These past 2 weeks have been a blur. I was in Chennai for the weekend, learning a lot about the city and being accused of not knowing enough about the city I grew up in, which triggered a lot of thoughts on my own feelings about my lived experiences in the city.
- I’ve also dreamed very less this week: of the everyday and of the faraway, for it looks like what drives enthusiasm in me by dreaming outside of the everyday. I wish no lower respect for the mundane. I think not less of the just-rained air in my lungs everyday in the summer. Nor do I want less of company and friendship everyday. But it seems I have made it a habit to not think of just the day ahead. I do not remember dreaming for the evenings while at breakfast. I do not remember salivating for a good dinner on a regular day. These dreams never emerge early enough for me to enjoy the shower, they always turn up at 9pm, when my stomach and mouth are ready to consume anything with some texture. I must cultivate this habit of dreaming for the day… for i fear being absolute and bland regret. What is a life where one cannot remember having dreamed nor having acted upon them…
- As an adult it is scary to take large financial decisions. Especially those which stem from large dreams. It is also much scarier when it is not a shared dream, with a person, a partner, parents, friends or a community. In tangent to what I talk early in March
It was a fast week. Very fast, very insecure in its form, it did not want to be a week. The days passed on very fast, and it feels too early for March to have arrived. I spent much of this week thinking about friendships in my life: the difficulty of making new friends beyond social ease, taking care of the gel that previously bound you or realising that sometimes, I can let go. Conversations are difficult to continue, lifestyles change, and boundaries are discovered. I often thought and still, to some extent, think that friendships must be able to assert opinion, responsibility and some say/power in the lives within each other lives. This has been in conflict with my cultural-shock in bangalore. There are walls between frienships that i’ve learnt exist by choice.
The Yelahanka Nodal Center finally is full with people after a long time. I travelled very less this quarter, but others were very busy in Kudnapura and Bidar. It was nice to have the center full after many weeks.
We hosted the third Nagarppadam event in Pallikkaranai again on the 29th of March. Last time, we were on the velachery side of the marsh, walking in and seeing the rapid filling, dumping and creeping in to the marsh.
- regions of rapid development, forms of development manifesting in the area
- fauna and flora in the area, we had Nandan who could identify some birds and Google lens to help us with fauna
- Disappearing of ponds, kuttais, water bodies and the formal patta-isation of certain large marsh areas near the dump yard.
- we also had conversations with residents about changing forms of the water bodies. Parks becoming water bodies, water bodies becoming debris dumping sites, the same sites becoming buildings
- Vivek had surprised us in Chennai, along with Eshwari and Abhishek who had joined the Chennai mapping party. Nandan was our kind introducer to the Luz Church and the Neelangarai Beach. I did not of the Luz church before, but I’d never explored the city as an adult, never visited the beach for the peace it offered or spent the driving around in the city. I don’t know Chennai, not like how I might know Bangalore, but I hope to understand the city better. I await a bike to do the same.
