Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant create an endearing family that is bound by several trials of life, one being that of a disability of hearing. But this Oscar-winning movie touches all the right chords, it had me in splits and then it has me tearing up and in the end it left a lasting impression. I always knew how the absence of one sense made up with other senses but this movie shows keenly how ability ably defeats disability of all sorts. More crucial that anything else we face in life the best thing to have is a disability of fear. As long as one is unafraid, one can have several gainful ways of existence. As Daniel Durant plays the brother, a lasting dialogue he says, or rather conveys when Jones asks how will he run a coop business with a disability he says that the hearers will learn!
What an attitude. After all, attitude is everything. It is touching when the family agrees heartily on letting go their only hearing member but it is even more touching when Jones sings her audition and conveys what she is signing through ASL to her family. As they look around bored, she entertains them with the glory of meaning. And then there’s Kotsur, who tries to clean the stupendous talent and ability of his daughter by feeling her neck as she sings. There are so many moments in this movie that tug at the heart. It is made excruciatingly beautifully and is entertaining all the same. A must watch I would say, there are so many ways of living a full life on this planet, with or without ability, with stability and a sense of humour. There is no end to dreaming and there are no boundaries when there is courage.
Curated by the Reves art gallery, in Bangalore, set in a delightful setting by the pool at Taj Westend, with a book in my hand, the evening was a picture of literally all of my favourite things. Here are a few of the works that caught my attention. Vaikuntam is evergreen ofcourse, but two pieces by Shan Re looked fabulous and one by a Seema Kholi. While buying art is an art, for sure, soaking in art too is an art, less exhausting though ofcourse.
Vaikuntam’sSeema Kholi’s
With turkeys and other fowl for company, Kamal Pant inaugurated the well curated exhibition and the IPS officer clearly defined the role of the artist as a indispensable part of a society. To create anything, to imagine the nonexistent requires courage and creativity by that definition definitely requires courage. And the way art provides a perspective encouraging one to pause and reflect if not experience a certain bliss, for the doer and the seeer is undoubtable.
So here’s cheers to art, may we see it, may we make it, may we live with it, in it, may we experience it and thus may our lives be a work of art!
Tucked away in the leafy bylanes of Basvanagudi, Svasa Homes plays home to this delightful abode, an apartment sprinkled with a aesthetic and a vibe that transports one to the best of India. It is incredible really, like the country it takes deep inspiration from. Peppered with Chettinad columns and adorned with beautiful paintings from Rajasthan, carpets for Kashmir, this home boasts of an even delectable sight, a view of Bangalore’s leafy and cultural Basvanagudi from the 15th floor.
The entrance foyer is arresting and commanding with a set of arm chairs and a huge painting that sets the tone of the house. Covered in a patina of shiny grey paint, the walls enclose a flooring of wood conveying a warm and cultural aura in the home. The Pooja area is a glorified niche kept minimal and in balance with a Tanjore painting and a lamp. The kitchen door is an antique carved door that is an art piece in itself. The kitchen is alarmingly modern but balances itself with Atangudi tiles on the floor and a caramelised hue all over it’s fixed cabinetry and the counter top.
The bedrooms are aesthetically pleasing with beds and furniture in wood, impeccably sourced from the various parts of the country. The walls again use art and craft paying a cultural ode to the country’s vast extents. Keeping the wardrobes modern and utilitarian is a genius stroke as the sliding doors keep within them all the functional necessities in a home while blending into the walls quite effortlessly. The masterbed with an independent study unit speaks volumes of the finesse in crafted bespoke furniture.
The dining are has a gravitas of it own in a home that exemplifies gravitas. With a stunning chandelier casting light over an even more exquisite carpet, while a mega-Tanjore painting looks down at the dining table itself. The bar unit is hidden well in an heritage armoire that opens up into an elaborately well-stocked bar. In this home that resembles a temple of South-India it is only apt to have a bird’s eye view of a zillion coconut trees of the Ramakrishna Math Ashram in Bangalore.
