Story Behind PrayogIllu
I was born in this house in 1986. Back then, multi-generation families in India lived together and I remember my family (my parents and two sisters), my grandparents, and their daughters all lived in this house. But this house did not offer any pleasant moments with my family. I lost my parents in this house when I was 13 and 15 years. My memories with this house are not so joyful to share with everybody. I have more negative memories than happy moments in this house. I lived there with my two sisters until I left for my higher studies in Hyderabad in 2003. I left this house with heavy heart and unpleasant memories.
In 2021, there were heavy rains everywhere in India. Most of the old houses collapsed due to heavy floods. My ancestral house was also affected by the heavy rains in the village. My cousin sent me pictures of the house, including the ceiling, which had collapsed. I asked my cousin to send more pictures of the house, from every angle. Because I want to understand how much damage happened to house. As I looked at the photos he sent, I was kept asking myself questions. What kind of connection do I have with this house? This question asks me about my connection with my family and my ancestral house. What will be my response to this place when I visit the village again? How can I rebuild my connection with this place? These questions will me to find my connections again with people in this place how I got my connections with my family. What is my next step to restore this house? I want to restore this house because it is more than 100 years old that tells history about techniques of building this house in those days. Presently, nobody was using this technique to build houses. With mud. How can I heal and transform my memories with this space? As a result, I reconceptualized this space as PrayogIlu: An Interdisciplinary Place.
In the footprint of my ancestral home, to turn personal loss into a place where people can come to be connected, PrayogIllu will become a place for transformation and flourishing.
