LIFE-SIZE PLANNING AND DESIGN OF ABODE

LEARNING FROM PEOPLE

Let us get down to some basic issues, now.

Katkari Tribal hamlet in Maharashtra, India

Children play 'Homemaking'

Drawing your house with a stick or lime powder on ground yourself is elementary way to start designing. Children used to play 'ghar, ghar' (home, home) once upon a time, and find a right place. It's basic instinct. Now they play games on mobile phones (in cities).

A student of architecture was writing a thesis on topic 'Spaces for Children'. She gave one of several examples of children used ‘umbrella' for the game (in urban areas) for ‘house’. To build a shelter – a basic need – is an instinct, animal instinct.

You don't need a measure tape. You are the life-size measure and scale, both. 'Anguli, viti, haath, vaav, purush, 'foot' etc. are ancient Desi scales of measurements.

Clay is sustainable building material

You can also make a Model back at home. A lump of prepared clay for a model is excellent. A model in clay could be modified while working. Take care, when not working on it, to keep it moist and soft by covering it with damp cloth. For scale and proportion, take a paper cut-out of a human figure (picture) and fix with pin on the clay base of the clay model.

Many sculptors make 3D 'sketches' of their concepts in clay, not only on paper. See for example, Henry Moor. They believe clay, wood and stone are living materials, not POP or concrete.

(I introduced 'clay model' at Architecture College (AOA) in 1990s. Now, Malak, my friend, builds mud houses!).

I advocate self-help housing for EWS (Economically Weaker Section) projects by the Agencies - NGOs and Govt. Many people in the bracket of EWS, e.g. those living in slums, are peasants; they have skills in building and maintenance of their houses. Building by self-help, with limited budget, is most economical system.

Government introduces Third Party Intervention in Shelter

The fact is peasants practice Life-size Planning and Designing their Houses and Habitat. This practice has been going on for millennia. They are successful because they are one with Lind-Water-Life. But who could convince Agencies? They make paper plans because they want to control the resources, which are provided by Mother Nature – Srishti.
I am not an activist. Being vacationist I believe in action by self – by myself.

Remigius de Souza
(Mumbai | 21-01-15)

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

City and Civilized Society and Their Rise and Fall

 

Mumbai in 1670

 Vasco de Gama after wining the war at Mahim Fort, sent his solders in Mahim Village, to massacre the passing villagers on the streets. He just wanted to terrorize the people.  Later the missionaries followed him to preach ‘Good News’.
 Later Mumbai was given in dowry by Portuguese Royalty to British Royalty. Where is Portugal? Where is Great Britain? Where is Mumbai?

City is a Symbol of Centralized Power

City, primarily, is a symbol of Centralized Power in Civilized Societies, since its inception. What V Gordon Childe, archaeologist, calls 'Urban Revolution' is the birth of Civilization some 5K years ago.

The rise and growth of Civilization also goes with Urbanization, which is City as a human habitat.

Since then city has become a parasite on its region for its sustenance. In the Modern Times, the so-called Global Cities and mega-cities have spanned their dominance over lands even beyond their immediate regions, far and wide, even across their sovereign borders, across the continents and oceans. They manage this aggression by remote control from the Board Rooms in mega-cities.

Civilized society, as is known, is based on the division of labor, social hierarchies of the ruler and the ruled, classes/castes, or the Classless society and the Underclass. Even in democracies in historical times the slavery did exist. Here Democracy is misnomer.

In recent times democracies did go for colonizing, by various means, weaker nations, now called Third World. In 5000 years indeed Democracy has not come of life.
However, in India the unarmed Buddhist monks, in 200 BC, colonized other countries by religious thought of nonviolence.

True Democracy

How could any civilized society practice democracy in true sense? It possible only when 'the People are the Means and Goals’ for the well-being of all the living beings. Only then democracy is possible. Neither the means nor the goals could be economy, technology, market, exchange rates, foreign affairs... blah, blah, blah. State is only a facilitator.

