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Notes from Art for Nepal

2016-03-05T11:37:00.000+05:30

Art for Nepal is a fundraiser I initiated in May 2015, to help my Nepali colleagues/friends at Sustainable Mountain Architecture Studio in post disaster reconstruction work. I decided to make scans and reprints of my 2014 travel drawings from Nepal as limited edition art prints and postcards. In August 2015, the project grew to become a collaboration with architects Lakshmi Nair and Sarojini Dantapalli as they developed the Art for Nepal notebooks with original drawings on their covers. The money raised (INR 1.8 Lakh = USD 2650) was used for constructing three transitional homes using local materials and labour in rural Nepal.

This project would have not been possible without the unending support from Co.Lab Design and Turmeric Design and the generous help from Aarna & Anmol Gupta, Anne Feenstra, Bhavika Aggarwal, Broti Bhattacharya, Deepak Patankar, Jasjyot Singh Hans, Jyoti Patankar, Kriti Monga, Monika Agarwal, Rahul Patankar, Raunaq Kapoor, Reshu Singh, Saurabh Jain, Sneha Punjabi and Varun Bajaj. Rohan is very grateful to Thomson Press and Sona Signature Papers for their contribution towards the printing and paper as well as to instamojo for facilitating the payment gateway at zero percent processing fees.

The project featured was in Platform Magazine, Deccan Herald, Times of India, The Better India, The Scribbler, Bindass Republic, Unbind Magazine

Instagram diaries from when Sarojini and I travelled to Nepal in December 2015, to help build the final two transitional homes from the Art for Nepal funds:

Brush pens flew Air India again. @sarojinidantapalli and I are spending this week in Nepal.

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 21, 2015 at 6:05pm PST

'YES!' We spent our first cold cold night in Nepal at Sujan's place in Bhaktapur with his warm warm folks. We played antakshari with his cousins, ate Daal Bhaat and probably the best fried egg we've had in a long time and the ever familiar tulsi infused water that his grandparents drink during the winter. #ArtForNepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 24, 2015 at 3:42am PST

Our Day 1. Panchkhal, Kavre district. Work for both the shelters has been on since the weekend. We are here with structural engineer @bij_stha and our favourite upcoming starchitect #swoozanshilpakar from the #SMA #kathmandu team. The stone and timber for the shelters is salvaged on their respective sites from the rubble of the damaged homes on the plot.

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 24, 2015 at 4:56am PST

(Pretty) Early Day 2. @bij_stha, #swoozanshilpakar and I hiked to the other side of the hill in the morning to buy fresh bamboo for the roof frame and wall panelling. After having the bamboo cut from the cluster and cleaned up, we helped our workers lug these 8-10 m long pieces to the nearest motorable road from where we dragged them to the sites. #diedmorethanafewtimesontheway

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 24, 2015 at 5:16am PST

'To get your hands dirty with your gloves on.' It's so bizarrely conflicting to imagine that what is a slice of mundane everyday life for a whole lot of people in South Asia could even be a check box on the exotic adventure tourism itinerary for a few of us. But at the same time, I realize it's so critical for many more of us to have these experiences and share them with the people around us back in our cities. These exchanges are so real and so relevant for seeing our actual big picture trajectory. #artfornepal #nofilter

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 24, 2015 at 8:16pm PST

'If this was any other country, you guys wouldn't even be here right now.' The blockade and the consequent fuel crisis in Nepal is something that I had briefly read about before we came, but only this week did we realize how deeply it has disrupted several aspects of everyday life in rural and urban Nepal. Over the past four months, the stocks from India for basic to specialised medicines, LPG cylinders manufactured clothing, petrol and even Indian made packaging for Nepali products have only been sparingly available. The buses and micros are all running wayy beyond their capacity, taxis are super expensive to take, several basic things are being sold in black, tools and supplies have gotten more expensive, transporting the materials to site has gotten more expensive. Our project here is already running over our estimated budget and it's almost funny to realize we have much to do with it. Even though it almost feels like bullying, the constraints have been pushing our team to keep going more and more local with everything.

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 24, 2015 at 9:22pm PST

pa-pa-para-pa Bamboo number five. #artfornepal #bamboo

A video posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 28, 2015 at 7:10am PST

Different from our cities, water is a free resource here but Kamala and her friend make about fifteen trips through the day to the nearby spring to fetch water in containers to be used for making the mud mortar and plaster. The spring is about a fifteen minute hike from the sites and they rest for about five minutes between trips. No one wastes water at site. #artfornepal

A video posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 28, 2015 at 8:00pm PST

Guna Laxmi and Ambar Bahadur Shrestha spoke only Nepali and I barely knew any Nepali. Even despite this, we had long conversations almost everyday about everyday life, poverty and wealth, food and bagoti (grapefruit). We realized only midway that we had begun calling their site the grandparents' site. #artfornepal #nofilter

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 31, 2015 at 10:14pm PST

The tree in their yard bore the most flavourful and tangy raw bagoti (grapefruit) that we had during our stay in Panchkhal. Mrs. Shrestha would serve it to us with this mind blasting freshly ground chillies and salt chutney. #artfornepal #nofilter

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Dec 31, 2015 at 10:25pm PST

Three members from Chameli and Tirtha Bahadur B.K.'s family of six also worked on the construction of the two transitional homes built in Panchkhal as unskilled and unskilled labourers. The project gave them not just better shelter but also employment for a week. It also gave them the technical and strategic skills to help any other villager to build such a transitional structure for themselves. #artfornepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 1, 2016 at 4:41am PST

Red Mud (from the site) and cow dung plaster on the edge wall made with salvaged stone. The salvaged window tells you about the family's lineage as ironsmiths. The bamboo sourced from a kilometre away. #artfornepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 1, 2016 at 4:59am PST

We spent our Christmas in Panchkhal, distributing blankets and thermal inner wear to families and children from the leftover #artfornepal funds. Everyone from this hamlet on the highway in Northern Nepal thanks all of you wonderful people who contributed to the project!

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 1, 2016 at 6:07am PST

To meet and to work with such passionate and driven people has probably been the most enriching part of the project. The inspiring #SMA team, Bikash Dai, Rumi Rumi, @Bij_stha and our favourite upcoming starchitect #Swoozanshilpakar; the ladies #LakshmiNair and @sarojinidantapalli, it's been wonderful having each one of you as collabotors and friends. #DreamTeam #ArtForNepal #nofilter

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 1, 2016 at 9:54pm PST

Back in Kathmandu, spent a pensive Saturday morning at the Patan Durbar Square listening to @nicholsontunes, coping with the realisation that the Nepal earthquake of 2015 took away the big temple that features in the middle of my drawing. However, it was reassuring to see the square just as populated as I had remembered it last; full with tourists, travelers and residents who were sunning themselves and basically having a good time. Until the time that it is reconstructed, the memory of the temple lives through its high plinth and the shrine that sits in a room with walls made of fabric. #artfornepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 1, 2016 at 10:55pm PST

I accompanied Bikash Dai and his friends to Kirtipur for an incredible Newari meal at what they call an Open Museum, run by a co-operative of Newar women (only) from the town. Together they were prepping, cutting, grinding, mixing, cooking, steaming, frying and serving these handmade traditional recipes of snacks and beverages in brass utensils and cutlery in a space next to their open kitchen. We finished our meal with some divine yomari, steamed rice flour dumplings with a gooey jaggery and coconut filling.

