Logo AOA

Today, I stumbled upon the unsubmitted proposal for the new logo of AOA, that I designed 2 years ago. I feel now, it has so much merit and aesthetic. How I wish if this logo would have been posted, and become the emblem of AOA!

anyway, here is it for pleasure. Notice the subtlety and response to original context of the Rachana Logo.
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Thought:

The idea was to create a window frame through which Academy looks out to the world. Window was chosen so as to relate it to an architectural elementThe lower panes of this window were kept closed. . The idea of 'seeing through' a window was abstracted. The repeating As in 'Academy of Architecture' were made similar yet different. As a response to the Rachana logo of the tree, which only has areal roots and the large canopy,  I felt a need to establish the real roots. Subsequently, the graphic abstraction (nolly) of the Rachana Logo was inverted to form the new logo, such that it looks from the same family. The new logo creates an invisible diagram of an 'anchor' through its white space. The anchors relate to the roots.

The symbolic appeal of the created logo as related to closing quotation marks was used on the letter head as the closing marks of a letter, hence placed on the bottom right. Similarly it was placed with the same principle in mind, on the envelope.

All other merchandise responded to the curves and the shapes.

Logo

In colour

Rachana Logo with Proposed AOA logo

Envelop

Letter head

Visiting Card

Looking Around

Four years at AOA - Part 4

As I look back at this journey of my life, I feel I did take initiatives within my scope to bring potential reforms in the school. However very few, or perhaps nothing saw the light of the day. One could count many reasons - ranging from faculties to students to staff. The biggest that I cite is the lack of enough enthusiasm and support from the students. Although there are students who are seriously interested in doing things, their strength is almost dwarfed when a large mass doesnot support them. On multiple occasions, I relied too much on my students to take my ideas further. But I think relying on students in the current scenario is a mistake. I think we must realize that students who come for this course are interested in areas which they don't even know. Some are good in management, some in visual composition, some in arrangement and some in verbal presentation and articulation. We as faculty must identify these student skills and put them to correct use / develop the remaining. But even to this, one has to have student participation. Students have to have the will to do things, to contribute and learn from handling events. They have to have love for their work, space and institution. Above all, they have to have love for the field they have chosen. Varying degrees of such interest affects the quality of final production. But I may be underestimating them - perhaps I expected too much out of them. I am over ambitious. As a student, I took a number of initiatives to organize and participate in events happening at the college.

When students do not see quality production, the standard of what they can themselves achieve goes down. In today's age of the Internet , students seldom go out to exhibition spaces and art galleries to look at ways in which people speak, present and display work. In turn, they are not able to positively contribute ideas towards events that may be organised. Moreover, they also lack innovation. I immensely learnt to speak, think and present in public from the public functions I attended outside of school. Ways of talking, addressing or even responding in public is something the school never really taught me. That I learnt from observation. What I imbibed from my teachers is the attitude of an architect and how to talk about design confidently. 

The second arena was the lack of enthusiasm in faculty. In order to realise programs I wrote multiple concept notes, and ideated things. But all those things could not be realised without a mass faculty support. Thus these ideas remained limited to classroom lectures and smaller class projects. The maximum that I could achieve as a coordinator was to combine, inter relate some subject assignments to increase the production and efficacy of work. For example, I tried to incorporate the process of making the newsletter in graphics class or took up documentation / digitization of study trips in computers class. I hardly saw student initiative to produce work - even when the work timing was limited to class hours. In addition, hegemonic ideas passed on by mediocre seniors about those subjects being redundant affected the seriousness of understanding as well as quantity of production. Students never thought these classes could be effectively used for reflection on their own ways of working and developing their visual communication skills.

Teachers come in with their own set of problems and issues. It is difficult, but may be interesting to map their intentions behind teaching. For most, teaching has become a convenient option to spend time and earn a quick buck. That is why most people opt for a design subject. Crit based evaluation allows them to reduce a design project to a set of dos and donts. What then, must one count as an input in the design course? According to me, a design tutor is supposed to evolve a small idea that a student brings to class using his / her theorectical and practical skills. Theories are important for the designer to understand and develop ways in which they can develop their thinking. Most of our teachers have no idea of theory. Theories from disciplines different from architecture are farfetched to imagine.  Professors of design have to offer students tools of thinking, which I seldom received during my architectural education. If I was to re look at my 5 years of architectural education, I would largely tag myself as 'self taught'. Many a times I have observed that fresh graduates opt for teaching because it is assumably the seat of the intellect. But they seldom contribute to the growth of knowledge. This, they can do by writing, talking and duscussing about architectural issues. Crit based evaluation system flattens the depth of architectural education. I have always remained deeply concerned regarding this.

