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.
For the average 90s kid, Kashmir, meant unrest, a slew of news revolving around the militants and the military, peppered by geography lessons of the Himalayas, the Pir Panjal range, the cultural aspects of the beautiful people, succulent apple orchards, salubrious summers, picturesque winters comprising of pherans and kangdis, political unrest followed by a hard-won Kargil war at the end of the decade. And I happen to be one of those average 90’s kid, growing up far away from Kashmir, who’s tales came to be either from school text books or newspaper headlines in the 90s. Kashmir – Paradise on Earth seemed to me to be simply a tourist jargon cause nothing that was told to be or shown to me about this Indian erstwhile Princely state seemed paradise-ish to me. The only connection that stood out to me, was it’s similarity with the erstwhile Princely state of Hyderabad that I was born in’s reluctance to be a part of the Indian Republic. The special status that was awarded to Jammu and Kashmir state was not awarded to Hyderabad, the Nizam crumbled under the invasion led by Sardar Patel while Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja of the Kashmir state signed a treaty. A treaty which gave the state special status right upto 2019, which then changed it’s status to a Union Territory of this Country. What also changed from my learning days at school to the time that I actually set foot in the erstwhile special state is the mark of it’s territory. The head of India which I would draw proudly in my Geography test maps is now severely cut off, with a third of it called Gilgit Baluchistan, and another hurtfully titled parcel of China-occupied-Kashmir. Completely lost in the tidings of my own life, some historical tidings went amiss from my radar, and catching it while my plane began taxiing on the runway ready for take-off left me on a 2 hour flight to Delhi with an avalanche of questions on my head.
After my transit, again in the hands of Wikipedia, I was aghast at everything that has happened throughout history specifically things that pertain to the Kashmir valley and India’s northern borders. Not only was I shocked that my five years of architecture study in Delhi did not take me to Kashmir, I was surprised how the most beautiful city, aptly titled, Srinagar, was just over an hour’s flight away from Delhi. The snow-covered views of the Pir Panjal first come into view as the plane begins to enter into the Kashmir valley and in winter, during the Chillai Kalan period it is a wondrous sight to behold. Just like landing in Leh over the Zanskar Range, this view of the Pir Panjal is spell-binding. As we landed on a trusted Indigo aircraft into the defence airport of Srinagar, one cant help but feel a flutter in the heart, the snow is spectacular, covering fields, pine trees, slanted rooftops of houses, stationary cars, roads, even garbage dumps and all earth alike, leaving no discrimination in sight! The COVID test to be taken upon landing too, well traveling in 2021 has some cons, cons that will upset the nasal passage and cause a sneeze or two, does not discriminate and once all set only can one set foot in this state. As a flurry of taxi-drivers begin haggling we found our trusted hotel driver and happily checked into our hotel set on a hill in the middle of the city. The best views awaited us and it was extremely wonderful to be in this magical city that has more army that residents, residents who look as peaceful and seem as friendly as ever. After getting over the sheer sights on the everyday including a quaint wooden bridge called the Zero Point bridge and a meal at the House of Habibi, the young-blooded people all over the world are not very different I surmised(!), we embarked upon our first touristy appointment in the city to the very popular and synonymous to the city, the Dal Lake. This expansive lake, host to many Bollywood songs and stories is incredible with houseboats and a frozen upper layer. The season one visits the Kashmir Valley is crucial as the colors of the season could be vividly different, our Gondola rower, told us a hindi catchphrase, “Mumbai ka fashion aur Kashmir ka Mausam, badalte rehta hain”, at the risk of losing its gist in translation, here goes, “The fashion of Mumbai and the weather of Kashmir can never be trusted as they keep changing!”. Visiting in the 40-day period of Chillai Kalan, we were in for a white winter-wonderland, a totally white Kashmir and it seemed very chilling, but very beautiful. Holding on to the Kangdi we sat in the gondola, pestered heavily by hawkers rowing next to us in their own boats and asking us buy their wares, that ranged from woodwork, to kahwa, to walnut cookies, to pherans and more. We did indulge them, taking the very popular pictures wearing the pheran and happily posing with the Kashmiri jewelry, flowers, lapping up warm Kahmiri Kahwa, and buying out a pheran. It felt like we were boosting the tourism economy of the country. So much so when the grumpy husband was asked what he wanted by the hawkers, he replied, “Shanti chahiye”, meaning peace! But then when they stopped bothering us to buy, we actually enjoyed the sounds of the lake, the breaking of the five centimetre frozen top, the sounds of water falling onto the lake and all the beauty that it entails. Though the lake is fraught by extensively commercials, the surrounds of the Himalayas, the quietness of the lake, the mirror that it is of the city that it is a part of is amazing. An experience of a lifetime, is a boat-ride in the Dal lake in Srinagar, its so surreal that nothing else compares, or so I thought till we went to our next destination, the Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar. The ride up to the temple itself was a prelude of what lay ahead, by more stellar than ever is the view from the top, from the main sanctum of the temple. The view exceeds all expectations, it is so breathtakingly beautiful that after my darshan when I stepped out I was taken aback and sucked in my breath cause the view literally took away my breath, the mighty Jhelum, the snow-capped mountains and the snow-capped buildings set about a visual orchestra that is very stunning to say the least. A pity, for that moment could only be captured in the canvas of our memories, as cameras or phones are not allowed in the temple precincts, but it is true when someone once told me that the best memories can never be captured in a photo, most often while we are living the best moments, it never occurs to us to document them! But then, that view is remarkable and one that will be cherished as one of the moments of my life, that took my breath away, in this month, on that day, with that weather, it could not have been more magical or mystical at all. For after that tryst with a divine location on this planet, I was so touched by the beauty of creation, that I had to spend several moments in introspection. Our next stop in Srinagar was the Chashma Shahi garden, a Mughal garden, that boasts of beautiful gardens inundated by ingenious water channels. With the flowers absent, we were treated instead to warm water in the middle of winter hosted by the warmth of the earth. From Chashma Shahi we headed to the Taj Vivanta for its warm hospitality and it’s spectacular views, joined by our new Kashmiri friend, the views were indeed brilliant but not a patch on what we saw atop the Shankaracharya hill, but beautiful enough to magnanimously allow for the carrying of a camera and a deluge of pictures. Again stopping by at a wannabe New Yorker cafe, 14th Avenue, we buried our day in desserts ranging from Oreo Cheesecake to Chocolate Eclair and a Walnut pie, globalisation is literally flattening the earth, culture of the new youngsters including us, is limited to what we like best, in that cafe, we could have been in any city in the world, Paris, New York or London even. And every single person there was upset with the lack of 4G services in the valley but were more than happy to latch on to the free WiFi. A stark contrast we felt when we then later headed to the local market of Laal Chowk in the city. The architectural fabric of Laal Chowk though made in wood strongly resembled the alleys of Jaisalmer, Purani Delhi or even the old city of Hyderabad, with shops on the ground floor and upper floors used for residential purposes. Perhaps though we extol the differences in culture across the world, the essence was always daintily similar.
