The Bazaars of Hyderabad Indeed!

And the countdown begins...four days to go. No, not for the start of a new year but something else that starts on the same day - the All India Industrial Exhibition or 'Numaish'. Sarojini Naidu's poem may well be popularly considered as a fitting description of the quaint bazaars of Charminar. I think it also beautifully sums up the waves of sensory experiences that surge and wash over you at the Numaish.
The sights - colours all around you of possibly every shade in the spectrum, wares that would delight even an adult with childish joy, happy faces, worked-up faces of people engulfed in heated haggling, smug faces of satisfied vanquishers having gotten their way; the sounds - Rafi's heavenly voice sounding over the speakers adding an even more 'old world charm' to an already historical shopping tradition that dates back to beginnings in a glorious past, shopkeepers trying to outdo their competition screaming out their enticingly low rates at hundreds of prospective shoppers passing by, the talk, laughter, chatter of a crowd swelling and ebbing as they move through the narrow lanes and large squares lined with shops; the smells - the deliciously warm smell of freshly popped corn with hints of pepper and butter wafting through the air as you make your way through the entrance, wisps of perfume floating every here and there, the slightly corrosive and 'dusty' dust kicked up by the crowd walking over vast sandy patches that irritates your throat, the inviting smell of all kinds of yummy street food pulling you towards the eat-outs. Yes, it is an incredible experience.
More so because it's amazing to see such huge crowds, their numbers often running into thousands, congregate at this one place - congregate not because of a religious or political compulsion. Everyone gathers at the Numaish for one common reason - to enjoy their evening out. I find it fascinating to be part of a crowd that has no levels or barriers for that evening. We're all trying to do the same things - buy, haggle, window-shop, eat, rest, watch the other shoppers, and generally have fun. It feels so cohesive and unified.

To become Samwise Gamgee

I could not identify more with a movie character when Frodo despairs, "I can't do this" to Sam, trudging on, unending, through Mordor. While the trilogy took viewers through the classic good versus evil battle, I have never experienced so strongly, with any other films, the emotions that the characters go through. Frodo's laborious plough uphill through a thicket of danger and uncertainty to a glorious just-in-sight-but-not-yet-there end made me wonder if we - Frodo, Sam and me (by now, as a totally absorbed viewer, an inextricable part of that journey) - would ever get to Mount Doom. Would that ring ever be 'cast back into its fires'? I must confess, though, that I was a bit disappointed by the end when I first saw the last film in the trilogy because I thought such a glorious journey would have an even glorious end with Frodo throwing in the ring with theatrics and heroism. Now, however, the end seems perfect. The films were not theatrical, afterall. They just successfully built up an atmosphere of drama. A hallmark of well-made movies in my opinion. 
I find the films uplifting. They make you believe that there is light at the end of a long, dark and seemingly endless tunnel. And, I don't know what Frodo or I would do without Sam! "Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't", he says and Oh! how well he, that line, and those films give hope.

Order and Method

Professor, Mentor and Guide

My contemporaries would probably be engrossed in better, cooler and 'hipper' things but I, on the other hand, am wondering at the wonderfulness of having 'idols' one can look upto. I'm lucky to have so many accomplished people around me, in my life,  I can learn from. I read an interview of a big business magnate in a newspaper last week. He described his mantra of success as 'learning, earning and yearning' which he attributed to either another great businessman or  poet (I don't remember which one it was). Anyway, 'learning, earning and yearning' - how true! Apart from the earning part, I think I'm doing pretty well on the other two. 'Learning, unlearning and growing' was the title and the essence of my Statement of Purpose that I'd written for graduate school recently. And, a big part of the the 'learning, unlearning and growing' is because of all the invaluable wisdom and experience I'm exposed to from my idols. I love soaking up every bit of it like a sponge. It's making me a better person, I know. 
This post is dedicated to my idols - my Professors, mentors and guides. Thank you ever so much - for teaching me. 

