A drawing of bright colors featuring a young brown-skinned person with short hair and big brown eyes looking to the left. Their face boasts a large smile and a nose piercing. They are wearing a brown shirt and leaf earrings, which are a reflection of the rich yellow and green foliage on trees behind them, and flowing water at the bottom in blues and purples. Text off to the side states that they are “DJ Chithira”.

Hello hello! I’m Chithira, coming to you all the way from the shores of Kerala, a small state in India that lies where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean all meet. I’m a queer feminist, and I live several lives as a journalist, a researcher, and an editor. I have been been a community organiser for feminist rights and environmental justice for more than a decade, and I’m also a theatre practitioner who teaches ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ techniques as a tool for addressing oppression and dealing with trauma. 
I love driving around on my 21-year-old scooter to explore spaces like my city, and the forests and lakes that hem it. My dogs enjoy taking me for walks, and the cats, mongooses, crows and snakes in my neighbourhood seem to delight in letting me feed them. 
I write poems when my heart permits, and have recently acquired a set of watercolour paints that I am looking forward to trying. 
they/them 
https://twitter.com/chithira_v

Track 1- A moving reflection from Kerala on how our perception of the wild shapes us.

People of the Rain