Not in continum, but in Srinagar we also went to the Hazratbal shrine, the Jama Masjid, the Laal Chowk again for Ahdoos and the Gulshan Book stores, saw a traditional Kashmiri house and walked across half the city, or perhaps a fraction cause Srinagar against our old belief in actual is a rather large city, spanning about 300 square kilometres and homing a population of about 1 million people. The metropolitan area of Srinagar spans an area of about 800 square kilometres. The Hazratbal Shrine, offered no entry to the main quarters for women, so while I walked around enjoying views but not the cold, on the shore of the Dal Lake, the temperature in the locales of the Hazratbal shrine was rather extremely frigid and for the only time on the whole trip I was close to tears because of the cold. The Husband however was given a tour of the shrine and the mortal remains of the Prophet in terms of a strand of hair. Sufficiently warm and impressed by the shrine, he had the energy to take beautiful pictures, while I just wanted out, I mean in to a warm location where the cold could be firmly escaped! The story of the Hazratbal shrine entwines the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, a Kashmiri Businessman and a noble man from Hyderabad. The shrine however is very grand and beautiful with the white stone dome rising over the shore of the pristine lake. The beauty is real and I witnessed fervent devotees praying to their Lord with extremely happy and devoted faces. Prayers seem to be closely answered in this particular shrine! Our next stop Jamia Masjid was no less delightful, not exactly following the Islamic architectural styles, this Masjid is built with the Kashmiri style of architecture that comprises of steeper trusses and a sloped roof rather than the circular domes. The square layout of the mosque, with alleyways for prayer is full of sharp corners and exquisite wood work that offers a prayer space for about 33,333 people. Incidentally this is the first mosque that I had ever entered in real time, having watched the architecture of the Jama Masjid in New Delhi virtually. The mosque is fringed by shops on all its four sides, that sell daily household items, clothes, sweaters, the community feel during daily or weekly prayers offer social interactions and may well be the fabric of the community. After imbibing the cultural aspects of Srinagar, we moved on to immerse ourselves in more intellectual pursuits as we stopped by Gulshan Bookstores, a very old and respected book store in the country, who twin with stores like Bahri & Sons in Delhi, Blossoms in Bangalore or Higginbothams in Chennai, the only other feather in the cap of the Gulshan bookstores is their entrepreneurial visions in publishing. When I stepped in to look for some Kashmir-based reads, the store had a gallon or so of books in choice. Unable to choose, we spent over two hours reading parts of books, and finally choosing one for the road, the rest had to be on the Kindle, such is the power of lightness! More about the book recommendations in my following posts, for now the incredible variety at Gulshan bookstores was amazing. The owner of the bookstore asked if his store should be shared on my Instagram page and then I began to only understand the powerful influence of social media, it is very powerful, and can mean a lot to everyone in the world, when used rightly. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then well, Instagram has quite nailed it. It is certainly making less readers out of us, but is keeping us forever glued to the screen and filling our heads with all that we ought to or not ought to know. I picked the Saga of Sativar to read, a book written by Chandrakant and translated from Hindi. Mostly I chose that to understand how Srinagar once functioned, extremely secularly and how the paths of the Hindus, the muslims and all other communities enmeshed with each other, becoming incongruous as ever. The other books I have gotten on the Kindle include a racy read called Kashmir-nama, Return to Jammu, Paradise at War and The Tree with a Thousand Apples. More on them, in a bit! Hungry with all that mental stimulation we strode across the road to the best place for Wazwan food, Ahdoos, much like Hyderabad’s very own Paradise, on the ground floor of the family-owned, award-winning, old restaurant is the Ahdoos Patiserrie, who’s walnut cake was to die for, walnuts are a staple in Kashmir like all the other dry-fruits and for the first-time ever it took away the prima-donna space that chocolate had in our lives, just as the Kashmiri Kahwa dethroned hot-chocolate in our heads. The meal at Ahdoos was very satisfying, and for a vegetarian in Kashmir, wanting to live on Wazwan food, one would have to live on Kashmiri Pulau fraught with raisins, paneer in a tomato gravy, Butt haqq made of collard greens cooked with a hint of garlic and Nadru Yakhni, a lotus stem gravy cooked to perfection, apart from the breads of Girda and the like. Needless to say though we were spoilt for choice with Vaisho-dhabas, serving excellent north indian food, I tended to gravitate to the Wazwan cuisine and ate all the paneer that I must have eaten in my life so far in just one week of being in Kashmir! Srinagar also shows us the real numbers in our Indian army, though Cantonment was a neighbour for me all my life, in Kashmir, the army is everywhere, and thankfully so, for if they weren’t we may have needed passports to go to Kashmir! While walking about the market place of laal Chowk we saw several graffitti markers that said loudly and clearly, “India go back”! The people of Kashmir still seem to be divided upon the political situation in the state. The Badami Bagh cantonment that we tried to pass seemed never ending, while the army headquarters on a hill, whose name I could not learn, served as the north pole star ever where we went in Srinagar, the hill with its line of lights guided us back to our hotel that stood on a slightly smaller hill opposite the United Nations headquarters. All the building in the UN with their sloped roofs were marked to establish their identity, perhaps during an air-raid to warn of their neutrality. That felt scary, for sure. As did the multitude of army men with their guns parading the streets or setting up points at every junction. The locals though seemed unfazed as they went about their business, merrily and happily.