Curated with taste of the highest order, paying keen attention to showcasing the best of India, being a visual delight, keeping to the basics, glorifying the arts and crafts of India, allowing room to breathe with classic minimalism, bringing a new definition to luxury ethnic, setting the standards of home really high, this super gorgeous home is definitely a marker of all things beautiful, all things aspirational and all things drool worthy. It makes one proud of India, it makes one proud of being Indian and presents the best of the country minus the chaos. It is so beautiful and with all the art so cultural that it becomes effortlessly soulful. It is a temple of sorts to India, to the nature of beauty and is a harbinger of inner peace.
I could not but exclaim at this point that Truth is Beauty, and a beautiful home could just inspire a beautiful life.
2010 was a big year for me, a huge move across the Indian Ocean, the starting at a world-famous architecture firm that does smart projects across the globe with a work ethic like no other, but more importantly the granting of my architecture license by the Council of Architecture. It has been twelve years hence and as I renew my license this year, I feel tremendously hopeful of what the future has in store for me. The last twelve years, 144 full moons and a lot of learning in this vast and diverse field that constitutes the making of things, small and big, sometimes a handle and at other times a building. The best is yet to come, and I simply am super enthused about it.
Meanwhile here are brief samples of work that came my way in the last twelve years. There a many of course that haven’t made it in this video, but they are all dear to me, being a part of my journey, they and have played a huge role in what I am today and what I seek to be in the future. This year is truly special with all the work pouring in, diverse, challenging work that’s has me stepping up to newer and brighter avenues. It’s been long in the coming and the path has been winding so far, I sincerely hope that this path straightens up in the next twelve years.
Raring to go, beaming with a curious sense of design, clear in the head, hopeful in the heart, I continue my journey in the field of architecture, sometimes witnessing, sometimes drawing inspiration, sometimes happily inspiring, at other times keenly learning. Thank you all dear readers for reading, incidentally, this blog completes 11 years this year, I started it a year after attaining my professional license. Soon we will have an option of listening in, with a podcast and an aural reading of the blog articles starting now. So read on, listen in and have me design your home, workplace or precinct!
The iconic Secunderabad Club was established on the 26th day of April in 1878 and that makes it today about 144 years old. What a figure for a building! That number itself catapults it to the echelons of history, making it a part of the rich heritage of Hyderabad and in turn of the country. Though the present building or the anchor of buildings, began with a generous donation of Sir Salarjung Bahadur II, it stood the test of time, till now, surviving, playing host to various turns of events, morphing itself from a humble hunting lodge to a prestigious club with world-class facilities. From being called first the Secunderabad Public Rooms, to the Secunderabad Garrison Club, the Secunderabad Gymkhana Club, the United Services Club, before finally being named the Secunderabad Club it has donned several hats in its hundred year old history. Built then of massive wood-work, the club’s form boasted of cutting-edge construction techniques of those times, when massive building spans and heights were maintained through stone pillars and wooden trusses, supported my iron and steel before being finished off with stone slabs for the floor. Set in about 22 acres of lush greenery, the club also comprises of several structures in the compound serving as additional facilities added over time. The main hunting lodge remained ever since as the main colonnade topped by a ball room, fringed by a heritage billiards room, administrative offices and chambers for the club’s elected President.
History has it that this Club was formed by the British Army Garrisons that were stationed in Secunderabad under an agreement with the 3rd Nizam – Sikandar Jah. The Club was then known as Garrison Club. Over a period of 15 to 20 years the British presence in Hyderabad increased and the British brought in their civilian officers to look after the Nizam’s Railways, as well as the judicial system to administer the cantonment area. The Nizam also requisitioned the British Officers to help him set up the electrical, waterworks and various revenue reforms in the state. During the late 19th century, the name of Garrison Club was changed to United Services Club representing the membership from all parts of the services. The Club was no longer an army club and it served all the services represented by the British. As time went by, the officers later changed the name to Secunderabad Club since it was situated in Secunderabad. This name change coincided with the presentation by Salar Jung I who was the Prime Minister of Hyderabad State to the resident at that point of time of his hunting lodge. The club came to the current location on March 1903 growing into several structures across its extent.
