South Asian Jazz (Review)

South Asian Jazz in Architecture (Event Review)

Event: disContinuous Threads: Memory, Freedom and Architecture in Contemporary India, Conference at National Centre for Performing Arts [NCPA], Mumbai, December 10–12, 1997

Traditional Warli House, Thane Dist. Maharashtra, India

Warli hut built by self-help and community participation; it is truly green, organic and sustainable; its technology standards are unsurpassed any civilized society until now.

What is Architecture

Architecture is Mother of All Arts(!)

Proverb among Indie-architects

PEOPLE ENERGY

Key Words: Indian Westernized Architecture, Contemporary Western Architecture, Biodiversity, Culture

‘THREADS’ certainly bring to our mind Kabir the weaver and Namdeo the tailor, and others of Indian high culture. This is in contrast to the present Western and contemporary westernized Indian notion of wealth, consumption and market economy.

EMPERORS PASSED AWAY, but Kabir, Tukaram likewise other saint-poets continue to rule for centuries. However, history books made by the British-made Indian schooling, are crammed with wars, murders and murderers. Even an unassuming village traditional doctor is cautious to give away his formulas of traditional herbal medicines to guard, of course, against misuse, namely by moneymaking, desecration, exploitation… This is in contrast to western culture of ‘Intellectual Property Rights’. A question of morality!

THE ARCHITECTS who gathered for the conference came from India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka. They belong to the First World of minority. We are well aware the architecture, modern architecture, in the subcontinent is an extension, a tail end of western architecture.

IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE there is neither North nor South, nor West or East. It is a one-dimensional world where the world is flat for the architects who struggle to create two-dimensional images of three-dimensional space, unaware that they are being manipulated by the Super-strings of Corporate Powers.

The professional ladies and gentlemen here, gathering and splitting threads at the conference, were speaking alien language, and referring to Kant, Kahn… aesthetics, technology… cults and post-modern-cults, and reflecting western concepts mostly at a gross level of existence.

Some tried typically to capitalize on poverty in fashion. Language matters when one speak of regions. Language and culture are so intimately entwined; they are “almost one and the same thing” (Pagel) [1]. Yet when we dig the buried past (Harappa etc.) we try to read cultures of the bygone times from its artefacts, architecture irrespective of its being good or bad.

IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT there are about fifty - sixty social and cultural sub-groups, a great warp and weft, and numerous mother tongues, many more times than the officially recognised and state-supported languages. As is said, the shades of languages change at ten miles.

As the ecologists have long known, that from the poles to the Equator the number of different species of flora and fauna increase… so also in the size of territory the species range over… both these ecological rules also apply to languages [2]. This is perfectly in harmony with rich biodiversity of land and waters of the sub-continent.

Now the folk languages, rich with traditional wisdom and knowledge accumulated over many lifetimes are on the way of extinction together with arts, crafts and indigenous architecture following the extinction of the plants, birds, animals, insects…following the extinction of indigenous food grains, replaced by hybrid culture.

“Languages began dying in droves from late 15th century onwards as the Europeans colonized the world. Some languages died because of mass killings of ethnic communities. Each time a language dies we lose something we do not even understand (Woodfield)…we loose a way of perceiving the world…a way of learning (Pagel) [3].

Only trade is global; culture and cultural expressions cannot be global. Even the currencies cannot be global. Then how could architecture be global? Architects may have to deliberately and constantly watch out how every point and line put on the paper or computer screen affects land and waters, and the people.

High on agenda of Western high culture of ‘development’ is to disintegrate and dis-empower the people and turn them into zombies – programmed robots of mono-culture of mass-type society for the greed of power and profit.

IS CREATIVITY A PREROGATIVE OF A FEW – Corbu, Kahn, Gehri…? Aesthetics for that matter is a clouded issue due to social-cultural-economic issues, geography, urbanism, high culture, mass culture, and Environment-Ecology-Energy crisis. Centuries ago Kabir – Tukaram – Chokhamela challenged the gross concept of aesthetics by giving examples of plants – sandalwood, clove, sugarcane etc.

Beauty – Truth – Bliss – Love is not the opposite of ugly – lie – pain – hate. But to speak of this area is a taboo. It is so, for simple reason that this area cannot be institutionalized. Discourses by gurus though are institutionalized.

