text:
My eight-year long association with Outlook has just ended. As I say goodbye, here are the two chronicles/appraisals/histories of the magazine that I wrote when it turned ten, in 2005, and fifteen, in 2010. Until someone writes 'Mr. Mehta's Outlook', like Ved Mehta wrote 'Mr. Shawn's New Yorker', these two pieces may capture a small slice of the big story.
[This piece when Outlook turned 15]
Beyond ready labels like 'liberal', 'secular' or 'left-of-centre' to the nuances and specifics
01 November 2010
If we begin with the presumption that 'journalists are not ideological eunuchs,' then the next question that arises is: what is the belief-system underpinning Outlook's existence for the last 15 years? Rather than using ready labels like 'liberal', 'secular' or 'left-of-centre', it may be helpful to grapple with the nuances and specifics of what we are. Let's explore that, first, through three quotes by three eminent writer-journalists.
Quote one: British journalist John Pilger in his introduction to Tell Me No Lies, a volume on investigative journalism, quotes a reader's letter that Edward Smith Hall gave prominence to in the launch issue of his weekly, Sydney Monitor, in 1826. Hall was someone who gave Australia its three basic liberties: freedom of the press, representative government and trial by jury. The letter, describing the function of a journalist, says he is an "inveterate opposer (rather) than a staunch parasite of government".
Quote two: Soviet dissident Yevgeni Yevtushenko said in his A Precocious Autobiography: "When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie."
Quote three: James Thurber of the New Yorker, in his eccentric essay, 'My Fifty Years with James Thurber', speaks about his boyhood: "His gold-rimmed glasses forever needed straightening, which gave him the appearance of a person who hears somebody calling but can't make out where the sound is coming from. Because of his badly focused lenses, he saw not two of everything, but one-and-a-half. Thus, a four-wheeled wagon would not have eight wheels for him, but six. How he succeeded in preventing these two extra wheels from getting into his work, I have no way of knowing."
Three Layers
In the extrapolation and application of these three quotes is contained the character of Outlook. In the spirit of the reader's letter, the magazine has managed to be contrarian and irreverent rather naturally; it has also broken eerie silences many a time, and has always been able to laugh, Thurber-style, at itself; been utterly contemptuous of self-importance and retained a genuine sense of wonderment at having survived three turbulent half-decades.
To support the admittedly loaded claim to being contrarian, the average (and often angry) reader will be able to cite innumerable instances, beginning with the Kashmir poll we conducted in our first issue, in October '95, which put the spotlight on human rights abuses and political aspirations in the Valley. The decibels were even higher when India tested an N-bomb; on Gujarat and Godhra; on Pakistan; on the situation of the Indian Muslim; the Parliament attack; on Taslima Nasreen; on Ayodhya; on the IPL; and, most recently, on the Maoist debate.
Readers' letters have played their part in fuelling this contrarianism. In the first half-decade of Outlook (October 11, 1999), a reader (Sherna Gandhy from Pune) in response to the cover story 'Do we really need a government?' pointed out: "I augment my one measly hour of municipal water a day with costly tanker water. It's not always potable, so I've a purifier. An inverter helps me tide over power cuts and poor garbage collection forced us to begin our own vermiculture project. Why indeed do we need a government?" Middle-class stories like this one spring from an understandable aversion to politics; they also found echo in a cover story in which we asked 'Why the **** should we pay taxes?' (April 2001). This was an Outlook circling round the centre rather than stagnating at a predictable point on the liberal-left. Maybe it is only after 2005 that we really began to live up to the charge some readers levelled at us, of being "bleeding-heart radicals".
Breaking silences appears second nature. The match-fixing story; the Kargil intelligence reports; the revealing of Dawood Ibrahim's Karachi address; the Scorpene expose and phone-tapping may have been the stand-out moments, but there were other relatively smaller occasions that were no less significant. For instance, the bludgeoning prose used to speak of Reliance in January 1996 when the 'duplicate share' and 'insider trading' controversies surrounded the corporate giant:
"There has never been an Indian company like this. In a country where 'business ethics' is considered a contradiction in terms, where mutterings about the 'business-political nexus' raises only a few tired eyebrows today, the Reliance group continues to draw extreme responses. From the creator of unequalled wealth for lakhs of shareholders to Devil incarnate, an amoral behemoth which has brutally subverted the nation's politico-economic system to have its cake and devour it, at every opportunity it has got." We came back to ask in December 2004: 'Are the Ambani brothers taking 35 lakh people for a ride?' Earlier, we blew the lid on backroom dealmaking in Vajpayee's PMO.
Coming to the third aspect of the Thurber-style, the best place to find a generous sprinkling of this would be the Delhi diaries. Sample the last item in the latest issue (October 25, 2010), titled 'So Much for Us', in which Vinod Mehta writes: "At Chennai airport, a gentleman came up to me, shook my hand and said how much he enjoyed watching me on TV. When I asked him if he had heard about Outlook, he looked puzzled. 'Outlook, which channel shows that?' I quickly moved away."
Go back to the item 'Duffers vs Toppers' in the very first Delhi Diary (October 18, 1995), in which the same writer says: "Recently, I was invited back to my old school in Lucknow which was celebrating its 150th anniversary. I was informed that I had been chosen as one of the distinguished Martinians…. I was anything but distinguished in my school days. In fact, academically I was something of a disaster and close to a joke figure. There were others who were formidably bright and it was assumed that these gentlemen would make it big in the world. Alas, life is cruel. With a few exceptions, precisely the opposite has happened. The 'duffers' in a sense prospered while the 'toppers' ended up in tea estates."
This deep-chuckle brand of humour has also been expressed, since last year, through the Secret Diary column. In it, the fictional Amar Singh says: "And, yes, I also have a movie project—an expose of the fashion industry with eight songs and eight chases on toy cars all shot on the ramp. Its working title: The Devil Wears Jaya Prada"; a fictional Sonia Gandhi asks: "And why is Modiji raking up my foreign origins even after I have granted that 'uthappam' was a precursor to the 'pizza'?" In sum, by trying to extract the essence of the magazine through three broad directions, all we are trying to say is that Outlook replicated no standard recipe, but created its own formula, necessitated by historical compulsion, conviction and also by competition.
Three Half-Decades
I referred to "three half-decades" at the beginning. Like the three layers, this uncommon division of time is relevant to Outlook's existence. Each half-decade has meant one big challenge. (Some challenges have spilled over to the next block, though, and will be with us in the future.) In the first half-decade, from 1995 to 2000, the challenge was economic survival; in the next half it was political survival and now, even as we would like to think we are cruising, we are forced to contemplate technological survival in an iPad era.
In that eyeball-grabbing, attention-seeking initial phase, we shocked and awed: In September 1996, in a cover story on sex trends in the '90s, we announced: "If sexual revolution is taking place in India, its guerrillas are women." We pioneered an investigative survey by Outlook staffers to pick MPs with criminal cases. Mind you, this was much before it became mandatory for people contesting polls to declare their assets and file affidavits of pending criminal cases. In July 1998, we carried out a freak public experiment by swallowing the Viagra pill. And yes, we got Arundhati Roy to say "I secede" before she said other things.
The cover graphics cried out for attention in a different way: check out the Sonia-Mona Lisa cover in May 1997; the Bofors boomerang cover with Sonia's eyes popping out in February 1998; Sitaram Kesri as 'villain' in January '98; Vajpayee as 'Mr Flop' in November 1998 and again Sonia as Ms Clueless in August 1999.
By the time Outlook stepped into its second half-decade, the BJP-led NDA regime was firmly ensconced. The subterranean tension, for an avowedly secular magazine, with a new regime founded on communal principles—'Unfinished Task' (December 18, 2000) and then four back-to-back Gujarat covers in December 2002—was evident. It had come to power with a majoritarian agenda after pulling down Babri Masjid and for us the parivar was constantly news—'Defenders of the Faith' (February 21, 2000); 'Sangh Shock' (March 27, 2000); 'Loony Right' (November 4, 2002). Outlook did try for a short period to construct a genuine right-of-centre, pro-reform position minus saffron hatred ('Reforms: At Last Some Resolve', February 7, 2000; 'Ten Years of Reform', June 25, 2001; '8 on 10' for Yashwant Sinha's budget in March 2001) but in the end, became unconvinced by the positions it was taking in a deeply polarised political and economic milieu. It moderated its enthusiasm for economic liberalisation, and then went even further, exposing the nexus between big money and the most important office in the nation, the PMO. This led to a frontal attack on Outlook. As a consequence of two covers that we did in a space of a couple of weeks ('Rigging the PMO', March 5, 2001, and 'The PM's Achilles Heel', March 26, 2001), which essentially looked at how a clutch of business houses and individuals were setting the economic agenda of the nation, a vindictive government unleashed I-T and Enforcement Directorate raids on Outlook's owners.
What of the last half-decade, and technological challenges? Outlook has had to survive in an era of screaming, 24-hour TV news channels; and at a time when a broadband connection has become commonplace among the people it wishes to reach. In 2000, there were only 2 million internet users, by 2006 it became 21 million and in September 2009 about 71 million people were accessing the Net; of them 52 million were termed active users. Their growing visibility is evident from the fact that most reactions to Outlook's print stories are generated on its website. There is a looming sense that this is the future, at least an inalienable part of it.
Meanwhile, global recession, which heralded the death, distress or sale of several prestigious print publications in the US, has disseminated a stern message. One report said nearly 400 magazines folded in 2009. Businessweek was sold to Bloomberg and Newsweek is up for sale. The talk is that technology may offer a via media, although nobody has been able to crack the means to monetise the web as yet. We may want to assure ourselves that we are far behind the US in this respect, but perhaps not. No doubt, Indian readership has grown incrementally, and this is the only market in the world where print thrives. But we can't pin our future hopes on that because the dynamic of technology is unpredictable—and we are not all that behind the rest of the world, technologically. So, what technological interfaces a print publication like Outlook should build is a question we can't afford to ignore. Interestingly, though, in the last half-decade, Outlook has focused on the consequence of economic and technological progress in India. It has tried to vigorously capture the chasm that exists between India shining and the Indian in shambles.
Three Predictions
Outlook is not given to soothsaying. In fact, it has had a bitter experience with its poll predictions, which it has got badly wrong on occasion ('Photo Finish', December 9, 2002, and 'NDA Shining', April 19, 2004). However, three prescient predictions do pop up in our back issues. One was contained in our Ayodhya opinion poll in the June 30, 2003, issue, in which we asked important questions: "Do you think prolonging the Ayodhya issue will hurt Muslim interests?" Nearly 64 per cent said 'Yes'. "How do you favour solving the Ayodhya dispute?"—52 per cent said through 'negotiated settlement'. "Do you think Muslims should gift the Babri Masjid site to Hindus?" An overwhelming 89 per cent said 'no'. This was when the NDA regime was in power. Compare this to the opinion that exists now, seven years later ('Angry & Anxious', October 18, 2010). Remarkably similar.
