Picture This …
You meet a friend who has just come to India for work now, and is hoping to settle down into its quirks. Their research work entails traversing the country-town continuum and interacting with people across.You have to give them something which helps them get started.
Can you think of what or where you will point them to?
Chabutra Hopes To Become That Space
A Chabutra refers to a resting place, found across nooks and corners of India, where people meet to do what is called “time pass”. But this is exactly where the many stories of India brews, alongside some chai.
Why Should These Stories Be Told
For the sake of relatedness. For the sake of representation. For the sake of pluralism. For the sake of inquiry. For the sake of wisdom
How Frequently Will They Appear
We are not in a hurry, because this is not a race to win. The journey matters, and we hope that there would neither be clutter, nor long silences
What Will Be The Narrative Style
Ethnograph, blog, podcast, book, comic strip, photo story, illustration, data, audio-visuals, in-person workshops, human libraries…
M. N. Srinivas, an expert, points to a difference between an Indian studying Indians as against a ‘foreigner’. The same cultural universe between the two suggests that the study is never truly of the ‘other’, but of the self-in-the-other.
These are stories by everyday Indians, about Indians, from across the length and breadth of the country.
One Of The First Efforts
… has been a quarterly graphic periodical. Each volume has 5 stories and fun stuff like offbeat recipes, word games, about beliefs & folklores, and doodle-along grids. This is a great way to build habit amongst adolescents to re-ignite love for the physical book, while also increasing their IQ – India Quotient!
Chabutra 