'The Lunchbox' & 'Queen'

It is almost surprising to observe how convenient films make for us to slip into their projected realities. Sometimes, I wonder if 'slippage' itself is involuntary, or whether it is purposeful? In other words, I am trying to think about the process of placing ourselves in filmic narratives - do we consciously try to identify with characters of a film, or does it happen subconsciously? Because, isn't this process of identification central to our judgement of any film? Essentially, we like or dislike a film based on two aspects - of how well can we place ourselves within the narrative of the film, or otherwise, how much the far fetched reality of the film allows us to stretch / extend the imagination of our real lives. In either case, films are unreal, firstly on the grounds that they are mere representations. Furthermore, they are even imagined representations, mediated by the minds of the agency of filmmakers. However, when consumed through the screen, the reality of films (mind the paradox) almost dissolves any distinctions of fictitious or real characters, allowing our gaze to be unified with the cinema space.

Anyway, I framed the above preface because I saw two films in one day with a group of friends last week - The Lunchbox and Queen - the reactions of which were quite different for me versus the others. It is obvious that both these two films are way different than each other. And the reason I write about them together is simply because I saw them one after the other on the same day with the same company of friends. The temporal sequence of watching the films automatically make them comparable. My critical analysis of the films would perhaps align with the typical academic criticism / acclaim of most such films including The Lunchbox and Queen. A 'typical' academic would favour the subtle novelty of The Lunchbox (analyzed within the given dominating context of Bollywood masala films) while subject Queen to criticisms of stereotyping, use of filmic elements like songs (even when un-required within the narrative), etc and so on.

However, this is not how the general audiences view films, and while I went on to rant about the same old issues as above, I was being criticized by my friends of forced criticism for the films. (I am often accused of theorizing all things on the planet). Therefore, this time I wanted to understand the mechanisms through which these films strike with the audiences (probably like the ones I watched them with), and how they operate towards, through and along with their identities. What associations do they allow the audiences, and how do they trigger and bring out certain aspects of their own selves?

The Lunchbox, as many may know, is the story that develops in the midst of the repeated mis-delivery of a lunchbox through the well known agency of dabbawalas in the city of Mumbai. Two individuals within a city - a reasonably young house-wife and an aging soon-to-retire government official get conversing about their personal lives through notes exchanged within the compartments of the lunch box. The letters inside the closed boxes almost talk out the inner voices echoing within their minds. The anonymity of each others' identities allows them to reveal dialogues that can not always be verbally expressed. Between conversations about insecurities, eroticism, betrayal and loss emerges a meta-narrative of loneliness and love. While Ila's confusion about the recent alleged discovery of her husband's extra marital affair is apparent in her lack of confidence to confront this with her husband, she is able to come out with this news quite directly to the stranger who is accidentally consuming her food she would lovingly prepare for her husband. On the other hand, the aging old man is able to share with her, sometimes quite tangentially, his intriguing experiences within the city through which he reflects upon his own self.  For both directions, the anonymity of each other becomes an interesting mirror-of-sorts, allowing to reflect upon their inner thoughts and feelings. While ambiguous and troubled with the suspicion of her husband's own extra-marital affair, probably a physical one, Ila herself falls for this anonymous food-eater who is able to lend an unbiased ear to her dilemmas.

Once in a while, the pragmatics of life become more real when Ila talks to her neighour, invisible to the audiences watching the movie. The voice of the old, experienced aunty makes things objective, clear and rational. Although, this rationality is soon convoluted into the subjectivity of Ila's dilemmas. She continues to communicate abstract thoughts, informed by her real life situations not only through her letters, but also through the food she is lending to this un-named, unfamiliar friend (if we may say so) everyday. One wonders if the tastes of these feelings are negotiated through the description of the ingredients passed along the lunch box. Sometimes bitter, sometimes spicy, sometime salty, sometimes even empty boxes - the lunchbox quite literally holds metaphors for emotional graphs of the lives of these two individuals.

I connected to the film through a different channel though. Last year around the same time, I attended in New York, the release of a book by artist Sophie Blackall called 'Missed Connections'. The book illustrates online story-listings of "lovelorn strangers hoping to reconnect." To me, The Lunchbox was a subtle reversal of the above concept, where the box quite physically becomes the medium of establishing a connection, that was eventually missed. The conversational and public transactions of the city, the collisions within their movements and the numerous bodies which we pass through, check out and sometimes desire - all these ideas subversively connect the story of the book and the film. The film invites audiences to place themselves within its narrative to make a decision. It never shows that the characters meet, therefore leaving the ending open.