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 2, 2016 at 5:24am PST

And then, in the evening, this happened. After a 20 minute amazing-race-esque expedition through the town of Kirtipur that involved showing copies of drawings on postcards to startled locals as we asked for 'Kirtina- David- Sujan- Dilsan?!', I was back on the little street where my Kirtipur journey had begun in July, 2014. Reunited with Kirtina and David, I told them and their parents and grandparents about #ArtforNepal and how their drawings had contributed significantly to the fundraiser. To me and to my sporting comrades on this Boxing Day Adventure, Daphne and her friends at VSO international, this was probably the most exhilarating moment of 2015.

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 2, 2016 at 6:59am PST

David Maharjan with his version of the Bagh Bhairab temple drawing in Kirtipur #artfornepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Jan 2, 2016 at 7:42am PST

In Jan 2016, the #SMA team visited #Panchkhal to check on the completion of the two transitional homes. The Bahadur family had bought more bamboo to finish their walls and the Shrestha family had settled into their shelter #artfornepal #nepal

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Mar 4, 2016 at 9:54pm PST

Back again to where it all started, this time with @sarojinidantapalli, #lakshminair, #SMA and #artfornepal. It's been quite a journey. We are very grateful to each one of you who supported the project and helped us see the process through. #kathmandu #nepal #latergram

A photo posted by rohan (@rohpatanka) on Mar 4, 2016 at 9:06pm PST

Travel far enough to meet yourself.

2015-02-11T22:03:00.000+05:30

So I quit my dayjob and spent one month putting my work together, chilling at home and watching Pakistani shows on the television. Starting January, I embarked on a four week long journey across India.

The travels were intended to help me breathe and revisit some of my favourite places and people in life. The timing also helped me escape the dreary Delhi winters and figure the next steps in life (the next dayjob, work life balance, why am I on this planet, etc). Unthinking much while I was planning the whole trip broadly, I remember freaking out a little just the night before leaving. A month felt like a little long time and travelling alone felt slightly daunting. What were the odds that my new day job would take me outside of Delhi (the city that strangely feels like home now)? What if I just got bored midway? What if all this solo travel got to me?

I realized pretty soon that, even though I was travelling solo, it was hardly so because, at each place that went to, I was meeting and staying at homes of close friends and family. These were people who’ve been close to me at different points in life and this time around, they were sharing with me slices from their lives in their cities. Along with the people, there were also places that I had been to in the past and had always wanted to revisit. Going back and spending time with these people and places reminded me of why I had always loved them so dearly. It was

Jaipur, Rajasthan

Mumbai (Bombay), Maharashtra

Hyderabad, Telangana

Badami, Karnataka

Hampi, Karnataka

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Portfolio Update

2015-01-15T09:51:00.000+05:30

Hello there! Updates to my work can be found here. Travelling now for four weeks across India to Jaipur, Bombay, Hyderabad, Badami, Hampi and Chennai. More soon.

Notes from Nepal

2014-07-29T16:14:00.000+05:30

I was in Kathmandu for about two weeks this July. While the trip was part of my day job and I worked with folks from our sister architecture studio in Kathmandu on all the weekdays, I also got to explore a few parts of the city and its life after work and during the weekends. Here are a few notes:

Soon after reaching there, I realized that there was something about the place that felt very similar to India. I just couldn't tell what yet. Some resolution happened over dinner and lunch with the folks at Himal, but most of these comparison-y impressions were colored only after some very interesting conversations I had with this one colleague, Bikash Dai. He is Nepali origin but had recently moved back after spending ten years in Germany. He could see his country and people from a distance and having also visited India recently, he could relate to this sense of familiarity that I was feeling. But Nepal was still distinctly different from India in telling ways and this kept getting more lucid through our conversations and my experiences over the fortnight.

For starters, much of the city and its buildings felt much like parts of Delhi, but just tinier by about 20 percent; the main roads, the streets that connected the buildings, the buildings, the staircases, the furniture. Sanepa and Jawalakhel (where I was staying) seemed much like plotted neighbourhoods in Delhi, but built only to perhaps half of what is considered full capacity here. Housing many embassies and international offices, the neighbourhood consequently houses a sizeable expatriate population and everything that comes with it (European bakeries, organic cafes and vegetable stores and usually lower population densities).

Also, in general, the city felt much easier to deal with in comparison to Delhi. I remember I felt like I had settled in fairly quickly. Everyday Breakfast was croissants and fresh mangoes. Workplace was fifteen minutes from my B&B by foot. The Studio was in the attic of a mixed use building that also housed an acupuncture therapist, a cosy casual dining Japanese restaurant and day care as well as a thrift sale counter selling second hand clothing, books and furniture. Lunch used to be the Nepali staple, daal bhaat tarkari, the staff meals at the Japanese restaurant that we shared.

The neighbourhood of Thamel felt quite like Janpath in the day and Hauz Khas Village at night, only much tamer. Most public places that I visited were anchored around temples and stupas. But despite the fact they were in use, these places were fairly religion neutral and very public. There would be men and women, young and old, sitting around or standing in groups and in pairs, and kids playing football. Much could be learnt from the way these common people appropriate their public places, the steps, the edges, etc.

Taking public transport in Kathmandu was harder than I had imagined. Cabs were pretty easy but expensive in comparison to the cost of everything else there. Then there were buses and mini buses and micro buses. While the easier part was to ask and getting (absolutely) stuffed into these vehicles, the difficult part was to get the conductors to understand where I wanted to get off. The more difficult part was to brave the Nadeem-Shravan grade of superhit bollywood music from the 90s, usually featuring Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan (the Nepali superstar), that bus loudspeakers would be blaring for hours together.

This bus confusion is what got me to enter the UNESCO world heritage site, the city of Bhaktapur from a gate that was diametrically opposite to the gate that most tourists are supposed to enter from. But what a fortunate accident did it turn out to be! Here I saw everyday life unfold. Young and old women and men were selling vegetables and fruits, knitted garments, footwear, juju dhau among other dairy products in little shops along very neat brick lined streets. The old folk were sitting about and smoking cigarettes in elevated brick pavilions overlooking humble public squares. All of this was being played out with spectacularly finished brick and timber buildings in the background. Also in the back lanes were timber and terracotta craftsmen who had been able to successfully sustain their traditional craft practices over the years. The place seemed to be frozen in time; not just its buildings but also its indigenous people. Conservation seemed like a very constructive and active word here.

I only wish I had stayed in Bhaktapur for longer and drawn more. But I had to come back and attend an architects’ talk about the future of Nepali cities. Interestingly (or not, actually), the whole event was conducted in the Nepali language, the presentations as well as the discussion that followed. For the time that I had zoned out during the event, I was thinking (hard) about the last time that I had attended anything in India that was in Hindi or a regional language.

I made my way to the Patan Darbar Square about four times during the trip. There was something really magnetic about this whole place, the main street that was lined by the main face of a 16th century palace of the Malla kings and a host of temples were sprinkled on the plaza facing the palace wall. The palace is now converted into a museum but the temples are still in function. However, what is interesting that this urban space is used and appropriated extensively by the people, with little functional or historical baggage. There were people old and young, local and travellers, sitting around on the raised platforms edging the buildings and chatting and smoking, playing football, eating ice cream. On could also hear prayer songs and temple bells in the background and also an occasional wedding procession with people dancing to the latest bollywood songs played by a brass band.

It appeared that this disassociation of the architecture from its function had helped people build new relationships with the place. The temple wasn’t trying to enforce what must be done right outside its boundary, or what is possibly a breach of the sanctity of the place. There were barriers for controlled passage of cars but there were no boundary walls. There was also no major vandalism that I saw. There was also no aggressive street vendors/ hawkers. The street was public and open and free and inviting. And nothing was claiming this public space more than the other, especially the architecture. These heritage buildings were just the backdrop to see urban life unfold. It made me think about our heritage structures in Delhi and what would happen if the city opened its monuments to its people in a true sense. What are we scared of?

