GoliSoda Blogs
“Our homes are a lived experience,” says Chitra Vishwanath, of Biome Solutions, a design firm specialising in sustainable architecture.It is easy to see her point, when I look at the collage of beautiful buildings that are an equal mix of green and brown, plants and mud blocks, earthy shades that ar...
India’s
intense urbanisation has created some of most densely populated cities in the
world. Even as these urban conglomerates
expand in every direction on land (sometimes even into the ocean), most people in
cities spend their time inside small, cramped, built-up spaces with
artificially...
One of my mother’s favourite childhood
stories was about visiting a house where the family had a deep belief in
co-existing with nature. While it seemed like an excellent idea at first
(especially since my grandparents did host a variety of living things in their
home and garden), she was taken ...
A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I
wasn’t going to buy any more products that had synthetic detergent surfactants.
Which meant everything my local grocer stocked for cleaning clothes, vessels,
or floors was out. No more quick trips to the local shop to buy washing powder
for clothes, no mor...
Deepavali means different things to different people. For many people, it means early morning oil baths, questions about ‘Ganga snanam aacha?”, fireworks, lamps, deepavali legiyam (a digestive paste to help you blast your way through the goodies), and rich, delicious food shared with friends and fam...
When I first started composting, I became
intimately aware of the waste that was being generated at home. I began to
notice the dump trucks with two men standing next to rotting, stinking garbage.
I noticed cooked food being thrown away into large open bins and attracting
flies and strays. I not...
…Like my Usha Chitti*. On a recent trip with my family to her home in Pune, my mother’s younger sister brought out the red carpet and how. She did a fantastic job over-feeding us, traded oft-repeated family gossip and ladled customized hot beverages for patrons of the balcony. But where she shone wa...
On the first day of Navaratri My true love sent to meA cloth bag full of green veggies On the second day of NavaratriMy true love sent to meTwo betel leaves, andA cloth bag full of green veggies On the third day of Navaratri My true love sent to meThree gundu
manjalTwo betel leaves andA c...
Imagine that you are going away for the weekend. Like the conscientious energy auditor that you are, you check the reading on your electricity metre before you go. You come back to find out that someone has swallowed 50 units of power when there was no one at home. Who is the culprit? (If you left t...
A lot of our recent blog posts have focused on consumer goods – food, groceries, cleaning and personal hygiene products. A couple of weeks ago, however, I got into a very pleasant conversation with an energy conservation and renewable energy evangelist. He is likely to tell you that his name is Das,...