In February 28, 1996, a good eight years before Manmohan Singh became prime minister, we asked: "Should Manmohan be prime minister?" It was an opinion poll again, for which we spoke to senior business executives and economists. One of the opinions said: "Manmohan Singh is a neta more interested in the dollar than in the kisan." Also, in March 1998, when speaking of prospective Congress prime ministers, we said: "The Left Front could object to his candidature on the ground that he is an IMF man." Early forebodings of the spectacular falling out between Manmohan Singh and the Left?
A third prediction is yet to be tested. In September 2000, we wrote an exclusive report on the contents of the Asia 2025 study conducted by the US under-secretary of defence (policy), in which futuristic became ballistic: "The United States of America uses its B-2 bombers in the year 2012 to launch conventional air-strikes to destroy Pakistani nuclear facilities in a bid to prevent the nukes from falling into the wrong hands. The extraordinary US action follows an unsuccessful Indian conventional attack on Pakistani nukes, and a retaliatory Pakistani nuclear strike against Indian border forces. This sparks the disintegration and disappearance of Pakistan, and creation of an expanded Indian Confederation or Superstate."
Well, 2012 is a good year away. We'll get back to you on how accurate that was!
Three Lakh Words
The last word, obviously, has to go to Arundhati Roy, whose writings are seen as significantly defining the Outlook spirit, especially in the last half-decade. She has written nearly 26 essays, which measure over two lakh words. She is sure to reach the three-lakh mark very soon. Many people have read her despite the great length of her writings. Some have agreed with her completely. Many have agreed with short and long caveats. And a large number have felt outraged by her views. Outlook has even been accused of 'outsourcing' radicalism to her. Even those who threatened to 'unsubscribe' if she is printed again, we bet, will take a sneak peek.
Arundhati began her journey as a polemicist with the magazine when she wrote the 'End of Imagination' piece in August 1998. Her latest work, on the state of the nation and the need to imagine an order beyond capitalism and communism, was in September 2010. She deserves all credit for single-handedly reviving interest in the institution of the public intellectual, and the relevance of the pamphlet. In the many debates that Arundhati's essays have propelled, people have passionately gone back to European and American masters of the art of pamphleteering. In one such coffee-house discussion in Bangalore after 'Walking with the Comrades' (March 29, 2010) was published, Orwell's 1937 classic A Road to Wigan Pier, written when a cloud of Fascism hung over Europe, was picked up for comparison.
However fair or unfair the act of comparing and the choice of the Orwellian piece was, it was agreed during the course of the discussion that Arundhati, though not as lucid as Orwell, was as compelling. But a close reading suggested that Orwell offered a fair idea of the alternate, and a sense of the achievable in his writing. In Arundhati's work, it was said, anarchism (or 'principled anarchism' in the Chomskyan mould), mingled with a liberal dose of nihilism, ruled. It was also said that her prose was punctuated with what Orwell calls 'intense self-consciousness'. During the debate, questions arose: Why has Arundhati failed to recognise that tribals are gunpowder for the revolutionary war of the Maoists? Why did her essays appear like an individual's rant against the state? Where is the community? Whom does she represent and whom can she actually represent?
Finally, an interesting passage was read out from Road to Wigan Pier in which Orwell makes a distinction between two varieties of socialists: "On the one hand you have the warm-hearted unthinking Socialist, the typical working-class Socialist who only wants to abolish poverty and does not always grasp what this implies. On the other hand, you have the intellectual, book-trained Socialist, who understands that it is necessary to throw our present civilisation down the sink and is quite willing to do so. And this type is drawn, to begin with, entirely from the middle class and from a rootless town-bred section of the middle class at that." Which one is Arundhati? Or is she is neither of them? History's judgment is still open. Meanwhile, let the debate continue.
[This piece when Outlook turned 10]
1995-2005. A history in ten-and-a-half chapters
17 October 2005
At ten, does Outlook have a history? And should it be recounted so soon? History, usually, is a perspective in sepia that comes longer years after. Not in decennial doses. But despite the proximity of time, there can be little doubt that the first decade that Outlook has occupied has been among the more eventful in our nation's history. A decade punctuated by change and challenge, churning and cheering.
There is yet a third question to ask: Does history matter much in an age of instant everything and a hyperbolic present?
Eric Hobsbawm, described as history's greatest star, lamented in an interview on these pages last December that the discipline was increasingly becoming unnecessary: "The speed of change is such that the traditional links between the past and the present have disappeared. In the 20th century, modern technology has operated in a problem-solving mode to which history is irrelevant."
Presuming 'history' is problematic, let's assume a neutral, inventory term of 'chronicle'. Here, then, is ten years of the nation as seen through ten years of Outlook, chronicled in ten-and-a-half chapters. A title borrowed from an eponymous book by Julian Barnes, who has assured us "another ten years of luck".
Chapter One Insiders And An Outsider
The Outsider first. Sometime in 1999, a journalist asked Sonia Gandhi if he could tell her a joke. "Is it about me?" she asked. When told it was about the UP chief minister, she smiled in relief and said, "These days all the jokes are about me." From being seen as a joke, a reluctant politician and an unsure arbiter of Congress destiny, to being the key person behind the UPA government in 2005, Sonia is the decade's success story. Outlook put her on the cover as early as December 1996, when with her blessings Sitaram Kesri became party president.
We then called her the 'Hand That Rocks The Congress'. Those were the days when 'Piano Man' P.V. Narasimha Rao (the title of a prognostic polscape we published before the Paris character was found in 2005), bruised by the poll results and battered by court cases, had reluctantly stepped down. Down he was, but not out. In August 1996, he told Kuldip Nayar he wanted to exit but had to hold on to his chair because he wanted to "rehabilitate" the party. Alas, that did not happen and history gave Rao the unkindest rap, his finance minister overshadowed him. The bitterness showed when in an April 1998 interview to Sagarika Ghose, he asked: "What family? I have no feelings for any family. Are Congress workers servants?" Four months before he died, in August 2004, when Outlook met him for the 'What If?' special issue, his whispery grunts against history hadn't died down. Whatever, Outlook's stroke of luck partly began when juicy excerpts from his novel Insider became part of the first issue in October 1995. The prose pretty much qualified for the bad sex prize: "It was a process in which millions of pores, blood vessels and reflexes were involved in an all-out comprehension."
To return to Sonia, Outlook put her 19 times on the cover and seldom for a complimentary reason.On the contrary, she appeared most times as a caricature, ever since we made her look like Mona Lisa in May 1997.She was 'Villain No.2' in 1997, 'Ms Clueless' in August 1999.When the Quattrocchi factor was being discussed in February 1998, her eyes on the cover almost popped out as a Bofors boomerang approached her.A CBI report was lying before the then United Front government and breaking her silence, dared the government to put out the names.But the long life of the Bofors controversy born in the late '80s somewhat died only in 2005.Not till 'Saint Sonia' had listened to her 'inner voice', which we said was like an "earsplitting" victory cry to the Opposition.Sonia's innings in power has just about begun; she's still seen as cautious "big sister".
For the record, when the rest of the nation went into an overdrive about her 'foreign origin', Outlook took a pragmatic stand: "Why is it that…Sonia Gandhi still strikes everyone as a question rather than an answer? Fourteen years after she became an Indian citizen, there is nothing obviously 'foreign' about the Congress president."
In all her years of maturing into power, Sonia never once spoke to Outlook exclusively. She was so out of bounds she virtually disappeared from Outlook's cover for a full three years from 2000 to 2002. The magazine's default contrarian stance and a near-anarchist take on practically every issue ensured the coteries of power kept us away. This unblemished record was only once broken by Vajpayee in May 1999, another major player in the decade, but he spoke when he was temporarily out of power. He admitted his 13-month government had become "over-confident". A phrase that came back to haunt him in April 2004 when the NDA met shocking defeat. But going by cover count, Vajpayee's made it 21 times, marginally higher than Sonia.
One of the early verdicts Outlook passed on Vajpayee in the wake of the November 1998 onion crisis was that his government was a "flop show". His reluctance to govern was summed up with an anecdote he'd once told a friend: "Museebat hai! Kaun desh sambhalega? Isse to achha hai ki Parliament mein ek bhashan thok do aur ghar aake cinema dekho (It's a bother. Who'll govern the nation? Better to give a speech in Parliament and come home to a movie)." This verdict came less than six months after Pokhran II and the jingoistic halo around Vajpayee was still intact.
The magazine's troubled engagement with Vajpayee became more intense when he came back to rule a full term. We called him a "flip-flop PM" (December 2002) when he seemed to be artfully playing to the hardline parivar gallery a few months after Gujarat riots.
An infographic which traced his forked tongue on every burning issue of the day: Modi, Ayodhya, conversions, Muslims and Fernandes read 'Atal's Somersaults'. The copy was more strident: "Statesman or artful dodger, consummate actor or harried politician… Is Vajpayee any one or all of these?"
By this time, the magazine's head-on collision with the Vajpayee regime had already taken place. Two covers in March 2001 by Ajith Pillai and Murali Krishnan, which exposed the PM's blind spots—his son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya, bureaucrats Brajesh Mishra and N.K. Singh—and how the three were 'rigging' the PMO, had severely angered the establishment. The then BJP president Bangaru Laxman had confirmed Ranjan's role in the clearance of power projects and a former secretary (economic affairs) with the government, E.A.S. Sarma, had spilled the beans that "business lobbies like Reliance, Essar and the Hindujas have begun to exert their influence on the PMO".But the magazine had to face unpleasant consequences as a result of its speaking out.
Unfortunately, in this act of courage to question the highest executive authority, Outlookwas alone.That's when Vinod Mehta wrote the editorial Power of Silence: "The tragedy of Indian democracy is not our present rulers, the greater, much greater, tragedy is that we possess an Opposition led by Sonia Gandhi, Somnath Chatterjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav.I wonder what sins the people of this country have committed to deserve them."
From the pages of these testing times emerges an interesting fact.In the same issue as the Power of Silence editorial (March 12, 2001), there is a longish letter by Reliance, defending itself against charges of influencing the PMO and a few page flips away, in the special Down Town section, 'Anil Dharker dines Nita Ambani' at the magazine's expense.So much for Outlook's newsroom being a plotting, scheming workshop where people's reputations are built or sullied.A couple of months before the 'rigging' cover, we had published Ashok Saikia's pleasant pictures of Vajpayee's New Year holiday in Kumarakom.
Despite all these developments, Outlook did not swallow the bitterness pill, it continued to appeal to Vajpayee's moral conscience.
