Vastu Purusha Mandala - Some thoughts

The book on “Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience” by Yi-Fu Tuan, is such an amazing book, that I realized certain answers to questions that were in my mind for nearly a decade. To quote an ancient quote from an Indian Seer, “Knowledge is revealed” – because It is always there, whether you are aware of It or not. Similarly, you can say that by the grace of that Energy from which we are a part of, I came to understand a few fundamental things which I am very happy to share.

The topic of today’s discussion is regarding the meaning of Vaastu Purusha Mandala (VPM) and what kind of World View it represents. What does it mean and why is it coded in some peculiar language that seems irrelevant today? What is to be learnt from it and how relevant can it be in today’s time (which means today’s rational World View)? These are some of the questions I am attempting to answer – revelation of knowledge is always an on-going process. So these observations are to be taken as one of the pauses in the journey – a reflection. It may be right or wrong, but at least as of now, this is what I think It is…..

Vaastu Purusha Mandala represents a ‘World View’, which is different from the contemporary period to which our thoughts belong. That World View is an attempt of man’s expression to define a mythical cosmological space and man’s relation to it. Such attempts of expressing a mythical cosmic space are not at all unique to India – they have been done in all parts of the physical world by all traditional societies sharing a general attitude of reverence to the cosmic forces.  However, the description of the mythical cosmic space obviously differs since it is specific to that particular culture and the geography of place. These ideas were formed by man’s experiences in dealing with his immediate environment and by using the term environment, I mean what did man think when he saw the sun, moon, or felt the heat and cold, or felt the roaring winds, or the thrashing rains or the ferocious fire or the monstrous animals or the beautiful stars and the rainbow or the substances he ate and thereby fell ill or gained strength or saw his fellow beings grow from toddlers to infants to oldies. What did he conceive? What were his thoughts when such experiences to mankind were still new? That conception and his relation to the environment is portrayed in different ways, one of which is VPM.

In order to understand what was envisioned by the people of those times, one should note that I am referring to the attitude of the ‘Mind’ which is pre-scientific – which is NOT so rationally oriented in ways, we normally associate our workings with nowadays. In fact, it is only by reading and understanding such thoughts contained in the earlier times that we are able to reflect how much our Mind has changed through centuries and because of it, our comprehension of Reality around us. Whether this change has been for the better or worse should not be a topic of debate, because each type of Mind (which represents a context) is trying to understand or make sense of Reality around it. Therefore, one cannot compare one type of Mind with other, since it will constitute comparing oranges with apples, which is essentially pointless to me. Oranges are oranges and they have to be enjoyed like that. Similarly, apples are apples for all their worth. Everything has its own place and one need not always compare one thing with the other.

So, let me again attempt to explain (by our present rational minds), what does a pre-scientific mind feel like (and by using the word ‘pre’, please do not make the mistake of associating it as primitive or undeveloped).

