Rant

This one is for everyone who has ever traveled in an auto in the city of Chennai. I feel your pain. It is THE worst experience, especially for a frequent user, having to deal with the bastards that are the auto drivers, who seem to have somehow cloned themselves off the same behavioral gene pool. F***ing retards.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to frequently use the transport because my paranoid mum wont let me take the bike, and has been promising me a car for 3 yrs now. So why am I choosing now to rant? Because yesterdays experience was more than I can handle and there is nothing else I can do about it but blog rant.

So. Why don’t I begin.

I study at Anna Univ, so my days are’nt exactly ever filled with promise and one is shittier than the next. So when I get called a “poromboke nai” at the end of one of them, you understand why I snap.

I live in guindy, 7 minutes away from college. Its 25 rupees by auto but of course the assholes , most of the time, pick a random number between 50 and 200 and quote it with such confidence you’d almost believe it.

This last f*** says 30, to drop me off “next to the swimming pool”. I agree because its late and my day at college was shittier than usual. Of course, he ignores the last bit and screeches to a halt at the edge of the swimming pool, and asks me to run the rest of the way.

me: “fine then, since you dint drop me all the way, I’m paying you only 25”

him: “no.(murderous glare)”

sigh. why did I think for a moment he’d actually agree. So we argue, he uses some words I don’t understand, I sound like a broken record with my limited Tamil ,and at the end of it

“moonji-a paru! Pormboke nai!! Auto la eradha inimae!”

Chooth. The only reason I dint verbally abuse him back was because the road is really lonely and if ran me down, body identification would be difficult.

For all of you who are saying “why dint she just call the police on him or something”, I’ve tried that too. They’re worse than the auto drivers.

The guy I pulled that on, again, refused to go all the way and we had unfortunately paid him already. He refused to give us our money back so I tell him I’m not getting off till he pays me. I loudly note down his number and make to call the police –and since I’m blessed with f***s luck, my phone has to run out of battery just then. I make him stop, get my friend to sit in the auto and go to a phone booth to call them.

Just so everyone knows, my tamil is horrible – I use Malayalam and English words where I please. So anyway, I call the police.

Me: I’d like to lodge a complaint against the driver of auto number yada yada for harassment?”

Eehh?? Hello? Ehhh?

Me: er... harassment complaint lodge pannanum!

2244 madam! Please calling 2244!

So I dial f**ing 2244 while the auto driver stands there to make sure I’m not shittin him.

Me: hello, na alwarpet la irruken. Harassment complaint lodge pannanum.

Someone at the other end : sir! Sir! Yaaro yedho solaranga! Sir!!

Sir: Hello? Ess?

Me: hello. harassment (fucking) complaint(fucking) lodge-

Sir: eeh? Wat?

I repeat myself for the hundredth time.

Sir: not area in.. ehhh.. our eehh…area madam. You call 622.

By this time, luckily for me, the auto guy is as pissed as I am, he shoves the money in my hand and walks off.

Fat load of help the police were!

As was the watchman at our college when an asshole autodriver with a limp lunged after us, gritting his teeth , after calling us something to do with the pubes that I dint get. I have never been more grateful for my 2 fat, yet healthy legs and his one and a half. We tore down the college looking like supreme dumbf***s while the guard stood there picking his nose.

And neither were the general population at satyam, when, because we apparently quoted a fare too low, the auto guy yells after us about our quote being the same price as “one condom, you know?”.

The f***ers WILL choose Monday mornings when you have’nt slept the night before to flirt and say

“padikiringla Anna University la? Apdi theriyala *retarded smile/check out, through the rear view mirror*”

and when that doesn’t evoke a response “madam neenga romba simple-a irrukinga”

what he meant by simple, I will never know.

F***ing retards! Its absolutely ALL I can take. I’m going to throw a tantrum for the first time since I was five and get me a car. I DO NOT need to deal with these assholes every day of my life. I have enough to deal with already!

End of rant.

Peeps.

Jungle is massive!