In spite of the presence of all the institutions to manage society, the chaos and strife never ended. It will never end if the mindset of a power oriented society does not end, and accept democracy in total.

To bring this change, needs introspection by the power-classes. Here the writing of constitutions, acts and laws are useless. Perhaps, a beginning of process to Decentralization of Power would help.

There is no escape from chaos until the responsibility and right to equitable distribution of resources should be rested on the shoulders of the Collective (what we customarily call Civil Society).

The End of the City

The size of The Collective, therefore, must have Human Scale. In other words, it will be the 'end of the city' as a human habitat; it is inevitable. With Information Technology this is not impossible. The obvious factor is, it should begin simultaneously at the top and the bottom rungs of the collective.

This is not a Utopia. It is being practiced by aborigine communities (cohesive collectives) for millennia: There is a lesson to learn for the present consumerist societies that splurge finite resource that belong to all living beings – the inmates on the Earth.

In the past, the feudal powers promised security to the subjects of their material life, and the religious powers promised salvation - Moksha - after death.

Now these are replaced by the governments (by design or default, the corporate powers) promise physical security, and science with machine-money-market, the new clergy class, promise happiness.

Post Script

The young people, who begin their homes, generally begin by taking loans.  We are speaking about our great urban middle class. They buy a house by taking loan. They would acquire gadgets, furniture, furnishings… etc. by taking loans. This is called 'lifestyle'.

Happy are those who receive fat inheritance from their old parents!

When the young begin their adult life, they are past their spring-time – youth – in building up their career. Where does this debt-trap end in the rat-race of life-sucking competition, in the saturated market?

They acquire training for their careers on the assembly-lines at educational institutions. However, they hardly have any life-supporting skills, either from the institutions or their families, during their youth. Hence, even for common cold they run to the experts/specialists. This is called Third Ecology, which is outside Natural Ecology.
What a mountain-high ego!
Who is supposed to think of posterity?

Remigius de Souza | Mumbai | 17-09-13

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

THE OUTHOUSE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Fifty Years of Nation Building

 

Viceroy's Residence at New Delhi

All that I saw was a huge gate whenever I visited the place

LOOKING BACK, the event – 15th August 1947 – now seems an end, and not a beginning.

Symbolically and virtually, when the President of India walked into the Outhouse of the British Empire, i.e. Viceroy's Palace (renamed ‘Rashtrapati Bhavan’), it was an insult to her people, who continued to live in 5, 57,000 villages and in the slums and even below poverty line. Their fate was sealed as second-class citizens. There erupted a trade in a new guise to take over the feudal mastership, a scramble for power and profit, and a stream of sugarcoated slogans.

The intellectual corruption, therefore, cannot be measured.

Architects and planners belong to the same stock of rulers – looking for clues, inspiration, models, collaborations, and approvals… – and aid from the West or otherwise from the bygone past.
  
Who does care for the living present and posterity!
  
It begins with formal education, which conspires to breed a hybrid monoculture, far from creativity.

The only hope for freedom is the millions who silently resist, suffer, protest, prevail, sustain without coming into the fold of the ruling minority.  In-spite of the onslaught of the environment, ecology and energy at the hands of development planning that continues to fail (to bring wellbeing to the majority).

There is hope, if millions are taken into confidence:  if there is collective creativity which is an Indian tradition and heritage and a collective introspection.

There is hope, as some signs of change appear on the horizon.

The so-called Rashtrapati Bhavan Estates deserve to be returned to the people for the fit use of public fairs, fun and frolic and its part for a museum of enslaved past, for the posterity to learn from. Then perhaps the Indian Architecture of freedom and democracy will emerge?

(This note was sent in response to: “Write about a building(s) or urban development which you feel has had a lasting impact on post-independence Indian architecture”, a request by Indian Architect Builder, and published in its special issue, “50 Years of nation Building”, August 1997, p.69)

 NB:
It took 15 years to realize part of a my wishful thinking. There is a news: Rashtrapati Bhavan Mughal Gardens set to open for public from February 16

Read More>> Urban Renewal in the Regional Context

Note: The image above is from Internet.
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Land is Commodity in Modern Times

Architects, Planners plan, draw, paint beautiful 2D, 3D images, with landscape, served on a platter to public. In the course of time there came 4D - moving images - with emergence of technology (ET-IT).