Our next destinations were out of the city and need I mention out of the world!
Our journey to Pahalgam was as beautiful as the destination as we covered fields of snow and snow-sprinkled chinar trees but mostly we stopped on the highway to let a large number of army trucks pass, a trend we later observed in Gulmarg too. Army-watchdogs checked the area before the contingent passed but army soldiers religiously manned the highway continuously. Pahalgam, usually referred to as the ‘Valley of Shepherds’ offers sceneries that are stunning and out of the world. And to see this scenery in winter is a lot of hard work, possible only accessed by horseback. While there are many spots that one can see, the whole ride comprising of about seven scenic spots include the Damo valley, the Kashmir valley, the Lidder River, Baisaran or mini Switzerland, the Pahalgam Valley, the Shepherd’s village, stopping by for the warm Kahwa or the even warmer maggi noodles, a very popular food that is melting all cultural norms and uniting the various ranges of the Himalayas or very much the entire country! The over four-hour horse ride, is strenuous but the views are so captivating that the minutes morph into one another and one completely loses track of time. In Kashmir, in these remote valleys, we stopped by to eat and drink the said Kahwa and Maggi, while the locals helped us take fabulous pictures, they all seemed to know the right angles and the right lighting, and mistook me for being a German or an Italian, while I felt flattered, I was amazed at their geographical and cultural knowledge, courtesy the tourists who come to visit them over time. Witnessing so much plush white snow my heart set aflutter, singing happy melodious tunes while all the cares and worries of the world sublimed into non-existence. The cold air forces one to breathe slowly and that itself is a great relaxant, relaxing is the best condition to live one’s life in, nothing much may be accomplished but then what if it all aint. Seeing so much white snow, feels indelibly peaceful and while being at peace one is definitely happy, the snow accomplishes much in that sense bestowing happiness aplenty. Our horses, Raja and Sheru, trudged on the precarious path, slipping, falling with us on them at times but they never did disappoint and we were not hurt. My Grandfather who had gone to Kashmir about 50 years ago, reminiscenced with me all the paths he took then and nothing seemed to have changed in the last 50 years! Pahalgam is also the starting point of the Amarnath yatra, so the whole town serves as the starting point for the yatris with accommodation and paths marked clearly as to where the yatris can set up base before embarking on the Amarnath Yatra. The Heevan retreat hotel on the bank of the Lidder though is certainly the highlight of the town, the flowing water frozen on the sides, provides a stunning view, while the sounds of water provides a symphony of alacrity. The hotel itself is old, charismatic, made of wood with heating and kahwa, a sure comfort for sore limbs and reddened faces! On popular recommendations though we stopped for lunch at Dana Paani, having waited for a cool forty-five minutes outside, to get a table, this Dhaba, again a Vaishno Dhaba, served us fantastic food that was piping hot and desirously fresh making the day at the wait totally worth it. The day out in Pahalgam left us yearning for more and though we had planned only a day trip we could have done better to stay over in this beautiful hill-town, seeing both sunrise and sunset. The drive back to Srinagar, again picturesque is home to several walnut farms and the farms we did visit. Dry-fruits, a pride of Kashmir are found a plenty and stopping by at Noor Mohammad’s dry fruits one can pick the choicest walnuts, mamra almonds, cranberries, blueberries, figs, dried apples and a host of other palatable dry fruits. Saffron, of course, is the highlight in these shops and are sold, fresh and pure with no adulteration. With the oncoming of commercial viability, people often sell their wares across the country, delivered by the umpteen delivery platforms that have only gained in strength over lockdowns and other factors of convenience. The trip to Pahalgam in the middle of winter offered an opportunity to witness the Himalayas covered in snow and a vista of white that is inspiring and salubrious. As the sun burnt our noses and turned them black we were enthralled with the beauty of the drive.
Gulmarg, on the other hand and on the other side directionally from Srinagar, is quite different from Pahalgam due to its geographical location. The valley of flowers, that it’s name literally translates to is not so much pastoral like the latter, but is bountiful in its produce of flowers and fruits. Tulips that are grown aplenty by the state horticultural department dot the city of Srinagar, but in Gulmarg the flowers are in full bloom in spring and summer. In winter though Gulmarg is extremely popular for the array of winter sports, in being the skiing capital of the country, Gulmarg offers splendid slopes across different ranges of the Pir Panjal mountain. The baby slopes, the intermediate slopes are ideal for learning how to ski. The baby slopes and intermediate slopes are in the summer a part of Gulmarg’s extensive golf course. There is nothing in the world like Gulmarg, expecially in winter, while we were welcomed by the sun on Day 1, Day 2 and 3 were magical with snow falling lightly and magically over two days of our stay there. Gulmarg has brilliant properties, the Khyber being the most popular and large, with a spa by L’Occitainne, a heated swimming pool and surrounded by pine trees all around its precincts, the Highlands Hotel right next to the intermediate slopes though is beautiful in it’s old-world charm, is quite scattered in its form across the slope, the Needos Hotel located a little far away is extremely quaint and to reach the doors of this hotel we had to literally wade through about six feet of snow. The Shaw Inn though a perfect ski-lodge is boutique with excellent food and even more courteous footmen manning the estate. A town primarily for tourists, Gulmarg offers a plethora of options for the adventurous spirited. With warm conversations and infections ski-suggestions by our fellow tourists we were inspired to make acquaintance with a fellow freelancing architect who has been in the industry for about twenty odd years, freelancing across continents and steering clear of any desk chained job. Having finished a house in Udaipur he headed to Gulmarg to cool off his heels with some time on the mountain. There is I gathered so much science to ski-ing, there is firstly the weather, then there are the anthropometric projections, then the fitness aspect and finally a mix of bravery before being