I borrowed and rode Bikash dai's mountain bike to the tiny town of Kirtipur and the Taudaha Lake on one of my last days in Kathmandu. Of course, I died several times during this day trip riding uphill, sparing a moment or two to think about how unhealthy our city lives were and how we’re actually going to die very soon. Twenty minutes of cycling and I was in the middle of wilderness with spectacular views of the valley. The air was light and cold but still smelt of pollution.

I made friends with 9 year old David, Sujen and Dilsan at my first drawing spot in Kirtipur and they agreed to take me around from then on. We walked to the Bagh Bhairav Mandir, two versions of which we drew together. I was surprised to realize how the kids read and drew the line work of the temple while I looked at the planes at play. Then they took me the Uma Maheshwar temple and narrated to me old and new stories about the temple and the town. From here, one could see the massive urban magnet that Kathmandu was becoming and also imagine the powerful position that Kirtipur would have enjoyed once.

Thirty minutes away was the Taudaha Lake. It seemed like a proper local tourist spot that families and couples flock. The main thing for tourists to do here was to buy fish food from these women planted all around the lakeside and feed the fish in the lake. I lay the bike to rest by a stone wall and began to draw. Interested first in the bike but soon in my brush pens were six year old Sangam and Sarthak. They helped me with some water from the lake and also with some little fish from the lake that they brought for me as a present. I was surprised to find them clueless when I asked them whether they had been to Kathmandu. They said that the had never heard of Kathmandu. Then they told me that they knew about Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands. In no time, they had guessed that I was from India. As soon as they figured, the first thing they asked me was whether CID was for real! They were also singing Yo-Yo Honey Singh songs this whole while. Our conversation left me puzzled but equally amused on many levels.

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The trip was a good mix of everyday routine work and wandering. With its relatively easy lifestyle, Kathmandu seemed like a good place to move to, for work. Within days of living and working there, I actually got in the groove of the place and felt like I could do this for a long time without getting restless. Bikash dai's analogy summed it pretty well for me, "A lot of Nepal is much like India, just minus the steroids."

Interview with Gaurav (Jai) Gupta

2014-07-20T03:20:00.002+05:30

I was a pretty clueless child 5 years ago. I did not know jack shit about design and fashion (I wasn't supposed to either, but still). In my three weeks at the studio, I would spend time just looking at these beautiful AKAARO scarves at the studio and then watching this craftsman make similar stuff on a hand loom in the workshop just across the central courtyard. Gaurav’s studio was a rectangular room behind a deep verandah. The high ceiling was supported on metal beams and lined with stone slabs, all painted white. Half the studio was a display area and the other half was the work space. Once in the three weeks, I helped with moving the stuff around in the studio, to see if the reworked layout was more efficient (the architecture student that Iwas). Gaurav was pretty patient with me hovering around and also with my seemingly stupid questions. Here are a few notes from our conversation, jotted down in a ruled ‘classmate’ notebook, with a felt tip pen in June, 2009.

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Tell me a little bit about textiles (Yeah, this is exactly how clueless I was!)

Alright, see, just in the way the human skin is to protect our internal organs from external changes and respond to them, clothing is the second skin and a shelter/enclosure can be the third skin. So depending on the need/ function one explores textiles and how they can be made. Textiles also make visual barriers (And I’m thinking buildings already, pftt.)

So intersections with architecture?

They happen as they are required. With cave dwellings were also tents, remember?! There are tensile fabrics used for temporary and light weight roofs, tri-axial fabrics used for aerospace projects and of course in, fabrics in interior spaces for covering or dividing space. It is easy to get a sense of enclosure with textiles.

With your background in textile design, I see lots of interesting explorations with material. Tell me about how you work with them?

Yeah, there are natural materials like wool, cotton, silk. Now I have been exploring stainless steel as a material for my weaves. With new materials are new possibilities of exploring volumetric and the feel of fabrics. Also, properties like breathability, usability, opacity and stiffness have the possibility of being rethought. While natural fabrics usually have a timeless, organic quality, fabrics from newer materials could perform better for specific uses.

There is the interesting structural quality to the fabrics I see here. Where does this aesthetic come from?

My sense of aesthetic comes from the way I see beauty in the world around me. The expression is usually minimal, muted and engineered. I think a lot of how we think and produce through design comes subconsciously from our upbringing and experiences. I grew up in this very organized, dimly lit environment. There were parks and playgrounds by they were all rectilinear. I feel this memory growing up has translated into my ideology of thinking structure, frame and engineering. The colour palette has always been muted.

My work doesn't seem striking in the first look I think. Nothing is popping out for attention. The richness of the content is in the detail that has gone into making of the fabrics and the garment. You have to look closer.

What would you say your key inspirations are?

Urbanity and its repetition; Urban Chaos and perhaps the sadness that comes with it. I also find deep inspiration in Issey Miyake and Japanese and Scandinavian design.

This engineered pattern making I feel is quite far from at least how I had perceived Indian textiles for all this while. I always think of Indian textile and I think of colour and embroidery. So your work is not literally Indian, but there is something in it that still feels very much like contemporary India.

Yes, it has happened before that buyers have not been able to completely figure what they described as an inherent sense of warmth in my fabrics. It is this soul that they said makes my work feel Indian. Some said that the Indian-ness comes naturally and intuitively in the spatial arrangement of patterns and their scale. The look is engineered, but the feel is handmade.

Hmm, I guess it is the handmade quality that must make it warmer!

Absolutely! There is a certain humane organic quality of the hand loom that cannot be replaced with the power loom. On the power loom, set patterns are fed onto the computer and they are just repeated. On the hand loom, even though the work is much slower, the possibilities of modifications and innovation right in the middle of the process are possible, because you work directly with the craftsman. In that sense it saves time and resources majorly. Also, the hand loom being labour intensive also retains traditional livelihoods.

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I figured he was a (pretty kickass) textile designer who was then beginning to explore garments. Also, I could figure that this was someone working very closely with the idea of crafting.

Interview with Priya Seth

2014-07-20T02:28:00.000+05:30

In my three weeks at the studio, I spent a good chunk of time observing Ceramist Priya Seth work curiously and chatting with her, and trying my hand at pottery. Her work space was a deep verandah overlooking the central open space in the studio. There was a kiln, a couple of pottery wheels, some finished pieces and works in progress just lying around, and a dark and dry room the stored the many glazes and bags of clay she would use. The arched colonnade walls were painted blue. It would be HOT outside, but it felt much better under the fan. Soft spoken and patient, she would be on the potter’s wheel for hours at a stretch. It was the first time that I had met someone so engaged (almost meditatively so) in their craft and honing it further with practice. Here are bits from our conversation, jotted down in a ruled ‘classmate’ notebook, with a felt tip pen in June, 2009.

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How do you conceive your ceramics pieces?

Mostly, everything I make is utilitarian. The motive comes from the clients’ need and the intention comes from my interpretation of these wants. The skill of craftsmanship that is brought in by the maker of these pieces is what makes them delightful.

Your association with your material is very hands on. What is the relationship of the creator and the raw material in the case of a ceramist? What is it for you?

Just as in furniture or textile design, the material is a crucial part of the process. With ceramics this relationship is even more interesting because the material (both clay and glaze) keeps changing little by little all the time! There are pretty much no standards. Every batch of clay sacks and glazing material is a little different from the other so the results are never the same.

So with experience, one gets a better sense of how the experiments are going to hopefully turn out. Only once you are attuned to the nature of your material can you explore further and have fun!

