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the wasted tear, that precious fear contended defeat you try a while, all wile but they made you drag the queen. the futile words, the wingless birds were meant for butchered meat. you detach, to reattach to another human being. the quixotic want, the despotic need were meant to forfeit. go kiss, remiss but they need your blood to breed this discourse , this intercourse this ritualistic feat. is deceit, conceit its a, premeditated seat. Labels: poem |
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I think that automobile today is the near equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals; by this I mean the creations of an age; passionately conceived by anonymous craftsmen, consumed in image if not in use, by an entire people who aspire to it as a perfectly magical object. - Roland Barthes (Mythologies 1957) Transportation has been existing through automobiles since a long time.Automobiles are considered as objects to take you from one destination to another. But isn't that a narrow definition. The mega cities as we know it today are referred to as a megalopolis and not a metropolis. The city is formed with a long chain of metropolis stringed together to work cohesively. Mumbai, now doesn’t represent only the southern region but is a part of the growing suburbs, ie mira-bhayander, vasai- virar and the navi Mumbai area. This sprawl of the city, though a hindrance has become a norm. The sprawl can be identified as a geographic and morphological phenomenon that has triggered anthropological mutations. Sprawl continues to grow for various reasons, people were initially attracted to the edges of cities because of cheap land, lower taxes, better access to automobiles, fewer legal restrictions, and the myth of living in contact with rural settings. But the sprawl unlike the walled cities continues to grow. The idea of boundary is vague in this form of urbanism. Approach to this phenomenon can in no way be idealistic, for being idealistic would mean to stop the development of fringes and create boundaries. The only option that remains is to adapt to this development. ‘ The polis was a city based on dialogue; The sprawl is conducive to escapist monologues’ -Richard Ingersoll (2006, Princeton architectural press) In the Greek Synoecism, the polis or the city centre was known for dialogues and public interaction. The word literally meant ‘to unite together under one capital city’. A city was important because of the dialogue it created amongst its citizens. But today, the city centre is more for tourists with its historic city frozen in time, preserved and sometimes re-created with mystification. The well intentioned codes of civic pride and hospitality inadvertently help to convert the function of public space, from the theater of civic life into a spectacle for tourist gratification. And the citizens and residents are pushed to the fringes due to increase in land rates and services. This causes two negative implications. The first being the city spaces that were important for their role in public interactions have ceased its functions and now perform the function of being a tourist site. The second being the citizens themselves have ended up becoming tourists in such spaces. Tourism in that sense becomes the death of the evolution and meaning of the site. So where does the so called interaction between citizens occur in a megalopolis. In Mumbai;the most likely place where citizen to citizen interaction can take place is at the transportation hub. The suburban railway system carries more than 6.6 million commuters on a daily basis and constitutes more than half of the total daily passenger capacity of the Indian Railways itself. It has one of the highest passenger densities of any urban railway system in the world. Whereas, the BEST buses runs a total of 3,480 buses, transporting 4.5 million passengers over 365 routes. It is not uncommon to find people waiting for and meeting their friends in such places, or making new friends, or interacting with strangers. Places like these have increasingly become the places of interaction for a city with people on the run. Concepts like the shared taxi or rickshaw, where an automobile picks up commuters from stations and drops them to fixed locations are increasingly used. These functions occur at the edge of the roads near the railway stations. Automobiles line up against the road, waiting for customers to sit. The function works on per seat basis and each automobile normally goes to different part of the suburb depending on the number of passengers. But unfortunately no space has been assigned to them. So they end up waiting at the entrance of the station or occupy most of the road. This causes alot of hindrance to the vehicular traffic and to the pedestrians. The added installation of skywalks near every station have added to the already present sense of suffocation. They have wiped of the sense of sky, and left the place darker and closed. The space below the skywalk has become a residual space of vegetable markets, single-room shops and a clutter of auto-rickshaws, taxis and buses. A lot of functions occur in and around these transportation hubs. Since places aren’t assigned to them they occur in default locations and are tucked in existing structures, causing alot of interruption. For instance right outside the dadar station their lies a flower and vegetable market at the underside of the flyover. The existence of market, the oncoming rush of commuters, the