Orientation Workshop AOA 2009-10

Things which probably all forgot. Some beautiful drawings of students from my archives. We did an orientation programme  at our own humble scale for students who joined AOA in 2009-10. We showed them films, read a book and deconstructed and married objects to open up ideas then...
These never got published, never got recognized and  were never spoken about again...I don't even know it students cared! I mailed them a copy, and got no response!

Arrangements

Every morning when I see the fruit sellers on the D'silva street at Dadar, I go crazy with the amount of things I imagine. Edging the pavement on both sides, they all sit arranging various kinds of fruits in their baskets. The round basket sets the meta-geometry for the arrangement of their fruits. They try to line the edge of the basket through the geometry of each fruit. I think it's like playing or solving a jigsaw puzzle. Although each piece of this puzzle seems same, their smaller variations need to be manipulated for a crisp arrangement all the time. This probably must be a meditating exercise in itself.

Can I, for the sake of generalizing these shapes of various vegetables and fruits, call them objects? Let us treat them as objects for my discussion here.

The various parameters that dictate the arrangements are the shape, size and the material of the object. The size that the arrangement can achieve is also dictated by the above three parameters.

most of these objects are spherical and therefore are stacked into concentric rings over each other. Each following ring in smaller than the previous to keep the centre of gravity within the basket. Objects like mangoes, apples, etc. are treated as eggs and one can find papier mache crates these days to accommodate them. Apples have the luxury of having styrofoam jackets also.

Probably the most careful handling amongst all the fruits would be that of the black berries (kala jamuns). In my childhood days, I have thrown a lot of stones at jamun trees to have the pleasurable fruit. Jamuns are very delicate and much of them are destroyed by crows and rodents. They shake them off the trees, and the fruit is destroyed due to the impact of the fall. Ripe jamuns are very delicate. And one can see with how much care the vendors treat it. It must also be a very delicate process to pluck them off the tree such that we can enjoy the beauty of the smooth skin of the fruit with our tongues! The vendors carry and arrange each fruit with so much care...like a jewel. Further, I am fascinated by their arrangements.

Depending on the size of the fruit, the arrangements look like fort walls, pyramids, stone walls, etc. I enjoy looking at these compositions and keep wondering if these can be used a building blocks! Even otherwise, they look beautifully composed objects. The order is functional, completely.  Probably the most interesting arrangements are those of flatter objects like leaves, of different plants. The colocasia, or the lotus or beetle leaves. They actually give more cues for arrangement of objects. The dynamic shapes that their configuration eventually takes is worth watching. They are like giving an array command to a shape. Also like scripting. One module multiplied and arranged just by displacing its position.

Forms, surfaces, voids - all of them create beautifully. I wonder if this craft of arrangement can be pulled into some kind of knowledge? Meanwhile, they remain interesting engagements.

Being cynical

Some people had told me important things which either I have not succeeded to implement yet, or probably I have developed habits which will take time to wash off. One of these was to accept people as they are. To accept human nature. To accept that the way people are behaving is natural. That the difference we see in people and activities around us is a matter of our own conditioning. Does everyone believe equally strongly in they own conditioning? I think I do. And I may be completely unreasonable.

In the course of life, conditioning stops at a certain stage. Till a certain age, one and one's actions are conditioned by the institutions that one engages in. We completely submit in these institutions and construct our values through their learning. Once you are outside the aura of the institutions, you meet a new world. This world is completely different from that of rules, codes and values. Those conditionings that the institutions taught you make you uncomfortable now, since now, you are not operating in a group (either the family as a groups, or the school as a group or the neighbourhood as a group - all are governed by certain rules - said or unsaid). I think it is here where the process of judgment starts. 

Which of these institutions is strongest I dont know. But our constructs take on values filtering through the strength of these institutions. To make it simpler, an example would be that if your school teaches you not to lie and the family teaches you that lying for someone else's good is okay, then the way you act in a situation where you have to make a lying-based decision will be filtered through the ideal school principle, then the family - since it encompasses the lie. So you will end up accepting to lie.

I think the above is slightly complex and I can not even begin to explain it. But I am just trying to understand if there is any ONE single way of behaviour which satisfies all groups. Can there really be an ideal human being?

Ah Plato!

