Explorations with maps

I have been noticing closed wells in the city, and I wonder how differently these neighbourhoods were, when these borewells were initially constructed. A borewell, somewhere SFS 208, Yelahanka New Town I wrote about my ‘zest-lessness’ and my escapes with karmoda in biking to escape I drove to Chennai for what else would I be upto in bangalore? The new highway is empty, and the Satellite Twon Ring Road is helpfull. I can reach Yelahanka faster in the city than reach Annanagar in Chennai after I enter the city. The Poonamallee - Maduravoyal - Koyambedu stretch can be hot! ...

Chithhapa and L who had forgotten to bring her chappal In Akkaraipatti, I was visiting to have lunch with relatives who had prayed and sacrificed to Muniyappan in a Muniyappan Kovil by the bank of the Thirumanimuthhar (pronounced thiru-mani-muthh-aaru). My Chithhappa and his kid took us to show the river a bit more downstream from the Temple. I saw so many wells this side of Mallasamudram, that I’ve never noticed inside the Town. The Town is largely filled with weaving occupations, something I note with Paavadis in Weekly Note 15. Flowing to the brim and to the brim it has flowed for the past few years. It carries the sewage of Salem City and joins the Kavery later above Karur Another Muniyappan Kovil near the banks, I wonder how so many are there close to each other A well near the river, full with the rains. 1. The Muniyappan temple. 2. Photograph of Chithhapa and L. M says that all across the region, Kelangu, Rice etc have been replaced by Coconut in the last 50 years. Notice the scale of the Orchard east of the river. The Kaveri has apparently had the same happen upstream as well Driving back from Mallasamudram, I chose to forego and go visit Mettur. The initial plan was to enter Karnataka through Malai Mahadeshwara Betta, Kollegal and Kanakapura, but that would have made me very late, so I just chose to visit Mettur. I’ve never been there, but was surprised by how industrial the town is. ...

Bangalore has its skies returned from the kala of the karmodas. They will come back soon. Aruvu had its annual meeting, Aruvu turned a year sometime in April. It was a weekend of parties, of new homes and of new years. I have not danced this much in a year nor have I slept so well in many weeks. ...

It drizzled for sometime. It was cold for sometime and it was clear for sometime. It was an all pleasant evening all along from Channapatna to Nelamangla to Yelahanka this saturday. I had the privilege of maps that allowed me to take long, thin windy roads on hillocks and downhill from villages onto valleys. The jasmine tree in front of Aruvu fell 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. ...

I would shudder intensely as soon as I started, the shudder would pass down to my karmoda’s handle - only a small moment of instability and then I would pick up speed back again. In the last 250 kms to Bangalore after Anantpur, I must have stopped atleast 4 times to drink some tea to warm myself up, but everytime, I would shut off the engine, think for a minute if i really wanted to open my luggage for that would wet my devices. Reaching home faster was more important - I would decide to ride away again, starting with shudders and then getting into the groove with the wet wind. ...

I drove on my bike to Bidar from Yelahanka. I reached Bidar as midnight came. The moon had just been covered by clouds, and I’d driven into the quiet of the city, even more quieter when on the new Humnabad Highway, which was just me, another car and a satisfying amount of reflectors on the lane markings. I started at 6 in the morning from Yelahanka, and by the end of the journey had been driving for 18 hours, with a few long stops inbetween to skip the mid-day heat of the Deccan. ...

This past week has been tiring and filled. I’ve realised that I need to consciously seek out my free time, my aspirations and my imaginations. I realise this in the background of feeling all over the place in the amorphous sphere of what is the professional and the personal. I also realise that personal desires and validation may not come from what is a moral value you place on something. I can place moral value in something that I do, but does it excite me? I’m not sure. Not always. This ofcourse comes from the great privilege of being able to do what excites me for work and life and get paid for it. ...

[17/04, 18:54] Adhavan: Sabi dream aur uska realisation ke madhya mein sarkar… Hmm [17/04, 18:57] Adhavan: Pyaar ko bhi… Maut ko bhi I finally got my bike, I wrote this to a dear friend a few days into waiting for the bike to pass layers of government. Registration, transport, realising how much of the bike was just taxes, RTO’s weird requests of ID cards: An aadhar and a ration card and many more anxieties…amidst and after all of this, I got my bike. I do not wish to write about the feeling of riding my bike around. It appears more reductive than speech to write, and less real than simply driving or sharing the ride with you, the reader and the future retrospector who might read the archives of my weeks. ...

தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்…ஜெய் பீம் Happy Ambedkar Jayanthi. Jai Bhim. Happy Tamil New Year. This week has been entirely spent on a dream that refuses to be realised. Howmuchever I attempt to make it real, the world acts like a parent wanting to teach me patience, hiding it away for a few days, then not giving it to me. I’ve spent many moments of this week thinking about ambition and the wish to be driven… to be both the driver and the driven. I remember the pleasure and happiness of finishing off my mother’s Aviyal - right after I returned having known weightloss from my NCC camp. I remember having known the feeling of passing 12th standard, without failing any subject - I’ve never felt liberation like that after. There have been other kinds of weightlessness - of sunset after a light day, or in the lap of a lover on a September evening. How are these related to being driven? I think you need hope to really be driven, and I think I’ve let myself lose simple hope and the promise of pleasure in the everyday. ...

These past 2 weeks have been a blur. I was in Chennai for the weekend, learning a lot about the city and being accused of not knowing enough about the city I grew up in, which triggered a lot of thoughts on my own feelings about my lived experiences in the city. I’ve also dreamed very less this week: of the everyday and of the faraway, for it looks like what drives enthusiasm in me by dreaming outside of the everyday. I wish no lower respect for the mundane. I think not less of the just-rained air in my lungs everyday in the summer. Nor do I want less of company and friendship everyday. But it seems I have made it a habit to not think of just the day ahead. I do not remember dreaming for the evenings while at breakfast. I do not remember salivating for a good dinner on a regular day. These dreams never emerge early enough for me to enjoy the shower, they always turn up at 9pm, when my stomach and mouth are ready to consume anything with some texture. I must cultivate this habit of dreaming for the day… for i fear being absolute and bland regret. What is a life where one cannot remember having dreamed nor having acted upon them… Ripe jackfruits have been falling on the yard at yelahanka nodal center. We’ve had the pleasure of spending our leisure in the company of red ants feeding on them. As an adult it is scary to take large financial decisions. Especially those which stem from large dreams. It is also much scarier when it is not a shared dream, with a person, a partner, parents, friends or a community. In tangent to what I talk early in March 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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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

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

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

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. ...