ray . thesis . local history

believe me , if you guys are sick of reading my movie reviews, i am also sick of being compelled to write them- still write them i must. its something in me that just keeps nagging me until i have it out there on the screen in black and white.

this time its ‘ray’ the ray charles biopic with jamie foxx doing such a great job of impersonation that you almost forgive the movie for its naïve psychobabble about rays blindness, his relationship to his mother and the guilt that he carries would for his brothers death. the other dumb move is to invent storylines that inspired some of charles greatest songs, not to mention the narrative of a heroin addiction that he is only rescued from by an admonishing memory of his mother- just how maudlin can the movie get! still, jamie foxx does manage to make the movie watchable- and the music – cant forget the music can we? ‘hit the road jack’ still bites, ‘georgia on my mind’ is beautiful..

today, i had thesis juries. while all of rajeevs students seem to be on an experiential trip, mine seem to be heading in many directions simultaneously. dipti's strange ghost story of the bungalow in borivili east can be a great text, a great movie, a great poem.. but great architecture? process, process, process… i think therein lies the clue. richa took me back to new bombay- all those surveys i had made for the city driving alone in my red maruti car. i love the place. i like its strange 50s modernism coming to terms with a city of today- it tries so hard. shipra and punit needed a firing and got one; but riddhi might be a great foray into an exploration notions of ownership and land- the differences and tensions that emerge from the displacement inherent in development.

note to myself : i am wary of the extremely subjective mode of mapping of situationism. poesis is interesting but, perhaps needed some politics. it needs weight, maybe?

sonal is here and is working on her thesis- something to do with landscape and development. she is walking around borivili finding maps, collecting stories and narratives of different areas. i love the stuff she has got. i have never seen our area as a plan- the roads to be built, the fabrics that exist, and the fabrics imagined. the four hills around our locality- st francis school on one, lic colony on another, the mandapeshwar caves on the third and sonals school mary immaculate on the fourth. the stories that can be written.. it’s a fascinating place- the grotto on top of the hill, the old church, the eksar fishing village, the ic colony roads. a local history longer than the one where bombay begins on an island in the south.

sonal right now sits besides me peering over drawings and making plans for her thesis.