Do we need a guest room?

The habit of adopting new and good things is always encouraged. But have we ever tried to see the subtle differences that ‘new and good’ thing can make? ‘GUEST ROOM’ is that small and good thing I am talking about. What is the purpose behind providing a ‘guest room’? It is the most convenient and systematic approach of accommodating guests. Atleast that’s how it appears to be..!! And this concept of ‘guest room’ has very well been accepted by all of us; atleast by them who can financially afford to have one.

But the question is ‘do we really need a guest room?’

Just try to imagine a picture of your childhood when your uncles, aunts and cousins used to visit your place. There was a never this ‘guest room’ culture. May be one might say that our grandfathers were not rich enough to construct a separate guest room. But how the scene used to be in our house when it used to be full of guests? Dad and uncle used to sleep together, mom and aunt used to be together and we used to sleep with all our cousins in living room on 5-6 mattresses attached to each other..!! And those nights used to be really rocking..!! Uncle and dad used to discuss about their topics whereas mom and aunt used to gossip and we used to be part of all that …!! The house actually used to change its appearance for few days and used to experience totally an informal phase for some time. We all used to be together for all those days and nights with our cousins. There used to be lot of exchange between us and those nights actually used to strengthen the relationship and the bond between us…!!

We, Indians, have always been family oriented. We believe in maintaining relationships and nurturing them for lifetime. And that’s why this separate ‘guest room’ never appeared in our traditionally built houses..!!

Nowadays the guests come to our place, we make their accommodation in separate guest room and we meet them directly on dinning table for breakfast in the morning. No discussions, no gossip, no pillow fight during nights ..!! Now which is the better picture that one has to justify for himself..!!

‘Guest Room’ will always appear convenient and systematic but which ‘system’ shall we follow that we have to ask ourselves…!!

where is my home?

What is home? Have you ever tried to answer this question? Have you ever realized the importance of your home in your life? Or have you ever tried to figure out the difference between your life and any nomad? What kind of culture do nomadic tribes develop? Does their home serve any other purpose than protection from sun and wind? If not, then what are ‘those’ other purposes that our home is meant to serve?
How will you celebrate the festival of Diwali without a home? How will you fly ‘kites’ during particular festival without a terrace on your home? Why some particular house stands out in a colony when there is a marriage function in that house? How come we recognize the religion of a person just looking at his home? Why Goan houses are different from Maharashtrian houses? Why Kashmiri houses are different from Rajasthani houses? And why American houses shall be different from Indian houses?
If we try to answer all these questions, we will realize that a “home” is nothing but the extension of a person, extension of a family, extension of a life and built-form of a lifestyle. The ‘home’ is physical form of one’s culture, lifestyle and religion and that is why we can make out the difference between a hindu and a muslim house. Similarly a sailor’s house has to be different from a potter’s house.
If you try to observer carefully, you will notice that traditionally built houses reflect these properties more significantly. If you move to villages the difference between houses will be more prominent. Why so? Don’t we follow religions in cities? Or the architects see all the people living the same lifestyle? Why all houses look similar? And if your neighbor lives totally different lifestyle and if you still have similar kind of homes, I think you must ask yourself ‘where is my home?’

Doordarshan : A balanced diet

Do you remember how special the ‘Sundays’ used to be when we were kids? Lets try to remember what we all used to see on Sundays…

The day used to begin with Rangoli … a program containing only songs..!! Songs for everyone… old ones for mom dad and the new ones for us. That used to be followed by morning news, then Mahabharat or Ramayan or Chanakya …. Or any other mythological or historical serial .. which whole family used to see together ..!! Then we used to have a cartoon film … just try to remember how eagerly we used to wait for it whole week ..!! He-man, jungle book, duck tales …!! Then ‘potliwale baba ki kahani’ ..!! Then we used to have a one hour program by National Geographic Society…. A science based program ! then it used to be the time for Indian music ‘National Integration for Spirit of Unity Concert’ ..!! Then again ‘Chaayaageet’ before lunch time. In the afternoon there used to be a ‘Pradeshik feature film’ where we used to get movies made in other state; basically non-hindi films.

