...non periodic oscillations...

I used to be a regular train traveller till third year of architecture school. At that time I used to make frequent trips between Delhi & Calcutta (not Kolkata yet). Of course, frequent for me and frequent for my apartment mates in NICMAR mean completely different things. Those journeys would be in the Howrah Rajdhani. Most of the other train journeys have been with family with food for the road and other miscellaneous things that happen during family train trips. After that, flying has always been the preferred mode of transport – get in, get out mode. Who had the time to sit through a long train journey, endure (or ignore) co-passengers and eat what was served in the name of food? Student concessions on Indian Airlines (not Air India yet) were a nice bonus that had to be used too. Once I moved to Bangalore (not Bengaluru yet) there was no way I could take a train to and fro Calcutta. It was a journey of over 36 hours! During those years, I rarely took a train. I can only recall ...

I was sorting some old data and happened to come across this classic we worked on while in NICMAR for the Vegetative Proposals. God! We should have printed these :)  

Assimilation of experiences through life is supposed to make us wiser, if not really smarter. In some way, it should teach us what is appropriate and what's not in a given circumstance or a set of conditions which life has brought to us. However, I've come to realise that this really isn't necessary. On countless occasions I've witnessed people ignoring the everyday lessons of life and making mistakes repetitively or doing the same inappropriate act that they would have committed sometime in the past. Ironically, most of these people consider me inappropriate for pointing out that their actions, in the given or in a future circumstance might not be very nice. I cannot say that I'm immune to such a (mis)deed. I do commit them. However I consider myself better off because I realise my folly and usually try not to repeat them. The difference between both cases would be the awareness and the causal phenomenon of learning, to be able to understand and modify actions/word...

A month in the 'evolved' old place already and we're still transitioning. Small teething troubles apart, this has been a not-too-good not-too-bad experience so far. The one remarkable thing is the commissioning of the metro. I still look back at the times before and wonder if I could have managed without it now? Well I had earlier and surely could have done it now too. Anyway, the setup is not the same and neither are those around me. While I can only speculate on how things will work out, let's hope that they work out just enough to justify the pain of leaving behind Bangalore...

Strange are these days. Actually, strange have been days for a while now. Then again, if they have been strange for a while now, they can't be strange anymore! In the background, Zappa is shouting that his guitar wants to kill her mama and Meat Loaf is trying to convince me that bad girls go everywhere. I am still wondering if all this is part of the larger search for 42 – part of a grand scheme of things, maybe?

There comes a time in one`s life when the futility of servitude seems so painfully evident that one cannot but think why or what is the reason one should endure it any longer. There comes a time when the safety and security of the present seems meaningless compared to the gains of what lies ahead, if only one chooses to take the road not taken. However, we can safely say that it is not something that everyone wants or can do. While the returns are immense, not everyone is capable enough to cross over to the other side of the table BUT what if the life on this side shows no signs of a better tomorrow apart from the monetary security if offers? There is an entire world out there which is waiting to be explored given that one has the appetite for risk and the willingness to move out of one`s comfort zone. How many of us are ready to do that? Not many, I can assure you. Why not, you may ask. Let`s put it this way, some know their limitations, some are not sure if that`s what they are made ...

How would you react if you’re seated in a fancy hotel with a proudly proclaimed LEED rating and the man of the moment says that all this ‘hoohaa’ about ‘green’ is just hogwash? Predictably, the audience burst out in peals of laughter after a momentary pause. Was the pause an introspective moment or not, is not for me to comment on. All I can say is that it was a reaffirmation of what I always thought of LEED. That aside, I was there to hear what Christopher Charles Benninger had to say on the topic of the moment, ‘Sustainable Living’. It turned out to be a session full of humour and characteristic sharp wit coming from one of the most respected architects in the world. Accustomed to hearing long speeches at such events, it was a refreshing change to listen to someone who not only practices what he preaches but preaches in a manner which makes the listener at once attentive and receptive. The presentation started with CCB putting across a simple fact – one cannot go green unless one...