Kanyadaan

Marriage... The most awaited event in everybody's life... Everything has been written and said about it and I have nothing more or different to add to it.

But, there is a small ritual which when happened during my marriage, touched my heart and would like to share it...

After Kandyadaan and Mangalphera, groom holds the aanchal of his mother-in-law, and promises to leave only when she would fulfill his demand... He asks his mother-in-law to gift him something really precious and only then he would let off his aanchal...

After listening to her son-in-law's demand, with tears in her eyes, says that " My dear son... I have already gifted you the most priced possession of my life, my daughter... What more precious gift can I give you?"

With this answer, nothing was left to ask or say...

And a mother gifts her 28 years of hard work and love to a man, who, she expects would love her daughter more than her...

I salute to the parents of a daughter...

15th August

Food is for the perishable
Exploring one’s identity is what makes a Soul alive

It is freedom…
Freedom to think
Freedom to be what you are
Freedom to be what you want to be

Without…
Without which a soul dies
And, the search for the identity ceases to exist
The identity that is bonded with this Land, with this Country

It’s the Independence Day!
And let us not forget the indispensible gift of this great Nation to us - FREEDOM

But...
Still a lot is left to set free

On this day of 15th August,
Let us make an effort to set our minds free

Free from prejudice and discrimination
From hatred and fear
Let us stand up for what is right
And gather courage to say no to the wrong.

Happy Independence Day!
Let’s celebrate freedom

The Festival of Kites and Colours...

Saying goodbye to winters,

Sun will now be closer to our land.

Harvesting their fields,

People again have a reason another,

To come together and join hands.

Call it Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal or Uttarayan,

All mean the same,

Afterall, to be with our loved ones and have fun,

Is the only purpose in the end.

May we all have fun filled festival !!!

Wish I could sit beside you...

Wish I could sit beside you,

You looking somewhere else,

And I looking at you,

You holding the document,

And I holding you,

Waiting for the day I can be with you,

Wish I could sit beside you.

Industrial Dynamics of Vadodara..... the preface

As a child, city and people around me existed in an absolute and isolated sense. For me the world was limited till the extent my vision reached. Everything beyond was alien. As I grew up, I began to realize world outside my view and my city. This subsequently made me believe that correlation exists between my city and a world afar. Any change out there will have an impact on my immediate settlement. Transformation at micro level has its factors operating at macro level. This inter relationship of different changes happening due to various causes resulting into varied impacts gave me an understanding of ‘dynamics’.

It was during my graduation in architecture that city dynamics started making more sense and I too became more sensitive towards it. Now perception was more relative and interdependent. It was during that time when I was confronted to phrases which were somewhere or the other associated with the image of the city – ‘Sanskari Nagari’, ‘Industrial City’, ‘polluting industries’, ‘PSU’, ‘City of Palace’, ‘Declining city’, ‘Closing of chemical industries’, ‘M.S.University’, ‘Navratri’, ‘Kamati garden’, ‘Biotech park’, ‘The banyan city’etc. thus city became an inescapable part of my thoughts. And questions stated arising since then about changing dynamics that I had been hearing and experiencing consciously or sub consciously.

After joining Masters on Planning at CEPT University, these questions received strength and curiosity increased. And the seed of an exploratory research on changing dynamics were sown. Now area of interest has widened. Matter of concern was not just a city but on everything associated with it. ‘People’ are the center point of the concept called city and for a settlement to establish, source of economic activities is basic requirement. Industrialization is one such economic trigger. Industries and Education are two important sectors associated with the journey of Baroda city. But impact of industrialization was more visible and significant. With preliminary studies on Baroda city I could infer that transformations in the city and regions around were highly elastic to industrialization occurring. From setting up of large scale petrochemical PSU in immediate post-independence era to notification of Bio-tech SEZs – the change is evident in structure and pattern.

First question thus comes to mind is what shift in industries has occurred and second question that follows is what are the key factors that triggered this dynamism? An attempt to answer these two fundamental questions forms the base of my exploratory research ‘Industrial Dynamics of Vadodara’.

Origin of the thought occurred from a city level, but cannot be explored well unless a regional scale is not analyzed. Vadodara district and its industrial dynamics… thus becomes the interest area.