Post Godhra, when the PM fumbled on Modi, we asked: 'Mr PM, What About your Rajdharma?' The relationship seemed to have somewhat improved over two years and in March 2003 we celebrated his completion of five years in office with a photo-essay titled 'Portrait of a Poet-King'. Vajpayee looked invincible at that time and our poll survey in 2004 gave the advantage to the NDA, but the voters proved wiser.
After the NDA loss, Vinod Mehta wrote in his diary: "History, I believe, will not judge him (Vajpayee) kindly…. He quashed all challengers ruthlessly and never forgave those who crossed his path. Thus, this bumbling, shuffling, father-figure was a quintessential politician… who effortlessly combined low cunning with high virtue…his biggest weakness was the lack of a moral centre."
Chapter Two: Left Right, Left Right
After the main players, the list of 'character actors' who also made history is long. There is one common vanity noun under which they took umbrage: kingmakers. They all peeped into the hall of history over the last ten years—L.K. Advani, Narendra Modi, Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Prakash Karat, Bal Thackeray, Praveen Togadia, H.K.S. Surjeet, Sharad Pawar, Inderjit Gupta, K.S. Sudershan, Amar Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sitaram Kesri, Mayawati, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Chandrababu Naidu, Somnath Chatterjee and, of course, Laloo Yadav.
The mixed-up lineup is deliberate. The shrill, extreme or at times even pointed interventions these people made at different points unsettled the calm of the day and that is the thread that binds them all.
When it came to the ultra Right, Outlook arguably had one of its boldest covers. With the hoods of Thackeray, Singhal, Modi and Togadia, we said: "India's Loony Right—It spouts venom, sows hatred and tarnishes India's image. It attacks constitutional authorities and hinders governance. It must be reined in." We also kept track of the growing ambition of the RSS, which as of now, in October 2005, is heartlessly ready to swallow its own child—the BJP.
For one of the bloodiest acts of organised communal killings that took place post Godhra in Gujarat in 2002, Modi appeared three times on the cover.But when he was wriggling away with his sophistry, we fixed him with an exclusive.Manu Joseph revealed that a minister in the Gujarat cabinet had blown the whistle before the Concerned Citizens' Tribunal, which confirmed Modi's hand in the riots.The report quoting the minister's deposition said: "In the two-hour meeting, Modi…ordered that the police should not come in the way of 'the Hindu backlash'." Outlook later came under immense pressure to name the minister but he's still a protected source.
However, the prediction we made for the December 2002 Gujarat assembly polls went horribly wrong.Our survey said Modi was quite likely to be dislodged. "It would be a photo finish and Congress has the edge," we wrote.But Modi's demagoguery swept the polls. Just a year before (November 2001) when he took over from Keshubhai Patel as CM, he had spelt out his agenda clearly to Outlook: "I've come here to play a one-day match.I need fast and performing batsmen…there are only 20,000 hours before the next election." Well, his batsmen did perform.
On the Left's trajectory of dilemma over reforms, it was only evident in a cover (June 1997) we did when Jyoti Basu completed 20 years of uninterrupted rule in West Bengal.An opinion poll revealed that 60 per cent of the people in West Bengal believed the Left had moved away from Leftist ideas.
Whatever that meant, but it was a prelude to the arrival of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, whom we grossly mistook to be a hardliner. "Brought up on the heavy revolutionary diet of Mao, Castro, Che and Ho Chi Minh…it is not without reason, therefore, that the industry circles and Calcutta upper crust feel more at home with the cosmopolitan Basu…in Basu's absence they would instinctively want to interact with Asim Dasgupta or Somnath Chatterjee who are less doctrinaire than the incoming CM," we wrote in November 2000. Contrast this with the quote Buddha gave us in August 2005: "I want investment. Money has no colour or nationality…. Look at China."
A further indication that the Indian Left has changed is this nugget from our March 1998 issue. While discussing prospective Congress prime ministers, Yubaraj Ghimire wrote that in the event of a hung Parliament, the Left Front could object to Manmohan's candidature on the ground that "he is an IMF man".
Advani surely deserves the last word in this chapter. He was yet another key player of the decade, but had a relatively subdued presence in the magazine. He was overshadowed by Vajpayee. But his 'unbecoming' of a Hindutva leader in Pakistan while altering Mohammad Ali Jinnah's place in Indian nationalist history was well covered. An excerpt from a column in June 2005: "I still cannot understand why one of India's shrewdest, most experienced, ambitious and astute politicians should seem to write his own political obituary on a sightseeing tour of Pakistan."
Chapter Three: India, Kashmir And The World
The subcontinental focus of India and the magazine dramatically altered after 9/11. At Outlook, before 2001, we very rarely had international covers. In September 1998, Tunku Varadarajan wrote about the Yankees' puritanical reaction to Clinton's sexcapades and we had a couple of covers when India played an archetypal "oriental" host with marigold, Taj Mahal and all to Clinton towards the end of his presidency in mid-2000. That's all our interest was in the world. But the moment 9/11 happened, the superstructure of all arguments came to be built on the phrase: "world community". Media appropriated the Pentagon phrase in a big way. The world had truly shrunk, terrorism was for real.
V.Sudarshan put it in perspective: "Indian policymakers see an unprecedented opportunity towards stamping out terrorism in all its forms and manifestations that has not so far been possible." That is precisely what happened, our Kashmir and Pakistan interest developed a finer focus.To engage more and more people in the crucial debate, we tried to do away with the convoluted language of diplomacy.
A testimony to the magazine's commitment to encourage people-to-people contact was the July 28, 2001 special issue, prior to the Agra summit, which was a full Pakistan package on the people and their lives.Besides the big issues of drug, war, economy, we also wrote about the lip-smacking fish delicacy in the Sindh province called Bunda Pala: "The fish is stuffed with a variety of herbs and spices, wrapped in cloth and buried a metre deep in hot sand." Bunda Pala, we hoped, would temper the climate of hate between the two countries.These efforts continued when Indian cricketers went to Pakistan in March 2004 (Manu Joseph did a nightcrawl and found Lahore to be Delhi's kin and Karachi Mumbai's cousin) and later when the Pakistan team toured us a year on in March 2005.As early as January 1996 we had a copy on Pakistan's high life.
Parallel to these 'track two' efforts, Outlook suggested a precocious framework of agreement (June 11, 2001) between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.The suggestions included LoC as border, J&K as a free trade zone, opening up bus routes, a soft border, reflecting Kashmiri identity in the passport, sharing of hydel power, etc.In the environment of mistrust then, this was blasphemy. Now in 2005 it is more or less mainstream talk. After all, Outlook's inaugural cover in October 1995 put out the first-ever opinion poll from within Kashmir, which said 77 per cent thought there was no solution within the Indian Constitution. When the Agra summit failed, we wrote: "Walking the high road called friendship, India must make, whenever necessary, small unilateral concessions."
While on the Kashmir subject, we cannot forget Ghulam Hasnain's first-hand account on the jehad factory (September 25, 2000) from Ath Maqam in Pakistan-held Kashmir. Abu Mahaz, 25, spoke in the copy: "Our target was to kill Gen Krishan Pal. But somehow, we could not get hold of him…. This time, I am going on a suicide mission. And I am happy. I will soon achieve martyrdom." Around that time, the US administration too had reluctantly admitted that terror was indeed being exported to Kashmir and here was some proof. In the last seven years, we have watched our neighbour so closely that Musharraf appeared eight times on our cover. In fact, in 2001 and '02 he even looked like India's Opposition leader when Sonia was lying low.
Thanks to the post-9/11 climate and growing economic interests, India took the Clinton line of "natural ally" forward and shed all Cold War inhibitions. The era of tentative and secretive engagement was over. Jaswant Singh met Strobe Talbott more than a dozen times. With the Bush administration posting an activist ambassador, Robert Blackwill, to Delhi, the Indian point of view was never missed in White House, or in Outlook. But Blackwill came in for some entertaining attack on the magazine's pages for his garrulousness and for typifying the American arrogance. Vinod Mehta wrote in March 2002: "Post-September 11, India is forging a new relationship with the only remaining superpower. In that exercise, India must ensure its voice is, at the very least, heard before it is rejected. Until ambassador Blackwill becomes an equal-opportunity host, I will skip any further summons to his hallowed round table. Unless, of course, his chief guest is Julia Roberts."
From this uneasy relationship to a "nuclear bargain" in July 2005 it has been a measured journey for India.Seema Sirohi summed it up well: "There are moments in history when hyperbole is not enough.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the United States was surely one such, a moment that defied expectations, broke orthodoxy and aligned two major forces of the world." Not to forget the Ashley Tellis policy report (July 11, 2005) we put out, which stated that India was an Asian superpower that the "US should cultivate".Understandably, news of the world for Outlook, beyond the subcontinent, has mostly flown from the US. Europe is there through London, but then largely as a value addition, chicken tikka masala, to the back-of-the-book section.
An exception to this formulation was when Iraq was blazing and Indian workers were stranded. But our Iraq coverage would be best remembered for Chander Suta Dogra's scoop in May 2004, 'Our Hitmen in Iraq'.When the Indian government had stoutly refused to join the US-led coalition in Iraq, good money had prompted Indian ex-servicemen to join the coalition as 'irregulars'. That was a curious side to a globalised world.
Chapter Four: The Wars Within
These wars were public, but they had an intense private and unilluminated side to them.Outlookoften got interested in the alternate take.It is in this process that we discovered the conscientious Brigadier Surinder Singh during the Kargil war; the dried-up tears of Muslim brides in Kozhikode; the moral quandary of Imrana; the many deaths of Veerappan; simmering talent of Chamar cricketer P.Baloo; the Karachi Clifton address of Dawood Ibrahim; the shame of the Shankaracharya and the shattered dreams of Kanu Sanyal. Underworld connections, Naxal revolution, the caste quagmire, Gujarat communal riots, the interpretation of Shariat have all had the similar degree of unsettling influence on the Indian nation like the one 'real' war of the decade—Kargil.
In September 1999, Outlook published a story under the title 'The War That Should Never Have Been'. Nitin Gokhale proved through documents how the army and the BJP government had been indifferent to serious warnings of a crisis in Kargil from Brig Surinder Singh, commander of the Kargil-based 121 Brigade. A letter from the brigadier to the army chief read: "Possible infiltrations along the LoC at the areas pointed out in my briefing to you have been ignored…whenever I brought up the topic in meetings with the GOC I was termed an alarmist…." The report was denied and the brigadier victimised but five years later, in February 2005, Saikat Datta's story vindicated our stand. He sourced an internal "secret" report which admitted to the Kargil failures. "The three defence chiefs were indecisive. So was PM Vajpayee," the report said. A similarly vital Saikat report was the one that exposed the government-paid holidays of Judge Phukan who probed the Tehelka tapes and gave the government a clean chit.
