Where feminist theory comes out to play, where the ism itself is gloriously complicated in the actual living of lives; radical, messy, round shapes in square holes. We look at collectives, communities, protests, articulations of self and everyday, paying attention to seasons and emotions, finding the feminist cosmos in raindrops.
I don’t know what time of day it will be when you get this letter, but whenever you do, please sit under the branch that hangs over your balcony. And read it there. You have tall buildings before you – colonies of concrete – and banners and billboards that talk about the development of the city. But, perhaps, that branch will help you feel a little bit of what I have felt in the jungle.
This is the story of a love story that has a brother, a sister and a smartphone. One of them dies. The story has a river of fire, which a true lover must drown in, in order to prove his love. And if you like connecting the dots, there’s also Sita, eulogised for her purity, which she proved in an agni pareeksha.
Abhishek Anicca is a part of the Travel Log Programme with The Third Eye for its City Edition. The Travel Log programme mentored thirteen writers and image makers from across India’s bylanes, who reimagine the idea of the city through a feminist lens.
Jayasree Kalathil’s career began with her doctoral research in critical humanities and almost right away became involved in the earliest forms of mental health advocacy in India. She was the founding editor of Aaina, the first Indian newsletter dedicated to mental health advocacy.
Tribal Health Initiative (THI) was started in 1992 by Dr. Regi George and Dr. Lalitha Regi. Medical graduates from Alappuzha, Kerala, the two backpacked across India in the early ’90s to look for a place that could use them most. They reached Sittilingi, a land of hills and Malavasis (‘Hill People’), with an infant mortality rate of 150, the highest in India.
Dr. Ture volunteers with the YuMetta Foundation and has been working with Shaheed Hospital in Chhattisgarh since 2019. In his interview with The Third Eye, he shares his insights about decentralised and community-driven health models and processes.
An ASHA worker explains how the rethinking of her role inside the public health system would wildly improve her life as well as that of the community.
Ashish Kothari, an activist who has been studying ecological and development alternatives his whole life, talks about the communities that stayed safe during the pandemic. He has been a powerful force in ecological and social equity decades before they were buzzwords in India.
“At 11 pm, a girl from Lucknow called for an oxygen bed for her relatives. I forwarded all the verified leads I had and was searching for more. She said a few numbers are switched off, or not working, or they don’t have beds anymore.
“Stay at home, stay safe. Just chill out at home, everyone told us,” murmur many young women in long distance phone calls, voice notes and Whatsapp messages, tenuous lines keeping us together during lockdown.