Somewhere in the development process we have lost ‘rt’ – good – the noun was replaced by adjective. However ‘rt’ is beyond definition, though science is not. Science continues to discover the ‘Frontiers of Ignorance’ [4].

Architects of the sub-continent are still chained to, caught up in and victims of orthodox view of modern architecture. “Development of modern architecture suggests it has taken us about four thousand years to progress from pyramid to a box’ says Papworth [5]. While modern architecture seems to have lost direction and people all over the world are facing identity crisis, it displays architect’s signature, sometimes that of the corporate client, hardly of the user.

Merely adopting effects and epithets of vernacular is not enough. It was Einstein who said that you couldn’t expect to solve a problem within the mind that created it [6] (quoted by Edward Goldsmith).

Architecture today is a goldfish in a glass bowl. It is time now to let loose the goldfish into the stream. Rest will take care of itself. But that demands morality, dignity and integrity. Do architects and scientists perceive that they are tools in the hands of empires of development, which control the access to the resources? In search of architecture the major task is to humanize and democratize the community … ‘but you cannot have morality without community. Without community morality becomes humbug’ (John Papworth) [7].

THE CONCLUDING SESSION was a deflated event like afterbirth. It did not reflect the preceding part of this grand South Asian Jazz, which was coupled with occasional Shahanai – Pakhavaj of Shubhendu Kaushik.

There were no issue/s at stake at the event.

It is understood that the participants had to put their perceptions, experiences and references within the limitation of period of time, words and visuals in their presentations, discussions (and this review, too) cannot cover entire gamut of the theme of the conference.

THE MAJOR CHALLENGE today in the context of the theme is to free both, land and waters and community, which are shattered and disintegrated in the cobweb of market and its allies. Let loose the goldfish of architecture from the glass bowl into the stream of community.

Remigius de Souza
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Referances and Notes

1 Vines, Gail. ‘Death of a mother tongue’ New Scientist, Jan 6, 1996, p.25
2 ibid. p 26
3 ibid. p.27
4 Theme of the 125th anniversary issue of Nature, 3.11.1994
5 Papworth, John. ‘Shut up and Listen – A new handbook for revolutionaries’, Academic Inn, London, 1997
6 ibid. Preface
7 ibid. p.4

[Published in Janata Weekly, Mumbai, March 15, 1998, P.11-14.]

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© Remigius de Souza।, all rights reserved।
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Essays in early Indian architecture (Book Review)

Essays in early Indian architecture
Author: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy  
Edited by Michael W. Meister 
Publishers: Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, and 
Oxford University press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras. 1992 
| Price: Rs 400/- pp xxviii, 151 | Illustrations: 164.

“Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8”(A. K. Coomaraswamy, Indian Architectural Terms, P. 97)

THE BEGINNING OF 1993 saw two significant events in Indian architecture.
The INGCA and OUP made available five essays by Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) which were earlier inaccessible to the public.
The other event was the theme chosen by the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA), India, “Back to the Roots” for their national convention held at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa (now Odisha).


Though it may not be perceptible, very few are aware of the Indian ethos in different areas of creative life and expression. But at the end of 20th century, with the imminent fall of ‘industrial civilization’ (or ‘economic civilization’), the awakening of ethnic identity is a global phenomenon. Parallel to the environmental movement, there is a ‘Anti-celebration to Columbus Day’ all over the world, and a new awareness in different disciplines.


The essays by Coomaraswamy reappear when people of India (not the statisticians) are groping for salvation in an ever-increasing chaos. The much sought-after development aping the west has only worsened the living conditions of the people of mainstream India. While this book may pamper the inflated Indian ego, it may be life-saving plank to multitudes in 20th century modernity called consumer civilization.


The common theme of the essays is to present a picture of secular, domestic, urban, rural architecture of India 2000 years ago, the remains of which do not exist because of impermanent nature of materials used. The book is about how the common man’s architecture, a hut of a villager that became a source – a form-giver – and developed into a unique architectural style, complex structural system and highly developed building vocation – into a tradition that materialised in thousands of and continued during the late medieval period under royal patronage (Chapter IV. Huts and related temple types, P 103).


