The Technobiographies exhibition happened last week. I was very happy with how we have planned out and finished the course. The learners engaged with material behind the Google accessible as a result of some of the work we were doing with making the National Health Mission’s website materials available by search. We used paperless to search a downloaded archive ofover 140 GB of media, documents, excel sheets, which provided rich material. Ofcourse we also used the Legislature Debates archives and the Gazettes archives. ...

Please join us on April 11th, this coming Saturday for a exhibition of the work coming out of the Techno Biographies course. We have been making use of the archives and resources that the Constitutional Observer has built. A Techno-biography of Urban Dengue Surveillance Mechanisms A Techno-biography of e-ASHA and other technologies of the Accredited Social Health Activist I was a few hundred meters from the Sita river in Kundapura, a few kms from the sea…We were walking towards the bank. Somewhere inbetween two cows stood on the path, grazing, held loosely by a man. Us walking seemed to have disturbed one cow’s peace, and was shaking its head mildly. The man pulled the rope, made it move onto the orchard on the side. The cow got down…and then ran. ran like it was frolicking around. This was the first time I’ve seen a cow not run in fear, or force. Where can a cow run? Have you ever seen a cow run? We have only seen them as slow, lazy walkers in the midst of our dusty roads. They eat the decomposing tomatoes from the plastic covers. They do all this with heavy, tired udders. Or they run in fear. Will you let a cow run in joy? It brought me great joy to see it run. ...

Where is your casio, Adhavan? What happened to it? Why have you not looked for it? I have not seen it in a few weeks. There is a new organisation system in my house, but it seems the casio has escaped it. But i’ve not felt like wearing a watch in the same time period. What causes somebody to go through a period of indifference? I am currently indifferent about many things. Like the presence of my casio, I will just assume that it is in my house and move on. I’m not going to search for it. I am not going to wash my shirts, because tee shirts are the only things I am going to wear. I have not felt so indifferent in some time, I hope things get better and there is some direction soon. ...

The most comfortable mornings will begin with the rubbing of the feet. If I don’t immediately open my phone, and don’t remember what awaits to be done that day and jump out, it is a good day. If the rubbing of the feet leads to slowly-opened eye lids looking at the glowing trees outside, and 5 minutes spent like an hour - it is a good morning. But my mornings have been filled with a sense of worry. I do not look forward to sleep, but worry that I sleep too much. The 5 minutes I want to spend, but make it feel like an hour? It becomes an actual, real hour. The real is not so much wonder, but worry of losing it. I look forward to a rubbing-of-the-feet that makes the chest heave with no worry of the future. ...

It was a late night. Everybody had left late. It was a tense day too, wound up in uneven patches of unfinished work. Bidar was also becoming hot and I had not drunk enough water. The morning after, the heaviness of the dinner bears down on me, and the 3 hours of sleep makes my eyes sensitive to the sun. I was unable to focus on one thing, each thing i would do would get interrupted by another action. Drinking water, cleaning the space, planning for the day, reading… There are simply too many possibilities. This feeling was particularly intense after the the sun hazes my sight, it is clear the day has begun, but my mind and body were not ready for it. The uneven patches kept piling on each other, you could resolve in a moment the mass of all the patches present, but you could never say when one patch would end and another would begin to pile in its place. ...

It started with a curiousity to see what the Hesaraghatta grasslands look like… I have been to the dam and the south and western sides… After the conservation reserve notification, i had not been to Hesaraghatta, nor had I seen the northern and western sides. I asked P to join me on her avenger. It was teeth chattering and bladder-squeezingly cold. If any naturalist knows and can name the trees, the plants and knows the history of this western portion of the lake, tell me please! the bed of the reservoir PGs are propping up everywhere Eucalyptus, Agave and cows A borewell on the bed of the reservoir After reading Pookuzhi, I wrote a blog post in Tamil: பூக்குழி நாவலிலிருந்து சில குறிப்புகள் - அரசியல் அமைப்பு சட்டத்தின் அடிப்படையில் (Some notes from the Pookuzhi novel, with the constitution as the basis). I write that much the landscapes and the happenings in the book are new to me, very sharply so… It was a serious lesson that you have to keep reading a language to keep up with the euphemisms, metaphors and even the vocabulary. This printed preamble of the constitution and a rose live together in my topbox for an evening The question that arised from reading Pookuzhi, of the village and why it was not chosen to be the governing unit led me to enquire more. I asked this question to the Constitutional Observer: Why must the village not be the unit of governance? The beginning portion of the EPW article, Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, dated August 10 2002: 1 2 ...

குறிப்பு: தமிழ் படிப்பதை பத்தாம் வகுப்பில் விட்டு ஒன்பது ஆண்டுகளில் விரிவாக எழுதுவது இதுவே. என்னுடிய முதல் தமிழ் நாவலும் ஆகும். பிழைகளோ அல்லது சாதாரணமாக எழுதப்படும் உரைகளில் இருந்து கேலி செய்யும் அளவுக்கு வேறுபட்டால் மன்னிக்கவும். கடலை இதுவரைக்கும் பார்க்காத ஒருவர் புதிதாக நெய்தலின் வாசனையையும் வியர்வையை முதல் முறை உணர்வது போல் எனக்குத் தோன்றுகிறது. சரோஜா எப்படி குமரேசனின் ஊருக்கு வரும் வழியில் எல்லாவற்றயும் புதிதாக அனுபவித்ததாளோ அப்படியே எனக்கும் தோன்றுகிறது சில வரிகளில். இருவரும் காதலிக்கின்றன திருமணம் செய்துகொண்டு ஒருவர் ஊருக்கு ஓடி செல்கின்றன…எத்தனை கேள்விகள்? எத்தனை அவமானங்கள்? அவர் ஊர் மக்கள் ஏற்றுக்கொள்வார்களா? எப்படி எதிர்கொள்கிறார்கள்? அதே தொடக்கமாகும். ...

Sireesh tells me that it is the design of some roads to be lit entirely by the light of commerce. This building, now lights up the entire junction, I capture this photo sitting in a new swanky outdoor cafe. Listening to the grand old trees of Cubbon park. We were in the sun and shade of the trees of Cubbon park one saturday. ...

This white headed grass follows me all the way from Ramnathapuram to Bangalore. This photo was taken in Vellore, of the Ponnai River bed, which joins Palar near Ranipet and joins the ocean below Kalpakkam This week has been a mix of sun and very cold days in bangalore. Abhiram stand in the YNC porch. 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. ...

This blog narrates my 1400km ride, and is photo heavy (meaning it is mostly photos) Time has been on my mind for some time. Particularly the more self-filled time. The time you spend by yourself, the time you spend thinking about yourself, the time you spend on doing things, the time you spend not doing things. Neram is what it is called in Tamil, and neram is fickle. You have to decide what to do in advance, you have to stick by it, you have to stitch it with the importance needed in your mind. Otherwise, neram is no longer yours, it belongs to other people, other happenings, feelings that piggy back onto this neram that never will be yours. ...