When Dawood Ibrahim, the personification of sly terror, was apparently on the run, our November 2000 report proved he was ensconced in Karachi: "As the Karachi sun slowly sinks into the Arabian Sea, the heavily-guarded house in Clifton comes alive…the owner of the palatial house is known as the 'Gold Man'. For the neighbours, he is Iqbal Seth. But for the Karachi underworld, 'Gold Man' is none other than the notorious Mumbai don, Dawood Ibrahim."
India's quiet, brutal wars were the theme of an October 2003 cover by Saba Naqvi Bhaumik, where we listed the many revolutionary spokes in 14 Indian states. That included the Naxal People's War battles and the ULFA movement. "These protracted struggles point to the many failures of the Indian State," Saba wrote.Back in December '96, Rajesh Joshi had written: "Deep in the jungles of Bastar and moving with a People's War Group (PWG) squad is like trudging through a battle zone."
Caste was another major area of conflict.One has to only read reactions to S.Anand's stories, be it his story on Brahmins in cricket or the Kanchi Shankaracharya reportage, which take a pro-Dalit stance to understand the animos-ity that it can generate in a seemingly globalised forward-looking India. Outlook tried to understand caste churning as its two stories in January 1999 (Pilgrim's Progress Revisited) and a cover in November 2002 (Choosing Their Religion) would prove.The larger context was that the right wing had picked religious conversions as an issue highlighted by the Graham Staines incident, even 'liberal' Vajpayee had called for a national debate on conversions, Dalit parties like the BSP had become assertive and there was a forward caste backlash to the social movement of lower castes.In fact, there is a line of argument that urges us to understand the aggressive liberalisation and the anti-reservation debate of the last decade as a counter to the assertion of lower castes. Here's a quote of Dalit ideologue Kancha Illiah from an Outlook profile: "Just as the Brahmins are shouting Hinduise India, we should shout Dalitise India…the hated must hate."
Islam has been another great site of conflict, especially post 9/11.Besides reflecting this and offering extensive coverage of post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat, Outlook's spoken consistently for the Muslim women—Allah's Forgotten Daughters.The tsunami, the Orissa cyclone, starvation deaths, the Gujarat temblor were battles of another kind.
If these were loud cries, the Parsis in Mumbai were in a turmoil and quietly battling their own tradition. We reported in May 2001 that the minuscule community was divided between reformists and the orthodox, over the issue of whether their dead should be kept in open wells at the Tower of Silence or be given a "more decent disposal".
Chapter Five: Big Bucks, Big Dreams
It is quite baffling to count the number of times the magazine constructed angry questions for the nation's "20 per cent" upwardly mobile middle class, took care to caution them of their money's value, and reflected their lifestyle trends.
There is no doubting that this was the most empowered chunk of India's billion during the last decade, but by pampering them Outlook was not only acknowledging their coming of age, but was also implicitly trying to define a readership constituency. They had money in their hands, their dreams had acquired new meaning, their shopping would keep the economy growing and it was their knowledge capital that was an infinite resource. They were clearly tired of the frugality of their parents' life.
In January 1997, we wrote: "From shampoos to whiskies to computer chips to motor cars to hamburgers—everything traded in the West is now on sale at your friendly neighbourhood store," but to guarantee this class a guilt-free consumption we hastened to add, "don't worry, the Indian soul is not lost". In April 2001, we had some seductive 'brand' prose: "Picture this. You wake up in the morning and savour some Tang orange juice. There's Kraft cheese on toast for breakfast with some steaming Maxwell House coffee for company. Let the missus pack some red Washington apples…Toyota Corolla for yourself… Toblerone for kids…Carlo Rossi for friends." And it was at the behest of the middle class that we wrote an open letter to the President in October 1999, asking why we should not "privatise" the government? And later asked 'Why the **** should we pay taxes?' (April 2001). .
It is tempting to view Outlook's business pages with this now-familiar middle-class spin, but then that would be doing injustice to some of its hard-nosed stories.Sample this very accurate scenario-building by Sandipan Deb when we put out a special issue on the 10 years of reforms in June 2001.With cautious optimism, he asked: "Which of these futures are we heading towards? A) A society consisting of small numbers of the rich and super-rich living and a vast powerless majority of the underprivileged and impoverished.B) A country where equity is distributed efficiently and continuously, where every child born has access to the education, healthcare, justice and socio-economic infrastructure.C) A nation which trudges on, a mediocre plodder, with its standards for most aspects of life set at the minimum levels people would accept without resorting to violence.
"The truth is that 10 years after the reforms process began, future (a) is still possible, though perhaps not too probable.But so many times have governments flattered to deceive, so many times have unforeseen circumstances put a spanner in the works, that though one would like to hope that India will move to somewhere between future (b) and future (c), and closer to (b) than to (c)."
Take note of Alam Srinivas' reportage when the battle of the Ambani brothers was raging in December 2004.There is not a phrase where he forgets the big picture and the small investor: "You or me—as one of 35 lakh shareholders in Reliance group firms—had no inkling of what was happening in India's largest business empire. At some point in time, we ceased being part of the Reliance family. We, the part owners, however small those morsels, lost the trust of the two brothers who began running their companies like their fiefdoms."
Or look at Paromita Shastri's cover on the death of the Indian farmer (July 2005). Or an earlier one (September 2001) exposing flaws in the government's food policy and the public distribution system, which pointedly asked "Why are 50 million Indians starving when 60 million tonnes of food rots in godowns?" These should complete the picture on the magazine's spectrum of concern.
The 'Lion & Ant King' cover (June 2000) on two of the heroes of change in the last decade, Narayanamurthy and Azim Premji, was a high point of our tracking not just the new economy, but the paradigmatic shift taking place in India: "One is among the richest Indians in India, the other is the richest Indian on the globe; yet both are thrifty as hell…. Both have emerged as models to emulate for their peers in the same field in post-liberalisation India…. Both head companies that are cradles of talent. Both are notorious workaholics. Both can't stand latecomers. Both have created tens of millionaires. Both admire Mahatma Gandhi…."
But when there was a hint of greed in the two heroes, we didn't hesitate to remind them what they meant to us. In March 2005, we asked: "Murthy (has) put in an indent for 350 acres (1,52,46,000 sq ft) of fresh land for a new campus. And Premji has sought 100 acres (43,56,000 sq ft). The magic of the digital era, we had been told, was that it would require so little space unlike heavy industries… will somebody explain the logic of subsidising 2 crore sq ft of land to two cash-flush IT majors?"
Chapter Six: All Of 22 Yards
Let's present two rather simple scenarios of a cricket match.One: Your team is losing wickets faster than you expected or bowlers are throwing the cherry wide of the mark.Scenario two: The opponents are crumbling like a pack of cards or your batsmen are hitting every other ball to the boundary.In both situations you cannot trust the way the game is going.A default instinctual question flies past your mind, like a Shoaib Akhtar delivery: 'Couldn't this match be fixed?' This naturalised response to disbelief on the cricket ground is Outlook's singular contribution to the viewing of the gentleman's game.
Ever since the sad tale of a nation's worshipped heroes betraying their adulatory masses was told in June 1997 by Aniruddha Bahal and Krishna Prasad, dozens of reputations have been sent to the pavilion.Wristy genius Azharuddin is still battling charges. One of India's tallest cricketers, Kapil Dev, cried in public.South Africa's Hansie Cronje could never recover from his bouts of confession. Pakistan's Rashid Latif blew the whistle on his colleagues. Australia's Warne admitted to some off-the-field topspinners.Some of the big bookies were traced to London and now, Lanka's Muralitharan is in a jam. In short, the epidemic that we discovered has surfaced in all cricketing continents.
This was our big moment and it surely does not need a long chapter. We could have moved on by mentioning just one word: match-fixing.
Chapter Seven: Iconoclasts
Outlook's had a quixotic relationship with icons.Amitabh Bachchan, 'star of the millennium', here's how we handled him, not with care, not certainly with awe.In our July 20, 1998, cover Tarun Tejpal pitied him: "The signs of panic are everywhere…, Amitabh Bachchan, do-gooding avenger extraordinaire, coloniser of the collective Indian imagination, mythic alter ego and transcendent balm of an entire generation of oppressed, depressed, exploited, unhappy Indians, has been sadly trying to peddle soft drinks like Mirinda and electronic goods like BPL…his money managers have convinced him he is a brand. The truth is he is magic." He was a fading icon then. When Amitabh turned 60, and had reinvented himself, Sandipan Deb found the hoopla ridiculous: "Has no one ever turned 60 before? Why do we make a god of Amitabh? Why do we think he's Inspector Vijay in real life when he's just a man with funny hair earning a living?" he asked. In August 2003, when the Big B had charmed himself again to the top of peoples' mind, Outlook had an unusual quote, which explained his loyalties. When asked, "Will you do TV for Sahara?" He said: "Sahara is like my home, even if I'm asked to sweep their floors, I'd do it."
When Aamir Khan became a producer with Lagaan for the first time, we had a curious take: "Aamir Khan has gone nuts. In the era of Tommy Hilfiger-inspired, made-in-Manhattan romances, he has invested a packet, Rs 25 crore to be precise, on a period film about a motley group of villagers living in Champaner in 1893. If that weren't enough, he has entrusted the ambitious project to a bloke called Ashutosh Gowarikar…"
With King Khan, the man of the decade, we put him on cover in December 2000 when he turned entrepreneur and said 'Raju Ban Gaya Businessman'. We evaluated his revenue model, made forecasts, but it turned out to be little like an unsustainable bull run in the stockmarket. There is little news of his business projects today.
For Aishwarya Rai, the world's at her feet, but for Sanjay Suri, reviewing Bride and Prejudice, her expressions "seem to halt in the early stages of formation; who knows which particular look might trap her in an unflattering snapshot? She travels the world a prisoner of her facial paint" (August 2004).
But when cricketing icon Kapil wept after his name was dragged into the match-fixing scam, Sandipan Deb was generous: "I don't know if Kapil Dev took money and tanked a few games, and I don't care.Let's assume the worst-case scenario: that he did deliberately under-perform in 10 per cent of the matches he played for India.That leaves us with 90 per cent.That is enough to last me a lifetime as an Indian and a cricket lover." We were not shackled by the history we created.
Sachin Tendulkar, some would say, has been a particular favourite of Outlook.The 'Sachin, an Intimate Portrait' cover (August 1998) or the 'Last Hero' cover (January 1999) may have propelled this impression. In the August cover, Aniruddha Bahal wrote: "He has the aura to look at immortality in the eye and turn away.Maybe, on the inside he's all cyborg, an advanced android form of 2135." In the January cover, Dom Moraes wrote the only poem written for Outlook in 10 years: "Tall, cold, and arrogant, the captains came/To break this boy, and found he was a man…."
