Community Media/MARAA/Crew/Ekta

who is she?

she is a media and practitioner in the process of rethinking notions of development through her engagement in Maraa. Having studied Social Communication Media in Mumbai, she was inclined to work in the development sector. She joined VOICES, a media advocacy group in Bangalore on a two month assignment to bring out a publication on Community Media and stuck on there for a little more than two years. She went deeper into understanding the philosophy and potential of community media by working in and studying about several community radio initiatives. Within the framework of development communications she also explored the use of theatre and video in different forms. As a critique to the existing approaches in developmental work, she co-founded Maraa to rethink, learn and explore the unrepresented concepts of development, community, gender, media, health and other related areas, using a combination of different combinations of media, methodologies and techniques.

she also was a co-founder of Masrah(means theatre in Arabic), a nine year old theatre group that allowed her introspect and share her challenges and learnings as an artist in a public space. Passionate about travel, Ekta has also worked as Research Manager for The Blue Yonder, a responsible tourism initiative where she identified communities to work with in Karnataka and Rajasthan. All in all, the journeys are always more important than destinations for her.

she likes
 * travelling on the window seat in trains and buses because she always finds something new to see
 * writing because she is free to express and break off into tangents
 * theatre because it puts life in perspective
 * conversations because it makes her think
 * reading because it lets her imagine
 * taking pictures because the medium challenges the way she sees things
 * india because there is always something unknown here
 * music and musicians because of what is created

she believes
 * in vegetarianism
 * coincidences and superstitions
 * in community media
 * grandmothers and grandfathers
 * Milan Kundera

her interests, now
 * studying different histories of people, their cultures, practices, rituals, ideas and beliefs
 * use of media of, by and for people from different communities and ideologies
 * learning and sharing abilities, ideas,
 * studying development from a culture studies perspective
 * understanding and rethinking activism