It is an icon for several reasons, because of its excruciatingly exquisite history, because of its distinguished people, because of it’s progressive attitude, because of it’s exceptional facilities, because of it’s insightful insignia and mostly also because of the superlative stories it’s walls tell. Layered with the past and laced with the vagaries of the modern, the building that was once a simple hunting lodge festooned by man’s conquest in the wild, one that stored the past on its walls but has always been poised stoically in the present, at the same time raring to go forth into the future has been popular generation after generation, decade after decade and that my dear readers, is no mean feat. To remain timeless and faultless, embracing the need of every member, charming with the old wooden panelling or chiding with the pendulum of the clock, providing enough room for the celebration of every festival, be it the chaos of Holi or the joy of Christmas, or simply for allowing a drink or two under the gaze of a star-lit sky, it has shown what classic in architecture really is. I could regale you with stories of how my ninety-one year old grandfather and my four year old son relate to the club’s aura in their own capacity not to mention my sixty-something parents or my brother and me at half their age. I for one have fond memories of participating and winning (no wonder I said fond) several drawing and painting competitions that every child is subjected to, once winning by the choice of the very famous illustrator R K Laxman! There are some buildings that make one’s heart swell with pride, some buildings that make one’s heart feel safe and sound, some buildings are that encourage intelligent conversation, some buildings that in-still a sense of propriety, some buildings that make one feel royal, some buildings that install in one a sense of leisure, possibly deep relaxation, still other buildings that infuse a heart of joy, but this one, it does it all. Am sure there isn’t one soul who has seen this building in real and not felt the same, member or not. From setting me on a path of growth as a little impressionable girl and later as a young buoyant architect, this magnificent building always made me feel great, we never do forget how something makes us feel, do we? And today, out of the blue, the visuals of the iconic main building, one that survived, two World Wars, one Cold War and one non-violent struggle for independence, retrofitting over the years to fit the British sensibilities and then the Indians of free India, to see this masterpiece of a building on fire is shocking.
I feel shaken even now writing this, recollecting for myself what the building meant to me as a child. It obviously inspired awe, but also was a home away from home, it always felt like a safe haven, where we spent hours whiling away time or learning something new, always besotted with familiar faces, the colonnade, from where came incessant chatter or at times guffaws of laughter, where my father introduced me for the first time to the various types of alcohol by name, I never drank of course and have continued to be a happy teetotaller, where an odd old gentleman or two would fall asleep on generous plantation chairs, (I could never imagine such gay abandon in a seemingly busy place!) where we could in a mobile-less world, que up to call our parents on the landline to pick us up, later lapping up food as the colonnade served the club’s varied cuisine that is extremely singular to its space, why it was also the place where I gave my first magazine interview and being published! Though little did I know then of the travails of fame. Retrospection is always a side effect of nostalgia. 🙂 The main ball room, well that played canvas to my forays into acting, played host to several summer camps, and the terrace that adjoins it played backdrop to our childhood charades. The administrative chambers is where we’d go when we irresponsibly lost our club cards, the grand staircase is what took us there. At his point I must admit that I was always spooked by the animal heads, or rather the taxidermy mounts on the walls. It always is spooky no matter which part of the world and I wonder what makes one embalm such creatures (!), but then I would never hunt, so the conquests of the game is past me. The building on fire, gutted to the core, is another level of spooky altogether, or must I say how unimaginable it really is. My social media walls are full of stories paying tribute to the burnt out building, leaving so many broken hearts that it feels like a person has died, but then it only is a building, housing no one at the time of fire, costing no lives. As an architect I am certain that it can be rebuilt, even incorporating what the older one missed, read recent amenities. I always wondered how the club has a petrol station and no elevator, seems wondrous isn’t it. It comes at a cost though, I am told the damages to the club are worth over thirty-crores, but when we are looking into the future there is really no time to lament the past.