I thought I would be able to mobilise students using the great internet connectivity that mr. Punde facilitated for us. However it was extremely disappointing to see that there were hardly students responding, participating or using this facility towards their positive development. Since I briefly controlled the AOA E Mail Server admin, I could see the status of usage of each of the members accounts. It was disheartening to find that there were a good amount of students who never even logged in to their accounts. The faculties disregarded this portal and chose to remain archaic. They were not motivated at all to advance.

Multiple forms were sent off at some periods like the Course evaluation form. I developed and refined it from an existing form provided by prof. Punde. Only 180 out of 450 students responded. These instances make me realise failure of the system inspite of hard work and time spent in refining or tightening the system.

I prepared the AOA research fellowship brief, which never saw the light of the day. I don't know what really went wrong. The manifesto I prepared with Atul was never realised since he chose to leave the full time post in the immediate next year. His contributions went down drastically till he finally left this college this year. Subsequently, along with Arjun Sharma, I prepared a research proposal to study the history of Academy of Architecture. We could never really take that project ahead to the next level. I think I realized that it would require a lot of time and effort and doing it without any funding would not be feasible. Lots of such work that was initiated and never saw the light of the day....

Now that I prepare to go for my masters, I am being suggested to look into what my faculties at my new University are doing and whether I find any research parallels to join them. I never saw it happening at Academy. The most public aspect of my being at Academy - the dagagiri blog just remained a passive mirror of sorts that reflected the everyday at AOA. It did not become a discussion space inspite of posting provocative and activist posts. I used to regularly review projects and methodologies over this portal. I wonder if students ever reflected upon their work... All this makes me feel if the architecture audience at Academy is dead...

The streamlined processes of archival were meant for documentation and preservation for knowledge production. I had to struggle a lot to get students contribute equally and with interest. To give an example, marrying machines project was the first student work blog (www.marryingmachines.blogspot.com) Academy ever had. We scanned sheets of documentation work of studies in the city and outside. I got students to start writing a 100 word summary at the end of their projects....many such smaller things were never a part of academy culture.

I recently found myself explaining to a co faculty how academy has still not realised the importance and urgency of investing in a physical as well as virtual archival space. A school's value are its archives. We have absolutely negligible archive mechanisms. Neiher do we have space, nor do we have people who produce good publications.

However, I hope this body of work, this culture of reflection helps me at my graduate school. I am sure to find enthusiastic people at my new school where I can look forward to write, discuss, think, publish, design....and a host of things...I am sure it will be exciting...


END

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POSTSCRIPT:

I carry a heavy burden of AOA. I realise how much I care for the reputation of this school, because I consider myself as a representative of the school. At the same time, this school represents me too. I would like to believe that I studied in an excellent architecture school in india. However, when I look back, I find myself how easily I surpassed the school...how then, must one define this relationship? I tried to pull this elephant, trying to make it stand and race. And I know how much energy I put into it. Sometimes I feel if I only tried a little more, I could have moved this elephant enough to tickle it and make it run. But then it was already time to leave.


I don't know if I will have to start all over again once I come back, or will the elephant have taken a completely new turn. Will this elephant recognize me? Will it listen to me? I have all these insecurities. But I do realize the strong bond that has developed between me and this institution....What is the logical direction this journey will make? This question keeps me occupied and distracted...


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Links to thread
part 1
part 2
part 3

Four years at AOA - Part 3

The entry of Punde was the biggest stir in the history of AOA. I think it could have been the Golden Era of AOA. Infact it was a golden period for one year - only if the students realized the true potential of the reforms Punde envisioned for the school. Punde sir came with a heavy professional mood to AOA and was extremely upset about the loose ways in which administrative affairs were handled in the school. I have listed a big post on the reforms that Mr. Punde tried to bring. But if I was to enlist what I learnt from him, it should be the realization of the potential change professional experience can bring in academic space. Academicians and academic spaces are lousy - at least in our context. I realized how this new principal saw everything in terms of profit and loss - not of money but of values. It was an interesting way to read the success of the college. He was the first one to embrace the fact that Academy was NOT the best college in the country. I liked the way in which he made deals for bringing the best infrastructure to college. He called for quotations, evaluated them against each other, negotiated with agencies - a knowledge that only a seasoned professional could get into academia. Thus, I learnt from him ways in which large systems are to be installed in large setups. It was amazing to learn how he understood demographics of space usage in the building, and rework strategies.

