearing this the barber falls at the king’s feet asking for forgiveness and blames his opponents for coercing him. Of course he never knew that the king was just referring to a ‘tongue’ in the song, and not to the barber!
And that is how the word ‘Jivha’ came to mind. I started my original blog at Blog*Spot. When I decided to move on to my own domain and Movable Type, I decided to use the same name. This time I reverse-justified the name ‘Jivha’ to something more than just a long-lost story.
The concept of the tongue fitted very well with the loose, off-the-cuff and direct commentaries that I’d been making on most of my posts. And that is why my blog became simply, ‘Jivha - the Tongue’.
M: What do you think of Indian blogs and do you think anything has changed since you started blogging?
Jivha: Although nowhere near the quality and range of US blogs, I think we’re more than making up for the lead that the US had in this regard. There are newer sites coming up which make compelling reads and the Indian blogosphere today is almost unrecognizable to it’s year-old past.
M: Do you think Indian blogs are representative of India or the average Indian?
Jivha: Um, no. In fact I wouldn’t even say that they’re representative of an urban average India too. They’re representative of probably 5% of the population of the top urban cities.
M: What do you think of any blogging awards, and could you please be honest?
Jivha: Frankly, not much. Because (a) I don’t understand what purpose they serve, and (b) I think it’s pretty darn easy to ‘rig’ an award…then where’s the point?
M: Is there a mission to your blogging and what motivates you to continue with it?
Jivha: I like writing, I like arguing, I like taking stands. My blog allows me to do all. Besides, in my own small way I try and influence atleast a few people about reality the way ‘I’ see it 
M: Do you think your blog has affected anyone positively or negatively and do you think blogs influence, like TV or radio?
Jivha: Positively. My knowledge of world affairs has increased since I started blogging/reading other blogs.
M: Have you induced anyone to blog? Did your efforts bear any fruit and is the person still blogging?
Jivha: Um, yes. Atleast a couple of friends and even a couple of people I never knew earlier. Some are continuing, some aren’t. Not enough data to make a conclusion yet 
M: Do you plan beforehand the topics you blog about? How do you handle criticism of your posts?
Jivha: Plan? Unless you call remembering what I read in the newspapers on the way to office as ‘planning’, then no. Google News, my daily newspapers and other blogs remain the 3 sources of posts for me.
How do I handle criticism? By arguing back if the criticism is valid/well structured, or by co-opting the criticism if it’s illogical and troll-ish (my byline is made up of ‘names’ people have called me in the Indian blogosphere).
M: We have noticed a distinct political tone to a lot of your posts, so, are you trying to be a political blogger?
Jivha: Two things, (i) I wouldn’t want to slot myself, (ii) you’re assuming I’m not one already
M: Do you think only a certain kind of individual blogs or have you noticed people with very different personalities blogging?
Jivha: I’ve noticed about as decent a range of personalities in bloggers as you would notice amongst colleagues at your workplace. That’s a fair sample, no?
M: We also noticed that you tried a bloggers meet sometime back. How did it go and what were your experiences meeting bloggers the first time? Would you organize such a meet again?
Jivha: Asli and Mahesh Shatanaram did land up. A couple of people weren’t well, some people misread the timings…overall I wasn’t disappointed as me and Asli did chill out over beer after the fiasco And yeah, you’re not catching me organizing anything again. A defunct book-reading club and blogger’s meet are ‘two’ much for me
M: What are you views on bloggers’ aligning themselves like ‘Indian blogring’, ‘blogging bitches’, ‘blogging for bush’ etc.?
Jivha: Not much. I don’t like slotting myself into pre-ordained categories. Plus webrings strike me as pretty dorky (don’t ask me why!).
M: How does one make one’s blog work-safe?
Jivha: Simple. Give your blog URL to your Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother amd Girlfriend. No one’ll have enough b***s to write anything even remotely un-work-safe after that!
M: Who would you dedicate this (best Indiblog) win to? (Wait let us all jam our ears and shut our eyes, we fear a jivhaesque outpouring.)
Jivha: Who else but myself?
M: Are you planning to donate the prize (Tantra tee shirt) or to enjoy the fruits of your success? If yes, who would you donate the shirt off your back to?
Jivha: No. I wanna show the tee-shirt(s) to my would-be-better-half as proof that blogs are not 100% pointless
M: Who is your favourite blogger? (If you say its me, I might even be induced to enhance the prize to say a autographed tantra tee. Teehee!)
Jivha: Calpundit
M: If we see Jivha on the streets how could we identify him?
Jivha: Considering that your tongue is on the street, I think it would be a fair assumption that so would be the rest of your face, and body. I think you should call an ambulance as most people who get run over on the street do tend to need one.
M: This is for all the lovely young ladies who have a secret crush on you and are waiting to stalk you, what exactly did you say your address was?
Jivha: Ahhh, be still my beating heart! Can you please ask those ‘lovely young ladies’ to mail me for further directions
M: And finally, do you have any message for new bloggers? Stop, we didn’t mean to unleash so much verbal diarrhea, stop! Stop! STOP! Yeahhhhhh…….
Jivha: Just two words - ‘post frequently’.
December 24th, 2003 | | Permalink