Consider for a while, that you don’t know where the shining yellow heavenly body “went” after dipping down far away into the horizon. You felt the darkness around you suddenly…it was difficult for you to make your way back to your cave, if you happen to be in a densely packed jungle. Then you felt the cold, you heard some sounds coming just behind you – sounds that were not pleasant to hear and you knew by instinct that you must either take shelter or run. You started to run, you hit a stone, fell down. You could sense that the sound is following you from behind. But just as that ‘something’ could pounce on you, you hid behind some thorny bush that guarded you against the calamity of your existence. Then you saw the faint cool light of another heavenly body assisting you to find your way to your cave. Everything around you is now dead silent – no chirping, no barking or running of deer – it makes you feel something. You want this dreadful experience to go away. After some moments (which you cannot tell in terms of ‘hours’ or ‘minutes’ or ‘days), you again see the yellow shining body peeping its head from the horizon – but now in completely opposite direction. Wow! That’s a great relief! Seriously! You can sense the change in air quality, it has started to get warm and comfortable, you see the flying creatures chirping merrily, everything around you getting up or setting forward to do their own business – the four legged creatures running after tiny creatures, things running hither and tither…up the trees, swinging between the trees, things gliding across the blue skies and so on. You are filled with ‘hope’ and some new energy. You feel elated. Immediate concerns of survival force you to now embark on a mission of hunting. What do you have now here? Some pointed object that you used last time for hunting? Some kind of weed that will assist you in tying the prey and other things that you can select from your immediate surrounding friends – which are plants, stones, leaves….In short anything that assists your survival is your friend or a good Force and anything that threatens your existence is an enemy or an evil Force. The same shining yellow body is now giving off so much brightness and heat that it is really beating on you. Why is it doing so? Why cannot it give constant warmth? O! That terrible heat has now caused devastating fire in the dry bushes! Stop! Stop! It is spoiling my food – the food that I must have for my survival – there go the shrubs and those animals….But I can’t control it! Such a menacing Force! Dreadful! Why is this shining yellow body playing so wild tricks? I must tell it not to do so. I must pacify it. I must say to it to have mercy on me and be my friend. I must, therefore, ‘pray’. It will listen to me, if I give it something, if I am a good boy. What does it require? I like this deer. Obviously, It must also be liking the deer’s taste and the reason why It is so angry with me is because I didn’t offer It any food, just as I want food to survive. If It doesn’t have food, how can I expect It to remain calm? And that is the reason that It is always angry and It can magically start some fire and destroy all of us! I must, therefore, offer some food to It! I must, therefore, sacrifice my deer to it…..

This was an attempt to present our relation with nature – with the ‘Sun’, the ‘Moon’ the ‘Fire’, the recurring seasons, the heat, cold, trees, animals, shrubs  - virtually everything. Man was forced to relate everything to his survival, his dependence on those Forces and those Powers and then he tried to define his relation with them, so they could listen to his requests and guide his survival. These Forces (they could be your friends or foes), were therefore believed to affect everything you did. The success of every action from waking up, to hunting/ cooking, walking, running, sleeping, feeding, clothing, harvesting was (and even now is) dependent on these Friends. Man therefore, looked at his environment NOT in a way that we see it today. For him, he did not know what the green pigment chlorophyll is – he knew that sometimes when he ate certain leafy things, they were kind enough to give him strength or at other times completely sapped vital energy from him. Every ‘object’ that he saw was not perceived as a physical object, but having some kind of a Force to affect him…it had a personality of its own. The basis of your survival was dependent on the delicate balance of these Forces of nature (or the ‘Yin’ and ‘Yan’ in Chinese).

Thus the most important things that affected man were symbolised in different systems – such as the Vastu Purusha Mandala. Having established the ‘attitude’ of looking at this Vastu Purusha Mandala, we now come to the point of exploring what it has to say to us –

1. Anthropomorphism of the natural Forces which are believed to affect your survival. Each conceived Force has been personified (it has been given a personality depending on how it behaved or interacted with you) and it has been given a ‘place’, a ‘home’ or a location in the diagram, just as you have your own place to stay. Thus you have the Sun Force or the Moon Force or Wind Force, Agni or the Fire Force, the planetary Forces and other Forces constituting the cosmos.  The ‘positions’ of these Forces in the diagram are not to be confused with the actual geographical positions in space. The locations are only symbolic and intended to just state the presence of forces and their possible inter-connections.

2. However, some locations do correspond to actual movements of the Forces relative to where you are located – for example, the Sun might have been situated in the East or the Wind Force is located in the South West part of the diagram – which corresponds with the general way in which winds in India flow. (It is interesting to be stated here, that the same forces occupy different positions in other ‘Mandala’ invented by other cultures – say the Salteaux Indians of North America. They locate the fiercely cold winds to the North of their Mandala and the friendly warm wind to the South side of the diagram. They have fables to articulate that there is always a war between these two winds but the South Wind always wins. By this, they mean to say that the ‘summer’ always shines on them after the cold dark winter. Consider the Chinese diagram. Close to the east edge is the Blue dragon, which stand for the colour of vegetation and the elemental wood. It occupies the direction of the rising sun and symbolises the spring. To the south is the red phoenix of summer – the fire with Sun at its zenith. North side is the winter’s darkness, cold, and from which new beginnings or the new cycle must start). So, the positions of the Forces are relative to your experience and your position on the globe.