presence of automobiles doesn’t favour the situation. The presence of the clutter around stations can be accounted for the fact that many of these businesses and programs are based on the concept of travel. It is mandatory for them to use the existing mass transit for their functioning. Or they target the commuters that bypass that space on their daily ride home. The three main road arteries for western Mumbai , the link road, western express highway and the S.V road try to connect this sprawling city in a feeble way. It is, for most hours, congested, exhausting,slow, and a waste of time. Wouldn't it be nice if the road housed a structure that can be accessed through the car. You can pay your bills, get something to eat, and maybe even watch a movie from the comforts of the car, while driving home. This existing transportation line is the piazza and dolce far niente of Mumbai, and designers, planners and architects have to start treating it like that. [P.S- Abrupt ending.. sorry got bored!] Labels: architecture, city |
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i have decided that i am going to stop learning German... not that i do... but i shall try to refrain myself from learning the bits and pieces that i do .. reason; if a nation is going to be so jingoistic about their language...and refuse to learn any other...then thank you very much... And its not even like its Japanese... that compels you to learn it for the beautiful script and ideas that they manage to create.. where you can choose to tweak your views... |
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I was reading Richard Ingersoll some days back and it got me thinking of the idea of tourism and history.... Tourism more or less thrives well on history... A space with history consists of a certain exotic value...but when tourism becomes the only flourishing business of that space then, i think it leads to the death of history... Once history is glorified to that extent, the place stops evolving and lives through and in the past...and 'history' as such cannot be made.... most of the monumental structures you come across in the not-so 'touristy' months are pretty much dead..Nothing happens... whereas some structures like most of the forts, they are converted to bazaars. This makes the space, the structure and the experience much more significant. That's why most of these historic places, should be allowed to grow and mixed programs have to be given to them for the history to continue. Provided it gets maintained efficiently. Labels: architecture, history, thoughts, tourism |
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So this was going to be a part of some cool piece that anand and me were supposed to do.. but no surprises he didnt do anything.. and i did this sketch.... the start, a bedtime story, about a god who is really tiny and travels by jumping on broken hair strands that are flying in the sky, by careless brushers..so in the morning we build it up... he has this idea of cultures getting encoded in the dna's of a person..so the development was that the hair god sucks in essential dna from hair strands..and grows on it...he/she/... was supossed to be a techno-organic insect .. so the sketch is of its head..tentacles to reach to parts of the dna.. a processing unit.. a maintainence unit.. web like grips.... and blah blah....  Labels: hair god |
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empty train,dark sky,policeman on gaurd, wet breeze and no rain..its a nice way to travel.. anyway i was going back home and was listening to this piece of music by shilpa rao..and during the interludes you could hear thunderstorm in the music..i guess it came there cause it was a soundtrack from gulaal.. So, that just led me wondering as to why is music so 'acontextual'. By that i dont say that it doesnt reflect the feeling/identity of a place..nor do i target the instruments it uses.. what i mean is why is it devoid of the immediate surroundings..why dont they ever integrate say the clanking of utensils or the sound of train... cause see, music and lyrics already give out some kind of collective imagination.. for example when i hear leonard cohen's 'famous blue raincoat'.. i already imagine early morning, dark silent work room next to a bedroom, where the wife is sleeping...him crouching over a desk, writing a letter, and staring into the droplets of rain racing down the window.. i dont think i would mind bed sheets rustling to add to the music... or say bob dylan.. most of his songs make me think of rolling meadows, spring time.. a wandering man with a havasack on him..an old windmills as a distant backdrop... and so what im saying is, would it add or harm the music if i heard a bee buzzing... why is music made to sound that its from a recording studio, i know it is but i would like to think its randomn..colourful..bizzare... I know that many music composers have taken sounds from around them and translated them into beautiful renderings. But im not asking for such a thing, im asking for something probably more literal..something more identifiable..the use of mundane sounds as music... to be nostalgic..the fascinating use of typewriters and aeroplane sounds on casio keyboards.. |