Mr. Punde was such an energetic man that I could hardly cope up with him. Although he included me in the core group for formulation of new agendas and course for the college. He was so intense that later, I stopped attending meetings, because I could simply not see where all of it was going...Although he was very transparent, he maintained certain issues only to himself. It seemed he was holding a huge storm...I think unless I had a professional setup, I would not get the robustness that he had. That is required for an institution like ours.

Thus it was under him that I was appointed as a member of the Library Committee. In the first round, after a lot of struggle, we were able to order for the most up to date books for our library. Some of the most urgent books on theory were ordered for the students. I strove hard to get the books organized - in their right cupboards. I took a separate initiative to get back all the lost dissertations in the library. I prepared a letter, addressed to the alumni, got their addresses from the official records. The librarian, whose responsibility should have been to follow up with this never took any initiative. The library / librarian politics of our college is phenomenal. However, on the other hand, I got key reference books digitized - something that every library should be heavily investing in.

Inspite of all my efforts, the library remains unchanged. It will be ironical to reveal that my own dissertation remains invisible at the library.

I tried hard to bring some graphic design changes to the way in which attendance sheets, marking sheets etc are prepared in our school. We changed from legal size A4 paper to A4. I struggled to change portrait format to landscape so that students get more horizontal space to sign. I insisted on using Arial instead of Times New Roman. The normal font size was reduced to 10 from 12. Time tables of all years were compiled on one single A3 sheet for comparative study and printing (instead of separate A4s). Blaring big stickers on registers, files and cupboards were replaced by small font labels. There are countless such changes which go overlooked. I can not recount them myself. I was just pained to see no sense of design in a design school.

Bureaucratic officials do not understand the importance of graphic design. They do not have the intellect to think  about such issues. And when there is systemic hierarchy, it is even more difficult to establish new changes. I think above changes will be lost to the older version soon, over time, if no one is conscientious enough about it, or does not monitor it.

I was coordinating with numerous other people over the year for competitions, study tours and other such peripheral issues. There were hardly people who helped, or were interested in all such activities of the college.

proceed to part 4


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part 1
part 2
part 4

Four Years at AOA - Part 2

As mentioned in the earlier post, Atul and I chalked out a manifesto for AOA. Today, I realize that this manifesto was actually a circle of thoughts that Atul and I contrastingly thought of. Atul had a heavy hang over of AA school of thought and I had a heavy hangover of KRVIA thought. Both these thoughts dealt with theorizing the idea of 'context'. Our basic manifesto was formed of our understanding of the idea of context from dual view points. Here is an excerpt:

"

a manifesto for academy:

“Context is the problem”

We aim at creating an integrated design environment which places itself between the realms of context and decontext. While we understand that architectural manifestations have to constantly respond to their surroundings, we realize that the environment is constantly changing. Architecture can contribute to such change, primarily through its physical being, and adapting to its surroundings through a constant inquiry into the changing environment.

Context

Context is the surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings which determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event.

We realize that architecture must inform other disciplines while also adopting from them, towards building a holistic environment. Context makes us aware that we live in a system, and we all are parasites. The interdependence is what the society survives on. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand what context we live in, to be able to intervene into it. We have to constantly ask fresh questions to debate the relevance of a context, and its mutilation.

Contextual approaches are therefore top down approaches where there are already limited set of parameters which address the function of a programme. Recently, the term ‘function’ has been alternated by ‘performance’ which looks at programme as evolutionary rather than static. It is therefore important to arrive at the idea of de-context.

Decontext

In bottom up approaches, parameters for design are infinite. This not only throws new possibilities of imagining future roles of the profession of architecture, but keeps reminding that change is constant, and change has to be followed. De contextualization is not thinking without context, but thinking beyond context. De contextualization is also about thinking newer contexts.