3. The VPM also has a base of astronomy, wherein it is possible to locate the positions of stars and other heavenly bodies such as the planets, sun and the moon in a given point of time during the day. Why was this important to these people? All human actions are dependent on these bodies. If there’s no sun, there’s no life. Think of agriculture. It is dependent on seasons, which in turn are the result of Sun’s movements across the sky. So, you must know the correct time to sow and harvest the crop to get maximum output. So you must know at what position of the sun you should begin the agricultural cycle. Or, for more practical needs, you must have a good weather to perform a fire sacrifice (or a Yadnya). You can’t afford to have strong winds or incessant rains in the middle of performance of Yadnya. So again, ‘timing’ of starting the fire ritual is important. This way, all aspects came to have a proper time to start or undertake – be they agriculture or building a home (for you required a cooperation of these forces to help you build your home without the disturbance of strong winds, or rains etc.) or marrying or anything. This is a concept that demonstrates dependence on Nature and introduces a concept of doing a particular task at the right time. It will also be very clear from this, why certain things seem so irrelevant today. By rationality and technology, we are no longer dependent on Forces to the extent we were before. Houses, marriages, events can be planned as per our logical managing techniques. We care less about the Sun and the moon since we have the privilege of staying in HVAC controlled indoor environments and most of us have food made ready for us without having to see where the fields are and what kind of effort is required to yield a good crop. We have leather jackets, woollen socks to keep us comfy during winter and have umbrellas so we can walk undisturbed by the menacing Sun or the roaring rains. Our sense of time (and therefore space) has been altered to such as extent that we have begun to take most things for granted – the rising and setting of the Sun doesn’t generate any animated excitement. We already know what’s going to come the next day, we already know that the Sun also has a time limit, we know that the earth revolves and therefore these planets are located in that manner. We know how the universe looks physically – so our conceptions of Reality have changed since our Mind has changed. We treat each entity as a separate object. It is distinct. I am distinct. It has no relation with me and vice versa. The Sun, moon, stars, pigs, leaves, mountains, lakes – they are just objects – just like our wall clocks or a shoe unit. You are least concerned of their existence and this defines our present relation with our environment.

4. The central position in the VPM is called the ‘Brahma’ or Pure Energy. The centre doesn’t mean the physical centre but the symbolic centre of all existence. Everything is made of this vital Force. Again, it is upto the individual now, to comprehend this Reality. This Reality cannot be understood by a rational Mind.

Thus, in a nutshell, VPM is a mentally constructed relation of man to cosmic space or his environment. It the way in which, we had felt the Universe, before another layer of scientifically defined physical Universe came into picture.

So, how is this relevant today? Since our Mind has changed, some of those concepts depending on earlier Mind look perhaps irrelevant and have to be interpreted in today’s world. Our present state of mind has led us to question our dependence on Nature. Is there any need to realise our dependence on Nature in times where we have everything available in plenty? This is a question each of us has to explore.

Similarly, if these Forces are no longer required to be appeased by performance of any Yadnya, but can be commanded by proper and logical placements of rooms, windows, HVACs etc., should you remain adamant in strictly adhering to the rules of VPM? Think.

I believe, the essence is that we are Nature in microcosm. What exists out there, also exists within us. Destruction of Nature is a mirror of our own destruction. The lesson of interdependence remains constant throughout ages – Pre scientific or scientific are ways of interpreting the interdependence. Once you realize this, you will automatically arrange your architectural spaces or plan your events so as to benefit your existence and the surrounding environment in turn.

What should be the basis of our learning?

What should be the basis of our learning?

