Trichy

(This blog post took place in mid August, 2011)

Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) is the "Indianapolis" of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. This is to be my first time to actually be in southern India. (Bangalore just doesn't count since its such a mix and Hindi is spoken freely, we'll label it a gateway to the south)


First two images i'll leave to your imagination

I would really like to know what these beautiful banana trunk shavings are for but I was in a hurry and no one was aware of me.

Maybe this is why planners don't let civil engineers make the landscaping decisions?

I spent nearly 5 hours at Anna University of Technology - hosted by their Head of MechE. I think this picture says more about it than I can describe. It was a new set of buildings in the middle of sand with dotted broken machines around it that no one seemed to know what they were (this one was a windmill, but it took awhile for me to convince them that their solar cookers were actually clearly solar distillers).

They kindly pulled out a simple handpump design they made last year using two ball valves and pvc. I saw a similar one in Peru but the person had made the ball valves out of wire and bottle caps so I was less impressed than they had hoped. 

Ah, now the food. Oh man. If you are like me and your protoeolytic environment is conditioned by years of leaving behind piles of animal bones in your wake - spend a few months eating South Indian food and you will never question whether meat is necessary for your food happiness. (Whether it can fully compensate physically and energy-vs-intake I am not sure.)

This, my friends, is a South Indian Thali (meal). That is its name. And it costs 30-70Rs (~1 dollar) pretty much anywhere. Oh, and I should maybe mention, everything you see is unlimited. And that is standard practice. The variety is ingenious, because you'll never get sick of a meal that is broken into so many parts that change all the time. I'm not sure, but I think this may be the pinnacle manifestation of food in our world. I would like to see someone present an argument against that with a contender and a proper pugh chart.

Here is the more simple, common version. This one was 35Rs (the one above was 60Rs). They called it the "half Thalli" but then it was unlimited too. 

And they had a bakery. The first decent bakery I have seen in India. By that I mean it had baked goods - not just biscuits. The ones pictured were not really baked because I misordered. But they were still ok. They actually baked their own breads and had puffy doughy things. It was conveniently along a main bus route.

And as if that wasn't enough, one of the local restaurant/hotels had a week-long every night all-you-can-eat Idli Buffet. Until now, I had thought of idli as only one thing always the same size always tasting the same - white puffy delicious steamed rice and bean puffs. Delicious and one of the few non-greasy commonly available snack foods. This place had 80 different types of Idli. They basically had a big room full of steamed varieties, some wet some dry and then a variety of sauces to choose from.

I had 1/4 idli of all 80, and then chose a couple favorites before waddling out the door. The picture above shows my last serving of some of my favorites.

Big Bang

On the mountain bus from Uttarkhand to Delhi I had great thoughts.

From Delhi, I spun around and flew from Delhi to Bangalore. Swiftly, in chase of organizations that were the leaders in sanitation and water knowledge management in India. Off to Arghyam and the India Sanitation Portal. From there I was headed to the Tiruchirappali and the nexus of leaders in sanitation in Ind- but we'll stay in Bangalore for this post.

Bangalore was where I met Biome. Check out their blog pics. Their office whirs with quiet computers and even quieter voices. They work in the immediate community making beautiful homes out of earth. Its popular in Bangalore - so there is hope for the world to return to earth construction.

Vishwanath, who runs the Rainwater Club and is married to the head of Biome, gave me a tour of his rooftop during his lunchbreak.The bamboo is a model of an ecosan toilet they designed for a coastal disaster area. Bangalore may be the rainwater harvesting capital of the world. And the weather is nice year round.

Then I visited the Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine in search of people knowledgeable on traditional hygiene practice and their views on its role for today.

And sat in a Costa cafe shop while thinking of informative designs for urban survival - like masks that interprets the particles that it traps.

While I was in Bangalore Tiffany called and said that Waste Ventures is having wastecart technical design issues in their pilot solid waste management project in Osmanabad, Maharashtra. So I started taking pictures of all the wastecarts around me (after actually noticing them for the first time too).