Tell me a little about your materials and process?

I use stone clay whose readymade sacks I order. Any clay can’t be directly used for pottery and needs to be prepared, where the water and air balance is made. Preparation of clay is another form of art altogether. We’ll not get into that for now.

There are three common processes usually; sculpting by hand, throwing clay on the wheel and slip casting. I use the throwing technique most often (on a manually operated wheel, where one has to keep kicking a parallel wheel at the bottom to make the pottery wheel spin). This is obviously slower than the casting process, but then, every piece is handmade and is imperfect. That adds an organic quality to the pieces.

What is your design ideology while making these pieces?

While utility is the starting point for the pieces, I try to bring innovation through the technique of production. I try to spend more time experimenting with shapes and glazing mixes and methods on the wheel rather than conceptualizing on the sketchbook. Aesthetic decisions are mostly intuitive.

Some of the recent pieces emerged just out of exploration on site. We attempted a BIG vessel that was fired in an earth dug pit. It’s interesting that the parts that we joined to make the piece are articulated in the finished piece. So you get a sense of how it was made. I also made these pebbles to see if these could ever come close to smooth river stones.

How has your education informed your work?

A few years ago, one of my teachers said this to me it has stuck with me since, “After you’ve understood the basics, you have to constantly keep unlearning whatever you’ve learnt to keep fresh at your craft.”

I studied ceramics in the UK and found much of my unlearning when I came back to India and began practicing. I chose to engage with local potters here, whom I would often observe for hours just to understand how they would do things. This collaborative learning has been very fruitful too.

Your process tells me about the need to be learning from local knowledge. Tell me a little about the position of the Indian potter in today's time.

The Indian Kumhar has in most cases inherited his craft but has often ended up being forced by the demand of the market. Uses terracotta usually and fires in the pit that often results in brittle pieces as the pit fire never reaches maximum temperatures high enough to impart strength to the pieces. The market does not demand innovation in the product and is also not too benevolent with the time it gives to produce. As a result, the situation produces potters who are extremely quick and efficient but still inherit invaluable ancestral information about vernacular techniques and methods. If given some space and time and catalysts, their scope of application is enormous.

Tell me a little about the history and context of studio ceramics in India?

Studio ceramics was brought to India by Sardar Gurcharan Singh sometime in the 1960s. The profession and has yet to catch the eyes of the masses. People who have been able to formally study and explore pottery in a studio are usually not so hard pressed on time to make money. They can afford to seriously invest in exploring themselves and their artistic expression. They develop their aesthetic and with better exposure are able to see their work in a wider context.

So the intersection of the two practices is the next step!

Yeah! Now it appears more obvious than how one perceives the equation from a distance. The Kumhar and ceramist can come together, learn and mutually benefit to make the practice richer in terms of the process and also its contextualization.

Do you also see intersections between ceramics and architecture? (Well, I had just entered architecture school after all, was studying to be an architect proper! I had to force connections!)

Well, in one way, buildings are like big sculptures that have a form that affects the people who use it and the people around it. The sense of aesthetic, I guess is common to both streams. There are, of course, big pieces of ceramics that are used in buildings to articulate/decorate some spaces. The work of Ray Meeker also comes to mind who designed and executed the Agni Jata- the house that was constructed and then fired to become a large, strong piece of ceramic! Also, there have been buildings like the India International Centre where ceramics have been an integral part of the building, in the floor tiles and jaalis.

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Among other interesting (inspiring) things, she told me that working on clay is like sending it to school. The clay is adaptable so it better be in good hands!

Meandering in a Studio

2014-06-29T01:06:00.002+05:30

Pictures from the Asola Studio

This is a little big moment. I am bringing closure to something that has been pending for five years now. However, this delay was not completely because of my laziness (or so I would like to believe). This experience really changed the way I saw the practice of architecture and that of design and their intersections. It opened my mind and prompted me every summer since 2009 to take up something that was necessarily outside or at least on the edge of the purview of architecture proper.I waited five years to publish this perhaps because I wanted to see for myself if it had made a difference. And it had.

So this is from five summers ago, when I called an architect family friend of mine, Shruti tai soon after my first year juries to suggest some ‘constructive engagement’ for a couple of weeks. She told me that I could call industrial designer Mike Knowles, go to his studio workshop and just look around. This is exactly what I did and there I was, for about three weeks. I would show up every day and just walk around and read and watch curiously. To explore was the interior and furniture design practice of Preeti and Mike Knowles (it was then called inLiving, is now called the Hidden Gallery), and the studios of ceramist Priya Seth and textile and apparel designer Gaurav (Jai) Gupta.

This place was very different from at least all that I had seen in my first year of architecture education. In this farmhouse compound were single storey brick buildings that housed workspaces and workshops and display areas. The place really felt like a small factory and warehouse, only positively so. Some ceilings were lined with metal girders and stone slabs while the others were sloping metal sheets with an inner (tent-like) white fabric lining. Also, all people who worked out of here were actually conceptualizing, executing samples and retailing out of the same common space! ‘Pretty local and sustainable’ is all that my little mind thought to itself back then.

But more importantly, another thing my mind was thinking about was how clueless I was of what I was supposed to do in these three weeks. Having barely begun to warm up to the idea of a design brief, this was as open ended as they get. Mike explained to me what he imagined I could do at the studio. Go around, observe, ask, explore and understand how these work together and what each of these mean to story of contemporary design in India. We never decided on how these observations would be documented, much to my convenience.

So here are some conversations with Priya Seth and Gaurav (Jai) Gupta from June 2009.

In my time at the studio, what I was subconsciously learning was how these diverse designers were learning from each other by the sheer virtue of sharing their space. I have since believed firmly in the power of cross disciplinary collaboration and how much it can enrich us as people and designers.

Some of the work that Preeti and Mike create and curate:

little music

2014-06-28T19:15:00.000+05:30

Our hearts will unite,

beyond this space and time

It's like I've been here before,

It's like I've met you in my dream.

I’m at this cozy basement studio/theatre for a gig. It has a carpeted floor and cushions for seating, the walls of one end of the room are lined with strips of wood and its floor is raised slightly. The room is filled with some of the finest musicians in the city of Delhi, who are pretty much performing for each other tonight. Towards the end, there is a point in the concert when almost half of the audience rises up to join the singers’ choir. They dedicate this last song to a very special person in the room. There is a sense of warm excitement in the air. Just before starting, Chayan Adhikari (Advaita frontman and also the conductor of this choir) turns to the bassist (who is hidden behind this big bunch of singers) and says, “Zara saa toh doh!” (musician friends, help me translate this for the folks who are not familiar with Indian classical music!)

This is the Global Music Institute hosting their first Singers’ Night. Arguably, one of finest schools of music in Delhi, GMI also frequently turns into a venue that hosts spectacular music performances and jams usually with about forty people snugly sitting in as audience. Everyone in the room has come there pretty much just for good live music. However, what one experiences is much more than just music played live. There is the energy that emerges out of sincere playing and attentive, active listening.

The air that night was filled with little unspoken conversations happening on stage and in between, the exchanging of cues and glances, the changing body of language and expressions on when special moments were felt. And the air was filled with ease. I was happy to hear some of my most favourite musicians playing some of my favourite songs. But I was happier to have experienced live music the way I did that day, free of distractions, free of chatter and of food and drinks.

On little afterthought, I realized that even in the past, the gigs that I have absolutely loved the most have been free performances at public venues like the India Habitat Centre, especially the ones by the Balani brothers. Perhaps it was the comfortable scale of this GMI event that it took me a few weeks to completely get over that gig.