"You Screw up, you start over; you screw up, you start over."

- Evan from 'Royal Pains' on Life


and

'Try, and try again, boys, you will succeed at last.'

- James H. Fassett, 'Try Again'

The 'backside' of things!

'Yeh khali backside mein hona, front nai?' asked the print shop guy with a vigorous shake of his head left and right, the motion of which was supposed to match the intent and meaning of his question as is common practice here! I was at the 10' x 10' x 10' cubic print shop nearby that I frequent and which is always bursting to the seams with hi-tech printers, copiers, computers and a lot of customers. Getting my portfolio printed for the nth time, there I am squished in the tiny 0.6m space between the huge printer and the glass wall, trying to lean over that broad heat generating monster and explain the specifications I wanted when he broke down my verbose and structured way of explanation into that one short, clear, concise and amusing phrase. The 'backside' here refers to printing 'front and back' or 'back-to-back'.
So, the print guy's 'backside' got me thinking of all the innumerable times I had heard that phrase here (my part of the world) and in varied contexts. My university instructs applicants to write their name and 'roll number' on the 'backside' of demand drafts that they submit with their applications!
Oh, and the very popular 'iske backside mein hai' to direct you to an address you're looking for that happens to be behind a certain building or neighourhood.
'Backside'...they say that language is, after all, a means of communication. Yes, it is bridging the shores on either side of the river. I, however, am a purist so there'll be no 'backsides' for me!

Perfection+TIME

Answers

Well,what d'you know? A trip I took to unwind on the weekend has become the starting point for my research. My professor, with whom I discussed last post's issue, had some very interesting points of view and answers to offer.
Does our need justify the hectic construction activity happening?
Is there really a need for so many new buildings? This is an issue that will require a thorough study and possible revamp of by-laws by  civic and governmental departments.
Also, with dense urban centers becoming focal points of a livelihood for lakhs of people, construction activity is restricted to these  heart-beat zones. Local construction material within that 500 mile radius is, thus, depleting faster. Settlements need to spread out to suburbs. Workplaces and residences should mutually co-exist in the same locations.
There's also a lot more to think about...LEED accreditations, the 'trend' that's caught on with getting a 'rating' for each building, analyzing the effectiveness of LEED...

Rocks – There and Gone…

I’m an architect. My profession requires me to have a ‘jaundiced eye’, as one of my mentors put it. An eye that seeks out interesting and beautiful ‘visual fields’, as yet another mentor put it.

I think all natural landscapes are breathtakingly beautiful – anywhere in the world. The picture above shows one such scenic landscape I encountered on my trip with the Society to Save Rocks. Yeah, rockscapes have always attracted me with an almost magnetic force, I find myself drawn to them instantly, I love them. Having joined the Society as a member last year, I’ve enjoyed the opportunities I’ve had of exploring these interesting landscapes and understanding the ‘feel’ and atmosphere of the space they exude.


Our journey between the Orvakal Rock Park and Belum Caves in Kurnool was smattered by such scenic landscapes. Idyllic fields of soothing green against a backdrop of gorgeous rock formations and an angelic blue-grey sky.

And…wear-worn, dust bathed trucks being loaded with mounds of quarried stone, men digging deep into the earth’s crust trying to claw out every cubic foot of building material that drives the construction industry (gasping for breath from a recession drowning, so I hear) and their homes.

Sustainable building is the key to a greener and better future, that’s the word out. Sustainable – using locally available materials for construction to reduce the carbon trail in the construction process and the functioning of the building, when complete. Most of the LEED Accreditation for green buildings awards points for the use of such locally available material. Well, a chance look at the ‘back-end process’, the engine turning the wheels, made me count my stars. I’m lucky to have seen and experienced this beautiful natural heritage. A few generations down the line might not even know of the ‘awesome’ hillsides of these fully weathered rocks that they missed, because I don’t think there’ll be anything left.

