Identity stories

Brief
Chronicle of a life of everyday Indians and their journey - showing how their identities and culture emerge through inclusion rather than exclusion.

Research

We took 2 stories representing different journeys of life spanning different cities and countries. The criteria for the selection of the subject was that they should have spent significant periods of time at different places. Research was done to understand how movement/ migration affected subject’s world view. Their backgrounds were as follows:

• One was born in a small village and then had to live in various cities. She currently lives in Hyderabad

• The other was born in a metro city, Kolkata, and spent significant amounts of time in different countries but calls Bengaluru, a city which is different from his birth city as his home.

Long interviews were conducted through many sessions before the stories were formed and identified. We also went to the (Supreethi, and Vivek) places mentioned by them to understand the environment and culture of those places and how their world-views were formed. We also collected several scent samples of their memory associations.

Both the protagonists, in their respective biographies, went deep in their stories and often came back after their sessions to add more. After some episodes were coded, they chose the episodes they felt strongly as their stories.

Special thanks to

Supreethi HG (for sharing her life story)
Vivek Shah (for sharing his story)