Grids of the Grocer

 

It's not only architects or artists who deal with geometries. Geometry I think is a part of every person. When I mention geometry, I am referring to complex patterns that are made out of basic shapes. While walking across the streets everyday, I look at how vegetable vendors arrange their pyramids of tomatoes, gingers, apples or other fruits. How neatly they make bundles of chillies, gingers, spinach in a grid. How nicely, the flower vendors make groups of a handful (palm-ful) of orange flowers and cap them with a red one. How they arrange the stack of leaves overlapping each other...

I wonder how the people who make the cane baskets make a multitude of shapes out of a single thread of cane...its like a complex structure of geometry used very simply. Looking at hats, baskets, containers all made out of basic long cane, I was surprised with the intensity with which they engage with an object (which is an everyday object for them). Bamboos, and the ways they cut it to make classes, cups, boxes and a range of other products...Wires - the way they shape it up into cycles, cars, trains, etc - or plastics, take anything. There is so much of it.

On one hand, where geometry is organizational (in the way of the grid) its also something that they structure their lives around.  It is also that they make into a structure (an object). Craft is thus important. It makes you realize of what you can do with objects, and how you can build on to them.

however, what i really like is that inspite of a rigid grid, the gingers are irregular. Inspite of the unstable rolling round tomato, it makes one of the most stable structure of the pyramid!! how interesing. They do it with a lot of love, in the heat of the sun, only waiting for all those pyramids to disappear at the end of the day! A basket of things to play - keep arranging, refilling their mats -the chickoos, the bananas...how they make the most interesting patterns.

Do they do it as a pass time? Or do they create an aesthetic of display? Does it appeal to people to see shining jaamuns as a regularised mountain of equal units? Making a mountain out of watermelons - and cutting a pyramidal cone out of it only to tuck it back in its profiled section? all of it suggests so much of articulation. I think we could learn from how these people deal with geometries...For articulation, for resolution, for finding ways of economising space, for finding out how spaces in-between are created, how colours interact... all of that.
And this only came up more strongly when I sat over a student's drawings resolving his circular space structure...if only he could inform him more with things around....

err...

But i would have almost missed the point...How does the grid so naturally come to the vegetable vendor? Sometimes I wonder how would Descartes react to this!? How would Euclid react to such natural instinct of making pyramids of papayas? And was the grid practised before it was discovered? Is the cartesian grid primordial? Perhaps questions which have been answered...i could just re-thread it...

The Interesting City

Yes,

This is what I kept forgetting.

Why is this city interesting? Why everyone is plunging into it? Why everyone wants to study it? Why is it so fascinating? Why are people migrating into it?

Any object/ thing in making is always beautiful! Look at a building being constructed and it looks more beautiful than once it would be completed. (at least that's an architect's point of view). Mumbai, I feel, is still a city in making. Unlike other cities, Mumbai still struggles for a coherent image (out of its cosmopolitan). You see buildings amidst the shanties. You see the shanties just getting transformed into slightly taller buildings, and the slightly taller being converted into larger ones. There is debris all over, there is cement, reinforcement, bulldozers everywhere. Flyovers, skywalks, trains, buses, metros, buildings - all in the process. We see it happening all around us. I think although we hate engaging in all of this, this is that we love about it.

We still have wadis, villages, beaches, padas - how could it then be a city? Just go to the outskirts - say Bhayander and you will see a gamut of adopted culture from the main city. Someone once said: "Mumbai is a village" intending to say - there is no amount of city-like civilian built form here.

Can you imagine what it means to be in a city which is still in its making? 100 years later, when its full, we will be historical. They will write on us as "these people used to take a train from Goregaon to Dadar for their work" - quite possible. No, actually what I want to bring out is that while cities like say New york or London are all almost done, Mumbai is just midway. Now that Other cities are being reacted to, Mumbai is doing it all at the same time. It is building itself, critiquing itself, reacting to itself and growing simultaneously. I think that is what makes it interesting. And in between all of this lie a group of people called "architects", "urban researchers" and the whole group of "activists" and others. Some of them one day will be known as we know of the "surrealists/dadaists/situationist" today!

The only unfortunate thing is that while the other landmark cities that we study today were widely documented, Mumbai has already become far to complex to be documented. Documentation should be available for future study. And we need to still archive a lot of it. How do we begin to even look at this city in process. Is it correct to be evaluating it while it is still in process? To be able to talk about it more confidently, there should be some intensive effort in its documentation. There should be something like a City Document Society - something like a gazzetier. The gazzatier is far too limited in terms of its methods. May be new age tools could be used to start looking and recording the place we live in.

