Fire

Last Spring when I was taking a course called "World Cinema" in the film studies department at Yale, I was told by an old lady, who auditing the class, to watch "Fire" - a film by Deepa Mehta that was banned the screening of which was stopped across theatres in India, but an original copy of which could be secured from the Yale Film Study Center. When I got a chance to attend the screening of this film a few days ago, I made sure not to miss it. "Fire" is a part of the trilogy - by the Deepa Mehta, who as I have heard, originally planned to make a film on each of the five elements that make up our world. Thus we have "Earth", "Water" and "Fire" - without the other two.

To begin with, how do we understand "fire" or the need for fire? What is 'fire' and how do we relate to it? Why is the movie named 'Fire'? If someone wasn't told about the content of the film in advance, what would their conceptions on the idea of 'fire' be? The connections become more contextual and relevant for the film when looked into the discovery of fire. For example, forest fire is the most evident method in which man must have discovered fire. Forest fires are caused due to the rubbing of tree trunks in wild winds, that produce enough friction to burn the trees into flames. Similarly, igniting fire by striking flint stones with each other during the stone age has known to be another way of sparking fire. The rubbing of two bodies, in essence, produces fire, heat, energy - the producer of life, and something that (in the Hindu tradition) ends it too.

Fire, to me, represents this oscillation between life and death. Fire symbolizes the desire for life. Fire is a story of the struggle for desires of the body.

Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi) meet each other after Radha is married to Jatin (Javed Jaffrey). Jatin is a young man in love with another woman of Asian origin, and continues to see her after his marriage. This is not hidden to the family, consisting of an elder brother Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Jatin's sister-in-law Radha, along with a grandmother who is paralytic, and thus can not speak. The elders in the family force the marriage onto Jatin who wants to be in a 'live-in' relationship with his girlfriend - rather they do not wish to commit to a marriage. The family sees this as a dubious relationship and eventually arrange Jatin to marry Sita. Young Jatin commits the marriage to put an end to the constant nagging from the family.

Jatin & Sita's marriage sees a hard and ruthless consummation with little/no consideration by Jatin for Sita's emotional or physical feelings. With first time into this 'fire,' Sita goes through a painful experience that she is unable to express to anyone. Where on one hand, she is not able to discuss this with her family, on the other hand she is almost on the verge of depression. She misses home, but at the same time, stuck by her relationship vows. This makes her extremely lonely and unsure about how to consolidate her inner feelings.

On the other hand, Ashok has given up his sexual desires for Radha, since she cannot conceive his child. This suggestion comes from a religious pandit he believes in, who convinces Ashok to give up all kinds of physical cravings that would help him to attain spiritual satisfaction. In practicing this, he occasionally asks his wife to lay beside her on several nights, but himself lays motionless practicing control over his own desires. This ritualistic denial of engagement in any sexual activity over the past 13 years has left Radha extremely depressed and alone.

Thus, both Sita and Radha are burning in their unsatisfied desires. They are limited to mere household or work chores like taking care of the paralytic grandmother, or working at the home-run hotel that the family maintains. There is no room for fulfilling the inner physical cravings that both develop. Their frustration keeps growing with no means to end, until one evening, when they are bonded together by their own grief that finds an outlet through a physical encounter between each other. This unexpected, but extremely essential encounter that fulfils their bodily craving ignites a new fire which they explore further.

Sita and Radha have finally found companionship, more importantly, themselves. They have found a new happiness, and a way to come out of their depressed (and repressed) lives. They start enjoying their work, without relying on their husbands who are busy celebrating their alternately chosen sexual journeys. The growing attraction between Sita and Radha is noticed by the house servant, who is himself taking advantage of the quiet situation at home, in watching borrowed pornography from Jatin's video parlour, in front of the mute paralytic grandmother. The house servant attempts to blackmail Radha when he is caught while watching obscene films at home by her.

Sita and Radha want to get rid of him to erase any future conflicts or evidences about their relationship, but eventually the Ashok witnesses the fire between the two one evening.

Sita and Radha go in a state of contemplation and raise very important questions that lie at the crux of the film. Radha offers Sita with enough support and courage to get her out of her unsatisfying heterosexual relationship so that they can live together. Eventually, Radha finds a way to escape and pursue a new life with Sita.

The film brings up important questions about sexuality and gender through multiple motifs that are layered over this basic story structure. The narrative of Ramayana that runs throughout the film in which cross-dressed tamasha players recite quotes from the epic are the most compelling. This ancient story telling form where men cross-dress as women not only convey a historical fact, but also a message that strengthens the issues of 'gender' and 'identity' that the film raises. This is evident in the role-playing of Sita in the film, who finds interest in dressing up in a man's attire - which makes her feel liberated and free.

Secondly, the conscious play on 'Sita' - enacted by Radha who is the central, feminine character of the film, as well as the victimized Sita of Ramayana make a compelling comparison. The agni-pariksha that the Sita in Ramayana is made to pass through becomes the motif of two important metaphors for the film. Firstly, it questions the unfair claims of Lord Rama (the assumed-ly righteous, male) in asking Sita to prove her innocence and truth after her return from the evil Ravana's captivity in Lanka. It attempts to debase the authority of the male, or the forever privileged patriarchy. Secondly, it also portrays the fire of desire Radha (a caricature of Ramayan's Sita) struggles through in the film. These metaphors are united through the scene where Radha is shown to escape from the house in the burning saree by the last scene, eventually uniting with Sita.

