Among the ideas that emerged  in our weekly Sunday meet is a chitra santhe for amateur artists at a designated space. The idea is to provide exposure to spare-time painters, photographers and other artists to showcase their works. We can mobilise students of CAVA, art teachers and others who wish to exhibit their creations. In our weekly Sunday meetings I run into several youngsters, mostly IT professionals, who have flair for photography. They would be happy to have an opportunity to show off their photographs for anyone who cares to drop in at the Sunday chitra santhe.

There is nothing novel about the idea, and weekend artists gallery on pavements can be found in several cities in the world. I know in  London, they use the Thames Embankment on Sundays. Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco attracts  residents and visitors who appreciate art forms on weekends.

In Mysore, Chitra santhe could be developed into a Sunday pavement art gallery. And over a period, it could become an attraction for art-minded tourists. Our experience with Sunday meetings (which now attracts 20 to 25 persons on a regular basis) set us thinking about providing such a forum for amateur painters and photographers.

Among possible venue could be the grilled enclosure at the back of the Oriental Research Institute or the triangular space between  two  roads  converging into a boulevard behind Oriental Institute.

I would appreciate your reaction to this idea. If you think there is merit in this and it is ‘do’-able , we could work together and make Mysore an art center of sorts.

-GVK

The initial plan was to create something similar to speaker’s corner (in Hyde park, London) or may be something similar to Coffee house at college street or may be an Algonquin round table. However, there are no set rules as to how Mysore santhe should evolve. The place belongs to you, the visitors to this place and it may become anything that you want it to be.

Read more about Mysore Santhe at Ashwin Krishna’s blog.

In case you need to know more, feel free to contact me (9900199201) or Ashwin Krishna (9886165220).

Many such instances dot our day. We look out for a customer and we find an investor. We look out for a seller and find a good business contact. We look out for a consultant and find a great businessman. It is not luck. It is not just the probabilities. It is because we search for something which is not there yet. We look out for something which we want to create just out of an idea. And we believe that it is possible. When you start believing in an idea, when you stop thinking about why something may not work and instead start working on making it possible, everything starts to fall in place.

I had heard the above words a thousand times before I took the entrepreneurship path. Now I am experiencing it. And I think it is a very logical thing to happen. When we believe in an idea and talk about it, people try to build a conversation which usually centers around that idea. Talk movies with someone and she would talk more about movies, actresses and probably new movie ideas. Talk music and she would talk of more music and musicians. Then why not talk about the idea that you believe? Believe and the things just start to work.

The windmill was based on the design of Ted Baer. Anil and Suraj too joined in the effort to get this working. The Windmill needs to improved further and we are yet to run it at its full potential. The chain sprocket system which we used to couple the cycle wheel with the moped engine is not aligned properly and a lot of tweaking is required in the geometry of the blades as well.

Credits of this work go to: Anil, Suraj, the teachers of Vidyavardhakka, kids and the school lab assistants.

The answer is to visit Gram Panchayat offices, Agricultural information centers, rural forest offices etc. Yes, all of them are government offices. Strangely, these offices are not like the government offices we see in cities where apathy rules. Rural offices typically consist of 2 or 3 officers. In all my recent experiences these rural officers have been extremely helpful. Being in a rural area, their expertise is seldom sought by any. As a result, they are more than happy to talk when a city fellow asks their expertise.

The reports prepared by these offices collectively form a summarized report at the Taluk level. These move higher to the district level, state and then the national level. During this process however, much of the qualitative information gets smudged as the information reaches higher levels. Only the quantitative information typically remains. Quantitative information most of the times can give a wrong idea of the real situation on ground. For example, community forestry on a national report may not be true at the ground level (as I have seen in one instance).

The rural market may be huge. Yet, it is extremely complex too. And as far as I have seen, rural areas can’t be generalized. Every village is unique with its own set of benefits and problems. If you are in a business dealing with villages, you have to solve one village at a time. No single solution applies to all.

Another thing is, I see an opportunity here. An aggregated knowledge pool of rural statistics which is inclusive of real opinions, reviews etc on the ground situation might be extremely valuable.