For instance, “Tree-cult”, tree worship which was adopted by the Buddhists in “Bodhi-gharas” was an animistic practice of the people before Aryans came (Chapter II. BODHI-GHARAS, P 19).

Though Coomaraswamy does not mention so, the “Tree-cult” still exists in India in different forms, for example, “Tulasi-vrindavan”, holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum L.) on a platform or in a pot, is a common feature of the Indian household. The plant is known for its medicinal values and is also an organic insecticide. “Brahman” – a banyan tree with a built platform, is a common feature of villages in Konkan region – a well known monsoon forest region on the West Coast of India. “Devarai”, sacred grove, is a “protected forest” by the people for the Indian villagers and forest dwellers, by unwritten law of ancient tradition, though not recognised by the development projects, or by the British-made “Forest Acts” that still continue in modern India.

Why Tree-cult? Coomaraswamy has not posed this question here. Did some visionary scientists or wise men of the aborigine communities initiate tree-worship as a measure of environmental protection?

A. K. Coomaraswamy opens up the first essay on “Cities and city-gates, etc.” with a statement, “…cities are despised and there are no ceremonies for urban life”(P.3). He quotes “It is impossible for one to obtain salvation, who lives in a town covered with dust” (Baudhayana Dharma Sutra, II, 3, 6, 33).

Elsewhere he says, “…but the village is still typical centre of Aryan life” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, p 15) referring to Maurya period. Indian society has remained agrarian even under the wave of industrialization.

Among several features of city, Coomaraswamy describes city-gates: toranas and gopuras, which were used for protection and security or for honorific and ornamental purposes. In contemporary times, Mr Shankar N. Kanade, architect, has used city-gates in “Jala Vayu Vihar” township at Bangalore (now Bengaluru), enhanced by adding elevated water storage tank. In present day context, more than being ornamental it gives identity to a place in urban chaos; it is a symbol of celebration, besides utility.


Indian Architectural Terms (P. 71 – 99) is a critical essay on two books written by Prof. P. K. Acharya, “Indian Architecture According to the Manasara-silpasatra” and “A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture”. It is a combative but constructive criticism. This essay helps to learn ‘how to criticise and how to take it, and gives access to ‘meanings’ of the terms.

Take the term much in currency these days, Vastu, for example: “Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8” (P. 97).

He has presented over 100 sculptured relief works in photographs and drawings – some of them restored in exquisite drawings by him, as visual evidence, from monuments built in or carved out of rocks centuries ago. The author referred to textual evidences from Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali law books, epics and Kavya literature. These reliefs were executed by sculptors, guilds of master craftsmen who documented epics of Indian civilization on stone surface. It is worth noting that the sacred texts were handed over by mnemonic method, though writing was known, for reasons of accuracy, which is still being observed. In the relief sculptures there is no scope for errors or adulteration or manipulations.

The population of India around 1st A.D. was perhaps 30 million or so, with growth rate of probably less than 0.01 percent per annum. As the feudal power over people increased, which is now growing to a global scale through its invisible tentacles, the epic writer in stone is now visibly disintegrated.

What happened to the guilds as the population grew? For instance, the communities of stone-cutters called “Wadar” and “Beldar” living in the slums of cities and towns not far from the famous monuments of Karla, Bhaja, Elephanta, Kanheri etc. and several forts in Maharashtra. Are these the descendants of the guilds of the ancient times? Just as the Brahmin descendants of the sages – Vashishta, Agasti, Vyas, Bhrugu, Vaishampayana etc. whose pedigree has been maintained by the high caste?


What Michael W Meister probably missed in the conversation with Joseph Rykwert is to give 20th century parallel in modern architecture to A K Coomaraswamy’s thesis of “primordial hut as a form-giver” to historical Indian Architecture (Afterword: Adam’s house and hermits’ hut: A conversation, P. 125) . In the twentieth century modern (western) world architecture there are only “master form-givers”, whose works go down as second hand and third hand imitations to the masses: Indeed a true expression of economics of Industrial Civilization that give the fruits of its development and progress, prosperity and powers to the society by the “trickle down formula”. This formula is also applied to the education system to support industrial civilization.

In today’s context, awareness of environment, ecology and energy which are being destroyed at unprecedented rate, Coomaraswamy’s work of timeless quality is all the more relevant, a ground prepared for ‘further work’.