Thus the film brings about the multiple themes that justify its title. It paints a picture of the several shades of sexual desires that play out in different ways. In each, it questions our notions of moralities, ethics and ideas about relationships. It brings us close to understand queerness. It is a film that provokes people, yet in an absolutely non-obscene way. The film doesnot portray any profanity, except one scene, which seemed to have been quite aesthetically shot - to mean that it doesnot objectify the female body.

It is almost unfortunate that the film fell into controversial pangs to be available to us to watch in our own country. Fire is an intelligent film - it talks about a subject worth considering seriously.

Knowing the World

These days I remain split between whether I should write (my experiences here on my blog) or whether I must read (articles to enrich my understanding of the world at large). For some time, I was wondering if I had run out of things to write about? However, it's not that I don't have any thing to write, rather I tend to think if the same time was invested in reading (for example the world news, books, novels, academic texts, etc.), would my view of the world be different? It ofcourse will be. But do I want to affect my view of the world through these mediations? This is a hard one to resolve.

I took two courses this semester - one on media theory and the other on globalization space - both taught by important theorists within their domain (Francesco Casetti and Keller Easterling, respectively). Through the Theory of Media course, I have come to understand further how media is 'scripting' our lives. In simpler terms, we start imagining the world in terms of media, in forms of media. Thus the medium becomes the message! Too simplistically put here, but I will not dwell on this idea here, rather go back to my questions I raised before!

The other one "globalization space" got me introduced to so much that is happening around me. There is so much happening around the world that would probably interest me. If I was a traveler, I would go mad absorbing all the information that was coming in front of my eyes and into my brain. But the unfamiliarity to all of it is what made be a bit nervous about myself. Today, as all the students taking the course (who came from different parts of the world and studying different disciplines at Yale) presented their observations in the form of a Pecha Kucha presentation, I found it a bit difficult to understand, rather contextualize much of the information that was displayed. They spoke about concerns from their own homelands - all related to globalization. It was hard for me to absorb the material. Not that I could not have grasped, but it was hard to put them in the already formed large categories in my head. For a moment, I wondered if this must be attributed to my lack of general knowledge about the world.

To talk in my favour to some extent, I do look the format as a hurdle. The content presented in 15 slides scrolling each for 15 seconds with a densely packed background commentary is hard to digest in the duration of 3 minutes. I wonder if it was the as difficult for others in the audience. For that matter, I can not understand any thing that I do not spend sufficient time with. I am anyway not so good at small talk, and I can not talk about things merely on their surface. I have a compulsive habit of either getting to the root of the discussion, or just leaving it there, untouched.

Thus my experience of this Pecha Kucha for the class was a mixed one. I would have loved to know more about a lot of the presentation contents, but now, I remain at the risk of forgetting all of them since I could not penetrate them further beyond the screen shots that lasted for 15 seconds! Such unrest made me dig into the Times of India online immediately after I came back to my desk after the session. I looked up headlines on Mumbai Mirror, Rediff and so on to perhaps try and make myself upto date with my own hometown, or country. Ironically, no news fascinated me. this was largely because I could not place them in their own histories (which is also supposed to be mine), and secondly because I could not relate them to my own personal history, of how they affect me!

I am certain they do intersect in some way. It was evident when  I clicked by the small converter within the online newspaper website: "Find out how much is 100 rupees in US dollars today?" I was captivated, and  got pulled into it instantly, at once realizing the importance of world economic dynamics and the way it affected my own journey. But I still can not fathom the amount of information existing in the world. Some people are extremely good at accumulating a gist of everything around themselves. I wonder if they are living scripted lives (imbricated by the media!)? Many people are well traveled, many of them are well read, many are further informed by the media they have consumed. I seem to be lacking on all fronts, yet trying to find my confidence in my own limited view of the world!

How relevant is it then, to know the world? Or how do we make it relevant? Or rather, do we try to make everything relevant to us once we have consumed it, only because we have consumed it? It is human nature to force connections into whatever is there in our heads. We connect all dots, like we make constellations out of starts that are so distant from each other in the void of the sky! We connect everything, such that it becomes meaningful to us. Meaning thus, is constructed out of relationships to other things happening around us. In other words, meaning is merely a relative act of understanding. Yet, meaning is so important to exist. But can meaning be self-referential? Can the orientation of meaning be inside-out rather than outside-in? To word it simply, does the world become what we make of it, or do we become what the world wants us to be?

I know these are hard questions. We construct our lives within the dialectic of this 'inside' and 'outside'. But this is an interesting contradiction between the two courses I took this semester, rather I must say courses through which I look at life. Media and the global - as much as they split each other, they also bind. As much as they set apart, they bring the places close.

