Life-en-treats

INTERVIEW WITH MLA DINESH GUNDU RAO. "I enjoy problem-solving." Meet Dinesh Gundu Rao, the three time MLA from Gandhinagar constituency. By Sushumna Kannan 16 Jun 2009, Citizen Matters bookmark   email   print Dinesh Gundu Rao (Congress) was first given an MLA ticket in 1999. He won from the Gandhinagar constituency and has won for three times now from the same constituency. Dinesh Gundu Rao Rao did his schooling from Bishop Cottons in Bangalore. He graduated in Electronics and Communication from BMS College of Engineering in 1992. He ran a computer training centre with a few others for some time after graduation while simultaneously participating in Congress party activities.  Click here  for the complete profile. I called Rao on his mobile. He asked me to come to his office where I landed the next morning with directions from the passersby in the neighbourhood who were very familiar with his office in Sheshadripuram. Party workers, staff and citizens were waiting to meet th...

Moyers, Bill 1994  A World of Ideas: Conquering America . The Moyers Collection series. Princeton, New Jersey:  Films for the Humanities and Sciences . Notes: VHS color; 30 minutes Reviewed 12 Jun 2009 by: Sushumna Kannan sushumnaa@gmail.com > Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, India Medium: Film/Video Subject:  Immigrants - United States Mukherjee, Bharati - Interviews Keywords:  Culture, Asia, America, Literature, Immigrant experience, Race, Multiculturalism.   ABSTRACT:    Bill Moyers interviews the Indian-born writer Bharati Mukherjee about the immigrant experience in America in the 1960s and '70s. Mukherjee relates she would rather "conquer" America by contributing to the shaping of its culture and correcting its problems, rather than "adjust" to it. We learn how the 'American dream' survives for Asian immigrants despite the country's failed economic promise.      Bharati Mukherjee was born into an upper middle cla...

I got into the reading habit very young. My brother and I would ravage the small area-library near our house. We read detective fiction, personality improvement stuff and a lot of the Ramakrishna Ashrama literature. As a young girl too, I knew I wanted to study English Literature or at least Literature in College. There are luckily dreams that do come true. Thank God for them! Or else what was to become of middle-class girls! with dreams and desires but little money? At least ten to fifteen years into the reading habit, I realize now how good it would have been to keep a record of all the books read, along with perhaps an annotation. Books read over the last 7 years and a little more are actually recorded, though not annotated. Books read for my PhD are better recorded than the fiction I have read. When young, the mind is so clear and one remembers everything one has read...I never thought a day would come when I would be confused about whether I read a book or not when I saw it i...

Back from Calcutta, so many things to put down. No time.  One of the best things that happened was that I met Kannada novelist H S Champavati and got to spend a good 10 days with her as a roommate. Her novel Shivaganga is a favourite and I had just collected her phone number from another scholar to contact her. I was possibly sending off vibrations on the same count to the universe and it yielded to me. Some people are so near, yet far and others so far and gone. Sigh...such is life!  Champavati sang to us all a song she learnt in the 70s while at Holland, from a Latin American friend. I loved it. So here it goes... I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore And I know too much to come back and pretend Cause I have heard it all before And I have been down there on the floor No one ever gone up, keep me down again O…yes, I am wise, but it is wisdom born of pain Yes I have paid the price But look how much I have gained If I have to, I can do...