This was an aspect of sustainability I never thought of before. I’m all for sustainable architecture and construction. Use of local materials – yes. But what if we’re irreparably damaging and eating away natural landscapes and micro-ecosystems? What happens when all that silica-rich rock is quarried away? And is our construction really sustainable when all we’re doing is changing entire precincts of natural topography?

Commercialism will never cede, nor will our hunger to make profits out of thin air. Construction activity will always go on, ebbing and rising with economic upturns and downturns. What then is our solution for sustainable architecture and construction? – An architecture that is responsible both sides of the coin.

I was furiously searching away in my room the other day, when my eyes fell on a familiar sight sitting on my writing desk. This was something I hadn't seen in ages - a notebook covered neatly in brown paper with a 'label' at the top right corner; the brown paper slightly frayed at the edges of the book. It was my old English notebook from school! I pushed my chores out of my mind for the moment and sat down to look through my book. English Literature was one of my favourite subjects in high school and college. There were notes on Shakespeare's Hamlet that I'd jotted down during classes, essays I'd written for assignments, summaries of poems we were taught as part of our syllabus...and this piece of writing below (I used the empty pages of my notebook for a semester or two in Architecture school till it was full).  


I wrote this in my second year at Architecture school as part of a documentation assignment and the reason I picked this out as a post is because it brings back a whole different set of memories and moods; different from my memories of the days of those lovely Shakespearean plays and Keats's poems.


My batch mate and friend in Arch. school, Maanasa, and me were part of a group that eventually broke up into smaller factions and pursued their own course for this assignment! So, here's the write-up I'd done...about seven years back! 


"Owner nai hai memsaab, Bombai gaye, pata nahin kab lautenge", was the reply we got from the supervisor of 'Uttara', the house we zeroed in on for our Documentation. Standing at the gate looking dreamily at that curved driveway, the lush green rolling lawns and the simple yet striking house, we knew we would document this house come what may. Well, but here was our first hurdle. Owner out of town, supervisor's strict instructions not to let anyone in, no amount of sweet-talk working, what to do?
That was one big question mark and we definitely were not going to let this house slip out of our hand for cliched as it may sound it was 'different'. The elegance it exuded, that 'green' factor had a magical quality - a quality of attraction.
The Architect, of course, he could definitely help us. It took a lot of coaxing to make the supervisor disclose the name of the architect. A. Hasan came the answer - Arif Hasan. That was all we needed to propel us to the telephone directory.
"Be there by 5:00 pm", came the clear, deep and charming baritone of Mr. Hasan through the telephone receiver after giving us instructions on how to get to his office. 
Mr. Hasan too could do nothing about our measuring the house as this was absolutely not in his hands. "But I can give you the plans, if that will be of any help", he said which almost made us touch the ceiling with joy after that dejecting news. Then came the other surprise, this house was featured in the 'Inside Outside' magazine in 1998. We scoured every book shop in the market to lay our hands on what we now consider a 'prized possession'. 
The plans were the key which literally took us 'into' the house...


After which came an exhaustive description of the residence in an architectural context. 


...Umm! Nostalgia feels good!

Smelly Cat - No, Ginger Cat - Yes!

Today's post is about one of the two ginger cats I named this blog after! The day I created my blog, these two ginger cats, regulars on my neighbourhood's streets,  were bullying my pet cat. Half my evening was spent in shooing them away and hence the 'inspiration' for my blog's name. Anyway, since they actually have a blog named after them I thought it fit to write about one of them, the one who's a regular house-breaker and nuisance-maker in my part of the neighbourhood. The other mans the southern part of my neighbourhood and is not seen as frequently in my part of town. 


For starters - he will be referred to as 'The Ginger Cat' - is a burly, almost muscular looking tomcat. He has a light ginger coloured coat and white paws that contrast so strongly with his seemingly black and beady eyes. There's stealth in those eyes, and an aware alertness. Though he's quick and agile like the rest of his ilk, it just seems like his spurs have wings because he seems quicker, faster and stronger. But we all know why he seems faster and tougher.


