Traces from Romila Thapar's lecture on Secularism

Romila Thapar, eminent historian of India, was in Mumbai for a lecture this Monday where she spoke on secularism in India.

Following are traces from the lecture:
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Without secularism, people in India will have to imagine and identify themselves through religion, caste, class, language, etc., she began elaborating. These parameters will become primary in establishing one's identity.

At the outset, she went on to distinguish between the terms "secular", "secularism" and "secularisation". "Secular" is that which relates to the world that is distinct from the religious. "Secularism" demarcates that boundaries for the social institutions to exercise control over how people should live and conduct within a society. "Secularisation", finally, is the process by which a society recognises distinction. 

The observance of law is strengthened when people know its purpose. 

Religion had emerged as a social and personal need. This eventually became an organised instition. Thus it became important, and authoritarian. 

The control of religious institutions over the social, which secular wants to keep distinct.

Religion has its sanction from faith

Social laws are the spine of the society. They protect the rights to live. Education is one of the things which socializes a child into the society.

Civil law - how people conduct within the framework of rights and duties.
Social law - must prescribe the absolute minimum - things like standards of basic health and education. 

Secularism helps keep a negotiated distance between the religious and the social.

Religion should not dictate / prescribe the civil laws. Social essentially tries to entail the right to live.

Indian definition of secularism just talks about the "coexistence" of religion. however, secularism is not just that, said thapar.

"Is secularism a western concept?" some argue. But so are the ideas of nationhood, democracy, etc. Certainly, more contemporary ideas of liberalization are western imprints. 

Colonial views of indian religions have been almost  internalized today. These were constructed as monolithic projections of the hindu and the muslim nations - without registering the finer nuances within them. Not everyone within "hind" or the "muslim" behaves and believes in a singular ideology or manner. Evading the nuances,  the English made the two appear hostile to each other. They did this for they wanted to control. Such a move was clearly political. However, there have always been fights and aggressive negotiations between the two religions throughout history. this image was imprinted on india distancing the two religious. This was thus a colonial construct.

Hindu and muslim, both are not monolithic religious entities, they are themselves composed of different caste, class, and sects. The interaction between caste, sect and religion with the state was the way in which indian society moved forward. Sects allow the less orthodox to assimilate new ideas. They are not as rigid aand monolithic as religions. This allows, and is thus, fluid(ity)

All forms of arts literature, music, classical art forms were positively hybridized and even patronized by courts and sultans. This evidences the constant negotiations and dialogue between the two cultures.

Siddhpur, Gujarat

Siddhpur is a town two hours away from Ahmedabad City. While many ancient buildings around it date back by 900 years, much of its present architecture came up about 100 years ago. The town has several neighbourhoods, the prominent one being that of the Bohra Muslims who settled here before independence. Composed of merchants who benefitted from the trade right across the Gujarat sea, architecture of Siddhpur borrows distinct Art Deco language for the havelis spatially informed by a Bohra lifestyle. It reflects a balanced mix of modernity and tradition. Much of the town today is remanent of a period claimed by the rise of trade and industry within Indian mainland. Today however, most Bohras have moved to bigger cities, leaving behind modest mansions that talk of a community that once flourished through cultural and economic exchanges.

While the grid-ironed, neatly laid out Bohra mansions become the centre piece of the town, the peripheries  dissolve into meandering pathways that take you to older neighbourhoods, or wadas as they call it, reminding of the pols of Ahmedabad. The facades of these mansions fuse different forms of column capitals - corinthian to ionic to composite. These are punctuated regularly by segmental arches. The width of most houses is between 6 to 8 metres, lined up in a row within a block. Thus many of these mansions have openings only on two ends. They donot technically share a common wall, for each house builds their own side walls even if adjoining each other, which eventually allows them to carve out space for storage and furniture. The smaller ends, in conjunction with the central skylight / open well allows the house to breathe, at the same time maintain ambient light within. 

