Friday, June 26, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
08-05-'09 to 24-05-'09
February, 2010.
This is the view from the terrace of our house in Kolkata. The buildings in the distance are more than 100 odd years old. They were built by the last zamindar of Calcutta. Now, most of them are in a dilapidated condition.The presence of the electricity poles is a boon for many. Many doors and door frames lie at the side of the ground, apparently, they are for sale!
These are part of 12 mandirs built by the same zamindar (Saravana Rai Choudhury). Chandi mela takes place in the ground n front.
60/5 Savarna Para. Our home.
ATMA House, Ahmedabad.
Hussain Doshi Gufa, Ahmedabad. For some reason the "openable" skylights are ever opened, and the gufa becomes more like an oven inside !
A very quick sketch from the cafe.
Darpan, Ahmedabad.Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Frustration Guaranteed !
I have driven from Lokhandwala to Churchgate at different times during different days of the week. Varying from 2pm saturday afternoon, to 11.30am sunday morning, to 5pm thursday evening.. Apart from the late night drives, all the rest have led to frustration.. guaranteed !
Today,I left from home around 3 to fetch a tripod stand from Fort. I took the Versova Link road. With so many new buildings coming up in this part of the city, most roads have some ugly and monstrous trucks driven on, in the worst possible way- in the middle of the road, blocking all vehicles behind! Invariably, there is this dirty white cement mixer truck behind which I end up stopping at the Indian Oil signal, and today was no different ! Strange co-incidence (part of nature's conspiracy plan!). Then, I have noticed that it a tendency of the front row of cars at the signal to not start moving until the car from behind starts honking ! More often than not the vehicle in the front row of my lane is a rickshaw or a taxi that fails to start once the signal turns green (another one of nature's conspiracy plan) ! And then the red monster (BEST) comes from nowhere and stops, just after the signal or before it (because the bus stops have been conveniently located there). After that, the road clears up for a short distance till the speed breaker, that has been strategically placed just before The Club. The amount of research and study that goes into selecting locations for the speed breakers on the roads of our city is simply amazing. But what is more amazing is the speed at which they come up, and then reappear (even) after getting destroyed in the rains ! Its fun driving the stretch from that speedbreaker to the Juhu circle junction because the road is wide enough to overtake all the road rapists (rickshaws), using some complex S-shaped maneuvres. But the 2-wheelers easily are the next most irritating sight! They cannot go too fast, they think they can and they ride on the fast lane. They think they are riding well, but they can never go in a straight line. This makes overtaking them annoyingly frustrating. Now, at the Juhu circle junction there is a major lane confusion, most of the rickshaws in the right lane want to turn left, most of the jeeps and 2wheelers and some more rickshaws in the left lane want to go straight..The BEST still manages to literally zoom its way out of this mess and turn left (from whichever lane they are in) or go straight. Luckily, I was in the left lane and turned left without much trouble (as I was as left as possible!). But once I turned left, there is a surface change - from concrete (paver?) blocks to concrete road. And this is just not possible without a semi-pothole (semi but large enough to slow the car big time! ) between the 2 surfaces. Oh, I almost forgot- you will never find a smooth, well levelled, perfect patch of road - 100 m long. Its simply impossible. There are far too many IC covers, DC covers,and various manhole covers to make prominent as if they are of some grave importance and vehicle must be blessed by its touch.If you drive at a constant speed, and are in the blessed lane of the manhole covers then one can easily get entranced by its rhythmic repetition ! Then I drove toward the Costa Cafe junction (hoping that the "newly completed" road opposite reliance webworld would be finally open, but alas!), turned left and drove to Juhu gully. There is a rickshaw parking or something opposite costa cafe. It must be demolished! Rickshawallas glare at the passing cars just as we glare at them. Its scary sometimes to drive through there at night (also because street lights have not been placed along the road). Anyway, I manage to reach the S.V. Road signal when the signal is just about to turn amber. The car infront of me is literally ambling toward the zebra crossing and suddenly when the lights turns amber, the bastard zooms off and I face the red light and have to stop ! All my dreams of overtaking the bugger and cutting his car's nose off get shattered! (another example of nature successfully carrying out its conspiracy plan). The signal finally turns green, but the red monster has jumped the light from the right and is coming towards me. I hit the brakes, cars behind me honk and the red monster zooms by with greater authority ! And then a rickshaw overtakes me from behind !