I have also been growing a repository of handwash stations around India.

Protopooping at Avani

Back in July I also made use of the space and scraps of Avani's workshop to do some visual prototyping. Good things come from just a few hours. Here are some pics

Is there a simple process to turn a newspaper into a pee-poo bag? Open defecation is a big deal in India, it is socially accepted and lots of money is going into stamping it out. Pooping in the open is not a bad thing in itself - but it has bad characteristics - like safety and hygienic living conditions. I spent sometime putting in material some ideas on paper. Making the poop was informative itself.

This is the goomnay concept - the thing you would want to take with you if you were open defecating. Self personalization is visually added into the picture above. it is carried on a strap. Different versions like the one above and below were played with to just see what form might come out.

Hard to see, but this is a portable bidet concept. Design is possible and I think I am the only one I know who thinks it is worth pursuing.

I also took apart a (fallen) banana trunk since it is a source of natural waterproofing - trunk and leaves.  For waterproofing we turn to hydrocarbons - is there really no other good options?

The bucket tap - this is a promising concept i think. How to make a simply tap that draws water for washing hands and feet from an open bucket no matter what shape the bucket it is.

Avani happens to make their own soap from boiling Ritha or soapnut. I collected some to do some testing when possible.

Visualizing a standalone wash basin for places where water is not available. So what is stored up top is released and filtered through sand and then can be manually pumped back up. Made with railway living conditions in mind - a common defecation site where water is not to be found.

The most relevant outcome from this session was a motivation to further the concept of something that combines characteristics of the Bucket Tap and the Goomnay. It can stand on its own to deliver water driven by gravity and it can have other compartments to store other things.

Prototyping on your own (or with two curious kids) is a bit like walking back and forth up a spiral staircase trying to decide which way to go, accelerating in direction and speed but not really aware of what the weather is like outside. And no one was there to remind me to eat dinner either.

Homestay in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand is a state in India - formerly called Uttaranchal and  formerly a part of the state Uttar Pradesh, which Agra is in. India offers interesting examples of how names and boundaries have marked the formal recognition of gradual formation of state identity. Thus making it easier for ignorant ones like myself to get a superficial understanding of how long it has taken for this process to take in different parts of the country.

The first stop I made in India after returning from the US (mid-July 2011) was in the foothills of the Himalayas. I went to vist an NGO that MIT students at DLab work with every year. I was in search of 2 things:

1. To witness personally how hygiene is practiced today in a pristine rural, naturally resource-rich part of India.
2. Find space and tools for first round of prototyping hand hygiene enabling technologies

The stay was only 10 days but it was quite successful at accomplishing those 2 goals.

I did a brief homestay with someone who works with the NGO Avani. His home is a 3 hour walk, (and no alternatives to legs) out of Berinag, India. The walk winding through streams and pine trees, loosely tying the occasional dwelling to each others' doorsteps.

It was a beautiful time and place. It was a nice Brahmin family  living on great land along a clear stream. The oldest son was called Aditya Pant, and looked strikingly like the Aditya Pant from Panch.

The family lives a very hygienic lifestyle. As Brahmins they also still observe religious practices at home. They have lots of water, built a toilet, maintain a perennial garden all around there house of vegetables to complement their rice crops. They have space to roam, outside and inside their homes. The daily routines of the mothers are very tied to maintaining everything clean, and for the men their hygiene seemed more tied with religious practice.

The men and women of this family worked side by side - weeding, cleaning and cooking. Not sure why such distinct seperation of roles has developed different elsewhere, in much more 'developed' parts of India.

Pictures from the US visit

I posted a few pictures from 2 events while I was in the US: Nick's Wedding and the Wiese's garage cleaning.

They can be seen at https://picasaweb.google.com/abtalsma

Also, I have internet for the first time consistently in awhile so I will be putting random thoughts on a new different 'micro'blog,  as well as gradually updating this blog with all the things I did awhile ago but havent put up.