Beyond the TANGIBLE....

Some things do not change.....so is our culture....so  intangible , it adds life to the spaces. Be it Community interaction  , be it coming together on the festivals or for those evenings or be it children playing all around adding noise and sense of liveliness to the space...
Yes this is what we call as our culture...this represents us..

Recently we had been to the a   Heritage Walk   in the POLS of Ahmdavad, gushing through the ULTRA NARROW lanes of the old city....feels as if every space is calling you..welcoming you....

                                                         The ULTRA NARROW LANES of the Old City

The old city of ahmdavad is very dense, they call it POLS -The community dwelling places. Pol is the ultimate world  for the people staying there.
We were moving through these lanes to explore the rich heritage that was established here by the different rulers of those times. The Islamic, Hindu and Jain architecture truly add to the diversity of the culture as a whole.

                                                                      Poet Dalpatram  

 

                                                                       The beautiful SWAMINARAYAN TEMPLE
While we were on our way exploring the   dynamics of the spaces  we also in between continuously had glimpses of the people cooking...people washing clothes.....people brushing ( since we had gone at 6 a.m for the walk) doing their Buisnesses as USUAL....
 
This made me think for a while though this heritage walk was a experience in itself, it actually intruded the personal spaces of the people staying there...we had actually disturbed their sense of privacy totaly...!!!

                                                   Uninterrupted BUISNESS AS USUAL... 
A unique sense of community interaction was observed...we saw the MUSLIMS and the JAINS outside the JUMMA MOSQUE  spending a laughing time together ...we saw the community spaces jam packed with the kids & old people enjoying the outdoors....

Sense of attachment....

Sense of community..........

Sense of understanding..

All these were unequivocally expressed by the people in the pols through their actions...More than the heritage...all these human interactions were actually the  magnets  to attract the attention of the people...This is what may be they call as the “ Living Heritage " .....The Heritage that lives in itself....that has brought life in the city...and still continues to be the driving force for the immense enthusiasm they hold....making their place,...a better place to evolve...enjoy and celebrate...........!!!!

This heritage walk made us explore the  True Heritage ...made us realise it does lie in the masterpieces of human  Art and Craft  ... The Human Genius  ...but then they might seem DEAD without the essence and ethos of the actions & activities of the people of the fabric....that add life and a MEANING to the entire picture.
Seeing heritage is probably beyond the Conventional boundaries of the “ Tangible  Heritage ” we often forget to SEE..


Glimpses of the HERITAGE..... 

 
  

alternate perception

 This is no virtual blog where i am trying to claim something that is most hyped today- “The Gandhian Values in 21st century”...where we can BLOT PAGES together winning our points over Gandhi’s philosophy or vice versa, but its straight from the experiences we shared with the people in the villages of the land where Gandhiji had marched & fought for our country.

Recollecting those history lessons of our times in schools about the legendary “DANDI MARCH” .....never ever had imagined would be actually be able to visit his place of action.
As a part of our course we were supposed to develop the villages in south Gujarat on the Lines of Gandhian values per se and making it SUSTAINABLE in its own sense..which is another talk of the town these days – The Village of concern was DANDI --Yes the same dandi where the Salt law was broken by Gandhi in 1930’s & marked a revolutionary beginning a new horizon.

We went to the village in the pursuit of some stories about the great fighter....
When we entered the village....we had this so called PERCEPTION of a typical village..the avenues....pinching smell of cattle sheds, the kuchcha roads, and the community spaces which will stare at us when we would cross their zones like the ALIENS in the VILLAGE...and over and above that great stories about our great valiant leader-Mahatma Gandhi..but our perception had an ALTERNATE PERCEPTION too....we soon realised it.

The Heritage house in the villages near dandi....lself contented & self dictating....they do not need us to develop them, any further...

The Gandhi memorial, seemed to be just another place in the village. A calm Silent..least visited ( neither by the villagers nor by the tourists) I guess had gandhiji chosen the beach as its salt law breaking venue....it would have been a BIG HIT..anyways the beach stands as the prime attraction...then why not ganghiji’s event???? Strange but TRUE....

Moreover.....strange but true fact of matter was....hardly people staying there even knew what the march was about...( may be it was the third generation staying there) The stories have not even trikled down to the youth today...and so are they least bothered.
Self sufficient village concept of gandhi.....has 60% of people working in Gulf countries for bread butter leaving the families behind & making the the village work on donations & money orders.....