This is one important question to answer. And the answer itself took me around two years to be formed. I will answer this question through the process of my research. And then I will state why I consider our Indian syllabus so inadequate to tackle the crucial issues of the contemporary world or where it ought to improve.

My first topic was related to finding the connection between architectural spaces and emotions. Or the ability of architectural spaces to impact human emotions. This topic roughly fell into the domain of phenomenology of architecture and since the nature of this topic was intuitive, it could not be rationally proved. I realized that it could have taken a substantial amount of time to complete the research and so I decided to change the topic to something I was comfortable to do it alone. This is an important decision. This is so, because no one tells you how to do research. You need to make all the sense of the infrastructural support that you get from the university. The journey is entirely by yourself. And in this scenario, your interest in your research topic is the only thing that will sustain your research journey for two years.

My research topic was to understand the meaning of the Hindu temple for the north Indian community in Vancouver. Essentially, at the end of the research, I came to realize that it is the ‘people’ who create or define a meaning in architecture and NOT the architects. An architect has lesser control to define how should people behave in his arrangement of spaces or whether his anticipated spatial arrangement will have a predictably a uniform social and psychological effect on people. Human behaviour is a complex thing and architectural decisions have a meagre role to play in shaping and defining human actions. Conversely, any given piece of architecture will be subjected to some kind of ‘meaning creation’ by the people who are using it (and that meaning will most of the times, be different from the architect’s perception). In other words, each individual interprets architectural spaces according to his identity – which depends on his age, gender, class, context, environment, social, cultural and other factors. Therefore, the most important point to be noted is there is NO fixed way of looking at architecture and neither should architect claim to control human behaviour through architectural arrangement of spaces. Where does that leave the architect then? I think the crucial issues to be dealt with while designing is – creativity (which means finding new interpretations for problems), climate, context, people. It is no use to think in terms of politically religious forms (temples, mosques, churches). The thinking should include above factors and also about light, shade, texture, paint. Thus, the form should be churned out of the thinking process rather than hurryingly crystallizing a predefined form (although this is another matter that ANY form can fulfil ANY function and therefore one can start thinking from the form side or the function side). There is no fixed rule that a particular function should represent a particular form and neither a particular form should denote a particular purpose. It is all in our minds. The first task of the architect is to convince the client. Great architects surpass this immediate requirement and conceive a form that appeals to the society and is temporarily successful too. This is extremely difficult, because to conceive an eternal architecture for all mankind is to have an eternal quality to space that is perceived by each and every individual using that form.

The second important lesson that I learned is that our identities are a social construct – identities are also subject to change and our context plays a tremendous role in shaping those identities. Thus, everything is relative. Since identity is relative, our meanings are relative. Thus, meaning of architecture as perceived by the individual is also relative. There is no Indian architecture or Western architecture in terms of form. I mean, to study Indian architecture in terms of definite form and materials is foolish. This is a very narrow definition of identity tied up with architecture and I do not understand the fuss about why architects are so concerned about ‘finding the true identity of Indian architecture’. There is no such thing as that. The issue is of context and to understand the response that people of different societies have come up with to conceive their architecture. One will realize that the response has come from psychological perception of cosmos, social realities, cultural norms, materials, climate and finally how our mind operates. The issue is to understand how does one think? What is the nature of thought itself? And how does thought relate to architecture? In other words, there is no such thing as an ‘Indian’ or ‘American’ or a ‘British’. These are political labels. Labels meant to differentiate and set economic and political relations. They are fictitious and stem from insecurity or ego. Thus, we come to the aspect of understanding what is insecurity and why do we feel insecure? What is the cure for it? The answer to this question will help us to understand our very nature of being ‘human’.

