pune highway . slum meeting . dear liar . october . spade

pune seems like a city that is intent on getting its act together- or at least making sure it makes all the necessary moves so that it appears like it is getting its act together. as the city is exploding on the fringes into luxury apartments and special townships slum housing seems to be becoming the concern of the academies. that’s a good thing. but the solutions being imagined are severely limited by the possibilities within the jnnurm and the sra models.


on the way to pune at joshi wadwale adyllic rural maharashtra

paul, sheila and me drove to a college of architecture in pune yesterday to try and develop a method of inventing new ways of interviewing and naturally imaginging housing in slums. as in before having and answer to know what is the question-exactly. so there we were in a conference room with representatives from architecture colleges, community groups and their ngo representatives. it was decided to hold a workshop in the month of june where all of us would participate in examining communities and developing solutions particular to their needs. 4^th year design students, 10 of them, will be part of this. hopefully it will pan out. seemed like an interesting development. after the workshop the project might even gain academic legitimacy if the pune university decides to loosen its grip on what constitutes legit architecture at the fourth year level.

i almost missed 'dear liar' at prithvi because of the meeting though- and it would have been quite a tragedy. nasserudin shah and ratna pathak playing bernard shaw and his love interest, the actress mrs patrick campbell., read their love letters to one another. both were terrific, naseer was better. but the leters were the stars. brilliant and witty.

what is with the organic twists and urns on the walls and ceiling at alfredos?

at home today, i finally decided to watch eisenstein’s ‘october’ which has been sitting on my computer for too long now. i wish all agit prop films were this exhilarating. there is no way not to be completely taken in when lenin enters, or when the palace is stormed, or not to be amused with the cheap potshots at the monarchy and the provisional government that took its place. And in the middle of all that historical narrative there are still the faces of people who you remember and become emblematic of the characters in the drama.

samira's publiching debut 'spade' is out with articles by quaid, chhaya, mustansir, aniket, rupali and me.. among others. 'architecture and politics' is what it claims to be about.