Meet Mrs. Vasantha Murthy

Mrs. Vasantha Murthy- Enhancing the BhashaIndia Telugu community

Mrs. Vasantha Murthy is the retired Principal of Government Degree College, Anantpur. She is also a Telugu language enthusiast and interested in the field of language computing. She is an active member BhashaIndia community. Kindly, tell us a bit about yourself. V: I was born in Bangalore, but my parents moved to a town called Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh shortly after that. I graduated from the Government Degree College in Anantpur. It was one of the four colleges in Madras Presidency, during those days. After my Post- Graduation in Zoology from SV University, Tirupathi, I moved back to Anantpur and joined my own college as a teacher at the age of 20. My first experience as a teacher was pretty amusing as most of my students were older than me. I was associated with the college for 38 years, except for a gap of a few months. In fact, most of my family, graduated from the same college! I retired as the Principal of that college and moved to Bangalore.

How did you develop this interest in Telugu language?

V: This interest developed mainly due to my family and the environment I grew up in. My father was an advocate, sportsman and a theater artist - a multifaceted person, who exposed us to many aspects of our rich culture, including a linguistic one.

How do you plan to develop the Telugu community on BhashaIndia?

V: To start with, we plan to introduce some non-technical topics on the homepage as well as the discussion forum to catch the attention of the common Telugu-speaking individual. This will ensure more number of viewers as the language used would be the language the participants would be most comfortable with - Telugu.

What is your agenda vis-à-vis this initiative?

V: In the discussion forum, we plan to have a variety of topics like old proverbs, beliefs and the like. We also have a topic on local language computing and many people are actively taking part in it. The language used by these participants is excellent. Our main aim is to preserve the culture of the language. At the same time, it should be communicative, as well as comprehensible. These days, we often see that every language is influenced by words and idioms from other languages. We would like to emphasize the basic pure form of the language while keeping the experience simple and user-friendly.

In August, you plan to do a workshop in Anantpur. Can you tell us more about it?

V: I am planning a workshop at the Government Degree College in Anantpur in the third week of August. This college has excellent infrastructure and teaching facilities and we’re planning to train two students per system so that they can have hands-on experience in the intricacies involved behind Indic Computing. This step will make these students gain awareness about Indic Language Computing as most of them haven’t yet experienced the rise of this phenomenon. Also, we conceptualized that our target must be students because they pick up the nuances of the emerging new trends in technology quickly and very effectively propagate and are able to disseminate them, very rapidly.

You have been aware of the Microsoft BhashaIndia project. What are your views about it?

V: I am very impressed by the initiative Microsoft has taken up. I think the very fact that I’m a member of the BhashaIndia community amply demonstrates my belief and support for this project. Our urban youth, long cut-off from their roots, would gain a greater sense of awareness of their language and culture. This will go a long way in preserving our languages and culture in the consciousness of tomorrow’s generations.

Do you use any of our products in Telugu? (Like the Office 2003 Telugu LIP). Does the present package meet all the requirements?

V: Yes, I use Microsoft Office 2003. I find the experience very user-friendly and effortless. The developments taking place presently should suffice for the time being. We should, however, give the users some time to get accustomed to the whole concept of Indic computing. Once they familiarize themselves with the whole concept, we can think of making further advances and improvements in the package.

Do you think this will lead to the acceptance of a universal standard in the Telugu speaking world?

V: I have personally come across many occasions where I faced problems due to the non-standardization of fonts. Many of my friends who’re in touch via email were earlier apprehensive to try out Unicode and said that they didn’t want to change their existing Telugu language packages. But I persuaded them to try it out. When they did use the Unicode-enabled packages, they realized how effectively Unicode made things easier for them. At the end of the day, all end-users need a sense of simplicity, which can be supported by the pursuit of localization towards computing and the acceptance of a universal standard. Unicode makes all these things possible and this standard will definitely gain great support and acceptance over the years to come.

What more needs to be done to spread the word to grass root levels?

V: Advertising in the traditional ways may not do much to spread the word. Word of mouth, or rather mail-to-mail, will go a long way in spreading the word about the benefits and the need for Local Language computing. The powers that be should raise awareness of this truth among the future citizens of our country by introducing it in schools and colleges.

Do you think it is also the social responsibility of the local IT giants to promote local language computing?

V: Yes, the IT giants play an important role here. They can facilitate the introduction of the concepts of Indic Language Computing in rural areas and schools. They can also aid an assist the training of teachers in rural schools in local language computing so that word can spread more rapidly. They should follow in the footsteps of Microsoft and develop local language packages and local language support for their existing products.

Kindly tell us more about your discussion with the Infosys doyens at their investors meet.

V: At the Infosys investors meet, all Infosys luminaries were present on the dais. The audience was given an opportunity to ask questions to the Infosys officials on the dais about Infosys and their work. I asked Mr. Narayan Murthy as to the reason behind the swift growth of IT up the ladder. This question was answered by Mr. Nandan Nilekani who said that IT won’t be going up the ladder for a long time. He said that it would start spreading around, reaching and affecting the lives and wok of a larger populace. IT products will be smaller, cheaper, more accessible and more applicable. They were also looking at more areas to expand the applicability of the products. He added that applicability is always more important than technicality in IT products. My second question was about Local Language computing. I’d asked whether it would benefit the masses or would it rather limit the exposure of a person to any particular language. Due to the lack of time, this question was answered by Infosys’ Chief Operations Officer, Mr. S. Gopalakrishnan, after the meet. He said that Indic Language Computing is an excellent way to reach out to rural communities. It can be used effectively to improve literacy among them. He added that it cannot confine a person to one language because if a learner is caught up with one language he can always move on to other languages. A second option of English should always be present in the education he undertakes. We can’t take the wide applicability of this language away from the masses because this will make sure the person gets more exposure in all fields. Hence the learner’s proficiency in the local language will expose the person to a learning system in English, which in turn will be his gateway to the world of information.

Mrs. Vasantha Murthy’s enthusiasm and interest will undeniably go a long way in helping the Telugu community to progress and spread the word about Indic language computing to the Telugu speaking masses and linguists alike.

Discuss and share your views with the Telugu community on BhashaIndia!