Frontages of Bohra houses are mini caverns. They are a hybrid between the traditional otlas and the rajasthani haveli entrances. Taking you on a high plinth, the entry steps dig into the facade, creating a cozy portico, well shaded and inviting. The entrance is not as heavily treated as that in the Rajasthani haveli. Backyards are not elaborate. Back face of houses have a series of windows on either sides. The center is ususally reserved for inlaid furniture. 

The spatial structuring of the house is layered. One enters a series of spaces one after the other, arranged from public to most private. You enter the house through a lobby which is the fulcrum from where you divert into different directions. You either take a staircase to the upper floors, or turn on either side for the wash area/bathroom or the kitchen - planned on either sides of the entrance. Modern logic of servicing a space are well incorporated within these houses - seen in the pipes concealed within the walls, but taken out through the external facade of the building. Beyond the lobby are a series of three layers / spaces.

The first layer is a common room where visitors sit. This space has a wash basin on one corner, and water pot (panihara) on the adjacent side. This space is often lit by an open skylight. There are changing rooms behind the panihara. The second layer is generally a small vestibule with a cot and a seating place, generally for a semi private recluse. The innermost layer is a large private hall, often the most well kept, with exquisite in-laid furniture and cushions for floor seating. This space is lit up by two large windows. The spaces on the upper level generally include a room for larger gatherings.

Such layout reminds one of Louis I Kahn's diagram of the served and serving spaces. The servicing areas of the house are clearly clubbed and zoned towards the external face, while the remaining spaces are set off from the lobby in varying intensities of privacy. 

The bohra community is well held between two converging primary lanes. One of them is the Bazaar street - the most active and bustling part of the town. It is lined with several shops on either sides selling all necessities. In parallel, on the streets are vendors on carts. The Bazaar street eventually extends to the railway station, one of the boundaries of the town. The other boundary is the large cemetry. 

Siddhpur is an ideal town. It has taken me long to clearly distinguish a village from a town, and more importantly a town from a city (Dont we always refer to South Mumbai as "town"?). However, Siddhpur (after New Haven, where I spent two years), has made me more clear about the characteristics of a town. A town fits right between the village and the city, blending characteristics of both in its pace of life, kind of people, scale of activities and access to amenities. These observations may seem very obvious. But these experience of a town life makes one re calibrate the way in which you relate to a place. Being bred in a metropolis, a city like Mumbai, a town is certainly relieving - offering a good speed - not as slow as the village. It offers you conveniences of the city, not making you travel far to meet people. A town can be easily navigated on foot, or if you had a bike, unlike a city. The density of information it throws at you is controlled. It is not a village because you have modern day facilities, institutions and so on. That in essence, was my learning from Siddhpur. 

Discussing Design with Gurdev Singh

Gurdev Singh, the dean of Navrachana School of Architecture, Baroda was here at SEA taking a workshop as a part of the Technology Module for second year students at SEA. He was here for three days, where he engaged with students in making objects out of laminating wood. curving strips of timber into sensuous structural shapes that would be assembled into different objects. Gurdev Singh, for those who may not know, is one of the most engaged and passionate educators we have in architecture today. He began his teaching career in CEPT Ahmedabad in the late 70s, after which he went to the middle east to coordinate the architecture program (so is what he quipped). He spent some time there constantly learning from the cultures of construction imbibing a distinct sensibility and sensitive approach to architecture through technology and material. Further he spent time in Yemen, then Australia, where he was for about 20 years. While in Australia, he also constructed his own house. Gurdev shared his years of accumulated experience with us over small chats and two presentations he gave to our students over the last three days.

The first presentation was about two of his projects. The former was titled "House in a Bush" and the latter was "Bush in a House". In the first part, he spoke to us about building his own house in Australia. Gurdev went on to preface briefly the site, located about 20 minutes from the city centre, where habitation already subsides and life becomes quiet. He bought a large plot to himself in order to make his house. "It is a trend for people to take up large properties, and build a home at the edge of the road so that it is visible to everyone. In this way, people can claim that they have a beautiful house, and that it has a large property behind it. When we were building, we decided to camp over there for the first seven to eight months finding out what location would be the best? Where does the sun rise, where is the light best, where do we get morning rays, and so on. So for the first few months, we were just camping, after which we finally decided a location." His house is situated about a kilometre inside from the access road, nestled between the trees and just besides a dam and a water body. 

