pune workshop weekend

i think we need to hire a driver on these out of town trips. my lower back has given way completely after driving around for three days straight, the first to pune, the second in pune and the third back from there. the housing workshop has begun in earnest with our students working with others from other pune colleges looking at 6 slums for the stories that made them- at the house level and the settlement level. each is very different from the other but most seem to have consolidated themselves so much that they are able to raise an opinionated voice through the ngo’s; and also develop their own sense of ‘insiders’ and outsiders’. i wonder how one begins to deal with the much more slippery terrain of new slum communities. its been a task though keeping the students from pre-empting solutions immediately, especially with them being bombarded by the extremely confident positions of different architects, academics and activists whose competing claims to authority have to be carefully avoided. it seems much more difficult that anything we have encountered in bombay. maybe it has something to do with the curious marathi middle class insecurity of the city that demands obsequious respect all the time. but with our bull in china shop bluster, it was very difficult. with aggressive casualness we might have upset quite a few people there.

the room at yashada

the housing at yashada

discussion

ngo promo lecture

ngo promo movie


up and above with minal