Probably this will be a lifelong struggle. I can never make up my mind about "how much one should know?" Aren't the definitions of "intelligence", "wise", "smart" - in other words, all socially acceptable, morally positive codes of behaviour scripted within that question? Sometimes I feel more knowledge makes us dumb, since it makes us behave in a more and more scripted behaviour. Scripted behaviour, to understand simply, is a behaviour that is not natural to you or your bodily existence - it is something that the world wants you to behave like!

I think the American short answer to this question would be: "F*** the world!"

Let's accept it for the time being.

Second Birthday in Yale

At 12 am, they sneaked into the main door of my building - I don't know how? They all tried to fool me saying that Mitalee, who was at my home some time ago, stole the key to my apartment - something I fell for initially, but later just didnot make sense - it was lying exactly where it was supposed to be (and also I dropped Mitalee to the shuttle that came to pick her up, after which I couldn't have entered my house back without keys in my hand!). However, they left the answer lingering. Banging, clanging my door at night, Shashi, Anwar, Mitalee, Mansi and Keerthi surprised me on my birthday!

"Dhokla kahaan hai?" everyone squeaked immediately! I had invited them earlier that day since I had made dhoklas that turned out to be awesome - Mitalee had her share of it! Mansi escaped out in the end saying she had too much work to complete. Others hadn't replied. Clearly they were planning to surprise. So as soon as they arrived, I had to rush into the kitchen to make the dhoklas for them - 12.15 am at night! While i prepared for them, they prepared for me...Tiramitsu that they had got! While I mixed and prepared my makeshift "contraption" for steaming the dhoklas in the pan, they were ready with the candles dotting a smiley on the sweet they had got!

While the dhoklas steamed for 15 minutes, I celebrated my birthday! With one tiramitsu over my face, Mansi saved one out of the remaining 4 (before others finished it) for me! The dhoklas were almost ready until I washed my face off the cream...Mansi gave the lovely sponge a cut over which I poured the sugared tadka! And eventually it was ready to eat. I relished the tiramitsu as much as they liked the dhokla! Then I slept!

The day was bright and happy. Sun was out in the clear sky and it wasn't freezing to death. The air had a resonance which kept me lifted!

My phone was undergoing a cathartic experience. Messages simultaneously from Facebook, Gmail, Skype, Whatsapp and phone-calls were jamming my phone time and again. I think every possible application was busy delivering me birthday wishes. I restarted my phone multiple times to relieve it of its diarrhoea. I wonder how much microwave that the device purged, made way into my body yesterday!

In the evening, my program mate Brent gave me a lovely little drawing for my birthday - something that I had asked him for long time ago. It was a post-it-size sketch of the Rudolph Hall - beautifully rendered. Later that evening, I decided to craft a wood-project in the workshop - a phone stand for resting my phone over video calls. The project didnot turn out as I expected it to be, and I gave up too soon, since I had a session to attend (the PhD Dialogue, seminar series). The Dialogues were too intellectual, and I merely enjoyed the illustrations and debates that went on in the room.

Later that evening I went to attend a concert in which my friend Reena's composition (who is pursuing her PhD at the Yale school of Music) was going to take place. I thoroughly enjoyed her composition. I came home and prepared some quick food. Decided to go to bed early after the late night surprise the earlier day.

This morning, as I reached my studio, two things happened: I received an autographed catalogue from Barry Bergdoll (former chief curator, MOMA, Architecture & Design Dept), something I had left at MoMA for him to sign. Secondly, Brent had corrected the wood work of my project and kept a nicely chiseled phone-stand on my table. It look perfect!

And thus, everything around the birthday seemed perfect. The pleasant weather continues meanwhile.

---

Thank you all for making this day special!

And meanwhile - I still wonder how these people got into my house :P

Translation

Song : Jaage Hain
Music : A R Rahman
Lyrics : Gulzar
Singers : Chithra K S, Madras Chorale Group, A R Rahman

Jage hain der tak, hamen kuchh der sone do
Thodee see rat aur hai, subah toh hone do
Aadhe adhure khwab jo pure naa ho sake
Ek bar phir se nind me woh khwab bone do

---

Awake for some time now, let me for another while, sleep on

A slight night is left yet, let the morning dawn 

The half imagined dreams that could not be accomplished

Once again, back in the sleep, let them be sown

A New House

Three weeks ago, I moved yet again in New Haven, this being my 4th house in this town. And this time, I am almost located back where I started - downtown! Why I am shifting will constitute an altogether new post, but here I want to talk about my current state of mind, anticipations and expectations from the new place!

Before I go on to explaining the situation at present, I must briefly describe my experience of house hunting! I adopted 3 modes of references: 

1. Asking friends to see if they or their friends needed roommates!

2. Asking friends if they were looking for someone to occupy a vacant room

3. Craigslist and other internet groups 

The three channels above took me to various kinds of people, various kinds of places. There were so many factors in the head while selecting a house. While the physical condition of the room is one aspect, the other important criteria was to find a decent roommate. There were expectations that one could move with a culturally similar person, from South Asia. I had an added boundary of my 'vegetarianism'. But I allowed to let that go pretty easily. The other aspects to choose were the distance of the place from my school, the budget (ofcourse) and the area in which it was located, given the notoriety of New Haven with relation to crimes. Being in the north east, everyone goes through pain of finding about added utilities of heating and electricity - whether the house is gas heated, or electric heated! This is the most important concern given the extreme winters that long till March. 

