"There are many trajectories of development in Asia. Outside the mainstream, there are many marginalised, alternative futures. But it is the mainstream development of mega-metropolises, with all their glittering facets, that Asia proudly exhibits to the whole world with a sense of triumph and achievement. Asians seem to want to tell the West: We can do it better! In reality, this achievement comes at a tremendous cost, not only to humans but also to other beings and the environment. Steadily growing, chronic, partly visible and partly unseen, Asia's colossal crisis of the modern age is one of sustainability, of which a crisis of ecology, a crisis of justice, a crisis of compassion and a crisis of spirituality are all apart." Work on Living  Pathways 2: Ways Back Home to Nature is in progress.

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Unprecedented urban growth makes sustainability in cities a crucial issue for policymakers, scholars and business leaders. This emerging urban crisis challenges environment-based and economic-based approaches to sustainability and brings to the forefront of the multifaceted and critical role that culture plays in ensuring that cities are viable for future generations. Culture provides fertile ground for new approaches to sustainable development at the local level. Urban Crisis contributes toward a theory of culture in sustainable cities and assesses the use of cultural indicators as a tool for policymakers. The authors include useful case studies of Patan, Nepal; Penang, Malaysia; Cheongju, South Korea; and Kanazawa, Japan. This book offers fresh insights into the role of culture in fostering community development, environmental awareness, and balanced economic growth. It will be of particular interest to students of urban studies, academics, and civil society groups working on urban issues. Download PDF Book Here. Download an article on Towards a Cultural Framework for Sustainable Urbanisation: 

Culture, Gender and Ecology: Beyond Workerism is about the strengthening and consolidation of the gains of the working-class movement.  It is increasingly seen to combine its grassroots and political activities with the feminist, ethno-community cultural and ecological movements ( i.e. non-class movements). A considerable re-working of Marx's historical materialism has been attempted. 

The reconstructive effort has contributed to the development of a number of ideas and arguments: the notion of communism has been re-examined; a new ontological category 'individual-in-relations' has been introduced as a substitute for relations of production; the Self-Other dynamics have been reconsidered introducing the idea of open self-mediation, replacing the Hegelian closed self-mediation, which is the enlargement of dialectical universalism to dialogical universalism; the emancipatory subject has been conceived of as a multi-self, multi-identity one enlarging the notion of the proletarian subject; the role of the body has been carefully inserted in relation to our universality and contingencies, to self-and-the-other-as-distinction and self-and-the-other-as-difference; the notion of power has been elaborated to include its articulation at the political and cultural terrains; the resolution of class reality is problematized by introducing the reality of seemingly unity-rupturing non-class segmentary social forces; and the idea of dialectical transcendence has been critically related to dialogical co-existence/co-evolution of multiple social totalities. 

The result of this reconstructive effort is the conception of a new trajectory of Non-Workerist Model of Historical Materialism.

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"This work sits squarely within a particular fraternity of writers that embraces the pleasure and responsibility of putting thoughts and feelings to paper. Composed under specific circumstances and for particular audiences in mind, the salient feature of all the articles is to probe and to re-question the norm and the celebrated. Indeed, taken as a whole, they embody a blend of acute sociological observations, timely commentaries, and passionate scholarship. Because many of the articles were written in direct responses to contemporary events, they retain the freshness and urgency of eyewitness narratives. And because they contact sociological analysis and critique, they are more than snapshots or slices of the Malaysian social fabric. They are contrapuntal narratives probing incisively beneath the surface of superficial (and even erroneous) descriptions, prescriptions, and proscriptions that are often characteristic of dominant media reporting and the ruminations of the powers-that-be."  Dr. Yeoh Seng Guan, Senior Lecturer, Media Studies, Monash University Malaysia. 

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The pictures in this book capture Indians (particularly the Tamil people) in private, community and public spaces. They cover personal and political, existential and co-existential realities. In essence, the pictures in the book, largely captured by the author over a period of 15 years, depict the Indianness of Malaysia.

Between the covers of the book, you will find 'visual artifacts' of happiness, sadness, religiosity, distinct build environment, engagement with nature, anger, pain, anxiety, discovery, triumph, speaking up/standing up, cross-community togetherness, etc. You will find a vivid, unspoken history of the Indian/Tamil Malaysian people, ready to be experienced visually.