Aross the railway tracks

Plant Moods

Do plants have moods? Have you ever felt of a fallen flower trying to make a conversation with you? I found this flower on the pavements of Marine Drive and picked it up. As I walked along with it, people stared at the flower. I yet did not know if it was a flower. I picked it up because it looked like a snake. A snake which I could domesticate. It had a large head and a long pink tongue. It's mouth was wide open and the tongue stuck out of it. It seemed to smile, but I wondered if it did so. But as I began to look at the flower through the lens, it told me multiple stories. 

Naughty

Playful

Obedient

Lazy

Pose / Portraiture

Sleeping

Snoring

Smiling

?

The feeling of restlessness

I have yet not begun counting my days towards my journey to US. I feel trapped in a time bubble. The time bubble is something that distorts the relative experience I have with the outside world. This period makes me feel I am not moving at all. I feel what a floating bubble would feel in air - where it constantly negates any reference with the moving world. The bubble waits to burst to take in more air, to lose itself... Similarly, there's a momentum frozen within, waiting to explode.

I have lost any experience of the outside world. I have lost any sense of time and space. I have forgotten mathematics, I have not counted minutes for a long time now. I do not know when the new day begins - I stare at the watch for hours to feel no change in time. I can not feel the time biologically. 

My every day schedule too has become amorphous. I wonder if I operated similarly some days before. Yesterday when I went to get some pages binded, I had 5 sets for which the shop keeper quoted Rs. 15/- per set. I wanted to bargain to lower the price - and combined 5 sets into 4 and told him to charge me Rs. 60/- for 4 sets. He agreed and I felt I made a good deal. Calculating the cost of per binding today, I still arrived at a figure of 15/-! What does such an act reveal of my mental condition?

Was I was completely lost? What was happening?

There are so many things in the head. Is it accumulated energy or is it apprehension? Is it fear or is it excitement? Am I being prepared or am I over-preparing? I do not understand what is happening to me. I feel like my bones are pushing my body - I keep stretching my muscles. Do I want to grow out of myself? I do not react to movement in the city. I do not react to the change in my everyday. Is it anxiety? 

But I do know I have felt this earlier. Similar impatience, restlessness. It was when I decided that I wanted to do architecture. I waited to finish my 12th studies as soon as possible. I was so hungry to consume architecture. I remember ranked 6th in the merit list for Academy of Architecture. I waited impatiently to begin my new world then. It's similar now. 

I had said this earlier over my blog - "winning after a lot of hard work is a great feeling". Two years ago I was rejected in all colleges I applied to. This year, I got selected in a University (Yale), the best in the world and the field of theory that I applied for, that rejects 90% of the applications it receives, further, for a course which admits only 3, maximum 4 people over the world - and I just don't know how to express this feeling. Perhaps expressing this is a difficult thing. But I am not trying to be boastful. If it reads that way, it's only because I just do not know how else to express it. It has raised my expectations of myself altogether. And I am not sure if I will be able to cope up with it. I think I am worried.

I am worried to be floating, to have lost my referentiality. I am struggling to frame sentences. I cant frame it through conventional language. I often gaze at the sugarcane crushing machine and wonder about the biography of the sugarcane. I can feel myself between the two cylinders. And I would also like to believe that the result would be sweet.

Drawing Boards

It may be possible to understand imaginations that go within students' heads as they work on their drawing boards.
Here are a few selected drawings, doodles, captions, messages, notes on drawing boards. A more detailed post must be awaited till I find some better pictures.

Writing Architecture

Types of writings:

1.     Journalistic: A journalistic writing is primarily a form used for getting across an idea quickly. It gives a gist of the 'whole'. There is generally no pressure of an argument in a journalistic piece. The write-ups are kept around 800-1000 words. Thus they have a faster rhythm of reading, understanding and perception. There is no pressure of giving references or bibliography.

2.     Academic writing: An academic writing is primarily argumentative. It has to fit in a structure. The structure is defined by a clear methodology. Establishing a lineage becomes important in an academic piece since generally it refers to an author / body who has a history himself / itself. References and bibliography thus becomes important. An academic piece is generally around 5000-15000 words

Eg.: Kenneth Frampton

3.     Essay: Essays are argumentative, long, but polemic (making a point but polishing it to a level of absurdity. There is no obligation to give references but one can mention people, etc.

Eg.: Gautam Bhatia

Modes of writing:

1.     Argumentative pieces: Makes a point. Proves an opinion.

2.     Conversation Structure: Not under any compulsion to make a point. Eg.: Interviews, etc.

3.     Layout: Opens up a field (just saying what different people see, think, speak, etc.). They are descriptive and do not give opinions. There is no value judgement.