The site is primarily covered in Eucalyptus trees (about 95%). "When the leaves fall down and the water flows over it, you can taste the soft smell of the woods..." he went on to say. Discussing the first few design options and why he chose to discard them, he concluded "The most difficult client you can have is yourself! And it is always a problem when you have to finally present it to others, because you are aware of all your flaws, and you have to constantly apologise to others that 'Don't look there, I know that went wrong!'" The final scheme that Gurdev showed us was a house that opened out in various directions placed on a mild sloping land. The bedroom was oriented to morning sunrays, the living space was opened towards the evening light. "If you invite any one for dinner, they will arrive by default at 7, or maximum 7.15. That is the culture in Australia. So when they arrive, the sunrays have still kept the living space warm, and there is still enough light for them to look out!" This is how he went about siting the whole house.

Interrupting him, I asked, "Excuse me sir, but I don't think any of us have visited Australia. Could you tell us about the weather conditions there so that we are able to better understand the scheme?" He went on, "Oh yes, so the temperature ranges anywhere from about -7 degrees C to 35 degrees C over the entire year. One of the things to note is that while the sun goes from east to west via south in our place, over there, it goes via north. So instead of the 'north light' that we open our houses to in India, there it is the south light. It took me a while to get used to that. They get a lot of dew. So in the mornings, you can collect over 50 to 70 litres of water just from the surface (gesturing his house on the screen). There are forest fires that can spread over kilometres. Bush fire is more common. The more common reason for it is the litter. The fire can actually come and burn the whole house. Thus we have to clear the litter in 100 metres radius of the house. The best way to save yourself off a forest fire in such situation is just to be within the house and come out only when it is gone. So that is about it."

"We built the whole house ourselves. Wood sections were drawn on the floor, full scale, so there was no scope for any errors. Those were our very working drawings." Sharp sloping roofs extending in the opposite direction of the contour open up the house as one goes deeper within giving it a low entrance but a voluminous climax. The thrust of Gurdev's presentation was on construction techniques and materials he used for the house. He informed how it put it together, taking together another guy from the university, who was disillusioned by theoretical ideas of sustainability. So they just came together along with one more person in making real things. 

Much of the construction is dry, using timber, glass and corrugated sheets. Gurdev took us closer to each detail that he designed, sometimes even inventing new spaces in the process, resolving two problems simultaneously at a time. He went on to say, "You see, we arrive at a number of ideas when we are in the design process. And we have the urgency to use and present all of them at a time, in a single project. However, we must always use only two or three ideas that are most relevant for the project. The rest, we must note down in our diary. That helps in controlling our urge to talk it out. It helps us build patience. We can always use those ideas later in other projects!" Such experiences flowed constantly over his talk. It was his experience speaking all over! I thoroughly sat through his presentation with a smile on my face. 

At the end, I asked him a few more questions: "Sir, did your learning from India in any way influence the construction process or the design in any way?" Thinking for a short while, he went on to talk about the ideas of go-mukhi and wagh-mukhi aspects from old building principles in India, and related the design to it. A house should always be "go-mukhi" (like the face of the cow) - smaller in front and bigger at the back - that represents being humble. In that sense, he said that the house comes to hold that spirit. But besides, the architecture is completely Australian vernacular, he said. The type of construction, the use of tin roofs is the architectural history of the place. Recently the Australian government restored some 100 year old buildings made in tin roofs. That is precisely what is Australian heritage.

The second part of the presentation discussed a building he designed in Delhi, India. This section was titled "Bush in a House". Here, Gurdev presented his winning entry for Rajaswa Bhavan, located just within the radius of India Gate. The project was situated within the historic radius and aimed at understanding and preserving the identity of the place. The existing trees were identified as the cultural markers of the area, and hence the building scheme was planned in a way to house them.