Patience is the key to driving well. Patience to wait, to drive slowly behind another slow car (because the asshole is talking on the phone or showing something to someone) even when there is an absolutely clear patch of road in front, to allow passenger-less rickshaws and taxis pass so that they can go slowly in front of us inorder to spot customers, to allow 2wheelers to dance in front of us, and twist and turn and cross our car at signals (after disturbing the external rea view mirror), to allow people to cross the road (anywhere but zebra crossing) even after the signal has turned green. Do Indians EVER follow the pedestrian signal ? Does it even work ?
Mumbai now ranks 7th in the world's cities with the worst traffic jams...
Its not just the way the roads are planned and the overpopulation of vehicles that is the problem but, primarily, the pathetic quality of vehicles (rickshaws, trucks, taxis, matadors, etc), and the pathetic quality of drivers that is to blame. Somehow, people still lack voluntary discipline for a greater good. Anyway, I am sick of writing this now. Just glad its all finally out !!
Today,I left from home around 3 to fetch a tripod stand from Fort. I took the Versova Link road. With so many new buildings coming up in this part of the city, most roads have some ugly and monstrous trucks driven on, in the worst possible way- in the middle of the road, blocking all vehicles behind! Invariably, there is this dirty white cement mixer truck behind which I end up stopping at the Indian Oil signal, and today was no different ! Strange co-incidence (part of nature's conspiracy plan!). Then, I have noticed that it a tendency of the front row of cars at the signal to not start moving until the car from behind starts honking ! More often than not the vehicle in the front row of my lane is a rickshaw or a taxi that fails to start once the signal turns green (another one of nature's conspiracy plan) ! And then the red monster (BEST) comes from nowhere and stops, just after the signal or before it (because the bus stops have been conveniently located there). After that, the road clears up for a short distance till the speed breaker, that has been strategically placed just before The Club. The amount of research and study that goes into selecting locations for the speed breakers on the roads of our city is simply amazing. But what is more amazing is the speed at which they come up, and then reappear (even) after getting destroyed in the rains ! Its fun driving the stretch from that speedbreaker to the Juhu circle junction because the road is wide enough to overtake all the road rapists (rickshaws), using some complex S-shaped maneuvres. But the 2-wheelers easily are the next most irritating sight! They cannot go too fast, they think they can and they ride on the fast lane. They think they are riding well, but they can never go in a straight line. This makes overtaking them annoyingly frustrating. Now, at the Juhu circle junction there is a major lane confusion, most of the rickshaws in the right lane want to turn left, most of the jeeps and 2wheelers and some more rickshaws in the left lane want to go straight..The BEST still manages to literally zoom its way out of this mess and turn left (from whichever lane they are in) or go straight. Luckily, I was in the left lane and turned left without much trouble (as I was as left as possible!). But once I turned left, there is a surface change - from concrete (paver?) blocks to concrete road. And this is just not possible without a semi-pothole (semi but large enough to slow the car big time! ) between the 2 surfaces. Oh, I almost forgot- you will never find a smooth, well levelled, perfect patch of road - 100 m long. Its simply impossible. There are far too many IC covers, DC covers,and various manhole covers to make prominent as if they are of some grave importance and vehicle must be blessed by its touch.If you drive at a constant speed, and are in the blessed lane of the manhole covers then one can easily get entranced by its rhythmic repetition ! Then I drove toward the Costa Cafe junction (hoping that the "newly completed" road opposite reliance webworld would be finally open, but alas!), turned left and drove to Juhu gully. There is a rickshaw parking or something opposite costa cafe. It must be demolished! Rickshawallas glare at the passing cars just as we glare at them. Its scary sometimes to drive through there at night (also because street lights have not been placed along the road). Anyway, I manage to reach the S.V. Road signal when the signal is just about to turn amber. The car infront of me is literally ambling toward the zebra crossing and suddenly when the lights turns amber, the bastard zooms off and I face the red light and have to stop ! All my dreams of overtaking the bugger and cutting his car's nose off get shattered! (another example of nature successfully carrying out its conspiracy plan). The signal finally turns green, but the red monster has jumped the light from the right and is coming towards me. I hit the brakes, cars behind me honk and the red monster zooms by with greater authority ! And then a rickshaw overtakes me from behind !
