Please count me in if these ever gets going -- I'm a relatively recent transplant (moved here 2 years ago) but found it very easy to plug into the local security scene (Black Lodge Research, Harry's on Thursdays, HushCon, etc.) and while they're fun to hang out and meet other folks in the space, I've been looking for a more hands-on tinkering meetup with clearly defined goals (we are going to learn about XYZ today).
P.S. if you're a hardware nerd, you might like https://dma.space/ (just had their grand opening this weekend) over in Capitol Hill.
If I may share a memory: I still remember visiting Jungfrau Park with my parents on a vacation to Switzerland back in 2005; as a scifi-leaning kid even back then (4th/5th grade), I had a ton of fun in all the different exhibits. IIRC, different wings of the park were dedicated to different mysteries/monuments, so you'd have the Aztec and Egyptian pyramids, Peruvian (Nazca, and my favorite one) desert drawings, ancient Indian flying chariots, etc. A great time, and I'm honestly quite surprised (in retrospect) that my dad chose to go there, given our time-limited schedule. It was also my first time trying Weisswurst in the JP cafetaria (being a Hindu kid growing up in the UAE, I seized every opportunity to try beef and pork when I could lol) -- I'm sure it was fairly mid, but I thought it was fantastic!
If nothing else, it helped me establish some pop cultural 'throughlines' in that I was able to digest (so to speak) other "aliens were here first and they taught us a bunch of things" trope that cropped up later in my life (like Aliens vs. Predators, Prometheus). I can't say for sure, but it might have been my earliest encounter with the Big Question: "Why are we here? Is there a plan?" -- even though I discounted the alien theory pretty young, it was still an exciting way to get started on the subject (and is still fun to me to this day). I suppose a portion of credit for ongoing interest in science fiction is directly attributable to my time at Jungfrau Park :)
Weirdly enough, I was just in Switzerland a couple of months back and we happened to drive by Jungfrau on our way to Lauterbrunnen -- JP is still there, which stirred up the ^ memory, but I learned on the trip that it had been shut down sadly.
Thanks for being a part of such a surreal memory Mr. Daniken.
Added all of these to my Goodreads -- as an Indian, I had no idea that these books existed. Great article (with some really cool UI choices); I'm looking forward to reading more from this magazine! Thanks for sharing.
Ditto... several titles they listed were alien to me! And I had no idea about Rokeya.
Alas, these will have to wait a bit until my next book-funding cycle... I accidentally overdid some Diwali discount book shopping and have a slushpile of about forty scifi titles to work through, and a fiscal deficit to repair :sweat-smile: :D
That said, my extant slushpile has Sci-Fi by contemporary Indian / Indian-origin authors...
Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef (next up in the reading Q, along with the Strugatsky brothers).
And SB Divya's books:
Read and enjoyed and will recommend:
- Meru (very cool embodiment of beings, mythologically-inspired)
To-read:
- Loka
- Machinehood
- Contingency plans for the apocalypse
The articles references articles she has written on science fiction, but if one is interested in SFF more broadly, Monidipa "Mimi" Mondal is India's first Hugo nominee, as he co-editor of Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, an anthology of letters and essays. This won a Locus award.
Her fantasy novella, "His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light" was nominated for a Nebula. She also contributed a DnD adventure to "Journeys through the Radiant Citadel"
She is also read well in Bangladesh because she wrote primarily in Bengali. Infact she was well versed in quite a few languages. Her Sultana's Dream is a little over the top though
That's true. Bose is also the source of Marconi's radio component and he developed junction based electronics way before it's time. Bose was quite fiercely anti-patent. Marconi patented the coherer in his name.
It is only recently that Bose's contributions in radio and electronics are being acknowledged (colonialism doing what it does) although these were quite well known in Bengal.
I can second the article's recommendation of Samit Basu, I've liked everything of his I've read. I would also recommend Indra Das, and Saad Z. Hossain.
Thanks for sharing! I always love looking at the hand-painted advertisements when I'm back in India. I almost never see it in the cities these days (billboards have taken over), but back in my parents' villages, a lot of older painted advertisements (like Maha Cement) are still there on the walls that run past the main street.
On a side note, I have an HTTP200 license plate and I want to get some nice Indian truck style lettering saying HORN <HTTP200> PLEASE around it :)
I visited India about 10 years ago and I often saw hand-painted advert murals for global products like Coca-Cola. I thought this was a really cool thing to see! It's nice to hear these things are still visible. I wonder if anyone is still painting them? It would seem surprising, but then it was certainly surprising to me 10 years ago too so I would not bet my life against it.