Queen, on the other hand, begins in a wedding that has been turned over by Rani's (played by Kangana Ranawat's) fiance. While severely disappointed, Rani chooses to go ahead with her ambitiously pre-planned honeymoon trip to Paris and Amsterdam, all alone to get over her gloomy mood perhaps in the spirit of a cold revenge with her own self (in the dejection of the trust she put into a man who wasn't eventually serious about her). Shown to be a middle-class small neighbourhood girl living in Rajouri from West Delhi, Rani has a family one would typically associate with Delhi. She has enthusiastic parents, grand parents, who quite easily take the blow, and allow Rani to indulge into her post-wedding dream.

Rani's exploration in the foreign land makes the crux of the film. She meets people of different kinds and cultures. Hesitatingly enjoying herself, Rani's character evolves as a simple, open-minded and non judgemental young girl. It is here that I found the character hard to understand. I found the character of Rani quite anomalous, or atleast to me, it seemed contrived. I was unable to comprehend the innocent responses of Rani to several situations. Her innocence is overplayed. It is hard to understand how an adult growing up in a globalizing city of Delhi would behave in sharply conventional (for the lack of a better word) ways in foreign situations.

I was not convinced of the fact that she would book a hostel for  living in without researching on the culture of sharing in the hostel. Or for example, her visit to the sex shop without even figuring that she was in one, and still innocently engaging with the toys within the shop as just other domestic accessories was too farfetched. This instance seems specially contradicting in the light of the fact that she was able to sense about the random hook ups of her earlier roommate in Paris, to whom she is also able to offer advise on sex while parting off from her.

On the other hand, I found her struggle with language in the new place (even when the people across the counters spoke English) extremely contrived. While I suspected that she knew how to speak English very well, my friends argued that one could not assume that she was well versed with the language. The communication gaps between French-English-Hindi are bridged by introducing mixed characters who speak different language. To me,  neither did their characters seem convincing. Difficulty in speaking the language almost always becomes the key tool to emphasize the presence of the 'foreign'. But most directors don't handle it well. I remember a scene from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge where Kajol is stranded on the road without her passport, caught by policemen. The whole situation is so contrived and Kajol's unnecessarily tweaks her language to talk to the police authorities - a scene which looks almost unnatural. I think such situations are forced by the medium of the film where there is no other way of addressing such inter-cultural frictions. One such films that handles it really well is the recent Sridevi-starrer English Vinglish, where more than the language, first time New York visitor Sridevi is baffled by the codes of conduct in language, compounded by her unfamiliarity with English itself. I am reminded of the scene in the coffee shop, where while her attempt to communicate to the person on the counter in English is genuine, she is still puzzled with the tangential mannerisms of greeting, speaking and behaving.

I am wondering about how conscious of our language barriers when in foreign countries, and how much do we prepare ourselves to overcome such situations when going to these places, especially when alone? Rani, for this matter was certainly not prepared, and it is hard to invest in this fact. I wonder if she even knew that people spoke French in Paris! Neither did her parents seem to be bothered how she would move around in the place...Perhaps a lot of such details bother me, and it is these details from where my criticism probably stems. The language conflict in the film certainly doesnot define Rani's foreign experience. Infact, she is far past it. She enjoys clubs, bars and the nightlife of Amsterdam and is able to indulge in different experiences.

I could write a separate post about friction in inter-cultural experiences. But to cut the above story short, I was not able to relate to many of Rani's experiences in the new land. And perhaps the non-resolution of the details of the film was what made me dislike to a certain extent.

I must clarify that I am not demanding details, rather asking for internal logics for the film's narrative through which one doesnot question them. To put it in other words, the technique of film making must implicitly account for details to be evident, which Queen fails to do, while The Lunchbox successfully works out. Probably it is here that differences in our views of films emerge. Everyday entertainment-consuming audiences do not question details, rather accept the constructed narrative reality of the films as a given. Films are measured on their entertainment quotient after all, something that takes away from their reality, into a land acceptably different from that which constructs their own. However, what they do not realize, probably is how such fictional reality is subversively assimilated into their own lives, that appears and operates quietly.

Such everyday audiences do not necessarily want to engage in critical discussions of films (or probably anything!) Gauging from the bursts of laughter between the scenes of Queen, I was able to gauge what kind of humour people enjoy, or are rather made to enjoy. One such instance was certainly the sex shop scene in the film. It is incredible how subversively sex creates humour, desire, lust and even aspirations of beauty through films - something that is shunned from everyday conversation in Indian homes. Nevertheless, hushes and whispers in such scenes are almost overrated. The other bursts of laughter were on jokes on stereotypes, and stereotypical jokes. These included particular mannerisms, tested dialects and rhetorics. Academics generally criticize stereotypes for categorization of characters in a fixed mould. Stereotypes are generally looked upon as a singularized characterization of people, and intellectuals generally look for multi-dimensionality of a character within a filmic representation. In other words, stereotypes are seen as ill-developed caricatures of more holistic beings. More often than not, they are looked upon in pejorative light, for their personal agency is limited by the extents of their culture.