At this stage in life, i am beginning to be extremely cynical. I am whining far too much. I think it is the difference of conditioning that I was talking about. Things are not as we were taught by the institutions. And the institutions didnot tell us how to handle this situation. How do you handle oneself being cynical? Being too critical - is it what I just enjoy for the heck of it? I have to find why am I being critical? Is it even helping? What is it doing? It's irritating me. 

Who is a Marxist?

What is it to be a Marxist?
Shubhalakshmi explained me in a very simple manner.
To  believe that all conditions that we experience and that the way in which society is organized / structured; is due to a certain kind of means of production is a Marxist thought. The Marxist locates entire history in the materiality of life and the means of production. It is an ideology which bases values like morals, ethics and other social relations also on the material world. Thus, the thought is an extreme version of rationality which locates the cause and effect of all situations in the real physical world. To also understand every one as equal (the socialist thought) and to regard every one to have equal stake over every resource is another characteristic of a Marxist.

Thus a Marxist may not believe in the existence of God, since God is non-physical. God is an idea, would say a Marxist. That irrationalities are also a part of the modern world is still not a reason to believe in something extra-real. The Marxist theory probably doesnot regard the spiritual grounding of certain systems of thought. A majority of India still operates through its belief in rituals, customs, traditions and spiritual thoughts. Such systems of thought believe that life is not so much about the material, but the non-material. It emphasizes on the ideas of space, void, tantra, etc. - things that can not be explained simply.

***

Why did the prehistoric people paint in the deep dark recesses of the caves? (referring to a hunting act painting in the Lascaux caves)
She said:
It is a belief that the practice of drawing was an exercise in practicing the act of hunting. The pre historic people probably thought that the spirit of the animal is trapped in its image. So the production of the image was like rehearsing the act of hunting through the image. In deep recesses, one has to focus light on the painting. The darkness gave an opportunity to focus on the animal and the act (specific parts of the painting). The painting thus became a knowledge to be passed on. It became a cultural object of preserve.

(Now perhaps this won't be a marxist explanation for the cave painting...)

***

When a dot walks, it becomes a line
When a line walks, it becomes a plane.

-Paul Klee.

What's in a Name?

I have been recently receiving lots of gifts from friends, students - and it is overwhelming and embarrassing! I am not used to accepting gifts now and especially when I don't feel to have done any thing for any one...
the first one above is a thank you card from Nandita Rebello, who expressed her thanks for our discussions on her thesis.

The second one is by Areeba, my student who visited Istanbul during this summer vacation...Probably this could have been the best essence of the place she could have got back for anyone! I can still feel the artist curving his fingers carefully to shape my name - the script reminds me very strongly of Urdu, yet it's english.

In both the above, I kept looking at the lines for some time, only to realize later that they were my names!! I never thought someone could engage with a name so passionately...
But these are probably things which I shall cherish for a life time...

Thank you all!

Symbology / The Cosmic Sexuality

Mazgaon

I keep thinking if i could gaze at a city like this forever. From this viewpoint, or probably higher, it would almost seem that buildings are shooting up like wild grass...

However, they look seductive - the picture perfect city...and when you move into these lanes, you feel they are almost going to fall over you - it hurts your neck to turn obtuse to look at tall towers...but from here it was comfortable. Skylines like that of Mumbai are a pleasure. For most, they become logos that mean different things: the architect will put it in the visiting card (as something that he/she shapes), the economist will use it in maps of the economy, the real estate in planning their next tall tower, children in their memory drawing of the city - only a distanced view is seductive. Lines that only go up and come down...is the city as easy as that?

Mumbai Central

Things I don't understand!

Corruption in India?

I stepped down the staircase of the railway station only to be stopped by the ticket examiner. I confidently took out my wallet, pulled out my pass. He indicated, it's the old one. I started re-searching my wallet for the new one (I have this old habit of keeping old passes for some time, but this time I was quite sure I didn't keep them to confuse myself at a later date). And after finding no trace of a new pass, I reverted to the TTE to ask for the date.

It was 22-6-2011. The present was already 25-6-11.

I realized that I had mis-read the date 22 as 29; only due to a printing error (see picture).

Without arguing with the TTE, I offered him to pay the fine. I didnot want to make a scene out of myself  and neither did I want the TTE to boss over me. He took me along and I wondered why. The fact was that he didnot want to give me a receipt.

