David Stairs
“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Gone, but not forgotten (image courtesy of Deepa Mohan)
Although the idea of reincarnation may have arisen independently in several places, India is justly famous as the land that most fully embraced the concept. All of the major Indian religious traditions embrace some form of the idea…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I thought I knew trucks. After all, growing up in America, land of monster 56′ long behemoths, every boy wants to be a truck driver at some point. I vividly remember a trip along Interstate 80, the most intense truck route in the U.S.,… Continue Reading →
Sumandro
“Commons are forms of direct access to social wealth; access that is not mediated by competitive market relations.”
– Massimo De Angelis, The New Commons in Practice: Strategy, Process and Alternatives, Development, 2005, 48(2), 48-52
Men gathering cattle fodder,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I thought it was malaria. I had all the symptoms: headache, chills, fatigue, fever, sweats, dry cough. My first three weeks in country I’d been living near a swamp, and the incubation period seemed right. No matter that Bangalore is not in a malarious zone,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“Indians do not have the same civic sense as, say, Scandinavians. The boundary of the space you keep clean is marked at the end of the space you call your own.”
—from Maximum City by Suketu Mehta
The Commons are a topic of concern to contemporary Indians…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Anantapura Road
Demarcating property lines, that most European activity, has taken over the world. When I was a child in the ’50s, the adjoining backyards of my neighborhood were open. I remember running with my friends through the neighborhood like wild horses,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Cement trucks parked along Doddaballapur Road
Every environment has its signature building material. In Africa, rammed earth and thatch were, for centuries, the default until they gave way to bricks and mortar. I’ve always thought of North America as the wood construction capital of the universe,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Editor’s Note: With this posting we launch our Indian Journal category of D-A-P
India. For over thirty years, ever since seeing Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy in the 70’s, I’ve dreamed of being here…. Continue Reading →
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