However, a building becomes an Act of Law, when a project - a house, road, flyover, bridge, dam... or a city materializes on the land, according to the Law. That doesn't happen to texts/pictures unless the culture police protest and/or vandalize them.

How many indeed do see this situation beyond the standards and bye-laws? Or did I ever see?

This question has been following me for a long time. It kept on lingering at the back of my mind during the busy hours on drawing board and leisure days of long travels.

Sometimes the question would surface and quietly recede, leaving a tingling feeling, an astringent taste! I made several mental notes as well as notes on paper over the years. They referred the places & people together, witnessed across the life-span.

I also wrote several stories/poems – metafiction – on the subject of Land, Waters and Life. Each time the question would reveal some clue, stilt it remained.

‘Architect’ is a legal title in India for a few decades now. However, ‘Architecture’ is not is not subjected to legality!

The Land is under the jurisdiction of Land Revenue Act. Its label ‘agricultural land’ changes to 'non-agricultural land', used for building construction. Its tenure changes in the land records, which obviously it is meant for higher taxes. The law was originally designed by the British Raj.

Hence, Land becomes a Commodity. Our ancient belief / faith / sentiment of 'Mother
Land' — also as “Vande Mataram” depicts — , then turns into a mechanical ritual of 'Bhoomi Pooja' – worship of land – whether a cultural custom or religious ceremony. Its cultural or religious sanctity is long lost into oblivion.

None, either the orthodoxy or the religious, ever came to her - Mother's - rescue.
Wars are waged for ownership of land though. Our 'cultural police' are quiet on the issue for long, long lost!

The adivasi – aborigine – communities in India, and elsewhere too, continue to believe that 'no one – an individual or a group – has right to own the Land', behave and live for millennia. The onslaught wrecked on them by the civilized societies, for the past five thousand years, did not change their belief, behaviour and way of living.

Architecture - What is it? Basically a Shelter!
Personally for me architecture has been only a Utility, a means for survival. I don't hold that ‘title’ any more. I was, perhaps the 1ST “Idiot”, long before Aamir Khan’s movie, “3 Idiots”, came; I had unceremoniously walked away from the first day of final, qualifying examination.

They – the aborigine – believe, behave and live, 'Walk the Talk', whole heartedly in harmony with Mother Nature to sustain living.

Land Revenue Act and its instrument 'Land Survey Maps' have been more sinister than the black law, the 'Land Acquisition Act' that followed. It was a sinister blow to the ancient 'Unwritten Law of Mother Nature'.


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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Jama Mosque at Mandu: Music in Structure

The Great Mosque as Place in Public Domain

...in the then existing kingdom. I looked at it before, and now too, as a citizen first and as a 'worker' to earn livelihood in architecture and town planning, once.

In the realms of Ethics and Aesthetics, whenever I look at it, this edifice as an event overwhelms me.
In the realms of Environment - Ecology - Energy in Nature and Life, I have yet to reconstruct it as then existed.
The NOW, however, exists as remains of history before us. Could we reconstruct with the missing elements, in Holistic Way?

The following snippets in photos and notes are a Virtual Reality, with many speaking blank spaces!

Elevation-1, Jama Mosque, Mandu

There are no applied decorations or embellishments here. The structural system, the true arch, itself creates intrinsic beauty to this place.

Elevation -2, Jama Mosque, Mandu

It is evident in arches, domes, vaults... that make the whole structure with bare simplicity.
The structure moves in harmony at different levels, and it lifts us up as in “Aazaan”; that is the beauty of the place.

External View: Jama Mosque, Mandu

The tropical sunlight plays an important role in traditional Indian architecture, whether it is intricate surface carvings in relief or austere plain finishes to early works.

