Vedasri Siddamsetty

America is synonymous for MacDonalds, Levis, Starbucks, Coke, Chips, Costco, Walmart, Corn and the hugely popular westernized lifestyle. The so to speak western influence seems to have crept into the every niche of the world, including even the impenetrable Great wall of China. Ironically, it’s quite interesting to note what happens in the west of the great west.

Popularly termed as the west-coast mentality, one that mostly has people belonging to the west coast of the United States living a greatly un-westernised lifestyle. Characterized by befitting antonyms of the westernized lifestyle, this mentality has the populace largely being active, outdoorsy, and nature-loving thereby considerably shunning the “american paradigm”, preferring instead to shop at organic farmers markets,  grow and cook their own food, buy handcrafted goods, indulge in yoga and breezily ride the famous californian waves. Even more, living environmental-consciously is an added bonus.

So while the new-age western Americans model the best of the world in the ever-growing west-coast, living mindfully and consciously, intelligently as well as casually, decked in yoga-pants and fleece, it’s a good time for us all to literally ape the west, if not the west-coast.

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The country that measures its happiness as a figure of the Gross National Happiness had me intrigued for over a decade now. And when we decided to drive up from dreamy Shillong over several national highways and nearly 200 kilometres, my Gross Personal Happiness did certainly triple if only just a little!

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After a drive through Meghalaya, Assam, crossing the one-kilometre long River of Sorrow-the mighty Brahmaputra, some wrong turns and finally right ones we made our way to the Bhutanese border town of Samdrup-Jhonkar.

Greeted by a fellow Grad Schooler we breezed through immigration making it in, just in the nick of time leaving 5 minutes before the office closed for the day. A hungry pile up of traditional Bhutanese food comprising of a spicy vegetable curry with bits of cheese and a mountain of rice later we then drove up the bumpy roads up to the biggest town of Eastern Bhutan – Tashigang. With pretty pictures of His Majesty the King of Bhutan and his Queen hand-in-hand under romantic cherry-blossoms dotting every little shop or government office, one is regularly reminded of being in a kingdom country. Our hotel too had glorified imagery to the young and dashing King with his beautiful Queen. Unlike Thimpu, Tashigang is quite and ubiquitously as Bhutanese as ever, with globalisation hardly catching up.

Walking up to a next door hospital, a nearby police-station, a post-office and then a few shops the similarity of the building facades struck a chord as did the similar signboards of Pali script supplemented by English text requesting that the people dress in the national dress. Everyone seemed to wear the national garb of theh Gho for men and the Kira for women with equal elan and immense pride, if not for the fear of being scolded by the police! Our merry and chatty taxi driver was more than happy to dole out information on the predicaments of flouting laws in the Himalayan Kingdom. The prisoners are expected to spend time in meditation and play volleyball as penance in jails are are hardly flogged as punishment! Hours in meditation are the only seeming form of punishment, making the jails seem more like retreat centres.

While the Government of India funds a majority of projects in Bhutan, from restoration of monasteries to the building of roads and hospitals, the Indian Army is deported to supplement forces for the people of Bhutan. The Dongkang Monastery that we visited was in the middle of a certain such project due completion in 2018. A young monk all of 10 years walked us through the monastery filling us in on information regarding his father, a farmer, his favourite subject in school, Social Studies, and a life as a monk, that comprised of reading prayers and meditation. Meditation it seems is a national past-time! The architecture of the monastery with Bhutanese elements emerging from a white plastered background, windows and doors, teak-wood staircases are charming, but when lodged amidst the rugged hills, equally humbling. A trip to the Buddhist Institute in Tashigang got us join a prayer session as the monks chanted in baritone Buddhist scriptures all with the ringing of bells and the sounding of drums. Highly refreshed we headed down for a modest lunch of daal-rice and some Bhutanese flavoured curry. Drinkable water from the taps and extremely clean environs play their part in making the happy country. As Kuensel, the national newspaper provides snippets of news across the country, it even chronicles a yoga pose for the day!

Breaking dawn in the foot-hills of the Himalayas as well as the gorgeous views of a lonely cloud over the air-strip of Tashigang, the dewy misty ride down-hill instil a sense of wonder in even the wariest of the traveler. With Maggi banned across Bhutan too, the roadside tea-houses are filled with other instant noodles that the keepers more than happily dole out with its share of vegetables and cheese! The pretty building facades, the national dress are all part of the national mandate as is the measure of happiness that the young Bhutanese King takes extremely seriously. With humbling mountaneous views, gorgeous architecture and happy people, happiness does rub off as does cheer and as we waited for the clearing of landslides on our way down it was just natural that I began to understand that happiness is not a pursuit or an achievement, its simply a way of being!

A haiku for the land of inner peace and radiant happiness!!

Rugged mountains, sliver of clouds

stealing visions that make off with the heart

leaving but only a happy heart!

Perched in the Khasi hills, Shillong is every bit of a jewel of a hill-station, with dreamy locales and floating clouds, the Scotland of the east, one of the Seven Sisters and only just a couple hundred kilometres from the wettest place on earth! It is literally where the clouds finally give way to intense rain. And delightful as it could ever be Shillong is a merry confluence of erstwhile British influence with rose gardens, tea parties and an ever local presence of the vernacular Khasi traditions.

