Things I don't understand!

Corruption in India?

I stepped down the staircase of the railway station only to be stopped by the ticket examiner. I confidently took out my wallet, pulled out my pass. He indicated, it's the old one. I started re-searching my wallet for the new one (I have this old habit of keeping old passes for some time, but this time I was quite sure I didn't keep them to confuse myself at a later date). And after finding no trace of a new pass, I reverted to the TTE to ask for the date.

It was 22-6-2011. The present was already 25-6-11.

I realized that I had mis-read the date 22 as 29; only due to a printing error (see picture).

Without arguing with the TTE, I offered him to pay the fine. I didnot want to make a scene out of myself  and neither did I want the TTE to boss over me. He took me along and I wondered why. The fact was that he didnot want to give me a receipt.

On the way to the TTE room, he asked me, where are you coming from? I answered, Goregaon. Will you go back? I answered - what have you got to do with it anyway? He thought I would argue with him to reduce the fine, which ultimately would go in his pocket. I remained terse. I refused to answer to his questions because I didnot want to waste time and I was already willing to pay the fine.

"Will you do this mistake again?" he asked. I told him, "Look: I have been travelling by the train since the last 10 years of my life and this is one of those occasions where I forgot to check the date of renewal of my ticket!" He remained quiet. They hushed each other - "Let's help him...(demanding from me) give us 160 rupees." I said, fine, give me a receipt. They said, ok, how much money do you have? 

I said, "I am ready to pay the fine, give me the receipt..."

Finally feeling guilt, he pulled out the receipt booklet and tore a bill of 260 Rs. for me.

I paid Rs. 500/- and collected the receipt to move. Only as I moved out, I realized that I hadn't collected the change back. I went back and demanded the remaining money. He pulled out plenty of Rs. 500/- ; Rs. 100/- notes and gave me my change back.

I wondered how much they would be earning per day. Apart from exercising my morals here, I think it showed the state of affairs of the country. On one hand we have the likes of Anna Hazare going on fasts for eradicating corruption and on the other are these shameless bunch of idiots absolutely non-interrupted or aroused by the movement. 

I just felt later, "How else do you support Anna Hazare?"

Of those hundreds of young people who go and shout or join hands and make rallies, would they stop bribing the traffic police on their faults, or for ticket-less traveling or  to save an inch of their pocket money? Would they stop succumbing to such situations where the system offers you to let go? And we as a civil society suck up to corruption all the time...Youngsters have no option but to save up! It's the guilt at home that they want to avoid. Moreso, it's our parental pressure that we want to avoid! Break a rule and you will be disallowed from an activity. Pass a red signal and you will be disallowed to use the bike....

Fear.
This is how we avoid or cover it up! 

I wonder, how it didnot pinch me to pay Rs. 260/-. Probably I was capable of paying the fine, I wasn't answerable to my parents (because I am financially independent now), and above all, there is a general mood of anti-corruption drive and I thought I had done nothing for it.

At the end, 3 lessons to learn:

1. Read the ticket date properly.

2. You can choose the way others would/should behave.

3. You can support civil-drives by engaging actively in them rather than going for stand up performances (candle lights, processions, rallies, etc.). It begins in the gut. [And here, am I just counter-arguing the "mood of the drive" point that I made earlier? I guess no. ]

The mood is not an outward influence for me. One has to practise it from inside to be able to realize it. Then one has to live by it, however costly it may be. I think that's how you 'pay the price' for your ideals and morals...

I am happy to have made the TTE feel guilty! Although just for 5 seconds! If I could have read his mind, I would have loved to know if he could sleep that day...

(the questions are: we will change...but will they? would this money be still used for better purposes, in this case, the upkeep of the bloody printer which mis printed / ill-printed the date, which could have saved my money and avoided confusion? what happens to the system which is itself plagued, people are ready to change, but the system itself wants the people to be corrupt....where in this society are we talking about development? where no one is content, everyone is hungry for money, even that which is completely not theirs...maybe I am getting to moralistic here. But the point remains, we are in a system and we decide how it works.)