Courtyard: Jama Mosque, Mandu

There is a saying, 'Architecture is Frozen Music', which we witness here.
The aging by centuries doesn't touch beauty.

Interior: Vaults-1, Jama Mosque, Mandu

 The domes, I presume, may have been once covered with blue pottery tiles. There is another structure — tomb / mosque — at this complex that has a few blue tiles still left.

Vaulted ceiling: Jama Mosque, Mandu

However, any artefact needs maintenance with care, in the spirit of place. Any restoration should be carried with sensitivity.

Any object made by humans starts deteriorating from day one. It does not grow like natural living things.

Vaulted ceiling: Jama Mosque, Mandu

 Jama Masjid is a religious building, hence also public place for all, all the people — the rich and the poor. We notice a remarkable difference between Jama and civilian buildings, palaces etc. Jama Masjid is still in a sound condition, and the other buildings, royal houses... are now in ruins or fast turning to total ruins.

Interior - Part: Jama Mosque, Mandu

The sense of proportion and scale executed in buildings, in longevity of the two domains — public or the Collective and the private — by the then feudal powers, and their builders, are indeed remarkable.

Interior view of Courtyard:  Jama Mosque, Mandu

Compare the two in this reference, today's Power-holders in the secular, socialist and democratic India, and the situation of the public places — water and wetlands, public distribution system (PDS), healthcare, play and games (example: CWG), education, transport systems etc.

Exterior View: Jama Mosque, Mandu

Look at the places under the domains of the power-holders' classes, and in the public domain. Look at the squandering of the scarce resources of the Earth, for their power, profit and self-glorification, which is neo-feudalism, anywhere. One glance is enough to understand for any sane mind!

Basement: Jama Mosque, Mandu

Wealth comes from the soil — grain and/or mineral, not from a mint. What comes from the mint — currency — has no tangible value.

Basement-2: Jama Mosque, Mandu

I visited Mandu decades ago. Perhaps now there is some facelift—gardens with lawn, flowering shrubs etc. in fashion, being a place of tourist interest.

Jali - grill - carved in marble: Jama Mosque, Mandu

Most important part of the whole complex is the 'water management', which I could not document. This part, then, was covered with wild growth of trees, vines and shrubs, and almost impossible to access. I very much doubt if the authorities even attempted to restore this 'historical water conservation system'?

Water management - Part, Mandu

 Work of architecture is better experienced at different times of days and seasons on site until our perceptions are enriched to visualize reality from such mediums as maps / models / photographs / movies / videos etc. Any work of architecture is full size museum.

Perennial Water pond outside Mandu Fort

The entire complex at Mandu was executed by the Indian artisans. There were guilds of artisans or builders in historical times. They carried traditional knowledge and wisdom through generations. Vastushilpa or Traditional Indian Architecture, includes houses, palaces, temples, gardens, water-bodies, town planning and related subjects.

View of surrounding region -1

Mandu or Mndavgad is situated on the top of Vindhya Ranges.This region between Vindhya and Satpura Ranges had a dense forest. It is the ancient habitat of many adivasi communities - aborigine tribes. Forests are their lifeline.

View of surrounding region -2

Most of the forest cover is lost. It still continues to vanish. There great demand  for timber to build cities. The civilized societies in modern times continue to deforest these hills is visible in these photographs. So also there are many hydro-electric projects for the wants of urban habitats.

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Shankar Kanade's Architecture: Lohithashwa's House

Shankar Kanade's Architecture: Lohithashwa's House

Unique Event – Interior in Action

By Remigius de Souza

Architecture is finally completed by the user: Primarily it is for the user.

SN and NN Kanade at Jalavayuvihar township

Shankar and Navanath Kanade, Architects, have their firm under the name and style, "Shilp Sindoor". They are placed in Bangalore. Shankar has been instrumental in starting/ formulating 'courses of architecture' at many colleges. Shankar and Navnath have been teaching architecture for decades.