The third important thing to realise is that knowledge has become interpretive – which means no one holds a privileged position in defining what constitutes correct information – absolutely no one. No one is superior to anyone else and all forms of knowledge and societies are equally relevant. The historical distinctions between the Dominant West and the Subordinate East are redundant and almost everything that the colonial rulers entrusted is now open to challenge. Multiplicity and complexity is the hallmark of today’s world. Important questions to ponder are:

1. How is my identity shaped? Who am I?
2. How is culture related to myself? How is context related to me?
3. How am I related to ‘others’?
4. How are ‘nations’ formed? What is the colonial history and how is it related to Indian history?
5. Who defines history? How is it reconstructed and represented?
6. How is society formed? How is it the same or different from historical societies?
7. What is then constant? What is eternal? What is cyclic?

Answers to above questions will eventually reveal the nature of knowledge and how we shape it and how it shapes us. THIS should be the basis of our syllabus.

WHY SHOULD WE KNOW HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE?

WHY SHOULD WE KNOW HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE?                                                              

This piece of article explores the question of why is it important to study history of architecture – Western architecture or Eastern Architecture…What is the use of learning history or getting to know things that have happened more than 2000 years before? If these things have happened, why to spend time discussing on them? Don’t we have better things to do in the present times that pondering about the past?

Just as you are thinking about these questions, I have also had a fair share of confusion and frustration in my mind as a student of architecture. These are the same questions which came to my mind. Therefore, let me attempt to shed light on the relevance of history subject for you. This is based on my personal experience, exposure to professional practice, some serious reading and my journey as a post graduate student in British Columbia for a research based program dealing with Indian Temples in Diaspora context.

Firstly, these questions do not have a direct answer. Some questions persist life long, other questions are replaced by more critical questions and some others loose relevance once you get the answers. Asking questions and finding answers, in fact, is a lifelong process and which you should imbibe in yourself as a habit. This will make you a sensitive and a better architect and a critical thinker. As you involve yourself in this profession in the coming years, your wisdom will grow and you will begin to see the “connection” of history with today’s society and how the Past informs the Present and how it can project the Future.

We begin with - what is the purpose of history syllabus….what is being taught or said? The basic intention of syllabus is to make you aware of enormous variety of buildings done worldwide. You will learn countless building typologies that have been constructed in the past in different continents and in different time periods. You will learn the technology used to construct them and in what context (situation) the buildings were done. You will be made to do a lot of sketches. For us, sketches are a medium to understand space and how it is manipulated. Just as you listen to music to understand or enjoy it, you “sketch” a building to understand it.  This might look overwhelming and cumbersome, (and boring also) but we will try to make it interesting to you. It is also required that you read stories, refer to history books (plain history as well), see historical videos to get the “feel” of history, visit historians, visit Deccan College, visit places of historical interest and develop liking. History is the only subject in your curriculum, which can tell you a lot of things about design, response to climate, use of technology, about the society and people, about other crafts and arts, about different places on earth and how people “think” about themselves and architecture.

In the thick course schedule and limited time slot, it is impossible to cover all aspects of this subject. Therefore, you should also be as much proactive in seeking answers and information, as we will be to provide them for you – to the best of our abilities. If we are not available, you should seek help from others, or maintain contact by emails or blogs or other social media. Knowledge is unlimited, but time is not. So, it is upto you how to make best use of the available time. And this is the best time in your life to think about questions and find answers. I can assure you that life becomes more complicated after you graduate!!

How should one look at history of architecture information given by teachers? As mentioned before, not all things can be shared because of limited time. So it is important to know HOW should one understand the information given to you? What is intended to be learnt from the information presented to you? You should keep on seeing any historical information from these aspects:

1.       Why was the building designed in this way? Could there have been a different way of doing it? (This is the primary motive of designing any building)

2.       What were the factors that influenced the form of the building? Were they climate or economy or technology or ideology or a combination of all these or something else? (This helps you to understand “context”)

3.       If I were given a chance to do the same type of building in today’s times, would I do it in a different way? If yes, in what way? (This develops the “critical” habit of interpreting the Past and responding to Present)

4.       What are the fundamental issues that remain common in all societies and throughout all the time periods? (This is the most difficult question to answer and this question will keep you engaged life long!)

What attitude probably gets developed by seriously being involved in history of architecture?

