Birds...

Beautiful Red Cherries
Courtesy: Colin on Flicker | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

...as a 4 or 5 something she stands out! A sunflower yellow frock falls down her waist creating a bizarre contrast against her pale and freckled skin. Face glows crowned with black hair that vanish around her slender neck, which seems to jab out of floral shirt concealing her rather lanky figure. He goes on his knees to be level with her, trying to look into her big black eyes. It's enchanting when her pink lips part to utter a frank hello and he cherishes the divine. A strip of glass panels lets sunshine in, wind ferrying the curtains on its wings. He stands up, carrying her in his arms - a peck on her cherry cheeks. Walks across the room to plop on the large couch that's the only piece of furniture in the large room overlooking the large garden that sprawls just a bit short of the infinity. Noon fades into a gloomy red and grey, but electric evening. His eyes transfixed to the Brownian motion that this darling exhibits as he continues to recline in the synthetic satin, (suddenly) to his amazement a pearl rolls down his bony cheek, (at once) to lose its shiny existence to the cushion underneath...

Laugh The Walk

Photo by jenny downing on Flickr.

Well 2 long months and no post. A bit busy and a lot more lazy. Anyways out of excuses now and I have a lot of time and some nice stories. Here comes one that happened today morning...

A rather long night sleep, whole 10 hours of it, to leave the whole body sore and lungs out of Oxygen, the only remedy could be a morning walk at 10! Its another usual walk on the same path carved using Eco-friendly fly-ash bricks, I am admiring the early winter greenery and the ultimate bright sunlight that baths every fig and blade of grass and helps the mud dry down only to be wet again tomorrow with the slight dew and water supply from the municipal tube well.

Bored of MP3s I switch to radio and find it interesting as it is more life-like, unpredictable and out of control. It makes you seek and then teases and torments you lest you are exhausted clicking the only button you got to control (make objective choices!!! :O WTF am I writing!), somewhat like suppressing an itch! And while browsing you come across songs and plays, which you like and dislike. In haste you press the button and the next moment you regret it, but you got no choice to rewind but you can take the longer and tedious and a lot much frustrating route and get back to the same place when it comes the whole way around. You missed a bit, but you learnt to be a bit cautious... (but you never learn not to be philosophical, it's so easy to get dragged along and chatter the same set of dreamy things while being in the flow of things!!!)

Suddenly you strike gold. A radio-jokey is carrying on with his usual business of engaging audience in providing Delhi with real-time traffic situations. On this particular occasion this guy, I don't remember his name, calls up this radio station and advises not to use a road beside Talkatora Stadium. The whole things blows out as jokey suggests widening of roads (ofcourse to get rid of not so existing traffic problems, half of them are made up in mind.) and the guy gets enthusiastic and wishes to share his lovely life. He paints it fancy like this -

"सर हालत इतनी भी बुरी नहीं है. मैं बहुत मज़े करता हूँ. और ट्रैफिक भी ठीक ही है, एकदम स्मूथ! पुलीस भी काम कर रही है आजकल.  पर सर मैं अपनी लाइफ को शेयर करना चाहता हूँ."

And then he goes -

"ओह! बॉस मेरी लाइफ बहुत ही मस्त है! एकदम फंटास्टिक! मैं बहुत खुश इंसान हूँ. Happy-go-Lucky! मैं रात को किसी की भी शादी-पार्टी मैं घुस जाता हूँ. मैं अच्छा सूट-बूट पहनता हूँ और बिल्कुल भी नहीं शर्माता. एकदम नोर्मल बिहेव करता हूँ. Decent. मैं पार्टीज में जम के खाता-पीता हूँ और फुल मज़े मारता हूँ. और-तो-और ऐसी ही एक पार्टी मैं मैंने बंदी भी पटा ली! Love Is Life. (...poetic!!!) उससे ही शादी की और अब हम एक छोटा और सुखी परिवार है!!!"

He blurts  it out so innocently and in such a funny way that it's impossible to control that laugh and I even want to share it with more people.