"

Adarkar sir always supported ideas coming from young minds and encouraged our enthusiasm. We were to keep in mind this framework while we designed program briefs and events at AOA. We had long term ideas about how we wished to structure the new wing at AOA. It was roughly as ideated below:

YEAR	I	II	III	IV	V
Part 1 / context	Representation	Semantics and Semiotics			DESIGN THESIS
Part 2 / decontext			Structure and Framework	Research Methods

Adarkar sir was too close to the management to fuel radical change of thoughts in the system. However, he always tried to balance the situation by some middle ground solution tactic. He gave us a lot of freedom to design courses, programs and events. He offered to us his excellent contacts and made sure to introduce us to the biggest of people he knew. He had a lot of faith in us and he would never appoint any faculty without discussing with us. 

From Adarkar Sir, I understood the politics of not only AOA, but also the entire academic scene. I was very naive at all this and hardly took interest in all such matters. My inclination was teaching and I invested maximum time in reading, and discussion and synthesizing my own notes.  Perhaps, I realized that this politics was affecting me too - in the way i was working and the way I was being used. I had to keep myself aware of it so that I take measured action. (Perhaps this is how enthusiastic people set boundaries of operation for themselves). My biggest technique was to keep away from all this, keep restricted to my work and being closer to the students. But this technique does not necessarily help. I shall explain this later as I summarize my experiences of interaction with students. 

Talking to Adarkar Sir was always joyous. He was a repository of experiences. Adarkar sir would recount his old days in  which were emebedded images of the old city, old ways of working and old value systems. I always wondered how his value systems didnot cause any friction with newer generations. He accepted changes and mixed up with students so well. Initially I would get disturbed with differing value systems of different students and it would make me very unhappy. I learnt from Adarkar sir to maintain a distance, yet involve with students. The biggest learning from him that I shall carry with my for my life is the way to talk to people. He had a way of charming people and getting them on board even if they had the busiest of schedules. He approached people with abundant warmth and affection. He would never let you go without a cup of tea. I think Academy is unique because of its warmth. This warmth comes from people like Mr. Adarkar. People smile at you, inspite of all resentment you have for them. They do your work, even if they hate your methodologies. I think dealing with all that was a big learning towards my professional development.

I also learnt day to day administration techniques and academic chores from Adarkar Sir. Preparing, moderating and releasing results were the most important learnings. In the beginning I had no skills to negotiate peoples' schedules to suit ours (while preparing time tables). It is from Adarkar Sir that I learnt how one can persuade people to work with you. On the other hand, I also learnt how to politely decline, reject or make an offer inviting. I  learnt to some extent how to deal with awkward and embarrassing situations that get created when you are dealing too many subjects and too many people. I learnt from him to be responsible about small things during seminars, events and presentations. I believe he taught me the most and gave me a lot of confidence just by having faith in me and my beliefs.

During this phase, we undertook the task of preparing Reading Lists,Preparing Book Lists for library, Making course structures, etc. I had to run a lot during this phase since Academy had a dearth of faculty and there was no one to teach basic things to students. I almost over taught and exhausted myself. I didnot receive enough support from my colleagues to realise course structure booklet for Academy of Architecture. Their inputs were regulated by the money they were offered and the time mentioned on their contract letters. None of them prepared for classes - they took subjects which assumably require no preparation. People prefer to take up design subjects only because they can easily get away with talking generic non sense. Its about realizing a drawing into a building. 

I was extremely ambitious about my first batch as a class coordinator. I wanted them to become the best students in the history of AOA - rigorous, dedicated and serious people. Two years down the line, I feel having ambitions with students is a silly thought. Students have different priorities and ambitions with their own lives.

As an academic, I maintained two essential practices - the first of writing reviews for projects and subsequently evaluating project success. The second was archiving student works. Over the last two years, I tested multiple systems of archival - collecting Cds, uploading on a server, emailing to blog, etc. All work in various ways and all can be equally efficient. It's only the will of students that makes any of the archival systems successful.