Shankar Kanade, over the years developed unique/ original construction system, locally known as "Chapadi", using local granite; and his project execution management achieved economy that benefit the home owners.

Lohithashwa

Lohithaswa is a noted Kannada film actor and playwright and a retired English professor. He has acted in more than five hundred Kannada stage plays, and television serials. He is popularly known for his dominating voice in the Kannada film industry.

Lohithashwa had invited some artists to join the art workshop to be held at his house - residence. They were on visit to Bangalore, on the occasion of an arts and crafts exhibition at national level held at Bangalore.

I was fortunate to pick up the unique event of 'art workshop' that shows many dimensions of splendour in this house.

Artist at work - Exterior open space

We speak, here, through photos, a popular medium, and word of mouth. We speak not how the architecture of house looks, but how it works. We don't speak of design aesthetics, but ethics in adapting it to a non-charted use, not prescribed in the architects' 'Brief' (of the proposed house).

Artists take a break

At Indian residences, in urban and rural areas, there are several occasions – birth, marriage, Pooja, festivities, death... harvesting of crops – when relatives, friends, community visit. This is a common feature.

The artists gathered here have come from different parts of India. Perhaps some are meeting each other for the first time, including the host.

Place occupied by an artist

The house has major use of local granite, a living material like clay and wood, favorite of sculptors.
At every step it is overwhelmingly evident that architect and client ware in tune and at same wavelength in the process of designing.
We witness this abode is made in excellent communion of architects, workers and user-the-family.

Artists feel at home

It is said, ‘People get the government they deserve’.Here we may say, ‘People get architect they deserve’!

Navanath, Lohithashwa and artist Patil inconversation

The artists here ware immersed in work, rest and interaction. That shows how everyone was feeling at home - in the 'place', not a 'space'.
We often see photos and thumbnail drawings of architecture in glossy magazines bereft of people, rather 'the user the god in sanctuary'. What do we perceive when we see such presentations of architecture in print media or e-media?

Home is place to work, rest, interact and grow

These photographs are clicked on ordinary camera, in natural light or room lights-on.
While clicking the pictures, there is least thought given to rules of aesthetics or ruling taste. These photographs are Celebration of People, Place, and the Occasion.

Place-making in house is dynamic

We don't place any customary mini-maps to guide the reader in the interior.
Kanade brothers could have furnished me with drawings, and other typical professional information to go with this text and photographs. I don't do it deliberately.
With printing technology earlier, then photography, movie, now Internet, we are moving away from Reality to Virtual Reality at every step in our elitist life.

Connecting Persons - Connecting Places

With miniature reproductions of maps and pictures (i.e. Hi-tech photographs) of exterior - interiors, we usually celebrate Architecture - 'the Holy cow, Mother of All Arts'.
Indeed how many, even professionals, can decipher 'anatomy of architecture' and comprehend 'scale and dimensions' of Reality in the illustrations? Of course, it depends on perception level of each one.

For example, 'Barcelona Pavilion' (by Mies) lived for decades, clean and neat, in black and white photographs. When rebuilt as a memorial, in a crowded urban area, how does it look now in real?

Kitchen is Sacred Place in Indian Abode

Kitchen is sacred place in Indian abode. Cooking or rather Preparing vegan food is highest art form, only next to Organic / Natural Farming. Both nourish Body, Mind and Soul (in my opinion). Other forms in these two primal fields are marketable commodity & consumerism.

Culinary Art is Highest Form of Art next to Farming

We, the urbanite Indians, try to adopt imported industrialization; we have not grown up with it as the Western are. Also we perhaps carry mimetic memories (received from our Great... great grand Mother) buried in our deep subconscious. And like molecules of water in ocean they keep coming up: Not everyone may wake up to the inner voice. There lies the answer to many anomalies in the developing India.

Artist's Participation in Cooking

I have heard, architecture, now in the West, is put in the new category named 'Creative Industry'. Why are they apologetic? Why can't they, or don't want to, turn the tide of Climate Chang or of whatever other ills, despite their so-called Progress and Development?

