Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Decide for yourself : I said it.

From ‘Cafe coffee Day’ Chats to dinner table conversations; Ameet (my husband) and I have come a long way. Although, India and its future always seems to remain the core of all our humour and discourses both.

We stand up with muscular pride at the PVR cinemas before each movie, when the National Anthem plays in its slowest rhythm possible.

And we still don’t know how would we really align ourselves with that tune. How would we stop complaining and take charge. I know my husband has began somewhere.
My phone rings – ‘Fauji Padiyar’ when he calls. Yes, thats what i call him. Fauji.
Its him that i learnt from; that, if you want to revolt against an action, you should know to fight its cause – not how to use the weapon or Which weapon to use.

Our weapons are hence different.
Sales and Marketing.
Architecture.

We are on the cusp of an incredible global change. A crossroads where we make decisions which will influence life on Earth well into the future of what we call time. We can fling open the doors of the mental and emotional prisons which have confined the human race for thousands of years. Or we can allow the agents of that control to complete their agenda for the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical enslavement of every man, woman and child on the planet with a world government, army, central bank and currency, underpinned by a microchipped population.

I know that sounds fantastic, but if the human race lifted its eyes from the latest soap opera or game show for long enough to engage its brain, it would see that these events are not just going to happen - they are happening.

The momentum for the centralised control of global politics, business, banking, military and media is gathering pace by the hour. The microchipping of people is already being suggested and, in many cases, underway. Whenever a hidden agenda is about to be implemented there is always the period when the hidden has to break the surface for the final push into physical reality.

This is what we are seeing now in the explosion of mergers between global banking and business empires, and the speed at which political and economic control is being centralised through the European Union, the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and the stream of other globalising bodies like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the G-7/G-8 summits.

I was part of one such global peach SAARC summit; representing Indian youth in 2005. Even there, i spoke about architecture as my tool-kit. About what i can do , want to do, will do. There was a big round of applause. Mr. Swaraaj Chauhan seemed impressed. Tagged me ‘Hans-Dhwani’ – hoisting the white flag for future. I basked in its glory for a few days. Bookmarked that article when the summit was published on the internet. And pretty much lost the manual to using my tool-kit.

I represent many such idiots, who swear to themselves for record breaking achievements when they enter professional courses. And very quickly fall prey to the blaming game.

People have no idea of the abyss we are staring into or the nature of the world we are leaving for our children to endure and most people don’t seem to care. They would much rather ignore the obvious and go into denial of a truth that’s splatting them between the eyes.

I feel like the cow who runs into the field screaming: “Hey, you know that truck that takes some of our friends away every month? Well they don’t take them to another field like we thought. They shoot them in the head, bleed them dry, cut them up, and put the pieces into packets. Then those humans buy them and eat them!” Imagine what the reaction of the rest of the herd would be: “You’re crazy man. They’d never do that. Anyway, I’ve got shares in that trucking company and I get a good return. Shut up, you’re making rumours.”

The Agenda I am exposing has been unfolding over thousands of years to its current point close to completion, because humanity has given away its mind and its responsibility. Humanity would rather do what it thinks is right for itself in the moment than consider the wider consequences of its behaviour for human existence.

Ignorance is bliss, we say, and that’s true - but only for a while. It may be bliss not to know a tornado is coming because you have no need to worry or take action. But while your head is in the sand your bum is in the air, the tornado is still coming. If you looked up and faced it, disaster could be
avoided, but ignorance and denial always ensure that you will get the full force and the most extreme consequences, because it strikes when least expected and you are least prepared. Like I say, ignorance is bliss - but only for so long.

We create our own reality by our thoughts and actions. For every action or non-action there is a consequence. When we give our minds and our responsibility away, we give our lives away. If enough of us do it, we give the world away and that is precisely what we have been doing throughout known human history. This is why the few have always controlled the masses. The only difference today is that the few are now manipulating the entire planet because of the globalisation of business, banking and communications. The foundation of that control has always been the same: keep the
people in ignorance, fear and at war with themselves. Divide, rule and conquer while
keeping the most important knowledge to yourself.

The global fascist state is upon us.
And yet, it doesn’t have to be like this. The real power is with the many, not the few. Indeed infinite power is within every individual. The reason we are so controlled is not that we don’t have the power to decide our own destiny, it is that we give that power away every minute of our lives.

When something happens that we don’t like, we look for someone else to blame. When there is a problem in the world, we say “What are they going to do about it”. At which point they, who have secretly created the problem in the first place, respond to this demand by introducing a ‘solution’ – more centralisation of power and erosion of freedom. If you want to give more powers to the police, security agencies and military, and you want the public to demand you do it, then ensure there is more crime, violence and terrorism, and then it’s a cinch to achieve your aims. Once the people are in fear of being burgled, mugged or bombed, they will demand that you take their freedom away to protect them from what they have been manipulated to fear.

I call this technique problem-reaction-solution. Create the problem, encourage the reaction “something must be done”, and then offer the solution. It is summed up by the Freemason motto ‘Ordo Ab Chao’ - order out of chaos. Create the chaos and then offer the way to restore order. Your order.

It is an old, old adage that if you want someone to do something, get them to believe it is their idea.’ Humanity is mind controlled and only slightly more conscious than your average zombie. Far fetched?
No, no.1 define mind control as the manipulation of someone’s mind so that they think,
and therefore act, the way you want them to. Under this definition, the question is not how many people are mind controlled, but how few are not. Everyone is to a larger or lesser extent. When you are persuaded by advertising or hype to buy something you don’t really need or want, you are being mind controlled. (One of those many ethical topics Ameet and I talk about.) When you read or hear a slanted news story and allow it to affect your perception of a person or event, you are
being mind controlled.(Dare any hotel give LNA – name changed – newspaper in the morning while we are holidaying !!)

The list of mind manipulating techniques is endless. They want your mind because when they have that, they have you. The answer lies in taking our minds back, thinking for ourselves and allowing others to do the same without fear of ridicule or condemnation for the crime of being different. If we don’t do that, the Agenda I am going to outline will be implemented. But if we do regain control of our minds and achieve mental sovereignty, the Agenda cannot happen because the foundation of its existence will have been taken away.

When Chinmay gifted us Fountainhead book by Ayn Rand on our wedding, (I treat the book like bible which he did not know) – what was he thinking ?
Well, it just makes me smile there are more people like Ameet and me out there, who think weddings are for similar thoughts to come together.

And while Ameet is on his journey to ‘let the masses decide’; I too have started my battle against copy pasted architecture, which i shall talk about at length in my next post.

Monday, March 30, 2009

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?

Friday, March 13, 2009

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 !!!

Friday, February 27, 2009

...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 !