But why to remember all these things when we don’t even see DD National nowadays..!!
If we try to analyse this schedule carefully we will realize one thing that Doordarshan was truly a balanced diet. Balanced diet for our brain, our mind..!! No matter how long one watches the same channel, everyone used to get something….. not only entertainment but also some knowledge…not only about our history but also about mythology, science, music, our culture and life and people of other states….!!

What has changed with facility of cable? We have so many new channels like star tv, star sports, espn, discovery, sony, setmax, zee, national geographic channel, travel and living, aaj-tak, ndtv 24x7, sun tv, HBO, Cartoon Network and many more…. Every channel is good in its own respect. Every channel is trying to give the best they can …. Every channel is trying to be best in this competition ….!! Can we see Doordarshan anywhere in this competition?

But what is the change that has occurred with so many channels? Grandfathers and dads keep on seeing news channels day and night, children stick to cartoon network, youth can’t leave HBO and grannies and moms can’t live without family dramas..!! Everyone is happy because everyone is getting what he/she needs ..!! Where’s is the problem then ..?

Let’s analyse one’s physical growth and try and relate it to the case above…….. There’s a child who likes ice-cream so it keeps on having ice-cream day and night…!! When it grows, it starts liking veg Manchurian … so it starts having veg Manchurian day and night ….for several years..!! Then it reaches the age when it develops the taste for fried rice …. Then what? …fried rice for several years …day and night …!! And thus the cycle continues with different dishes in same pattern…!! Now imagine that child…may be 30year old now…… what kind of physical growth we expect him to have? So now, we might say that if he would have got all the kind of food, he might have had a better health by now…!!

Won’t it happen with our brains also? 24 hour cartoon network for children, 24 hour movies for youth, 24 hour family dramas for ladies, 24hour news for oldies, everything 24hours unlimited…!! Now what kind of growth our brains are supposed to have?

What we have started loosing is ‘contol’ …!! Just because we have everything available 24hours we just don’t realize how much we have had …and what is lacking? Earlier even Doordarshan used to sleep during nights … but these 24hour program facility has literally disturbed our biological cycle…!! We just keep on watching HBO and may be at 2.30 or 4.00 am we realize that it’s a time to sleep ..!! Even if we watch the news channel, what we get is the same news repeated after one hour. And if we really try to think logically, what really happens every second that can be shown as news? And to be more logical, what difference does David Beckham-Victoria love affair makes in our lives? And just remember the amount importance does these news channels give it to …!! Earlier we used to wait for a week; that’s 24x7=168 hours for just a one hour cartoon and just try to remember how much we used to enjoy that one hour..! Same thing used to be with ‘The World This Week’..!! Now everything is made easy, just change the channel we get to see whatever we want..!! Is it good or bad ...that one has to analyse by himself, for himself …!! The idea behind this article is not to promote Doordarshan but the idea behind Doordarshan..!! Children know Harry Potter but they don’t know who was Arjun, Duryodhan, Raja Akbar ..!! Children know Michael Jackson, Madona but don’t know Pandit Bheemsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraaj…!! Children know Saint Valentine but don’t know Saint Gyaneshwar, Meerabai…!! Children know Teacher’s Day but don’t know Guru-pornima ..!! All these children which are going to be the youth of India after few years, what knowledge and what culture are they going to handover to our next generation?

If we try to analyse Doordarshan in comparison to other channels, we will realize that Doordarshan in loosing its audience mainly because of its appearance. The kind of graphics it has and the way it presents itself. The quality of programs may also be lacking somewhere but what how good those family dramas could be?

Just for a day do one experiment. Forget the attractive graphics of all the channels. Open the newspaper, read the schedule of all the channels and then prepare your own schedule for the day …. And do see to it that you do get the balanced diet and do enjoy your day watching TV…… exactly the way we used to enjoy our Sundays 10 years back …!!

Will you marry Britney Spears ?