And this I say with utter confidence as while interning in 2008, I had the chance to work on a part of the building, thankfully untouched by the fire last night, under the able guidance of architect Yeshwant Ramamurthy of Studio One, approved by the then Works Committee Chairman of the club Mr Vijay Sree Ram, where we worked on the design of the Dining Hall and restored the facade of the dining room, stone block by stock block, and with that experience of restoration I am glad with the certainty that this is an accident that can be set right. Helmed by a very proficient President and a suitable committee, there really is no member who has not got a vested interest in the Club. Like a doting child, every member means well, and every brick in the wall says the same thing, a story of Agathism, it will all turn out well in the end. A short-circuit is what set the building abuzz, bit by bit, but eventually decimating every part of the superstructure, it is a very unfortunate event, an accident that would better off be not, but it is and whether we build it up exactly as it was or something different, build it we will. And that is the spirit of the Secunderabad Club, or call it by any another name, with all the name changes of the past, it doesn’t matter what we call it, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, those who have witnessed this piece of history will remember it fondly for eons to come, the next generation will see glimpses of it in the sketches that notable artists have made in the past, but the building itself? Well, like a Phoenix it shall rise, from the ashes, in that I implicitly trust.
And it burns on in our hearts, making us forever grateful for the memories. After all for all that we cannot see, we can feel.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of putting my hands and mind to a new style of acrylic art, minus the paint brushes and with an addition of a pouring medium. Fluid art has caught on a new flight along with alcohol ink art and resin art, all these three forms of art do away with the traditional notions of fine art that has always employed the use of a paint brush and been made on the premise of a pre-conceived solid idea of what should be finally accrued, challenging the traditional notions, these forms of fine art insist on the artist having a certain sense of detachment. It is but for all a necessity, for a fluid art artist. Of course there is a choice in terms of colour, the scale but the final art is allowed to emerge from the canvas as such.
The freedom from the paintbrush makes this form of art accessible to a greater populace, but that trend would certainly be reversed as some people are perfectionists and hence prefer a greater control over their art work. This art is the epitome of letting go, but yes, letting go soon, for the acrylic and the pouring medium will definitely dry up all too soon. That’s one oil painting that makes Oils all too superior. There is always that element of change possible over a stipulated time with oil paints, with acrylic change was never perfectly possible, but the pouring medium gives oscillation a chance for a very short duration. The act to going with the flow is essentially a great life skill to have and fluid act may we’ll help one practice that. On a more philosophical note, non-action with this medium produces an equally splendid/beautiful result as could an extremely deliberated final product. There is power, insight and strength in non-action (as opposed to inaction), going with the flow, a sense of detachment and acceptance. It is wonderful to know that whatever will be will be and it will be okay, just like whatever is is. Now that’s a bit too philosophical but in these times these are life lessons and fluid is then the new solid.
P.s. getting the paint off your fingers may well be an art form in itself!
I have for the longest time in my life been against alcohol anything, well until COVID came along and then had me all-embracing the humble iso-propyl alcohol. In high school chemistry I particularly aced organic chemistry and should have found my inkling then, but two decades later I have isopropyl alcohol on my desk again. This time not on the pages of my text book but on the pages called ‘yupo paper’ and it is setting my imagination on fire. The flow is uncontrollable it is largely subtly guided over a little directed air. While alcohol ink art is largely arbitrary and abstract there are ways to again guide the ink into a coherent picture. A landscape or a portrait perhaps, sometimes just a pretty flower all zoomed in. The layers provided by the transparent-ish paint with ample dabs of isopropyl alcohol give rise to a visual splendour. It is indeed a wonderful medium to work on elevations of buildings or particularly walls in interior spaces. Putting colours together is the first and the most important step in the whole process, and then the intelligent application of quantity versus everything else. While purple and pink are a great combination with a dash of gold, other wondrous colours combined to perfection include sunset orange, black and crimson red, an earthy brown with effluent turquoise tinged with an ochre yellow can remind one of an oasis in the desert, lovely marigold yellow teamed with zesty scarlet and speckled copper reminds one of celebrations galore.
As a more suggestive art, it hinges its tidings on impressionist art with a whole lot of surrealism imbibed in it. Beguiling and thrilling.
I am an architect, a building enthusiast, a connoisseur of fine spaces and at times fine books, and with this I have certainly struck gold by all accounts. Dan Cruickshank is a British Journalist and much like me an architectural aficionado, but with this particularly incredibly researched book he strikes a chord on many accounts. Even after finishing a five year degree in architecture and topping it with another year of Masters in the subject I had a lot to learn while reading this book, and the learning here as always was as organic as ever. The hundred buildings that Cruickshank chooses to document are extremely relevant, the descriptions of par excellence and the book had me look up many of the buildings for a lack of pictures. The few pictures that are included give a brief idea of what is being said, for the pictures in architecture make up about a million words.
