a special edition. six years of reading the world, and the question that stopped me.

last week i wrote about people. just people.

this week, i had to look at the eyes i see them with.

this monday, my mentor gave homework.

write down how you know what you know.

i thought it would take ten minutes. it took me six years back.

so this is a special edition. longer than usual. it is the whole map of how i learned to see the world.

where it started

it started with my cousin brother.

he explained engineering to me in simple words. words i could hold.

after that i started reading on my own, in a way i could understand. nobody asked me to.

the soviet union

the first door was russia.

how the soviet union was formed. how it collapsed.

the space race. vostok, the mission that sent the first human into space. i can still recall the names of the operations.

from there i read about the kgb, russia's spy agency. then mossad, israel's.

then world war I and world war II.

in school i never cared about europe. now i could not stop reading about it.

the north

then the vikings.

the people of norway and the lands around it. how they lived. what they believed. i saw my own culture in them. it amazed me.

ragnar lothbrok, the legend of the north.

then king alfred the great, who fought the vikings for england. that is how i learned how britain came to be.

humanity

then i went deep into one question. how do humans behave when everything falls apart?

more than 600 episodes of series. the 100. zombie shows. before the collapse, during it, after it.

america

then how america became the power it is.

cuba. vietnam. japan. north korea and south korea.

the berlin wall. i still remember that story.

how germany rebuilt after the wars with american money, and paid it back.

the middle east

then afghanistan, and what america did in the middle east.

how saudi arabia and dubai became so rich. america promising to protect them, in return for oil and money.

the taliban. the pakistani taliban. iran. the iraq war. turkey…

africa

then africa.

the wars there. what europe did there.

the terrible things that happened to african people.

i am still sad about it.

closer home

india and pakistan. always tense.

i read how america supported pakistan, even when terror grew there.

the many times india was let down on the world stage.

the last four years

russia and ukraine, with belarus in the middle. i followed it closely for four years.

i read about places in europe where a bigger group and a smaller group live side by side, and fight. two bloodlines, one land.

now israel, iran and palestine. that one made me think a lot.

i started asking: what does right wing mean? what does left wing mean?

the ship

there is a tv series called the last ship. about a us navy ship and its weapon systems. i watched it more than five times. every part of that ship. a crew trying to save the last of humanity

it took me all the way to the SSB, the selection interview for the indian navy. i attempted it.

the lens i was born into

all of that was one lens. power. money. security. everything connected. everything had a logic.

but there was another lens. an older one.

the war in sri lanka, where so many tamils died, broke my heart.

then amma's stories. the cholas, the cheras, the pandyas, the old tamil kingdoms. ponniyin selvan. tamil pokkisham, a youtube channel on tamil history.

my community. the people i grew up with. its values, its beliefs. right or wrong, it taught me how to see people.

this year, the tamil songs and stories keep coming back to one story. a 1000 years since rajendra chola's ships sailed across the sea to southeast asia. it kept me thinking all year.

india's long story

then i look at india.

around 800 years of wars and empires, from the delhi sultanate to the mughals.

around 200 years under the british.

then 1947.

after that, people got education. and with education, people started to question the system.

who created this system?

in a democracy, the people's voice matters.

i watch people protest in france, in germany, across europe. their voices rising.

i also watch the richest man in the world say something, and people believe it.

so what do we believe? and do we question ourselves while we believe it?

where i stopped

now i work in the development sector.

i can still connect almost anything to the power lens.

but there is one thing it cannot explain.

why do people come out to protest? what triggers them? what are they feeling?

that is where i stopped.

i started questioning my epistemology. a big word. it only means: how do i know what i know?

whose worldview am i carrying? where did i get it from?

last weekend i caught myself thinking exactly like a youtuber i follow. his lens had become my lens. i did not notice it happening.

this whole week, i sat with that.

now i ask myself three questions.

where did i learn this?

who sees it differently?

did i stay long enough to understand them?

i know it is very hard.

what isdm asks of me

at isdm, where i studied development management, my learning keeps asking me to question myself. a lot.

through every lens. gender. community. caste. religion. region. privilege and the lack of it. what feels possible and what does not.

in school, i read about bhagat singh and acted his story on stage. he taught me to question with reason. do not believe something just because someone says it.

but believe people.

do not hate people. the story they tell is what they saw. what they lived.

question yourself. believe people.

my question to siva

i also have a question for lord siva.

you made everything. you did everything. then why does this happen?

my question to him is strong and quiet.

accepting myself

right wing, left wing. i see both sides.

logic and what logic cannot explain. rules that hold everywhere, and rules that do not. both.

i am accepting myself.

still, humanity lives somewhere.

what i am learning now

i am now a bricoleur fellow at isdm. a bricoleur works with students to make their learning journey easier. every day, we learn together.

these are the lines i am carrying from the last two months.

learning is loops, not leaps. we expect people to apply things in one jump. it takes many rounds.

every room has power in it. a good facilitator lets it move, instead of holding it.

when someone shares what they learned from their own life, that is real knowledge. i can honour it, or i can quietly rewrite it into my story. i am learning to notice which one i am doing.

quality is not always mine to decide. if i push for it, i ask whose need it is. mine or theirs.

say "i don't know." my mentor told me to say it twenty times in front of a mirror, in tamil, hindi and english. i am still practising.

we are not neutral. we should not pretend to be. write your lens down, and you can put it aside.

what i am doing now

we are starting action research in the fellowship.

i am practising it on myself first.

so i write my beliefs down before i listen. it is called bracketing. you write your lens down so you can let it go.

i carry a notebook now. every conversation gets a date, a time, what was said, and what i was thinking.

no fixed answer. no problem picked in advance. just listening, and waiting for the real question to come.

i am learning to walk before i check the map.

one idea i read this week

a paper by tekin and kotaman (2013) on how action research knows what it knows.

it says action research never really ends. people change, problems change, so the work keeps changing.

their line: it is like tailoring a dress while you are wearing it, because you are changing.

back to people

last week, people. just people.

this week, how i see them. and where i learned to see them that way.

question yourself. believe people.

one question for you

where did you learn what you believe? and did you stay long enough with someone who sees it differently?

be kind, help people, trust muruga.