The building was crafted within the void created by the trees, and was hung from above. The entire logic of construction was turned upside down, by having four vertical masts that held a steel "foundation-rail" up in the sky, dropping the building blocks down, like an inverted pyramid. Nothing except these four cores touched the ground. The parking and services were buried underneath the ground to give clear space to look at the trees. This was a bold, straightforward scheme, probably the reason for the success of the project, as Gurdev speculated.

On the second day, Gurdev gave a crisp lecture on techniques of mud construction. I will be uploading my notes from the lecture soon along with possibly some pictures of his work in Australia.

An incomplete crisis

I spend
long hours
staring at blank air
eyes that see
a different world
transport me into 
the world of the other
where i am not i
yet i cannot see myself
still blinded
not able to find
not able to see
who am i
events take place
in the reality of that non world
which others can't see
it smells and feels the same though
one thing leads to the other
the space of that world
keeps getting deeper
deeper as i think more
deeper as i craft more
yet not taking shape
the more it grows
the more shapeless it becomes

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from diary
16/3/2014

Learning from the Architectural Drawing Module / SEA

First year Architectural Drawing
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The abstraction of real world into technical orthographic drawings is absorbed differently by different students. We began directly with drawing the stool, keeping the tempo of the studio upbeat. Some took up the challenge and coped up quite well, while some struggled and felt intimidated. We realized that it may be a good idea to begin with bare basics.

A lot of confusion was assumed by students with terminologies of 'plan', 'section' and 'elevation', 'sectional plan', 'sectional elevation', 'roof plan', and so on. The idea of 'cut plane' took time for students to understand. That every plan is cut, and thus in section kept confusing students. This brings us to consider introducing to them the vocabulary of making architectural drawings and processes more succinctly and formally.

Many students come from the “memory drawing” baggage, so it was reasonably easy for them to sketch the chair quickly. However, techniques of sketching confident lines was reinforced. Many missed observing the proportions of the chair, placement of members and taking reference from within the object. Most students had the tendency to fill up the entire canvas when they captured the object on paper, leaving no space for making additional notes like dimensions, etc. Also, most students directly sketch with firm lines, leaving no room for recourse or correction.

It became imperative to bring to their attention, composing a drawing on a sheet. Further, we had to spell out to the students to draw faintly to begin with, slowly excavating the chair from an imaginary box, as if the chair was packed in a gift box. The box would establish the overall proportions and facilitate the referencing of lines. We then pointed to them how relevant construction sketch lines could finally be made bold.

Most students drew the plans, sections and elevations with correct line weights following the demonstration. They goofed up in hatching. Some hand-sketched the hatch, some made it as bold as the outlines and some made it too fine and close than actually required. All such drawings were asked to be corrected. Many students confused with the diagonal section hatch v/s the parallel elevation hatch. The associations were made clear to them.

Almost all students drew the isometric transformative drawing confidently. This happened perhaps because this form was most real to them. The 3-d drawing came much closer to the way the object actually appeared. There were very few students who found difficulty in this leg. We dealt with them separately.

The exploded isometric view created two confusions. First, in which axis to displace the exploded part. Second, should the displaced part be shown where it originally belongs. The logic of pulling out cognizable parts did not come across through their drawings. However, it was an ambitious object and students’ attempt was worth appraisal.

The mapping drawing was exploratory. The session where they themselves explored charcoal, ink and water colours was extremely useful for them to get over the fear of using these. It helped students in being bold to use these in their following drawing. Many students learn by copying. References are extremely helpful to make them learn how to draw trees, people and everyday objects. Many students attempted reproducing from books like Pen&Ink and were extremely successful.

