Reality check

In any relationship, Faith is like a vaccine...it has to be induced to keep love healthy. Cant harp about it if its not administered. It comes naturally if the intent is strong......the intent to make love work. Rest is nothing but a glorious illusion.

One from the Architect

For good ideas, you pay now. For bad ideas, you pay later.

11 minutes of pain

As I write this I silently remember Terrible Tuesday and the pain it bought. Terror raised its ugly head once more devouring innocent lives who did not deserve to perish like this. Any human heart will reel in horror at the sheer viciousness of the attacks. But my question is are we all doing enough to stop such horrors from being replayed? I boarded a train home on the same line the very next day with scores of other people, exuding the famed 'spirit of mumbai'. For the longest 40 mins i have travelled for, i could smell the air choked with nervous apprehension. I left the trainstation & headed home feeling strange of how & why we all did not allow the previous day's shock to grip us. Was my mind actually fighting fear...or was "busy gettin bac to work"? We felt proud for having proclaimed "U dont scare us", to the perverts who committed this sin. But I feel that in an attempt to show the city never sleeps we, mumbaikars, have mutated into a species that never protests, thinking that gathering the pieces and resuming life is all it takes. Let me remind myself and my countrymen that there is a fine line between being brave and being desensitised. I pray that we never cross it.

"Water water everywhere......."

Mumbaikars witnessed the annual ritual of bonewetting rainfall this year followed by largescale flooding, suggesting that the ghost of 26/7 last year is yet to be exorcised, lessons still not learnt. Once the lungs tire screamin out at the deaf administration fumbling with the familiar knots, the common mind chips in with useful ideas of dealing with the deluge a bit more imaginatively. Forget Doppler, cleaning of sewers, the health of the Mithi & civic order. Now with the jaw dropping moolah allocated for floodcontrol, the adminstration can do any of this.

Import scubagear and distribute it at major waterholes. How novel to have mumbaikars asking eachother "So...did u dive to work today?"

Rename Mumbai as Venice instead of tryin to be a Shanghai and buy boats for public transport. All car companies can be asked to make car models that will double as boats during this time.

Anyone wanting to make movies like 'Waterworld' should be asked to locate their shoots here. Tell them gasping 'props' in background come free!!!

Shoals of live fish shud be imported and let loose in the abundant water and "Catch Your own Fish" campaign should be encouraged. Its shall be useful in times of 'are u nuts!!!!!' prices for regular foodstuff.

All ground floor flats in those wretched lowlying areas shud be designed as submarines. People can survive at periscope depth comfortably for days without surfacing.

So my advice to the administration is Try atleast these or........ GLUG U!!!

Just a thought

Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you've decided to see beyond.

Thank God twaz Saturday!!!!

Some things are best left unsaid!!!!

A Tribute

Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.
- LUIS BARRAGÁN, Time magazine, May 12, 1980

When people ask me why I chose to be an architect, I say " whenever I see or enter a well designed space it make my hair stand on end and I wanna build better......thats why!". For me Architect Luis Barragan's works evoke that profound emotion. I havent experienced his works physically but the serenity of the spaces that he has created never fails to enthrall me. The vocabulary of design is so powerful , yet the 'alphabet' remarkably simple. I have realised that as a professional one has to experiment with a few languages in design before finding the right expression but this language probably would remain my 'mother tongue'!

Killer Blue Lady

On my desk i see two pieces of paper lying side by side. One is a newsletter from Greenpeace announcing our triumph in sending the asbestos laced french aircraft carrier back from being torn down on Indian shores 3 weeks back. The other paper has fresh news that the S.S Norway aka the blue lady is now the other asbestos laden monster on its way here for its last rites.It is said that if you do something wrong once its a mistake; not learning from it and making the same mistake again makes it a crime. Didnt our government learn its lesson when the Clemenceau was sent packing? Why does this new bigger threat loom over us now? I shudder at the thought that if it wasnt for enviromental groups like the Greenpeace (may their tribe increase) Alang would have turned into a killing field. What we all must understand is that along with those innocent lives what we lose is the right to put our foot down and refuse to become a dumping backyard for all those 2-faced developed nations. Difficult to drive home this point to an administration which chooses to put blinkers on everytime it sees the colour green. Pity their green is not the environment, but earnings made by selling it cheap.

Funny but true

Howzzat!!!!

Who's to blame?

Just happened to watch the news on tv. "Violence in surat" screams the newsflash..and i say what the hell is happening to us all. It was Aligarh a week ago & Banglore 4 days back. Meerut burnt and so did peoples faith in the administration. The game of cricket also got a reality stand view of mob fury and baton happy police venting ire on the innocent instead. I feel its a good time for all of us, both the citizens and the adminstration to take notice of this once rare acts of aggression becoming commonplace and the choicest mode of voicing dissent. for me it sends across one strong signal; that the tolerance reserve of the common man is depleting rapidly and that valid and not-so-valid angst will be vented in this manner. The administration better situp and take notice of this rapid erosion of faith. To find a suitable 'ointment' to heal frayed trusts and dented spirits is going to be a tough time problem. And time is running out....fast.

Mumbai muse

You know its mumbai when.....

the new local train feels more like a gym on 100 wheels with all the gleaming steel and coiled metal grab bars to compliment. A jostling workout during rushhour had become commonplace......this is the railways own contribution to making it more realistic i guess.

The new train indicator system on the suburban railway network looks like its been designed by some chemistry geek as the flourescent glosigns read like complex chemical formulae. How else would u describe BO03:1503 and Mix it with the one flashing on the platform opposite and voilaa!! we evoke a new chain reaction named Duh!!

my autorickshaw wedges itself to fit a place in the traffice pile, thats surprisingly left only for it and a big red bus calling itself BEST snarls into a tightspace kissing us, telling me GOD above must be playing His version of tetris...and here, the game never ends.

Some of the thoughts that paid me a visit on my way to work before i got to my desk. Televison host David Frost says and i quote, "The human brain is a marvel of nature.....it starts to work in the morning and doesnt stop till you get to work". He is so right!