It is here that I must introduce the next entry in the AOA history - Mr. Ravindra Punde. I do remember my first interaction with Prof. Punde. He must have seen me having an animated critique session with my students in a design class. I don't remember how our interactions grew.

proceed to part 3



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Links to thread
part 1

part 3

part 4

Four Years at AOA - Part 1

As I begin to depart briefly from the academia here in India, I feel it's important that I summarize the last four years I spent in teaching. This post is essentially a crib post, since very little of what I actually tried to do was realized. Perhaps this post will be constructed in parts over the next two months, eventually trying to crystallize my teaching method and theoretical stance on architectural subjects. How has it developed and how has it changed. I want to be able to make these set of writings as a springing point for my post graduate study. Hence, I feel intensive reflection and discussion will help. At the same time, I want to locate problem areas (within the scope of my academic space - Academy of Architecture), extrapolating it to certain generic patterns of academic environment that has emerged recently. 

It may be difficult to be chronological, since these are glimpses of memory, flashes of instances and triggers of thoughts. I am only trying to stitch a narrative. A lot of work and commentary can be found on the posts tagged 'academics' on this blog. I will try to remain consistent with the thoughts that I have raised earlier. However, I may be wavering, since this post is intended as a reflection, and I assume to have collected some wisdom over the last four years in the area of teaching and pedagogy. 

I joined Academy of Architecture on the invitation of Mr. Arvind Adarkar, being recommended by Dushyant (Desai). Dushyant was fascinated with my thesis and thought I would be an interesting addition to his team. I was always interested in coming back to college and interacting with my peers. I was interested in discussion of ideas, debating architectural issues and thinking design. I quickly joined in, along with my classmate Dhaval. In the league of Dushyant, our team initiated projects that were conceptually difficult for first year students to undertake. We experimented with different forms of media and representation. It was difficult to keep pace with Dushyant's philosophical discourses. We (the faculty) debated, discussed and there were lots of intense sessions. It was enjoyable.

Dushyant left by the next year and I tried to immerse myself more with the school. I started taking Graphics lectures for first year students.  This was the time when thoughts of bringing serious changes came into my mind. Apart from learning technical drawing skills, I didnot understand what 'graphical' did graphics teach. Occassionally I would ask students to go beyond what was asked for and excite them by giving small trivia in class. Those who would finish first would get an additional trick question. Some students enjoyed. But this soon died out since other faculties weren't interested and their ideas of graphics or graphical composition were ages old. In architectural design, I took this time to unwind myself from the Dushyant hangover. I had found myself immensely stuck in his philosophical methodology, which for me, didnot work for several reasons. It was too philosophical for me (as well as the students) to be translated into a design project. At many instances, it was forced and was the faculty's project more than the students'.

Unwinding partly became possible because of 2 primary reasons: my research fellowship and working with Rupali (Gupte). Basically teaching at Kamla Raheja introduced me to working with a METHOD. In the process of my fellowship research, the mechanics of a "METHOD" clarified further. I realised that methods make the design output predictable to a large extent. Thus students can be pushed to experimenting with different methodologies to bring out newer concepts. With Rupali, I learnt how representation affects our understanding of space and how it is important to perfect representation before spaces are intervened in. Kamla Raheja's methodical approaches made me challenge Dushyant's philosophical ones. I realized how theories translate into space. Interacting with Rohan (Shivkumar) and all my colleagues at KRVIA helped me understand the relevance of theory. The idea of formation of methodology occurred through the pursuit of my Research fellowship. Here, I learnt to develop a 'research framework' for analysis, method of argument and structuring a paper. Thus, the fellowship enabled me to become more independent and think on my own.

Unfortunately, I was not able to continue at KRVIA due to logistical reasons. At the same time, there also seemed no options that KRVIA could make space for me. This was the time when I expected I would go for my masters. However, luck didnot favour and all projects I was involved in were stalled. It was economic recession and I was pressed to make a decision between practice and academia. The decision was hard since I would have ideally liked to teach at KRVIA - I knew I could learn so much more by being in that environment. At the same time, it wasn't logistically feasible unless I took up a permanent job. A sudden opportunity broke open at Academy. I was invited again, this time by Adarkar Sir to take up a permanent position for the new wing of AOA that was entering in its second year. They required permanent staff and I took it up. Frankly, it wasn't a job I readily took up, since it wasnt my first choice. I knew the visionless state of the institution and I knew I would have to deal with much difficult people. But I don't think there would have been any better option available to me at that point of time. I was too egoist to discuss these things with my colleagues at KRVIA. And I also realised that they were looking for a more permanent person who could stick along with them, in case they were to open to me a full time post. I knew I had to go for my masters.