Now apart from the very well known architecture in the world, there are the lesser known ones and even with the well-known architectural wonders there are facts that we don’t know about all of them. A few buildings that were documented and impressed upon me their brilliance are the Thorvaldsen Museum, it’s colours of the Mediterranean, look so splendid and much like the Dulwich Picture Gallery say volumes about the utilisation of colour, that too colour of character on the walls, with white or off-white on the ceiling, that adds so much depth and beauty to a space. The piece on The Fallingwater building in the United States is almost an ode to its most impulsive and brazen architect, who’s fame hung on the rocks just as precariously as this famous building. Frank Lloyd Wright’s arrogance and pride may just have served him very well architecturally as it did to cope with his unique set of situations in life. However brazen and bold, the Fallingwater and Wright have become icons of adoration. With The Hanging Temple in China Cruickshank gives an insight into a very different kind of religion, Taoism, one that does have slight inclinations towards the greater abstract philosophy of Hinduism and its patriot Buddhism with a tad bit of non-doing and simply being added to the mix of an ideology based on Simplicity, honesty and compassion, just like the Hanging temple that is rooted in the mountain base. The Taj Mahal in India, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is a visual treat but lesser known facts about it are the sounds that it’s architecture generates making use of the wind by letting the wind in through its many jaalis and swirling it into its onion-shaped dome, swirling and sobbing as the day goes, eternally epitomising Shah Jahan’s grief.
And then there is the Sagrafa Famila, one that unsettled me immensely from the outside but provided to me a warm embrace in the sun-kissed and sun-lit interiors. Inside I felt like I was in heaven and the murals on the facade? Well those were clearly hell, I couldn’t make sense of it, finding so much more peace in Park Guell, but when Cruickshank writes about this wondrous structure by Gaudi, he analyses it for me and that analysis finally provided me some peace. The spontaneous, unplanned and irrational aspect of Sagrada Familia though is perfectly laudable. He also says that this ode to God and place of worship celebrates architecture as an organic art and buildings as children of the imagination. Conceived to be a place of atonement and spiritual healing, it has turned out to be an act of penitence. Of the Sydney Opera House he writes that the building in a sense reinvents Modernism, evolving it from a box-like primary functionalism to something more humane, emotive, sinuous and artistically rich, it is no doubt a great symbol of beauty and a compelling symbol for not only a city but a whole country and continent.
And then there is information that one would not have known even visiting these marvellous pieces of architecture. For example, of the Great Wall of China, it took 10 years and 30000 men to build this wall, that has the bodies of thousands – dead of exhaustion, or sacrifices – mixed into the brick clay and mortar. As much as mortified I am by this information, the arguably longest graveyard in the world is still known by many Chinese people as the ‘Wall of Tears’. But it’s power is undeniable, following ridges, climbing and tumbling, it snakes through the landscape like a great work of nature rather than of man. The miraculous Forbidden City he writes, maintains and retains its tranquility, poise and harmony as if it really were a little piece of heaven on earth. The Church of Transfiguration in Kizhi, Russia is particularly spell-binding as is the Catherine Palace. Russia is an enigma, certainly the home to the most beautiful city in the world, St Petersburg, but it also is home to architecture that is excessively unique. If architecture is a mark of civilisation, then the Russian civilisation is exquisite. Colour is often employed as a crucial means to bring a sense of Mediterranean exuberance and gaiety to a place or space.
A wonderful read for the knowledgeable, and the architects of course! And a mini-trip around the world, from the confines of one’s home in a quarantined world.
The 17th Venice Biennale’s Architectural division asks that very question and countries across the globe with a pavilion playing ode to each of their countries tries to answer that very question within the climes of architecture. The question remains a pertinent one considering the pandemic situation across the globe and every country tries to answer that very question very appropriately. The German pavilion for one has no material except for QR scan codes pasted on the walls making the point of digitation and physical absence abundantly clear. There is nothing that leaves the indelible mark of the pandemic absent from out lives and from the biennale. As we spend more time locked down in our homes, architecture has emerged an important aspect, a key discipline in the global corona virus response.
