Book Worm, CSMVS

An open library in the campus of the Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Sangrahalaya designed by Nuru Karim.

 

Architectural Diagrams - 4

 

Mumbai Metro

Clinics

 

A Doctor's clinic in the Goregaon, northern suburb of Mumbai. 

Contrary to one's architectural imagination, this space is perhaps one of the simplest manifestation of the doctor's clinic. A rectangular gala approximately 12 feet x 12 feet, the clinic is divided into two halves - a private and a public. The private part screened behind a wooden partition contains an examination bed, doctors table and a tiny washroom. The remaining part, essentially the waiting area, spills over the pavement. Plastic stools kept stacked inside are released and arranged abutting the closed shop to extend hospitality! literally. In this instance, the medical shop adjoining the clinic partakes the responsibility of handing tokens to the patients. 

This time I wondered what do we do while we are still waiting in clinics for our turns to visit the doctor. And that's when my attention turned to the numerous bills stuck on all the surfaces of the waiting area. Charts and diagrams explaining the anatomy of the body, dos and donts regarding different habits and diseases, rights and duties of the ailing body, calendars and schedules with photographs of deities, sometimes random artworks, certificates and degrees legitimizing the medical practice... All such bills take you into different spaces, different times. 

In the soupy space of the clinic, these bills become a potent distraction for the grieving patients. Several ifs and buts arise as our turns arrive. Others engulfed with pain sit with their eyes closed, leaning onto their guardians or partners. Those visiting for regular checkups also pass time on their phone, and catch up on usual business transactions. In the background of such soundscape, one tries to stay afloat of personal medical anxieties. 

RMA Exhibition at Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai

'The Architecture of Practice'

a retrospective exhibition on the practice of Rahul Mehrotra 

curated by Kaiwan Mehta

Bombay Zine Fest 2021

on Political Economy

On Writing

It's ironic that a forum on writing is one in which we all are compelled to talk, for as a writer, one's recluse has primarily been the space of the text where you don't have to face an audience. The difference between speaking and writing, if one may draw attention to, is precisely that (or analogical to) between theatre and cinema or live singing and playback. The writing desk essentially allows you to take retakes, it allows you multiple rehearsals. This stage is for speaking - and speaking the right things at once - and it thus puts you in a pressure to be alert at every moment. The piece of writing has the luxury of being on the wrong side, circulating within in circles, accumulating soft criticisms (or criticisms softly), contemplate, meditate on them and keep building up ideas. To speak is not the same.


Writing is also a work, an exercise in organising thoughts, particularly of a scattered of a mind that is distracting itself in multiple directions due to the open field of referents it is invariably suspended in. Writing is a task in putting order to seemingly stray array of thoughts that are produced as well as consumed, and weaving these into some kind of story to bring a coherence for the sake of meaning, or to create a meaningful world that could be inhabited or make one's place in an open undisposed field.

More discussion here with Nisha Nair Gupta 

on 5th September 2021, which was also Teachers' Day in India.

Drawings

 

The Kitchen Ballet

 

The Kitchen Ballet

JIIA Issue (1960s)

borrowed from Sonal Sunderrajan's blog.