A lot of times, audiences probably donot relate to stereotypes like the "stereotypical" academic view. Before I go on to put my point, I must caution that a lot depends also on the representation of the stereotype in the film. While some stereotypes may be projected in a way that they are shunned (take for example homosexuals in Bollywood films), others may be presented in a way that they come to define the very audiences. Often the strong representation of a stereotype allows people to own, and further assert their stereotypical identities. Stereotyping in some way, also brings to certain individuals a peculiar kind of confidence. Such representation in fact, legitimizes their everyday behaviour and mannerism by bringing it into discourse and putting it out there.

This is certainly what transpired between the difference of mine versus my friends' opinions about the evaluation of Queen. However, quite ironically, while The Lunchbox which intended to bring people to question or even identify their own selves by leaving an open ending, none of my friends seemed to take that extra step. An open ending stopped their thoughts. On the other hand, Queen, a film with clear ending and nothing to contemplate generated a discussion filled with laughter and reiterations of cheesy dialogues. Perhaps I am wrong in my first claim then, for probably, while my friends in their light-hearted viewing were able to enjoy both the films, I had myself subconsciously slipped into the representational space of these films. In spite of the above discussion, I am unable to understand what really creates differences in my watching of the films versus the others?

And then, what does it mean to be academic about our view of the world, and should it make us more happy or more sad?

Words of Wisdom (for sale)

Taken from an art-store in New Haven.
1209 Chapel Street.

Backstage Babbles

I have been thinking of what I have been thinking. Suddenly I have been wanting to understanding the metastructure of everything. Like the everything of everything. Or the meaning of meaning. How much can you distance yourself from yourself? How clear can clarity get? How confusing is confusion? How comforting is comfortable? The above thoughts have stuck my thoughts.

For the past one week, I have allowed myself to think and do what I want to think and do - well at least, partially. My ramble is not even as interesting as that of Deleuze. In order to escape this self convolution, I started watching things. Not reading. Watching. And I started collecting quotes from things I have been watching. Writing can be wonderful thing. But just like any other art, it has to be inspired by something. Recently I have beein thinking that although I make interesting arguments, I am not necessarily able to articulate them well. Or I may have interesting observations, but I am not able to express them so well. Thus I took a pause to re-consider my past.

Last week I made my website. I think I engaged in a creative activity after a very long time. It took me time to figure a way of presenting myself, for I have forayed into so many areas over the past that I feel bound by none. I am inherently interested in multiple things. I wonder how helpful it would be to keep it so. Vinit Nikumbh, after seeing the website, told me that "it's an interesting way to position yourself" - and I said, " I think i was trying to de-position myself!"

I have increasingly begun to cripple myself of the counter side of every thing I think. And that has been the reason for keeping away from writing for some time in the past. A lot of it is also about the state of mind. When you are happy, you feel like writing, when you are not, you dont feel like doing anything. I have a lot of time right now, but I can not take to writing, because it feels purposeless. What is the fate of this blog afterall? People read it, sometimes they relate to some stories, and write back, and then nothing happens?

This blog itself is so diverse, a life-portfolio of sorts, a back stage, a green room...My website links to this blog, with the fear if it may be misunderstood, or under-valued. Since writings here are not professional, rather rambling thoughts. There have been a lot of times when I have directed people to rambling thoughts on my blog. But how much importance would people in the profession would put on such ideas?

I will attempt to, soon put together the small list of quotes I collected over my past viewings of films in the last few days. May be I can initiate my writing habit once again. Meanwhile, I dont know how incoherent this post is. It doesnot make up for my degree in writing. Or perhaps I am just overworked with writing!

Translation

Movie: Anand
Music: Salil Chowdhary
Lyrics: Yogesh
Singer: Mukesh

Kahin door jab din dhal jaye 
Saanjh ki dulhan badan churaaye, chupake se aaye
Mere kayaalon ke aangan mein 
Koi sapanon ke deep jalaaye deep jalaaye
Kahin door jab din dhal jaye 
Saanjh ki dulhan badan churaaye chupake se


Somewhere, faraway when the day retires
The bride-like evening shys away of itself, quietly coming by
In the court of my thoughts
Someone lights up the dream-lamps
Somewhere, faraway when the day retires
The bride-like evening shys away of itself, quietly coming by

Quote

"We have to pick up our own life, and make something beautiful out of it..."
Kuchh to log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna
(People will keep saying something, its all what they do...)

said Usha Uthup in an interview

The Landscape of Excess

I was intrigued to hear a strong buzzing sound under an electric pole while walking on the pavement the other night in New Haven. While I wondered what created this buzz, my friend Anwar walking alongside me informed me that it was the sound of the excess current flowing through the wires. The sound was enormous, as if a thousand honey bees came to attack you at once. In the same imagination of the attack, Anwar further said that if that wire, by any chance fell on a human, it would burn him/her out in mere seconds. As much as I was convinced that it was the noise of electricity, I was also amazed by the immensity of the energy it carried. The excess was immediately evident in brightly lit up campus, the illuminated buildings, as much as the pavements and the roads. In fact this instance merely strengthened my perception of the abundance that a developed country like the US enjoys, well evident in Yale's campus.