One of the biggest things that came out was that we need to inculcate patience within students of today. While the early mapping drawings turned out to be extremely hurried and unpleasant, they improved as students dealt with them with more care and love, slowing down and drawing each part of it with care. They enjoyed the drawing as it became beautiful over time, and developed an association with their work. It was good to see many students sharing the skills they had polished with others. Some who learnt better human figures drew in those with need in lieu of other skills like lines, smudges, hatches or stipplings. Some made folders for everyone who had postcard format drawings in class. Others helped in stitching multiple sheets neatly. Overall, it was a compact and tightly handled module.

Following projects by students in order of

Siddharth Chitalia
Ria Das
Aurea D'Cruz
Foram Desai
Krutika Dhelia
Chinmay Gawde
Siddhesh Patil
Pooja Patre
Sanya Ranade
Radhika Rathi
Vibhavari Sarangan

Theories & Manifestoes

I am thinking things in a manner quite dense, in a way that can not be written in hurried posts. Most of the times, I refrain from posting things unless I have found an entry point into a discussion. You form opinions on things all the time, but hold them back for the lack of a "proof" or an instance strong enough to validate your theoretical analysis of it. Views on the society, family, individuals, education, behaviours, disciplines, and so on build up all the time in the head. A critical mind takes enough time to probe these opinions carefully such that they can be defended to the challenges that can be directly or distantly anticipated. Much time then goes into developing an argument to fend the allegations rather than working up towards building your own theory.

Manifestoes, unlike theories, have the liberty to be ruthless. They donot have the burden of being politically correct. They themselves chart a new politics. Manifestoes are often clear stances that people take on things, and are irreverent towards balancing out things. It is not the intent of manifestoes to keep everyone happy. Theories on the other hand, must work in multiple, or ambitiously, every context. Theories and manifestoes both give rise to each other. Nevertheless, the real world keeps theories within bounds, in a sort of confinement - making it realize its own limits. Manifestoes are often products of gut feeling and brought out with an air of assertion, where it assumes indifference to other critical discourses that may try to poke holes in their intent. 

From my above understanding, I am not a person who perhaps seems to attempt a manifesto. I am not necessarily assertive, or affirmative enough to force down a singular way of doing things. Being a skeptic, a person who not only doubts everyone, but even the self all the time, I can hardly adopt the mode of proposing ideas in the manner of manifestoes. I am a theorist - in disposition as well as training. I have many theoretical ideas waiting to find their archives -- as my advisor at Yale would often say. "Some people come to the program [MED] with an identified archive which they try to theorise, while others come with theoretical ideas and find material to substantiate them, eventually making their own archives." I clearly fell in the category of the latter. 

It is thus that I began to maintain a 'Book of Ideas'. My book of ideas contains formulations of the world that may be ill-informed. There are times when I have felt wise about holding release of a thought until the time many other dimensions of a situation / person / object /activity is revealed to me in an unexpected manner. There are other times when I have cringed for not being affirmative enough to present my ideas strongly for the insecurity of the lack of information. What seems to shape my skepticism is this perceived sense of ill-information. In this line of thought, it may not be wise to write anything at all until you have almost lived your entire life. Is there any way of understanding life, and aspects of life that you want to decipher while you are still living? Any theory thus, is always in evolution, for it is written as "in process". 

What shall be then, a skeptic's diary? What form does skepticism take in language? A skeptic poses questions, hardly answers. At once, it seems utterly paradoxical for a skeptic to present his/her ideas - because on the one hand they are are quite unsure, and thus also incomplete. Incomplete and unsure ideas are always discarded by others. In modern culture, incompleteness does not hold much value. I think that manifestoes are forms of incomplete theories. Unsure incomplete theories which are hardened with a tact of indifference and defensive affirmation. Can manifestoes then be looked at with a skeptic eye? Or should a skeptic be writing manifestoes in order to escape being crumbled under criticism?