It is a book for all: scholars and architects, planners and politicians, pundits and leaders alike: a collector’s copy. It may also help a new vocabulary – a new form of expression to emerge – a departure from twentieth century architecture and other disciplines (born and developed in the West); a restoration of dignity of labour; a change in planning parameters; a right to manage their own affairs to the local communities. What John Papworth calls, “Democracy after all does not mean government for the people; it means government by the people. We hope, in Coomaraswamy’s words, “…mark a final victory of the conquered over the conquerors” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, P. 5).

(NOTE: This is an edited version of book review, published in INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER, Mumbai, May 1993, P. 85-86)

Image: Portrait of Ananda Coomaraswamy by Arnold Ronnebeck, 1929. This bust represents Coomaraswamy at about the same he was working on "Early Indian Architecture" and other wor
ks in transition (P. 103).

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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.
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The Other World: Other India

The Other World: Other India
by Remigius de Souza

(A workshop on “Working and Living in Cities” was jointly organised by Max Muller Bhavan, Bombay, Urban Design Research Institute, Bombay and Habitat Forum, Berlin on 25-26 November 1994 at Convocation Hall of Bombay University, Bombay.)

MANY SCHOLARS, architects, planners etc. from Bombay / India and abroad attended the workshop. About 100 participants were students. The workshop characteristically displayed specialisation typical of modern urban elite society.

The focus was on Bombay and New Bombay with reference to the prospects of globalisation of Bombay, the highly populated megalopolis, the trends of shifting population, slums, land, housing, trade, transport etc. In the end there seemed to be no conclusive outcome of the workshop. Yet there could be some conclusions and observations, thanks to the clarity offered by the resource persons and the lively discussions.

FOR A RURAL MIGRANT the workshop could have been a revelation. The experts in the highly specialised branches of learning [education] were present. Perhaps the numbers of participants were less than the number of specialised branches, sub-branches, sub-sub-branches in different disciplines which seemed most identical to the caste system prevailing in India. He/she would have felt himself/herself to be a ‘neo-Shudra’ in the august gathering of ‘neo-Brahmins’. Education and Science have yet to become globalise (or universal?). The workshop seemed to have forgotten this fact in spite of boost to Information Technology. Here everyone was concerned about globalisation of Bombay – a political entity.

The workshop certainly helped to understand a very small fraction of what global economy is: that the Dollar, Pound, Yen, Mark have higher exchange value than Indian Rupee. And the economic disparity and imbalance in the regions, between North and South, West and East, Urban India and Rural India, First World India and Third World India… Where does the propagation of such disparities and imbalance begin? The question of affordability and relevance remains hanging in the development programmes in India. It is futile to compare Bombay on the basis of its size of population with cities elsewhere, particularly from the developed countries.

One, therefore, cannot think of an issue connected to a city by isolating it from the region and the People. It is also fashionable to use phrases like ‘integrated development’, ‘holistic approach’, ‘public participation’ etc. these do not work at a global level. Neither one could ignore disparities in spite of the best intentions.

AT ONE TIME during the workshop, the planners washed of their hands for the ills of planning, which were pointed by the participants for some supposed undesirable elements creeping in the plans/cities. They clarified that these elements were imposed, forced upon from outside (?), or by external (?) pressure (indirectly hinting at the vested interests through the politicians). This indeed was a real life situation revealed in the workshop. It is reminiscent of the trial of Jesus of Nazareth some two thousand years ago, when Pilate had washed off his hands. His godfather, Caesar was then in Rome. Where are the godfathers of the planners?

AT THE END OF TWENTIETH CENTURY, a large number of people of India were sentenced to carry the cross of displacement, in the name of common good, in the name of development, through legitimate process of legislation under democracy, or due to riots, floods, famine, unemployment to reach a final destination of rotten environment of slums in the cities, or within the city are moving out of the city core to the peripheral area.

It is an accepted fact from the pre-historic times that the movement of people is primarily connected with survival. Scholars and planners were concerned about providing better housing to the slum-dwellers while the poor kept on pouring in the big and small cities and towns. The experts have been concerned about congestion in the city. But the question of decentralisation of power remains unresolved. Could it ever be resolved when the centralised power is the very foundation of a city?