On the way to the TTE room, he asked me, where are you coming from? I answered, Goregaon. Will you go back? I answered - what have you got to do with it anyway? He thought I would argue with him to reduce the fine, which ultimately would go in his pocket. I remained terse. I refused to answer to his questions because I didnot want to waste time and I was already willing to pay the fine.

"Will you do this mistake again?" he asked. I told him, "Look: I have been travelling by the train since the last 10 years of my life and this is one of those occasions where I forgot to check the date of renewal of my ticket!" He remained quiet. They hushed each other - "Let's help him...(demanding from me) give us 160 rupees." I said, fine, give me a receipt. They said, ok, how much money do you have? 

I said, "I am ready to pay the fine, give me the receipt..."

Finally feeling guilt, he pulled out the receipt booklet and tore a bill of 260 Rs. for me.

I paid Rs. 500/- and collected the receipt to move. Only as I moved out, I realized that I hadn't collected the change back. I went back and demanded the remaining money. He pulled out plenty of Rs. 500/- ; Rs. 100/- notes and gave me my change back.

I wondered how much they would be earning per day. Apart from exercising my morals here, I think it showed the state of affairs of the country. On one hand we have the likes of Anna Hazare going on fasts for eradicating corruption and on the other are these shameless bunch of idiots absolutely non-interrupted or aroused by the movement. 

I just felt later, "How else do you support Anna Hazare?"

Of those hundreds of young people who go and shout or join hands and make rallies, would they stop bribing the traffic police on their faults, or for ticket-less traveling or  to save an inch of their pocket money? Would they stop succumbing to such situations where the system offers you to let go? And we as a civil society suck up to corruption all the time...Youngsters have no option but to save up! It's the guilt at home that they want to avoid. Moreso, it's our parental pressure that we want to avoid! Break a rule and you will be disallowed from an activity. Pass a red signal and you will be disallowed to use the bike....

Fear.
This is how we avoid or cover it up! 

I wonder, how it didnot pinch me to pay Rs. 260/-. Probably I was capable of paying the fine, I wasn't answerable to my parents (because I am financially independent now), and above all, there is a general mood of anti-corruption drive and I thought I had done nothing for it.

At the end, 3 lessons to learn:

1. Read the ticket date properly.

2. You can choose the way others would/should behave.

3. You can support civil-drives by engaging actively in them rather than going for stand up performances (candle lights, processions, rallies, etc.). It begins in the gut. [And here, am I just counter-arguing the "mood of the drive" point that I made earlier? I guess no. ]

The mood is not an outward influence for me. One has to practise it from inside to be able to realize it. Then one has to live by it, however costly it may be. I think that's how you 'pay the price' for your ideals and morals...

I am happy to have made the TTE feel guilty! Although just for 5 seconds! If I could have read his mind, I would have loved to know if he could sleep that day...

(the questions are: we will change...but will they? would this money be still used for better purposes, in this case, the upkeep of the bloody printer which mis printed / ill-printed the date, which could have saved my money and avoided confusion? what happens to the system which is itself plagued, people are ready to change, but the system itself wants the people to be corrupt....where in this society are we talking about development? where no one is content, everyone is hungry for money, even that which is completely not theirs...maybe I am getting to moralistic here. But the point remains, we are in a system and we decide how it works.)


(now is it a good example of dagagiri?)

On the move

Objects & Newness

What is it about newness that we don't disturb it? Why do we like to preserve newness of things? Of the many things (objects), stationery is something that people wish to keep fresh and new forever. We like to keep our diaries fresh, we like to keep our new pens fresh. We preserve it from overuse. I have so many paper products which I have never used only to keep them fresh. I keep waiting for all other options to fail to begin the use of a new fountain pen...We always wish if pencils were always long, or we always wish the pencil colours always remained brand new. Is it because all such things have very short life? Do we want things with short life to live long? Such things sensitize our delicate relationship with things, objects.

But the beauty of these things appears, comes out only once they are used! I have stopped keeping myself attached to the newness of new things. Now a days I don’t wait for too long to put a new thing to use. I have realised that I waste a lot of things to time only because I want to eternalize them. Sketch pens dry out, pencil colours fade away, pencils sog, erasers melt, papers turn yellow... But invariably, either I outdate them or they die! What is the use of a dead object? (a dead object would mean an object which has surpassed its utilitarian life). A dead object only preserves visual beauty. But the visual beauty of any object is perhaps in its entirety. We love to look at crisp sharpened long pencils. 

