Here, there and everywhere

Noongu. A coconut like looking fruit, holding in its belly three juicy jelly like blobs. Its a nice treat on a summer afternoon.

These red crawlies are everywhere. They seem to be very social creatures as one can find them in groups in different formations crawling here and there.

An often seen bouganvaillea in a very different and beautiful colour.

Golconde

Trip to golconde was a very delightful one. Thanks a ton to shipra who should us around and pateintly gave us all the details.
At the first look the building appeared to me very hostile rigid structure made all of concrete. It looked massive and imposing to me. But as I entered and saw the details, it softened and seemed welcoming. A very beautiful place to stay at.

As you enter, you see a built in racks for shoes, neatly numbered for each person. Beside it is something that I liked the most. Its an umbrella stand in concrete. Its like a table with holes to put your umbrellas in with a concrete tray underneath to collect water and avoid a mess. Under your feet is a cool black cuddappa stone. 

Climbing the stairs, first thing you see are the louvered windows working so efficiently for the past 70 years! There are louvers made of asbestos, custom made for that very building. The metal rods hold them and they open up to allow light and air. The corridor is like a long row of louvered windows on one side and wooden shutters on the other. I would have never imagined that those wooden shutters would slide away so smoothly to reveal the rooms. There were no wheels. Just polished wood that did wonders. Also its not a panel of solid wood but has horizontal slats that rest onto the vertical ones. This allows for ventilation. In the room also there are similar louvered windows which when open up to offer the view of the garden at back.

Everything had a designated place. As if, while designing, the architects imagined how would the person be living, what all he would be requiring, the daily routine, the possesions, the activities all taken care of. There was a wooden bed with cane weaving and folding frames for mosquito nets; a cane woven wooden easy chair with armrest whose back one could tilt back for relaxing and a matching footstool with it. a study table and a chair facing the window. A cupboard for clothes and a rack for books. a little cabinet mounted on the wall for small personal things. There was a full length mirror too. The way it mounted was interesting. Just below the beam there was slit  that allowed the mirror to be hung without driving a nail in the wall. Oh yes , the plaster on the wall is chettinad plaster. Shipra told us that it was a technique used in a lot of forts and palaces in rajasthan.so similar to that they mixed egg shell powder,jiggery, lime etc for plastering the walls.

Everything in the room was true to its material. They were revealed as they are; grey were the cement walls, ceiling and windows; flooring was black; wood nicely polished to reveal its grains. It inspired you to be true to yourself in spirit and soul. The bathrooms and toilets were common and it goes without saying that were thoughtfully done too with hooks and racks in appropriate places. Cross the row of bathrooms and you will be find another staircase. A tiny one. It’s a service stair case. The texture on it is rough to avoid slipping while running up and down. The bathrooms are made on the floor of the landing of the staircase. On the top floor is the drying area and from here you can see the curved tiled roofs. Though they are too big to be called tiles but I guess that’s what they call them. The building runs east to west, the windows face north south to receive air and avoid direct sun. as it is really hot and humid in this part of the country, circulation of air is very important. The huge louvered windows very well take care of that.

Around the building shallow strip of water. This is to avoid the ants from entering the building. How very thoughtful was that. It like the same as we keep a bowl of sugar in a tray of water to prevent ants. Applying it in a whole building. There is semi basement to this building, which act like service rooms. There also there is place for everything; to mount the long cobweb brooms horizontly on the wall; space for ladders; to keep the soap near the basin and many other minute details. the windows here were very unexpected. It looked like wall of perforted concrete panels but to my amazement, shipra clicked open two locks on the sides, flipped the L-angles and the perforated concrete panels opened up on the central vertical pivot. He he he, it was like a magic trick for me. Oh wow this was place to be at. I can keep going on explaining it and killing it, so I should stop. I will not put any pictures as they are very bad clicks. Just taken for the sake of it.

16 May 2012

I visited matrimandir today. I wanted to share my experience but there exist no words to describe that feeling.

15 may

Everyday I see the matrimandir from the hostel balconies and wonder at its beauty. Today I got to know the significance of it, the thought process involved and the effort that went into it. I always wondered why Auroville is located where it is? What is so significant in that place? Meera told me the story why Mother chose Auroville to be in India and in Tamil Nadu. India has always been tolerant and has accepted religions, cultures, and people of all multitudes over many centuries. People have always been spiritually inclined rather than be materially obsessed. No country but India could be capable of accepting this kind of an idea as Auroville where people of different backgrounds could come together to work towards a better future. Mother had a vision of the place where Auroville is today. Though she was never physically there but she saw everything. At the very centre of the place was to be built the matrimandir. But there stood a lone banyan tree which pleaded the mother to let it live. So the matrimandir was shifted a bit from the physical centre but remains as a spiritual centre of Auroville. This story really touched me. This place when started was barren, it was a desert. Mother chose it because no more degradation could happen here. So only thing that could happen was to flourish and blossom.

Today when I see the huge trees here and a jungle, its hard to believe that at this very place nothing grew. Hats off to the efforts of aurovilians who have come so far and yet have a long journey to undertake.