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

Last week, I went for the launch of singer song writer Shantanu Pandit’s EP, Skunk in the Cellar. Anyway in the heat of June, what one could safely assume as off season for the music scene in Delhi, I remember feeling a little repulsed with this whole deal about email pre registrations and this quiet (almost secretive) build up to the event. The gig started at 9 PM and there was a lady at the main entrance checking for registrations. In the narrow lobby were CDs and artwork posters but also a tray with glasses of water and a bowl of candy. Another polite lady at the door to the theatre told us at least 2 times to switch off our phones and remain very quiet.

The warnings, however, were well worth the final little walk through a dimly lit narrow passage into the heart of the very charming Akshara Theatre. One entered at the aisle between the steeply rising audience’s seating and the performers, who today were two lanky (for the lack of a better word) boys in their happy place (for the lack of a better phrase). I had heard the songs on the EP online for a couple of days before the event. But I remember having no memory of them once I heard them live. Of course, listening to them now takes me back to that rather tiny seat in the theatre and that good feeling.

Minimal but full sounding, the songs were melancholic but charming. And so was the tone of the night. The sound, the lighting, the setting seemed like they were all deliberately chosen to add to the experience of the music. One needed this setting for these songs to be heard. And one needed this audience.

------

Post gig conversations with musician friends tell me that more and more musicians have forever been craving for venues and event where they could be really heard and they could make conversation with their listeners. And it would also be true that this artiste-audience connection is easier to establish for singer songwriters, duos and trios whose music would sound better at venues of a smaller scale. What’s heartening is that Delhi is warming up to the idea of these intimate public performances, or perhaps just that I am waking up to them only now (and they’ve been happening all along, have they?).

On July 4, Delhi based artist, architect and singer-songwriter Aditi Veena will be sharing some of her work in progress on the her new solo project 'Mumblings on the impressioned interactions with four charming monsieurs in the life of ditty’. Through visuals and sound, her performance would explore the spatial and experiential relationships between the audience and artists. I am going because for this mostly because I am curious to know what this former sentence would mean in practice. You could find the details for the event here.

The View from the Window

2014-05-31T11:55:00.000+05:30

For the past few months, I have been doing the lights (turning them on and off on the console, really) for the Design x Design Exposé events that are hosted by Allliance Francaise de Delhi and Studio iF once every two months. It gives me the chance to be part of some of the back end processes of the events but also to experience it from the projection room. I can see the proceedings and sense the developments but I'm still not there, really. But then I get this wide window ledge of the projection room to leisurely place my notebook and the sketching paraphernalia and stretch out and listen and draw and write.

While I am drawing, I am disengaged from experiencing the conversation first hand, and seeing it unfold in front of my eyes as a spectator. I still cannot decide if I dislike more the fact that I cannot ask any questions during the discussions, or feel happy and privileged that I get the space and luxury to absorb and draw from an almost external perspective.

It is live sketching but it almost feels like it isn't.

Here, are notes from the last event held on May 29 featuring Srishti Bajaj/Designbait and Plural Design+ Oracles Landscape.

Notes from B.Town (Day 2)

2014-04-08T23:23:00.000+05:30

Moving out of the old city proper, I travelled to explore some of the suburbs of Mumbai. Starting at the Marine Drive, I went to the Banganga tank in Walkeshwar, the mills of Lower Parel and then to Bandra and Pali Hill. I was surprised to see that many Gymkhana Maidans along the Marine Drive do not have any boundary wall facing the main street; made the urban open space feel larger, more public.

I vividly remembered my last visit to the Banganga tank and wanted to relive the experience of this urban oasis, introspective and calm; as much beyond the city as it is inside it. The neighbourhood reminds me of the ruins of Hampi, ancient and oh-so-stable, as though it is going to remain exactly the same for another hundred years. The temples become the social anchor to the tank, holding the essence of the place together in all the bustle and transformation of the city.

Lower Parel was quite a surprising mix of the old and the intervened, with many fluid and elegant multi-storey glass buildings abutting grimly old low lying neighborhoods. This was a story of aggressive urban transformation, that I think would have had equally powerful social consequences. While rehabilitated people occupied humble four storey housing with hand painted signage; offices, stores and meeting rooms occupied the the glass towers. I then went to the Mathuradas Mill Compound, my taxi cab driver told me that most of these towers were built on mill compound sites that would have looked much like this at one point. I did sneaky tours of a few places and finally planted myself at the very pleasant Cafe Zoe. While all of the internal adaptive reuse was interesting indeed, these establishments just felt very disconnected from their setting, almost oblivious and opaque. It felt like the city had here been reduced to architecture, buildings in cement and steel and was then worked with, just formally and spatially. This was quite different to all that I had observed the previous day, but in some way very familiar (almost similar to a lot of Delhi).

I then went Bandra to meet my architect friend Pallavi who took me around Bandra. Lunching at the maze like Candies, we walked to the village of Chuim. Starkly different from the intense urban villages of Delhi, this was pleasant and quaint. Pallavi told me the villagers here were well to do but more importantly content with their peaceful lives. Walking past a few cool studios we came across this partly hidden funky signage to the Hive. Curious much, we walked in to find ourselves in the middle of this inspiring and engaging place that hosted coworking, independent events, workshops, classes for village children, a cafe and a sea of possibilities on their spacious terrace. The discovery excited and inspired me at many levels. How much does the Hive owe to its setting? Are there places like this in Delhi? How can I help sustain these creative projects?

The following visit to the Ranwar village only made many of these questions clearer. Walking across the main bazaar street selling fresh fruit and vegetables and everyday things we reached the neighborhoods that housed quaint cafes and street art. It was pleasant and pedestrian in a very good way. There were many people and houses rich and poor; young and old, but essentially ordinary and comfort. The place was eventful but not intense, it was comfortable. It made me wonder how the urban villages of Delhi became so intensely overused and abused, as hotbeds of volatile rental real estate and repurposed architecture disconnected with its neighboring social fabric?

And still every inch of urban space felt utilized skillfully and defined. Later that evening in front of Salman Khan’s home, Pallavi and I talked about this thrifty spirit everywhere in the city. She told me it came from how perhaps everyone comes to Bombay and struggles for a few years, working really really hard and only then does life become a little comfortable. It is not embarrassing to have less money. It is not embarrassing to travel on local trains and buses. It is ordinary life and there are many more people living this ordinary life, sharing public space and transport. How does this compare with Delhi? The metro has made so much of a difference but has it?

I clearly have to spend more time to figure out and visit many more places in Mumbai and Delhi. Crawford Market, Kala Ghoda, Dharavi, Versova, Thane and many many more places are still left to do. Do let me know if you have any recommendations/ suggestions or any starting points of answers to some of these questions.

Notes from B.Town (Day 1)

2014-04-06T05:33:00.000+05:30

I went to explore the older parts of Mumbai on the first day, Bombay. Starting from what was possibly the first establishment of Colaba, the Sassoon Dock, I went to Fort, Yazdani Bakery, Horniman Circle, and stopped at Brittannia Bakery in Ballard Estate for lunch. The air mostly felt dense, almost suffocating at places that were not ventilated. While the fish, sea food, flower and everyday goods market by the Sassoon dock became one of the most (overwhelmingly) memorable sensations of this trip, walking through the busy markets into the bylanes of Bhuleshwar with signage reading in many many locally spoken languages made me got me closer to the city’s real diversity and its cultural intersections.