(now is it a good example of dagagiri?)

On the move

Objects & Newness

What is it about newness that we don't disturb it? Why do we like to preserve newness of things? Of the many things (objects), stationery is something that people wish to keep fresh and new forever. We like to keep our diaries fresh, we like to keep our new pens fresh. We preserve it from overuse. I have so many paper products which I have never used only to keep them fresh. I keep waiting for all other options to fail to begin the use of a new fountain pen...We always wish if pencils were always long, or we always wish the pencil colours always remained brand new. Is it because all such things have very short life? Do we want things with short life to live long? Such things sensitize our delicate relationship with things, objects.

But the beauty of these things appears, comes out only once they are used! I have stopped keeping myself attached to the newness of new things. Now a days I don’t wait for too long to put a new thing to use. I have realised that I waste a lot of things to time only because I want to eternalize them. Sketch pens dry out, pencil colours fade away, pencils sog, erasers melt, papers turn yellow... But invariably, either I outdate them or they die! What is the use of a dead object? (a dead object would mean an object which has surpassed its utilitarian life). A dead object only preserves visual beauty. But the visual beauty of any object is perhaps in its entirety. We love to look at crisp sharpened long pencils. 

The use of an object can be a beautiful...the writing that you produce with a pencil or pen can be beautiful. The drawing that you sketch with a sketch pen can be beautiful. The paper on which you paint can be beautiful. But still, so many times, we misattribute this value of beauty to the existence of the object than what it does / produces. Is it our love for objects? Fetish? In a world of too individualist or isolated people, we probably develop close relationships with objects, such that sometimes we start loving them and wanting to preserve them forever...

Objects store memories, objects have stories, objects connect you to people and they also engage you with themselves sensorially. In these ways, objects live lives and give meaning to our existence. Objects take on adjectives that we use for our living counterparts. Thus the world of objects is as vast as the world of people. I have only spoken of utilitarian objects yet, and the idea of utility itself is to be exploded...and meanwhile I think I wouldnt get into that!

After all, objects are not butterflies. You could preserve dead butterflies, which look visually appealing an can be kept – and that is only because we donot use butterflies. (ironically, living things become objects once they die)! 

Moving Figures

The Shoe Shiner

Climbing down the station steps, I decided to board the next train, skipping the one which had already arrived….

          

The platform seat being occupied by only one person, I did not miss the opportunity of having a seat till the next train arrived. The seat was cold…made out of some mortar containing marble chips. Just next to the seat, where I was sitting on the edge, stood the steel stanchions holding the roof of the station. The two c-shaped sections facing each other inwardly hid the rainwater down-take pipe.

Suddenly, I heard some clanging and banging from the seat underneath. But soon I realized that it was only the polish walah, who was trying to remove his wooden box which was chained to a hole in the leg of the seat. The chain passed through the hole and then the gap between the two c-sections, which made a lot of noise while he opened it. Carrying the box through the handle on its top face, he circumambulated the stanchion, kept it in the front keeping enough space between the column and the box, for him to sit. Here, he took his final position.

The box was quite fascinating…its edges had smoothened out due to everyday in and out! Completely dark and almost black, it had accumulated a lot of dust from the station floor, from passers-by, from the railway tracks and all the sources one can think of. The size of the box was small. It was easy to carry, maintain and move. Added to the chained security, the box too had a separate lock…a small lock which the owner promptly opened.

The box was completely hollow, and stuffed with some of his belongings - which he took out one by one… a plastic-bag was one of the first things he removed. Then he removed his shirt and redressed himself with the shirt in the plastic bag. Then suddenly, he opened a drawer inside the box! This drawer was barely an inch deep made in the same material as that of the box. It had a partition, dividing it into two halves. One contained a comb and a circular mirror and nothing else and other had some money. He promptly took up the comb and holding the mirror in the other hand, he made-up himself. Then, adjusting himself properly in the position, as he had to sit there for the whole day, he started putting back the things, which were not needed, into the box. And the things he needed were taken out one by one again…

The polish walah had a worn out brush… the profile of the bristles of the brush had almost changed from a straight edge into into a parabola… the swing of the brush, which rubbed the face of the shoe. He quickly examined the brush and removed the dried polish of the earlier day, from its bristles. As he took out his small circular polish box, one could see hundreds of tiny pores in it, finer than the bristles of the brush.

