The middle portion of the laterite bricks were melting onto the next. The laterite here was already slippery, but smooth steps going down into the well? I was scared, so I held onto the sides and attempted to find newer bricks that were placed here and there. This is a well in Bekal, Kasargode. In 48 hours, I had felt the salt of the Arabian Sea, the sand that is its companion, the rain and the mountains that lead to it. I had heard birds of the western ghats in their daily routines, the morning, the hot afternoon and in the nights. I had heard the crushing sea, the sweet diesel exhaust of trucks climbing and being stuck in traffic jams in the ghats of Sakleshpura, and the morning rain in Kasargode. ...

The over head metro tracks beside the airport expressway have never seen a train, but they already have water flowing all over them. It flows all over, over the bumps of the cast concrete, curving like the concrete does, but deciding where to fall. We were stuck for over 20 minutes My father asks me about the tone of my talk at IndiaFOSS last week. The imagery, the political perspectives and the choice of examples, are all things he pointed out to have been somewhere inbetween being direct, and a slippery, unclear direction. Neradiyavum sollala, ennavo solla vara, aana maluppura… There is concern, why need I talk about all of this? I realised that I use big words that act as euphemisims/placeholders for more direct speech. I like to say ‘context’, I like to end sentences with enquiries and questions rather than certain statements. With all of this in mind, I saw 12th Fail and Homebound on the same day. They are both good movies within their efforts and both feel very real - with simple, clear scenes in language that does not attempt to assess or require much esoteric thinking. My mother said this out aloud: that for all the accessibility I advocated for, the language itself was not accessible. Greens in a small truck with their roots hanging out, they also wait with us, along with all the other vehicles stuck in traffic Shoaib and Chandan in Homebound talk with an interesting mix of words, I learn that it is called Lakhnawi Tehzeeb, ‘~ Lucknowhi Culture’. One uses ‘hum’ instead of ‘mera’ to talk in first person, along with a general difference I noticed in their zubaan, ‘~ language’. I found this blog of anecdotes of Lakhnawi Tehzeeb a nice read. ...

S asks: ‘Am I in the clouds? because I can’t see it’. A question that I find myself lost in. I can’t put my finger on it, but it is a beautiful question. You can see when you are not in the clouds, I think. I will spend countless seconds thinking about this. Me, S and N had biked to a betta in Chintamani, we walked where only donkeys and sheep seemed to have, and touched water that only caterpillar poop seemed to have touched. On the way to Channapatna from Ramnagara, there is the Kengal Aanjaneya temple, where the women of Manesiri had put up a stall Turtles in the temple pond I noticed a few months ago that MS Palya is Mohammed Sab Palya, on the plaque at the circle. The MS Palya - Vidyaranyapura - Attur - Yelahanka appears clearly segregated along religious and class lines. Mosque and meat shops on one side, and narrow streets and small homes are clustered far away from streets with cars and sidewalks and wide buildings. A street close to the MS Palya junction At the junction I’ve not run as much as last week. But I am happy that the desire to run has not reduced. Waking up earlier has also given a sense of comfort in what i’ve begun to establish as routines. At the Doddabommasandra kere. From a run. Left. At the Doddabommasandra kere. From a run. Right. Citthiram Pesuthdai, is my third film in attempting to close read Mysskin’s films. I watched Anjaathey and Yuddham Sei before this. His characters are so complicated, that they are real, they are true, and represent moral dillemas that would turn my gut, like he intends them to. Save my sister or the young boy whose sister was raped and killed? Marry the love of my life or let her know that her widowed father used to visit sex workers? I am dumbstruck by the moral spine that these characters show in all their fibrously grey writing, and Mysskin has earned a fan. Sangeetha shared that she is a fan of Mysskin’s films, which led me to watch these Anjaathey Yuddham Sei Citthiram Pesuthadi I learnt that the cult popular song Vaalameenukkum Vilangumeenukum, a song that I’ve never spent time listening to the lyrics of, but i’ve heard for all the years of my life…is from Citthiram Pesuthadi… https://youtu.be/PMi42cz5j2U ...

