The Commune: On memories
Dear Friends, A friend and I were talking about traditions and rituals recently as one does during many new year celebrations (Bihu, Vishu, Tamil new years), Easter and Eid from a few weekends ago. I was remarking to her that growing up in Hyderabad meant that Ramzan was a special time of the year for me.…
The Commune: On shifting perspectives
Dear Friends, Do you have books that you have found yourself returning to again and again? One of my favorites is The Little Prince. I can’t really remember at what age I first came across it, suffice to say that even as I am at the cusp of my 40th year I still hold dear this book and…
The Commune: Root Systems for the New Year
Dear Friends, As we made turn another turn around the sun, I found myself sitting with the question: what do I want to carry into the New Year? Every year, I find myself feeling the tug of having to set some sort of resolution. Big, small, whether I choose to disclose it or not, there is…
The Commune: Pause and reflect
Dear friends, Earlier this year, I moved from a slightly busy, roadside house into a quieter, greener house. I found a corner of the house with a view of trees, with visiting birds to place my work desk. I wanted to be able to look out and see open spaces during the day. Initially I…
The Commune: Living with the wild
Dear Friends, As I sat down to write on this month’s theme of wilderness in the city, I decided to take a moment and close my eyes to consider just what would pop into my head. As it turned out, it was a surprising lot! Images of dark sinuous cobras in my Bangalore backyard; the…
The Commune: A wild-like refuge
Dear Friends, Last month, I signed up for a walk in my neighbourhood—Mumbai Overstory: A Tree Walk led by @sananda_mukho. As our group of 6 slowly meandered along the bylanes of Bandra, Sananda stopped to draw our attention to the shape of a leaf, the musculature of the trunk of a gulmohar, the seed pod of the red…
The Commune: Reframing adolescent mental health
Dear friends, When the pandemic began in 2020 – now what seems like ages ago, I noticed that all the children in my building were initially excited by the sudden change in their schedules. Their school days were shorter and remote, and they were mostly at home. But as the days, months went by, their restlessness…
The Commune: Reclaiming Home
Dear Friends, In the early days of my first job with a Bangalore based NGO that worked on urban ecology and development issues, I remember asking the founder why he chose to do the work he did. It was a small organisation with limited resources. Often each of us, its few employees working on small…
The Commune: All Around Us
Dear Friends, I was on a call yesterday where there were many people from different parts of the country. Each of us spoke a bit about what we were witnessing around us. In some places there was extreme heat, like not experienced before. In another there were heavy storms with severe uprooting of trees and a lot of…
The Commune: Systems of Care
Dear friends, I went to a public hospital, a few weeks ago. Spread over a hefty acreage one would imagine that this old hospital was once spacious, therapeutic and open with sprawling trees and chirping birds. When I visited though there was a constant honking of too many vehicles lined up bumper to bumper and…
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