Its funny how much changes in so little time. I stumbled across something I’d written over a year ago. A piece on architecture, for an application I had sent.

It read

What impresses me most about architecture is its ability to transcend its physical limits and enter every aspect of human life. It is a medium and a tool that can speak to the masses better than any other. Work that recognizes this potential, and exploits its ability to effect and affect change in society, is true architecture.

I would probably never write something like that now, for various reasons which we wont get into, but in essence, I realized, it still holds true.

Architecture in its broad sense is, and has always been, so much more that the built form. Through the ages, it spoke of times, of people, of lives and learning, of new beginnings. Each age left behind an architecture that spoke of its legacy, lessons learnt and obstacles overcome.

Which brings me to a debate, that’s had much time, energy, web space and what not, dedicated to it for a while now.

Sometime in early 2006, Chennai city witnessed the opening of a new mall. The Citi Centre at Radhakrishnan Salai. They called in French Renaissance, Greek “Style” and talked of a “Dubai experience” right here in Chennai.

The architectural community, for the most part, (at least the ones more vocal about it) were outraged. Everyone hated it. (even if hate wasn’t an appropriate logical judgment) Everyone who dint, wanted to hate it. Everyone who ever set eyes on it made it a point to gag and be dramatic and throw rocks at it and come tell everyone who dint hear of it, of the monstrosity.

I personally, hated it. It wasn’t French or Renaissance. It was anything but beautiful. It was an insult to the Renaissance, of a period of so much learning, to merely stylistically imitate vague visuals of the time and use it with reckless abandon.

There are Greek pediments in weird proportions against Asian paint blue, opposite a hideous rose window, by a winding wood staircase, all serving no purpose but to adorn some pointless wall stretching up 3 storeys.

Spatially, it offered no unique experience. It is a box, with a large atrium, having cheap plastic coconut trees to represent, I dunno, Hawaii? And some ridiculous Victorian style iron balustrades vying for attention against the marble ones.

All in all it’s an eclectic, over the top mess , that has no architectural worth, save for its weight in concrete.

However, as self obsessed as us architects like to be, we failed to see that the rest of the city, was absolutely loving the new addition to their already chaotic city scape. My mom thought it “beautiful”. Most of my friends from non-architectural(yes we’re a cult) circles thought it great. There was buzzing everywhere about “that awesome new place near the marina”.

But the real point of this post isn’t for me to rant about my disgust at the architecture and the violation of everything it stands for, or the way people perceived it. It is to question what, we, as architects have a responsibility to. If, at the end of the day, the people, varied as their sensibilities are, on average received it with open arms, is the fact that it merely cashed in on a very human tendency to be wowed by flashy visuals and monumental scale really wrong? This sort of architecture may never speak of its own time or ever influence the generations to come. It may never serve for anything more than an example of our cross cultural ties with multinationals. But if the users and public are more than satisfied by what they feel is a “dubai experience”,(although I don’t see why that’s important), isn’t the architect then, successful in his endeavor?

Jes jes. ;)

Asabikeshinh

Long ago when the world was young, an old Lakot spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language that only the spiritual leaders of the Lakota could understand. As he spoke Iktomi, the spider, took the elder's willow hoop which had feathers, horse hair, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web.

He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life . . . and how we begin our lives as infants and we move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. "But," Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are many forces -- some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But if you listen to the bad forces, they will hurt you and steer you in the wrong direction." He continued, "There are many forces and different directions that can help or interfere with the harmony of nature, and also with the Great Spirit and all of his wonderful teachings."

All the while the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web starting from the outside and working towards the center. When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the Lakota elder the web and said . . . "The web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle. Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and make good use of your people's ideas and visions. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will catch your good ideas, and dreams -- and the bad ones will go through the hole."

The Lakota elder passed on his vision to his people. where. It held the destiny for their future.

- Legends of the Dreamcatcher

To the year that has passed. For the wealth it has taught me. To the people I love. To those I owe the new beginning. To myself. This, is a promise.