Other than these two things, he also had a roll of cloth - much like a doctor’s bandage, although synthetic. Usually polish walahs use it to bring out the luster of the polish on the shoe. The polish walah unrolled it, examined it and then rolled it again.

The box of the polish walah was quite an architectural piece. Minimum in detail, it still had a complexity. The handle on the top of the box was not merely used as a handle, but the real purpose was to rest the foot with the shoe to be polished. The height was maintained such that the shoe would just be in level and aligned with the chest. This allowed an easy movement of the hand and also proper view for the eye. Not only that, the customer also feels it comfortable. He does not have to rise up his knee till the waist. The edges were of course worn out of time, but it seemed to be a detail in itself.

(old unfinished writing, 2005)

Unpublished Archives

Looking back in my archives, I have found that I have a plenty of un developed writing ideas that I thought of in my past. Those ideas are outlines (literally) and I have had no time to write elaborately on them. There are ideas to write on the city, people, self, architecture, things around - all of them are just lying as ideas. I dont know what will happen of those outlines. there are intensive documentations of certain events that I experienced, phases of time, reflections on the self...

But meanwhile, i have started collecting some significant stuff on areas of my interest...and so I am slowly turning into more focused thought and writing. Due to this, I observe that the nature of my writing has changed to a documentative mode rather than the earlier self-exploration mode.

I wonder whether people stop blogging when they get absolutely serious with writing? I think I will too, at some point of time. I can feel that strain - especially when there is already so much that has already been explored in writing, what new do you produce? Rather, you question if whatever you produce is even significant? But on the other hand, you write for your readers, the assumed ones, whom you think are interested in you - isn't it? And one can so conveniently overrule their desire to peep into you! And when you know that you can make some people happy by sharing a slice of yourself with them, you feel that you are so powerful...

Nevertheless, I think this writing can remain till I keep struggling with my thoughts, myself...But one day, I will also be able to decide or put all the undeveloped writings that I have on my PC! Till then, I keep working on ideas.

Recent Bold Buildings

in the city

The Mondrian Shop

My recent Interior project.

Here is some process work. 

More details later.

Measure of an Idea

Architects produce ideas. They produce ideas for consumption, if we may say so. They also earn a living out of selling ideas. Selling is an exchange of things for money. In monetary sense, what is the value of ideas? How was this value of ideas produced by architects fixated? So, the COA said that the architects' fees shall be a percentage of the project cost. The project cost is essentially the cost of the material and labour used in the project. The labour cost issue is again somewhat like the "valuation of ideas" debate. But it could be well understood through the Marxist theory. 

But Marx didnot really talk about the compensation of the intellect!! In a Marxist sense, either we are labour, or we must not be compensated the way we are.

Anyway, coming back to the COA, it said that, for example, the fees of the interior designer shall be 10% of the project cost. It says two things:

Money --> directly proportional to bulk of used material

Value of ideas --> directly proportional to cost of material.

Ofcourse, thats why we have some interior designers fiddling with a lot of materials and costs.

But could it also mean, that the price of an idea is the amount of material manifest it can bring about? That might be a very small, at the same time very large question. Then what about ideas that never manifest yet have value? How are they priced? What I am intending to say is that in this world, its not only the material that has exchange value...how is the immaterial valued then? Who decides it? How? And why cant be an architect's ideas regarded as ideas and paid as the measure of an idea. How do you measure an idea? The COA has conveniently measured through its material manifest...

The question still remains, how do you measure an idea?

