Monday 25 January 2016

ahmedabad to kathmandu

at the streets of Kathmandu
I feel like a child and my family are people around me. You feel it even stronger when you are far from the place where you was raised. 

[I'm very grateful to each person with whom I talked and shared some part of the journey.]

Smile is a key to begin a conversation. 

[My friends sometimes worn me that I should be careful because people are different and some of them might be not always willing to do good. I appreciate their worries and always reply that I rely on my intuition.]

Smile is a sign which makes me feel who is this person in front of me. Smile is a beginning or an end of a conversation. We transmit huge amount of energy to each other through this simple sign.
Sometimes it happens that we don't speak the same language and than smile and gestures are coming for help. 

It's only a matter of willingness to understand each other. 

With most of the rickshaw drivers, cart sellers and elder people we communicate through the vocabulary of hands and smiles. 

I was traveling from Ahmedabad to Delhi by an overnight train. It reminded me a journey from my city Kharkiv on the East to Lviv city on the West of Ukraine. There is a specific agreed time to have dinner, have a chat with strangers and go to sleep. Same here. My neighbors were men from different parts of India that came together and shared a dinner. Each of them was having part of the meal. I was familiar with one dish and I loved it very very much. It's a type of bread, if I can call it like that, which is made out of flour, spinach, green chili and sesame seeds. I smiled. "It's one of my favorite dishes" came out of my mouth suddenly. I was surprised myself. I was invited to share the dinner immediately! I felt very shy because I haven't got anything to add to the table. Conversation started. About many many different things and I thought that it's actually not about food or dinner, it's about being together and sharing this train journey. Each of us got something to put on the common table improvised on our beds. 

Sleeping time arrived and I took out all my warm clothes to heat my body, as it was one of the things I was not prepared to: to face real autumn here. One of my neighbors was getting off at Jaipur at 4 am and I woke up without any alarm to greet him and wish a safe journey. I was cold and dreaming about blanket that I left in Ahmedabad because there was no space in my luggage. "Here, have it" - woolen blanket was in front of me. My neighbor was smiling. "Don't worry. Have it. I meet you in Delhi when you are back to pick it up." I couldn't stop say Thank you. I put woolen blanket over myself and fell in a beautiful sleep. 

It happens that I wake up in the morning with a feeling of where am I. I looked at the window it was foggy and wet. I opens my bag pack got a warm sweater put it over myself, took out winter boots. Tooth brush, tooth paste, bottle of water. Good morning. 

Ready to have my breakfast. 
Chai with a Gujarati sweets left for me by another neighbor yesterday. They were already off from the train. Unfortunately I haven't greet them in person. New people were around me. I propose my little package of Chiku and smile. Good morning! 
One boy from the evening came and we greet each other. 

Cold made me feel at home. January is snow and cold in my place. From December my body was a bit stressed by the fact that there is hot temperature outside the time when it should be cold. Now everything came to a place. January, winter clothe. I wanted to escape winter this year, but now I see that it's deeply rooted with my experience of living in Kharkiv and having all four seasons with cold winter, blossoming spring, hot summer and golden autumn. 

Welcome to the Winter. 
Welcome to Delhi. [Sunday]
Welcome to Kathmandu, [Monday] 

Thursday 21 January 2016

united by music


Bumbai (by Mukund), 8 p.m., train. 
"Only for those who is going to sing!" 
Men are getting together.
Young men is taking out six rings out of his pocket and placing them at the end of his fingers. Drumming against the train wall. 
Few others got small golden instruments. 
One got the book with the Jain songs. 
One hour of amazing live music for everyone. 
Good night.



Tuesday 19 January 2016

I keep on asking myself: are we using the same vocabulary?



I came to India as part of my Studio at the D.I.A. master program at the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Germany. November and December, we 14 students from all over the world and 9 students from India, spent in the slum area in Noida, Sector 15.

Each week we were having a new professor with a new task to be completed. Quite an intensive, but very very fruitful studies. We worked in groups. Only few submissions I did on my own. 

I would love to share one of the pdf's for the the week 4, when we were talking about Education. As an architectural students we were asked to come up with an architectural answer to a problem of disinterest in education from the kid's side who live in the slum area. 

We started to look for the origin of the problem and coming up with different small intervention ideas. We even felt that what is needed is a spark of fire that will light interest and show different possibilities in life to the kids and their parents. In order to do that we discussed an option of organizing a movie screening on the street, or making a graffiti, or organizing an excursion etc.. All of these actions hardly could be named as "architectural" if we see it through the academic point of view, where we need to master our knowledge on drafting, sketching, model making and thinking.

In the middle of the week we were given an existing empty site, 32x40 m at the corner of the slum area and we were asked to design a "school" or something that is related to "education". We created programs, drew our plans, sections and perspectives. 