Coming from a developing country, the display of excess in US for me is generally exacerbated. The over rationing of energy and resources in most aspects of American culture is overtly evident. An everyday experience for a person like me in the US is navigating through a landscape of excess, and also wondering about its potential wastage. There are so many examples one could count where such over-investment of resources is disappointing. 

The lights in the Yale School of Architecture never go off - they illuminate the building 24x7 throughout the year. In addition, the building is mechanically ventilated and the temperature is more or less maintained throughout. The windows of the buildings remain fixed, and closed, unlike earlier when they were openable. The light quality of most classrooms and studios are mechanically controlled. You can blind yourself from the outside at any given moment and switch on a dimmer. Each desk has a private lamp, in addition to the brilliantly lit studio. 

Each station is equipped with a double monitor computer screen, and the whole space is enabled with wifi, along with the ethernet connections on their CPUs. A typical scene in addition to these screens would be to find students reading through their i-pads and browsing facebook on their phones. Big and small screens inundate the entire studio space, overflowing the whole world into your eyes. This is primarily enabled through the resources made available to everyone at Yale.

A popularly exploited the facility from the library is the Borrow-direct: a service that essentially allows you to call for a particular book from any other member library in the North-East region in the US in case it is not present in your own library. Students, invariably use this service many a times without bothering to find if the book is actually available within their own premises. They wouldn't wait for the books to be recalled if issued by another patron. They simply call for it from another university. Borrow direct vans run along the different universities in the north east shifting books physically from one place to another based on urgent patron requests in different places. One of my program mates once revealed: "I don't bother to look into the Yale Orbis Library Catalogue, I just order it from Borrow Direct." 

The enormous receptions after the weekly Thursday lectures at the School are another display of the richness of Yale. A wine and drinks reception in the art gallery generally follows the talk, where students and faculty are invited for an elaborate socializing session. Caterers feed the chaotic crowd within the gallery and snacks on the table are kept to go along with the different varieties of alcohol. The left over from this session often is discarded. For example, I once saw the caterer winding up the session to collect the bowls of left snacks, and promptly throwing them into the dustbin! She did not even think twice before dumping them away...

But I believe this is the general rule for most of the eateries here in the US. Coffee shops, bakeries and restaurants throw away all their left over unsold, unconsumed stuff. Their law does not want to chance the risk of getting people ill off consuming old food products. A large amount of food thus goes into the dustbin every night. While the beggars remain homeless and unfed outside, the shop owners are casual in performing their dutiful jobs. For them, being on the right side of the law is more important, not obeying which would deprive them of their sources of livelihood. The vast amount of coffees that go into the gutters is disgusting. They make mistakes freely and those are even paid for. Under the pressure of time and work, if they ever get a wrong order for a coffee, they promptly dump it into the waste bin. Such orders are not preserved for any customer who may later favour for it. 

It is the vast corporate chains of these shops to whom such amounts of waste do not matter in the differential economics, and eventually make it permissible. Capitalism, in most instances, looks at the larger scheme of things. The everyday does not really figure in capitalistic processes, everyday is not the prerogative of capitalism. 

People in the US are brought up in such culture of abundance and excess. To them it is absolutely normal to throw out a glass of freshly bought coffee if it is not as per their taste. Resources, when in such large quantities that the hint of scarcity is not even an faraway imagination, are absolutely taken for granted, and even wasted further. I have been living in this overly resourceful landscape for two years now, and I cringe at every moment when in the architecture school, people throw away huge chunks of model making or printing material without even giving a second thought to pass it to a poor school near by. To be able to make such donations, special drives are conducted. Thus, they don't happen by themselves, rather need to be formalized through another agency.

Coming from a culture of the developing economy, perhaps I was unable to enjoy, or even exploit this excessiveness. I perhaps didnot know what to do of so much resource - may be I was dumbfounded! Was I truly able to indulge in this luxury of Yale? Did I exploit its resources enough? May be it's too late to ask this question. And now, even if I didn't, I certainly paid for it. A life time of money that goes into maintaining this prestige, reputation and glory of Yale, accrued through enormous installments of wasted resources. I may not be completely wrong in attributing much of such phenomenon to the US. It is a place where people live in the oblivion of abundance. A lot more stories, need to be written for such landscapes of excess.

