Autobiography of a Medal

I am round, and I bulge at the centre. And when everyone take me in their hands, they say I am heavy. I never know if they mean it in a good or a bad way…since today is the era of being slim. Nevertheless, I ignore the comment by reflecting off people’s faces on my shiny surface. I am smooth, I am gold. I have 4 brothers too, who were born with me. But their naming ceremony has not taken place. They are not labeled. They are smooth and plain. My face has been engraved on both sides. On one side, there are nine squares, embossed, still making a square. Below that, it reads “THE CHARLES CORREA GOLD MEDAL”. However, that is not embossed, but engraved. On the other side, it says “ANUJ DAGA 2008”. I wonder who are these two people, and why would I be named after them?

I am lying safe in my home, on my soft bed. They never take me out, and since I have been made, there are always mumblings I hear from a person who says, “It has come, I don’t know when it will be given to you!” For a long time I did not hear anything after that, perhaps it was about 6 months I was lying in my house. I was bored. Then suddenly, an old man took me and started shouting:

“Why is this 2008, no one knows anything, we gave the award in 2009...what is this? Who got this done? Call the manager…there is no system in place…”

I was scared…I wondered if they have only kept my name, why are they now regretting it? Will they scratch my smoothness again…? Will they deface me? Later I don’t know what happened, they closed me in the box for 2 weeks and suddenly, I felt like an earthquake one fine day, when I was sleeping quietly…they were taking me somewhere…in a car, I could feel the gravity in my round bulgy belly. It was a ride, exciting. I was safe, since I had a lot of cushions with me. I padded myself in them! They finally exposed me to light…the same old hands again took me…I could feel them…big hands. And they wondered about where was my ribbon! Did they want to tie me up somewhere? they were puzzled, and they just closed me in my comfortable space and sent back in the car, after which I was again opened in a house…and again some old hands held me. She was a lady, soft and tender. She added a blue satin ribbon to my ring. It was beautiful. I liked it. It furled around and tickled me. And it was shiny too…

I was finally closed in my box, and was locked tight.

The next time I was opened, was today. As soon as the lid opened, I heard applause. There were so many people. The old hands took me, and hung me to another person…I was swinging…it felt nice. This was the first time I experienced freedom. I felt weightless, though I was bulky. When I touched the person through whom I was swinging, I could feel a thumping heart, an excited motion. May be I made someone happy.

And later, many people touched me, felt me…my smooth body, they repeated a name “ANUJ DAGA”…I wondered why are they taking my name…may be I was famous. This young boy took my picture too. I smiled back at him, with a shiny smile. I think he likes me. Now you tell me how I look in the picture he has taken, so that I am assured I will be happy with him all my life!

Gaze

City Critique

 

I love this scrap piece of building near Churchgate station. One can see it while just entering the Churchgate station. The building is hollow, with windows poked all on its body, looking out to nowhere. I haven't figured out an entrance to this building. But the juxtaposition of windows and the composition that they create are beautiful. I wonder if such a place can become a gallery...or some place for light show or more interactive. 

They are replacing the old beautiful stone pavers from the entire fort precinct pavement into concrete ones. however, look at  the disinterest with which they are doing it. There is no sense of detail, no love for work. The new edges of the pavers are not even aligned with the tree linings. They cut the pavers absurdly every time, and keep putting pieces mundanely to finish their job. I wonder what UDRI is doing sitting just behind the place where this is happening. There is no Urbanity, no Design, no reflection of Research and no Institution in picture.

Some buildings in the city are so selfish and unfriendly that they do not want people to touch them, play with them or even use them. The edges of the Eros Cinema are cladded with sharp urban thorns. So they do not allow people who are waiting there to sit on its edges. Why can't public building be truly public. There is no sense of urban design, no idea of what a building can do. The Eros perhaps took this step because the visibility of the posters at the back might be hampered. Why couldn't the posters play with possibly the people sitting on the edge? 

Sigh!

We just need an earthquake...

We need to restart...

On the station

I spotted this completely traditionally dressed old man on the station today and could not help but take a picture. He looked absolutely contrasting against the fast passing train. It was a different combination of the old and the new. And while i turned behind waiting for the train, I could see all the people engrossed in different activities - a student studying his notes, a man reading newspaper, the smell of vada pavs, a man running towards the first class, people talking on the mobile phone, some people peeping on the station towards the train - so many things which the camera can not capture...






















Mornings are active, and seeing the sun rise every day is beautiful...especially from a moving train, which reels the city against the static sun, cutting profiles into the full orange circle and making new geometries all the time!

