Mess

i wonder what happens to those who choose not to be a part of this worldly 'mess'. while my reading of 'maximum city' introduces me to more and more mess all around, it is difficult to understand if there is no option other than getting sucked into it. what does one become if not mess. and even if you are not a part of the mess, you will be always identified as its part - because for people on the other side, its always the other side which is the mess.

i am worried -

i am worried if i too will end up messing myself! that will be terrible.

it makes me feel happier to have done a project which pokes the mess. now, i all the more believe in the theory of mess - the world is a cinema for the blind. it is a temple for an atheist.

can one only live for oneself then? the purpose being that of the sea gull - survival. as prarthana and me were discussing the other day, all discussions can be rooted in two basic purposes in life - pleasure and fear. and when there are people who have broken these ideas in their lives; they exist like polarised elements - the inexperienced as nascent and unstable, and the experienced as settled stable particles. they do not contribute, they donot adapt - they just are - just!

Five Gardens

Now this is nostalgic...
the huge plan of Five Gardens, prepared by 12 of us in 3rd year...some drew, some coloured, some rendered, some stuck pics , some analysed, some wrote....to put it together! wow...that is called team work!

The Fountainhead

Is life anything different from the landscape Ayn Rand has described in Fountainhead.
Today i experienced a Gail Wynand and a Toohey talking about Peter Keatings and Howards. it was hard to absorb, but i guess the best way to adjust is to JUST know them and not interfere!

Murphy's Law

If anything can go wrong,it will.

speech and text

I do not remember reading any of IAB’s articles indulgently. Today when I sat to read one of the articles, I realized what was wrong!

I feel written language too must have a tonal quality. The glibness with which you register a sentence was not present in the passage I read from the magazine. I found the same problem with the concept notes of the magazine, most probably prepared by the same person. The combination of words, which we use have to be easy for the tongue to twist. On the other hand, there are some phrases, which we are comfortable with. Many a times, we try and innovate, but I think then it becomes important to preserve the tonal aspect of the more used to phrase.

To cite some examples:

Phrases From, IAB Dec 2008 pg 45

Architectural road – architectural path
Time being opportune for practices – time being appropriate for practices
Versatile matrix – unnecessary use of adjective.
More mature future – note the “re-re-re’ in the end of all three words!

See what it does to your tongue. It will be difficult for the brain to register them.

I wonder if that is the way language has to be purposely made complicated. One can complicate ideas, by using simple words – like these theorists do…

To give examples:

Space of representation – representational space
Form of knowledge – knowledge of form
Realizing philosophy – philosophizing reality
Imagined space – spatial imagination

These are some beautiful things, which tingle your mind – without twisting the tongue – or rather they twist your brain!

At the Workshop...PPA Sets

The Maleshan Man



The Maleshan Man at Work


The Plans


The tools



The Power

The week that was

The past week has been the busiest week post my thesis. And I am amazed by the amount of things I have been handling. Right from the sets of Anjor Kaaya to co ordinating on the site (Powai) for Opolis, to designing the tickets and posters, to doing some back stage work to co ordinating with my cousin for redoing his house, I had my fingers in everything. But things have been going fine. While there has been no time to rest, I feel a tremendous need to lie down and think for a while whether it is really necessary to exert so much.

But then I like to be on my toes. That is why I sat down at 10 in the night to formulate a brief for my class today. And though I did not come up with anything great, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction for the simple fact that I completed my task. I also went to Falkland road on Sunday, the experience of which I would like to brief out.

As we know of it, Falkland road is one of those lanes of Kamathipura in Mumbai. I personally was not very much interested in studying or even looking up at that area. Most of the times, I feel it has become a ‘hot spot’ to study. Some people like to discuss things which are difficult / embarrassing to discuss. That is their usp. I was amongst those who resisted either selecting or considering that area for study. I did not want to go to Falkland Road. I went for the simple reason to test the level of my embarrassment. More than that, it was fear of being visually raped.