allowed to harness the power of gravity required to sped down the slope. Food like ammunition comes in the form of omlettes with one’s choice of maida poison – bread or maggi and Kahwa in water or in milk. The country needless to say guzzles on maggi in the snowy environs, but chocolate too is not far behind. This is the humble lunch that is offered in the middle of the learners ski slopes. But with an agenda on learning to ski, food is the last thing on our minds. Several ski schools are also around to teach people how to ski and one can spend two, three or four weeks learning this brilliant sport, which I cannot believe I have never had the chance to learn. Is it like skating? Is it like swimming I am often asked about skiiing, it is like both of them but a lot more thrilling I say, cause then one adds gravity to the mix and then it becomes a very adrenalin-boosting exercise. While having been terrifically inclined to learn the act of ski-ing I did bide my time and waited for an opportunity for over ten years of my life, ten years since I first saw skiers skiing down the slopes of the Alps in 2011. During that vacation, I did partake in many other snow sports including snow-boarding and tubing, ski-ing happened to me ten years later in 2011 and am sure glad that it did. Spending the first day on the baby slope, the second on the intermediate slopes and the third on the Phase 1 mountain of Gulmarg, I for one felt extremely accomplished by the end of the mountain in Gulmarg, but encountered a knee strain as I skid, oops ski-ed down the Phase 1 slope on Day 3. The day began with a ride up the gondola where the morning was very cold and foggy and we could hardly see to a distance of eleven metres from the top of Phase 1. As the day progressed the sun moved out of the clouds and by the time I commenced my descent down the ski slope a lot was visible in the distance. Ski-ing down the ski slope was the best feeling ever and as I did my turns masterfully, I did have a couple of falls, but nothing that was too painful. Upon reaching the end of the phase 1 slope, and literally doing a little victory dance in my head, I managed to somehow slip on a more flat section of the hill and in a twist of fate or of luck, managed to hurtfully strain my knee. The sharp pain lasted for about a few minutes, but then the hesitation crept up and after my knee buckled a time I had to bid adieu to Phase 1 for a bit. Completing a few other momentous ski-time in the flatter ski-section it was time to say good-bye to Gulmarg after an extravagant Wazwan lunch at Needous. Now exactly two weeks since the day of my fall in Gulmarg, I feel completely recovered from the knee strain, in between also straining my back lifting my three year old son, will I do all of it again? And my head answers with a resounding yes!!! Just like the scuba-diving accident in Maldives, this ski-accident was also completely unnecessary. I would attribute it to a bad case of buri nazar, or the evil eye, and am convinced that for my next vacation and probably for life, I’d like to get into what they call the ski-shape. My mother-in-law said its not about being thin, its about being agile, my grandfather said one muscle injured and all the others suffer, for while one rests the others feel the brunt of inactivity. To live life well, one must have an optimally healthy body, now that piece of wisdom comes from a very wise book that I have been reading over the last couple of weeks – the Autobiography of a Yogi. The importance of breath is extolled in this book as is the need for having a healthy body, mind and spirit in order to navigate the sometimes cool and the sometimes agitated waters of life. My fitness goals after this specific ski trip have begun to take form and the belief that everything broken can be fixed, will be fixed, its all a matter of time. This came to me from the mind of a Kashmiri local in Gulmarg, a amateurish-pro of the ski-ing slopes, who has seen a lot happen on these mountains. What you pay attention to in your life, grows, now that comes in the very first few lines of the current book I am reading called Dhando. While I go figure on what to do with my body, mind and spirit, life will always take a turn for me, one that lasted BK and now thats happening AK. You guessed it right, Before Kashmir and After Kashmir, and while I am certainly hesitant to share my travels on the interlude of social media, read Instagram, it was fun to share, but not a lot of good things happened out of it, and have been asked to stop tempting the effects of Buri Nazar, I can imagine my Husband rolling his eyes as I type this. But that apart, getting off social media, sugar and oily food is the next challenge, dodging the bullets of the evil eyes and possibly getting into ski-shape. As dry-fuits have begun trumping my love for chocolate and the kashmiri Kahwa has firmly dethroned hot chocolate, there is hope in this challenge. While superstitions are all as reliable as hay, it could not hurt to hope that with the removal of this nazar, worse things will not come to pass. Getting hurt, falling, picking oneself up and marching stridently ahead is well the best way to live, in life or on the ski slope. The wise man’s words ring in my ear, ‘kya nahi jud jata?’, “sab kuch jud jata hain”, he said. Eventually everything comes together. Perhaps that’s what the Gita says too!
Kangdi, Apples, exquisite Embroidery, Beautiful people, militancy, protests were what Kashmir meant to me. Militancy because well, I was a 90’s child when news ranged between military, militants and finally a well-won Kargil war. Today, Kashmir to me is a feeling of liberation, a feeling of novelty for when we try new things we are refreshed, its a feeling of learning what it is to live through all odds and to come out victorious, its a feeling of learning how to live with yourself, a feeling of how to live with others, to be tolerant of everything, its a feeling of peace-ing out, it is no wonder that white is the colour of peace, it feels very peaceful to see an expanse of white, its a feeling of being content when all at once of wanting more. Just like how scuba-diving is off my list, but after a mishap at the end of the dive, it left me wanting for more and not being convinced on crossing it off my list just yet, being on Phase 1 made me think that ski-ing would be off my bucket list, but with a knee strain just after my first exploit of Phase 1 leaving take two and take three undone, my heart (and spirit) do not allow me to cross off ski-ing from my bucket-list just yet, the mishaps do have their way of making one feel more determined to scale that mountain and to dive into that deep blue sea, until the heart feels like it has conquered it all. Now living in my AK life, the best seems like it’s yet to come.