Nihara's house

I suddenly happened to go to Nihara's house on Wednesday. She shifted to this new place after marriage due to some personal reasons with her new family. The house was cozy simple space - the kitchen separated with a curtain, cut short by a bathroom, which was filled with buckets of water! They had a single cupboard, a single diwan, refrigerator and a television. What was the most fascinating thing was the cooking gas stove, which she could easily carry across the curtained partition of the kitchen into the living space and cook food along with the guest (or her partner otherwise). I felt that was  nice. In our conventional homes where kitchen becomes almost an isolated space with no connection with the rest of the house, here, the kitchen was brought in the living.

Since Swapnil met with an accident, he came home instead of attending his site visit. He then showed me a gift that he prepared for Nihara for her birthday (love marriages I say!). It was the backdrop of the television space (the photo frame, and the frame for the frames). The house is rented space, so there can be no permanent alterations. So all the objects are about (atleast one inch) away from the wall. The TV, diwan, cupboard, fridge, poofie...everything. Even a small aquarium, which has about 5 fishes. They feed them from time to time. I wondered if people actually become so lonely! Or is it just the fascination?

It was nice and cozy, still free...I could feel the freedom. Homes have become so institutionalized that they have become like museums. Why can they be a bit more relaxed. Like this one. I wonder how it fits with the other parameters of family, work, lifestyle... where each category has an individual aspiration. Does Nihara live with aspiration? i could not really discuss that with her. But "making one's home" is definitely an aspiration of the family. How does it cope up such expectation within a rented space - where life is lived an inch away from the walls? I wonder. Perhaps then, house starts becoming a collection of objects. And these objects seem alien, though fulfil the aspiration of a complete house.

We spoke about things, which were a kind of continuation to the five years of architecture. And this is what is always different in talking with Nihara, Madhavi ... the freshness of talk, which is always leading towards newer directions in life. I dont know if i am making sense over here, but these are abstract thoughts which i keep questioning...of what would friends talk in different phases of their life, what would the scenario be with different constraints with living...of what are the pleasure giving things later, how does the idea of these experiences change...? Unlike with my other groups of friends, who always end up consummating all discussion in a nostalgic past, talks with Nihara's company is a continuation of where we stopped last...with the flavour of same old jokes, old memories, but seen in new light.

New Pics

Meetings

 KRVIA after class discussion

AOA Meet at Marzaban's place to discuss new prog

Meeting school friends!

Express City

The BEST buses constantly try and update its services. Some time ago, it started this new idea of having Rs. 20 tickets which would allow you to travel throughout the day anywhere within the suburbs north of Bandra. There was also a Rs. 25 ticket – the regulations of which I don’t know. Then there were passes for regular route travelers and a global pass for Rs. 1000 which could be used throughout Mumbai all the time.

I think after that, half the world travelling in Mumbai BEST buses started using these 20 rupee tickets and passes – school students, office goers, courier wallahs, workers, bhaji wallahs, delivery men, service men – all of them. Perhaps only those who now took tickets were the house wives who would occasionally travel to some places via the bus.

Some time ago, I confronted this new situation – the express bus, in which passes, 20 rupee ticket and 25 rupee tickets would not be sold or not be allowed. Moreover, the ticket charges in the bus would be more than the normal. The argument provided was that it would not stop on all bus stations, and was to reach the destination faster thus. However, many people did not (and still do not know about such a service). In the morning today, I decided to take this bus, just to avoid waiting too long in the queue. As the bus moved, I realized that it wasn’t still clear to people that the ‘express’ bus would not allow passes or 20 rupee tickets. So there were many people who got in and then the bus driver waited on each stop for them to get down again!

Two observations which I would like to point out –
1. Most of these 20 rupee travelers were north Indians (UP and Bihar).
2. The ‘express’ bus stopped at all stops and waited extra time to convey the message about who is allowed and not allowed.

Whom has the BEST service brought out this 20 rupee scheme for? this question might not be relevant, or politically incorrect, but the pressure on the buses is increasing day by day. everyday chaos, standing in long queues, negotiating getting in, jumping, running, crawling, sticking onto the buses, traveling has become painful. When the bus gets crowded, the corporeal experience changes – its no longer visual. the environment of a bus is then extremely polluted, people rubbing against you, stamping, farting, sweating and all of it is literally shared with everyone. the smell is suffocating, and the amount of jerks that the driver puts you in does not leave any chance of hitting on to all these ‘kinds of people’.