However, most of the times, I was able to decide whether to move in a place or not by its smell! I have realized how important smell is for a place to be adapted to. For me, the room had to smell acceptable. The ideal would be a neutral air, but I witnessed all kinds of smells - rooms with Chinese spice aromas, to food stuff rotting since days, to refrigerators leaking out smells of overloaded meat, to smell of dampness and darkness, airconditioning, of deoderents,  and so on. The only way I used to test was to ask myself whether the new room would be able to take my smell -  or in other words, if I would be able to change the smell of the space as I move in.

I finally decided upon a room here given the amount of detachment it offered me from my roommate, the budget and the amount of freedom it gave me to project myself on it. My new room is a small one, brightly lit by two large windows with white, translucent curtains. The room is bright and white painted - everything in the room is white, like an untouched white canvas. It smells of some weird medicine, which I think will be overcome-able!  The apartment has another bedroom occupied by another girl. The only common space is the kitchen & a large bathroom which will be shared by both. 

And so this new place gave me an opportunity to think about ways of domesticating it. Trying out moving scarce furniture from one corner to the other, I have finally rested upon a layout. Other things got worked out interestingly - I got a foldable sofa bed from someone who was selling it for cheap and it perfectly suited the small nature of my room. So I now have enough floor space for myself since I can fold the bed into a sofa! Further, I got a small lamp (given that there was no light in the room) - and I luckily found one as simple as a white cylinder! I played with its position for a week and I have realized how important it is to avoid movement to switch off lights just when you are about to sleep. That one moment when you get up between finally pulling over your blanket and switching of the light can ruin the sublime experience of transitioning from your conscious to your unconscious moment.

Similarly, it is so important to have your alarm in close vicinity to you in the morning - such that your reverse transition from sleep to awake is smoother. Since I use my mobile as my alarm clock, I also need to have a charging point closer. And since most of the times, the last thing I work on is my laptop, I prefer to have all its assemblage (the charger, mouse, hard drive, etc) to lay as it is around - where everything can be disconnected merely by one single plug! With all these factors in mind, I think I needed to just pull up an extension board with control for all electrical devices at one place! (I also realize how electricity now puts us to, and wakes us up from our sleep)!

Keeping the room like a white canvas is as compelling as the desire to fill up with one's idiosyncrasies. Sometimes I wish I had the money to build my own kind of furniture according to my collection such that this could truly represent me! But it is here that I realize how architects can be so imposing - in a way that we never get into people's archives to structure furniture according to what they would like to have on the walls, shelfs or show cases. Interior design is always about making a space that can be published in a design magazine or architecture blog! But there is joy in keeping one's room "messy" - only in comparison to what the architects would call "clean". But the messy tells much more about life than the clean. Rather, messy is life, and clean is just sterile.

Soren: The Cat

I share my new house with my room mate and her cat. The cat's name is Soren - a black cat, almost 10 years old.

Soren is curious cat. He spends most of his time alone, sitting and gazing at the empty walls of the rooms in the house. Since no one is at home throughout the day, I wonder what he does for himself.

Last night when I came home and opened the door of my room to enter the kitchen, he was waiting there like a statue gazing me as if asking: "So you finally came? I wasn't waiting, but it's nice that you came." It seemed as if he has been waiting for ages. Waiting for something to happen, someone to come. He waits alone, sitting still, doing nothing, without any movement. His eyes tell that he has become weary of waiting, waiting has become a part of his life - like the taxi drivers or the private drivers who spend half their lives waiting for their masters in the car.

I feel bad for him for he does not have a friend he can talk to, that belongs to his community, and secondly in his own language! So I try to tease him in my version of "Meows"! When I did it last, he gazed at me deep, as if asking: "Are you a cat? You don't look like one? Then why are you mewing? Are you trying to fool me? I am too clever to fall into your trap!" And he walked back into his room - throwing away lot of attitude! I laughed.

Soren is extremely curious. When I came to the house on the first day, trying to settle in with all the stuff lying around, Soren stuck his head inside my room through the half open door - looked at me and gestured bossingly: "Can I come in?"

I smiled. He came in and started looking carefully at each object lying around. He tried to smell some things, perhaps, but then going closer to some objects, he checked if there was anything wrong, maybe? He took a round looking at every little object kept around. (Check the video)! And then, he was okay. He stood in the middle of the room and wondered what to do. He went back then.

What was he thinking I don't know. But all I care is to be as curious as him. I also wish to be as patient as him, and as comfortable as he is with his lonesomeness. I dont know what he dreams when he sleeps, since all he sees is the 4 walls for much time. He has a toy box with some funny toys - springs, ball, etc. But I have not seen him playing with them yet. Although I have seen him climbing on the window sill and gazing at the outside world - empty streets, free standing trees and dead houses. That is his life. I wish I could talk to him...

But in this pursuit, I play with him, to find a mode of communication. I touch him, fondle him - he never minds, yet never gives in. He knows it's not going to be permanent. He is much wiser! Guess pets like cats  internalize such psychology. Good for them! I wonder what a life it must be to lead without friends, parents, sex, partner, community, quarrel...Does all of it matter to animals?