The use of an object can be a beautiful...the writing that you produce with a pencil or pen can be beautiful. The drawing that you sketch with a sketch pen can be beautiful. The paper on which you paint can be beautiful. But still, so many times, we misattribute this value of beauty to the existence of the object than what it does / produces. Is it our love for objects? Fetish? In a world of too individualist or isolated people, we probably develop close relationships with objects, such that sometimes we start loving them and wanting to preserve them forever...

Objects store memories, objects have stories, objects connect you to people and they also engage you with themselves sensorially. In these ways, objects live lives and give meaning to our existence. Objects take on adjectives that we use for our living counterparts. Thus the world of objects is as vast as the world of people. I have only spoken of utilitarian objects yet, and the idea of utility itself is to be exploded...and meanwhile I think I wouldnt get into that!

After all, objects are not butterflies. You could preserve dead butterflies, which look visually appealing an can be kept – and that is only because we donot use butterflies. (ironically, living things become objects once they die)! 

Moving Figures

The Shoe Shiner

Climbing down the station steps, I decided to board the next train, skipping the one which had already arrived….

          

The platform seat being occupied by only one person, I did not miss the opportunity of having a seat till the next train arrived. The seat was cold…made out of some mortar containing marble chips. Just next to the seat, where I was sitting on the edge, stood the steel stanchions holding the roof of the station. The two c-shaped sections facing each other inwardly hid the rainwater down-take pipe.

Suddenly, I heard some clanging and banging from the seat underneath. But soon I realized that it was only the polish walah, who was trying to remove his wooden box which was chained to a hole in the leg of the seat. The chain passed through the hole and then the gap between the two c-sections, which made a lot of noise while he opened it. Carrying the box through the handle on its top face, he circumambulated the stanchion, kept it in the front keeping enough space between the column and the box, for him to sit. Here, he took his final position.

The box was quite fascinating…its edges had smoothened out due to everyday in and out! Completely dark and almost black, it had accumulated a lot of dust from the station floor, from passers-by, from the railway tracks and all the sources one can think of. The size of the box was small. It was easy to carry, maintain and move. Added to the chained security, the box too had a separate lock…a small lock which the owner promptly opened.

The box was completely hollow, and stuffed with some of his belongings - which he took out one by one… a plastic-bag was one of the first things he removed. Then he removed his shirt and redressed himself with the shirt in the plastic bag. Then suddenly, he opened a drawer inside the box! This drawer was barely an inch deep made in the same material as that of the box. It had a partition, dividing it into two halves. One contained a comb and a circular mirror and nothing else and other had some money. He promptly took up the comb and holding the mirror in the other hand, he made-up himself. Then, adjusting himself properly in the position, as he had to sit there for the whole day, he started putting back the things, which were not needed, into the box. And the things he needed were taken out one by one again…

The polish walah had a worn out brush… the profile of the bristles of the brush had almost changed from a straight edge into into a parabola… the swing of the brush, which rubbed the face of the shoe. He quickly examined the brush and removed the dried polish of the earlier day, from its bristles. As he took out his small circular polish box, one could see hundreds of tiny pores in it, finer than the bristles of the brush.

Other than these two things, he also had a roll of cloth - much like a doctor’s bandage, although synthetic. Usually polish walahs use it to bring out the luster of the polish on the shoe. The polish walah unrolled it, examined it and then rolled it again.

The box of the polish walah was quite an architectural piece. Minimum in detail, it still had a complexity. The handle on the top of the box was not merely used as a handle, but the real purpose was to rest the foot with the shoe to be polished. The height was maintained such that the shoe would just be in level and aligned with the chest. This allowed an easy movement of the hand and also proper view for the eye. Not only that, the customer also feels it comfortable. He does not have to rise up his knee till the waist. The edges were of course worn out of time, but it seemed to be a detail in itself.

(old unfinished writing, 2005)

Unpublished Archives

Looking back in my archives, I have found that I have a plenty of un developed writing ideas that I thought of in my past. Those ideas are outlines (literally) and I have had no time to write elaborately on them. There are ideas to write on the city, people, self, architecture, things around - all of them are just lying as ideas. I dont know what will happen of those outlines. there are intensive documentations of certain events that I experienced, phases of time, reflections on the self...

