dahi handi at devipada

the pleasure of riding wild in an open back truck with your friends screaming and shouting to drumbeats; the cloudy sky, the intermittent rain, the mud caked on your t-shirt and shorts- a uniform in red, yellow, white and of course saffron. testosterone reeking in the air as the women wait on the truck waiting for the men to return. the men meanwhile form a mad throng of people- a sea from where human pyramids rise and fall in competition. winners are announced over the blaring microphone. and gifts of money by local goons and politicians are passed around. meanwhile, the big prize hangs high above with a garland and an indian flag, hung from a crane. 

the ground is the leftover of a slum that was moved onto the rehab building that forms the backdrop for the pyramids; the sale component will take the place of the ground. its image stands tall against the silver boundary wall on the highway.'ambrosia' it is to be called. not 'dahi' for the govindas.

juhu koliwada temple

a temple in a fishing village is looking for a conservation plan. rupali and me paid a visit last week. concentric layers of architecture surrounding an old shrine and a public space that fronts the porch.

vajreshwari

 this time for the second year design studio we took the students to vajreshwari with its winding tansa river and hot springs, villages struggling against the temple trusts to hold on to their agricultural fields.

borivili skywalk walk

i know all the reasons i am not supposed to like the new skywalks sprouting up all over the city- a collosal waste of resources, badly made with awful details, terribly conceived- connecting nowhere to nowhere and making hell below on the already crowded streets. but today, when looking for a new bag, the borivili version of this atrocity just happened to lead from the parked car to the suitcase shop and i saw a completely new railway station area- the formation of hawkers in front of the railway entrances, bird baths, jaya theater, the newly refurbished shopping center, the bmc building, the low rise sheds of the railways, the empty plots hidden away from the streets and life on top of the terraces of buildings waiting to be torn down. the familiar was made new again -by showing again- in a different way.