The time of commute is less than the time we wait for a bus. It takes me 45 minutes to travel from Churchgate to Goregaon (30 km), while one hour to go from Goregaon station to Dindoshi (1.5 km). What kind of a service is this? While new neighbourhoods have come up, it seems that the existing infrastructure has been divided into many routes. Where there were 6 buses to choose from earlier to go to my place, now there are only 3.

However, today’s travel clearly shows that the public transport has shrunk to carry only the menial working class of the city. New plans are developed for these new workers of the city. A new opportunity is seen in this migrant population which run the city. The basic standards of a bus are constantly modified – they play old songs repeatedly, earlier coupled seats are separate, they are made up in plastic, windows slide sideways, there are stop gates in the front (which are still barged)…
Whom is the city changing for? I wonder.

Drinks

I recently decided to educate myself on the various kinds of alcoholic drinks. So I asked one of my German colleagues to tell me about the various drinks, and also how they are served. I realized that all these drinks are made out of some foods which we normally eat. Then I wondered why their products require permissions to consume. On the other hand, why are they considered so ‘prohibitive’ in the traditional Indian family concept? Of course, the consumption of alcohol has adverse effects. So we will not get into the whole ‘ethical family’ business. But the study was nice. I wish if someone presented this to me earlier in the following way:

Concepts

How does one understand concepts? This mail is to be read in the context of the “new mail”. I was reading the entries for the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Performing Arts (or something), which was an open competition for architects throughout the world. There were architects competing from all the world. The winning entry was an excellently explained one. Amongst the others, one which particularly stuck in my mind was Anil Laul’s. His concept for the entire campus was that of the atoms and molecules. How the atoms and molecules are bonded to each other. And in the end, the entire building looks like carbon atoms – hexagonal volumes one over the other. The entire explanation also was like a chemistry text book.

Now is that called a concept?

“My concept comes from the waves of the sea”…and the building will become a wave of the ocean – physically – and then there will be slabs – as horizontal as possible. It’s just the skin that personifies the wave.

“Ripples” – and the entire plan will be concentric circles…

Look at Hafeez’s concept for the Osho Ashram, Pune – he himself rubbishes it by saying that it is utter nonsense. He said in his lecture that I attended: “I used the pyramid because it is the most stable form. I cladded it with black stone because black is the absence of any colour. Osho replied, ‘I like it’” and he puts together forms frivolously in his other works. He claims to bring architects in the forefront by publicizing them.

So students think that concepts are images. Images are impressions. Impressions are like signs that can be made on signboards. One of my colleagues was doing a War memorial for his thesis. His ‘concept’ was the explosion of a bomb. So his building looked like how we draw the explosion of bombs in cartoon strips. A poky three dimensional star. That becomes his “war memorial” –it has nothing to do with the phenomenon of war, neither the people involved, or the reasons.

I wonder still, what is a concept. Concepts can be held in hands it seems. The in orbit mall in malad, has a planetary dome on it (unfortunately which no one can see from outside) and then today, I see that there is a building call “something orbit” with a dome on the top at the place of the water tank. These people don’t even know what an orbit is!

It’s something like shaping the first birthday cake of a child in the shape of 1. Iconography – completely.

In interiors, the colours of the walls become concepts. So concepts are matching tiles, and wash basins. “The concept here is 3 walls in blue and the floor in white…” used to say my earlier employer. In interiors, concepts are even more bastardized. For fashion designers, colours and patterns are concepts. A new concept would be to use green with golden, for instance.

My students have similar concepts. They would say that “the white represents good part of the life and the black part is bad.” Time in space becomes a watch with personified hands. Its normal perhaps for students in first year, at least, when they are learning the difficult process of abstraction. But when architects and those too famous ones project themselves like that, it troublesome. Students in fourth year come and say “I wanted to make this space interactive”: and the immediate design is an amphi theatre or benches facing each other.

So the discourse of concept is difficult. We now a days do not use the word. Its pejorative to use it. We as faculty do not ask students to make concept sheets. They do some silly iconographic stuff by making signs and symbols for familiar objects rather than trying to dissect what it means to them. So a building for children will be a play ground, a school necessarily has to have bright coloured walls, parks have to have floral edges and all possible combinations of pavings, urban design is nothing more than street furniture (literally).

And after all that, they still have to criticize the new sky walks. The poor yellow worms crawling over the city.


Concepts of Buildings against the Jantar Mantar in Delhi