Most of the wandering on the first day made me feel like Mumbai was far more urban than Delhi was and had been a mature and bustling centre of urbanity for much longer than Delhi has. It was thriving with density and diversity, with its people, shops and transactions. Walking through the Fort and Ballard Estate area, with most buildings dating back to the 19th and early 20th century colonial lineage, there was this sense of comfort for the human scale. The formal building edge, the generous footpath and the sufficiently wide road seemed to really make it comfortable for people and also impressively accommodate for the many cars of present times. The synergy felt deliberate.

In Dhobi Talao and Bhuleshwar, the expression on Old Parsi and Gujarati owned buildings changed to become more localized. The street grew tighter (and busier but organized) and the neighbourhood felt a lot more intervened upon and contemporary. The teleporting threshold of the big Krishna temple under renovation at Bhuleshwar felt suspended between the busy transactional hub and the temple courtyard that humbled you amidst other old Gujarati women and men. This un-urbane nucleus was at the centre of all of this city and yet quite outside it.

The city had this amazing intensity that came from its efficient and thrifty use of the available urban space. Seating created by buildings, shop fronts, places for plants, the edge of the sidewalk, the entrances to buildings, large urban doors that could be opened only partly to work like smaller windows. Bademiya in Colaba surprised me and inspired me. It actually manifests itself in a way that the main kitchen and seating area separated by the main street! So it functions as a take-away and a dine in restaurant with the service circulation being its most public access. Among other things, this also got the centrestage to the food. I often miss this efficiency in Delhi where I see tonnes of public space wasted because it is left unclaimed or undefined.

Notes from B.Town

2014-04-06T05:01:00.000+05:30

I was recently in Mumbai for a short solo vacation after a close cousin’s wedding. It had been quite a while since I had really been unoccupied enough to just absorb the spirit of a place, draw of it and draw from it. This was ideal. The intention was to pretty much get lost in the city, see the city life and city lights. The plan was simple; to just walk around town, visit neighbourhoods and food places and observe and draw. Much inspiration for drawing with brush pens came from the Superheroes at Turmeric Design and the happy notebooks from Paperbox.

Having been to the city a few times before and being decently skilled at the Marathi language (though I did not end up in many places where I needed to use it), I was able to easily break the touristy ice and hunt for the local flavour, get a feel of of the city. My Mumbai based uncle insisted that I can never get the real feel of Bombay until I spend a night on a footpath. After having spent almost all his adult life in the city, he claims to have never wanted to get this feel of the city for himself.

On the first evening of this trip, I walked to the very charming Abode, to prepare an itinerary for the coming two days. In the itinerary were things/places my friends in Bombay insisted I do, along with suggestions from Abedin Sham at the Abode. Right after, I spent an hour at the Gateway of India.

My Bombay bucket list was solid and the tone was set;to unearth the old and to understand the intervened. Having recently done a fair bit of Delhi Dallying I was looking forward to explore the city as cultural and architectural narratives woven together. Now that I go through these notes again, I see a whole bunch of grammatical and etc errors. But, I also see spontaneity and honesty.

I consciously decided to have no music playing in my ears mostly through the trip, but Avishai Cohen’s album Gently Disturbed seemed to be getting the vibe quite well. Articulating an underlying structure in the city that you can surely sense but cannot decipher lucidly, the music during the breaks was as engaging as the city itself.

Here are notes from Day 1
Here are notes from Day 2

Of songs and their names

2014-01-16T06:25:00.000+05:30

Travel between work and home consumes about 3 hours of my life everyday. It also gives me about 3 hours everyday to listening to music actively. Active meaning, I play it to listen to it and do nothing else, only listen to that music with activities like walking or travelling on the side. A lot of this active instrumental music has been much fascinating me lately. It makes me wonder, how do wordy names emerge for tunes that were created to escape from the burden of words and translation?

This piece by Tigran Hamasyan is a song that flows like a slow stream of water that smoothly begins to evaporate into nothingness. He’s done this with a faint vocal section that begins in a structured fashion but then transforms into a fading poly rhythmic form that dissolves into itself, soon enough, quite like vague memories that fade away to feel like dreams. He’s one of those artists I listen to without even looking at what each song is called, and I check out names only once in a while. I saw the name ‘A memory that became a dream’ today evening. The awareness of the name really transformed my experience of the song. There was joy in how closely I had sensed the artists’ vision, a success of his capacity to articulate an idea and my capacity to absorb (to some extent, maybe).

I heard Arjuna (the two part composition) by Tarun Balani for the first time at a small private concert in 2013. Tarun announced the name the piece and the band performed it. Then I went home and heard the song on the album again and again. And again. Upbeat music that changes gears between the two parts to charge at you more definitively; this is a great demonstration of building up focus with a change in time signature, rigorous and meditative repetition, and slowly revealing the true nature of something through its journey. To me, this song could be called nothing but Arjuna. I cannot imagine for it to have any other name now. How much would change if I would have not heard its name before listening to the song? It would still stand for focus, perhaps, but not in the context of its Mahabharata reference. Would the piece be different if Tarun had never read or heard about Arjuna or the Mahabharata?

I’m trying to resolve my feeling about the times where I have felt little connection with the artists’ intentions and found my experience of a song to be quite different from its intended meaning. This happened especially in the case of the riveting Piano Textures by Bruno Sanfillipo. The tracks are organized in an order and are called Piano Textures 1, Piano Textures 2, Piano Textures 3, Piano Textures 4, Piano Textures 5, Piano Textures 6, Piano Textures 7, Piano Textures 8.

PS. Hunting for relevant pieces for this made me realize how live versions could often be diametrically different from studio versions. It is Jazz after all. It is all the energy in the improvisation.

PPS. Happy 2014.

On Teachers' Day

2013-09-06T03:20:00.001+05:30

This is one of the many (few) things that I feel truly fortunate to have experienced and documented for life during my time at architecture school. Among many other things, you haven’t completely experienced SPA Delhi if you haven’t been screamed at theatrically by Prof. Chishti (preferably outside the studio walls). Too bad if you have passed out already! I bet you have the most vivid memories from your life at college of his incredibly eventful Theory of Design sessions in the open air theatre. Professor IM Chishti is an institution all by himself.

In February 2013, Dr. Anil Dewan initiated a project for our professional practice studio to research and plan for what we would want to become ten years hence. Pedagogy had always been one of the million things on my mind after architecture school. So we began collating quantitative and qualitative information on our quest to become teachers, Wate Zheimi, myself and #thisunbelievablybrilliantguyinstudio! (who I call) Professor Dendup. This interview was part of it.

This is a (very bad quality) recording of my interview with Prof. Chishti about pedagogy, its objectives, nuances and lessons. Please write to me to help me make better this timed list of highlights from the interview. Also do share with me your opinions on any of the questions and answers from the interview to take this conversation forward. This interview is fairly long, but hey it’s been a while since you heard him speak!

Spoiler Alert: Too bad, there was no Chishti’s signature snorty laughter. I missed it too.

00:30 Ideologies of teaching

2:15 Pedagogy has to be a long term process. There has to be a vested interest in being a teacher.

4:15 Difference in the position of a studio director and being part of the faculty team

5:20 Architecture schools having ideologies

5:57 Willy nilly

6:00 SPA has ended up having a rounded ideology of a design school

7:45 The School of ‘Planning and Architecture’ was set up understand the Indian conditions. Vernacular regional studies have always been taken up extensively in the middle years.

9:20 Making a difference to contemporary society, senior years topics changed with global situations. Responsiveness to the changing conditions of the country.

12:30 SPA location in central Delhi has certainly affected us.

13:50 When the hostels were closer to campus there was a certain kind of energy.

14:45 Do good students make good teachers?