New Questions from Thesis

How do we read such masala buildings? What do we do with this masala? How does one identify its use? How do we make it more interesting and engaging? How do we make the reading of these building more meaningful? What cultural value do they hold? Should we even consider them? If we choose to, how do we talk about them? What are the ways in which we can address such imagic practices? What are the ways in which we can interpret them? What kind of aesthetic trajectories do they indicate? Is this the way to be global? Is it important to appear global in order to be global? What does being global mean for architecture? Does it mean to create a new masala, how is it to be prepared? Does it need to be mixed consciously? Or does it just happen by itself? Which masalas become acceptable? Which ones get rejected? What after all, should be the framework to appreciate this masala?

On Day-Dreaming

I still get up every morning, have my bath, and as I recite my prayers ritualistically, I stand at the window gazing at something for a long time, that turns into nothingness, eventually traversing myself into a known or unknown past or future. The word "still" is important because I have been engaging in this kind of "dreaming" since a very long time. When I was at home in Mumbai, I would stand every morning at my balcony (un)looking at the busy traffic on the road that my balcony faced and spent long time just thinking. Thinking what? Hard to describe, since these thoughts are never graspable.

Day dreaming has become a ritualistic part of my everyday - something that my mother extremely disliked when I was back home. My mother used to wait to worship the Shiva deity together with me every morning. She would push me to have a bath quickly so that I could join her simultaneously while she was still finishing her worshipping of Krishna. Thus, the worshipping of Shiva and Krishna, in her logistical line of things, would be better if completed together. My dreaming irritated her, since it delayed her flow of activities. She would frustratingly ask me what I was dreaming, and I would never be able to answer. Moreso, I wouldn't want to answer. My day-dreams were too personal to be discussed. In order to prevent her from invading further into my dream space, I would decide to hold, or discard the continuity of my thoughts and get to worshipping the Shiva deity.

She, or any one in the family for that matter could never follow why it was important for me to day-dream... In these sessions of deep dreaming, I think of many things about the past, present and future. There are moments where I transcend time magically. I "dream", rather engage in deep thought of what I have done by far, and what I need to do next and so on. A process of rationalization takes place, a conscious effort to understand the logic of decisions that I took by far. I make new promises to myself every day, and then evaluate the consequences of the actions I took based on them in the subsequent day-dreams. These moments that I spend on dreaming every morning are thus self-revealing. They are moments through which I try to find myself, project myself and thus ground myself in the present. The dreams are thus a way to understand the multi-dimensionality of the human condition.

Day-dreaming completely transforms the experience of time. It no longer follows the regulated minutes or hours of the watch. The notion of time gets re-calibrated to one's own body-clock, or even mental-clock on every such instance. The speed at which thoughts come by or the pace at which you allow them to be processed by your brain is completely controlled during these moments. I like to dwell on certain ideas that occur during this process of dreaming, while leave others for a later contemplation. In the scientific way of measuring, these durations of thoughts are never the same, they never come together. They vary in lengths, as well as their intensities. The way in which the mind regulates densities of thoughts re-orients the understanding of time.

The transitioning of the mind into the space of the dream as well as coming out of it is phenomenally difficult to track. For example, you can almost never ascertain when your gaze at a particular scene of the reality disappears into another reality. There is suddenly a reversal - a point when you are seeing outside and gradually shift to the space of the inside. It is here that you are projecting the self onto the reality that you are seeing outside. The notion of reality completely changes, or is even destroyed. In the same way, when you are being pulled out of a certain dream space, the way it blends back into reality is almost magical.

This morning when I was uninhibitedly dreaming while at my large window of the small room, I was scared for a moment. Where on one hand, I reveled my freedom to dream for as long as possible being away from home having no one to interrupt or feel frustrated over my dreaming, I also cautioned myself of its habituation, for perhaps the freedom may not last for ever. And there are many other reasons that I felt mild fear - for I may never be able to justify why it is important for me to day-dream, and yet not share it with any one else. Rather, I can not, because once I am back in the space of reality, I lose my thoughts from the dream space. My inability to retain the realities of the dream space will always hold back people from understanding the relevance of my day-dreaming. And for the functional, utilitarian world, everything gets measured through the regular tick of the clock - that which just can not encapsulate the value of my transcendental experience.

Imagine the empty parking lot you are staring from your window to transform into a playground of desires, or think of the busy street you look at from your balcony to disappear into a future of your own...These acts are extremely meditative, powerful; those which cannot be measured or understood by the rational world. Often, this rational world overlays its own logic onto the workings of the mind, sometimes discarding the validity of certain actions. The capitalistic world can be extremely rude in discarding your everyday ritualistic activity of finding yourself. It ironically makes you believe that life is not inside you, but outside. The parameters of the outside come to haunt you, to an extent that you can not even own your own dreams. And thus, for no one, can I explain why I still dream with  my eyes wide open at the beginning of every day. I wonder if my mother will understand, and will pleasantly allow me to to take my time to dream...