“If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here!”, said Firdaus, and he could not have been more right. What can I say, “Bas Jannat Dekh Liya”, well I have seen heaven. The feels of the place could be felt extremely well on myself, the body glowed as the mind was filled with peace. Great skin, great hair and a fabulous fuselage, this location made a whole world of a difference to me. Beautiful places make us look and feel good, beautiful architecture too notwithstanding. Kashmir could well have been the most beautiful place I have witnessed, though I strongly suspect the huge blanket of snow had a lot to do with it, the blanket of snow covered up the innumerable plastic packets of ghutkas, maggi and all else that tourists love to consume in colder climes, those loves that leave behind the magical feels and introduces a garbage-ical sight that had long ago repelled my visual senses in Manali, the ban of plastic bags, and a long more social consciousness if not for the snow, makes Gulmarg, and in effect the Kashmir Valley, a mini-Switzerland, albeit the Rosti and the Chocolate though!
I would definitely put Kashmir, particularly Kashmir in winter a firm fitting on your bucket list. White Kashmir is not just a time or a place or a feeling, it is a phenomena.
P.S Do write in to me to hear more tales, or if you are planning a trip a complete high and low down on what it takes to take on Kashmir. Would be happy to help!
Listening to the masterclass by Matthew Walker on sleep I stumbled upon the whole idea of living as per one’s Biotime and the idea of the Chronotype. While I have always preferred to do certain activities at certain times, I could not have been more convinced by the biotime concept put forward by Micheal Breus. In his book, “The Power of When” Breus suggests that all the people in the world could be classified into 4 main types, the Lion, the Bear, the Dolphin and the Wolf. While the Lions are the early birds, the Bears the normal birds, the Wolves the late lateefs and the Dolphins are the devil may care type who prefer to do whatever, literally whenever. An easy way to know what you are Brazilian psychologists have curated the following quiz, on a scale of 1-5 rate how much energy you have when you wake up in the morning, now use the same scale to rate how much energy you have in the evening. When you subtract the evening’s score from the mornings score, the number will tell you what chronotype you could be falling under.
A number 4, 3 or 2 is indicative of a Lion, 1, 0, -1 is indicative of a Bear, -4, -3, -2 is indicative of a Wolf, a Dolphin is essentially one who has a case of insomnia and cannot exactly fall into a more sizeable sleep routine. Now if you’d like a more accurate test, I’d suggest you use the embedded link to find out for yourself.
Now once you are settled in on your chronotype, living in sync with your chronotype can have you reap rewards, the world does reward those who celebrate themselves, and it all begins with the acknowledgement of the fact that every person is unique with different skills and challenges. While every one would want to be the Lion, who incidentally have the highest life satisfaction, are extremely healthy and are go-getters or achievers, not everyone can factually be a Lion chronotype. There is much wisdom in accepting your own unique chronotype, tapping the healing power of the Circadian Rhythm and getting to work with your bio-rhythm, following your biotime to the T and hence making the best of your life. It turns out that the circadian rhythm also known as the biological clock affects every area of functioning in the body, controlling everything from the multiplication of cancer cells to the integrity of the immune system. Even the gut has a circadian pacemaker of its own, when not on the biological clock schedule, hormone disruption causes increased levels of inflammation, inefficient metabolism and even decreased effectiveness of many prescription therapies. Getting to know the best time to do many basic tasks is a wonderful way to set on the biotime. It turns out that there is in fact the perfect time to do everything.
The advent of electricity, transportation, computer technology and the 24/7 smartphone are all the big time disruptors of our body clocks. Just 125 years of industrialisation and development coolly undid about 50,000 years of perfect bio-timekeeping. Chrono-misalignment causes symptoms like insomnia and sleep deprivation that in turn leads mood disorders, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity, making one overwhelmed and exhausted in relationships, careers and health. Needless to say, unless one turns off every screen and light at 6 p.m., chrono-misalignment is certain to happen in one way or the other. Animals pay heed to their inner clocks, but we humans tend to wilfully ignore ours, cramming our circadian rhythms into social rhythms, that are often in direct opposition to what our bodies are supposed to be doing at that time. Good timing is so powerful that it can change anyone’s life. Living on Bio-time can make one happier.
It’s all almost genetic and cannot be altered as much as one wants it to. It all begins with the time one wakes up. Lions do well to wake up at about 5:30 AM, Bears and Wolves at 7:00 AM, Dolphins at 6:00 AM, once up, the time for each of these chronotypes to perform the best of certain activities, remains diverse. Just like the animals they are attributed to, the Lion chronotypes, wake up completely energised and work best in the morning hours before the sun is up, the Bear chronotypes on the other hand follow the solar cycle to the T becoming ready to work a couple of hours into the day, the Wolves work best after sunset, a trend associated with creativity (though any of the chronotypes can be equally creative if they do harness the best of their biotime) and the Dolphins manage to straddle well all through the day though being light sleepers they sleep uni-hemispherely. While a thorough reading of the book could offer one insights on the best way to structure one’s day, it is without a doubt, telling us that routines are important for any type of people.
Setting off any screens or light after 6 PM is not practical not possible for most of us, maybe just the Jews on Sabbath day, but for the rest of us, it is clearly not something that can be done just as easily as it sounds. But the closer we are to our own biorhythms, or the closer we are to doing what naturally comes to us, the better we can function as human beings. While Dr Breus asks all chronotypes to eat at the strike of noon, a trend that is largely championed by Ayurveda alike, and eating before sunset, another suggestion Ayurveda makes is also recommended in Dr Breus’s book. While 60 minutes of exercise every single day is a given, when you do this exercise can have great rewards for one’s body. Dr Breus, says that working out the first thing in the morning is bad for all chronotypes as our bodies are not yet warmed up enough and can face injuries much more easily, except for the Bear chronotype who he recommends should go for a run within half an hour of waking up. Go for a run at 7:30 AM he says, but do not exercise intensively, like strength-training or the like. In fact he asks all chronotypes to not even perform yoga in the mornings unless one is into advanced practise, for Bears do better to do yoga at 12 noon, and do intensive exercises or play a team sport at 6 PM in the evening. Lions are asked to play team sports at 4 PM, practise yoga at 5 PM and go for a run at 6 PM in the evening. Wolves in effect are asked to eat lunch at 1 PM, go for a run at 6 PM, play team sports or train for strength at 7 PM and practice yoga at 10 PM. Dolphins, are again asked to eat lunch at noon, to go running at 7 AM, play team sports at 6 PM and practise yoga at 10 PM.