Internal Courtyard is Traditional Feature in Architecture

 I suspect the term, 'Architecture as Creative Industry' has its origin in the 'Hybrid and GM Seeds' in the realms of a basic need 'Food' in Agriculture.
Now the new category of architecture evolved from the primary need, 'Shelter', is to subjugate autonomy the 'User' as 'Producer' at the mercy of 'mass producer and supplier' i.e. Industry and Market.

Artist at work

International Style (of architecture) is misnomer coined by the puppets of powers in Industrial society. 

Courtyard as a work place

Art is not for Art's sake. Any art, artefact or event is an expression of culture.
Culture is a gift of Land and Water – Mother Nature – enriched by biodiversity of the place, from the Poles to Equator. Culture, therefore, is local, never international. Only 'trade' is international.

Culture is in the People

Culture is in the people, not in any artefacts or events. Heritage Conservation, therefore, should be the Conservation of People and Natural Biodiversity.

QUOTES

1. When I had (first) visited Lohithashwa’s house, my spontaneous response was “I am reminded of India’s rock cut architecture”.

2. “At the art workshop other arts also flourished. Several artistes – potters, painters, and sculptors – were passionately working: I feel this may be a best, and the most appropriate tribute to Kanade ever received for his work.” (SHANKAR KANADE, ARCHITECT)

NOTE: 1. The opinions, comments, expressed in this post are mine. They don’t reflect views of Shankar and Navnath Kanade.
2. Shankar Kanade's profile: SHANKAR KANADE, ARCHITECT 

Remigius de Souza | Date: 21-01-2012
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Man And Nature (Within And Outside)

The presentation to the paper, "Architecture and Biodiversity in India : A Context to Aesthetics in Our Times", presented to PAITHRUKAM 2004: Seminar/Workshop on Aesthetics in Indian Architecture: Past, Present and Future, at MES College of Architecture, Trissure, Kerala.
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Man And Nature (Within And Outside)

More PowerPoint presentations from Remigius de Souza

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Note: 1. All the references and quotes are not mentioned in the presentation. Also, the permissions of the authors and publishers have not been taken. The author acknowledges their copyright. These are used purely for the academic purpose.

2. The paper is also published in 3 parts: 1 Garden under a Glass Cage, 2 Built Environment and Biodiversity, 3 But who will bell the Cat - the Bureaucrats?

Remigius de Souza

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved

All Are Architects

Honeybees and Hive

 ALL ARE ARCHITECTS: Honeybees are architects; Spiders are architects; Weaver-birds are architects; Beavers are architects; Ants are architects... 

All are architects, because at primary level architecture is Shelter; that matters! The Title 'Architect' is protected by law in some countries, and following them in the First World India. This is so because of ignorance about real life and real issues of people.

However, thankfully, the term “architecture” is not legal.

In India now there may be about 50,000, perhaps more, qualified architects. How many of them have taken legal title is doubtful. Imagine, 1200 million people have 50K architects! They will have no time to cope up the amount of work they should have had. 

Weaver Bird's two nests are never same

Spider's Site Selection

Yet there is monopoly of a few architects in the profession. Forty years ago, one architect, a foreigner of credibility, (I don't mention the name) exclaimed in Ahmadabad, "these mafia architects!"    

While “shelter”, howsoever may have stood the test of time, is considered “low” in esteem by civil society; “Architecture” is “high art” surrounded by mystery. In the present scenario, “architect” belongs to a “service class” – in Indic term, “Neo-Shudra” – in the created by Industrial Civilization, on the outskirts of Global village.   

Anthills

 Well, that was a case earlier too. Emperor Shah Jahan cut off the hand of the architect who created Taj Mahal! 

Heinrich Robert Zimmer, in his book on Indian art (Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization), quotes a story of the gods’ architect, Vishwakarma, who had built a palace of Indra, the king of gods. Indra brought him virtually to tears. So he approached Vishnu, and he took Vishvakarma to Shiva for recourse. Shiva, in a guise of an ascetic, gives Indra a vision to understand that his glory is short-lived like a millions Indra that have passed away before him. The mythical story imbibes aesthetics and ethics. 