Master's Thesis Defense

I really don't know what to make out of my defense. Over the 45 minute conversation between myself, Keller and Eeva, the thesis seemed to be just be another piece of work that was to be finished and submitted to the the School of Architecture. You may rightfully judge the above statements as dry. But I really dont know what was dry - the overall thesis, the panel comments, my mood or in general the environment of the space in which it took place.

I reached fifteen minutes early to the space I scheduled my thesis and organized the messy room - aligned the chairs to the edges of the table in the center, pushed the extra ones to the walls of the room. I took out my laptop and kept it on the table, opened my thesis pdf, pulled out my notebook with a pencil and kept it besides the laptop. I set up the entire space perhaps like how Frank Lloyd Wright would! I imagined first to be-seat myself on one of the side chairs, but then changed it to sitting at the head of the setting. I was hoping that Keller and Eeva would occupy the immediate seats on the the sides of the table.

"Are you going to present something on the screen?" Keller entered and exclaimed sensing the formal set up of the class. I immediately cleared that there was no presentation I aimed to give. She occupied a seat two spaces away from mine. And while we waited for Eeva, I asked Keller if my thesis was too late a submission. I had just handed over my final draft to both my readers merely 5 days before the defense today. She replied in a negative, and quipped that she reserves all her readings to her Metro North train journeys between New York and New Haven. To this, I added how mobility always makes wander, pulling my eyes to the passing landscapes outside the train window. I told her how I am never able to do any readings while traveling on trains. Keller had an interesting point to make on this. She pointed how the windows of metro north were awkwardly high - in her rhetoric she meant how they did not make watching the 'outside' a pleasant experience. I was immediately drawn to compare the experience to my train travels in Mumbai. I told her how the windows of suburban trains in Mumbai were low, and that you could rest your elbow against its broad edge. Adding to this, I mentioned how windows of trains in Mumbai were openable, unlike the Metro North that were fixed due to the air conditioned coaches...

And Eeva arrived on exactly this statement, suffusing our dialogue. "I am sorry to keep you waiting..." - she said. And grabbed the seat right opposite to Keller on the other edge of the table. Both, Keller and Eeva where thus three spaces away from me. I could see their faces above the opened flap of my laptop screen. In making a short personal conversation, Eeva mentioned to Keller about some presentation by a colleague to be made on Friday, and they went over it briefly until she realized that she was there for my defense. She sweetly apologized, and Keller briefed up the small talk for me by giving it a preface. It was hardly required since I was not into their conversation at all, and Keller's summary made no sense to me. I smiled and nodded in ignorance.

"So it has been a long journey, and the way we do it is we ask you to summarize how you went about your project, and then we can go over our comments," Eeva stated. I was to go over a journey of two years, briefly and open the conversation to the readers. I find the brief summaries annoying personally - I feel I am never convinced with them since I curate the narratives differently each time for a different audience. I always read multiple themes in my past, and I am never sure which theme makes the most sense in what situation. I rambled thus, something that I had not prepared for. I mentioned how the material was collected over the first two semesters, and was strung together into a larger theme by the third semester. The fourth semester was more about settling and consolidating the work. In mentioning the limitations of the project, I said that the format of the book was constraining and that it made the research very linear. I would have liked to rework, or take up the project of the design of the book itself which makes multiple connections and becomes more interactive. I suggested that I thus wanted to operationalize the object of writing itself. I also added that I would rather have this work as an exhibition, where the spatial layout of the contents of this work could create more amorphous and rhizomatic connections with each other.

It was here that I decided to stop and pass over the dialogue to the panel. Keller was the first to respond, since she was the reader for my thesis. She went on to say that the way of the first-person voice developed over the entire project was interesting, and that it compelled her to look at Mumbai as my reading, through my eyes. It was certainly a story that was specific to me. She mentioned that I inserted myself in the narrative in very strategic ways, and made the thesis read as "this is not a proof," rather my own journey through the material. She brought out that such a strategy helped me to question myself, the tone of not being sure added to the reception of the work as a journey. In terms of the content, she mentioned that the 4 terms (ref. the 4 chapters themes) that took for analysis 4 different kinds of artifacts for research (namely publications, people, films and buildings) respectively, she understood the first two, but wasn't clear of the last two. The last chapter "leakages" did not mention clearly what exactly leaked, and how. She brought up the concept of Masala (from my film chapter, referring to the masala film) - a concept that occurred to me quite late to explore in its totality for the built environment. I was glad she mentioned that the conclusion could have reflected, rather should have reflected the constitution of itself for the built environment. In this line of thought of the undetailed concept, she said that the conclusion almost fell flat. Where she expected more things to come out of the conclusion, she felt as if it was almost written by someone else. I would go on to agree with her.