(this post needs to be formalized)

Passing thoughts

One of the reasons why I keep earphones plugged onto my ears all the time is that there are so many thoughts that come into my head all the time that one day they would drive me crazy. As i look around myself, I feel like I could document the whole world in my own way, in the way I observe. But it's impossible. Because thoughts come and go at electrifying speed. When I listen to the music through my earphones, I am only thinking of the song, and these days, I keep analysing all songs as I listen the tunes I've loaded into my phone - for the n-th time. I keep noticing the fine tunings, the overlaps of instruments, the nuances of singers, the beats, the composers...and its interesting how I have been able to comprehend my sensibility of understanding music.

The other thing that I feel wierd about is that my friends keep reminding me about my other friends' birthdays! That's really sweet of them! I mean how considerate can friends be? I think I am quite lucky to be between such people who understand that I just can not remember dates. I was terrible at historical dates! I still am, although I love the subject now!

Shadows in summers are beautiful. I think it's very recently that many of the people around have painted their walls in bright colours. So you can see crisp metals giving amazing sciography that one would like to draw on graphics plates! Sometimes, when they overlap over each other, or sometimes when flat lines make 3-dimensional shadows on folding planes, one wonders what wonderful spaces can be created using only light and shade...

On the other hand, summers are also for mounds of watermelons, parrots on cables, copper pods on black taxis, bottles of sherbets....all of which is also colourful!

These are also the times when I am preparing to separate myself from my first closest association with students - my second year batch. And I am feeling terribly uneasy to be able to dis-associate with them! I never thought that it would be such a hard feeling of loss. But one day, even I would go...and I don't know how important I am in their course of lives anyway - I was just a coordinator at the end of the day.

Hmm, just moving on now. Far too many things that hold back, and far too many things to look forward to...

Images <> Forms

In the past 3 days, I have happened to get into some intense discussions. One of them was the Interior design Jury for the second year-ites. The project was to intervene in the caves at Kahneri, Mandapeshwar, Elephanta and Mahakali. In a way, I felt that the project was a an interesting one to study interiority. The interior design studio during this entire year discussed quite mature issues. The first one was almost inspired by my fellowship research (though I may not completely claim it to be that way) and the idea of the first project developed from looking at domestic objects. Everyday objects were studied, analysed and new ideas were associated to them finally taking them to the next step for enveloping them into a space or a space that they could envelop (i shall confirm this with the faculty).

However, the two important arenas of discussion that the projects opened were: domesticity and interiority. Thus the projects were not really driven by the typical practice of interior design that happens in the city today. The arguments they generated were fairly academic. The intervention at the Kanheri Caves especially evoked a huge debate, where students decided to create a kind of historical journey through the various architectural landmark structures. These included the temple forms, the church forms, the mortuary temples at Egypt, the Moghul gardens, the Pantheon, the basilica, the Greek amphi theatre and so on. Imagine placing each of these (taking on different functions) against the Kanheri caves.

At one instance it may seem absolutely funny. Well, it is. It definitely is. But this discomfort allowed us to debate how we so strongly relate forms to functions / images to forms / meanings to images / and information to meaning. Atul's argument was not to look at the image of a church as church or not to associate the image of the temple with the temple. He argued that these functions (temple, church, etc.) were ideas that manifested into these forms. Today these ideas could be reinterpreted. Today, their manifestations could be different. (in fact, they have been different to quite an extent). Then the association between the image and the form is broken. How do we then re-constitute the image of a church? My argument was to go into the experential. But Atul cautioned me to do so! That's the beginning of a big search that we ended in.

Here are some pictures of the projects:

Animals

remaining posts

Actually I had to write a lot about my trip to Haridwar but as usual, things have evaporated by now. I had to talk about my uncle's retail steel products shop in detail. There was so much I learnt there about how reinforcements are dealt with. I wanted to elaborate on the idea of "bones of a building". Anyway, many thoughts are lost.
On the other hand, there were some things that I had to also talk about Palghar (especially new constructions). I have no zeal to write about these now. 

Open Jury at AOA

The open jury at AOA during the last week seemed fascinating. I saw such a charged up chaos at AOA after quite some time (or have I seen it ever before?). Models were all around and the back area was almost crammed up. Some students were all dressed up while others had just finished putting the north on their plans. There was a big panel of jurors - right from construction, structures, humanities to the design faculty. While students shivered, they handled and accepted 'criticism' quite bravely.

Although I still heard some grumblings from jurors on ill designed toilets, ducts, missing section lines, wall elevations as I passed along the panels, there was some really inspiring work. the one model below (yet to be put on a ground base) reminded me of Rem Koolhaas's sleeping buildings.

Forms, materials, shapes, shiny surfaces, file card, thermocole - all around. Still, I feel open juries have to be more open forums. Students still do not attend juries of their peers. Dialogue amongst students will transform the whole scene. Students must overthrow / push their faculties to perform through dialogue. Many of them craved to talk, but were unfortunately conversed only about BHK or toilet ducts. But I am sure this is to change...

