We heard a sharp cracking sound, almost like the sound of thunder and then heard the tree hit the roof. The atleast 30 foot tall Jasmine tree in front of YNC fell. We were shocked and went out to realise that that the compund wall had taken most of the hit and the top was resting on the sloped roof of YNC.
We realised that the drain work had cut off all the roots on one side which probably led to such a seemingl healthy tree fall. Winds were not so heavy but the heaviest rainfall recorded ever in May has obviously contributed to it.
I was in Channapatna for the day to see how fellows were using Papad, a hypermedia annotation tool, and to see if I could troubleshoot media uploads. While driving back, I chose to avoid all NHs and most SHs, however NICE they were ;) Starting with the Kanva reservoir, I kept driving North-East cutting arterial roads and chosing to go through villages instead. I was unsure of where I would reach. I would stop, decide on a road, and only take my phone out again at the end of the road.
I passed the Manchanabele dam as well. Vivek shared that one of the proposed sites for the new Bangalore airport is just above the TG Halli reservoir, upstream from Manchanabele, in the catchment area and right above the arkavathi. The proposed PRR also apparently goes through. It would be more than depressing to see these developments be realised. See the proposed locations here
The Kalidas Nagar well in Bidar, or Gugi Bawdi, became a site of curiousity around natural water drainage for me (and other wells from then), the stream beside the bawdi can only be traced till the railway line on the north. As i understand water drainage better, I realised that drainage maps make the drainage appear like a line, there is no indication as to the vicinity/intensity of drainage in a radius. There is also no intuitive understanding of direction of water flow, unless you are on the ground/with an understanding of countours. (A resident told us how water in the city used to pour down (with great exaggeration) from the North towards the gugi bawdi, like a halla when here used to be no buildings).
This led me to better understand the value in @Vonter and @Aman ’s work with blrwaterlog (to illustrate why water stagnates in certain areas during rains in bangalore). I used their scripts to generate and host a graduated map of drainage like they have used, for reference at the pgsl site: The PGSL site is a public respository of our documentation around various concerns that take a spatial form. Maps of the Karez, our work with mapping wells etc are being made available here.
I’ve started reading Heart Lamp and wonder if the humour like feeling in the description of the depressing circumstances of the many women in her stories is similarly felt in Kannada. Makes me want to learn to read Kannada more acutely.
I’ve become curious about what led to the classification of certain castes as OBC and the background and struggles that might have been involved in it. For example the many Mudaliyar castes/sub castes.