Television v/s Internet

These days I dont engage in television at all. I mean i dont know what to watch on it!! Funny.
But some time ago, my friend Ankit shared an interesting observation. The television is something that keeps on showing you images even when you dont ask for it. You switch it on and you have a plethora of choices for consuming any kind of image you want. This can actually be a two way thing. People can see TV, rather even stare at it for no reason and it will still keep on changing its content. Thus, probably it will keep you engaged, even if it's the most mundane way.

Ankit stays away from his home in this city. So he has no television to kill  his time at home. He feels bored sometimes. I told him: "Dude, you have the net, why do you worry? You can watch anything over there and now-a-days all TV stuff is available on you-tube"

Now this is the interesting part of the answer. He said: "Yes, but you have to search the internet for what you want. It doesnt give you things just without asking." Probably thats why we call TV the Idiot box - it's actually a transferred epithet. It makes you an idiot, without you knowing what you want to watch sometimes.

These days, I spend a lot of time with the internet digging out things, reading, collecting, putting different things together, talking to people, their ideas...and all that. And TV seems really futile to me. What this suggests is that not only I have become too focused with what I want to do, but it also suggests a shift in culture of spending time with an object. In this focus, I overlook a lot of things, which are a constant botheration to my father. My father is perpetually interested in knowing the current. And I keep telling him, the current is too distracting for me because I am interested in history! That may be very naiive answer right now. But I just avoid getting into a debate with him, particularly when I know I am going to lose over his wisdom that I does not approve of!

The fact that you have to know something to be able to use the internet as opposed to just staring at the TV which gives information for free (in a conceptual sense - ofcourse you pay your tv bill), was interesting.
In another conceptual sense, the television can be seen as a producer of a vast archive of societal constructs of images. It can become good amount of growing data for research in various subjects.

However, things will soon change when TV becomes digital. Then, everything will be available on the net and you can consider internet as another idiot box. And we shall then have infinite images strolling all around us with us not being able to decide where to invest our time...That will be absolute madness. That's not far really, we are almost on the verge of this technology taking over!

Why does my skepticism propound I don't know. What makes me insecure with this, I don't know...

Electronics & culture

Before the christian era, the knowledge of self was constituted through the awareness of the physical sensations (touch, smell, taste, see, hear). Knowledge was a collection of sensory impressions.

As the electronic age takes over, a great insecurity of losing this sensorial information / perception looms over many people. Will the electronic take over the senses completely? Can it only replicate our perceptions? does it operate only in the mental virtual space?

The transformation of existing objects and the creation of newer ones constantly bring about cultural changes in our interaction with the material world. After all, we exist for the material and the material exists for us.  Does the e-world lay more emphasis on the non-material. The electronic makes us realize the phenomena of how we have actually converted so much of the non-material world (ideas) into material. For example, books, maps, or all kinds of representations of the world! All representations will now change their physical manifest due to the change in technology. A book now, in its physicality is thus a silicon chip. For that matter, a lot of different forms of physical data is going back to a absolute form - the silicon servers!

In some way, because the electronics change the immediate physical space around us, we as humans change too, in the way we behave, engage, move, etc. Thus our bodies will change, because our work cultures will change...

But more than anything else, what intrigues me is the emphasis from the physical world to the non-physical...Didn't the jain philosophy say that the world is an illusion? maya? Are we confirming it? I wonder...

Culture of Reading

Prakriti told me some very interesting things about the culture of reading. She said that she prefers reading physical books rather than reading them on screen or online. She said she likes the experience of the weight of the book transferring from her right hand to her left as she finishes it over time. She enjoys the smell, the texture of the paper and the size of the book in hand.

On screen, she said, is a different culture of reading. Neither do you experience the above, nor it is anything more than a visual interface. The intensity of the screen, the brightness of different displays are not suited to reading. Reading is also about seeing a certain text on a paper in a certain kind of light. Moreover, you keep on zooming in and out of the screen. Computers do not even help bookmarking. 