Punjabi Baroque

While browsing Wikipedia for things like 'Framed Structure', 'Green Architecture', 'Avante Garde' , 'Fiscal Deficits' etc I drift into (give into the habit of) searching a bit more, ignoring the grasshopper's advice, "Ideas are dangerous!", in the animation movie 'A Bug's Life' and learn about a person called Gautam Bhatia.

He happens to be an architect who authored a book called 'Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture'. Having heard words like Punjabi, Architecture, Baroque together I had (was, once again, tempted) to search a bit more putting my curiousity about 'Cyberpunk' (though it will not take long before I am talking 0s and 1s once I kill some 150 Nazis, am not particularly opposed to them lest they put a bounty on me, in my computer game) at the back burner for some time.

Here is what I found -

What I learn is that this person thinks a bit like me (Proof am not unique! :)). He doesn't like the way cities lose their identity, even though it happens in compliance with 'Organic Evolution' (one theory that fits all, 'Natural Selection').

Going particularly about Delhi, I feel it is now 'New Delhi' (going by current trends it will certainly shrink or fall prey to a different kind of global warming having been converted into an island enshrining the sheer architectural marvel Delhi was designed to be, surrounded by greedy, excessively high-profile and flambouyant but particularly apt to popular taste; style of glass and steel 'mirage' architecture of the 'metropolitan Delhi and it's exceptionally mismanaged millennium sub cities'), 'remaining Delhi' (slums, socialist, we-fulfill-needs-of-society, architecture by DDA and better-than-you-neighbour designs by private minds at work, can we call the later 'Capitalism'?) and 'suburbs of Delhi'.

Certainly we need to cater to rising population pressures, but the stakes are needed to be considered sensitively. For example, I wonder how it helps to rename certain boulevards. Be it Willingdon Crescent (now Mother Teresa Crescent), Ring Road (Mahatma Gandhi Marg), Connaught Place (Rajiv Chowk).

Moreover does it serve the purpose by building haphazardly, being blatantly disdainful of the legacy that has been bestowed upon thee? The reasons can be many including it being magnet to masses who do not associate with the city, vote bank politics (let them encroach, let them vote), oops we are a free country everything British is slavery (who cares Commonwealth itself proclaims bondage or put correctly reminiscence of associativity to British legacy)!

1/3 Punjabi, 2/3 Cosmopolitan the city lacks an identity and especially it lacks people who can relate to its history. Facing an identity crisis post-partition, everyone in the city - either is an immigrant, a tourist or a wage-earner or in a worse situation a refugee. It certainly has metamorphed well into a consumers’ paradise keeping tandem with global trends for it has to live up to the reputation of being the capital of world's largest yet somewhat immature democracy, still somehow trying to safeguard what it originally is.

I and many more people happen to be in love with this city for it gives form to the ideas of acceptance, it doesn't contradict, it simply never dictates, remains unbiased, doesn't wish you to be ideal yet it itself is perfectly idealist. In true sense it smells and breaths freedom and thereby we must preserve it, can you see something you love dying without complaining?

In general these are ideas about and situations every major Indian city is facing. Mumbai's (Bombay's) deteriorating infrastructure and culling of mill lands while Maratha maniacs become chauvinists calls for immediate attention lest the city comes to a halt. In Kolkata (dear Calcutta), a newly elected chief minister elicits cheers from masses fed on communist subsidies (which actually left whole West Bengal bankrupt) for over 25 years vying to transform 'City Of Joy' into 'East London'. I certainly think it as a cause of shame when our greatly patronizing leaders take pride in announcing their grandeur plans of transformation whether it is Bombay into Shanghai or Hongkong, Delhi into Paris or Calcutta into London. Bengaluru (Bangalore) transforms into a megacity and all it does is feeding silicon chips to job-seekers from all over the country. These are some names that tell in all glory the tale of urban decay that arises out of un-intelluctual planning which in general is disregardful of bequest it needs to preserve.