MY HOUSE IN KONKAN REGION, WEST COAST, INDIA 

My mother was the owner - architect of this house. It was built by Community Participation, where carpenters, masons, adobe wall builders came from village and surrounding area. I was in teens then. I took by first lessons 'mud house building' here.My mother exercised her autonomy about planning, size, materials to be used, in consultation with all workers: it is in regional style. This house was built by self-help.

It is a mud house - mud floor, mud walls and mud plaster; local latarite stone facia for plinth, and pillars; timber for pillars, bamboo for roof scantling, wooden doors and windows; and country clay roofing tiles. 

I worked almost in all operations as a helper, from collecting stones, and from foundations to roofing, and later regularly attended to maintenance of mud floors, mud walls and roofing. This is a case study: All over India millions of people exercise self-help, autonomy, community participation, planning, maintenance and economy. 

In rural India children learn 'life-supporting-skills' at early formative age. May the elite scorn it as "child-labour", while pampering their urban rich brats by putting them in the best school in the city or a best in the country... What contribution the parents do other than spending money! Modern India has failed to create better model of education than  that has been existing in the past ten thousand years, in past six decades.

NOTE: 1. Images are by Remigius de Souza. 

2. More on TRIBAL SKILLS: Clay country roofing tiles 

3. Traditional Mud Floors Technology 

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Idea of New Town: Navi Mumbai (POEM)

Original title of the poem 

 (Poem written on 23-02-1997: I was writings a review of a workshop, "The Idea of New Town, Looking at Navi Mumbai" (earlier New Bombay). While writings it I was stuck for many reasons. One of them was the stalwarts in architecture and planning from India and abroad attended the workshop. Sant Tukaram came to my help, and I composed the following poem. I re-publish it. )

Oh Vitthala*, while you stand steadfast
On a single brick, the foundation bestowing
Courage and joy through Gyanoba-Tukoba*;
There is no beginning – no end.

On the threshold of Third Millennium
Of "English" calendar, what are a few decades
Of life of New Delhi, Chandigarh, or New Mumbai
But specks of dust in a hay stack?
We have lived through cities thousand years old.

The sperms of Navi Mumbai were laid in an incubator
By an industrial corporate body, legitimized
By the CIDCO* of Swadeshi Raj here
Of your beloved Maharashtra and of the displaced.

Oh Vithoba1, your beloved people of India
Are blessed by Mother Earth for millennia,
Living in million villages, who nurtured and helped
To sustain cities of Gods, kings and Nawabs.

In the age of rape of Mother Earth
And ecological-cultural subjugation of the sons of soil,
Pushed them to the brink, to make a fast buck
While the sun shines, through manufacture and market;
The machine does not make maize neither milk.

Corporations know not "boundaries", – neither of values
Nor culture, – Their tentacles reach afar
Under different garbs and masks anew;
What are the new towns across the continents
In the name of urbanism – yet another mask?

Swarms of corporate locust devouring resources
In decades, what had been plentiful for millions
Of living entities for centuries, to leave behind
“Holes in the sky". City planners are by-products.

We witnessed the destruction of Hiroshima-
Nagasaki, calamities man-made with impact;
the shudder of earth that reduced Kobe to debris.

You hold aloft Kedarnath – Kashi – Kanyakumari
Through the times of turmoil, age after age.
Bhagiratha*  brought Mother Ganga to revive
His five thousand ancestors in peril.

In the age of annihilation unsurpassed
His offspring struggle to survive in numbers.
Will the sons of soil survive or perish?
Oh, Vitthala, Give your holy verdict.

In the era of contraception - condoms - abortions,
The steel-glass-concrete jungles of modern towns
Are sprouting, sprawling, swelling, multiplying
To celebrate triumph of "Post-historic-Man".
Will New Town, living a hybrid life on life saving
Drugs, shall be or not be an abortion?

