Sonagachi and Seduction

Let me contextalise. Sonagachi is one of the largest Red Light areas in Kolkata (in fact in Asia). There are quite a few of them, but I had heard from people who know that Sonagachi is the best. Two others are harkata [near my alma mater: Presidency College] and Kalighat [near the famous Kali temple]. As a young student in Kolkata in late 1980s, I had noticed three things about these three places:
1. there are several middle class dwelling houses in, I mean in Sonagachi and they have a sign in Bengali on the front door "Grihastho Bari: Janasadharaner Probesh Nishedh"[Domestic Dwelling: No Entry for Public"]. These dwellings have been there as long as Sonagachi has been there. One has not mixed with the other!
2. The devotees at Kalighat and the customers at the nearby area did not get mixed up with each other [I am sure there was a small set of common patrons!]
3. The one at Harkata [Cut bone] was 200 metres from the entrance to the Calcutta University's venerable buildings and 250 metres from the main entrance of the Presidency College. But interestingly none of the day scholars I knew [they were by far the majority] knew where harkata was. Of course, my knowledge stemmed from the collective adventurous spirit of generations of adventurous presidency colege students who boarded at the famous Hindu Hostel.

By the way: Soliciting was illegal then as now, but the barabanitas of the three places carried out their trade quite openly. Also, those who did not know or where not bothered with the existence of these places were not in anyway prevented from knowing about these places [no law stopped them nor was any moderation done to their behaviour] It was a part of ecology. Law could not prevent the trade in as much as moderation or control was not neessary to determine the behaviour of people who lived, worked or studied nearby.

I am not giving you this example from my past life to titilate you. But to draw attenntion to the similarities that the case has with the discourse on internet and the need for moderation, need for law etc etc.

My take: Sonagachi, Kalighat and Harkata have flourished for a 100 years in spite of 100 year old laws to prevent them. For hundreds of years, devotees at Kalighat temple, or ordinary dwellers at Sonagachi or Students at Presidency college and Calcutta University have remained untouched by their existence.

Can we not see the parallels with Internet here? I can see it, if you can't you are either blind or Stupid!

Blog Shlog

Shlog is not a word in the english dictionary. Rhyming it with blog just make you look and feel COOL. Who does not want to be cool? There was a time, not so many years back, when people wanted to look hot. How things change!

Not to digress too much, I hear that Indian corporates are taking to blog like fist to water. Good news? No it is not good news to me personally! It feels like a large corporate is taing up the green spaces in Delhi and Mumbai. But then.. in this age of high capitalism, corporate involvement in blogs is a welcome step I guess.

But what is the charm that is bringing corporates to the "underbelly" of internet? I guess desire to connect with consumers. Corporates can not be driven by anything else! Of course, there is the added desire to create loyal communities around their product and services and a realtime feedback mechanism.

But I fear beyond these business motives, there would be OR could be a larger desire to create a knowledge community whose knowledge and IPR would be immediately avaialable to the corporates whose site you are blogging on.

This would be true especially of tech, pharma, design and other companies which suvives on ideas. And more alarmingly it is true in a country where people flout their "knowlegde" without bothering too much about who appropriates it. Also, in a country like India where there is a lot of local knowledge.

This is what looks slight frightful to me. We need to look closely at the blogging platforms that the corporates are building and must read the fine print that is there before we sign up.

But the good news is that internet being a democratic platform, everyone can share everyone's knowledge [without the narrow intention of appropriating and monetising it] AND more importanly, it means that Indian corporates are looking at Internet seriously.

But if they are looking at internet seriously, one of things that they could do to help internet penetration in the country is to open up inernet use in their offices, not put too many firewalls, not put too much restrictions on their staff on "productive surfing only". This would certianly give a boost to the number of people who actively use internet in India.

My take: Leave the green spaces on the internet for common use