[Reader-list] [Reader List] : First Post

[L. Simhan]

  We sent this yesterday but messed up in the posting. 
   
  FIRST POST
   
  Lakshmi IndraSimhan and Jacob Weinstein
   
  My name is Lakshmi IndraSimhan. I’m originally from Kerala, but have lived in Kuwait, the Philippines, Japan and did my undergraduate work in political philosophy, and fine art, in the United States. I moved to Delhi on a whim and am now pursuing an embattled Masters in Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. I’ve done some writing here and there too. 
   
  Jacob M. Weinstein is co-fellow, flatmate and husband. He does comics, and used to be the Art Director/Comics Editor for the late Philadelphia Independent. Now he occasionally does design and illustration work.
   
  We are planning on making a comic/illustrated book wherein we reproduce in pictorial and textual form the life-work processes of street vendors. In this era of invisible producers, I like the ability to witness things coming together before your very eyes, at your doorstep even.  We were really interested by people like the ear cleaners and street dentists of old Delhi and how they had inherited professions, particular uniforms, particular tools and technologies, trade secrets etc. Other vendors we are interested in include Inkjet Cartridge refillers, Umbrella repair men, and many more. In all we have about 25 people, but the final list will change as we begin research. The intention is to create a latter day Diderot’s Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, wherein someone in the future could look back and repeat current tasks and jobs just as they appear today. 
   
  We are interested in studying the informal body of practical and technical knowledge embodied in the daily methodologies of the vendors, in relation to the production, preparation and distribution of their goods and services. We want to document the skill sets and trades of these vendors, precisely because they were not acquired by or through standardized bodies of knowledge, but through informal trial and error, observation, or passed orally from generation to generation, leading to a variety of idiosyncratic practices and group knowledge. They are trade secrets so to speak and we will illustrate them. 
   
  We plan to interview individuals regarding their income, the tools and rules of their trade, methodology, personal history, etc. 
   
  The results of our research will be presented as a comic book that will include a profile of the vendor, and a detailed illustration of his tools and then, in step-by-step detail a visual description of the completion of a task. For example: A street dentist would be shown extracting a tooth from start to finish accompanied by a narration of this process etc. The final project will hopefully form a short black-and-white book of indeterminate length. 
   
  Thanks. 
   
  Lakshmi and Jacob


			
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