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you know how every second song reminds us not to browse through beauty magazines...'they just make you feel ugly'... but our indian beauty mag editors have understood that and evolved.. they make magazines with such horrendously ugly people and with such absolute no 'female awareness'..[if i may say so]... that any... ..i repeat again, any female will feel stunning and smart.....womans era is one such magazine...to elaborate... they tell guys how to sweep a woman off her feet by just five important things... compliments... ya.. co-mp-li-me-nts. ARE the five imp things... and then they are divided into sub categories .. like direct[you look pretty tonight] ..indirect[ thats such a pretty bracelet].. sensual[you smell nice]...flirty.. and the list goes on...and please dont think im making this up... its scarily accurate...i thought about this....why in this age would anyone do such a thing.. its not representing the new urban youth... nor does it represent the generation that's stuck between nostalgia and globabalistion...so ... i guess its representing the 'new age youth' to ...the people who want to be like the new age youth...now this line you would maybe not understand if you havent met such kind of people.. and you wouldnt even understand if i would describe them... so i wont... but when you do...read this magazine...it would all fall into place and then maybe you wouldnt judge them so....probably... |
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Through the dusty glass which is apprently washed every morning, I observed the road which i normally, in my daily drive home, bypass..it was an ordinary road...nothing happened and nothing was going to happen..and during such insignificant moments... for the nth time probably.... i think....that this moment with the chilled air pumping the heated car with me and him...a sun-baked cyclewalla with a psychedelic background of costume fittings ... leonard cohen ‘s renderings...underlying miserable thoughts of my happily advancing results... hand break erect...and that particular aunty rushing home..maybe...and stuff like that would never ever happen again in such synchronization ever till the end of time... And the only way to retain it is memory..And the moment was not important enough to be registered... by me or probably anyone... so you see...the conclusion is it never happened ..... YUCK !! but apparently they have proven that the universe exists even when no one's looking.... ?!?!!? http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13226725 |
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 And in the naked light I sawTen thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never share And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence - S and G I dont think anything can describe the concrete poetry movement better than this piece (although this song isnt a part of that movement). This was first formulated by Pierre Schaffer and later expanded by Öyvind Fahlström. A brazilian group called Noigandres formulated a manifesto "Pilot plan for concrete poetry" to define and direct the form. The poems were meant to be a combination of literature and visual arts. Meant to be an ideogram, abstract and not alluding to the poem or the shape. This lately has been violated by some creating gimmicky and absolute forms. In response, a new term was formulated "poesia visiva". It describe more experimental fusions of word and image.Though now photography, film and even sound is used to crete a better effect. ,+version+published.jpg) Labels: architecture, poetry |
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"In his story Sarrasine, Balzac, speaking of a castrato disguised as a woman, writes this sentence: "It was Woman, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive fears, her unprovoked bravado, her daring and her delicious delicacy of feeling" Who is speaking in this way? Is it the story's hero, concerned to ignore the castrato concealed beneath the woman? Is it the man Balzac, endowed by his personal experience with a philosophy of Woman? Is it the author Balzac, professing certain "literary" ideas of femininity? Is it universal wisdom? or romantic psychology? It will always be impossible to know, for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, and that literature is precisely the invention of this voice, to which we cannot assign a specific origin: literature is that neuter, that composite, that oblique into which every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes." -'Death of an author' Roland Barthes |
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i almost feel ashamed to write about tea when the hype of election [rightfully so!] is preoccupying the nation... but what to do... if i would write something it would seem handed down and borrowed and somehow that seems unfair to my blog...true we do pass out information and opinions off as our own from time to time.. but to write it down feels too final...too deceptive... probably that's whats so cool about this art form... when you write something.. it becomes your own... even if you are just pretty much simplifying or translating another persons work or ideas...[im talking about it in the most ethical sense..i'm not defending plagiarists!!].... and the other thing which i find most fascinating about this is the fact that prose unlike poetry is most of the time direct.. it gives you a concrete visual.. but that one visual is imagined so distinct from any other who's reading the same line... say... 