Guess there is something to learn here!

Brokeback Mountain

I don't indulge too much in films for reasons unknown. but when I do, I watch them very closely - often become too critical or too involved in them. I haven't taken advantage of the Film Archive here at Yale, neither the popular films collection that they have at the library. I primarily decided to watch films to make use of the facility from Yale. And amongst the three movies  I borrowed last, I saw only one - Brokeback Mountain. And apart from having my own thoughts, I did read about the reflections of film critics and its critical reception at large online. But there were a lot of things that surfaced through the film for me.

[I don't like the act of describing stories or things, rather getting to my theoretical discussion, but in the recent past, I have realized that descriptions themselves are political and hence descriptions embed within them half your theoretical perspective, hence I will have to undergo some of that laborious process of description]

As most know, Brokeback Mountain talks about the journey of two men with their sexual lives. Ennis and Jack first meet while on the summer job (grazing sheep) on the Brokeback Mountain. They are responsible not only for the sheep count (who are prey to wild animals as well as getting lost in the wilderness), but also their own selves. While one takes care of the sheep during the day time, the other readies meals for the two for the evening. Getting bored eventually, they exchange their sole two activities - the 'domestic' and the 'professional'.

The most arresting scenes of the film are the wide landscapes within which the lives of Ennis and Jack are lost - rather floating, when the loneliness brings them together one night in a reluctant sexual encounter. Initially hesitant, Ennis succumbs to his desires and falls out for Jack's acceptance. The loneliness of Brokeback soon becomes a landscape of play. The two men find within each other a part companion which makes them complete. The relationship heals the uncommunicated sentiments of Ennis while satisfying Jack's need for a partner to share life with. Ironically, it is the silence that eventually transforms into an unspoken friendship sealed by a sexual bond. The words that are so hard to utter and express, that are never told to each other only find expression through carnal experiences.

Both Ennis and Jack are eventually separated at the end of the summer. Each of them gets married and have kids - their environments still remain lone - depicted in  the physical as well as psychological landscapes of their lives. While both their lives have progressed, they have kept in touch through the mail. And when after a long time, a communication is made, both the bodies once again seek to complete themselves through a physical unison.

Such occasional meetings become outlets for a life that is "incomplete" without the other. The transgressions from the moral codes of life make them assert their human-ness. Their encounters with each other help them find themselves, take them through turmoils of an unexplained life. Both spend large chunks of their life alone, only to erupt and melt into each other occasionally. For Jack, the uncontrollable cravings of his body over such long spans forces him to go to meet men from Mexico border.

Ennis's wife has found out about his bisexuality in much advance, and she makes way for a divorce, making him absolutely alone again. The news of the newly lone Ennis makes Jack hopeful towards a future he imagines with Ennis. However, with the responsibility of his daughter, Ennis holds back his options. Jack expresses to him his urges, his struggles and the incongruity of his mind and body. Ennis explains that the only way for them is to meet interruptedly - to keep the engine of life alive. The moral choices force them to lead a lonely life.

One fine day, Ennis's letter to Jack is returned with a 'deceased' stamp. The situation brings forth two implosions - one of the end of incomplete life of Jack, while the other is the end of hope for Ennis to find a companion. Ennis drowns in his own silence. The characters lives unite through the shirts which donot have their bodies, but indicate a soul that overlaps with one another.

Brokeback Mountain is a hard story of loneliness encountered by two people who find it difficult to consolidate their sexuality, rather find outlets for their sexual longings. And sexual longings are not merely bodily, but so intrinsic to the mind, thoughts and feelings. The film reveals beautifully, how sexualities are fluid - and the "male" and "female" are only two extreme ends of the spectrum. This fluidity is doubly complex - since our sexual inclinations not only change towards male and female, but also as we grow in age. And yet, male and female are just societal roles, just labels that try to encode your behaviour in the society that is assumed "normal" that is so easily internalized. The loneliness of the grey area that lies between this binary is the central content of the film for me. Loneliness tears apart the body internally, hurting several others in the process. Does one not spend one's lifetime in seeking completion to oneself, in completion to the 'lack' as a Greek Philosopher suggested? The aim of the life is to unite with another life to experience completion - that satisfies biological as well as non-biological needs.

In most cultures, the representation of unison represents the fullness of the universe. However, these representations only depict unison of binaries. But in reality, unisons can be of different types - not just the positive and negative. Brokeback Mountain portrays the struggle of one such atypical unison that is hard to negotiate within the given moral society. It also portrays the search of how life fits with the other, given that they appear to match. It is a hard story to reconcile, it unsettles standard ideas, and leaves you open into the grey area between the binaries.

The Gravy Train

Surprises are nice. But it is almost always assumed that surprises are going to be positive. How does it happen that this word by the virtue of its disposition carry a positive charge? Essentially, surprises are just events that happen without your knowledge. But to consider that these events would bring you happiness may not always be a good idea. Things happen to us, and most of us slot them as good or bad, knowing that looking back, these 'labels' for events would change. A news that seemingly seems to make you the happiest person today may evolve into the dullest of your memories, while what appears to be the worst times of your life could prove to the best in your hindsight.