But meanwhile, i have started collecting some significant stuff on areas of my interest...and so I am slowly turning into more focused thought and writing. Due to this, I observe that the nature of my writing has changed to a documentative mode rather than the earlier self-exploration mode.

I wonder whether people stop blogging when they get absolutely serious with writing? I think I will too, at some point of time. I can feel that strain - especially when there is already so much that has already been explored in writing, what new do you produce? Rather, you question if whatever you produce is even significant? But on the other hand, you write for your readers, the assumed ones, whom you think are interested in you - isn't it? And one can so conveniently overrule their desire to peep into you! And when you know that you can make some people happy by sharing a slice of yourself with them, you feel that you are so powerful...

Nevertheless, I think this writing can remain till I keep struggling with my thoughts, myself...But one day, I will also be able to decide or put all the undeveloped writings that I have on my PC! Till then, I keep working on ideas.

Recent Bold Buildings

in the city

The Mondrian Shop

My recent Interior project.

Here is some process work. 

More details later.

Measure of an Idea

Architects produce ideas. They produce ideas for consumption, if we may say so. They also earn a living out of selling ideas. Selling is an exchange of things for money. In monetary sense, what is the value of ideas? How was this value of ideas produced by architects fixated? So, the COA said that the architects' fees shall be a percentage of the project cost. The project cost is essentially the cost of the material and labour used in the project. The labour cost issue is again somewhat like the "valuation of ideas" debate. But it could be well understood through the Marxist theory. 

But Marx didnot really talk about the compensation of the intellect!! In a Marxist sense, either we are labour, or we must not be compensated the way we are.

Anyway, coming back to the COA, it said that, for example, the fees of the interior designer shall be 10% of the project cost. It says two things:

Money --> directly proportional to bulk of used material

Value of ideas --> directly proportional to cost of material.

Ofcourse, thats why we have some interior designers fiddling with a lot of materials and costs.

But could it also mean, that the price of an idea is the amount of material manifest it can bring about? That might be a very small, at the same time very large question. Then what about ideas that never manifest yet have value? How are they priced? What I am intending to say is that in this world, its not only the material that has exchange value...how is the immaterial valued then? Who decides it? How? And why cant be an architect's ideas regarded as ideas and paid as the measure of an idea. How do you measure an idea? The COA has conveniently measured through its material manifest...

The question still remains, how do you measure an idea?

Television v/s Internet

These days I dont engage in television at all. I mean i dont know what to watch on it!! Funny.
But some time ago, my friend Ankit shared an interesting observation. The television is something that keeps on showing you images even when you dont ask for it. You switch it on and you have a plethora of choices for consuming any kind of image you want. This can actually be a two way thing. People can see TV, rather even stare at it for no reason and it will still keep on changing its content. Thus, probably it will keep you engaged, even if it's the most mundane way.

Ankit stays away from his home in this city. So he has no television to kill  his time at home. He feels bored sometimes. I told him: "Dude, you have the net, why do you worry? You can watch anything over there and now-a-days all TV stuff is available on you-tube"

Now this is the interesting part of the answer. He said: "Yes, but you have to search the internet for what you want. It doesnt give you things just without asking." Probably thats why we call TV the Idiot box - it's actually a transferred epithet. It makes you an idiot, without you knowing what you want to watch sometimes.

These days, I spend a lot of time with the internet digging out things, reading, collecting, putting different things together, talking to people, their ideas...and all that. And TV seems really futile to me. What this suggests is that not only I have become too focused with what I want to do, but it also suggests a shift in culture of spending time with an object. In this focus, I overlook a lot of things, which are a constant botheration to my father. My father is perpetually interested in knowing the current. And I keep telling him, the current is too distracting for me because I am interested in history! That may be very naiive answer right now. But I just avoid getting into a debate with him, particularly when I know I am going to lose over his wisdom that I does not approve of!

The fact that you have to know something to be able to use the internet as opposed to just staring at the TV which gives information for free (in a conceptual sense - ofcourse you pay your tv bill), was interesting.
In another conceptual sense, the television can be seen as a producer of a vast archive of societal constructs of images. It can become good amount of growing data for research in various subjects.

However, things will soon change when TV becomes digital. Then, everything will be available on the net and you can consider internet as another idiot box. And we shall then have infinite images strolling all around us with us not being able to decide where to invest our time...That will be absolute madness. That's not far really, we are almost on the verge of this technology taking over!