I think that was a difficult phase. But I saw an opportunity to set the tone for the new wing of AOA based on rigorous dialogue, thinking and departure from the old programs we did in design. In this journey, my closest companion was Atul Mhatre. Atul had just flown down from London, after finishing his masters in Architectural Association. Atul too was in line with what I learnt as a 'methodical approach' at KRVIA. This boosted the way in which we designed programs. We understood each others' ideas, and we being classmates, understood each others' strengths and weaknesses. Thus we worked as quite an efficient team. Atul too was interested in theory and AA had prepared with with a lot of reading. We occasionally would share a lot of ideas and churned out lots of thoughts for events, programs and seminars for AOA. However, Atul was too busy setting up his own architectural practice during this period. It only revealed to me gradually over the year that probably, he just used the academic space as a buffer to bridge his comeback from AA to setting up his practice here. This full time job, which demanded him to spend only half his day in the school was used as an opportunity for him  to dedicate a time to his fledgling practice. 

Atul's contribution in the administrative affairs was minimal. He did not carry forward an idea he would initiate to its logical execution. He was extremely sophisticated and did not let us know whether he was really interested in pursuing a career in academics. Although he called himself an academician, he seldom contributed to the discourse of architecture in the form of writing or presenting his work. Although, he was extremely informed, too refined and too teacher like. But Atul also oriented me to tackling students issues in a more systematic manner. For the first time, on learning from Atul's experiences at AA, we conducted a Mid term Review. This review was meant to make students conscious of their progress taking into consideration their performance in academics, addressing their strengths and weaknesses and giving them a clear direction to improve their performance. We followed up this method and it seemed to be quite beneficial. Atul  made me realize the importance of written communication, like Charles Correa would also suggest subsequently. He taught me how to deal with students' personal issues professionally. I was quite an emotional guy without the intervention of Atul. I shall always respect him for that.

We prepared an ambitious manifesto for AOA and presented it to the Principal - Mr. Arvind Adarkar. It shall be the right time to turn to Part II of this post and talk about the next important person in my academic life - Prof. Adarkar.

proceed to Part 2

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part 2
part 3

part 4

Aross the railway tracks

Plant Moods

Do plants have moods? Have you ever felt of a fallen flower trying to make a conversation with you? I found this flower on the pavements of Marine Drive and picked it up. As I walked along with it, people stared at the flower. I yet did not know if it was a flower. I picked it up because it looked like a snake. A snake which I could domesticate. It had a large head and a long pink tongue. It's mouth was wide open and the tongue stuck out of it. It seemed to smile, but I wondered if it did so. But as I began to look at the flower through the lens, it told me multiple stories. 

Naughty

Playful

Obedient

Lazy

Pose / Portraiture

Sleeping

Snoring

Smiling

?

The feeling of restlessness

I have yet not begun counting my days towards my journey to US. I feel trapped in a time bubble. The time bubble is something that distorts the relative experience I have with the outside world. This period makes me feel I am not moving at all. I feel what a floating bubble would feel in air - where it constantly negates any reference with the moving world. The bubble waits to burst to take in more air, to lose itself... Similarly, there's a momentum frozen within, waiting to explode.

I have lost any experience of the outside world. I have lost any sense of time and space. I have forgotten mathematics, I have not counted minutes for a long time now. I do not know when the new day begins - I stare at the watch for hours to feel no change in time. I can not feel the time biologically. 

My every day schedule too has become amorphous. I wonder if I operated similarly some days before. Yesterday when I went to get some pages binded, I had 5 sets for which the shop keeper quoted Rs. 15/- per set. I wanted to bargain to lower the price - and combined 5 sets into 4 and told him to charge me Rs. 60/- for 4 sets. He agreed and I felt I made a good deal. Calculating the cost of per binding today, I still arrived at a figure of 15/-! What does such an act reveal of my mental condition?

Was I was completely lost? What was happening?

There are so many things in the head. Is it accumulated energy or is it apprehension? Is it fear or is it excitement? Am I being prepared or am I over-preparing? I do not understand what is happening to me. I feel like my bones are pushing my body - I keep stretching my muscles. Do I want to grow out of myself? I do not react to movement in the city. I do not react to the change in my everyday. Is it anxiety? 