How does one then make sense of things that happen? No moment is static, everything is changing. How relevant is it to be happy for something today or sad for something that occurs now? And yet, inspite of knowing this, how can one be happy about everything that happens to oneself? And can one really be neutral? And being neutral kills the idea of surprise...

May be it is better to look at events as friction. Friction allows us to leave your current position, it gives us the feeling that we have moved, or are moving. It makes us realize that what was yesterday is not today - that we have moved in some direction (even if unknown). It is like emerging out from the old skin into new. Is this emergence not a surprise? We seldom surprise ourselves when we have moved - because we dont realize that we have moved until we look back objectively. And moments when we feel we are just not moving are so laborious. It is so hard to think that we are moving all the time.

It is exactly like sitting in a running train and thinking that we are just sitting, immobile. But infact, we have moved, and we realize that only when contexts change; when the train has transported us into a new place...And what if you realize that neither did you own a ticket and nor did you know your destination before getting on to the train? Then we only look behind. Since there is no forward. What looks like a path is only a hint of a landmark. The train may not take you there. And it's funny to think about this: that if the train ever takes you to the landmark, you feel no surprise, since you knew you would reach there. And if you don't reach, you still remain unsurprised because you knew that the train is going to decide its own course.

Techno-cultural schisms and other stories

Today was definitely the most eventful day I have had in the past one year in my life at Yale. The day began with a short experiment that I participated in, then going to look for a prospective house where I would want to shift. After that, I was to meet up a friend for lunch. On the way, I met Juana who recently graduated from the MED program. It was a pleasant surprise to bump into her on my way to meet Dan over the lunch, with whom I had a long conversation - a trailing one. I came back to the school library, and scanned a few pages to be uploaded for a class. I then left for a meeting, and on the way I met Amrita, a friend newly arrived at Yale, New Haven. We had  bumped into each other in the bus two weeks ago and were planning to meet over for a conversation since a long time. We immediately asked if each was occupied over our respective meetings (3 pm - 4 pm) and decided to meet up for a chat - and pleasantly, we both decided to meet not outside a coffee shop. this is the first meeting in the US with any person that I have had purely for conversation, without strings attached (like coffee, lunch, etc.. Take the example of my earlier meeting today, where we met over lunch to converse). So we met after our respective meetings at the Bienecke Plaza - under the open sky in great weather. Things were prefect and we trailed into a yet another extremely nice conversation.

After I dropped Amrita at the bus stop, I decided to head back to my desk at school, where I aimlessly hoped to kill some time in front of the computer screen! And just as I arrived at the school, I saw Britton (my co-MED fellow) sipping his coffee, after his day long field trip. I caught up with him, and joined him in a  yet another conversation - extremely animated! The cherry on the cake was his mother joining in some time with whom we had a really exciting talk. And that is something I am going to trail off to in the latter part of this post! But it's 8 pm now, and I feel, this was my most successful day in the US. Why? Just because I felt this was the most socially active day I have had in the US over the last 400 days! It made me feel social, that I knew people around and that unexpected conversations do happen here... I felt happy about doing nothing in terms of work, but just being able to talk to multiple people, from different areas of study, about different subjects, in one day, on the same campus! May be it was just a lucky day. In the evening, a couple of friends passing by us told us that there was a rainbow in the sky - which Britton and I missed! But if that was supposed to mean anything, it was only that once in a while, the grey skies of New Haven can really get colourful! To still have it, I captured a picture of the dormer brightened by a streak of golden sunlight across us!

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As Britton went on to explain how he spent his day at a perfume factory, he explained the extremely mechanized and human-free environment of the place. This led us to a long conversation about the extremities of technology, its effect on humans and thus the condition of social space in America. Britton's mother told us that she works at the a public library in New Haven, to where she was (perhaps) extrapolating the idea of mechanical hands pulling books (or something to the effect of that, which I donot remember). This led us to talking about how the idea of bringing in the machine aims at eliminating any kind of human intervention in performing activities in order to achieve more efficiency, more output and increased productivity. The humans then, are merely controlling or managing the system, instead of actually participating or being a part of the setup.

I mentioned to both of them how the Sterling library (the chief library at Yale) has almost successfully initiated the process of accuracy checking of reshelved books (which was once manually done) via machines. To be more elaborate, the books that are returned to the library by the patrons are reshelved by a team of people who are trained to place them back at their appropriate positions. In order to make sure that these have been reshelved properly, till recently, there would be a team of people who would re-check these placed books by tracking them through the slips one inserted into them, which made them stand out amongst the other. Needless to say that inspite of the whole system being absolutely well designed and full proof, there may be a 5% chance of error, in the case of which one may not find a book in place! (This is totally understandable when you have about 30 lakh books in a single library!). However, still, the librarians wanted to be better (which I feel is commendable, and absolutely praiseworthy of their aspirations). Thus in this endavour, they wanted to make the process of accuracy checking human-free, or in other words, error-free.