12 May 2012

Looking around Auroville. That’s what I am doing these days.

Color ful benches at AV papers

We went to av papers. It was so good to see the paper making in this unit. to see the process here which takes the paper to a very finished level and the products so innovative, was very inspiring.

Then we went to the Last School. The story behind its name is that when Auroville started the beginning, a lot architects came. Roger Anger, an architect designed and made a school. The mother did not want any schools in Auroville as she didn’t want children to go school to learn but learn from their sorroundings. Yet it was built. Then this school was made, and then it was decided that there would be no more schools, so it was the last school.

The architecture is breathtaking, I almost gasped when I had the first view of the school from a distance between the trees. I wished I had learnt and played here. It almost bought the child in all of us. We found ourselves to be jumping and running around and exploring the space. Those eleptical windows and the curved walls, the wounded paths and the lovely textures, the contrast between red and white and the shadows that fell, it all came together to make a beautiful place. It was a very good experience.

 

11 may

Today evening was Tency’s enlightening presentation on ferrocement. He started by showing us the first ever boat made by Lambot in the 1850s. It was interesting to learn that the ferrocement is not something novel but a technique that was developed way back. He also mentioned that during that very time, rcc was also born but while rcc made it big, ferrocement could never come out of the shadows. Till date rcc is widely used but ferrocement is yet to gain acceptance. Then he showed how the technique evolved and was used to make boat hulls and yachts. Quite contrary to the belief that ferrocement corrodes easily, these boats worked efficiently. The reason for corrosion is simply exposed mesh or reinforcement which starts degrading thus affecting the strength of structure. Proper care has to be taken to ensure that there is no steel mesh on the surface. There has to be atleast 5mm of mortar on the edges to seal them well and prevent corrosion.

In ferrocement structures, form plays a vital role. Use of curvatures, ridges, folds, cavities help increase the strength of the structure. It’s similar to how in plastics ridges and curvatures are used to give it strength. Like the monobloc chair or a simple plastic packaged water bottle. The thin sheet of plastic gets the capacity to hold the water due to the form. This works to my great advantage as it will be easier to break free from straight and rectilinear forms.

Then he showed us the process of making moulds for the casting process, demoulding and curing. It gave a lot of answers to my queries and concerns but still more remain to be answered. I am waiting to get a hands on experience to discover it. I was literally awed to see the variety of applications of ferrocement at auroville. Roof channels, biogas plants, doors, prefabricated panels and sections, toilets, composting bins, water tanks, scultures, buildings and the very beautiful workshed. Its not just designing and execution that should be taken care of but also transportation, packaging and installation need to be addressed.

The beautiful workshed

8 may

For the past two days, documents and readings on ferrocement have kept me fairly busy. But I am going restless to see the action. There is a lot to learn by seeing and doing the process.

As I look around at CSR , at various ferrocement structures and objects, I imagine the vast possibility of what I can do with the material but wonder how it will all be executed and how should the journey be made.

7 may Yesterday we witnessed a festival, of which I had only heard many a times in bit and pieces. Or rather heard in disbelief. In a village near Auroville was a festival where men walk on hot coals to show their gratitude to the god and thank him for the wishes that were fulfilled.

                                              All decked up houses for the celebration

 

In the grounds where the ceremony was to be held

The holy fire burning bright. It will soon give a way to a bed of fire.

All ready for fire walking

And the gods arrive in full splendour to witness the dedication of their devotees.

 

Being a weekend, everyone here was in mood to take a break and head out. In the evening we decided to go at the beach nearby. So we got on our mopeds in a capacity more than it is designed to take. As we stepped out of Auroville, I couldn’t help but notice the houses. The color pallettes of the buildings here are nowhere near modest. They are flamboyant and will demand attention of the most ignorant eye as well. Bright lavender purple accentuated further with blinding white or the pastel indigo blue with a raspberry red, will make u believe that yes truly there are so many colors in this world. Well this doesn’t stop at buildings, its seeps in to the boats and to the fabrics worn by men and women.

The beach was a bit littered but apart from that it looked as if out of a picture postcard complete with fishing boats and orange skies.

This is almost like my first visit to southern India. I have visited Bangalore before but its like any other metro city with an urban setup, with people pouring in from all parts of the country. But arriving at Chennai was different. First being greeted by sounds of unfamiliar tongues and those roving eyes when you tell them you cannot speak the same language. The raised eyebrows and those flashing smiles. Then, the larger than life movie posters adorning the walls of the city featuring actors which audience revers as gods. And yes the smells. The smell of fresh gajra wafting in the air gives your nose a pleasant relief from the omnipresent smell of sticky coconut oil and sweat. One cannot help the sweat here as its really hot and humid. At the bus stop, after running around in circles, I managed to reach the platform that bore the promise of a bus that would take me to Pondicherry. After some waiting the bus appeared in a distance and even before it could touch the platform, men had already alighted the bus and grabbed seats for themselves and their kin. Well thankfully I also found a seat because that journey which is supposed to take 3 hours took 5.5 hours. Its in that crowded bus that I fully appreciated the use of gajra by women.