Yes, its quite thing even today. The banners tend to tear and fly away due to high winds.
So painting is still a thing in pretty much all over India. I even knew a neighbour who would do it. Like he painted our street address on our home. He also did many such things on highways.
Not sure if you know this, most such painters are illiterates and will have a hard time writing anything by hand. So its less of a font painting, more like a art form for them.
Only a while back, even movie posters were painted and quite honestly they would be stunning. I have seen them as a kid and would inspire awe.
On a tangential note, a classmate of mine had a flare for it, and he even did some projects with making huge mega massive stunning artistic displays with paint and thermocol, not sure what he is doing now, but back then those things looked quite impressive.
a project that has been on my todo list for years is to crowd source the dividing line between "horn ok please" and "sound ok horn" (I saw the latter for the first time when I lived in Bangalore, but I gathered it was the common version in the south, which implies the existence of a border marking the transition)
"horn please", to tell people to honk while passing.
OK was originally a separate thing that used to occur in locations other than between the two words. I distinctly recall this from my childhood. Don't know the origins of it but there is some suggestion on the internet that it was copied from Tata trucks which had the logo of the OK soap (a lotus).
They could occur in the current order, but it was not necessary. It should still be read as separate from the "horn please" phrase.
As the country became functionally more illiterate over the years (yes, probably a controversial opinion :) ), the three words were just rote copied inline and painted on trucks, with the meaning lost to time.
I would love to see a reliable source for this. All I have ever found is people on the internet asserting this to be true, but no actual evidence (in the form of contemporaneous pictures or documents from WW2).
It is just Horn Please. OK is a historical artefact.
During WW2, due to fuel shortages, Indian trucks often switched to Kerosene.
OK means: "On Kerosene". OK was painted on the back of trucks and other vehicles to warn other drivers to maintain a safe distance because Kerosene is highly flammable.
Due to another meaning of OK, they just kept doing it. [0]
It says "than diesel" in the link, but I don't think diesel engines would've been common at all at the time. To my knowledge they only became popular post-WW2.
Went down a bit of a rabbit hole on the original author, Kir Bulychev, and saw that he wrote many short stories set in Veliky Guslar (which explained the name Greater Bard). The overall tone is very very similar to R.K. Narayan's Malgudi Days (albeit without the fantastical elements of talking goldfish), which is a favorite of mine. If anyone wants to get into reading some easily approachable Indian English literature, I always point them to Narayan and Adiga (who wrote The White Tiger).
On that note, does anyone else have any recommendations on authors who make use of this device (small/mid-sized city which serves as a backdrop for an anthology of short stories from a variety of characters' perspectives)?
Good luck Vivek, this looks really nice! I was in Bangalore for the first time this Feb and had a great time. You should check out Mecca cafe, it's thoda grimy but a total vibe.
Come to Harry's on 15th on Thursdays (8:30 pm + ). It's where the local hackers (2600 and DEFCON crowd) usually hang out and socialize. Ask Will (the bartender, who's great) for the hacker crowd and he'll point you in the right direction.
I moved up here 6 months ago, and it's been a great group of people to hang out with. The conversations are tech/tech-adjacent for the most part, but I've also spent hours chatting about Magic The Gathering, Seattle Public Transit, and Neal Stephenson. I got my HushCon invite just from showing up regularly enough that people recognized me.
I actually found out about this because of another meetup on Thursdays: Black Lodge Research up in Redmond has an open night from 7:00 pm onwards. Great little makerspace, and a welcoming community. But it's definitely a schlep up there, especially after a workday so I haven't been back in a couple of months.
I'm not a big drinker, but it's nice to have a constant event on Thursday evenings that I can look forward to having a beer or two at (I actually have a custom drink that I came up with Will called "Pondwater" -- building up some lore like that is fun and is a sign of setting down some roots). I'd say Harry's is my "local bar" since I live about a 15 minute walk away. On the note of social drinking, there's a few sober people who come as well, and there's no compulsion at all to drink alcohol to be a part of the in-group. Hope I see you there sometime and I'd be happy to introduce you to the crowd; look for the Indian guy :)
P.S. if you're a hardware nerd, you might like https://dma.space/ (just had their grand opening this weekend) over in Capitol Hill.
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