1.       Critical Thinking – You may start to ask questions like “why is this building done in this way?” or “Is there a need for putting so much glass on this wall when we have so much hot climate?” or “This space looks very small as compared to people using it…could it be expanded?” or “Why does it feel suffocated in here….are there less windows or poor ventilation in this given volume of space” or “ this white washed wall colour looks very peaceful and appropriate for meditation space” and so on. You should always question what is right or wrong, what feels appropriate to you and why it is to be done in this way.

2.       Importance of climate – You will understand that appropriate response to climate and correct use of technology creates “good” architecture most of the times. Examples are boundless – Charles Correa, Rahul Mehrotra, B.V.Doshi, and many contemporary architects. You will understand what is exactly “green” architecture and why is there so much fuss about it?

3.       You will come to know what makes our country unique? What can be learnt from Her and what answers can we give to architectural fraternity today?

4.       You will come to understand what defines the present context? What is the best way to move forward?

With this, I wish you the best of luck in this journey of history of architecture!

Sustainability and Memory

SUSTAINABILITY AND MEMORY

This article is an attempt to express how the approach of sustainability (or frugal living) is related to the feelings of memory, belonging and in the creation of our personal identities and what role it plays in modern lifestyle.

My parent’s and grandparent’s generation grew up in the period of just means. Nothing was abundant or in plentiful and it became a necessity to use each and everything sparingly, to its fullest possible utility, even surpassing the life cycle of the material itself. If the material wasn’t fit for use in its present form, then it used to be ingeniously transformed (or reused) into something else, till another such cycle of transformation came about and the process continued.  Take for example a simple shawl or a light blanket. The shawl would be used by my grandparents, then successively passed on to my parents and probably, if the condition was good enough, it could come all the way to me. It is with everything – from best shirts to photo frames, to cooking utensils. It is quite amazing to see that many of our households have a collection of what can be termed as vintage collection of cooking ware, linens, woollen ware, gadgets, pens, letters, writing desks, sewing machines, toys, dolls, bats, rackets, and books and so on. They are all, what I call as ‘memory banks’. They perform the same role, as a loving letter that my father has written to me a couple of times. They denote the same care and love, as you glance through your photo album and recall the moments that you had spent as a child with your extended family. Although the old dusty, cranky, heavy, oxidized copper cooking ware would have now been replaced by the sleek, shiny, light stainless steel, people prefer to keep the old cooking utensils in loft areas and mentally in one of the compartments of their minds. The old and heavy copper cooking ware utensil, now redundant, reminds my parents about the delicious dishes that were cooked and cherished along with the children and which created some special moments of togetherness. The defunct technology of heating water by using copper cylindrical drum and coils, replaced by geysers and consecutively by solar panels, reminds my father and his siblings of their childhood and the quarrels and laughter that they had shared in the bathroom or the shout that they experienced from their mother for lazing around in the bathroom. Herein I wish to highlight a connection – the economic necessity of perpetual use of a particular item results in forming a relation with that object. The relationship deepens as more and more of our existential moments are spent with the object of use and enriches as more people get associated with the same object. Memories of the people in this way get inter connected with the same object and result in highly nostalgic dialogues when people meet after a gap of time. The object already surpasses its primary role of utility and gets highly ‘value’ ridden. The memories, emotions get recalled as long as the object is with you. The object, without us being conscious of it, has already become a part of our consciousness that defines our identities. It is this effect of association that compels people in a country like India, to retain such objects long after they might not have any utilitarian value. Sometimes, long after children have grown up and their woollen ware cannot fit them, such items are reused and transformed into woollen socks or woollen scarfs. The form of the object might have changed, but the memory lingers as one sees the socks again.