A blog is a soft space for such discussion to be voiced. However, many a times on reading my earlier posts, I have found some writings to be extremely potent. Yet, they never gain the status of seriousness because after all, they are on a blog - moreso a personal blog that is perhaps merely impressionistic? Such considerations bring us to question the agency of a personal blog. In recent times, we have seen enough examples of instrumental action channeled through online media portals. It may be worthwhile to understand how seriously do people take writings on blogs? In the course of my writing, I realised the title and content of this blog raises these questions quite succinctly. 'Dagagiri' (you may read about its etymology through the link on the sidebar) almost announces its content as a gentle manifesto. 'A gentle manifesto' sounds comforting, bringing in measured assertion with a pinch of self-skepticism.

In this spirit, I shall find time to note down some thoughts over coming time...perhaps...if they remain in my head long enough.

The Admission Game

We are just finishing up the admission process at SEA. Like the last year, SEA chose the students for its "Institute Level Seats", popularly understood in the other schools as "management seats" through an internal interview process. There were about 150 applicants for the mere 8 seats (out of a total of 40). Apart from people's recommendation to its educational quality, the applications to SEA also pooled in for these seats because they were "free" - that they were not "sold" through accepting donations (that generally amount in six to seven digits in most other schools). While many filled in the "Institute Level Form" to avoid missing out the opportunity of being in an educational environment like SEA at any cost, even when they could avail the seat through the centralised MASA procedure; many others applied for financial reasons. SEA recognises several other intents which direct people to fill in its Institute level forms - low grades, geographical transfers, missed out deadlines for forms, delayed results, and so on - basically those which dodge the official processes of availing an admission into colleges. The interview process is a unique way in which an attempt is made for evaluating a candidate in a well rounded, multi-dimensional perspective.

The SEA Institute Level Seats, meanwhile, are offered only to students on the basis of merit. According to me, "merit" is not understood at SEA as merely an aggregate of different scores achieved in the 12th or NATA examination. It is a broader idea that includes personal characteristics like  self-awareness, consciousness, cultural sensitivity, passion, determination, perseverance and rigour that may inform the candidate's future course of education in the field of architecture. The above values, it may be debated, are informed by the socio-economic status of a candidate. Following such line of thought, SEA would have end up in creating its own "reservations" criteria in allotting seats to candidates. Whether SEA must take such a step, or not, is a larger question that needs rigorous internal debate. The least I can say is that SEA panel is aware of these questions, and that it will learn and improvise with every round of interviews. At the same time, it is working on an alternate strategy of helping students with need-based scholarships.

This year however, SEA unknowingly ended up screening students who belonged to more-or-less a similar economic background - the middle and the upper middle class section. These students were chosen based on their performance on the drawing test and personal interview, certainly not on their economic status. On a parallel contemplation, we all often wonder how to balance the aspect of finances with the education that is being offered. As explained before, there are two aspects to the Institute Level seats at SEA: one is that they are competitive in a broadened sense of "merit", and other, is that they are free. Which one should be given more emphasis in the selection process? The selection process through the last two years have shown that what we consider as "merit" is closely linked to the socio economic status of the candidate. Effectively, it means that exposure, environment and prior education - all that are linked to one's financial status, and shape the individual. In other words, have we failed to recognize the very linkage between the social and economic forces that have seemed to dominate our very selection? On the other hand, if we believe that a school like ours can positively make a change to a student who otherwise does not have sufficient access, who has remained behind due to lack of adequate guidance, who has suffered because of his economic background (which may have driven his choice of local school, etc.), who has not got a chance to be in an environment where he/she could learn effective communication and confidence, etc; how are we to look forward? To be sure, we have certainly had such candidates, promising within their own levels of exposure and economic boundaries. However, they naturally were left far behind in the way our selection criteria was devised.

While these economically weaker could have in no way afforded to a pay donation perhaps to any school (some of whom may also have purchased the admission form priced at Rs. 2000/- with some hesitation, but with the hope of getting fair admission); some of the others who actually got selected would have wilfully paid generous donations to other schools, if need be, and in case they were not accepted at SEA. The SEA interview system, in this perspective, seems to have lost out on two fronts: The first is that of accepting a challenge to train an average, but possibly interested student empowering him/her to chart his own successful career, in that sense making a difference to a genuinely needy person - through its "free-of-donation" seat; the second of losing out on the much-needed "donation" that a reasonably well-to-do, candidate would have otherwise wilfully paid towards building the infrastructure of a fledgling school.