Today I happened to visit Crosswords where I came across few books mainly talking about India named INDIA, HERRITAGE OF INDIA, SPIRIT OF INDIA, …, etc. Surprisingly all the books had somewhat similar kind of images. All the books were having photographs mainly of old Indian temples, ancient mosques, different forts, havelees or various photographs taken in Rajasthan. Now the question comes that how far it is logical to say “surprisingly” all the books had more or less same images. If I have to talk about spirit of India in terms of architecture we also might talk about the same things that those books talking about. But are those the “only” things where lies? If we sincerely try to answer this question, ‘unfortunately’ we have to say ‘yes’!! But why unfortunately?

The structure from India which is famous all over world for its beauty is Taj Mahal.
Structures that talk about symbolism of India are hindu and jain temples.
Place that talk about culture of India is Rajasthan.

Certainly all these things belong to India but Taj Mahal was built in 16th century, temples were constructed before that and forts were built till 17th century what has happened in past so many years?
What we have now, that truly celebrate spirit of India? Glass cladded buildings that we get to see even in HongKong, Singapore or America? Disks, pubs and night life? Or guys riding bikes on FC road wearing ‘kaantopi’ like Enrique Iglesias even in the month of May?
Where is the link? If a person from U.S.A. comes to Pune and if he says “show me something that belongs to your country”, where will you go? Can you take him to Hinjewadi to show tall glass cladded facades of all the I.T.Buildings which that person might have been seeing in his own country also since last 10 years or will you take him to disc ‘X’ or club ‘Y’, kind of places he might have been visiting since his childhood. So we might have to take him to probably ‘Shaniwaar Wada’ or caves at Karle or Bhaja. And unfortunately we also might be visiting these places for the first time.

Where we belong to?
What we had?
Where are we going?
Where is the development?
What is ‘our’ achievement?
Where is the link?
What kind of architecture we practice now?
Is there any ‘recent’ building in Pune which is truly Indian?

With this context let us look into the story of ‘short kurta’. What we had traditionally purely as Indian was a long kurta which comes right up to the knees. Now the time has changed, there is a change in lifestyle, change in society, so here is the short kurta with half sleeves. The same traditional Indian kurta modified as per modern needs. Can we understand the link? Nowadays we also get to see the skirts with ‘saree’ borders but the unfortunate part is we wear them to look like hippies !
Whom are we imitating? That’s exactly is the problem with us. We have got into the habit of imitation. What is required is sensible adaptation and evolution. Let us talk about what is evolution? A series of development based on previous stage. Can a donkey be the next evolutionary step of tiger? Similarly we shall also ask ourslves that can ‘an american’ evolve out of ‘Indian’? ……..”sher ki khaal pehen ne se lomdi sher nahi ban jaati..!!” And that’s why when we need to click the culture of India we take our cameras and go to Rajasthan. Where is this ‘marathi’ in Pune? Is there a single structure built in last few years which proudly says I am ‘marathi’?.
I sincerely hate the buildings that most of the architects design and feel proud to display the 3D rendered views of glass facades. The problem is not with the glass….problem is imitation. Where is that Indian-ness? If the user is Indian then the structure should also talk like an Indian, behave like an Indian, stand like an Indian.
I like ‘Britney Spears’. Will I marry her? Tomorrow if my wife starts wearing low waist smallest possible shorts like Britney, will I ever dare to take her to my parents? Will I ever feel proud to take her in ‘subji mandai’ or any public place for that matter in that kind of cloths? ….. What we see is attractive, sexy, provoking or may be seductive at times but shall we imitate that? Tomorrow if I have to take my girlfriend to introduce her to my parents I might ask her to wear ‘punjabi dress’ or something decent and that’s exactly where the ‘indian’ amongst us start talking ..!!
Same thing applies to buildings. We can’t stay in American structure for life long exactly the way I can’t marry Britney Spears. What’s the use if your home doesn’t talk about your country, culture, festivals, language, rituals, sanskaar? Relationship with a house is like a husband-wife relationship, like a marriage…..bond for life time ….…… so what remains is the only question ‘shall she be Britney Spears’ or an ‘Indian’ girl?

where is my home?