But in true Outlook tradition Sachin didn't escape scrutiny.Many times we hastened to predict his end. As early as September 1999, we discussed threadbare his 'sacroiliac joint'. Later his tennis elbow, hamstring, whipcord muscles and all the parts that help his heavy bat swing came under microscope. Probably his best is over, but the "genius" is still around and is not incapable of springing another surprise for another season.
While we are with icons we should mention the survey we conducted for the greatest Indian in our August 2002 Independence Day issue.We kept Mahatma Gandhi out of it.But the irony of the polls was telling, our readers who were all the while accusing us of supporting an Italian for prime ministership, voted an Albanian, Mother Teresa, as the greatest Indian. Khushwant Singh called it "the triumph of goodness amidst all the despair". In December 1995, under the title 'Baiting the Mother' we had run exclusive extracts from Christopher Hitchens' book, The Missionary Position, that examined with irreverence the motives of the future saint.
Soma Wadhwa's cover on 'True Leaders' in September 1999, in which Mahasweta Devi, Aruna Roy, Baba Amte, Medha Patkar, Verghese Kurien et al figure, celebrates the alternate route to the hearts of the people. What better 'alternate' icon could have Outlook promoted in 10 years than Arundhati Roy. It would not be immodest to say that her journey as an essayist and public intellectual began at Outlook. She wrote ten long essays in ten years, all with an emphatic 'I', including one in which she sounded like Lady Luther King Jr: "If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti-Hindu and anti-national, then I secede…."
Chapter Eight: Writers' Zone
The crucial literary debate Outlook enthusiastically participated in the last decade was the face-off between Indian English writers, who until the '90s were perceived as a group of fringe experience peddlers and their regional language counterparts, the venerated masters writing in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam and other 'vernaculars'.
During the last decade, in the context of change, excessive market play and the refurbished position of English as a global language, this debate lost its innocence and took a venal pitch. Rushdie fired the first salvo in his foreword to the The Vintage Book of Indian Writing. He said that virtually none of the writing done in the last 50 years in languages other than English quite measured up. Tarun Tejpal took Rushdie to task in his review of the book (July 1997): "The entire world knows Rushdie stirs a mean curry…he has sinned."
The debate polarised when Arundhati Roy won the Booker in October 1997, but even before she had won the prize, she told Sagarika Ghose (September 1996): "I'm unhappy about reports implying that I am a mercenary who is hawking her book to the highest bidder." By the time Sir Vidia received the Nobel in 2001, English writers had become cruelly indifferent to their regional counterparts.Girish Karnad's Kannada play in August 2005 Odakalu Bimba, which Outlook reviewed, presents this debate in perspective and speaks of the dance of Mammon on the soul of writers.
One should also take a look at Sheela Reddy's cover story before the Neemrana conference, Midnight's Orphans (February 2002), in which Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay says the unfair advantage of English writers is "just like a fair-skinned woman has in our society".In the same copy, Dilip Chitre said: "Regional writing doesn't have to consult an English language mirror to know its face.Should nimbu pani compete with Coke?"
The other fine literary moments on Outlook's pages: when we wrote an obituary for 'oriental gent' G.V. Desani and got Scheherazade Alim to speak of his Forster Chacha.When Sir Vidia said he had no advice for young writers and Vikram Seth said he was not a "recluse". When we discovered the dilapidated Motihari home of one 'Jaarj Arwil' and Nirad Chaudhuri at 98 quirkily said, "every morning the woman next door comes to check I am not dead in my bed". When we celebrated 50 years of Ray's Pather Panchali and Karnad called Devdas 'Hamlet of the East'. Not to forget Khushwant Singh recalling watching a 'blue movie' with R.K.Narayan.
In the last decade, some fine quality prose was written in our Diary columns, which in their best glow contain benign humour, a self-deprecatory worldview, gentle torment and cruising leisure of chatty words.
Chapter Nine: Especially Yours
Our special issues have contributed to our editorial equity. In 'FMCG times', these issues are rare efforts, created in far greater leisure and far lesser hassle of a weekly news cycle. The topics we have picked for these issues are deceptively simple like 'What is Indian?', 'What If?', 'Happiness', 'Technovators' etc. But through the 100-odd pages, we nurture them to become trees with a full bloom of branches, and roots running deep. Through these issues we have engaged some of the most perceptive minds. The detailing that has gone into these issues is encyclopaedic and entertaining (revisit Lingua Indica—An Irreverent Glossary in the August 2001 Independence Day special). Here's a letter that hints that these special issues may have found a permanent place in our readers' bookshelves. Jambunathan Raman wrote about our August 2005 Independence Day special: "I just flipped through the pages and decided it's an issue worth preserving. I straightaway bought two copies and archived one."
Would you believe that some of these special numbers have been edited by a person who crazily swallowed, sildenafil citrate, commonly known as Viagra, to write a story on its efficacy in the July 27, 1998 issue of Outlook?
Chapter Ten: End Notes
If you have stayed with the magazine, there are other good reasons to it as well. All the words we wrote in these 10 years were complemented by avant-garde design and resonant pictures.Outlook was among the first news organisations in India which gave editorial positions to an illustrator (Ajit Ninan) and a photographer (Prashant Panjiar).That should explain the importance that was given to the crucial visual element, which has a subterranean impact on a reader's mind.The magazine was first designed inhouse, by a team led by Pranab Datta and consisted of our present executive editor Bishwadeep Moitra and Ajit Ninan.The magazine underwent a design change in March 2003 and will certainly evolve into other avatars with the changing patterns of visual life around us and in the media.
Finally: Put the word 'outlook' through a google search, within 0.08 seconds, and it yields about 15,30,00,000 results. As you sift through the results, you realise that there is a whole world out there, which shares the 'outlook' name: There is BBC's 'Outlook', 'Agriculture Outlook,' 'Food Outlook,' 'Grisham Outlook,' 'Presbyterian Outlook,' 'Socialist Outlook' and, of course, Microsoft's 'Outlook Express'.Outlook is also the home of Canada's longest pedestrian bridge.
Since they share our name, in a kinship society that is India it is fun to imagine, like in a Bollywood script, that they are all distant or lost cousins in an anonymous cyber cosmos.There is probably some dormant gene that links us up with all those who share our name elsewhere. Like Microsoft, we too began in a little garage and then became a two-room establishment in the Lodhi Hotel, before moving to AB-10 in Safdarjung Enclave, with attitude and expectation from the future. From then on we have tried to play the unassuming, modest role of a pedestrian bridge!


text:
Fan-Made COMMUNITY Trailer... PROMETHEUS Style
Community will be back on NBC March 15th. In celebration of its return, YouTube user The Dolo Reel created an awesome trailer mash-up for the sitcom using the style and music from Ridley Scott's Prometheus. This video edit turned out great, and I hope you enjoy it!
Joey Paur — Co-Founder / Editor of GeekTyrant.com, and if you haven't noticed I write… a lot. Movies are my passion and I live and breathe all things geek. This site is part of my life's work, it's a part of me. I love what I do, and I enjoy sharing everything I can with you when it comes to movies and geekery. In my spare time I travel to the netherworlds to battle demons. @JoeyPaur | firstname.lastname@example.com
Featured Posts on GeekTyrant

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Gear (General) › My final frontier: Pack and Tent – suggestions?
Sep 8, 2013 at 5:40 pm #1307448
Looking to replace my 6lb 3 0z pack and 4lb 5 oz tent with something lighter – hopefully about ½ the weight of both.
Long detailed bit for those without AD/HD
After whittling down virtually everything in my pack I have come to the final frontier – the big three.
Well more like the big two –
This year I have swapped out my heavy (2lbs per boot) hiking boots for La Sportiva Wildcat trail runners – have to thank the evangelists on this group for convincing me that it wasn't sheer madness to hike in low cut shoes – it's been fantastic.
So I now come to the two remaining pieces of gear:
Tent and Pack
Current tent: Big Agnes Seedhouse Sl2 – at 4.5lbs this was considered a very light tent when I bought it 6 years ago. However I would love to get down to the 2lb range.
I am strongly considering the Fly Creek Platinum because I have had such good luck with the Seedhouse but am open to suggestions.
I tend to camp in buggy areas so I don't want to go pure tarp and I usually have a dog with me so just a bivvy and a head net isn't going to be enough so I would like to stay with an actual tent.
Oh and it has to be a 2 person even though neither I nor my dog are that big. But would consider a big one person (if they really exist)
My current pack is an Arc'teryx Bora 65. I love this pack, it fits me like a charm and has a nice sturdy hip belt and plush shoulder pads. Again I have had this pack for at least 6 years.
But it weighs 6lbs 3 oz So if I could get a similar pack in the 3lb range I would be ecstatic.
I am leery of some of the really light packs (1lb or less) because they look like they would just hang off your shoulders and bite into your collar bone all day.
Total gear + food weight excluding the pack and tent will be roughly 20-25lbs depending on the length of trip (I typically do 5-7 days overnighters)
I am considering the Osprey Exos 58 however haven't found a store that carries it in Canada yet.
And I would prefer to get a pack locally as opposed to ordering one on-line so I can try it out with my gear in it and then return it if it doesn't feel right .
Common names in most of the stores here are: osprey, Gregory, Deuter, Vaude, Black Diamond, Mountain Hardware, North 49 if that helps.
Welcome all suggestions and personal experiences.Sep 8, 2013 at 6:28 pm #2023110
Dena KelleyBPL Member
@eagleriverdeeLocale: Eagle River, Alaska
If you liked the Seedhouse, you'll probably like the FC Platinum. I have a standard Fly Creek UL2 and it's ok. I'm partial to a side entry over a front entry, but like the weight of the Fly Creek.
On the Exos, see if Amazon has it. The Amazon US site sells it. They've got a good return policy too, so if you can get it from them you could return it to them if you don't like it. Although you'd have to return it in new condition.Sep 8, 2013 at 6:30 pm #2023111
Amazon.com does have it (amazon.ca doesn't) I would consider ordering through them as long as there aren't any foolish customs fees.Sep 8, 2013 at 6:53 pm #2023126
Eric McConnellSpectator
It took me a lot of research to narrow down my big 3. I'm attempting for the Ultralight category for next summers PCT, but after months of research, ultralight is the way to go. (Base pack weight around 10 lbs with some stretches total weight reaching 30-35lbs. Here is a link to my blog where I detail my reason for choosing my big 3 http://emacthru-pct.blogspot.com/2013/08/big-3.html I understand your weariness with going with an ultralight pack, but some are very well made. I'm particularly happy with both the Gossamer Gear Gorilla and The ULA Ohm. I own roughly 8 backpacks used for back country camping and skiing (80L and 38L) and so many more. I do extensive research before I purchase anything. I played around with Prolite's Jam 50 and found I really don't like frameless packs. I'm still deciding between the Gorilla and Ohm.. They are a little different and haven't quite decided which is best. It's too late for me to return, but many cottage companies (these included) have excellent return policies. Both companies also make bigger packs, so thats something to look into if you would like more space.