We let ourselves be carried by a full stomach’s tug. It was a cheery sunday morning after breakfast in Ulsoor. Like a broad piece of paper in the wind, we swayed through a few streets of Indiranagar, two friends of mine and me. We came across this fallen tree or what looks like 4 or 5 trees that have blended their lives together. This phenomenon is apparently called inosculation by botanists, or as this blog puts it - love trees. I’ve seen many trees fallen and trunkless in this monsoon. Their fates parched of a future by our love - concrete. This week, Aman and Vivek’s work with the Censor Board Certifactes, brought Vivek to archiving Censor Certificates on Archive.org. This prompted me to suggest that we archive Lok Sabha records outside of the state owned site. This was a few reasons: They are vulnerable sitting within silos, and can often disappear when administrations change or modify digital locations. They sit in silos and are not available as indexed material to search and find, and thus do not contribute to public knowledge easily. Old LS debates pre 70’s are not reliably available…This prompted Vivek to start archiving both the LS recordsand began looking at Vidhan Sabhas (State Assemblies). Starting with Karnataka, Kerala and theKarnataka State Archives. This prompted me to look at the TN legislative Assembly records. Did you know that TN has a unicamarel parliament? There is noupper sabha…no RS, no legislative council. You can see this happening here: at my profile. Vivek says that the Archive.org API can be better documented, upload speeds appear slow and collections can only be created by Admin. ...

Harsha captions a photo of himself: “Bhed ki sath bakra jaaraha” A huge cast-iron weighing scale to weigh logs A telephone pole appears to use an old cast-iron bollards/posts A family of pigs sleep near a nali and a natural drain. The Bidar City is building drains (hybrid as somebody coined it, both drainage and rainwater use the same drain here) to flow into this natural drain I have been facinated with Ram’s films. I have not liked a director so much to follow their trajectory so far. From Kattradhu Tamil and Taramani to Peranbu and Parandhu Po (both of which I watched this week). I will passionately wait to encounter some of these characters in my life. There is great care, love and patience in many of his characters. Some things I hope to be, some things that I hope nature bestows on me. ...

Release poster of Kattradhu Tamil Release poster of Taramani I watched Kattradhu Tamil, a film by director Ram. The last film of his I watched somehow troubled me less, for it had a unserious thread between the others that was being woven. Taramani but by no lesser means was equally troubling (It missed my then week’s note for some reason), and I am unable to place why women appear to be the intersectional victims of his commentary on globalisation, gentrification, and capitalism that appear in both films. I wonder what childhood memory I carry at all for me to remember in the hands of a person, like Ananthi appears to be for Prabhakaran. There is so much tragedy in Kattradhu Tamil, tragedy that numbs people, tragedy that makes people go crazy. I do not know if it is a tragedy that Ananthi and the Tamil Vaathiyar were the only love that he has had, so much that Prabhakaran goes in search of Ananthi to Savergaon (unclear if this is a real village), Sangamner, close to Pune. Or, I do not if it is more a tragedy to not have a someone to go in search of. Atleast in the end, Ananthi and Prabhakaran both found each other to go in search of Tony together… I wonder what the circumstances of the family were in Acchankovil for them to migrate all the way to a remote village in Maharashtra. Was this informed by a real account? I also wonder what schools were like in summer holidays then. For the tamil teacher to have stayed for just one student… and for a relationship to have been like that… No such relationship could exist now I think…but maybe, I hope that they do. ...

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. ...

I’ve never read a novel quite like the Grapes of Wrath, it is set in Dust Bowl America, both the period and the geography. It describes and paints the market system we live in with such simple, gory detail, that it is haunting. It is a story I would rather not attempt to write about when it still occupies my mind so amorphously. For the time being, I quote from it: Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. ...

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. ...