The Hindu : Front Page : Cyber routes to a happy Onam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 26, 2007
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Front Page

Cyber routes to a happy Onam

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The Internet and e-mail have simplified the whole process of sending seasonal greetings to one’s friends and relatives — with dozens of online resources offering a choice of designs for free use.

This year, the web has added a video edge to Onam: allowing you to express your good wishes through a nostalgic video clipping, with music and movie to stir a Malayalee’s heart!

The largest selection of free video greetings to download that we found, comes from the newly created Kerala Videos portal, the work of the Thiruvananthapuram-based Invis Multimedia: Some 20 themes, each with about a minute of audio and video, include seasonal favourites like ‘pookkalam,’ ‘kaikottikali,’ ‘pulikalli,’ snippets of the better-known ‘vallomkali’ or boat races... as well as Kerala favourites like martial art ‘kalaripayatu’ and the elephant processions. (http://keralavideos.invis.in/onam-greetings-cards/).

If you want something different you can delve into the main video database and custom design your greetings, using any of over 100 Kerala video clips classified by subject and region (http://keralavideos.invis.in/). Invis is also responsible for the highly regarded official website of the Kerala Tourism Department ( http://www.keralatourism.org/), arguably the best Indian tourism resource on the Internet.

Two other web resources which offer a wide selection of free Onam greetings services, have introduced a limited number of video options: www.fastkerala.com and www.vgreets.com have links to Onam-specific pages.

Another cyber innovation from Kerala in recent weeks has been a Phone Magazine — a mini magazine downloadable to one’s mobile phone. It is the work of Kalady-based P. R. Harikumar, who last year pioneered short novels as well as versions of the Ramayana and Thirukkural formatted for reading on mobile phones. The Phone Magazine “Zoom” as well as the home page of Mr. Harikumar can be accessed at http://www.prharikumar.4t.com/

The content for phones can be uploaded from this page provided your phone is Java enabled and can read the ‘jar’ format. Zoom is a collection of Mr. Kumar’s own writings and may need wider content before it becomes a truly ‘mobile’ magazine.

Interestingly, one of the best news resources for Malayalees is based outside Kerala. The Bangalore-based www.oneindia.in is a news and features portal in English and the four southern languages. Regular users say its regional page, “That’s Malayalam” (http://thatsmalayalam.oneindia.in/) consolidates Kerala-based news much faster than many of the services based within the State. And it has the added resource of the Guruji, local language search engine.

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