Meet Mr. Avinash Ogale

Avinash Ogle: A Poet and a Publisher

Mr. Avinash Ogale is a poet, columnist and a Marathi enthusiast. Some of his earlier works have also been translated in other languages. He has also been felicitated by the Karnataka State Marathi Sahitya Parishad for his poetry collection, “Chashak Maaza”. The third edition of his latest work,”Kaazva” is set to be published shortly. A banker by profession, he has also been involved in the typesetting and design of various Marathi publications for the last ten years. Being a banker, what inspired you to enter this field of computing? A: The basic reason behind my entering this field was the negligence towards proper Marathi grammar in major Marathi publications, both by the publishers as well as the typesetters. I'd observed that people who were typesetting the publication were not familiar with the language and its grammar. Technical knowledge in itself isn’t sufficient. Linguistics also plays an important role. Being a language enthusiast, this prompted me to start a venture of my own, specializing in typesetting and the editing of major Marathi publications.

What kind of publications have you handled so far?

A: For over ten years, we've been handling almost every type of Marathi publication in southern Maharashtra like magazines, yearbooks for educational and cultural institutions, financial publications and even the Diwali issues of various publishing houses (like “Sangati”), which are a big sellout among the Marathi-speaking people. We’ve also handled many poetry collections and books in Marathi by Indira Joshi, N.R.Katkar, and V.S Walvekar.

What were the problems you faced during the earlier stages of your venture?

A: Earlier, there were no standardized keyboards for the Devanagari script, and of course, no uniform encoding pattern for the various fonts. This made things difficult for us and our clients since we had no uniform keyboard layout, and the publication of Marathi editions were handled in a cumbersome manner.

Have you observed any developments regarding this in the recent past?

A: Yes, there have been quite a few notable developments, the first and foremost being the introduction of the InScript keyboard. This has made it possible for us to type in any Indian language and script, due to the phoetic layout of the keyboard. This keyboard is also recommended by the Government of Maharashtra and used in Government offices across the state. The other development was the widespread use of Marathi fonts that were compatible with various word processors like Microsoft Word. But later, we realized that these fonts had shortcomings of their own.

Can you give us a few examples to illustrate these shortcomings?

A: Microsoft Office and some other applications have options for drawing tables and charts. But, while handling a financial publication, which required the extensive use of tables and charts, we observed that it was quicker and simpler to develop these tables and charts in Marathi using Microsoft Office than in other word processors.

Another one is the 'drop cap' feature. The Devanagari script consists of conjunct consonants. When the required text is selected and the drop cap option is activated, only the first consonant is dropped, not the whole conjunct.

So, in your view, what features should an ideal software for Indic languages possess?

A: First and foremost, they should have an online Spellchecker for the Devanagari script, which is not available in most current Marathi language word processors. This feature is present only in Microsoft Office 2003.It would be of great help in spreading e-literacy in the rural areas if the help files present in these software were also made available in the regional languages. For example, a person in rural Maharashtra may be able to read the menu option "file", "format" etc. in Marathi, but may not exactly understand what they can be used for.If possible, an exchange utility should also be provided with the software package which can convert the old data written using various Devanagari scripts to the latest Unicode format. This will be very helpful for people like us who have been in this field before the advent of Unicode.

Will the new scripts using Unicode encoding be of utility for Marathi publication houses?

A: Earlier, all Marathi newspapers and publication houses had to develop their own fonts or buy them from developers. With the popularization of Unicode, things would be definitely easier for the publication houses.