Thus, books may not be completely erased. They shall exist for the archaic reader, for readers like me and Prakriti. For many more like us. The generation who is already born in the age of computer and the mobile shall definitely take up to the culture of carrying e books! I must say Prakriti's observations are very sensitive.

Band-Aid

My old house

A cross section of my old house, where each space came to life because of a variety of activity patterns.

Above is a section of my old building (the grey-ed rectangle being my house). The building was somewhere between a chawl and apartment-type of structures we have today. The way to the building was difficult to spot. I always thought that all spaces in the building are used to live. However, as I grew old, I realized that my building was a mixed use building with a toy-shop, a flour mill and a sugarcane juice shop on the ground floor, spaces which faced the road. As I began to navigate places on my own on growing old, I started reading addresses on sign boards of shops, and found the name of my building on these shops. It may sound really silly, but I always felt before studying architecture that buildings are houses, to live, to stay. Shops are different from houses, and that they can not be a part of living/housing.


Gradually, as I started to understand, and thanks to my architectural education, a whole new building revealed to me. Every person in this building used the space of the home to work! Right from my father to the last person on the ground - all were working. Work was a part of living. All kinds of things were manufactured in the tenements - food items, clay works, art works, drawings (architect / arthouse / advertising), gold-works, electrical works, tube-lights - everything. It was a part of my living. Architecture separated (classified) this absolute space of mine.


However,


Architecturally, the building allowed transparency of activities between the vertical floors. Each floor's terrace overlooked below, and a (loud) call would be enough to communicate with anyone in the building. There were thus, live patterns in the building, which made the whole building active all the time. The activities were porous, the spaces more fluid, as they opened on to private barsatis, which still could be shared. During rains, all people would get out playing in the water, and housekeepers would pull out buckets and place them under corrugated sheet coverings to collect water which was cool and fresh. During the summers, people staying below would come up on the wider terrace for drying papads, chaklis and home made masalas. All children would collect together on any of the terraces and start a play during their vacation. The neighbours would also use the staircase during the afternoon because it was cool and calm to study. The little corners of these terraces would be used for plantations. All houses opened on to an open space, which was private and public at the same time. It was easy to peep into others' house, and people did not really feel offended.

Staircases were study rooms, terraces were play grounds, and sometimes gardens too, rooms were interconnected....fights were public, homes were public, backyards were dustbins, smells were democratic, rains were for all, windows were personal, cats lived in houses, stray dogs guarded the building...

more stories to tell!

Constraints in effective Indian Pedagogy

These days, talking about pedagogy, we at Academy seem to be extremely concerned about motivating the students to take initiatives to learn and grow on their own. We realized that it is far more difficult than any other college abroad, or for that matter even other colleges in the city to understand the student groups in Academy. Being a 60 year old institution, rooted in marathi blood, affiliated to the government and owing to its popularity, the Institution attracts a large number of people from different strata of the society. The multitude of students coming into the college can not be dealt with flatly. There are cultural, caste, class and educational differences between students. Some have problems in language, others have problems with understanding, some have landed up in the field because they could not enroll in any other course of their choice. There are issues of affordability, compulsions, reservations and a host of other legal issues. This forms the mixed student group in a class. How do you deliver a lecture to a class which is so disparate at intellectual levels and skill set?

We can not select students we would like to work with since we have to accept the students based on a merit rank calculated on the basis of an average of 12th std marks and a drawing test. These generalized standards do not necessarily profile the student we wish to work with at Academy. How are we to then tackle issues of interest levels on one hand and producing better professionals or thinkers on the other? In colleges abroad, the student community is grossly flat. They all speak English and are taught in English, so the basic level of understanding is quite high. On the other hand, since students are well trained in humanities, they take their own decisions (which over here, are guided by parents, on the basis of generalized career prospects). Thus, most people are able to figure out their interests and also pursue them as they wish to. There are large biases and stigmas associated with certain professions here. Amongst these complexities, what does one make out of the students or even the education system here?

