The day began with us walking to Bangalore Cantonment Railway Station, as we set out for our next task—a "spot fix" coordinated by The Ugly Indian, a non-profit that believes that if your city is unclean, it is up to you, the citizen, to take charge of it.
Anirudh, the coordinator, divided us into groups and delegated the tasks of rubbing and scrubbing the walls and footpaths, and finally painting them. We painted it a terra cotta color because it is not affiliated with any political parties here (especially with the tense situation here just subsiding) and to camouflage paan spitting.
Painting a wall in the middle of a busy city that stops for no one is a contrasting situation. Having lived in Bangalore for the last thirteen years, I learned to be in a hurry at all times, even during times that I could take a back seat. I had to repeatedly tell myself to take a deep breath and paint at my own pace.
Soon enough, journalists began to flock around our site. Someone from a local news channel interviewed our Minnesotan friends, Aruna, and I, and hey—we were on TV!
After the spot fix, we had a heavy lunch of rice, dal, and beef curry. It was a very tiring day already but my group and I sat out to make an empathy map for our project.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Yogi-sthaan. The ambience was homey and quiet. We were to take our shoes off before we got in. We were most excited about the hammock and the big, fluffy husky called Messi.
It was yet another productive day for the Acara team.
-Anjana M.
