What does it mean to design a school in a urbanities like here?
Schools are not mere places of education in south asian cities. When a modern architecture of education landed in communitarian urban landscape of south asia, they never remained programmatically insular for activities of the school. Rather, these places were seen as spatial resource for conducting a range of community activities for which an an architectural enclosure brought security. These activities included interests of both - the state and the local community. Thus, from election booths, to vaccination administering centers to training and political speech grounds, schools also extended to facilitate marriages, prayer meetings, large celebratory events, and so on.
After years, I took a morning local train on the Western Railway of Mumbai towards South Mumbai. Once upon a time it was an everyday ritual, to be at my office in the Fort area by 9, and hence to take the same local, enter the same pool of people everyday, cut through the crowd on the footover bridge while scrutinizing the indicators, zig zagging then to my everyday spot on the platform and take position to board the train. A decade has passed since I returned back from the USA when I decided to work at another institution which no longer needs me to transact the train environment anymore. Instead it's the more unregular BEST bus network within which my new routine is intertwined.
In approaching the morning train that I had decided to catch tonrrach CST, by confirming on the mIndicator app, I had already set my body in clock the previous night. 7.17 am, CSTM from Goregaon. And should I have missed it, the day would drop like a domino. But i managed parsing through all hesitation of missing it over morning chores and intermediate connections. But so much had changed over the decade... The Goregaon station had expanded, new direct trains were added from the Western line to the Central, one could book tickets over the mobile phone, locate the buses on the Chalo GPS app, escalators were installed on the train platform, and yet, as one entered the simmering sea of bodies within the station, the mood seemed same.
A theatre. Descending down the staircase after checking the status of the trains, I see two young girls waving at another on the steps to call quickly for their third to board the train entering the platform, people quietly waiting on the seats for their train to arrive, others hurrying to get to their spots, school girls, working men and women, vendors with fresh produce, sellers...the station seemed like a set waiting to be performed by these actors of the city.
To be sure, the observation possibly felt beautiful given the moment of an November early morning - when the station was still waiting to warm up. I pick my compartment seat, release the shut window besides my seat together drawn to the yet available gaze of the platform across the track. Submerged in the pool of announcements, I am jerked into the journey of the day, sucked into the unfiltered sounds of the mobile speakers that are new televisions for those who labour the roughness of the city.
This gateway in Maheshwar has always fascinated me since it is not merely a gateway, but infact a four room hotel on the top. It has a staircase that goes on its side where you can climb up to its midlevel terrace and then go further up to access the rooms.
Mumbai looked so different from within the airconditioned bus. Complete silence. Only around and smell of cool breeze. No external honking pressing again6theears, only twinkling building lights. Gliding by the newly repaired road, free through traffic, it felt ideal. The bus was smooth, electric operated, without gears. Thankfully the bus driver managed to ride without jerks, making the outside soft, smooth.
And so I wondered if the city I saw so far was my own internal projection? Or was it just turbulent to become calm. I don't know how long this calmness would last, but until it does, and all buses become introverted, this memory, i wanted to seal in my record.