The master clocks that synthesise all the information in the very end distilling it all to perfection, may be a perfect way to make sense of all the information and follow it to make of structuring one’s day for the best.
I am for one, open to further discussion on this post, so do comment or let me know what you think!
When I last attended the World Architecture Festival in 2013, in Singapore, I was particularly charmed by the work of a new crop of Vietnamese Architects. One firm who’s work caught my attention was Vo Trong Nghia architects who work closely with nature, all their buildings have one tenet and that is to include nature in any form. In a primary school the earth climbed up gradually up to the roof, while in another residence plants are welcomed on every floor, in yet another project, the architects made punctuations in the roof to make way for the branches. Readied for the world of architecture in Japan Vo Trong learnt in full to pay attention to details, much in the way every turn in a building is paid incessant attention in the country known for mega projects in scale and wonder. All of the firm’s projects pay a special ode to nature and make every effort to make the space liveable if not very special. But one need for the staff to comply with every single day is singularly impressive and that is to meditate. The staff of Vo Trong Architects is required to meditate for an hour when then turn in to work and then an hour when they are ready to sign off. Meanwhile coming in to work at 8:30 AM and signing off at 5:30 is a requirement while the hours in meditation are counted as working hours. This is remarkable in a world where working hours are meticulously timed and no single minute of wasted time is tolerated in a work-force.
Vo Trong, himself believes that any amount of accolades or credits will not amount to anything substantial unless ofcourse he attains enlightenment. And though he works like any other architect, with tight deadlines and unrelenting clients he manages to keep his psyche all calm and contended. It all started when he visited a Vipassana course and found inner peace, then regularly attending their programs he only insists that his staff meditate employing any kind of meditation, not bound by the Vipassana program. This is insists will bring out the best in his staff and in effect is best for his office. An insight that is shared by the government of the Kingdom of Bhutan. In Bhutan the criminal offenders are known to be sent off to meditation camps instead of using the rod unsparingly. This comes from a belief that people are by nature full of goodness and to only bring the good-naturedness of a person to the forefront one needs to harness the niceness through meditation. There are architects, read Amanda Levete, who insist that the office me walked on barefoot, or architects who play music at work, like Daniel Libeskind, or architects who work out of parks, and then there are those who do not believe in working out of an office or a set zone per say and literally work out of anywhere, and all of them are excessively creative building upon their creativity in their own way. If enlightenment was the goal of our lives, then these creative professionals reach the path of enlightenment through their work, a job that requires a head in the clouds with feet planted firmly in the ground.
Meditation in itself is a fabulous way to calm the mind down, and a calm mind is innovation’s hotspot for great ideas can hardly take root in a muddled or befuddled mind. It is singularly lauded as a guaranteed way to enlightenment, Buddha was enlightened under the Bodhi tree during his hours of meditation. During meditation the brain activity, literally the monkey mind’s activity is reduced to a minimum. The colourful palette of imagination is sprung upon mostly when the mind is bored and definitely when the mind is not caught up in the perils of living. There is much to know when the brain can whistle and relax, the possibilities then are truly endless. All great inventions are made by people who know how to take a chill-pill, for the worry-warts possibly die of analysis-paralysis! While the Dalai Lama has said that sleep is the best form of meditation, then can we pave our way to enlightenment through sleep?
While the above words could seem deterrent to the average architect, they are not for Anne Lacaton and Jean-Phillipe Vassal. But then the two who have been announced as the Pritzker Prize winners for the year 2021, are not your average architects. Building a practice of this very premise, they have a body of work spanning over the last 30 years. Setting up shop in 1987 they have since worked on several innovative projects for residential, commercial, cultural and educational buildings operating out of their office in Paris. With sustainability and humanity figuring at the core of their practice, they ensure that the notion of economics, the environment and socialism remain to the core of their work. They credit the viability of their design mostly to two attributes, that of keen observation and of finding value in what is there, on site, around the site and in the projected use of the building. For their project on the Leon Aucoc Plaza, in 1996, the architects barely replaced the gravel, treated the lime trees and very slightly modified the traffic, all at once granting more purpose to what was existing. These star-gazing architects are definitely highly refreshing in a world of star-chitects, who focus so much on adding built massing and in effect giving rise to ghost towns down by the dozen. The Pritzker Prize Jury’s citation for their win, states that, “At once beautiful and pragmatic, they refuse any opposition between architectural quality, environmental responsibility, and the quest for an ethical society.” Now that is a very commendable piece of critique that the architects themselves should be very proud about. And my favourite part of the citation reads what the architects say, “The architects have expressed that buildings are beautiful when people feel well in them, when the light inside is beautiful and the air is pleasant, and when there is an easy flow between the interior and exterior.” To paraphrase, a beautiful building makes the inhabiting people feel well, have great light and air, in short ventilation and facilitate a flow between the interior and the exterior. What a wonderful metric to measure our buildings against. We certainly may want to rethink our leaning onto LEED, GRIHA and all the various building codes with this value. Simple and hence perfect.
When asked to transform the Tour Bois le Pretre in Bordeaux, the duo crafted carefully added space to the existing buildings through generous extensions, winter gardens and balconies, supporting the lives of the citizens and intervening into the existing scheme with a rare case of humility, respectfully paying heed to what the original designers would have wanted for the project. Again in the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkirk, they chose to keep the original hall and attach a second one of similar dimensions to the existing building. Absent is nostalgia for the past. Rather, they seek transparency, openness, and luminosity with a respect for the inherited and a quest to act responsibly in the present. Today, a building that previously went unnoticed becomes an iconic element in a renewed cultural and natural landscape. Even when working on a massive social housing endeavour consisting on about 530 dwellings, the scale of socialism, the bond with the environment and the acknowledgement of the human aspect is not missing, it is in fact largely highlighted upon and inflated. In the Polyvalent theatre and the Nantes School of Architecture, the sense of drawing in the outdoors into the very interior fabric of the usable space is very visible with dedicated vision applied to the heights and proportions of the interior spaces and the way surfaces are meant to have a dialogue with each other. There is a sense in all their body of work that architecture is more than just buildings, though they may mostly comprise of buildings. The best architecture as seen through their work can be humble, is always thoughtful, respectful, responsible, having a delectable impact on the communities that they enclose and contribute to the camaraderie and the general happy feeling garnered that comes with a knowledge that we are not alone.