15:50 Measures of a good teacher

16:05 Being part of an institution

17:20 These values must mean something to you even outside the institutional framework

19:20 Belief systems of self discipline

19:55 Running a practice that is part of pedagogy, understanding the intersections and mutual dependencies

23:00 Scales of operation between practice and institution

23:40 Integrity as a teacher

24: 12 Teaching and working in an architecture office and not your own practice

25:00 New forms of flexible employment in both educational and professional institutions

26:22 Disconnect between studying and real work, apprenticeship?

27:45 Running a studio practice, parallel to curriculum in campus

29:40 Why are students not involved at all in the construction/renovation projects that happen in the school building?

30:40 Summer jobs within the school,

31: 30 Art thesis

32:45 If I apply for a job with the school what will be the parameters?

33:25 Do you have a contribution to make?

34:15 Are you a good communicator

34:55 Taking phone call

35:28 Of the TOD session that he just walked out of (which fortunately created the time for this interview to happen)

36:10 You get feedback qualitative and quantitative from your class intuitively

37:20 Chishti blasted a young architecture student at his thesis jury, only to be thanked years later at the twenty under thirty five exhibition by the same student who was now a designer invited by him to exhibit at the event!

39:50 A bad architect spoils a building but a bad teacher spoils a whole generation of buildings.

While he says this is only almost true, what it is completely true is that this teacher has positively instigated a whole generation of graduates from the SPA, Delhi to really think and therefore be. This Teachers’ Day I thank him and all my teachers (so many of you don’t even know I see you as one), for inspiring me. I will become one of you as I begin my journey as a teaching artist with Music Basti very soon.

In other news, I graduated from Architecture School.

200 words to writing

2013-05-12T22:59:00.000+05:30

The past few months have been more eventful than ever before. I've lost sense of what normalcy really is and what goodness is. I've started acknowledging all the meta-thinking and internal battles of my little brain. Kriti calls this my mental masturbation, an inventive tool that helps substantiate all the importance that I want to give myself (remember the love letters?). I saw this thesis semester walking over in front of my eyes and I saw myself losing to time and work, swaying between procrastination and overkill. I've also realized that closure is one of my least favourite nouns. I have been forcing myself to think that thesis has only begun yet. It will get more exciting from now on.

I've realized lately that there’s far too much that I think about and feel is worthy of blogging but I never end up doing it because I never get down to structuring it as an article/ post and never write so much that there’s enough to sieve a structure from it. This also comes out of a realization that very often; I fail to look at the larger picture of a situation without getting stuck in the parts. So this is an attempt to at least initiate all the conversation by starting with 200 words and putting it up. You just read the first 200.

It did not happen

2013-04-01T11:03:00.000+05:30

because I did not do it.

oh alright.

2013-03-16T01:40:00.000+05:30

This one faculty in studio today screamed at me today urging me to get on with some real drawing and asking me to stop writing love letters to myself.

How did he know?

UnBox 13

2013-02-12T01:41:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, I found myself at the third edition of the UnBox Festival in Delhi. Apart from helping my friends around with their installation projects, helping to set up a fun print lab and being part of this little assembly line that dished out these brilliant picnic lunch hampers, I was also fortunate to be part of an interesting workshop with URBZ and even more fortunate to write for the live documentation team at Unbox, the Zinepress. As I google the names of its core team members today, I realize the real extent of fortune of being surrounded by the people I was surrounded by that Saturday night. Some of their work, I had come across and LOVED so much! and never imagined meeting them EVER.

The interesting thing was that because I hadn't seen them ever, I didn't know who they they were that night. That night they were some very warm and supportive (to me and to each other) people, who were from everywhere but were working together calmly through the night, with great planning and diligence. They saw the product come together.

Unfortunately, I really wish:

I could contribute more to the production of the magazine after writing that one piece. With no Photoshop and Indesign skills, I am still technologically 5 years too dated.
I could do better than being only half awake through that night, especially realizing later how much I am going to fondly cherish/regret it through life. Most of the warm/cold night is a blur in my mind with extremely familiar music playing through it. I remember singing along some of the songs half asleep on the couch. Rag Doll by Maroon5 was one of them. Was it?

The part of the night that I do remember is when I wrote the following. You may want to listen to this track on loop while you read. I listened to it while writing the piece.

***

Smallness

This happy yellow afternoon, the second day of Unbox, in the lawns of Zorba, as we sat together for a vino picnic lunch consisting of yummy sandwiches, salads, sangria and cake, blaring Bollywood music from a family party in the neighbouring farmhouse gave us some surprising company. We turned to our firang friends with embarrassing smiles. ‘Hey, welcome to India: this crazy mash up of juxtaposed realities that we smile at irrespective of what side we are on!’ But how would it be if even our neighbours were playing progressive EDM and classical music collaborations between the harp and the Indian Cello. Hipsters would never remain hipsters if they were too many of them, would they?

Cities are crucibles of transactions and hence, opportunities. Wikipedia tells me they are large centres of high density. It is often in this largeness of the city that people turn into numbers on census data and volumes on the Metro and buses. In the busy business of urban life, we often forget about all the opportunities of conversation that this density brings and, in contradiction, yearn for the little easy place ‘back home’.

Does it reveal something about creative professionals that they are often found seeking joy in the bylanes of transforming urban villages of Delhi? Is this where we see the potential of positive urbanity harnessed at the right scale? Nostalgia for what home would have been like, or a faint inkling of what home must be like. What is this elusive comfort in the smallness of things that fills the void in our everyday urbanity?

UnBox, among many other things, sparks local and global conversations that are possible only in the physicality of this pop-up village of people. Insulated as it might want to be in this urban oasis of a farmhouse, the Bollywood music next door only puts us back in context and reminds us that that this conversation could be very every day, everywhere.

The festival doesn't grow any bigger every year. It only triggers a million other UnBoxes that could potentially spring up in neighbourhood parks and street intersections every day; local surprises that we could unravel every day in our little big buildings, in our small city homes, in cities that could become large homes.

***

An hour later, out of that space, not listening to the same music, I was already disagreeing with what I had written.

Nostalgia is always exaggeration and never happens to everyone. I forgot about all my friends who have always lived in cities and found themselves at most ease here. And the point really is about the smallness of things, not the rurality or urbanity that they can be present in. Urbanity has a degree of intensity in all its activities that the village lacks. The ease comes together only because of the scale of operations.

I got the point quite wrong I think. ThankyouNitinSawhneyforthehoaxcalltoeldorado.

You can see the UnBox 2013 Zine here.

Update: Reshu says she liked the piece. She didn't know I had written it.

-_____-

2012-12-31T01:21:00.001+05:30

A restored mosque, New Delhi.

These days have been interesting, as music has been transcending its lyrical and melodic boundaries to open up to me. I’ve been finding more meaning that what’s been served (or maybe not). Lately I’ve been seeing space in music.

I can possibly never thank my friend Firas enough for introducing me to Coke Studio Pakistan two years ago on an afternoon metro ride to college. While he was keen on the Persian Folk poetry, explaining to me the meanings and metaphors in each line, I remember being completely lost somewhere, in the music, thinking to me ‘this is really fresh stuff!’ Such a fresh contemporary take on folk tunes! It was Zeb and Haniya.

Then I heard their brilliant Coke studio collaboration with Javed Bashir. Downloading their album soon after, I heard the original version of the same song which I found to be far more compelling than the coke studio one. The song feels empty, almost like hints of ideas loosely strung together rather than a sound structure with gaping voids. For me this was just enough space to be listening and not be listening to the song at the same time. Much later Haniya also talked about it in their collaboration for the Dewarists.