In terms of shelter. I'm now obsessed with my tarp and bug bivy set up. My tarp, bivy, stakes and guylines, stuff sacks (everything needed for setup) weighs 17 oz. Its amazing! In my blog I talk about the advantages of a tarp vs tent set up. I thought it would be a hard adjustment because I have been a tent man all my life, but just the opposite… I never want to use a tent again unless in extreme winter conditions. I have the Big Agnes UL3 Fly Creek… which is perfect for 2 people and a dog… Not everyone wants to sleep under a tarp :) It's light weight (compared to other tents) and strong. Before I made the move to ultralight, its the tent I used on all my adventures. I found it on sale, and would look for the same. Most of these UL tents are crammed for space. It would be tough to fit the allocated 3 in mine.
Hope this helps. Good luck!Sep 8, 2013 at 7:05 pm #2023132
Thanks Eric – will check out your blog.
I am somewhat intrigued by the cottage industry pack makers and would consider looking at some of them. My concern is that being in Canada I would have to pay customs duties on any order and if I have to return it that is money down the drain.
I am more likely to order a tent/shelter on-line than a pack but I have to admit some of them look pretty tempting.Sep 8, 2013 at 7:38 pm #2023143
Serge GiachettiSpectator
@sgiachettiLocale: Boulder, CO
Once you feel how good it is to shed the extra weight, like most of us here, you'll probably wanna shed more. So, while there's nothing wrong with getting a nice 3lb backpack from say granite gear (recommended) definitely consider one of the lighter semi-framed packs like the hmg windrider or gossamer gear gorilla (both will carry a heavy or light load very comfortably.) Simarly, you get good coverage for you & your dog and bug protection from something like the zpacks hexamid twin tent, but it will save you a lot of weight. Thats the route I'd go anyway, since you're going to be investing a lot of $ either way, might as well get the best/lightest stuff you can afford, & then just stay off this forum & going backpacking all the time feeling light & liberated ;)Sep 8, 2013 at 7:55 pm #2023154
eric chanBPL Member
atmosphere and pure valhalla carry the osprey packs …. ive seen the exos in the vancouver/squamish locations
as to duty, in theory it doesnt apply to US made packs, but not all "cottage" packs are made in the US … youll still lose out on shipping regardless
a with all packs the only way to REALLY tell is to try em on for hours
;)Sep 8, 2013 at 9:56 pm #2023213
Franco DarioliBPL Member
@francoLocale: Tarptent
If duty does not apply to US made goods, you could than look at the TT Rainbow.
It is a solo but was designed by Henry Shires to house himself (5'10" ) and his 50 lbs dog.
years ago folk had reservations about he 30D TT silnylon but I think it now compares very well with fabrics used by other manufacturers.
email@example.com 8, 2013 at 10:49 pm #2023221
alex hansenMember
if you like the fly creek but prefer a side entry. nemos Obi 1 might be a good ideaSep 8, 2013 at 11:27 pm #2023226
Delmar O'DonnellMember
@bolsterLocale: Between Jacinto & Gorgonio
After a lot of research and contemplation, I purchased a Granite Gear Crown pack, 60L, 2 lbs. It's got an internal framesheet. So far, it gets a big thumbs up.Sep 9, 2013 at 4:23 am #2023242
I really like the look of the Hexamid Twin, I think I will put it on my long list.
Funny I hadn't heard about the windrider's – yet another potential to add to the pack list :)
I still am a little leery of semi framed packs tho….Sep 9, 2013 at 4:26 am #2023243
I forgot about Atmosphere – I think there is a store somewhere within driving radius of me. Pure Valhalla (cool name) we don't have in Ontario.
You are right about the duty on US made packs – as long as the mfg has a nafta certification it shouldn't be an issue.
A lot of the cottage industry companies ( I have found) don't bother to go through that process.Sep 9, 2013 at 4:28 am #2023244
Franco – I like the side entry style on this tent – seems to be same weight as the Big Agnes I am looking at. Although 50% cheaper :)Sep 9, 2013 at 4:43 am #2023245
I actually found a dealer not too far from me that carries the GG Crown – they only seem to come in reg and long torso – I would be a short, would have to try the pack to see if it fits.
Can't beat the price tho -199.95!!Sep 9, 2013 at 6:20 am #2023264
D CMember
@ocdaveLocale: Outdoors -MN
Over the past year I have been on a similar quest to your own.
In the end- I now own a ULA Catalyst pack. After several trips, the longest through Glacier NP and Isle Royale NP, I am very happy I found this pack. I pack too heavy (working on that) but find the Catalyst comfortable up toward 45 lbs. Wt is ~ 48 oz.
For a tent I went with the Tarptent Statospire 2. This tent provides HUGE protected space, and huge vestibules on each side. My wife, 9 yo son and 50lb dog fit well w/ packs in 1 vestibule, boots entry/exit at the opposite vesitibule. Wt 40 oz if you carry Hiking poles. There is an option to add support poles if you do not use hiking poles but, I do not know the weight implications. The Stratospire 1 is likely big enough for just your dog and yourself. The wt savings would be approximately 7 oz for the smaller version.
I was lucky to find the Catalyst at a local retailer to try before purchasing. I think this is rare and most purchases are online. The Tarptent Stratospire 2, was a struggle. Only available online in my area. With no way to see the tents in person, I wavered between the Cloudburst, Double Rainbow and the Stratospire. I am extremely pleased with the Stratospire 2 but, I really don't know if it is a better fit that the other tents.
Good LuckSep 9, 2013 at 10:05 am #2023343
I really would like a ULA Catalyst…. I find myself wavering on my only local retailer stance :)
The issue with tarp tents is that my trekking poles are 110 cm and most of them call for trekking poles of 120 cm or more.Sep 9, 2013 at 12:20 pm #2023390
Misfit MysticMember
@cooldripLocale: "Grand Canyon of the East"
There is a work-around for those with shorter trekking poles; Henry makes tip extenders, or you can easily make your own with a section of aluminum tubing and a pipe cutter or hacksaw. These combined with the grip adapters make it easily possible to use shorter poles. Tarptents are popular here for a reason: it's hard to beat the space/weight ratio of their tents, and their products are priced similarly to, or in many cases less than, their heavier mainstream competition. When combined with materials proven durable and reliable, and Henry's exceptional construction quality and customer service, it's a winning combination.Sep 9, 2013 at 1:11 pm #2023403
That's a great suggestion. I really like the look of some of the tarptent products.Sep 10, 2013 at 5:59 am #2023634
Jennifer MitolBPL Member
@jenmitolLocale: In my dreams....
I have the stratospire 1 and it works great for me and my 80# dog. I also had an issue with him darting out underneath tarps, so he usually needs to be in a pretty enclosed space. This is the tent I generally use when he and I hike together.
And don't worry about being nervous about these changes; just as you were uneasy about the transition to trail runners and found them to be just fine, so you will find the transition to the other big 3 to be ok as well. Of course, it does get expensive if you go about it gradually (like I did…started with an 8# Gregory pack…and now 5 packs and I-don't-want-to-know-how-much-money later I have a minimally framed and a fully framed pack). I don't want to talk about how many shelters I've been through over the past three years either…
You do need to find what works for you…and it might not be what works for others on this site. It's fun to experiment though…that's what gear swap is for!Sep 10, 2013 at 6:04 am #2023635
Jennifer: does your dog actually sleep inside or in the vestibule. Mine has to be inside with me (or at least I like it that way).
Also – very good point about the trail runner conversion. I was going to do the halfway step to low cut hikers first but was able to make the plunge because I did a lot of training hikes using my every day joggers.
I could see myself jumping right into a tarp tent – frameless backpack, not so sure.Sep 10, 2013 at 6:40 am #2023642
Jennifer MitolBPL Member
@jenmitolLocale: In my dreams....
He sleeps inside with me. Sometimes I soooo wish he'd sleep in the vestibule, but as I said he likes to crawl under any opening, which of course he doesn't even remotely fit, so that means he pulls stakes out and disaster ensues.
As for the frameless pack, that is a tough one because there is skill involved in packing it, and depending on what you are carrying it might not carry as well. I use the Gossamer Gear Gorilla…which has a removable frame so I get the best of both! It is by far my favorite pack. I also used a circuit on the JMT this year and it was fine, but I still like the gorilla better.
Packs are like shoes though, and fit is very, very personal. And most of these packs you can resell here on gear swap, so go with what you feel most comfortable with, but be ready to swap out if its not great. The cottage gear guys make great stuff, and you'll be able to get rid of whatever you don't like with not too much cost. And you'll learn what works and what doesn't. That's important as you hone your skills…..
Good luck!Sep 10, 2013 at 7:01 am #2023643
Agreed on the packs – it is very personal. But good advice on being able to sell things here if I don't like – hadn't thought of that.Sep 11, 2013 at 12:40 pm #2024004
The stratosphire floor space is listed as 19 sq ft
The big agnes at 28
Am I missing something. I can't see giving up 10 sq ft and still having room for the dog??Sep 11, 2013 at 12:44 pm #2024005
eric chanBPL Member
Agreed on the packs – it is very personal. But good advice on being able to sell things here if I don't like – hadn't thought of that.
theres been several threads of people not being to sell things as much or fast as theyd like unless they drop the price substantially
be prepared to knock off at least 20% right off the bat … and pay for shipping, which from canada could be a decent amount
if you look at it from a buyers perspective, what the discount that will get them to buy from someone on the internet … rather than a brand new pack which they can return to the cottage company
;)Sep 11, 2013 at 1:19 pm #2024013
Kevin GurneySpectator
@kwgurneyLocale: SF Bay Area
I also bought a Catalyst after renting a Circuit (http://www.lowergear.com/rentbackpack.php). I really like the Circuit but felt it would be a bit small for me in capacity; not all my gear is teeny tiny yet (I'm getting there).
My wife and I spent 3 nights in my TarpTent Stratospire 1 this summer. We are both 5'8", appropriate weight for our height, and while we both fit it was "snug". Luckily, we enjoy each other's company! All gear went into the vestibules. The double-entry doors are the best. No climbing over each other to get in/out.
One downside is that to make the SS1 floor wide enough for 2 adults you basically give up your bathroom floor. It gets flattened down to just a ground sheet in the middle. Not a problem until it rains and you find that you have set up in a slight depression. (I know, I know; don't set up in a depression!)
