Date:06/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/06/stories/2008070651371100.htm

National

Inspiration on the move

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: A Kerala-based professor has created ‘lite’ mobile phone versions of inspirational Indian works and placed them on the web for free download by owners of Java and Net-enabled handsets.

P.R. Harikumar, lecturer in the Malayalam Department of Sri Sankara College, Kalady, has developed mobile editions of the Adhyatma Ramayana (in Malayalam) and Thirukkural (in Tamil) which occupy less space than a typical song in the MP3 format. The 500-page Ramayana takes 500 KB while the 2,660 lines of Thirukkural have been squeezed into 110 KB.

In recent months, he has uploaded two English language works: the full texts of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, “The Story of My Experiments with Truth” (500 KB), and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali (95 KB).

All these files in the ‘jar’ format can be loaded to Java-enabled phones via Bluetooth or infrared links or directly from the web page www.prharikumar.4t.com with Internet-enabled (GPRS) phones. He has created some ‘phone novels’ in Malayalam. This was reported in The Hindu November 26, 2006 (Fiction on your hand phone!).