Magazines/ScribusGettingStarted/FYugFnl/Text/Khajuraho.txt

Do you want to taste freedom? Then visit Khajuraho, the small village in the middle of absolute nowhere, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The true liberation and freedom of the Indian body, mind, and soul is captured in hundreds of the most stunning and erotic sculptures in exquisite details. The temples in stone are the silent embodiement of the highest peaks of consciousness India has experienced in the past one thousand years. What I find even more amazing, is that these temples survived the moghul invasions, and even hundreds of years of the prudish British Empire. They have also survived earthquakes and other calamaties that have struck the country. But alas! The small historic site, now a major dot on the world tourism map, has not survived the onslaught of proprietory software that snatch away everybody's digital freedoms.

The Naked Truth
As you exit the gates of the western group of temples, you are confronted by rows and rows of small hotels, restaurants, STD booths, and other kind of tourist-oriented shops. The one thing that immediately stands out is the number of internet cafes in this village. The place has one of the highest density of internet cafes I've seen so far in India. A modest Rs 25 to Rs 30 buys you thirty minutes of surfing. Small shacks, running cheap assembled PCs, connect to the remot town of Jhansi by a slow, pokey dial-up connection. Jhansi is atleast four hours away by road, so you can imagine how far out Khajuraho really is in the heartland of India. Even more interesting, I discovered children from the villages saving and spending money to surf the net. One look at the monitors in one cybercafe made me turn away in disgust. No, they were not surfing for pornography (this is Khajuraho, remember) but because they were using what was seemingly a non-authorised copy of a thoroughly proprietory operating system and software. These children do not know what software freedom is, neither do the cybercafe owners. I suspect even the village authorities wouldn't know. I just marveled at how slowly, unwittingly, a whole village will grow up and acquire skills on proprietory software, and find one day that they may just have to pay more than they could have ever earned from those cafes. Assuming a hypothetical situation where eveyone is forced to pay up for all authorised software, the surfing charges would suddenly jump to double or triple the existing rate. The villagers may just find that even then the money does not go into their pockets, but in paying for steep licensing fees for upgrades, new releases, and the usual problems you and I already understand. More importantly, I doubt those village children would ever be able to afford those kind of exorbitant access charges anymore.

One cybercafe owner I talked to was already complaining bitterly about how they lose money on cafes. Apparantly, a slew of the latest viruses had just rendered almost all systems in the village mostly unusable. Competent PC tech support is only possible from Jhansi. Only one or two local people have some basic knowledge of troubleshooting and are much in demand. Thus, customers who pay for time find themselves straddled with a virus-infected, decaying OS, crash and bug-prone PC that also frequently disconnects or just reboots.

Liberate Khajuraho
How I wish I had just packed my trusty CD of Knoppix, or even RedHat and other distros! One night, as I softly gazed at the splendour of the clear, night sky vaulting above the temples, I suddenly realized that across this great sub-continent, smaller towns, villages, and remote places are gradually waking up to computers, the internet, and the digital world. Without the awareness of muft and mukt software. Something needs to be done. Anybody near Khajuraho, or visiting it soon? Please carry some GnuLinux Cds. I talked to some of the cafe owners about it, and they were thrilled. You could charge them a modest Rs 250 or Rs 350 per installation, or you could barter for some free access. But this story is not just about Khajuraho. Every cybercafe opening near you, or in your home town or village, needs to have a dual-boot machine, if not a GnuLinux-only PC. I wish the local governments would have a tough policy stand on this. In the meantime, you and I could start a new revolution, one PC, one cybercafe at a time.  All we have to do is copy, share, and install our GnuLinux Cds for the above fees or barter. Then orient people, and encourage them to copy and share further. Imagine the tremendous employment and work opportunities across India as this movement catches fire. The wealth generated will stay here in India. What could be more sexy than that?
hi 3 months ago			Do you want to taste freedom? Then visit Khajuraho, the small village in the middle of absolute nowhere, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The true liberation and freedom of the Indian body, mind, and soul is captured in hundreds of the most stunning and erotic sculptures in exquisite details. The temples in stone are the silent embodiement of the highest peaks of consciousness India has experienced in the past one thousand years. What I find even more amazing, is that these temples survived the moghul invasions, and even hundreds of years of the prudish British Empire. They have also survived earthquakes and other calamaties that have struck the country. But alas! The small historic site, now a major dot on the world tourism map, has not survived the onslaught of proprietory software that snatch away everybody's digital freedoms.

			`The Naked Truth`
			As you exit the gates of the western group of temples, you are confronted by rows and rows of small hotels, restaurants, STD booths, and other kind of tourist-oriented shops. The one thing that immediately stands out is the number of internet cafes in this village. The place has one of the highest density of internet cafes I've seen so far in India. A modest Rs 25 to Rs 30 buys you thirty minutes of surfing. Small shacks, running cheap assembled PCs, connect to the remot town of Jhansi by a slow, pokey dial-up connection. Jhansi is atleast four hours away by road, so you can imagine how far out Khajuraho really is in the heartland of India. Even more interesting, I discovered children from the villages saving and spending money to surf the net. One look at the monitors in one cybercafe made me turn away in disgust. No, they were not surfing for pornography (this is Khajuraho, remember) but because they were using what was seemingly a non-authorised copy of a thoroughly proprietory operating system and software. These children do not know what software freedom is, neither do the cybercafe owners. I suspect even the village authorities wouldn't know. I just marveled at how slowly, unwittingly, a whole village will grow up and acquire skills on proprietory software, and find one day that they may just have to pay more than they could have ever earned from those cafes. Assuming a hypothetical situation where eveyone is forced to pay up for all authorised software, the surfing charges would suddenly jump to double or triple the existing rate. The villagers may just find that even then the money does not go into their pockets, but in paying for steep licensing fees for upgrades, new releases, and the usual problems you and I already understand. More importantly, I doubt those village children would ever be able to afford those kind of exorbitant access charges anymore.

			One cybercafe owner I talked to was already complaining bitterly about how they lose money on cafes. Apparantly, a slew of the latest viruses had just rendered almost all systems in the village mostly unusable. Competent PC tech support is only possible from Jhansi. Only one or two local people have some basic knowledge of troubleshooting and are much in demand. Thus, customers who pay for time find themselves straddled with a virus-infected, decaying OS, crash and bug-prone PC that also frequently disconnects or just reboots.

			`Liberate Khajuraho`
			How I wish I had just packed my trusty CD of Knoppix, or even RedHat and other distros! One night, as I softly gazed at the splendour of the clear, night sky vaulting above the temples, I suddenly realized that across this great sub-continent, smaller towns, villages, and remote places are gradually waking up to computers, the internet, and the digital world. Without the awareness of muft and mukt software. Something needs to be done. Anybody near Khajuraho, or visiting it soon? Please carry some GnuLinux Cds. I talked to some of the cafe owners about it, and they were thrilled. You could charge them a modest Rs 250 or Rs 350 per installation, or you could barter for some free access. But this story is not just about Khajuraho. Every cybercafe opening near you, or in your home town or village, needs to have a dual-boot machine, if not a GnuLinux-only PC. I wish the local governments would have a tough policy stand on this. In the meantime, you and I could start a new revolution, one PC, one cybercafe at a time. All we have to do is copy, share, and install our GnuLinux Cds for the above fees or barter. Then orient people, and encourage them to copy and share further. Imagine the tremendous employment and work opportunities across India as this movement catches fire. The wealth generated will stay here in India. What could be more sexy than that?