But I do know I have felt this earlier. Similar impatience, restlessness. It was when I decided that I wanted to do architecture. I waited to finish my 12th studies as soon as possible. I was so hungry to consume architecture. I remember ranked 6th in the merit list for Academy of Architecture. I waited impatiently to begin my new world then. It's similar now. 

I had said this earlier over my blog - "winning after a lot of hard work is a great feeling". Two years ago I was rejected in all colleges I applied to. This year, I got selected in a University (Yale), the best in the world and the field of theory that I applied for, that rejects 90% of the applications it receives, further, for a course which admits only 3, maximum 4 people over the world - and I just don't know how to express this feeling. Perhaps expressing this is a difficult thing. But I am not trying to be boastful. If it reads that way, it's only because I just do not know how else to express it. It has raised my expectations of myself altogether. And I am not sure if I will be able to cope up with it. I think I am worried.

I am worried to be floating, to have lost my referentiality. I am struggling to frame sentences. I cant frame it through conventional language. I often gaze at the sugarcane crushing machine and wonder about the biography of the sugarcane. I can feel myself between the two cylinders. And I would also like to believe that the result would be sweet.

Drawing Boards

It may be possible to understand imaginations that go within students' heads as they work on their drawing boards.
Here are a few selected drawings, doodles, captions, messages, notes on drawing boards. A more detailed post must be awaited till I find some better pictures.

Writing Architecture

Types of writings:

1.     Journalistic: A journalistic writing is primarily a form used for getting across an idea quickly. It gives a gist of the 'whole'. There is generally no pressure of an argument in a journalistic piece. The write-ups are kept around 800-1000 words. Thus they have a faster rhythm of reading, understanding and perception. There is no pressure of giving references or bibliography.

2.     Academic writing: An academic writing is primarily argumentative. It has to fit in a structure. The structure is defined by a clear methodology. Establishing a lineage becomes important in an academic piece since generally it refers to an author / body who has a history himself / itself. References and bibliography thus becomes important. An academic piece is generally around 5000-15000 words

Eg.: Kenneth Frampton

3.     Essay: Essays are argumentative, long, but polemic (making a point but polishing it to a level of absurdity. There is no obligation to give references but one can mention people, etc.

Eg.: Gautam Bhatia

Modes of writing:

1.     Argumentative pieces: Makes a point. Proves an opinion.

2.     Conversation Structure: Not under any compulsion to make a point. Eg.: Interviews, etc.

3.     Layout: Opens up a field (just saying what different people see, think, speak, etc.). They are descriptive and do not give opinions. There is no value judgement. 

Conversation in an Auto Rickshaw

Today while traveling back home with Paul (Aniruddha), I had an interesting conversation on how he started his career and his perceptions of the city. I am not too sure with sharing his biography here, (without his consent), but I shall definitely like to put down his perceptions of the cities he has been closely associated with over his life by far. I shall try to objectively put them down here:

Aniruddha was born in Jamshedpur, studied in Kolkata, did his postgraduate studies in Delhi and has been practicing in Mumbai since the last 20 years. Thus he has extensively spent time in all these cities. Talking of them one by one he says

"Jamshedpur was a fairly cosmopolitan city, due to the presence of Tata Industries. The city was fairly well developed and you had everything around. Wilderness edged the city so outsikirts was a perfect place for recreation. It has one of the best ICSE schools in the country. Infact, students were so competitive. Competition was like madness. Most of my friends went to IIT or did IAS. Although many of them may not be pursuing engineering now. But competition is so high that everyone wants to end up in engineering or medical. There is nothing else that they look at..."

"I studied in Kolkata, and although it was an industrial city because of jute and other, people there are extremely laid-back. The leftist ideology of labour class has not allowed them to grow. The labour there does not believe in working. They don't work hard. They are not motivated, even if you give them more money, they are not willing to work.Most people want to get work done through political connection."

"When I first came to Mumbai, I liked the city, because I felt the same kind of cosmopolitanism as in Jamshedpur. I had come here earlier for an internship. That time, I had liked the city. There is some kind of positive feeling with this city. You get a feeling of emancipation. People have aspirations and the positive will to achieve them. For example, each person you meet has a desire, and he works towards it. You can find people discussing their desires in trains, roads - even when you travel by an auto. The rickshaw driver strives to go to the next level of life. The street hawker wishes that he will have his own hotel one day. And many of them realize these dreams too. There is this positive emancipation of Mumbai. The best aspect of the city is that it respects your work. People are ready to work for more money. You can get more work out of people if you are willing to give more money. The city is professional. I like this city...I can not stay in any other city, I start feeling uneasy if I am out of Mumbai for too long..."