Multiple Attractions

Life is all about LIVING and living is all about EXPERIENCING …..and as you experience life each new person you meet exposes you to a different side of yours, which previously you might not have been aware of…… and as you get aware of different segments of yourself, you become more clear of which side of yours needs what……in most of the cases this awareness happens sub-consciously……… there are times when you meet someone and you hate being with them… or at times you wish to be like someone whom you met a few days back……

One day you get to talk to person……..a small conversation gradually grows into hours of conversation on phone…. There is a strange sense of calmness and easiness, something you long for after a hectic schedule…….you talk your heart out and just be yourself………. There is no compulsion….no demands…..no minute by minute reporting………You have all the freedom to be yourself by mere presence of that person…… You think you are getting addicted …and someone might say ‘you are ATTRACTED to that person’ or may be ‘you are in LOVE’…..

Some other day, you meet someone…very strong…super intelligent and witty………spontaneous and difficult to anticipate……..demanding and egoist of highest order…….possessive and highly caring …….the more you try to know the more close you get ……and you realize there is another side of yours which had craved for this new energy….the presence of that person is so strong that your mind ceases to standstill….you run short of thoughts …..without thinking or talking you are exhausted …you met a strength which you always wanted to be ….you long for being with that person because you want to get that energy to succeed which you THINK you don’t have ….and the other day someone told you are ‘ATTRACTED’….

And again the other day….you see an unknown face………..you see it again and again …and the more you follow the face the more enigmatic that person seems to you ….you do not wish to interact but still want to know the unknown ….and there is a strange bond you feel for that unknown…your friend says ‘you are ATTRACTED’

Different people interacting with different side of yours….. these different sides of yours makes a complete YOU … and YOU are going through MULTIPLE ATTRACTIONS ……..

Today when there is so much MORALITY attached to an YOU, multiple attractions might raise someone’s brows…..someone might even term it as INFIDELITY……but for one who is aware about multiple segments of oneself and its multiple needs, values each one of them its attracted to…..for them MULTIPLE ATTRACTION is a straight sign of being HONEST to oneself and LOVING oneself…….

A deed of kindness or an act to harm…?

Like every day, that morning too I left my home at eight for the campus, which is just five minutes walking distance and in that five minutes I come across different experiences of different moods…the moment I leave my apartment I see a kid who had just learnt how to stand, watching me and expecting me to wave to her…with the sweetest voice and smile she responds with a bye … a smile so fresh as that morning, was enough to give may day a bright start. Thinking about her I am out of that lane and turn right, with a huge dump of garbage immediately at the turning. And I like a ‘responsible citizen’ move ahead covering my nose and cursing… no… no… not the municipality because I know the area where I live has excellent door to door garbage collection facility…still the people of that apartment owning a minimum of one car (costing somewhere around six to eight lakhs) could not find a better place than the entrance of their apartment compound to dispose off their garbage……..!! Struggling with my reasons for this irresponsible act of rich upper middle class ‘urban illiterate’ people, I reach the cross roads, with a temple at the opposite right corner. Unexpectedly there in the temple you see a considerable crowd of devotees who might be in their twenty’s and thirty’s. Look at so many youth that too so early in the morning in puja dress at a temple daily, I could not believe what the elder generation of today say, that today’s youth is loosing faith in god… … … may be only He knows which age group has more faith in Him…with this thought I pass a school, where kids are saying their morning prayers in their morning assembly… everyday when I see these kids standing in perfect line, height wise and as per their class with uniform matching their house colour for few moments I go back to my school days and how I used to hate those morning sessions…smiling on myself I move ahead…

When I was about to reach my college, that day I saw a new act happening…… An uncle was feeding street dogs with parle-g …lucky dogs… … …!!! That morning in hurry I could not even have breakfast… … … anyway… … … The man I guess was in his late forty’s but he was enjoying feeding those homeless ill-treated animals like a kid… it was quite a pleasant act to see… just few minutes back I was confronted to few highly irresponsible citizens and here I saw a deed of kindness from the citizen of same city… he might have atleast fed 10 parle-g medium sized packets… with a strange sense of contentment I crossed the road and entered my campus…

While going inside the campus a thought suddenly struck me about the man who was feeding street dogs with biscuits… he had brought all those biscuits in a plastic bag which he threw on the road once all the packets got over… he also threw all the wrappers of that medium sized ten to twelve biscuit packets on the road…and there was no need for me to think further as I and I guess everyone else today knows what ‘littering of plastic means’…

Only thing which confused me was how was I supposed to react…should I feel proud of that man for his deed of kindness or should feel disgusted to the irreplaceable damage he did in the process of kindness to the society and even the dogs he fed…?

And with a weird state o mind I entered my class where all the lights and fans were on with no one occupying it……….