Last year has been a very consequential year. I completed a year and a half with Aruvu and LLN, the experiences and people and places have in many ways rewired my being. We launched Living Labs Institute. We experimented, failed and restarted many efforts. I speak much better Kannada and Dakkani, thanks to the people of the places of Bidar, Kundapura, Channapatna and Bangalore. I have begun to live alone this year and have made it a good home with the help of my dear friends. We engaged with Chennai, in Pallikkaranai 1 2 and in Ennore previously.
I rode around on Karmegam, my new bike for over 12000 kms in just 4 months [to Bidar, and then to Bengaluru, to Kasargod, to Rameswaram and Kodiyakkarai and then to Chennai, and many times to Mallasamudram, Channapatna, and Chennai ]. I had an accident, the bike recovered.
The Constitutional Observer will focus on the State Legislatures and work on making a cross-state cross-governement-body search of dialogue and debate and decision making available in one place. We are using the Internet Archive as our primary host. Sireesh, Vivek and me will be collaborating to make this happen. The Constitutional Observer and Where does Hate Live? were shown in a talk at IndiaFOSS this year
And I completed a year of writing weekly notes. The weekly act or sometimes biweekly act of putting together my thoughts and photographs and spending time in reading about the events and references of the week has been the longest lasting habit of mine and resolution.
Amma reads my mostly photo-blog on my year-end trip along the coast of TamilNadu: Kaveri, Kanmaigal, Karmegam, Kodiyakkarai, and asks why I do not describe the place much better. Why do I not talk about what happened in the place? All this while, I thought I was doing that! She says who must be interested in just your experiences? I had thought for a long time that my experiences were fleeting, very little, how do I draw an image of the place from the few hours and days I might have spent? It is a reflection and comment I will act on…
Karuvelam, Prosopis Julifera is found in the highest density across the districts of TN in Ramnathapuram. A State Planning Commission report on Karuvelam asserts
The major reasons for highest infestation of Prosopis in Ramanathapuram district include absentee landlordism, stray cattle population, abandoning agriculture and poorly managed waterbodies.
I was at Wonderla Chennai. It was my first amusement park as an adult with adults. The rides had long wait rides since it is the holidays.
- I drove back to bangalore at the beginning of the year. Now I am tired of doing long trips, the excitement reduces. Driving in the city has also given me quite a few close calls, it is not a very hopeful future for motorbiking.
I learn of Mehboob Garage [on OSM], one of the few bike mechanic shops in Bangalore that repairs and maintains old enfields. Shreyas’s 2007 Electra (My first introduction to the right-side gearbox) had to have it’s crank’s bearings replaced.
Sylvia Karpagam madam visited us at YNC this week. It was a good conversation, and we got to understand the journey of how the government is now becoming a purchaser not a provider. Read this report on PPP hospitals in india by the Public Health Resource Network, published in 2018.