The curator perhaps meant how will we like together, with each other, in such close proximity, within the confines of our humble homes, that have doubled up, lets say more rightly tripled and also quadrupled up into work places, entertainment spaces, leisure spaces and fitness spaces, serving multiple roles, living through minus the public space, the breathing spaces in the cities, within close quarters at times quarantined. To me the question sounds more like how will we live together with the virus? Just like we live through umpteen viruses that we are accustomed to or even immune to? Vaccination is the answer, for sure, a shot of immunity, that will keep us away from the clutches of mortality or through the domains of architecture do we like all the past civilisations aim for immortality through architecture, through our environs, more specifically our built environs.
As homes begin to be remodelled will it suffice to say that it certainly is time for workspaces to be remodelled as well to allow for living with the virus, without causing us harm. There is more to understand of COVID-19 as the world continues to battle wave after wave. All the vaccinations developed in the world are disease-modifying and serve no purpose in disease-breaking or battling nature, something that provides more cues than ever of the fact that we will have to live with this, together and beat it in a very different way. Even when the government asks us to be masked within the confines of our homes, we are positioned to be aware of the nature of the virus where we are all by ourselves, and have to be self-sufficient just like our homes or workplaces. If its in the air, then well, filters are the need of the hour, if its in the water then again filters are the need of the hour, but even with filtering in the world that we perceive, the inner environment needs to certainly be ready to win over the virus without battling with it.
Then what would make sense? Living in pods aka the astronaut costumes that are donned in space? Or in one acre homes like what Jane Jacobs advocated at one point of time, where we grow our own vegetables and live totally oblivious to our surroundings? Or do we work on our immune systems to disengage the virus should it attend to us? Like the yogis disappear into the mountains away from the humdrum of daily lives? Build our world within worlds and as we distance ourselves from each other physically, get closer than ever in the confines of our digital spaces? And in these digital times, vacation meaning getting off social media for a while, that could probably be the only vacation we take during these times! Living together, takes on whole new meanings, living together could also mean fusing back into a community if we have been on our own depending on the nature of need, of our loved ones, of our requirements and everything else.
However we may choose to live together, it has to be with a degree of tolerance, more than any other tolerance, with immune tolerance to the virus. Till then, we need to maintain what every healthcare personal advices us to. My favorites from the pavilions this year were the Japanese pavilion, paying heed to materiality in construction, building with materials that are nimble, quick-footed and light, easily changeable, making it abundantly clear that when the time strikes living together may mean change, the German pavilion that starkly pays heed to the growing digital importance in the world where physical closeness is shunned and the British pavilion with fine metal work in gorgeous colors and fine craftsmanship put together in arty shapes and modules than gives an insight into how solitude in nature is not loneliness for nature is a great company and a pretty thing too!
P.s. For more information on the Venice Biennale that runs all the way till November this year check out the following link.
Now, here comes an Oscar-nominated and winning in one category, that of the best supporting actress, which deserves a watch for sure.
Minari is so sweet, so subtle and so quaint. The Koreans have taken the digital world by storm and in effect the world at large, but this movie that highlights the ties of life, the need for ambition, for hard work and for insight so clearly touches upon so many aspects of life. The relationship between the grandmother and the grandson is touching to watch while the house is so frail looking yet stronger as much as needed, the father and his belief in having a better life is heart-wrenching as much as the fire that proverbially destroys it all. But fluttering in the wind, an embodiment of change, twinkling amongst the sunlight, the Minari comes like a ray of hope. Recently I’ve been reading about the concept of Wu Wei, or that of effortless action, a little more lengthily explained, the nature of setting life’s sails to the winds of chi, working with life to get on, get by, to look for what works and aligning oneself to it. That’s exactly what the Grandma does, planting Minari seeds in an apt location such that it needs no manual or in other words forced tending to, no irrigation, no supervision but gently is tended to by nature. By finding a suitable location for dispersing the seeds, Grandma manages to save the say with her action of non-doing. While of course the ideal remains to use chi to the best of one’s ability and for all things, even a brush of using chi or life’s energy to one’s advantage may we’ll be enough.