We are dealing with lots of layers of complexities. At many autonomous institutions, which are able to decide upon the kind of students they wish to work with, along with the kind of course they want to teach, a lot of this complexity can be avoided. We at Academy have to not only follow the orthodox prescriptions of the Mumbai University, but also deal with the students sent over the by the University. This is not to undermine the students' potential or to show them down, but to make them aware that there is only this much that an Institution can do. It is largely for students to make a career successful for themselves.

A course like architecture becomes even more tricky because there is no one answer to any question. There is no one solution to a problem, and that things can be interpreted in so many ways. Thus, the framework that the university provides is redundant. The state of architecture in the country is low because Institutions and teachers have failed to update themselves regularly. Those who do update themselves unavoidably become "too different" to face criticism for not following the prescribed norms. In the bureaucracy of the system, the level of education becomes the least common denominator of the bare minimum and almost become a pitiful exercise of enabling students to pass by gaining minimum marks. 

All who return from their masters (from abroad or better institutions) want to teach! Many a times, people join teaching to assume the fashionable  position of the Intellect. But on other occasions, they also realize what is lacking in the education system, what they can contribute to it and therefore use the space of the academia to fulfil or perform experiments that they could not do during their time. All this, at the cost of the student's future. Some students gain, others manage ways out.

However, this debate needs serious thinking. Not only the teachers need to evaluate their positions, the students need to understand their goals and roles as students...Students can push their teachers to perform. This is not to say that they themselves must become their own teachers. Teachers have to be seen as facilitators for students' ideas. But teachers must collaborate with students to find new directions to venture into. For this, the student community has to not only forget this layered division amongst themselves but also realize to respect their own social positions and operate accordingly. This could be possibly one way of raising the architectural standards (for that matter, educational standards) of a place like ours.

The Passage of Modernism in India

It's sad that Indians dont know about India.
It's sad that the Britisher's dont know about the good works they did in India.
The latter is excusable, the former is not!

quoted Sudhir Deshpande.

I didn't quite understand what he meant by the second statement. I asked him: "What do you refer to when you say that the Britisher's don't know about their 'good' work in India?"

He explained:

It was Lord Curzon who formalized and revived the intensive work of archeology in India. Lord Curzon proposed the British Queen to grant some financial aid for carrying out archeological surveys in the country. On investigation of his proposal, the Queen offered some 80000 pounds for this work, which was extremely insufficient and impractical. Curzon suggested that this was not enough, and reflected of a poor geographical understanding and expanse of Indian territory on the Queen's part. Later on, realizing the significance of the work, the Queen proposed to send some people to help with the archaeological works in India. Curzon refused and said. "Me and my Indian brothers will handle this." Thus was the setting up of the Archaeological Survey of India. It was thereby only in 1915 some time that the historic sites of Mohenjo Daro were excavated! Later on , this wing gave boost to the development of new surveying equipments in India for matters of survey and measurement of topography and landform.

The Britishers experimented the first electrical train in India. India was like a laboratory for them! It was only later that they took this technology elsewhere including their own land. The research for Malaria was carried out first in India. It was from this fact that the combination of Jin and Tonic was produced. There was only one way that they could feed the Indian masses the malaria drug - by mixing it with alcohol. Later, this tonic became a drink.

The postal services were developed extensively in India to reach the deepest places in the country. This system helped them to establish a strong communication setup in the country. They developed roads and railways to further support this system.

Such was perhaps the entry of Modernism in India. The "unorganized" India was systematized through the rationally enlightened thoughts of Western world. India was made to think like the west. In fact, it was not even "India" then. The definition of India itself is encompassed in the Enlightened movement! In their study of the Orient; was it created. I can recall Ateya's Masters thesis on Modernity which spoke about roads as the 'development pathways' of the nation...

Lots of thoughts. And all of above is to be historically verified and facts may be grossly mis-stated. The writing primarily records my understanding of the passage of modernity in India. 
more precise history of ASI here.