I honestly wouldn't mind having a SS2 when both of us are heading out and use the SS1 when it's just me. Don't have any experience with our dogs. I can imagine them ripping the no-see-um mesh to shreds. You all must have some of those "good dogs" that I hear rumors about.
Best of luck making these gear decisions. Having been where you are not too long ago I know it can be a hard choice. Fortunately, you will almost certainly be happy with what you end up choosing.
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.


text:
I keep receiving this error message that states my computer is making unauthorized copies of my system and internet files. How can I fix this? Thank you
How-To Geek Forums / Windows XP
error messages(2 posts)
If you are using Windows Vista, then it is possible that your CD Key is already in use, or something such as a virus is mucking with your system. I think the best place to ask would be:
Topic Closed
This topic has been closed to new replies.


text:
Why I Love Firefox OS
I wrote a guest post for ProPakistani about Firefox OS explaining why I love it and advocate it? It explains first few flaws of Android and iOS. Then it introduces Firefox OS and explains how it solve Android/iOS problems. Then few lines about its availability and developer phones from Geeksphone (Keon and Peak). In the end, brief explanation of why I support Mozilla Foundation.


text:
Hiya people
I was reffered to the site by a member ( windy )
I believe he has started threads regarding the aluminium seat mounting plates he has asked me to make. I thought I would join up to join in any threads that may concern these plates incase anybody would like to ask any questions. Also looking to purchase a 330ci in the near future so im also here for help choosing.


text:
This rather nice looking puzzle box with nine squares on the lid faintly resembles a "tic-tac-toe" board. This is no "tic-tac-toe" game: it's another "sliding panel" puzzle box, and the sliding panels in this case are the nine squares on the lid, and they all have to be moved around to take the lid off. Twenty moves are required to open the lid. The only moving parts are in the lid, and they are very precise pieces. The rest of it is just an ordinary box. This box is made from 1/8" birch plywood.
Outside dimensions: 6" length, 6" width, 3 1/8" depth
Inside dimensions: 5 1/4" length, 5 1/4" width, 2 1/4" depth


text:
Forgot Password? | Not a User? Sign up
Your browser does not support iframes.
Group 1A West Region
Team W-L Rtg.
1. Honaker 4-0 20.50
2. Fort Chiswell 4-0 20.00
3. Haysi 4-0 20.00
4. Auburn 3-0 19.33
5. Chilhowie 4-1 19.00
6. Covington 3-1 18.50
7. Clintwood 3-1 17.00
8. Patrick Henry 3-1 15.75
9. George Wythe 3-2 15.40
10. Eastside 3-2 15.00
DRAPER –– The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Whether it was an old-fashioned district or now a newfangled conference, playing against familiar teams or not, the Galax golf team, as has been the case so many times over the years, came out on top in the first stage of postseason play. Thursday, the Maroon Tide held off George Wythe by three strokes to win the inaugural Conference 46 tournament championship at familiar Draper Valley Golf Club.
Coming back from five-point deficits in volleyball isn't a particularly easy thing to do. Coming from five down in the fifth set when an opponent has all the momentum and just three points to go is almost unheard-of.
Grayson County stormed back from a 12-7 hole in the fifth set by scoring the match's final eight points, swiping what had seemed like a certain win from Galax in a 25-21, 25-20, 21-25, 20-25, 15-12 battle Thursday at Galax High School.
Just how well the Galax cross country team does at state is yet to be seen. But the Maroon Tide has already done pretty well at State.
All three Twin County high school programs had strong showings in separate meets over the weekend, picking up individual and team honors in meets at N.C. State University and Hungry Mother State Park.
Galax participated in the prestigious Adidas Cross Country Challenge on the Wolfpack's home course in Cary, N.C. on Saturday, earning a seventh-place finish by the Tide boys in the Invitational Division.
Galax volleyball coach Yerrick Stoneman was looking for a schedule upgrade when he added Auburn to the slate for this season. Mission accomplished in that regard.
And with six seniors returning from last year's Division 1 state championship club, the Eagles still have plenty enough talent in the program to field a formidable team and to make for a good measuring stick for Stoneman's club.
Ben Ramsey of Graham blistered the Blue Ridge Country Club course with a 3-under-par 32 Wednesday to lead the G-Men to the team win in a four-way Mountain Empire District golf match.
Graham's Zach Toohey posted an even-par 35 as Graham turned in a four-man total of 149 to top runner-up Galax by 12 strokes. William McGuire and Travis Simms both shot 41 as all six Graham players came in at 42 or better.
INDEPENDENCE –– Grayson County improved to 6-1 on the year and got its district schedule off to a good start Thursday evening, taking care of Fort Chiswell in three sets in a Mountain Empire District volleyball match.
The Blue Devils won for the sixth straight time since an opening-night loss and needed just 50 minutes to secure the 25-12, 25-8, 25-13 win over the Pioneers.
WOODLAWN –– Nobody was catching the kid from Rural Retreat. But very few were passing the guys in maroon, either.
One-third of the 12 fastest boys at the Southwest Virginia Training Center cross country course Wednesday were wearing Galax colors and the host school successfully defended its boys' team championship at the Maroon Tide Invitational.
All seven Galax runners posted career-best times as a cool, cloudy afternoon made for what Tide coach Tony Quesenberry called the best running conditions in the event's 20-year history.
INDEPENDENCE –– Last Friday was a special night for the Grayson County Blue Devils.
A large crowd of fans was on hand to watch their first home game of the season. Their recently renovated athletic field, complete with a new playing surface, was dedicated prior to the game.
But Glenvar played the role of the spoiler as the Highlanders beat the Blue Devils 27-21 in a nondistrict game.
GLADE SPRING –– Runners from Grayson County and Carroll County filled half of the top-10 finishing positions in both the boys' and girls' competition at the Becky Selfe Invitational cross country meet Saturday at Patrick Henry High School.
Copyright © 2017
The Galax Gazette is your source for local news, sports, events and information in Galax, Grayson, Carroll, and surrounding areas.


text:
T'Cha Dunlevy's favourite music of 20131. Arcade Fire: Reflektor listening session, Oct. 10. More than two weeks before the release of Arcade Fire's fourth album, a dozen music writers were invited to a listening session at ...
Montreal movies
TIFF: Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires experience meeting of minds in TriptyquePedro Pires and Robert Lepage are from different worlds. But after years of friendship and collaborating on each other's projects, they have finally made a feature film together.
Montreal International Jazz Festival 2013: Molly Ringwald at Club Soda, July 6"I'm a child of the '80s," a friend said with a shrug, at intermission, by way of explaining why he had showed up to see Molly Ringwald sing jazz standards.
Just for Laughs 2013: a Twitter sampler of this year's comics, including Sarah Silverman, Seth ...Hey! It'll be a while before you can take part in any of the shows announced by Just for Laughs this very afternoon (click here to read @billbrownstein report).
Montreal movies
Kim Nguyen's Rebelle on short-list for Oscar nominationQuebec is one step closer to a third straight Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. Montreal director Kim Nguyen's Rebelle (War Witch) is one of nine films shortlisted for ...


text:
The Radisson Freehold is quickly becoming one of the area's hottest banquet destinations, and we look forward to helping you create the event of a lifetime. The Crystal Ballroom – featuring breathtaking crystal chandeliers – accommodates up to 300 guests. The Emerald Ballroom is also available for intimate occasions. We feature a five-hour premium open bar, artfully executed cuisine, chic centerpieces, outdoor patio for cocktail hour, and outdoor or indoor ceremony space. Add a personal flair to your celebration with a caviar display, tiered chocolate fountain, dramatic Hollywood lighting package… and even a signature fragrance. Our picturesque outdoor fountain offers unlimited photo opportunities. We are also pleased to offer a complimentary suite for your special day and premier new guest rooms at discounted rates for your guests.
Ready to book? Have questions?
Send a direct message here.
Copyright © 2001-2017 OneWed Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2001-2017 OneWed Inc. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Get an overview of this hotel3-star hotel with restaurant and coffee shop/café
Collect 200 Nectar points!
Simply enter your Nectar card number when you check out. Your points will be credited 35 days after you return from your trip.*Offers may apply
Popular property highlights
Located in the heart of Kurashiki, this hotel is within a 10-minute walk of Ario Mall Kurashiki, Mitsui Outlet Park Kurashiki, and Ohashi House. Kurashiki Story Museum and Ohara Museum of Art are also within 10 minutes.
Hotel Features
Along with a restaurant, this hotel has a coffee shop/café and self parking. WiFi in public areas is free. Other amenities include meeting rooms, dry cleaning, and laundry facilities.
Room Amenities
All 213 rooms boast deep soaking tubs and offer free WiFi and LCD TVs. Other amenities available to guests include free wired Internet, refrigerators, and premium bedding.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!Opens in a new window
APA Hotel Kurashiki-Ekimae
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
Dining options at the hotel include a restaurant and a coffee shop/café. Public areas are equipped with complimentary wired and wireless Internet access. This business-friendly hotel also offers complimentary newspapers in the lobby, laundry facilities, and dry cleaning/laundry services. Onsite parking is available (surcharge).
- Total number of rooms - 213
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Coffee shop or café
- Free newspapers in lobby
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Free WiFi
- Free wired high-speed Internet
- Laundry facilities
- Meeting rooms 7
- Restaurant
- Safe-deposit box at front desk
- Self parking (surcharge)
- Television in common areas
Family Friendly Amenities
- Family Hotel
- Free Wi-Fi
- Laundry facilities
- Refrigerator
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi , Free wired high-speed Internet
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi , Free wired high-speed Internet
Self parking (surcharge)
Room Amenities
- Phone
- Refrigerator
- Pay movies
- Daily housekeeping
- Private bathroom
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- Slippers
- Deep soaking bathtub
- Desk
- Premium bedding
- Air conditioning
- Free WiFi
- Free wired high-speed Internet
- Shower/tub combination
- Rollaway/extra beds (surcharge)
Where to Eat
APA Hotel Kurashiki-Ekimae has a restaurant on site.
Buffet breakfasts are available for a surcharge between 7 AM and 9:30 AM.
Hotel Policies
Check-in time starts at 3 PM
Check-in time ends at 5:30 AM
Check-out time is 11 AM
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Kids stay free! One child 3 years old or younger stays free when using existing bedding.
- Rollaway/extra beds are available for JPY 3000.00 per day.
- Pets not allowed
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
No cribs (infant beds) available
Optional extras
- Fee for buffet breakfast: JPY 1050 for adults and JPY 500.00 for children (approximately)
- Self parking fee: JPY 1000 per night
- Early check-in fee: JPY 1000
- Rollaway bed fee: JPY 3000.00 per day
Hotel Name
- APA Hotel Kurashiki-Ekimae
- APA Kurashiki-Ekimae
We should mention
One child 3 years old or younger stays free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare requires all international visitors to submit their passport number and nationality when registering at any lodging facility (inns, hotels, motels, etc. ). Additionally, lodging proprietors are required to photocopy passports for all registering guests and keep the photocopy on file.