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My first impressions of a trip across Meghalaya about 9 years ago was the passage of a lone cloud(!) through the windows of our car on the drive up from Guwahati to Shillong. Absolutely exhilarating, it is something that has stayed with me ever since. Nine years later Meghalaya remains much the same. The gorgeous living roots bridges, sparkling waterfalls, pitcher-plants, India’s cleanest village in Mawlynong, an expansive golf course, the pretty Ward’s lake, music-loving, piano-playing people, narrow-winding lanes and an indelible colonial influence.

On a beautiful wedding trip we began the festivities truly Khasi-style by partying it up in the clouds! True-blue chilling as I may rightly say, happens within the precincts of the clouds. A moonlit night and the gurgling creek punctuated by Izzy Azelea is rightly where the heavens descend. Partying in the jungle, by a watering hole, a flowing creek, on a moonlight sky and surrounded by clouds, lets just say it had all the inklings of a wild party! And then after a day of chilling with our lovely bride and groom at the Umiam lake we braved the trip to Nongriat Village with a hike up 3300 steps to the double-decker living roots bridge where roots entwined to form a two-level bridge across a gorgeous water-fall.  The serious hike up and down is made totally worth the effort by the gorgeous views along the way, mostly flora and a bit of faunas in terms of butterflies and then a short trip to the Seven Sisters waterfall at Cherrapunji. Fortunately for us, we were treated to a relative dry though misty day. Even the wettest place on earth has it’s bouts of glorious sunny days!

Stringing carnations and roses at the bride’s house kicked off the start of the wedding festivities. The reds, pinks and whites a pleasant change from the usual marigolds of Indian Weddings! With a piano in the house, the notes of Fur Elise made a beeline into the crisp monsoon air as did the ‘here comes the bride’ tune at the church the very next day. A church wedding is synonymous with a beautiful wedding, almost always, with pretty bridesmaids, a beautiful bride and a bouquet of flowers, with a befitting ending!

With a dear friend happily married off, it was safe enough with the adventurous bunch of us to make our way into the country with a measured gross national happiness.

At the annual IIID Design awards the jury summarised how truly inseparable originality and creativity actually are. Brief yet succinent the comments read, “Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms. Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way!”.

While am happy to share the news on winning amongst other talented architects and designers, am deeply encouraged to create beautiful and sustainable spaces. 

There is great power in smart, efficient, creative and moreover good design!

  
#iiidawardsnight #gooddesign #celebrate 

Architecture is a visual media and when it embraces other forms of visual art like painting, sculpture it essentially comes alive! Legendary Indian architect Charles Correa does just that with his notable projects across the country. Whether its sculpture at the Gandhi Ashram or sciography as art at the Hotel Cidade de Goa his buildings are beautifully thought out and finished with remarkable simplicity.

My favorite of them all is the British Council at KG Marg in New Delhi. Being close to my college, the School of Planning & Architecture apart from housing a delectable library ensured us geeks, spending a lot of our hours in its realms. From attending concerts it its own mughal garden, to listening to eminent architects debate on the quality of our cities, or better still to lie deeply buried into a Dickens world, the British Library played canvas effortlessly. In this building too like all his others, Correa included elements of graphic art in the elevation, sculpture in the indoor spaces and landscape in the outdoors weaving in an indoor looking building amidst the bustling Connaught Place in Delhi. An oasis of a building.

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There are a multitude of factors that are impressive in a Correa building, but the one that I hold tremendously dear is the confluence of all forms of visual media. Even in the British Council he expresses the inspirations of the Mughal Courtyard, the Michelangelo proportions and the very hindu symbol of infinity. Correa an avid film-maker never missed drawing up a pathway on how his building would be experienced. He has stressed on the similar roles of an architect and a film-maker. Both directing and driving the experience.

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As he passed away this June, he will be remembered through his works that are both classic and timeless!

Defining architects as the custodians of the built environment renowned artist Laxma Goud bellowed praise on the power and responsibility of the fraternity. While a painter, sculptor or and artist in general is never questioned upon his creation, with the end product being one focal vision, designers are usually inundated by the wants of a client. While art is commissioned design is usually dictated. In rare cases when a designer is elevated to the rank of the artist taking complete responsibility for the end product – that’s when masterpieces are created he reiterates. One that comes devoid of harmless suggestions or flippant inputs of naive bystanders, supplanted instead by determined designers taking total charge. The key word here being – responsibility, that could be only fueled by trust in a designers competency. Like Les Brown famously remarked, it is only when total responsibility is taken, the best performances are delivered in work and life.

As a parallel concept it is why more and more architects are vastly embracing the design+build trend wholeheartedly taking absolute responsibility for the end deliverable. One can only then be assured of a well-crafted piece of architecture or design conceived upon a well-thought out and deliberate vision.  The purity of thought, of action, that is bold and unafriad is what creates art, if not for contagious passion, an idea not be-speckled or untarnished by the alternate.

Most of our cities are vastly lacking in a well-crafted spaces, too timid to be entrusted completely into the hands of a designer who should ideally be an artist, sculpting rather than designing, our spaces, the skylines of our cities, taking complete charge. He may be well, absolutely right.