This walk in Bangalore’s Ward 88 is unsettling. Will citizens take note?

If you wake up in the morning and all you get to do is smell garbage. How would you feel?

And, then there are people whose day begins just like that. They come pick up the garbage outside your streets. They drive the garbage-filled trucks through-out the city, picking up garbage enroute and then drive 30 kms away, stay overnight and then dump the garbage in the dump yard.

Here we are, many of us guilty of not fighting for their rights. That apart, they do not even earn our respects. All that we do, is cover our nose and walk past the garbage.

Angarika Guha and her colleague wanted to throw light on the plight of man scavengers and question aspects of urban development. That’s how the olfactory walk took shape – leading groups of people in and around drains and dumps in Ward 88, in the suburbs of Indiranagar in Bangalore. Angarika is part of Maraa, a media and arts collective, based in Bangalore and Delhi.

Through personal observations, research, historical perspectives and storytelling, they hope to draw attention to the lives of the workers engaged in the process of waste disposal. Angarika says, “Usually when the problem of garbage disposal is concerned, the media seldom talks about the condition and lived realities of the workers who work invisibly.” She explains, “Garbage collectors, scavengers, sweepers and lorry drivers form an assembly chain, to ensure streets and other public spaces are kept clean every day. Often, our concern ends with how to get rid of the waste we produce every day. The journey of the garbage bag only begins once it is placed outside our doors. From there, it is collected, segregated and carried far away into the land fills with bare hands and feet.”

Most curated walks take you through the pretty little corners of the city, but this walk, in Angarika’s words, takes you through the “Shadow areas of the city.” This walk is ‘unsettling’, but something the people of the city need, may be more than the city itself.

This week, the walk is taking place on Friday, May 22. For more information about the walks, please visit www.maraa.in. You could also reach out to Angarika at angarika.guha@gmail.com