These 15 years for Daily Dump have been possible because of so many folks who have participated, helped and inspired us. Here they take out time from their busy schedules to say a few words about our work.

Starting this series is Geetha Narayanan, the visionary educator and institution builder of Bangalore. She founded the Mallya Aditi International School, Srishti School of Art Design and Technology and so many other projects. I have been fortunate to have learnt so much from her and I am forever grateful for the years we spent together.

Over to Geetha –

________________________________

The Seed, the Sapling and then the Trees- Abundance from Simplicity

Sustainability too is a meme- a virus that is being propagated without much meaning and yet it remains one of this decade’s more powerful ideas. Within the gamut of sustainability lies another meme- a virus whose time perhaps has come thanks to the pandemic- that of slowness, of doing things at the timescale of nature and not the metronome of the mechanical clock. As we enter the third decade after the millennium there remain few examples of caring, creating and celebrating life, the living and building abundance for Dharithri – our Mother Earth.

This is what Daily Dump has done - gone beyond the meme of slowness or even of sustainability, created platforms for artisans and supported local livelihoods, celebrated aesthetic forms routed in the “unknown craftsmen” of our times and make it possible for the everyday housewife, the micro-business community and others to rejoice and create the “black gold” of compost.

Our own compostwali Poonam Kasturi took the seed and grew many saplings and generated forests or fields that grow on this black gold. It was done with the ease of vision, the clarity of design thinking and the ability to be light and exact in merging the vision with the artifact or the process. I am so happy that I have been there from the beginning – when Poonam first sensed the idea or the seed to now when she has grown into a movement that is inspiring the world.

May her storytelling grow and let this enterprise prosper into its next decade and in that time let us wish for its message and value to create within ourselves the energy to rebuild our soil, change our methods of “growing” and make life, a living reality for the planet and not just for the people who inhabit it.

Thank you Geetha for all your support and vision.