I write in Malayalam, walk around with a camera, and build small tools I wanted to exist. For a living, I plan how very large things get built.

I was born in Kodungallur and grew up in Koolimuttam, a village on the Arabian Sea, which is still what I mean by home. Engineering took me to Thrissur and then to IIT Madras. After that came construction sites: nearly four years in Bastar, where the rain runs into September and the forest turns a green I still can't describe; then Assam, Odisha and Bangalore, where a Honda H'ness took me up into the hills most weekends. Now I'm in Milan, with stretches in Wales and in Kerala, and the work has grown from buildings to whole plants on the other side of the world.

The writing came first and never stopped: notebooks, then a blog, then Facebook, and three books. The camera came later, mostly as an excuse to slow down and look properly. The tools came last: a radio that plays over 5,000 stations, a film finder, a guide to life in Milan, things for the working week. I built them for myself and left the door open.

Everything I created here — the writing, the photographs and the tools — is free to read, use and copy. ♡ Copying is an act of love.

Say hi — hello@ranjithkb.com →