Somewhere (14:26) in this brilliant documentary about their music, Icelandic post rock band Sigur Ros mention ‘Space is what we have here, in our personal life and in the land as well. [...] people are unconsciously aware of giving you space.’ You have to watch (or at least listen to) the whole movie to know what they really mean here. My Norwegian friend from child hood Pål Moddi Knutsen now sings and writes music and performs all over Europe as ‘Moddi’. His music lingers in my head for much longer than it’s actually playing for. Sombre and spaced out.

The post hasn't ended yet.

रात के हमसफ़र, थक के घर को चले

2012-11-12T21:42:00.000+05:30

The eve of Diwali, 2013 and the rickshaw ride back home from the Metro station did no difference. My head feels dense. I can feel these grey clouds looming over my head. Work goes on just fine. There is finally some sense of progress with Urban Design and clearly the faint appearance of a finish line. Closure is good (I guess, sometimes). I just find it hard to come to terms with it. I don’t understand it. I dislike it. I would rather distract myself and/ or procrastinate. I love to concentrate on getting distracted all the time. The curiosity of the other, what joy!

This Sunday, on the I saw half of An evening in Paris on the flight from Bangalore to Delhi. I chose to only see half, and kept the other half for later. I don't know why.

काम चोर

Google translate: drone, shirk

noun /drōn/

1. A low continuous humming sound
2. A monotonous speech
3. A continuous musical note, typically of low pitch
4. A musical instrument, or part of one, sounding such a continuous note, in particular (also drone pipe) a pipe in a bagpipe or (also drone string) a string in an instrument such as a hurdy-gurdy or a sitar
5. A male bee in a colony of social bees, which does no work but can fertilize a queen
6. A person who does no useful work and lives off others
7. A remote-controlled pilotless aircraft or missile

verb /SHərk/

1. Avoid or neglect (a duty or responsibility)

Waiting on the world to change.

Web log

2012-09-25T01:32:00.000+05:30

a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries

I just remembered that this blog was for myself more than others. I see so many brilliant things every day, some less important than the others. I record, I remember. If I want to remember, I must record. Hence.

Now the sharing bit, that’s where it becomes a job and I become lazy. But I want to be selfish and do it for myself. Hence.

College has been crazy lately. I have been losing and finding myself in new ways yet again. I met the president of India recently. (I didn’t really meet him this time, but it just sounds cool) I sang for him. But because of the president, I got to go to the Vigyan Bhawan. With a red pleatfarm sandstone facade, scientific exterior lighting, a mockery of a chaitya hall entrance, architecture was talking, yet again. And I was listening.

Old Delhi has become our weekend home. Seminar 2012 takes us there. We take the Delhi Metro and always record our departure from the metro station and arrival into Shahjahanabad. I find escalators to be wonderful here. I love them everywhere actually, the way they transform our perception.

An exciting art project starts at Khan market tomorrow!

Breaking News

2012-05-28T03:18:00.000+05:30

Rohan Patankar is (presumed) dead, for the time being.

Until the time he gets over his laziness to come back

and update this post,

don't keep waiting.

My stupid mouth

2011-12-18T13:38:00.000+05:30

How many times does it happen to you that you just realize after saying something that it was not appropriate/ needed/ crap? Regretting right after sending an email that you know would be read not as you had intended it to. When you really wished there was an undo button. But, of course, you can’t do shit. You try and fix it only to screw up further. It happens to me very frequently, say, once in 2-3 days. My friends call it my social dyslexia. And believe me, it’s not funny to sit back wishing you had just been a little more careful. And I die an inch every time it happens. It’s a pathetic feeling.

PS. Even though I am not a lyrics person at all, I really connect with John Mayer’s writing; he was at his best in Continuum. Excerpts from one of his songs, that couldn’t describe the situation better. I hope you are listening/ reading this.

Kaman se Nikla Hua Teer

My stupid mouth
Has got me in trouble
I said too much again....

Oh, another social casualty
Score one more for me
How could I forget?
Mama said "think before speaking"
No filter in my head
Oh, what's a boy to do
I guess he better find one soon....

And I could see clearly, An indelible line was drawn
Between what was good, what JUST slipped out and what went wrong...

I'm never speaking up again
It only hurts me
I'd rather be a mystery
Than she desert me

Oh I'm never speaking up again
Starting now... Starting now

One more thing
Why is it my fault?
So maybe I try too hard
But it's all because of this desire
I just wanna be liked
I just wanna be funny
Looks like the jokes on me
So call me captain backfire

I'm never speaking up again
it only hurts me
I'd rather be a mystery
than she desert me

oh i'm never speaking up again
i'm never speaking up again
i'm never speaking up again
Starting now, starting now...

Visual language

2011-11-24T22:11:00.000+05:30

Came across The Noun Project via thingsyouprobablymightfindinteresting

An interesting attempt to create symbols for commonly used nouns. Their search tab is pretty handy and the overall feel is oh so crispy Helvetica! My curiosity led to some cool-ass results and a lack of some others (love, war, food, bed, work,). Some results just made me sad but only made me realize that this is the reflection of our times.

Wordweb further helped clear things in my head.

Noun: A content word that can be used to refer to a person, place, thing, quality, or action.

Icon: A visual representation (of an object, scene, person or abstraction) produced on a surface

Ideogram: A graphic character that indicates the meaning of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it

An attempt is here but not really universal. The open source, creative commons nature of the project is only helping the cause positively. However, a very limited dictionary yet but a safety filter so sound there are no surprises, maybe a very good thing for a pictogram design (that the image is familiar and rings a bell I the direction of the root word). But still, largely first world centric. Maybe, the key is in the representation of not the object, but its essence, of not making icons but ideograms.

How awesome would the world be when a picture could replace words? Can we ever develop visual language for the entire world devoid of prejudices and pre-experiences? Can visuals really talk?

Also, I chanced upon one BRILLIANT EXAMPLE just in the middle of writing this post!!!! such good timing!

Diwali Spirit

2011-10-25T15:18:00.000+05:30

Caught up in the grey of contemporary life (my dissertation hangover), still sore from a not so great design submission that I made in the afternoon, tired from the previous night’s work and 2 hours of sleep, I was on my way back when my mom called up and told me it was Dhanteras. Diwali was here but nothing around me was festive. My body’s clock had been caught in the rut. There was no sense of place, of season. As Varun dropped me halfway to my place, both of us were talking about how sleepy we were, and how much more eventful the next month and a half was going to be, with final juries among other things. Covering the last leg of my journey, on a cycle rickshaw, I crossed a mall bathed in yellow light, a neighbourhood market spilling out with hawkers selling funky lamps, diyas, rangoli and what not, apartment blocks brimming with little and big trails of blue red and yellow bulbs, and also scores of happy faces, glowing in the spirit of the festival. Diwali is to India what Christmas is to West. And Yellow is to Diwali what Red is to Christmas. I just realized the role festivals play in rejuvenating our lives periodically, marking the onset of seasons, and, in get our bodies and minds to connect with our surroundings again with the plethora of layers of mythology that enrich them. They appear to me as brilliantly designed mechanisms. And for Diwali, the tool is yellow, and it had never shone so bright before. Yellow. In the funky paper bag I’ve had with me since the weekend, my apartment where renovation just finished recently (right before Diwali), the new book that I have begun to read today, and the warm autumn morning sunshine that comforts a cold Delhi Metro commuter, who wonders whether the temperatures have been intentionally kept low for us to realize the value of the sunlight after the train goes subterranean. realize is the best verb ever! It makes me happy. Happy Diwali!

Acknowledgements to the cycle rickshaw for making neighbourhood travel an enriching experience, with travel speeds being just right for one to watch, observe, sense and absorb the environment at the same time.
In case if you do doubt, all photographs by the author.