Why does my skepticism propound I don't know. What makes me insecure with this, I don't know...

Electronics & culture

Before the christian era, the knowledge of self was constituted through the awareness of the physical sensations (touch, smell, taste, see, hear). Knowledge was a collection of sensory impressions.

As the electronic age takes over, a great insecurity of losing this sensorial information / perception looms over many people. Will the electronic take over the senses completely? Can it only replicate our perceptions? does it operate only in the mental virtual space?

The transformation of existing objects and the creation of newer ones constantly bring about cultural changes in our interaction with the material world. After all, we exist for the material and the material exists for us.  Does the e-world lay more emphasis on the non-material. The electronic makes us realize the phenomena of how we have actually converted so much of the non-material world (ideas) into material. For example, books, maps, or all kinds of representations of the world! All representations will now change their physical manifest due to the change in technology. A book now, in its physicality is thus a silicon chip. For that matter, a lot of different forms of physical data is going back to a absolute form - the silicon servers!

In some way, because the electronics change the immediate physical space around us, we as humans change too, in the way we behave, engage, move, etc. Thus our bodies will change, because our work cultures will change...

But more than anything else, what intrigues me is the emphasis from the physical world to the non-physical...Didn't the jain philosophy say that the world is an illusion? maya? Are we confirming it? I wonder...

Culture of Reading

Prakriti told me some very interesting things about the culture of reading. She said that she prefers reading physical books rather than reading them on screen or online. She said she likes the experience of the weight of the book transferring from her right hand to her left as she finishes it over time. She enjoys the smell, the texture of the paper and the size of the book in hand.

On screen, she said, is a different culture of reading. Neither do you experience the above, nor it is anything more than a visual interface. The intensity of the screen, the brightness of different displays are not suited to reading. Reading is also about seeing a certain text on a paper in a certain kind of light. Moreover, you keep on zooming in and out of the screen. Computers do not even help bookmarking. 

Thus, books may not be completely erased. They shall exist for the archaic reader, for readers like me and Prakriti. For many more like us. The generation who is already born in the age of computer and the mobile shall definitely take up to the culture of carrying e books! I must say Prakriti's observations are very sensitive.

Band-Aid

My old house

A cross section of my old house, where each space came to life because of a variety of activity patterns.

Above is a section of my old building (the grey-ed rectangle being my house). The building was somewhere between a chawl and apartment-type of structures we have today. The way to the building was difficult to spot. I always thought that all spaces in the building are used to live. However, as I grew old, I realized that my building was a mixed use building with a toy-shop, a flour mill and a sugarcane juice shop on the ground floor, spaces which faced the road. As I began to navigate places on my own on growing old, I started reading addresses on sign boards of shops, and found the name of my building on these shops. It may sound really silly, but I always felt before studying architecture that buildings are houses, to live, to stay. Shops are different from houses, and that they can not be a part of living/housing.


Gradually, as I started to understand, and thanks to my architectural education, a whole new building revealed to me. Every person in this building used the space of the home to work! Right from my father to the last person on the ground - all were working. Work was a part of living. All kinds of things were manufactured in the tenements - food items, clay works, art works, drawings (architect / arthouse / advertising), gold-works, electrical works, tube-lights - everything. It was a part of my living. Architecture separated (classified) this absolute space of mine.


However,


Architecturally, the building allowed transparency of activities between the vertical floors. Each floor's terrace overlooked below, and a (loud) call would be enough to communicate with anyone in the building. There were thus, live patterns in the building, which made the whole building active all the time. The activities were porous, the spaces more fluid, as they opened on to private barsatis, which still could be shared. During rains, all people would get out playing in the water, and housekeepers would pull out buckets and place them under corrugated sheet coverings to collect water which was cool and fresh. During the summers, people staying below would come up on the wider terrace for drying papads, chaklis and home made masalas. All children would collect together on any of the terraces and start a play during their vacation. The neighbours would also use the staircase during the afternoon because it was cool and calm to study. The little corners of these terraces would be used for plantations. All houses opened on to an open space, which was private and public at the same time. It was easy to peep into others' house, and people did not really feel offended.

Staircases were study rooms, terraces were play grounds, and sometimes gardens too, rooms were interconnected....fights were public, homes were public, backyards were dustbins, smells were democratic, rains were for all, windows were personal, cats lived in houses, stray dogs guarded the building...

more stories to tell!