“I’m an outsider in Yelahanka, with a camera and an assignment. Over the span of five weeks, I had a range of conversations - sometimes I was bombarding them with questions, sometimes I said very little and was only observing, sometimes I was being questioned and yelled at. The camera is an additional barrier- it immediately converts a stranger and I into a Subject and a Cameraperson.

Most of the children were kind enough to share their space with me and allowed me to hear about their siblings, their schools, and their games. ”How does Yelahanka look from inside a small, candle-lit house; from an angle four-feet off the ground? ‘vola-gade barboda?' is how a student learned of a child’s story, and how together, they mapped that story through images and dialogue. It is the path through which she was able to enter the local space, shed the burden of being an absolute outsider, and make a new friend.