A Poem / thoughts

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन आणि माझी मुलगी मला विचारेल- '' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'' तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये...तर हात वर करून अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की- '' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

-Gaurav Gaikwad

Can aspirations be as simple as just being simple? Can one be different by being just like everyone else? Can one glorify the everyday like everyday? I felt the above text did that.

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन

when i grow up

आणि माझी मुलगी

and my daughter

मला विचारेल

asks me

'' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'

"daddy, who was your first love...??"

तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून

then, quietly getting up

कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये

i dont want to bring out from the cupboard - an old album

तर हात वर करून

but, i'll raise my hand

अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की

and proudly point out and say that

'' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना

"she who's standing at the kitchen platform

तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

...is my first and last love..."

(English translation mine)

Marriages are extremely political affairs in our social space. With marriage is the marriage of two families, thoughts, work patterns, lifestyles, bodies of two groups of people. These groups may be from the same caste or different. When they are same, its called "arranged marriage" while the second is "love marriage". The poem for me gives an allegoric account of one hidden below the other.

Does it really mean what it means? Why this contemplation that one will get married when one grows up (here, grow up implies an age beyond the normal)? And the dream of a girl child (a subtle unlikely choice - I refer to the political social space) asking the father - "who was your first love?" - and why would a daughter pose her father such a question? How old is she? Did she just ask him after he encountered a fight at home, or he's feeling low, or she read something or her mother told her some old incident....?

Procrastinating the answer, the author/father chooses not to go to the cupboard and bring out an album, but simply assumes to point at the lady in the kitchen. Why? What does the album hold? What emotion does the gesture hold? Of regret of the past? Was there someone? Who was she? Why it did not work out? Why the compromise? On the other hand, what is the 'pride' for? Why would he proudly point out? Things that put me in thought.

And families live like that. In our society, love marriages are still so hard to be convinced, especially if the boy and girl are of different castes.

More than that, this is the picture that the poem frames for me:

The daughter sitting on the father's lap - who is waiting for the dinner to be served. He's wearing a white loose pyjama and a brief staring out of the window. The kitchen is a room made by the curtained separation. The cupboard lies in the other half. Bare minimum requirements. Yet, the daughter (you seems to be very young) maintains the innocently serious tone. The father reacts like every other father - a father who is like the closed cupboard - reticent, rather someone, who would not open the cupboard and discuss that album, which might have hidden stories. Instead, he would foucs on the present - the reality of life, the reason of his own existence - the lady across the kitchen.

Don't we live in this domesticity?
But on the other hand, it may also mean completely the opposite.  Isn't that beautiful?

(I do not know the poet)

Videos from North India

The pace of Haridwar

Sunset at the airport

Crossing Ghaziabad

Haridwar / Mussoorie

Bones of a Building

My uncle has a retail shop which sells steel for construction activities in Haridwar. The story goes that my grand uncle was appointed as the Project supervisor when the Tehri Dam was being constructed nearby Haridwar. Since it would be a project which would go on for long, my grand uncle decided to make a house there. The house which therefore exists there is more than 50 years old. Although my my uncle was deported to Mumbai to learn better jobs to earn a better living, he was too far away from learning different things. He did not study much. Hence, he would not be able to grasp things so easily. After trying multiple odd jobs for varying months in Mumbai, he decided to go back and settle in Haridwar. 

Panoramas

Haridwar is a small town along the banks of Ganga. It is one of the beginning points for the famous hindu pilgrimages of Badrinath, Kedarnath & Gangotri. All three places have their own fascinating histories. Ganga at this stage is still pure enough to have a dip into or to see through the waters. The riverflow was gradual (unlike that in upper parts of the hill), so one could actually engage with the river. It did not make noise and allowed you to gaze at it quietly. Perhaps it would become more fierce in summers.

Hardwar has; one can say - a sacred centre, a business centre and an administrative centre. I will not be able to locate it on a map since my notion of this geography is very experiential. The pace of Haridwar's life is comfortable, and I shall substantiate and write about it in another post. Amongst recreational places are the ghats of Ganga, and the multitude of temples around. In the lane where my uncle stayed, there was a very weak idea of a community or a neighbourhood. These would be redundant and fancy ideas in the context.

However, nearby hill stations like Dehradun, Mussoorie, etc are interesting places to go for excursions.

Colours

It was almost the end of winter and all things were in a state of transition - the temperature, the skies, the attire of people and the colours of the place. Not only the trees had new leaves on them, they changed colours throughout the day as sun filtered through them. The Ganga was green against the bright brown hills. Everything was cold. 

Shadows


And I kept observing layers of shadows on things and wondered how would I draw them? All shadows of the  multidimensional word became flat graphical shapes which could be transferred on to paper. Light played with the objects and the objects firmly smiled back bearing the shadows, giving meaning to light.