If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are the monkeys and apes still there?

I asked the question to the monkeys first – and they said “It’s the drive to go on manufacturing more and more beauty that keeps us going. We are the almighty’s guinea pigs to invent more beauty !”

I asked the same question to humans next- and they said “Beauty stands beautiful, only in comparison with the ugly. We need them to assure us of our beauty !”

In times of unpredictable economies, In times of unstable finances, times when inventions are only meant for problem solving, and when beauty is only the mask of industrial needs;

We the artists, we the responsible beauty potters, haven’t given up. We hold on to the hope of retaining, art of preserving, drive for manufacturing, intellect of redefining, faith in evolving, and dream of triumph over ugly – in presence of ugly. Beauty is our vindication against terrorism. Our proof of life itself. Go on…life is long…life is beautiful. Live life to its fullest, and Beauty to its brawniest !

Hope of retaining beauty : armor against the big bad
If the turtle dosent have its shell on, is it homeless, is it naked, or both ?. I laugh when you ask that and look at me in bewilderment.. If a turtle dosent have its shell, its not a turtle anymore. Its beauty lies in its shell. And it survives due to this beauty. Its beauty is its home, its beauty is its defense against the big bad world. And so is the beauty for us.

Art of Preserving beauty : Bricks give away, home dosent.
If you spin an Oriental woman twice clockwise and twice anti-clockwise, does she get dis-Oriented ? Funny eh ? But she cant part with her Oriental beauty. Must be a reason why they say – Beauty lies within !. To preserve it is an art. It takes belief in the fact that its beautiful in the first place. Its this faith, this belief, that ties people, religions and countries. When the beauty goes away, all is not lost, beauty self-reproduces from the left over memories. But when the belief in beauty is lost, relations are lost, religions are lost and national values are lost.

Drive for manufacturing beauty : The process is important.
If you try to fail, and you succeed, what have you done ? – It isn’t a mind twister. It’s a beauty twister. Even when you try to not make things purposefully beautiful, your sheer toil and enthusiasm makes it beautiful. What would you call it then – beautiful or fluke ? Neither. It was the procedure which was beautiful. Neither start, nor destination is life really. It’s the journey that’s called life. Life sure is beautiful.

Intellect of redefining beauty : Extravagance of renaissance & Minimalism of flat wallet-age.
Do Infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery ? .. Its all in using the right words, with right definitions !
Jokes apart, Beauty is the health vitamin for utilitarian society. But one dies with an overdose of vitamin – or more than what the body can take. Beauty does and should strike hard, only at the naughty edges where the human society starts to lose its focus and trail towards depression of ugly. Anything more and anything less can develop into a social disease.

Faith in evolving : Yesterday’s monkey is today’s man
Is evolving beautiful or the evolved ? One has aspiration and other satisfaction. And the question arises, is aspiration beautiful or satisfaction. It’s the ambition for satisfaction and the fulfillment of aspiration which is really beautiful. To understand that it isn’t a cycle, but a linear progress. That life just gets better with each day. More beautiful than yesterday and aspires to be even more for tomorrow. To keep faith in this beauty , is to allow evolving. Because stagnancy means death – and death sure isn’t beautiful !

How else would one explain - If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are the monkeys and apes still there?

I said: Dharavi

If the newly manufactured heritage tourism and the exhibitions of new antiques weren’t enough, Mumbaikars have yet another brainwave to cash on! The slum tourism....

And Honest that i have vowed to be, I have attempted to be that voracious modernizer too who almost crossed the line of wannabe urban doctrine. My friend Gabriel Venot from the all-so-fashionable France was in India for a 12 weeks long India Darshan.

He’s been a great help and moral support during my sojourn in Paris; and I definitely owed him a good hospitality the Indian way. While my mum made all the colourful Indian dishes for his bland and delicate palate, along with her lessons in Indian yoga; I toiled with map of Mumbai to set the best route for his sightseeing, so as to be able to excite his tourist senses more than what his tattered lonely planet could do.

I skilfully managed the Mumbai tour and took pride at end of the day for having shown him the Mumbai unscripted !

The filmi Mumbai, the poor Mumbai, the Mumbai on streets, the streets of Mumbai. The garbage scattered all over, and the landfills of garbage. The sophisticated bribing, the skilful lobbying.
The political Bombay, the queens necklace over Mumbai, the chowpatty, the balloon man. The rickshaw race and pedestrian traffic. Overloaded trains and unutilised subways. The phool gali, the khaaoo gali. The kebabs, the bhels, the vada pavs, and cutting chais.

I felt like a contemporary artist, making collages of film posters for him as I sat in the Cafe Sarovar of Jehangir art gallery. It makes one symbolically the erudite , sipping chai with a gora at sarovar. Its then, that as if by the air of being the contemporary urban : I popped the final destination on route.

I said : The Dharavi. I took pride in introducing this well-negotiated, enclave within Mumbai. I poured out all the scholarly articles, all the ghastly yet beautiful images that i have seen in the exhibitions. I discussed all the controversies and debates I have been participative in at the sip-the-machine coffee conversations that ive been in with the self proclaimed designer elite groups. At some point, I even started to throw in my personal opinions. But I was still behaving programmed.

Most Mumbaikars are. Dharavi still stays a myth for most Mumbaikars even after the slumdog success. We speak both ways and we even opine both ways. “slums should be eradicated” ....hey but...then, we also do say ... “Slums are a part of our fabric !”.

The fact is, no one really knows what to do with them. I know of people being invited from Italy to Israel to solve the “PROBLEM”. Designers like the HOK , Urban researchers and even Phd students from all over the world....have all come and gone. Made money on the proposal presentations, later dinners at the chic olive in Bandra, discussed how the root of all problems lie in Indian politics, and washed their asses off (incidently toilet rolls manufacturing is one of the commercial activities in Dharavi).

It isn’t really Dharavi thats the problem. The problem lies in the fact that its identity remains undefined. And while the landuse is being termed the SLUMS.
Adding with all our pride : THE LARGEST SLUMS. We know what to do the best. Put in on the tourism map !...Like I did.

Its a shameful act that i did. But then Mumbai lives by its Intestines that constantly need something to digest, absorb and later throw as a waste. Dharavi as a slum tourism is the new food for thought.

Untill now, it only saw the architecture students, “Expert panels”, journalists, nose covered “Social WORKERS”, Phoreners, and photographers. But it is now also seeing tourist groups, school trips, exotic travel companies, corporate training trips, small scale industry HR initiative tours, and ofcourse slumdog millionaire site seeing tours !

This is for all those who may have been on these tours. Please mail in your experiences.
Every PROBLEM has a solution THEY say. But then its the same THEY who call it a PROBLEM in the first place !!!

...And I started the blog.

For a long time, i resisted from having a blog of my own. I resisted the extravagant verbosity that goes into demonstrating the sheen of intellectuality that a blogger is assumed to have.

I would read blogs and give a puckered brow in the early 2005 when my friends started to pen down their thoughts on a medium as free as this. Almost to say the veritable democracy made me insecure. Not that i am scared of being judged, nor that i am worried of making statements. But the sheer idea of my private opinions being exposed so candidly, made me nervous.

But when you don’t reach out to words; words themselves reach out to you. Thats exactly what happened to me. In past one week, Deepak Dongre’s travel blog, Nikhil D’Rozario’s blog called ‘the orgy called life’ and a recent mail from Ameet Padiyar that carried an article by Chinmay Borkar; all made the words inside me drag themselves out.

Its simple i think. Have something to say? Say it !

And, not to miss out, i took a few vows before starting this blog. A vow to be original. To be honest. To be simple. And TRY to be regular !