At the Kala Ghoda arts festival over the weekend, I met Peter Griffin of Caferati, a writers group, which has organized the literary segment of the festival. The Kala Ghoda Festival’s association with online groups/sites isn’t new - back in 2000, the now defunct Freshlimesoda.com had organized the Limestock, a poetry reading event. Griffin told me about the SMS poetry segment that the festival had introduced a few years ago: applicants can send in poetry that fits into an SMS (maximum 160 characters); they even encourage the use of the SMS language - SMSese. This year, the contest has received around 115 entries; last year was better, with around 200. They had a tie-up with Orange (now Vodafone) in 2005, but that was limited only to Orange subscribers; this year, however, submits have been accepted only online. Griffin had won the first contest in 2005 with the following entry: cellular creature now part of my DNA gladden my heart: beep.

What Griffin told me next still hasn’t quite sunk in: 115 book manuscripts have been submitted online by aspiring writers, for the Open Book Pitch. The contest, now closed, features talent scouts from publishers like Harper Collins, Palador, Penguin, Random House, Routledge, Scholastic, Jaico Publishing, Mills & Boon, Osians, Siyahi, Zubaan, among others. It’s usually extremely hard to get through to a publisher, before they even view your manuscript; this is another case of technology (and enterprise) bridging a gap.