'then the man bent half his size to drag the cat with a fork from the bin to chop it mercilessly' [sorry! i kinda got kicks out of that gore!!!] Anyway... finished reading kundera's immortality yesterday night.. and have decided that i didnt really like it...i think he's really good with making you identify with the characters, but this read left me distant and objective... i didnt feel half as much as i did with unbearable lightness... he either idealised love or completely denounced it... it didnt feel like he ever humanized it... except one relation of agnes and her father... I dont know why philosophers do this.. they break down an emotion so much.. to its basic level...probably not basic.. but to its most objective level...and glorify and stress it.. they lose the picture as a whole.. love...life..is bought down to power, ego, insecurities, identity.. but it as a whole..it seems.. is hard to grasp... I still like him though...some of his ideas are still refreshing to read.. he talks of gestures using a person.. about memories as photographs and not video recordings... of shame as frowned upon desire...and such thoughts and observations..... i started reading 'thus spoke zarathustra' by nietzsche... read a few chapters and found out that i dont have the stamina for archaic literature...no more thee's and thou for me... so i ended it.. When i logged in my blog...it was with the intention of writing about tea...so...i was saying... i've more or less betrayed my love for coffee by switching to tea for the past few days..generally i'm in the habit of having a mug full of coffee in the evening.. so my logical alternative was to have a mug full of tea instead...So i heat my water and dip in the bags... the first 1/4 is amazingly refreshing.. by the 'half full' stage you enjoy it... from here on the idea of 'i've to finish my tea' starts...and trust me its yuck!.... i've realised you cant have tea in a mug.. it makes you sick.. it makes you detest it... you have to have it in one of those delicate little ceramic wares... there is a reason for that small little quantity of tea...the reason is finish it before you start hating it... it's not made cause its more economical for mom to serve tea for a larger audience... |
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I was reading Kundera while travelling in the excited rickshaw and since it was such a blurry read while on, i began reading only during signals.. While in motion i started to analyze and think about what i just read..debated with it.. And i just realised that when we read.. Especially fiction.. you are just on a absorption trip... just read and accept everything...you dont really try to break his sentences apart or negate with the author until you finish the book and judge the book as a whole.. The n number of concepts and nuances in the book are not torn apart or given due credit... Sure, you do remember some amazing moments..say...the destruction of a civilization at the brink of enlightenment on ford's towel which was caused by the acid on the bottle while he was supposedly clearing out the germs on it...in hitchhikers guide by DNA... or the time when a man opens his jacket and yellow chicks go scattering on the ship deck through the crowd that was boarding off...by Marquez..in strange pilgrimage, i think.. you do remember them cause they are really cool visuals and amazing ideas... but moments like when Kundera says some philosophical or opinionated statement...sometimes you just nod along.. not probably cause you agree with him.. but just because you never thought of it and now since he did .. i guess it seems logical.. so ya ya... and then in the night ..IF you rethink that part.. you sometimes realise ,you dont probably.... So i was just thinking .. it is really important to have reading clubs..where everyone reads a book and can then discuss it and tear it to pieces or immortalize it... and its so much more nice when you get different versions of a same piece... and where else do you achieve this kind of immense freedom of 'individual' imagination/interpretation apart from books... While i was reading unbearable lightness of being..i met this Israeli American artist, Arielle.. she saw the book.. asked me how i liked it.. apparently she identified with the two male protagonists of the book.. while i had identified with the two female one's ....so brilliantly that the book was tragically gripping ...and i had kind of negated or ignored the characters of others...So it was nice to know that the characterizations were so identifying....So you see even if you dont debate on ideas... there'll always be a better understanding.. I think in second year of college ..i was behind most of my friends to read some...any book at the same time... so we could discuss it later... everybody consented...but apparently no one was that interested... ...probably the reason why reading clubs no longer work ...lack of time and inclination...humpf! |
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“start of work means an end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires... How satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been, and now never will be.” -alain botton |
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"There's more to life than architecture"..... that was a comment for me.... but dont you see... ive got to do my architecture for a doctor to go..'oh there's more to life than medicine'.... |
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he handed me a promotional card....premeditated rejection... a speck flew into my eye... flavour fruit skin... |
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Just to see how difficult is it really to create a haiku... A straight curved line Labels: haiku |
