Day 3 - Sunday 12th Nov

Submitted by Claire Carpenter on November 14, 2006 - 18:59.

Today was the weekend, and we had half a ‘free day’ to play with. For Michelle, Julie, Ciara and myself though, this meant an exciting day shopping for fabrics down one of Mysore’s main retail streets. Under the patient guidance of Ganesh, the Green Hotel’s tailor, we successfully carried out our mission: silk for a wedding dress, quality cotton for posh shirts and trousers, colourful patterned cotton for lightweight travel clothes, and something special to take home.

We excitedly jumped in an auto-rickshaws and headed off down town. Ganesh took us into two stores, filled wall to wall with batons of cloths, saris of all colours and qualities – a veritable heaven or hell of choice! Another ‘auto’ ride away and we were going local: to a back street corner where two brick walls covered by dried palm fronds made a perfect undercover mini-market, where women were buying fabric their next outfit – and so were we! Several hours of shopping fun later and we headed home for fitting up and trying to describe our many design ideas. It was a delighting and exhausting novel experience for us all.

The rest of the day’s work consisted of listening to a brief intro to the week’s programme ahead – all very exciting – and a wee history tour of the social change movement in India by Stan Thekaekara. He interwove his own story with that of his country: pulling in the defeat in this area (Mysore) of the last Raj who obstructed British colonial rule; the caste system’s social and professional skills structuring; the loss of the traditional agri-economy through mass production and globalisation; the rise of socially-orientated organisations; Ghandism, Naxalism and modern political manoeuvres. Finally he warned of the threat that the social change movement / organisations’ face of co-option and loss of pursuit of radical progress through the processes of legitimacy and increased ‘professionalisation’ under funder scrutiny and government support. read more | add new comment | india