Another aspect of sustainability is to do things by ourselves. In frugal conditions, there is no subletting of jobs. We build our own houses; we cook food ourselves because we cannot afford to sublet it. But, building a house together as a group of people introduces numerous instances of interactions and lively encounters. There is hardship no doubt, but collective moments are spent, one shares one’s life secrets as one is engaged in plastering or painting a wall and the entire process gets a high emotional quotient.  Later on, as one touches the finished wall or leans on it or looks at it, these memories surge back in mind. The wall might be slightly off-aligned or there might have been some unevenly painted spots but it has become a family member, telling us of the people’s collective involvement with it. In such a scenario, would mechanical perfection or aesthetics of the wall matter? It is the same for cooking. Agreed, that I have to spend time to cook food, but the act of preparing, cooking and serving to family members becomes a part of our expression to connect with them at an emotional level that cannot be understood by intellectual analysis. Feelings of belonging and community are created in this way. Objects can be made value ridden, provided we spend time with them. Provided we make a conscious choice before any object is replaced. There might be hardship and involvement of time and our labour for doing things ourselves, but it can also give us the opportunity to form connections with other people. This brings me finally to another aspect of modern lifestyle.

The abundance of products in the market and the general trend of consumerization, further fuelled by robust economic conditions have led to fast turnover of objects of use and lessening of our involvement with them in the process of creation. It leads me to ponder what sort of connection one might develop with the object, if we hardly let it mingle with us for a sustained duration? Can these physically temporary objects (soon to be replaced by their new competitors) ever generate any emotional ties or memories with us? What would happen, if we sublet all our tasks to external agencies? Do we give ourselves a chance to make such objects a part of our lives or, have our perspectives towards looking at them been detached by the realization that they are soon to be replaced by newer variety? If everything around us is constantly getting replaced by something ‘different’ or ‘new’, where does that leave us? Or, in terms of the aspect of subletting, why should we ever bother to cook or build houses or mend lawns? How, then, would our memories be created by the fleeting interactions with these objects and by increased preferences to sublet things? Or would memories remain transient as the objects themselves, so that not even a single memory ever gets a chance to be embedded in our minds and create impressions of life? If memories remain transient, what does that make us as individuals? What sort of identity is created and what sort of life is experienced? This has repercussions on our lifestyles, on the way we look at ourselves and our people around us. Personal space and liberty is fine, but where does it lead us as a human community? If we don’t share moments of our time (and space) with other individuals, if all our objects are different (and transient as well) then one must ponder on the quality of life one is heading to. Abundance, luxury, flexibility and the affordability to be in constant change with regards to house, jobs (and even relations for that matter) can have a detrimental effect on the nature of relations we form amongst ourselves as communities. History and culture is a product of memory. Constant change would mean no memory and that would mean no history at all. Part of who we are or become depends on our association with memories – people, places and objects. Therefore, the experience of constant newness and constant change has to be viewed critically.

Sustained use has the power to form relations with objects just as precious as our relations with loving people around us. Doing things by oneself may mean being frugal again, but that is what leads to involvement. Thus the necessity of reuse or recycle or whatever term one wants to assign for sustainability has an advantage of memory creation. To be involved with such an approach would lead to memories that we would dwell on long after our ‘functional’ value diminishes. It is at that point of time, that the objects and the people around us would be our faithful friends telling us about the trials, mistakes and moments of joys that we had experienced resulting in the ripening of our lives. And it is therefore, in this context itself, those important objects, landscapes, architectural spaces need to be retained sometimes, for, they vibrate with stories of our connections with the past and can make our present meaningful. It is with this concept, the entire Indian landscape across the nation can be seen and experienced and which fundamentally differs from the industreial landscapes of the North Americas or Australia.

I hope, we understand, that ‘old’ doesn’t mean outdated or primitive in anyway. What is required is the right attitude towards seeing any object and the realization, that every object that we keep for ourselves, has the possibility to create value and be an extension of our ‘Self’. What we wish to possess starts to define who we are or become. If we continue to replace everything, there is no attachment with anything and there is no association of memory. Let not the abundance of objects and its faster replacement by ever changing technology create a situation that you are not able to express yourself in terms of the external environment. Or a situation, wherein no object or a person or any environment triggers your memory. Let not you experience the modern equivalent of ‘Alzheimer’.