The library has therefore invested some time and energy into creating a system where the books can be scanned using a bluetooth device, tracking their barcodes. They already have the entire digital database of the each and ever book that exists in the library. A person in this case would only need to keep scanning the barcodes of books laid in a row, and feed that information in this newly created software. As soon as that information is plugged in, the software generates a detailed report of whether the books are kept in proper order (as per their call numbers), which books are incorrectly placed, or whether the barcodes do not match to the call numbers of the books. In addition, the system would also be able to say which books are missing, whether they have been lent out to someone, for how long are they missing, when were the last borrowed, how frequently which books are borrowed, which books have been lying in the shelves un-borrowed since when, and such more and more information that is unimaginable.

Our manager called this report as "the archaeology of the library" and believes Yale to be the first University library to employ this system. When the above system replaces the old manual system of checking, one would require a team of people to sit and only analyze the data that has been generated. The statistics that this system offers is so dense, that one would literally require a team of managers to generate excel sheets that give out extremely fascinating and revealing information about the intellectual terrain of knowledge dissemination that the library extends.

Britton's mother was very pleased to understand that the Sterling library invested so much into checking whether the books were in order and pointed out how they were under-staffed at the Public library to be able to carry out this activity. From a trailing thought over which she mentioned that a lot of homeless would take shelter at the library, I tried to ask her why these same homeless couldn't be employed towards the needs of the library, since after all, checking numbers is not really an activity that requires complicated scientific knowledge. She had great stories to share on this.

We now have question about the homeless, the need for human resource, the extreme mechanization - which direct us to an skewed understanding of the skewed social make-up of America. In other words, there is a situation of the need for human resource, the excess of human resource (the homeless) and the gap created by the mechanization. I was trying to see if these resources could become symbiotic in any way.

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Every developed country, like the US, aspires to be more and more perfect in what it delivers to the world. It wants to be as consistent as the machine - something that never makes a mistake, that works without interruptions, that is extremely timely, punctual and works exactly according to the instructions that it has been fed with. Systems in the US are similar, rather, each activity is always broken up in to smaller sets of processes (imagine algorithms for people) and each person is allocated an algorithm to execute. Thus, people follow these systems and almost work like machines. however, the trend now is that they are slowly replacing these machine-like human activities with machines themselves. So a human activity of checking out a book through the librarian is automated using a kiosk, where you can scan the barcode of the book that you just pulled out of the library, and get a slip as a record of when you have drawn out, and need to return the book. Thus, soon, they would not require a front desk at all, eliminating the need of people to hand over books or receive books.

Similarly, the elimination of human intervention is a rapidly growing phenomenon. Each human activity is thus taken over by the computer, or computerised interface. While the present generation gets more and more savvy with these systems, the need and the work expected out of humans is not only reduced but also dumbed down. On the other hand, there is still the older generation that has no clue about what this new technology is all about, since they were born in an era when computers didnot even exist. I am referring to the generation, for example, of Britton's mother, who perhaps was born during the 60s!

Britton's mother explained how it was extremely difficult for the older people to get jobs here these days, because of their unfamiliarity to the new emerging technology. New systems here have a complete electronic interface. Even in order that you apply for a job, you will need an "e-mail" id, which itself is a very new thing to the older generation here. I have met a lot of people here, who are absolutely vary of the cell phone to. Take for example my own landlord, who doesnot use the mobile phone. To him, the mobile phone is as much complex as much it is an object representative of the new age. Inspite of the fact that he owns an age old version - a black and while, primitive flip phone, he is un-informed about its functions and usage. He struggles to make a call on cell phone and doesnot understand how much it is to be charged, what signs on its screen mean what and so on. To complicate it further, he almost (like many of us, who are technologically poor / not techno-savvy) fears these devices - which may misbehave in case they are fiddled with in the wrong way. This fear very much exists here too, as much like any other place.

Ironically here, I want to mention, that as much as technology aims to ameliorate this generation gap, or bridge it, and make itself accessible, it increases it. Strange contradictions appear. I will explain it through a series of examples.

People are pretty much on their own in the US (the result of the notion of independence and the independent self). This applies to all the older generation too, who have witnessed an almost exponential and dramatic shift of technology in their lifetimes - from once manually driven things, to the automated world today. One can only imagine the experience and effect of this sliding techno-social space to be sharper in the developed countries, for two reasons - one is the rapid innovation in technology, and the other is their pressures to not depend on any one else to understand new systems of working and operating.

My landlord often has to find his own way to solve issues that spring up regarding his phone bill, or gas bill, or television bills, or internet plans and so on. While he would ideally physically meet the person who installed these things at his home back in his young days, today he has to only get in touch with a customer service centre through a phone call. While one can perceive that this reduces the effort of the old man traveling to a real person to a mere phone call, here is what really happens. Today, when he calls up a service centre, he has to first enter a series of digits to prove that he is a human being, and eventually get to talk to a human being. The person who he eventually reaches to, asks him the same questions that he just digitally answered by pressing the phone keys! He does it anyway. And then the operator on the phone call talks to him almost like a machine. When he/she is not able to help him, my landlord keeps repeating and talking the same thing (after passing through a range of people, until he reaches the person in the right department, who is specialized to address the specific question regarding his specific doubt) - almost like a machine - which has frustrated him (remember his old age, his unfamiliarity to the technology and his level of patience belong to a different age).