He's my grandmom and mom's bane! Oh woe! he sneaks in and drinks up all the milk in the kitchen if they forget to store it away in the 'havadan' or the refrigerator. No, wait. He's the maid's bane too! She'd love to frighten him with her broom and gleefully shoo him away for all the extra work he causes. He always turns our garbage inside-out, spilling everything all over the clean stone floor. We once found some of his leftover meal that he was relishing on our staircase, the internal organs of God-knows which animal, eewwww!
I'm sure he's more than a couple of years older than my pet and loves to bully him around and get into catfights with him. He also loves sneaking into our house and polishing off my pet's cat food at every available opportunity. And then he runs with all his extra might, when we catch catch him red-handed.


There's not a house left in this part of my neighbourhood that he hasn't left his paw-prints in. The bakery, one house away is his favourite haunt, understandably.
I have to narrate this one incident though. Spending an evening on my terrace, as usual, I spotted the ginger cat in the street that hugs the wall of our house. He was purposefully walking toward the little gap in our gate through which he would then make his way in. Out of nowhere, a dog jumped right in front of him blocking his path. Both of us - the ginger cat below and me on my terrace above - were stunned at the suddenness of it all . Legs drawn slightly apart, face focussed on its prey, the dog was ready to give the ginger cat the chase of his life. I picked a tiny stone and was just aiming to throw it and distract the dog when a passer-by on the street shooed away the dog on seeing the scene and walked by. A second's reprieve was all he needed and the ginger cat was gone. Phew!


There are bullies to bully the bully!
But even so, I was relieved.


The pesky thing still comes by everyday and is up to his usual nuisance, but then, where'd be the variety in our mundane lives without the ginger cat?!    
Is he a fighter and a survivor?...heck, no! He's the King of the Streets! All Hail the Ginger Cat!

How right were Davies and Keats!

...You turn your face skyward and let the orange setting sun glow off you. Far in the distance, the horizon is swathed in a heavenly twilight and the clouds that seem to converge into the setting sun are bright like burning embers. The crowns of  the two coconut trees in the foreground are silhouetted against the glorious radiance. As you step back and take in the whole scene you know, this is it.

This one moment, this microcosm of space and time is the world of your dreams, the grass on the other side, a sight to behold and sigh with a hopeful joy. 

'...What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. 
...No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance...'

Undergrad Architecture Thesis - the last leg of bootcamp!

To continue my last post's theme, here are some interesting statements by jurors of Design Thesis '08-'09 that I picked up in their open discussion with undergrads. There's a whole lot to learn from these one-liners.


"Architecture education is experience, exposure, interaction."

-Ar. Shridhar Reddy

"Marry the building and landscape...design within the ecosystem...the city is the landscape-artifact created by humans..."

-Ar. Narasimham

"Conceptual clarity, thematic strength..."

-Ar. Venugopal

"You should be proud of your thesis 20 years down the line."

- Ar. Shridhar Reddy

"Your design should stand up to any jury."

-Ar. Shankar Narayan

"Use your faculty of judgement. A juror is not the object of your thesis, your convictions are."

-Ar. Venugopal

Explore, Experiment, Achieve!

-Prof. Ramchander

People

Like tends to Like...yeah. Well, seeing scenes play out at my workplace got me thinking. From my position in my workplace, I get to oversee a large group of people. It's so easily discernible that there are distinctly identifiable groups within this one large assembly of people. I've observed that a person tends to gravitate towards another whom he identifies as mirroring some of his own personality - someone with whom he shares the same wavelength. So, you have groups of the 'intellectual top performers', 'the in-with-the-times dressers', 'the populars', 'the we-care-two-hoots'ers', 'the not-fitting-into-any-other-category so let's stick together people'...