                                                  Yes....!!!! Its in Dandi...NRI's Bunglow....!!!

Gandhian Values....Sustainablilty even today falls as the last section of any given decription...here it is so, as it follows a background....a background of reality we face today....NO NO i am not justifying being anti gandhian....but then how many of us today , given a choice ( unless given ) would opt for charkha life???

I mean getting your clothes made by yourself...sounds crazy right??? I am saying this as the altrenate perception , but then its like...can we have one “MUNNA BHAI” preaching Gandhism all around ..but the other line of thought also provokes us to think...do we really have to have any kind of “CHEMICAL LOCHA” in our brains to actually prove we are pro gandhians....will it take so much to convince individuals....or is it....we all should start believing in reincarnations...and wait for another GANDHI to join us....to save our earth..these questions i thought will have answers after i return from dandi...but then they just developed as another side of perception....and continues to haunt me further.....!!!!
GANDHI TODAY...

                                                                An Alternate Perception 

The other way round...

                                                     
Have we ever observed things around us carefully??? Daily routine that we follow ,like regular monotonous patterns, we end up missing innumerable details. Our Way of looking at things sometimes follows such amazingly routine patterns of thinking, that we don’t even think of thinking other wise.
Every morning we have this Sabzi wala coming at our gate. And Every morning his wonderful musical voice SCREAMING “ Sabzi Waalo”........... leaves me with no other option but to GET UP...as if its the last day of his life & he is fulfilling his last wish of desperately selling his VEGGIES...

 I never thought them to be so important unless we , in our course had a class on SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT IN CITIES yesterday , i realised its the OTHER WAY ROUND .
As a routine , even that day i was compelled to wake up by this CHALTA FIRTA ALARM...I was brushing....he was screaming....i went for a bath...he was still screaming....finally after a LONG PERIOD of one and half hours i left my home.....he was still the same...same place...same tone of screaming...same position...and ofcourse with same electrifying VOICE...

Though it wasn’t a new scene for me...i was observing the engagement of his self with the work , as he was surrounded by tonnes of WOMEN who were worse in their voice pitches than what i thought the sabzi wala was...i just gave a sympathetic look & left for my routine...
We gathered in our class....and began with our discussion with our faculty..on SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT in CITIES today. All the good things...rather bad things in the sky were discussed...the GHG Emissions, The fuel Consumption, Air pollution...cars, buses, railways, LIFESTYLES OF PEOPLE, CITIEs & CONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES , CITIES & their problems....
Suddenly i realised what are we talking about...it reminded me of the

 HAWKER - The WAKE UP ALARM of my MORNINGS

and realised my God we simply do not look at things the way they are...and try to beat around the bush for no reason....all that we were talking about sustainable Transport.....less use of vehicles....what could be a better example that this? NO consumption of resources..no EMISSIONS.....NON MOTOSRISED SERVICE at your door step.....He is not a nuisance but its THE OTHER WAY ROUND...we are a problem for him...eating up his place of hawking for our parking requirements....flaunting our cash wealth by driving to RELIANCE FRESH just to avoid walking down the markets close by....and taking over his bread butter....i realised the way we look at things need to be dramatically change to solve many problems...and they would appear to us differently....may be they would no more appear to us as a problem...!!!

Looking through a different lens...!!!

Approach...!!!

Very rightly as the Video describes...LATERAL THINKING is just one of the many ways we might approach a problem ....in a DIFFERENT WAY , which might help us identify a non conventional means of solving it..This is just to begin with ,as a part of , what i mean by THE WAY WE LOOK AT THINGS...
No doubt we all have heard the phrase “change the way you look at things and the things you look at change”. This is such a powerful phrase because it points out that the one thing you always have control of is your thoughts — which means you can literally choose to feel happy, or not .

After all its all a matter of approach .What we see, what we imagine & ultimately the way we act or react all is governed by our thoughts and our approach towards it. Our Thoughts in turn govern the WAY WE LOOK AT THINGS.

I believe that the environment in which we live , wether good or bad, is partially a reflection of us...We can change or rather better it by changing the way we handle our thoughts rather MANAGE them...!!!