Transformation of Eat Street, Sanjaynagar Main Road, Bengaluru

Everyday Stories

EVERYDAY STORIES is a section for one-min videos from YOUR street, YOUR neighbourhood! In his book 'Ways of Seeing' John Berger says "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sunset. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight." In the context of the Indian street corner, we SEE "chaos", we KNOW that some of it are "culture" - the chai stall, the roadside shrine, the tree worship, the collective newspaper reading, the banana leaf seller during Sankranti. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.

Everyday Stories are a set of films depicting simple observations about public space-related activities. These are activities that many of us have observed or sometimes engaged in ourselves and yet paid little attention to them. If each of us contributes a one-min film taken with one's phone camera, perhaps, we can work towards a collective sense-making.

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A Walk Around the Corner

A Walk Around the Corner is a set of films depicting simple observations about everyday activities that many of us have observed or engaged in ourselves and yet paid little attention to.

Chai pe Charcha

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

These are observations from a chai vendor’s stall. While people come here for chai, they also engage in other activities, thus creating a lively space on the street.

Street Stories

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

The film looks at how different people gather at a street corner at different times of the day. In sharing the same space in different ways, street stories are created.

Shade of a Tree

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

This film looks at social and economic activities on the street that happen under the shade of a tree and sometimes because of it.

Stop and Go

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

A simple activity that all of us have done subconsciously. The film looks at the ‘stop & go’ behaviour seen on the Indian street. It is so much a part of our ‘everyday’ that we tend not to think about it. How did these 'threshold spaces' come about in our public realm and why do we need them?

Small, Public Space

A Small, Public Space is a set of films about open spaces along our streets which we may use or pass by everyday and the activities happening in and around these spaces.

Kadma, Jamshedpur

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

This study shows how a small activity can transform the nature of the space and change how it is perceived by users. Earlier, the space was not really cared for. It was seen as being neither very safe nor appealing. However, introducing a simple activity seems to have transformed the entire space in a way no one had imagined!

When we look around, we may come across such small, open spaces which are not being currently used for anything or that are considered unsafe for some reason. This example makes one realise that if one space could be transformed like this, what about other such small spaces?

Adarshnagar, Jamshedpur

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

The importance of having a small, public space within a dense residential neighbourhood is very evident in this example. These spaces act as gathering points for the residents of the neighbourhood.

Whilst the food vending activity seems to anchor the space, it seems flexible enough to accommodate other activities. With rapid urbanisation taking place, how do we create and sustain human activity nodes that can have multiple functionality?

Link Road, Jamshedpur

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

This street is an example of how a public space can be created anywhere. This is a space that is used at all times, it is safe and well-shaded by trees and all of this in the middle of the street!

There are many such spaces around us where small or large stretches of land remain unused or are used for activities such as parking. What can we do to make these spaces more accessible and usable for the public?

Sonari, Jamshedpur

Contributor : Dibyashekhar Bhattamishra
Intern, Everyday City Lab

Nostalgia and personal linkages to a space play a great role in how people use it. This example shows us how such connections between MANY people and ONE space could create an identity for a neighbourhood, community space.

Such connections are not really considered when developments are planned nowadays. Spaces which have had stories around them are being lost in translation. How can the identity and collective memory linked to such informal public spaces be brought into new, planned neighbourhoods?

Citizen Contributions

This section houses contributions by citizens talking about the different activities and situations they have observed in our streets and public spaces.

What Can I Contribute

Why do people so enjoy ‘street as public space’? Share YOUR stories & thoughts with us!

Your observations at the local chai vendor or panipuri vendor around the corner. Tell us the story of your morning walk and what you experience every day. Or the story of how the shade of a tree became that anchor for social interactions in your neighbourhood. Where have you paused for some quick shopping or to meet friends? If you have an interesting story to tell, you can simply capture a quick video [in the landscape format] and share it with others here! These videos can either be edited or raw videos that are one-minute-long walkthroughs of a street or public space.

Share stories of your neighbourhood with a description capturing the everyday activities (like social, cultural, religious, economic etc), the different user groups (children, teenagers, elderly, women, men, vendors, passersby etc.), and any interesting occasional activities (like a festival, celebration etc) that happen in this public space, landmarks in the neighbourhood, memories associated with the space (individual and collective memories), any historically significant incident or story of the development of the place, transformation of space throughout the day or around the year.

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