In all their projects what I notice is an aura of simplicity, whether in the materials that are employed, in the ratio and proportions applied or mostly in the act of design that does not seek to boast while all at once applying a sense of minimalism almost to the effect of frugality. While most of the images I see, while I have never had the chance to experience any of their work first-hand, have people inhabiting them, people who look at ease, people who are in a jovial atmosphere, binding comfortably into the built mass. Even their smallest projects do not seem to focus on form or function, the tenets of the bigwigs in practice over the last several years of the profession, but seem to focus on other tenets, namely economics and environment. Note that there is no place for or, good design is never a question of this or that, there is no place for the Fool’s Choice, good design all at once incorporates a keen aesthetic, the sensibility of material, an ode to the surroundings, an understanding of the context, both physical and metaphorical and the applies an economy of reason before becoming a very viable and physical part of the environment. My favourite of their projects is the work they have done for the Museum of London at the West Smithfield market as a competition design proposal. The main work for the transformation of the market is centered around spectacular ventilation and keenly studied vertical and horizontal movement proposals. The main idea, is as usual, to maximise, highlight, complete and activate what is already there. An architect is said to plant vines around his mistakes with the hope that nature can melt away all the slights caused by ugly or unsightly architecture, but for Vassal and Lacaton, the parks and greenery can be left to their own avail as no vines or creepers will be seen necessary in their case.
Food, Clothes and Shelter, these three basics in life have the most number of experts, every person needs them three and every person who uses them three, know exactly what they want. And because of its personal nature there is never one formula that fits all. For every one person that adores cotton, there are other jute, silk, linen aficionados, the list is really endless. On that note, here are two nutritionists who have caught my fancy, one a Marathi, to the core and the other a Sindhi to the core, Rujuta Diwekar and Pooja Makhija. A love for sweets can be managed in two different ways by these very learned nutritionists, Rujuta says, eat a banana first thing in the morning and Pooja says reach for a protein snack every time the craving for sugar hits. While Rujuta says eat like your Grandma did, I wonder, cause in my case both my Grandmas succumbed considerably early in life after battling a host of lifestyle illnesses, for when I cannot even dress like my Grandmas did, nor live a life like they lives, how could I manage to eat like my Grandmas did(!) However Pooja on the other hand, asks us to eat often, every 2 hours or so, belt in an hours worth of exercise every single day. Every meal she advises should have the five fingers of nutrition, that includes namely, carbohydrates, protein, vegetables and fruits for vitamins and minerals, and fat. With these five categories included, good health is a given.
After watching umpteen videos on good health and nutrition, visiting several talks, I still reach for my weekly dose of fried rice and manchurian, a childhood indulgence that is both at once comforting and tantalising to me even today. I could not care too much for chocolate, or all the other indulgences, but for this one, for sure. So in that case how much ever you know doesnt matter, it all comes down to what you do. Even setting a certain load of exercise is painfully tedious for a person like me. On a holiday what I look forward to the most is all the walking, the hiking if we are on a mountain, the swimming if we are on a beach, but mostly its the movement we get to do that is largely restricted in our desk tied occupations. Nutrition to the body said in place, the nutrition to the mind can be got by meditating in earnest or so I thought, until a very dear friend, largely into meditation and spirituality said that one does not need to make meditation a ritual, instead living every moment with mindfulness, or simply in surrender to the will of the Lord, as another meditation aficionado put it.
With no excessive love for routine, or exercise, I researched some more till I came across the people of the blue zones and how they lived, without devoting keen time to working out, walked as much as they could. The greatest creatives in the world also walked incessantly sometimes close to four hours in a day and that is the secret to much of their creativity. For those with no particular appetite to exercise, this is a Godsend piece of research. Even Sandra Oh, playing Christina Yang in the fictional serie Gray’s Anatomy steps her legs up in dance to beat the blues, greens, pinks and whatever else emotions captures our brains and sometimes our hearts in a frenzy. Not the trained one, but just about moving the body to the emotion in a mix and then an exit off our frazzled selves. And then the one that the physiotherapist recommended to me, the act of barefoot walking, akin to the acclaimed painter M F Hussain and many other creatives, while walking boosts creativity like meditation does, barefoot walking is said to increase the very result on creativity. If a simple daily walk (even indoors has much of the same result as outdoors) could keep me healthy and hearty, and mostly creative, it is the best news I have heard, (I for one would not exercise even if my life depended on it, but melt exercise into my daily routine and I will gladly do it) and going barefoot, well solves the dilemmas on which shoes to buy at the mall or in the zillion online stores, there is so much joy and beauty in simplicity. Taking a cue from a book I finished lately, called Dhando, by Mohnish Pabrai here are the levels of intelligence:
Smart<Intelligent<Brilliant<Genius<Simple
For even Einstein reiterated that simplicity is simply the highest level of intellect.
