the brook

Recently while doing a Windows update for my graphics driver I got the following pop-up:

If only I had a screen with that much real estate. The dream faded after the update was completed and the system restarted.

A company in India, Infibeam, has introduced Pi, an e-ink based book reader for the Indian market, with support for local languages and a very Kindle-like look.

Lesser base storage than the Kindle, but you can extend the memory with an SD card. It can read PDFs, ePubs, HTML, DOC, JPG and some other stuff, which is awesome. Doesn’t have a keyboard though, so while you can bookmark stuff you can’t make notes; which is a bit unfortunate. Like the Kindle, it can play MP3s.

It has a built-in version of Sudoku, and they claim they’ll add more apps.

Given the price (10K, lower than the Kindle), and the reading culture in India, I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a decent hit. I love the Indian language support, which the Kindle lacks. If you go to the link, they show a mixed-language book with both English and Sanskrit text. They claim to carry 100,000 books for now, which is a goodly number, given that the Kindle, introduced long ago, so far carries about 400,000.

I’m not sure if this comes with a built-in cellular data connection like the Kindle, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve always thought that was a bit of an overkill, I’m happy to sync a book reader via my computer for purchasing books.

I wonder if someone couldn’t produce a cheaper version of this for the poorer schools in India which have such a hard time providing access to books. Yes, 50 of these would be very expensive compared to buying 50 books — but you can just have 50 of these in a class and every student of every grade and subject could use exactly the same device in the classroom. Lots of saved paper, and maybe saved money in the long term too.

Almost a decade and a half ago, a friend and I did something many considered somewhat batty. We walked from Juhu to Versova along the beach. It isn’t really much of a challenge, the distance being about four or five kilometers. For some reason, large swathes of the beach were empty, deserted and relatively far from the touch of civilization (I’m sure that has changed now). We had never walked there before, nor knew anyone who had, nor in fact knew that there would be a way to get from Juhu beach to Versova (where I lived).

We encountered many things, but what I remember is a solitary camel sitting across a shallow creek that we had to pass; I remember deliberating over our safety in case the animal decided to be unfriendly. We went through; all we got was a quizzical stare.

This delightful ramble of words celebrates walking for walking’s own sake. I walk these days to reach places, to exercise, to photograph; but I cannot remember a recent time when I walked just for the sake of walking, and seeing what would show up – both within and without.

The book is many things – a collection of trivia about walking, wonderful descriptions of walks that the author has taken, an argument that walking works wonders for mental health, but most of all, to me, it was a reminder that walking is not just an abstraction. Walking can be a screen on which life is projected — obvious when you compare the way people walk in New York with those in a small town. Walking can be a wellspring of creativity – many greats, from Dirac to Dickens, have been inspired during walks.

Reading this brought back some fond memories and taught me to try and not treat walking as only a means to an end.