SEA doesnot accept donations because it doesnot wish to "sell" its seats or be pressured by any external parties in the process of delivering education. However, these are the challenges that an Institution like SEA, (read an institution whose foundations are laid on principles of honest and fair education, ethical practices), faces. I must emphasize, after learning from the experiences our staff of handling "admission procedures", that like many other schools today, SEA received multiple recommendations, calls, letters and monetary offers for admitting students unofficially. Many people are quite openly and shamelessly willing to pay huge amounts to "buy" a seat at SEA. These people had to be tactfully evaded by our staff team. What surprises us though, is the fact that how people have naturally taken upon themselves to pay lofty donations, instead of curbing this very attitude that has wrongfully seeped into institutional processes, through a common protest.

Perhaps the middle-class individual, from some generations now, has begun to prepare for this dubious process of admission right from the beginning of his career. (On the other hand, there is a blind competition amongst students to score better and better marks to evade such "bribes". Such attitudes often result into youngsters who are "blind" to the multidimensionality of the world, buried into books and narrow minded middle-class moralities). But as mentioned before, the preparation that the middle-class makes much in advance, are huge investments for years in anticipation of feeding a corrupt system - huge monies are seemingly kept aside for all such purposes! Even more dangerous is a situation where prospective students themselves volunteer to pay donations (evident in the manner in which they discuss affairs at admission centers), and further coax their own parents to submit sums of money for procuring seats in educational institutes. Such behaviour seems blasphemous in a time when the country is just out of a huge protest against corruption, when the political mood seemingly aims to overturn corruption, and when, even if in another state, Kejriwal rules by his "honest" principles.

However, what makes all of us cringe, is that the same middle-class individual who has probably saved up that much money on a seat which he/she would have bought through lofty donation wouldn't volunteer to pay even 1/3rd of that amount as a philanthropic gesture to support activities of an institution like SEA! Philanthropy for the middle-class individual is probably an attribute of the "rich". Rightfully so. Philanthropy is not, after all, a middle-class idea. Being a middle-class myself, and thinking through this, I wouldn't be able to "donate" money to an institution without any purpose, or especially once my job is done, that too by a "fair" way! In such a situation, somehow, the value for that very money becomes critical and the individual gets over-rational. How can a morality that is built on the ideas of savings and bargaining ever think up of "donation" as a philanthropic act? That is absurd! But where does this rationality disappear in the first case, where the seat in an educational institute is literally traded, where the account of the money, often exchanged in cash, is inconsequential to the giver and moreover is unfair!? Of course, in the latter case the act is submissive, where clear power politics is at play - the needy parents being at the other end...

It is evident that SEA is ambitious, to an extent that it attempts to offer fair compensation to individuals, best teachers, adequate space, exciting programs, cultural events - all of it, even if it pinches their own pockets. That, with the ambition of building an infrastructure (within its limits) that stand at par with the standards of the best schools of architecture we have around us...

In this outpour, I tried to explore the complicated and dilemmatic process and product of dealing with fair education practices. The matter at hand has many more dimensions. It is evident that choosing an alternative pathway brings you at new crossroads, that ultimately sets new trends and new ways of thinking and working.

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The views expressed in the above post are purely personal and do not in any way represent those of SEA or partner organizations.

Just Without Reason

यूं ही बेमतलब 

---------------

बेमतलब की बक बक बक में,

खुद ही को उलझाये रखना,

बिना बात की हर हरकत से,

खुद ही को बहलाये रखना,

घंटों से यूं भटके मन को,

फिर फिर कर भटकाते रहना,

दिन भर खटते रहते तन को, 

कर कर कर करवाते रहना,

झूठ मूठ की साहसा देकर,

आगे आगे आते रहना,

आदत सी हो गयी है जैसे, 
खुद को यूं झुठलाते रहना!