After reading up a tome and trying to understand if its wheat that gives one a wheat belly, or if its strength-training that pulls muscles, I am certainly none the wiser when it comes to what one needs to do in the gym, but all that enterprise has made me find sheer solace in simplicity. As long as one’s meals are plant-based and include the five aspects of nutrition, or one’s day involves movement, one’s breaths through the day are long and deep, a simple life of alacrity is largely guaranteed. Or so I surmised. Apart from all the above said the people in the blue zones live upto a hundred years, most importanly they have or develop a bunch of friends they call the moai, whom they meet every single day and look out for each other, the number of people in a moai is five. The moai is like the moat that helps one understand the dealings of life, or well even buffer the harder blows, and having this moai is almost like having a safety net in the thrill called life. And then there are the workings of Nunchi, the ability to have crucial conversations, of reading a room without missing a beat, of being aware, of being present, of having no jagged edges, to allow no one to get under your skin, to get under nobody’s skin, to just let life happen and to be happy to be good enough. Feeding the mind happy, is nutrition’s first premise, for it is not what you consume, in the end it always is about what consumes you. Marie Kondo, Wabi-Sabi, Minimalism have all thrived under this basic tenet of simplicity that we all certainly yearn but in an age of blatant consumerism, aimed at the titillation our brains, like little children we are redirected many folds. And then we realise that perhaps less is really more.
Let’s go on a Tiger Hunt, I bellowed but my son, a firm lover of the Leopard and the Lion, could not be enthused. But then, three year-old’s dont know what they want I thought as we forayed into the Jungles of Kabini to the Serai Resort located off the backwaters of the Kabini River. A safari holiday is always full of anticipation, and tests one’s patience, but it is also calming and happiness inducing, what with all that time in nature. Every trip to Kabini (the last we went was about two years ago to the Jungle Lodges) has never disappointed us, for the tiger has showed up every time. On a trip to Bandipur, Kanha, again a few years ago, the rather reticent jungle cat showed up, all with its glistening hide and athletic stance. Beautiful, majestic and real. We saw the tiger make a dash this time sitting aboard the water-safari on the Kabini river. The first time I saw a tiger run, for it’s prey, for leisure or simply getting away from us.(!) Majestic creature it was a beauty through and through. But taking on the safari and enduring it for over two hours has its charms and banes. On the water safari, we had a bunch of documentary makers for company, from Australia, who had come to make a film about Tigers, the animal that we spot only in the Indian subcontinent. On the Land Safari, we had for company thick fog, and could hardly spot any animals, wild dogs and their puppies, however rare they maybe are not counted.
The Serai, with its cozy pool and great food, provides a warm hospitality after the brutal hours on a Safari and with temperatures scorching up in March itself, one is rather glad to be surrounded by cool waters. The jungle though is extremely chirpy with birds singing away in the early mornings and late evenings, announcing the coming and going of the sun. The miracles of the circadian rhythm are best seen in the jungle, as it comes to life and retires all in circular motions. Equipped with about twenty rooms and sixty bicycles, the residents are encouraged to go cycling all around the property and mostly along the water-front which has a beautiful charm of it’s own. The birds that come visiting to the Serai, the various insects that stop by, the grazing cows who dont really give a damn or even the wild boars that come calling are all a part of the wildlife extravaganza. Nature does infact put on a show in Kabini. On the water-safari, that is very popular in the summer months, Tigers, elephants, birds are all more likely to be stopped as they come by to quench their thirst. The picture is extremely pretty and very peaceful all through. Swinging on the hammock and breathing in the fresh air by the lake, life literally slows down, the breaths get longer and the tan lines get deeper, but then what is a holiday minus the tan!
While the tiger population in India has finally taken an upturned curve, we are lucky enough to find our national animal making a headline in all the national newspapers. We could only hope that this trend continues and the jungles are kept untouched. I must say we did find plastic packets along the safari route inspite of the continuous warnings to not use plastic or dump plastic in the forest. This plastic fixation of ours can never end, the Ghazipur landfill seems to only keep growing higher, we definitely need to find alternatives, cause nothing can grow out of plastic. Doing our bit is not the way to go, doing what needs to be done maybe a way but as humans being conscious of our actions is extremely important. Cutting the clutter has umpteen benefits not just for the tigers but for us too. The Tigers are growing just as we are becoming more conscious of our actions on this planet. Its extremely thrilling to see the animals in the wild, in their natural habitats and those habitats are only possible if we let them be, for nature can and will take care of itself.
In my tryst of chasing the Tiger, and with Marie Kondo still embedded in my psyche, the blue zone research that I happened to listen to, notwithstanding my sustainability degree, I cannot help but want to keep the pristine jungles just as they are, pristine. Clutter, comes in all forms, there is real clutter, digital clutter, all of which prevent us from chasing or even spotting our tigers, our goals in this discussion. The very popular #noshop year kept a lot of people from going shopping last year. The idea was to not buy anything unnecessary or absolutely essential except for food and toiletries. With petrol prices hitting a hundred rupees a litre in India this month, a milestone considering the crude oil prices and government subsidies, going places literally costs a lot more. The followers of Greta are thumping up a storm but how effective they are in making sure of putting in place sustainable practices remain questionable. The governments are of the people and seem to be doing their bit, in putting up signboards and making the required announcements, but in effect, there is no place for sustainability in a capitalist economy. If people are not travelling, not buying things, the GDP does not benefit, nor do the people living on the planet. While the millennials write a tome about how experiences trump materialistic pursuits, they both are hazardous to the planet, running up equal costs if not more. Going to new place, fires up mental neurons and makes one more creative, so do a lot other things. Once upon a time my dream was to travel to every country on the planet, I still do nurture that dream, to lap up as many quaint and diverse experiences as I probably can, to live out of suitcases, to trot the globe. But one more trip into the jungles and staring at the beautiful cat, a pride of our nation, am beginning to question my choices, and perhaps to tread as lightly on this planet as possible. What’s my carbon score I wonder. (Incase you are wondering here is a Carbon Footprint Calculator https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx)
On a tiger hunt, in a hurry to live, harried to catch the mirages, making sure we are at benefit, may we question our incentives and our tallies, the reason of why, building a life we do not need a vacation from, so bereft of wanting. Oh boy, the pensive mind feels the responsibility of a class rep(!), the foolproof way to mend a naughty student, taking a stand, making way for Greta and simply ensuring Great. The jungle’s brought out the philosopher in me, while I figure out my choices, I’d prod you to think of yours! The Tigers are for all to see, but the question remains, do you want to see them?
Vedasri Siddamsetty 