She pointed that the theory of hybridity that I was proposing kept on polarizing the image transfer into east and the west, to an extent that she felt irritated. She mentioned how the thesis introduces a multitude of players and is not limited to transfer of images from the west to the east, rather  a more nuanced borrowing. She mentioned that in her reading of the thesis, after a point, she said - "Stop using that word" - hinting that it was not just about the West...Lastly, she added that in this light, there was not a "systematic" way of reading hybridity that I had discovered through the thesis, which I claim in the conclusion, rather, I had found a certain kind of instrumentality in some words that allowed me to engage with the hybrid built environment. "'Systemic'  is a very different thing" she said...

Eeva took the conversation forward in highlighting certain things about the writing. She found that there were certain things about the pace of writing that kept varying along the reading. There were some aspects which successfully created a vivid image of the place I was talking about, but at certain places, it didnot work, in that, they were a bit detached from the visual. On the other hand, the feel of "processing" or "looking" - the inquisitiveness of certain portions of the thesis should shine in the introduction too, she felt. Eeva had made elaborate comments on the document which she was happy to hand me over afterwards. I had anticipated a lot of comments that Eeva had for my work - one of them also being how it would have made a successful reading if the reader did not need to make any reference to the images that appeared at the end of the thesis while reading the text that was in organized devoid of images in the first half (this format was as specified in the M.E.D. reader).

I mentioned that the observation was legitimate, and it reflected the fact that I was not able to visit the field over the last two years, which would have allowed me to make closer observations. A lot of these observations were restricted to merely the photographs, and you can only explain that much with the photographs, unless they are strategically taken. In that, I mentioned how I had to put in so much extra effort in explaining to my family who were helping me source pictures of buildings that I was talking about. For what they considered almost everyday, was something novel for  me... and this communication lag in itself was a signifier of how the hybridity in the built environment has become so pervasive that people hardly questioned it. Perhaps, as the thesis suggests, this is what brings out the willingness of people to mould their identities.

Keller accepted, and encouraged me to take the concept of 'masala' ahead. She told me to make a case why this is the way we should be looking at the built environment and how it gives these buildings another status. It was quite an interesting way to think about sharpening the thesis.

On the other hand, Eeva brought out that there is a lot of anecdotal material that I bring into the thesis - be it a conversation with a family member, teacher, professor or even Charles Correa! The anecdotes, she said, were a powerful instrument used throughout the thesis, and underlines the random nature of the built environment. "As if the buildings were predetermined to happen that way..." she said in clarifying her point. The cast of characters bring out the inconclusive nature of the thesis, a certain kind of invocation. And thus the discussion went on, where Eeva pointed out an exhibition "Transformations in Modern Architecture" that took place in MoMA in 1975 - which she felt did something similar to what my thesis attempted to do.

After pointing out a bit more fine issues, I was asked to leave the room briefly and close the door so that they could decide about the evaluation of my work. I left the room and was called back in five minutes. Eeva announced that the work was acceptable, and that I was passed. Although she asked me to work on comments she had put on my thesis, and that I had enough time to rework the conclusion.

I am not good at concluding things - and they always open up more things than I originally thought of. These themes frame my view of my work, and I will need to find a way to push it in the thesis this time, for I have substantial time to discuss again with Eeva and get it sorted...

And as I began to leave the room, I overheard Eeva confirming to Keller: "Did you hear that Arjun Appadurai's wife passed away?" Keller perhaps nodded, to which I didnot pay heed. Although this is by no means a way to end this post or even bring up this news of someone else's misfortune, and I must state that I am merely stating, I think it was interesting. It left me wondering what meaning to make out of it, for my thesis was based on Appadurai's theory of globalization...

I quietly stepped out of the room to (re)enter my own numbness...

--

The grammatical fallacies of this text have last been improvised on 2nd May 2014. These would keep happening on every subsequent reading, a habit induced by the two year training in writing through the MED program.

On Inhabiting Language

I suddenly bounced upon a song from the film Rockstar, written by lyricist Irshad Kamil - "Jo bhi main"; the lyrics of which can be found here. The reason that got me to write this post is quite strange. In the first place, I am not a fan of loud things - loud expressions, loud aesthetics, etc. Thus, a film like Rockstar was completely outside my aesthetic purview. The songs that the film offered, therefore, were simply out of my radar of consideration. In this avoidance, I also kept away (quite naturally) from the lyrics of the songs, and the meaning behind it.

However, on reading this song and further hearing it, it makes complete sense to me today. [I must admit though that I have seen Rockstar before, and did find it more meaningful than the other films I have watched. But I was never able to connect to it fully, so I rejected it and so its music. I had not gone through the experiences depicted in that particular film and so I was naturally not able to imagine it for myself.]. Coming back, the song simply says:

Jo bhi main
Kehna chahoon
Barbad kare..
Alfaz mere

when translated, they mean:

Whatever things

I want to say, 

Get destroyed

By my own words

Listening to this song particularly now gains a lot more meaning for me, specially having written the earlier post (on not being able to put thoughts into words). In this context, the words of the song merely suggest that language is not sufficient to express all the emotions one goes through. To be more specific, communication through words may not always be effective, and as the lines above suggest, words may sometimes almost destruct the original feeling you did want to convey. In the process of verbalizing, you may actually end up ruining a thought. 

