Weekly notes 12

I realise how far I am away from real things. Physical things. Things that give me joy. I never touch the road that carries my punctured cycle except when I fall. I never have to till the soil that gave me my soya chunks. I mostly never touch my wet waste. And I’m very far away from owning a piece of motor and two wheels that will accelerate me far away from the city on the weekends. ...

March 23, 2025 · Adhavan

Weekly notes 10

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. ...

March 8, 2025 · Adhavan

Weekly notes 9

A community network in Hara, Idur Kunjyadi, Kundapura Taluka. Beaches, crabs, maps blogging.

March 2, 2025 · Adhavan

Weekly notes 6

Big feelings that are rememberable, Aruna Roy’s memoir, Kalyana Karnataka Karawaan, the many words to describe settlements in Tamil and how that reminds me of wells in Bidar

February 9, 2025 · Adhavan

Weekly notes 3

Mapping Wells, Maps that exaggerate, Babri Masjid, Basavakalyan, Public memory after 1992.

January 18, 2025 · Adhavan

Weekly notes 1 and 2

My first weekly notes - The Constitutional Observer, RTIs, Veganism, Chennai Book Fair and others.

January 12, 2025 · Adhavan

Maps that are vessels of content, not the boring cartography of the digital age

I came across Maps of Uncomfortable Boundaries / Atlas of My World by Zarina at the Kochi Biennale. I would like to narrate my immediate set of thoughts, or observations, as a way to argue that maps are not simply representations but also vessels that contain, the visual nature by nature. Atlas of My World, 2001, six woodcuts with Urdu text printed in black on handmade Indian paper, sheet size 65 x 49.5 cm, edition of 20, © Zarina, courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Found from http://www.thirdtext.org/zamindar-zarina I immediately notice the Urdu text on the map. How often have I seen non-English text on India? Or on America, which traps my attention even more. The sheer visual quality of the map, with its obvious focus on the crude line that goes beyond the borders, semiotically represents more in weight and narration than any straight and clean line on a map or a word seemingly can. The handwritten, non-standardised text, also non-anglical text also narrates more. ...

December 2, 2023 · Adhavan