Whatever happened to all the wisdom about being in the company of people with excellent qualities so you imbibe some of them and so, better yourself? That would probably have led to more diverse groups or at least groups that you couldn't slot into any one category.

A 'Rock' Walk to Remember

The roads are choc-a-block and we're crawling our way through the illogically confused body of buses, cars, trucks, auto rickshaws, motorcycles and bicycles occupying the road sprinkled with a good number of pedestrians trying to cross through the spaces in between all these. Well, it's hardly an unusual aspect of travelling in Hyderabad that I need to write about. Commuting in Hyderabad is no less than a Herculean task, and if you think, ‘oh, a little patience will surely get me through the traffic to my destination’, hold on! Did I mention that the heat radiated from the black tar roads, the exhaust of vehicles, the smoke filled air and the sun beating down on you will make you feel like you’re being cooked in an oven and leave you with no remembrance of your destination? In fact, it has quite the effect of turning commuters into warriors who are only determined to fight their way out of this obstacle –laden course.

It’s a big surprise, when, just a turn into a small lane off the main road and a small driving distance later I emerge onto this seemingly endless tract of muddy land with patches of green every here and there, rocks of all shapes and sizes jutting out of the land at various heights meeting a sapphire blue sky in the distance. It’s an hour away from sunset and the sun is already low in the horizon. Birds are flying in the calm sky against a backdrop of golden-yellow lined scattered clouds. Who would have thought that you’d get to see such scenic natural beauty in a concrete jungle!

The group is assembled and all ready for the ‘rock walk’. We make our way through a ‘kuchha road’, wild greens bordering us on either side. I can see a large number of millipedes on the ground. And termite hills. There are the ubiquitous ants too, so many that it almost makes you discount their presence. Now we walk over almost flat rock surfaces, now we climb over a few higher ones even as we brush our way through the nettle branches. The ‘walk’ is long and a little arduous but I can see the exhilaration on every group member’s face. We’re surrounded by an awesomely beautiful panorama being revealed by every step we take.

There’s been a cool breeze blowing all the while. It’s sweet and uplifting and energizing. However, the best parts of our ‘walk’ are the mammoth boulders we keep encountering. They’re millions of years old and are absolutely magnificent. I can’t help being in awe of them because they inspire a feeling of regality. Here is an overwhelmingly beautiful form of nature which makes us sit up and truly admire her beauty. Curious, because an odd indoor plant or a smattering of trees in the cityscape hardly evoke any feelings. As a few members of the group are pointing out, some of the rocks are perched one of top of the other in precarious looking formations yet they are perfectly balanced, and what’s more they’ve stood like that for thousand of years.

Walking, climbing, gushing about the landscape together, we are just making our way over a narrow strip of what looks like a bund wall when we see a swatch of pale blue on the ground in the distance. It’s a lake! It almost seems like some secret lake being revealed to us ecstatic bunch of ‘rock walkers’ lapping up every ounce of nature we’re encountering. I wonder at the serenity of the place – there are a few locals by the shore washing their clothes, four buffaloes lounging in the cool water and some children happily flying kites – and the whole scene is tranquil and the quietude induces a soothing calmness of the mind.

After a while of resting amidst the rocks and greenery, some sketching and painting by some members we start to make our way back. The sky has turned a darker shade of blue and the clouds are now glowing orange. We assemble back at our designated meeting point exchanging notes and talking. There are beads of sweat on most of the group members’ foreheads. Everyone’s breathing harder – the kind that always accompanies strenuous physical activity. Only, in a strange way the fast breath is cleansing and invigorating. Keats’s ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’ is running through my mind. I can hardly wait for our next ‘rock walk’ now.

That piece of writing was written by me as a part of an essay for a graduate school application. I like the descriptive imagery I used although I rarely use such a writing style. And, I've described one of 'a few of my favourite things' ala Maria of The Sound of Music. Rockscapes can lift my mood instantly :)

...and here's a picture (clicked by me) of some of what I've been describing...