[Reader-list] Sam Miller on Sarai

Tue Aug 18 11:40:39 IST 2009

I agree jeebesh, however the reader list is a very important public face of
sarai. I think we need to pay heed to the comments for that reason alone.
For the danger that this conversation is flagging off - making less visible
the larger important work.

best
ravi

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:

> Confusion. Confusion.
>
> Sarai hosts many lists. This list is only one of them.
>
> So comments on the content of this list should be limited to this list
> only. Not all of Sarai.
>
> And further Sarai is not a assemblage of lists. It has many offline
> practices.
>
> And thanks monica for your reminder to think beyond freedom of speech
> binaries.
>
> warmly
> jeebesh
> On 18-Aug-09, at 11:08 AM, sam miller wrote:
>
> >
> > mmm, Kshmendra - I've changed my mind since then, and Sarai has
> > certainly changed. It has sadly become a platform for bigotry and
> > curse-swapping.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'd now quite like to see a bit more post-modern jargon, and a lot
> > less willy-waving.
> >
> >
> >
> > And yes - I strongly agree with the note Monica just sent - surely
> > there has to be a greater emphasis on finding and investigating
> > common ground, and, I would add, on collaboration.
> >
> >
> >
> > Sam
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:26:02 -0700
> >> From: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
> >> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> >> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Sam Miller on Sarai
> >>
> >>
> >> "Many of these discussions are suffused with post-modern jargon,
> >> but usually they are worth the effort."
> >>
> >>
> >> --- On Mon, 8/10/09, Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> From: Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: [Reader-list] Sam Miller on Sarai
> >> To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> >> Date: Monday, August 10, 2009, 9:18 PM
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sarai, excerpt from Sam Miller's book...
> >>
> >> In the basement of a modern building at the foot of the Ridge, ten
> >> minutes from the site of Ludlow Castle, are the offices of an
> >> organisation that calls itself ‘Sarai’. Anyone who asks the simple
> >> question ‘What is Sarai?’ may not get such a simple answer. It is a
> >> place, but it also an idea. Sarai is Delhi at its most modern, its
> >> most virtual. It exists in a series of rooms in Civil Lines, but it
> >> also orbits in cyber-space.  According to its own publicity
> >> literature, Sarai ‘encompasses an inter-disciplinary research
> >> programme, a platform for critical reflection, a screening space, a
> >> convivial context for online and offline conversations and a media
> >> lab’. I have known about Sarai for several years, as an unashamed
> >> lurker on its e-mail groups – receiving regular updates on a eclectic
> >> range of subjects, often about Delhi, ranging from ‘the Culture of
> >> Telephone Booths’, through ‘Society and the Soap Factory to ‘Locating
> >> Sexuality through the eyes of Afghan and Burmese Refugee Women in
> >> Delhi’. Many of these discussions are suffused with post-modern
> >> jargon, but usually they are worth the effort.
> >>
> >> Sarai – the non-virtual part of it – consists of three rooms: a
> >> private inner sanctum where individuals have their own
> >> workstations; a
> >> glass-walled public access computer area (the media lab), and a large
> >> meeting room with a café. No-one looked up when I walked in and sat
> >> down, eavesdropping. There was a three-way discussion about French
> >> philosophers (Foucault and de Certeau), a young man was retying his
> >> pony tail as he watched cricket on a wall-mounted TV (not
> >> quakeproof –
> >> a potentially lethal missile, I decided), and a young woman was
> >> sitting at a table staring at her coffee mug as if it were an object
> >> of worship. I interrupted her to ask for help getting access to the
> >> Sarai online archive (I needed to find out more about Ludlow Castle).
> >> She gave me a split-second look of exasperation, before getting to
> >> her
> >> feet and handing me over to the resident computer expert. He took me
> >> into the media lab (with only one of the eight computers free), sat
> >> me
> >> down in front of a terminal and began logging me in. ‘Username:
> >> guest.
> >> Password: guest. You do know Linux and Mozilla Firefox[1], don’t
> >> you?’
> >> ‘Er, yes - a little.’ I was lying. I suppose I was rather proud of
> >> myself for having heard of them, and too embarrassed to admit that I
> >> hadn’t ever used them. I knew that they were the main software
> >> competition to Microsoft, and that they were, in some way that I
> >> didn’t quite understand, alternative, democratic and trendy. He’d put
> >> me on to a local area network where I could now access the archive. I
> >> entered ‘Ludlow Castle Delhi’ in the search box, and the entire
> >> screen
> >> went white. So did I. My usual solution, ‘Ctrl-Alt-Del’, had no
> >> effect, I panicked. And looking surreptitiously around, knowing I was
> >> doing something very naughty, I pressed my finger down hard on the
> >> on/off key. With a tell-tale squeak the screen went blank. I looked
> >> around again; no-one was staring with disdain in my direction. I’d
> >> escaped detection, and thirty seconds later I turned the computer on
> >> again, to a profusion of messages about how sinful I’d been to turn
> >> it
> >> off improperly.
> >>
> >> [1] Mozilla Firefox – Netscape’s successor and the main rival to
> >> Explorer as an Internet browser. A firefox is a red panda still found
> >> in India. Mozilla is a contraction of Mosaic Killer (Mosaic was the
> >> first widely used Internet browser). Linux is an open-source
> >> operating
> >> system, invented by Linus Thorvalds, a rival to MS Windows and
> >> Apple’s
> >> Mac OS.
> >> _________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _________________________________________
> >> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> >> Critiques & Collaborations
> >> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> >> subscribe in the subject header.
> >> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
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> >
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> > Critiques & Collaborations
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>
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> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
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