The visuals of the movie as extremely delightful, the acting great, but the little boy steals the day with his boyish charms and quick-wit. While judging the Grandma for not knowing how to cook or bake cookies and teaching the kids what seems to be Mah-jong, the boy makes his own rapport with the free-spirited woman. She won the Oscar for her acting which I must say was very well deserved. When she bows down to the Minari, returning the gesture that she says the Minari are doing, she makes you smile at her utter alignment with the winds of life. Brushing aside all criticism from the children she even dismisses and smiles when the boy displays his wit when being punished. Far away from her native land, her mannerisms highlight the differences in culture and in being, but gently show us how connected life really is. The Minari leaf known and grown in Korean culture can actually be grown anywhere with similar climatic conditions of course. The fire makes one ache for the family but when life triumphs one truly realises that making much ado about nothing is not a great thing. A lesson in non-doing, a lesson in Wu Wei, a lesson in slow-living, a lesson in not giving up, Minari has a dozen or so tales to tell, if only one is listening.
In fashion there are fads, in architecture there are trends, in life there is both, fashion and architecture and ofcourse fads and trends. While one cannot really pay much attention to fads or trends, one cannot ignore fashion or architecture. It’s been a while since Van de Rohe proclaimed that, “Less is More”, an adage that has found it’s application in a bunch of things across the world, in unlikely disciplines, say literature or waste management, meditation or even in conversations, for the wise often said, “least said, soonest mended”. Now thats a one for the road or even another post. But this is the age for Minimalism, not Brutal Minimalism lest we are mentally afflicted with the cause of nothingness, but instead Clinical Minimalism. In an age of COVID, lesser surfaces means lesser space for the virus to land on and lesser chances for it to thrive. But minimalism has got to be kept clinical, and my clinical I mean that we are all patients, prospective or retrospective, and all attention needs to be made to make sure we are well observed very efficient and very detached, being all at once practical and clear. And clinical also in the sense of being with a scientific bent of mind. There is little that we can do, and that little has to be done with clinical precision. As I tuck away unnecessary material possessions, a friend chopped of her hair, for the ease of maintenance during these times, am reducing the number of surfaces thereby clutter and embracing this age of clinical minimalism.
There is little that we humans need to live, oxygen being the number one on the list, but of course there are others, to maintain our sanity and to keep ourselves predominantly human. In our quest to be safe and stay protected may we not lose the one thing that makes us human, our empathy for fellow human beings. It is a pity when one exhibits such clinical precision in cutting one off, sets up boundaries, only to keep oneself safe, demonstrating no sense of humanity, or even a sense of empathy for fellow human beings. Pristine castles are built with absolutely no warmth and are perfectly cold and detached havens for such beings, who perhaps will not be affected by COVID, let alone any other virus, but such people then are building castles devoid of warmth, devoid of any feelings. They are the clinical materialists, the opportunists who manage to live, and be largely unaffected by the lives of the others. Let us then clinically purge such people, embracing minimalism in the truest sense of the word. In a fear of turning Positive, may we not forget how to indeed be positive, optimistic rather than opportunists.
There are homes, that are losing members, cities that are losing citizens and countries that are losing people. As architecture, stands tall, it can shelter us from the elements and perhaps from the virus, if only we let in ample ventilation and make use of cleaning products to wipe out this vicious virus. It may just have shown us the viciousness that thrives in the world, but then we have our forts, built on land to tide us through this storm that has come unannounced. Our homes, are our havens. They have always been, but even more now. And in these homes its time we embrace a clinical attitude to minimalism, and as we take away things that we deem inessential, may we not purge human values, that make us human. Caring for the world at large but caring for those who we can protect by the resources that we have. For what use is material possessions that are in place instead of a beating heart, and when COVID is gone, may it show us how to thrive in spite of all odds, showing us how fruit full less can really be, especially when it is coupled with science and make with deliberate observations. As the construction industry grinds to a halt, let our imagination still soar, dream and manifest a life that thrives beyond all odds.
Vedasri Siddamsetty 