I was browsing through an article in a magazine just some time ago today where I read that the noted German philosopher Martin Heidegger once said: "We inhabit language." Heidegger's deeper philosophical intention was to question whether things (objects that belong to the physical world) came first or language? Since a "thing" doesnot exist without it being "labelled" through words of a language, we are surrounded by more language than things. In this way, we are slaves of the languages, since there probably lies no world outside of that defined by language. To put it simply, a world that can not be articulated through language may never be believed to exist. In this sense, as Heidegger puts it, we live within the world created by our language, and thus inhabit language.

We use language only to negotiate meaning. I will not take the reader through the most important linguists from Sassure to Jacques Derrida who have invested much time in explaining the world of words. But to just point things out simply, the connection between a 'word' and a 'thing' is merely a convention used for communication. For example, the fact that we call a "spoon" as "spoon" has got nothing to do with what the spoon does. That the spoon means "something that it can contain" is the meaning that is conveyed for us, to be able to communicate merely the thingli-ness of the thing called a "spoon". Thus, words merely help us to convey certain essential meanings through which we pursue life, or living. 

Having given this background, I now want to return to the song. It goes ahead:

Kabhi mujhe Lage ki jaise
Sara hi yeh jahan hai jaadu
Jo hai bhi aur Nahi bhi hai yeh
Fiza, Ghata, Hawa, Baharein
Mujhe..Kare..Ishare yeh..

Kaise..Kahoon Kahani main innki

when translated to English:

Sometimes I feel that

This whole world is magical

That is and is not

Weather, Clouds, Wind, Springs

They hint to me

How do I tell their story?

Such thought (expressed in the song) may seem quite simple, and often discarded as philosophical. On a trip to an ashram in Haridwar, I was awe-struck by the beauty of flowers in their gardens. I kept taking numerous pictures of these flowers in my digital camera. I repeatedly kept zooming into their petals, their colours, framing and re-framing them. I wasn't sure what I exactly wanted to take, why wasn't I satisfied? What was I obsessed with about them? What made me keep looking at them, capture them, what about them did I want to take back, hold back? My father simply thought I was trying to take a good picture! I told him: "One just cannot capture their beauty in a photograph!" And perhaps he understood but did not want to get into a philosophical discussion, and so he discarded saying something to the effect: "well would (it) work if you (say) so?"

But perhaps my feelings were quite similar to those expressed in the song. I was merely wondering how can one express how one feels about the beauty of the flower. Or, can the beauty of the flower be really expressed in words or captured in a photograph? We only make ourselves happy by mediating the meaning of what we feel about the flower's beauty by putting the thoughts in word. I am doing it right now while writing it. But in doing so, I am actually affirming what the first few lines of this verse say: destroying what I want to actually convey through my words.

In some ways, this does connect to my earlier post. And I have gotten myself in this difficult, quite ironical position of being in the field of 'theory' where language is my domain. In this regard, I do not know if I am expanding my world or putting it within limits of the language, bounding it myself? 

There are several examples to experience the world beyond language of words. Music is the first and most evident one - in which emotions are communicated through sounds / sound waves. Second is touch - through feeling, intimacy, and contact with another body. I have always believed that having sex must be a very powerful way of communicating - where two bodies communicate without speaking (verbalizing experiences) at all. Gestures, evidently are ways in which messages are passed on without speech. And there are countless modes that go beyond conventional spoken language. The question is how sensitive, how receptive are we to these other modes? 

I think it may not be difficult to attempt doing so. May be one way to connect to the outside world is to deeply connect to your innermost self. To find what lies "within" ourselves is almost impossible. Can we even hear our heart beat for that matter? Or can we listen to the blood running in our veins? To know the nature of the "self" is to automatically train ourselves to sensitize ourselves to the world outside. It is then when one can truly appreciate the fullness of life. Or may be I am romanticizing. It is for someone to understand. The ancient Gurukul system worked thus, in my opinion. But well, as much as I verbalize, I will be killing its meaning. Because:

Jo bhi main
Kehna chahoon
Barbad kare..
Alfaz mere

(I would have enjoyed bringing out an analysis of the composition of this song too. Rahman's music does good justice in my opinion. There are meaningless vowels that the song begins and ends with, making it pure music, no real words that denote anything, thus giving the song its true meaning. The single verse in the song almost covers everything, most importantly brings out the key question, or predicament. I could go on. But, just to say, sometimes, a seemingly insignificant Bollywood song can have deep mysteries hidden inside itself.)