Strings Of Life

Sometimes it is strange to think that some wheels of you life were set in motion when you were not even aware of them. Small and seemingly insignificant events that all secretly tie up together to form a network of life ......a web that gets tugged as you tread on them and realise how far and ow deep it has spread.

I remember watching the Berlin Wall fall on television when I was a small girl. I really dont remember it in very much detail...just that my parents explained to me how nice it was that two countries got united. I faintly remeber the wall crumbling, people rejoicing and waving banners....

For the time being that was all to Berlin and Germany in my life. But there things were moving on slowly...and within a few years of the fall Sony Corp. and Daimler Chrysler...(Benz at that time) bought two huge chunks of land near a divided and derelict plaza called Potsdammer Platz. When I was far away from architecture busy doing high school mathematics an architect called Richard Rogers prepared a master plan for the new Potsdammer Platz...a revival of public space and image of Berlin. The site was for very long the largest construction site in the world. It stands as an excellent example of urban design and creation of public place through private agency....a mark of German unification and a symbol for the democratic capitalist state.

And today this mega site is so important to me ....I am banking my post graduate thesis design on what I have learnt from the masters work. About a decade ago Renzo Piano and Helmut Jahn wove a story with form and today I have to weave a new story on my site based on how they essayed architecture and urban space.

Life keeps gathering strings as we move on and when we search for new things in life these strings lead us onto the small little lanes of the past where clues to our futures are hidden.

Mid Summer Night Wars

Evening power cut time is perhaps the liveliest time in my corridor. Immediatey after the shouts of protests and despair the chairs are pulled out. Everyone settles with their phones and water. Then begins mosquito madness.

The quiet of the night is pierced by the faint yet shrill drone of the tiny wings. The peaceful mind is disturbed by the slight itch here and there. No amount of repellents help, the cream wears off in some time. Neither does flapping clothes or waving ones arms. The

There is feeling of vengeance and hopelessness at the same time. Part sleepy and part overworked souls versus the miniscule blood sucking creatures, is a fantastic war to watch, at a distance of course. Some like to just keep them away and some retaliate with the vigour of a patriotic soldier….fight till death…err sleep. However all in vain, the mosquitoes prevail and bite to their insignificant-micro-hearts content.

The hours are endured with the hope that the battle would end in victory. There would be electricity and small red/orange/green lights would begin glowing at the sockets. The faint fragrance of repellants would fill the room and spread to each corner like shown in the ads. Spreading like a mist and taking mosquito's on the way.

Aaah……triumph against the torture of the arthropods………


Till then swat away like a valiant soldier……..