This system is recently being more refined. Instead of the layers of pressing keys in order to get to the right department or right person, there are automated messages that speak to you over the phone. My landlord perhaps has still not completely taken gotten a hang of this. And rightly so, since these voices are so real, that you don't know if they are machines. A lot of times, when he is expected to answer as "Yes" or "No" - standardized answers which the machine can decipher through the sounds, he mixes up. He tries to have a conversation with the machine, elaborating on his affirmations or negations (Yes's and no's). As much as I pity him, I also realize the complexity of the system. That is, in its tryst to become human, and replace the human to make the space more 'easy', the machine does exactly the opposite. It becomes more and more difficult for the older folk to understand the machine automated world.

There are countless examples I can give regarding this. The automated self-check out stations at the shopping centres, the self check out gas stations, the automated bill paying systems, the automated printing stations - this country wants to automate every human activity. They want to eliminate any possible human activity by installing computerized interfaces. It wants to seamlessly merge the real and the virtual, in doing which, it cuts off social contact, it eliminates the possible meeting of two people, the possibility of chance encounters or casual conversations. It removes the existence of humans in physical space, and takes them into the virtual realm of social networking websites - of the facebook and the twitter.

The goal is sincere - to eliminate error and to be more and more foolproof. But this is exactly my critique of efficiency.

In their humble goal of being as accurate as the machine, a developed country like the US re configures social space. I celebrated this one day of chance encounters in the US today - where I felt human - meeting people on the street, bumping into them in unexpected ways and deciding to meet without prior planning. The machined world takes away the joys of these momentary exchanges which give you pleasures that stay with you for a long time.

To me, it is almost strange how the first world countries drive aspirations of the developing world to become like them. We (India and such other countries) are at a special, beneficial position where we can see the counter effect modernism has had on the social life of places like here. In such scenario, how does one channel technology to "empower" people, yet preserve a vital space that maintains physical real-time communication? And what does this "empowerment" hold anyway? We have seen in the above examples how technology only expands the existing gaps between humans and their spaces. So what does technological progress behold for us? These are large questions, but I wonder if developed countries themselves would address them in smarter, more human ways. And by human, I mean the human, that belongs to this mortal world.

The golden ray of hope.
New Haven. 13th Sept, 2013. 7 pm.

(this post is unedited, and may build up to more stories and anecdotes over time)
this story can also be found at the YaleStories blog here.

Which Indian architect inspires you the most?

As much as I was excited to see this video prepared by students over YouTube, which I accidentally discovered, I was equally disappointed. The video documents opinions of students of architecture in India about who they believe is the most inspiring Indian architect.

Although the interviewer brings in a fresh energy in asking the question, pretty much like the anchors hosting any reality show on television (energetic, smiling, with forceful body movements, projecting themselves on the screen), the respondents seem to be weary of the weather, tired by the heat and humidity and the complete opposite of the anchor!

The question is simple: "Which Indian architect inspires you the most?" the interviewer stresses, "Indian Architect" - she wants to say - "See how innovative and significant my question is, have you thought about it ever?"

Respondents in the video have all kinds of looks on their faces - serious, intellectual, thoughtful and burdened by the assumed enormity of the question, rather the assumed responsibility of their answers to the question! One sees all kinds of expressions - Looking up in the air, thinking, eyes rolling in vague space, which affirm that their answer is measured, thought out and a lot of evaluation has gone in the mind before the name comes out.

Some answers are candid and honest. Some try to give text bookish justifications about how their responses are relevant. There are others who do not even take the effort of taking the same name again, whose mind speak - "I believe what the earlier one says must be right, although, thankyou for asking me!" There are others subtones - "Is it okay if I say Charles Correa?" and yet another is "Is it okay if I say Charles Correa again?"; or "I am sorry, but it IS Charles Correa..."

Some are funnier - the ones that almost rhetorically ask: "Do you think I am going to answer any thing else except Charles Correa?" or "Do you know any one else except Charles Correa?" Until this response (1:30), where the interviewer was almost feeding words to others, now she herself begins to believe that the answers have to be Charles Correa!

The other extremes are - "Indian? You think there are 'architects' in India?" which goes on to imply, "that's why we are not even taught about them, no?" and further, with all boldness, her smile (1:40) asks - "You silly interviewer, have you even heard of Zaha Hadid or Norman Forter's name - they are called architects, and they are not Indian." The best undertone (1:58) is "No comments, redefine your question."

Suddenly around 2.10, you hear in the background - "anything, anything" - and the immediate interviewer's answer is almost confessinal - "Okay, you want to hear something other than Charles Correa, I like Laurie Baker! Does that add some variety to your interview?"

Take a look:

Let me browse my list!

This is a really important question for the future of the country

It's going to be only Charles Correa. Why didn't you ask ME before?

Let me take you on an international tour

You are asking the wrong question!

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I saw this about 5 times, and it was as hilarious as Kolaveri Di. Seriously.

Nevertheless, the question is serious. I sincerely hope that students merely expose themselves to more 'Indian' names.

Leads:

Concise History of Modern Architecture In India

by Jon Lang

Building beyond borders: Story of contemporary Indian architecture (India, the land and the people)

by Satish Grover

and so on!