The Supreme Court has recently reminded the people that they have ‘Right to Live with Dignity’. Does this have any bearing to planning at any level in any area: physical, economic, development…? Dignity is a tall word, but who is to exercise this right; the planners or the government or the people? Who is accountable: people, planners or powers? Theoretically the three are not supposed to be separate.

DURING THE DISCUSSION, an often-heard statement was quoted: “Look at the major part of the revenue of this country that is contributed by the city of Bombay…” It seemed the professionals present were not aware of the aspect of Energy, or perhaps ignored it. Typically almost everyone, anyone speaks of economy, prices, speculation, inflation, revenue etc. Revenue essentially is understood as currency. What is the value of currency anyway?

But no scholar or expert has ever told us about how much of the resources of the country are daily consumed by the city of Bombay, besides other cities? No statistician has ever told us about how much of the contributed revenue to the country was ‘ploughed back’ under different garbs by the city of Bombay? Leave aside the parallel economy that may exist, created by, or have a share in creating it, apart from the scams, extortion etc. by the city of Bombay, the financial centre of the country? Why then Bombay has to borrow from World Bank etc. for the basic needs of the city: water, shelter, sanitation and roads?

BUT THE QUESTION that remains untouched is Energy, and the price of energy consumed by the metropolis. How much energy would it consume when Bombay turns out to be a Global City – the pride of nation, and at whose cost?

The millions in the villages and forests had rarely seen currency. They still hardly see it. They know of the Energy – man energy, bull energy, sun energy, wind energy, tree energy… They worshiped it in blind (sic) faith. They knew of this million-year-old ‘currency’ named ‘Energy’ and they worshiped it in various forms. These people are named backward, ignorant, superstitious, uneducated, illiterate, uncivilised… And here in the city the learned of the West and the East with backing of science, technology and dollars etc. endlessly talk, talk, talk of numbers, economy, revenue… under the portals of Bombay University.

It is an obsolete and outdated thought/concept to talk of city planning or any physical planning, in terms of economy by ignoring Energy and Entropy in the growing threat to environment and ecology. How long the planners will continue to ignore entropy caused by their creative work?

The highly specialised (or compartmentalised?) scholarly views tend to drop the news of the people, and we miss the holistic approach and finally fail to resolve any of the issues in planning, accept some piecemeal adjustments for personal gratification.

Bombay therefore has to live on the externally supplied lifesaving drugs, while diagnosis fail, the curative measures fail, because these are at cross-purpose with people. The issue of slums is several times larger than the riots though its impact is not felt. The root cause is elsewhere.

In the city of Nagpur, on the eve of workshop, on 23rd November 1994, there occurred tragic death of 113 tribal persons – not merely numbers – on the threshold of the State Assembly of Government of Maharashtra, when it was in session. No one cared, or dared, to mention it at the workshop, leave aside protest, or observe two-minute-silence in respect to the dead. As if it was an alien world!

And there are host of such events: Bhopal Gas Tragedy; one and half lakh textile workers rendered jobless in Bombay; 107 martyrs of Sanyukta Maharashtra Movement in Bombay; Due to Thal-Vaishet Development project several farmers were shot dead across the creek near Bombay on the mainland… To a specialist these events belong to a different department or compartment. But in the process of development planning these cannot be isolated; these are vital links.

The scholars may write great number of discourses in volumes. The planners may design great complexes for the corporate society. But how could such professionals ever plan a city for the People without noticing the news of the people? It was a desperate lot gathered at the most appropriate place: the Convocation Hall of Bombay University.

IN CONCLUSION I have a wishful thinking that some day some clever brain will hijack this note and a Workshop on Energy would materialise, and thousands of Dollars etc. shall be spent for talk – talk – talk. The people, however, may continue to live with their woes while planners and scholars pamper their inflated ego. But even if the paper used for this note is recycled, it will be a great achievement.

The workshop was certainly a thought-provoking event. Many more such workshops are welcome – but with wider audience. ■

(This article was published in the Journal of Indian Institute of Architects, Bombay, Vol. 60, No 01, January 1995, P. 35-36)
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Remigius de Souza
© Remigius de Souza., all rights reserved.
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