Patience is the key to driving well. Patience to wait, to drive slowly behind another slow car (because the asshole is talking on the phone or showing something to someone) even when there is an absolutely clear patch of road in front, to allow passenger-less rickshaws and taxis pass so that they can go slowly in front of us inorder to spot customers, to allow 2wheelers to dance in front of us, and twist and turn and cross our car at signals (after disturbing the external rea view mirror), to allow people to cross the road (anywhere but zebra crossing) even after the signal has turned green. Do Indians EVER follow the pedestrian signal ? Does it even work ?
Mumbai now ranks 7th in the world's cities with the worst traffic jams...
Its not just the way the roads are planned and the overpopulation of vehicles that is the problem but, primarily, the pathetic quality of vehicles (rickshaws, trucks, taxis, matadors, etc), and the pathetic quality of drivers that is to blame. Somehow, people still lack voluntary discipline for a greater good. Anyway, I am sick of writing this now. Just glad its all finally out !!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Everything Sucks !
With so many things happening in college,most of it- tending toward a complete downfall of the system due to the myopic view of the authorities, one can do nothing but stand back and complain.
It is a pitty when learned men - who hold immense responsibility, when under pressure, cannot take decisions that are sensible, optimistic and promise a healthier future. Maybe thats what distinguishes leadership from losership.
At a time when the world rapidly advances forward in quantum leaps and uncalculable bounds, we, lesser mortals are stuck within this cube controlled by unnecessary dimensions and a tiny door that only a few can find and fewer can pass through. Maybe thats why Sen Kapadia had told me in my 2nd yr jury that we are not in this college to make cubes ! But, alas ! We exist in one.
Methods of imparting knowledge are changing across the world, where pedagogical methods are contemporised to be able to deal with the ever changing minds and behaviour of students each year. With the easy access to nearly everything titilating, the rigour and effort to seek something not popularly titilating but important, is rapidly disappearing. The teachers, who in this case are obviously the more learned and aware, should change the way they teach than expecting the students, who are not as learned and not as aware, to change.
And failing them to teach them a lesson, is the most regressive thing possible. Not only does it destroy the student's morale, but frustrates him to start losing faith. Faith in the system, and finally faith in himself.
But, thats all the complaining and gyaan that I can impart, because none of this, still, absolves me from performing my duty as the student.
I quote a song that we had sung in the Rocking and Rolling with Kabir play.....
He sucks
She sucks
Mullah sucks
Pundit sucks
CM sucks
PM sucks
Student sucks
Faculty sucks
Nothing really sucks
Everything sucks
जहाँ लगी जग माह रूप उपनो रूप उपनो
सो सब रूप तुम्हारा, तुम्हारा
कबीर पोगरा अल्लाह राम का, सो गुरु पीर हमारा।
All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us.
It is a pitty when learned men - who hold immense responsibility, when under pressure, cannot take decisions that are sensible, optimistic and promise a healthier future. Maybe thats what distinguishes leadership from losership.
At a time when the world rapidly advances forward in quantum leaps and uncalculable bounds, we, lesser mortals are stuck within this cube controlled by unnecessary dimensions and a tiny door that only a few can find and fewer can pass through. Maybe thats why Sen Kapadia had told me in my 2nd yr jury that we are not in this college to make cubes ! But, alas ! We exist in one.
Methods of imparting knowledge are changing across the world, where pedagogical methods are contemporised to be able to deal with the ever changing minds and behaviour of students each year. With the easy access to nearly everything titilating, the rigour and effort to seek something not popularly titilating but important, is rapidly disappearing. The teachers, who in this case are obviously the more learned and aware, should change the way they teach than expecting the students, who are not as learned and not as aware, to change.
And failing them to teach them a lesson, is the most regressive thing possible. Not only does it destroy the student's morale, but frustrates him to start losing faith. Faith in the system, and finally faith in himself.
But, thats all the complaining and gyaan that I can impart, because none of this, still, absolves me from performing my duty as the student.
I quote a song that we had sung in the Rocking and Rolling with Kabir play.....
He sucks
She sucks
Mullah sucks
Pundit sucks
CM sucks
PM sucks
Student sucks
Faculty sucks
Nothing really sucks
Everything sucks
जहाँ लगी जग माह रूप उपनो रूप उपनो
सो सब रूप तुम्हारा, तुम्हारा
कबीर पोगरा अल्लाह राम का, सो गुरु पीर हमारा।
All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
An Architect
An Architect is someone who takes control of a form and makes/ creates a structure for its realization. The intensity and complexity of the control is something that is determined by various forces and that is what determines the process that leads to the form(ation).
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