A love for Kannada and not an obsession with the internet has propelled us to embark on Kannadasaahithya.com, amidst the dominating presence of English on the net. Drawing inspiration from Sri.Sheshadrivasu of Baraha, Prof.U.R. Ananthamurthy and many others, we have taken up this work fully aware of the pitfalls of the ‘ virtual reality’ effect of the medium. This is as much an experiment on ourselves as it is a novel effort in Kannada ethos. We are clearly aware of information technology’s illusions, enticement and fantasies and of the caution that this entails. Pursuing different professions for livelihood, not one of us intends to depend on Kannadasaahithya.com either as an avocation or to earn profits. Each one is fired by a different aspiration. Yet, some common ground and shared enthusiasm have brought us together for this venture.
In its history, the internet has remained a near-total preserve of English. Without doubt, it will dominate business and commerce too. This for us is of little avail. Our objective in launching kannadasaahithya.com is very clear : to contribute meaningfully and substantially to the effort being made to place Kannada literature on the net. We wish to underscore that Kannada literature has a legitimate place on the internet.
This cannot remain an individual effort. In fact, this kind of work cannot flourish under individual control. Support from many like-minded individuals is imperative if this site has to take wing and soar.
Support can come in the form of permission by Kannada authors to include their works in the site as we believe that literature is not the private preserve of any individual and it should lend itself to educational and academic pursuits. kannadasaahithya.com intends that its contents will enable the utilisation of literature in such academic pursuits.
Technical back-up in the form of software, finance and involvement in any other form are most welcome, without which this effort cannot flourish.
We are not individuals who can afford commercially available software. In course of time, we have been depending on freeware that are made available on the net The process of hunting for and downloading freeware takes the life out of us. Our gratitude to anyone who can allow us to use a professional software package that will cover all our needs will be deep. http://www.kannadasaahithya.com was first located on free space offered by freeserver.com. and later it became inevitable to switch over to another hosting company, this time Hareesh Kadlabalu sponsored the web space for one year, and he incidentally is organising a group under http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kannadasaahithya/ which he calls it as a fan club of kannadasaahithya.com, (Hareesh wouldn’t it be nice to rechristine the name of the club as ‘ksc regulars’ or ‘ksc enthusiasts’? ) And thanks to many others, kannadasaahithya.com is growing in staure day by day with all the dignity.
Here is an important note regarding Kannada web pages. We have viewed the pages in all browser modes and found that versions of Netscape 4 and above that support dynamic fonts are ideal for fault-free viewing of Kannada pages. Versions of internet explorer 4 and above tend to split words and lines at random, accounting for laboured reading / browsing. Neoplanet explorer presents similar difficulties. Among the browsers that we found suitable for viewing Kannada pages are Opera 3 and 5, Netscape 6, mozilla etc,.
We are marching ahead, not sure whether our enthusiasm will last even if no support is forthcoming. Time alone will tell.
Here is the list of freewares we have used for different purposes to develop this site:
Baraha 4
HTML Kit
Top style lite
Ws ftp lite
Arachanophlia
Netscape composer.
for kannadasaahithya.com
Shekharpoorna
Rakshith M R