One can not look into the eyes of a prostitute. They simply make you naked. As if you were made to stand without even a single piece of cloth on your body in front of them. On the other hand, architecturally, the place was deserted. We entered from Alfred Talkies side and slowly the buildings started becoming more and more perverse. The beginning was tolerable, when towards the middle we saw the silver decorated victorias. One could metaphorize it as the pleasure ride into the lane of Kamathipura. And soon, the pleasure queens display themselves as products. That is when I got more involved with neha in her talks. This was done to avoid looking at the girls. However, I managed some courage to look at some of them. They were sharp, looked straight into the eye, did not blink, and had perfect postures. If I was not embarrassed, I would have sat there and made a few portraits. However, the defied the laws of ‘conventional beauty’.

Questions which rolled into my head were debates of lust and love; whether one goes for quenching sexual urge, or spend time with another body…and what defines beauty, can lust exist without an idea of beauty (subjective)?

Of course, the area could be documented beautifully by pictures. There was too much of essence in the space itself. But its just the fear that did not allow us to wait and watch. We tried to wait at a sex clinic and talk for some time while dhaval did his part of survey. But I felt I was in the lane just to experience the oddity for that one single time. I do not intend to go there again for any reason. Neha had some beautiful inferences of the place. It was nice to talk to her.

On the other hand, Anjor Kaaya was a little boring. Apart from the length of the play, it needed a strong character sketch of each of the characters of the play. the music was indeed beautiful, but there was far too many unrequired characters. In short, the play was not crisp!

Well, there are far too many things to write, but where is the time? As I write this, my eyelids are heavy with sleep…so I take a break now…

Asian Age covers Prarambh Performing Arts

Article in Asian Age - 5th Jan 2009

What to do now?

Experiments are difficult to sustain….specially when one of the apparatus is life. How do you really play with life?

I have left my job already. I wanted to explore my life. But I don’t know how. I have many people to meet…those which include film makers, installation artists, visual artists, architects of course…but there is always a kind of hesitation in the head. I don’t know why! Other things are to elaborate the plenty of ideas in the head and convert them into tangible formats- paintings, writings, poetries, postcards, photos, manuals, posters – all are in the head. But it’s difficult to do all of that without a sense of security – financial security – which I have killed by my own.

I am a victim of commitment. I find it immensely difficult to give a word to someone and then turn my back at it. However, in the last few years, I have gathered courage to say NO – and I have realized how difficult is it to say no!

My current state of mind is insecure – because this is the time of recession, and I am amongst one of those fools who have resigned – where people are not leaving / are thrown ou of their offices… but I hope there is something good in store for me.

I have still not capitalized in the professional world on the fact that I am a National Winner! And I don’t even feel like…though it has made me a lot more confident as a person. As you must have read somewhere in some earlier post on the blog, I still maintain – ‘Confidence comes only from appreciation by people whom you respect’. And that, i feel, has happened with me.

Questions which kill me everyday are – what do I want to do in my life? And some very personal questions which I will share today are – why are we are part of a locus (the locus of obligations in social life, where the variables are people whom we are connected with, who shape us up!). Is it possible to be out of the locus? Or can we reduce ourselves to a point – a singular point – dimensionless, free to move in any direction, which is individual, which still can form a part of any locus, multifaceted, still single – one? Actally there has to be a separate post to detail this thought. So I will leave it now.

I have for the time being applied to Indian Architect & Builder, as a writer. Waiting for reply. After getting a rejection for the UDRI fellowship, currently, spirits are low. But if this is the kind of time when one reads his/her horoscope, then there are good signals. I want to travel for now, want to be with my self for some time. Think. Sit. Alone.

Many moments gained in the last year, Many lost……which ones? They are hidden in the moments gained itself!

Still, the experiment is not over. And especially, if one does not have the “Aim:” to begin with, what is the sense in the “Procedure:” or should I put it as a rhetoric – is it possible to carry out a procedure without an aim? Well…time will tell. Meanwhile, the procedure can be collected in the memory bag!

PPA in newspapers

The song she is referring to is sung by me...