"Delhi is a horrible city - its a city of cheats. In Delhi, people don't believe in working, they believe in networking. They can not just see you working harder. I don't like Delhi at all - it is contrived. It is a very hard city - in its comparison, Mumbai is really soft..."

Somewhere in his discussion on Mumbai, he mentioned something that I felt was quite interesting. He said, "I have seen that mobility makes people human. Movement makes a space acceptable. It gives you a kind of access to things. There is a feeling of palpability through movement..."

I am not exactly able to remember his ideas on the last aspect in detail. However, I am glad I was able to know so much about how one synthesizes and analyzes cities. These impressions are valuable and I think they come with age. That is one reason again, why I perhaps like growing old. I am a collector of my experiences and I can't wait enough to be able to put them in a perspective that allows me to negotiate my life across space and time.

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Aniruddha Paul is the Dean of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture.
The conversation above has been recorded purely to suggest one of the many opinions people have on cities and is in no way meant to demean any city or people staying in these cities. The above chat was informal and is to be taken light hearted-ly.

Response from the Chief Manager, BEST on my complaint

I was surprised to have a response from the Chief Manager of BEST today in my mail box. This in in reference to my earlier post on Complaint to BEST Buses:

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Sir,

This refers to your mail to us. In this connection we have to state as follows

Sr no 1:- The conventional seats are replaced with new design plastic moulded seats considering the new technology concept and the viability factor. The broken / torn seats are being repaired by our bus contractor.

Sr no 2 and 3:- Those seats which are having loosened / broken head rest are in the process of being replaced with metallic head rest which are more safe and comfortable from commuters safety point of view.

Sr no 4:- Your suggestion is noted.

Sr. no 5:- The LED indicators are introduced as an innovative concept. Arrangement for defective LED indicators is being done.

Sr. no 6:- You may send report on the irregularities committed by the bus conductor / driver  with details such as date, route no, bus no, time , direction, copy of ticket etc so as to enable us to take suitable action against the erring staff.

Yours Faithfully

Chief Manager (Tr)

The Aesthetic of Dirt

draft link

A random opinion

Is cursing and abusing the only way to express your dislike towards any subject? Till some time, perhaps I would have done that too. But only till I attended Mithu Sen's interview. I have written about her earlier on this blog. What Mithu does is finds creative ways to channel her angst into her works. (Mithu's website) This gives strength to her work and makes her work more meaningful. It makes her work sharp, provocative and different from the rest.

That is why I always keep resisting protests. Protests only say that you don't agree / dont like a certain action, thing etc. But what about it? You make big banners, placards, hold rallies, destroy things and end of it. Then you slowly immunize yourself, make laws. Laws that are most uncreative, most limiting and degenerating factors of life. Laws that don't grow themselves, and dont allow you to grow. Then we protest against the laws. Its a silly cycle.

Interestingly, I think reactions to systems are what allow us to articulate a theoretical position. In this situation, it is important that we react. And it is more important that we realize that we are reacting. Further analysis of such  reaction would help in elaborating a theoretical position. A position helps set a perspective and allows us to appreciate others' perspective. Many a times, understanding and appreciating others perspectives help us in strengthening and expanding our own position. 

Why am I writing all this? I am fed up of seeing cynical abuses by people of their own professions. It seems no one, doing their respective studies are happy with what they are doing. How can it be so? Students of architecture say their field is most disgusting, which engineers rant about engineering, doctors complain about their chosen profession and CAs crib that their field is stressful. Who then is happy? I guess, in today's liberal world, very few students choose fields against their liking. How then, can they not give their 100% to a field of their choice, irrespective of faculty, infrastructure or guidance. 

It has perhaps become a fashion to denigrate one's own field. Every one from a respective field would suggest another to 'not' do that course. Architects wont promote architecture and engineers would not promote engineering. 

If people would be more conscientious, they would see value in all things around them. And I think people would start valuing their own fields if they value themselves more, instead of waiting for others to recognize their talent.