Desperate planners are gripped in two-three dimensions
When Newtonian Age passed away hither thither;
In spite of revelation of Time and Eternity;
And half-truth of second law of thermodynamics.

Tied to a mill of self-cantered ego, they go in rounds
Endless, locked in cells. Will some glimpse liberate them?
Oh Vithoba*, It is time again to release Vishwakarma*
from the bondage of Indra*, we pray.

We recite the past, or speculate the future in mechanical
Actions; run into political impotency;
when confronted to the Present, take refuge
of numbers in perpetuity, dividing, sieving, grading,
degrading the humanity at the cost of creativity.

Now the "Bhasmasura"* of modern technology is let loose
Shattering the ancient limits only to defile and displace
Land and Waters, to eliminate the living entities.
New Towns offer man a life of hydroponics.

His tentacles reach deeper and wider through his weapon –
"The Cities" – to bring slow death to regions afar without impact.
Oh Vithoba, heed to our invocation to give us Insight
into the Present, the People, the Life, the Nature's Way.

At the end of second millennium, they struggle
In the narrow compartments of 2D – 3D to establish
Credibility; offer the urbanites "New Town Neurosis"
They are yet to awaken to hyperspace;
How could the planners be Visionary?

Architecture is poet's imagination to serve
The two in hundred of the world;
Planning demands vision in Universal Truth
Of a sage – of a humble farmer – who lives
In the timeless eternal NOW.
* * * *
Remigius de Souza
Mumbai
23-2-1997

Notes:
* Vitthala, Vithoba: Most venerated deity in Maharashtra (an incarnation of Vishnu).
* Gaynoba – Tukoba: Jnaneshwar and Tukaram are saint-poets of Maharashtra, India.
* Swadeshi – Self-rule.
* CIDCO: City and Industrial Development Corporation, Maharashtra State, India.
* Bhagiratha: a character from Mahabharata.
* Vishwakarma, Indra, Bhasmasura: characters from Puranas. Bhasmasura is similar to Midas in the western mythology. However end of Bhasmasura comes reducing him ashes by his own folly, which is inevitable. There is no room for repentance.

(Poem on the event, “Workshop – The Idea of New Town: Looking at Navi Mumbai" held at Coomaraswamy Hall, Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai on 21-22 February 1997.)

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Nold Egenter responds

To my paper "Warli House and Habitat-1", published on this blog, Nold Egenter, world known architect anthropologist,  graciously responds by his e-mail. I reproduce the excerpts here:  

"Dear Remigius de Souza,

thank you for your info regarding your blog page. Phantastic!  I copied the "Relevance of Indigenous Tribal Housing Today" and handed it out to students at the EPF/ETH Lausanne. This is somehow what I had dreamt of in India, because it still has an overwhelming amount of traditional communities! I more and more become aware that "civilisation" is to a great extent also a tremendously negative cultural evolution: historistic misunderstandings and misconstructs of human life are considered as the true fundaments of social organisation. This is why this type of research into the traditional "tribal world" on the empirical level of research of architecture, handicraft and space is extremely important (disciplines of Western humanities produce tremendous "Euro-historistic distortions"!).

Thank you once more, I will read myself more into your important Blog site!

With warm regards,

Nold Egenter"

*   *   *

Some of the links to his works:  

http://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/NoldEgenter 

http://habitat-anthro.ning.com/    

http://www.myarchn.com/profile/NoldEgenter  

HOMEPAGE

http://home.worldcom.ch/negenter/  

Nold Egenter's work speaks for him; I need not add my certificate. Those who are new to his valuable contribution to our understanding of culture and architecture, better discover more thro' the clue provided in the links above to his work.

Indian education system should include Anthropology in the textbooks of “Civics” and “History” subjects in their schools colleges and universities; and add it as Refresher Course for the bureaucrats: It is high time. 

India has been plural society, now being driven to polarity by various vested interests and their evil means.

Remigius de Souza

Note: Image Source, Nold Egenter' Profile

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.