text:
About "Skull's graphix sniper" by Skull Leader
Skull's graphix sniper
Design by Skull Leader
Thanks. I personnally think its kinda plain and without details... Ha ha...
Since the nazis used them, skulls, swastikas(Carlsbergs first logo) hardcore names for tanks (like "Panther" and "Wirbelwind") and other cool stuff has gone "No-no". This piece is still beaten by your submission with the little cape-skull-guy, love that guy. I gave you a 4, just for sticking to your guns, funny little skull-corner you´ve got here.
Its not meant to be a nazi thingy actually. Ha ha...
Gee thanks. Ha ha... Cover fire's not bad too. Proning down behind a MG(Machine Gun) is kinda a good feeling too.
Anyway, thanks for the comments. Will work harder.


text:
Effingham, Surrey
Effingham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Photos from Effingham, SurreyPictures of Effingham, Surrey (2)
Hotel Deals in Effingham, Surrey
Travel Blogs from Effingham, SurreyEffingham, Surrey Travel Blogs (2)
By popular demand
So this is blogging; apparently you just write! Anyway it's supposed to be wild so i'll give it a go. For those of you who aren't aware of what i'm doing, I'm scooting off on my travels this coming friday (a couple of days after my birthday - please give ...
I'm off!
Well, i've almost finished packing... started about 10 mins ago! I think i've remembered most of my things, the important ones anyway [book, MP3 player, etc.] My flight is at... actually I don't know exactly, hang on while I go ...


text:
Top Tip
Fresh Discoveries
Technical Article
Upcoming Events
Sarah Lamb
Editor of the UK MSDN Team Blog
Dear MSDN UK Flash Reader
The one device that most people say they can't live without is their mobile phone. As mobile devices have become smarter, faster and more useful developers have started taking advantage of some of the new hardware features that are now available.
top stories
this week showcase how the team behind the
Domino's app
developed the app and integrated voice recognition and NFC.
Andy Wigley takes you behind the scenes
with SQLite which is one of the most use database apps used when developing mobile applications. When it comes to marketing your application it is always handy to have a
few tips
from those who have been there and done it themselves.
Take a look at this weeks'
top video
to find some of the latest news from TechEd US on developing for Windows Phone and check out the events section to find out more about events happening in your area.
As always come and find us on
where we will be providing short sharp snippets of information on a daily basis!
We are making a few changes to how we run the MSDN Flash newsletter from July onwards as such we would like you to let us know how often you would like to receive the newsletter in the
poll of the fortnight
Sarah Lamb & The MSDN Team!
Top Tip
3 Top Tips for Windows Phone App Development
If you are an experienced mobile dev but new to Windows Phone, here are three simple, but important things we think you should know.
Read full story
Top Articles
SQLite-WinRT: Database programming on Windows Phone and Windows 8
Last week at TechEd North America in New Orleans, Andy Wigley presented a session on programming the SQLite database on Windows Phone 8. You can watch the video and download the slides from his recent blog article. The slides were about how to support your demanding LOB apps with SQLite and Windows Phone 8. Andy has also included the sample code used in his demo and much more.
Read the Article
3 steps to marketing your mobile app
Sara Allison caught up with Lorraine Starr from Yippee! Entertainment, creators of the hugely popular Windows 8, Windows Phone and iOS game Chimpact, and got her to share some secrets on how they marketed the app.
Read the Article
Behind the Scenes with the Domino's Phone App
We caught up with the team at Future Platforms who built the Domino's Pizza app for Windows Phone and asked them all about how they designed, built and tested their app. They also go into some detail on how they have implemented NFC and voice activation.
Read the Article
Prism for the Windows Runtime Visual Studio Extension
Prism for Windows runtime now has its very own Visual Studio extension courtesy of David Britch. This extension is a collection of templates to use Prism for the Windows Runtime. Prism for the Windows Runtime provides libraries that accelerate the development of managed Windows Store apps by providing support for bootstrapping MVVM apps, state management, validation of user input, navigation and much more.
Read the Article
The Windows Phone 8 Networking Survival Kit
Take a lightning tour of the many Windows Phone 8 connectivity options for developers. There are more than ever before: HTTP networking APIs, NFC and Bluetooth including 'tap to connect' with Windows 8 slates, WCF and OData services, are just the tip of the iceberg. See how to program with the new DataSense feature. Store data in Sky Drive. Share state between Windows Phone 8 app and the Windows 8 version of your app. See some real practical demos, such as how to connect the Windows Phone 8 emulator to services running on your development PC, how to implement compression with HTTP networking and how you can handle credentials when accessing services that require user authentication.
Read the Article
From the blog
What is Nokia/Microsoft AppCampus?
How ads monetise and promote your app
5 top tips to make your app successful on Windows
Windows Phone Events
fortnightly book
Buy in Print at 40% off: £27.59
Programming Windows®, 6th edition
Programming legend Charles Petzold has rewritten his classic Programming Windows—one of the most popular programming books of all time—to show developers how to use existing skills and tools to build Windows 8 apps. Programming Windows, Sixth Edition focuses on creating Windows 8 apps accessing the Windows Runtime with XAML and C#. The book also provides C++ code samples
Buy this as an ebook
- use code
at the checkout
Purchase book
Top Video
The Phone That Has Everything the Enterprise Needs: Windows Phone 8
Your requirements for an Enterprise phone must meet the demands of your organization with mobile device management, security, encryption and private software distribution without sacrificing the excitement and fun of an awesome consumer phone. Microsoft's newest phone has the power of Windows 8 with killer hardware and features like up-to-the minute Live Tiles, offline Nokia maps, great apps like Microsoft Office, Xbox, Skype, Pandora and ESPN, NFC, integrated VoIP and the fastest mobile browser. Windows Phone 8 is unrivaled in the smartphone space. Join us to see how Windows Phone 8 combines everything you love about a personal phone and everything you need in the Enterprise.
Watch the Video
Microsoft, Partner and Community Events and Training Courses
Keep up to date with the latest Community events listings
In addition to the great events above, you can find all our forthcoming Visual Studio events across the UK
June, London
– Super-Scaling SQL Server with Thomas Kejser (£)
Register Here
June, London
– Machine Learning Hands On with F#
Register Here
June, Online
– DevOps with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
Register Here
June, London
– SQL In The City
Register Here
June, London
– Last-Fi -An F# powered Raspberry Pi internet radio with Ross McKinlay
Register Here
- 28
June, Madrid, Spain
– TechEd Europe
Register Here
July, London
– Windows Azure Security and Compliance Workshop
Register Here
July, London
– Windows Azure BizTalk Services
Register Here
contact us
Send your feedback and comments to
Find out more about the
MSDN resources
that are available to you.
Find out more about the
Microsoft Contact Centre
or call on 0870 60 10 100 (0800-1800 Monday to Friday)
Find out more about your
MSDN support options
or call 0800 0517 215
Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more please read our online privacy statement
Privacy and Cookies
© 2013 Microsoft


text:
Welcome to WebmasterWorld Guest from 18.104.22.168
Forum Moderators: rogerd
Why am I getting so less registered members? I remember when I had a gaming website of 3000 unique/day, I got a hundred of registered members over a couple of months.
Is there any way of increasing registered members without making fake ones? I was thinking about a chance to win a prize for registering but it's too obvious that people will post once and never post again.
joined:June 2, 2003
votes: 43
First, kill that. Nothing turns me off more than pop-ups and floating boxes that tell me I've won a prize. I run away and never return.
Given the subject matter of your forum I'm guessing that you are competing with some already well established forum/sites. What advantage or inducement can you offer for people to venture to your site? Please tell me it's something other than they have won a prize for being the 1000th or 10,000th visitor ;-P
I suspect your problem is 1) your target market is already well established; and, 2) you have yet to set forth and promote exactly what makes your forum better than the next. Perhaps more articles demonstrating your expertise would help. Perhaps your participation in competing forums, where you can reveal your expertise?
As for the 10000th visitor ad, those are InVue ads and it's set to only display to less than 2% of the visitors and you happened to be in the unlucky 2%.
There's nothing about my forum that no other forum has other than me. What do you mean when you said "Perhaps more articles demonstrating your expertise"?
There are a lot of people who visit my message board, they just don't seem to post and it seems obvious. What would they want to post? Perhaps comments thanking me for writing the tutorials or flaming me for making an error on the tutorial, but I rarely get "How-to" and "present your work" posts.
The only thing that seems to make message boards popular are the people who use it. Eventually in a year, do you think it will be somewhat active?
joined:June 2, 2003
votes: 43
You might want to take a look at Brett Tabke's quote that I just posted in the Forum Community Building threads today. Print it out. Put it on your computer screen and ponder it before you type another word or line of code for your forum.
A couple of things I would mention are to make sure you integrate your forum into your existing site design rather than using a default template and, in particular, don't start with too many categories: bring the list down to three or four forums which cover the different themes, and once things start up, you can split out forums into more concentrated themes. That helps concentrate the small amount of activity and makes a much better impression than a long list of virtually empty categories.
Something that I used to generate traffic in the dark, early days... run a contest. The contest I designed gave points for forum activity... 1 point for logging in once a day, 1.5 points for posting a new topic or a reply; the first 2 contests were for total points, then I changed the rules so that people earned entries in a drwaing, 10 points = 1 drawing entry type of thing, this worked better; also, I found that contests were better received if they ran for shorter periods of time, 30-60 days at a time... anything longer will lose interest.
You'd be surprised at how much attention a $50 gift cert. will generate!


text:
Whachutalkinbout Feldberg?
View Single Post
* Ace Member *
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Charlotte
Years Playing: 7.1
Courses Played: 68
Throwing Style: RHBH
Posts: 3,526
Niced 40 Times in 33 Posts
Originally Posted by
Dan Ensor
I'm interested to hear your defense of that statement. The "On Axis" is determined by your body and the disc. You could throw a disc in space, and it would still have an axis it's being moved about. That axis has a pole, just like earth, which is the point where the lever's edge juxtaposed to the disc is connected to the body.
Hang on...
it's the axis of disc rotation, no? So, the axis in question is perp to the disc, through the center of the disc. Torque is force applied in a circular motion perpendicular to an axis.
So off-axis torque means that part of the rotational force you put on the disc is NOT perpendicular to the axis of the disc, regardless of how your body's leaning.
If this isn't right, then I'm banning myself from this thread, to avoid confusion.
View Public Profile
View DGCR Profile
Send a private message to Toro71
Find all posts by Toro71