For me, the question was left: by doing so, making a building at the 32x40 m plot, is the client still the same? Are we reaching out the kids at the slum area? Why someone (private business, city administration, state etc..) will invest in this building at the slum, meaning illegal, area. As an architect am I playing with the wrong cards? 

Few days ago my father sent me a link on this video by Ole Scheeren - Why great architecture should tell a story. Through out the speech we can hear "vast", "gigantic", "huge", "big", "public space", "communal space", "sense of belonging", "sense of sharing" etc.. 

Few weeks back I was at the talk by Rod Hackney - India: Community Architecture to Suit. 

Question was pumping in my head: are we using the same meaning for these words, or we have different vocabularies? I came back in my mind to the Education Week in Noida project: is the client still the same? 

Its an open thoughts that I am humble to share it with you in order to discuss. Please, feel free to express yourself and share your thoughts. Architectural world definitely has many faces.

Friday 15 January 2016

many calendars one festival


Yesterday and today are two days when people in Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Macedonia and India are celebrating pretty similar festivity according to the different calendars*. You can simply call it New Year, but way of celebration are so different! 

In Ahmedabad whole sky was covered with kites during the day and with paper lanterns and firework after the sunset. It was a unique celebration of the Uttarayan, according to the Hindu calendar when winter begins to turn into summer. I was lucky to spend first half of this day in the Heritage House with the Indian family, where I was suddenly invited, while wondering the streets of the Old City and second half with my amazing flatmates on our roof-top terrace. 

Today I would love to wish a Happy Pongal to all the Tamil people! 

*not sure already if the calendars we are using are so different. Ukrainian Old New Year is celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, which is true to Pongal, celebrated from 13 till 16 of January by Tamils, is also following the Gregorian calendar. I will do a bit more research on that and come up with the news later. Seems that we share much more in our cultures that it comes from the first glimpse.


Monday 11 January 2016

my new friends


Animals are part of the street and home culture more than in any other place. If in Ukraine you mainly find dogs, cats and birds around us. Here, except dogs and cats, you will find cows walking on the street, knowing where is their house exactly, monkeys moving with the whole family, lizards, parrots, birds I don't even know the names, ants and many more. They are all around you.  
I got few stories with each of the animal and it took me a while to meet my fear and feel part of their space. 
I usually get easily scared of the animals, because I feel that I don't know their language and might be I do something wrong which will make them attack me for their self-protection. 
Since I was a child I was told that in case of the dogs never show your fear. They smell it. If the dog is barking just pass by. He/she is bearing his/her service and protecting the land. 
As for the cows, it was the only animal for whom I haven't felt any fear. While we were leaving in Noida cows were regular part of the landscape and they were moving here and there. In Varanasi I found myself walking together with the cow, very close to her, for a while. She was like a wall protecting me from all the noise happening around. 
When I arrived in Hampi the main animal became monkey. Except monkeys there are also tigers, bears and mongooses. But monkeys are taking the leading role in any case. I reacted with the fear when monkeys started to jump from the staircase of the temple to the ground. My friend laugh at me and was very surprised that I am so scared of monkeys. Most of my friends were raised in a culture, where their grandmothers were feeding snakes with milk. After a while I stopped to observe my new friends closely and I found them extremely beautiful, especially the little monkeys with their human-like long fingers always looking for a banana, but also able to smash a water bottle to get an access to fresh water. 
There is also a little story of a lizard, but this needs a separate note. 

Sunday 10 January 2016

connections


Few things I found very common between Ukraine and India and they are people and connection to the land. In fact, first friends I made in Germany were Ukrainian girl, Anna, and Indian guy, Hamed. Both of our cultures are very warm and welcome. Strangers become friends through sharing meals and having discussions about life experience almost in the first day. People opens up fast for each other. 
While traveling in India, I experienced same thing. 
I made many connections here on a different levels.
Once I got scared of a person while I was traveling on overnight bus from Jaipur to Ahmedabad. The bus was full of men, which is regular thing for this part of the world, but still sometimes shocking for me, as a foreigner. I was asked by the bus driver to take my seat. My neighbor was a young guy. He immediately started a conversation. He was talking so much that at some point I got a bit scared on why is he talking a lot in the middle of the night. He started to show pictures on his phone; he also told me that he was flying for the first time in his life last week; than that half a year ago he got married and he continued to show pictures of his beautiful wife. At some point I told him that I don't feel very well and that I feel hungry. 
Eventually, bus stopped. He asked me what I want to eat and if I want to visit a washroom, if I need him to go with me. At that moment I realized that he was trying to take care of me as if he was my elder brother and there was no point for me to be scared of him. He was a very sweet guy, who was very happy to share his life with me during this night journey. He left the bus in the City of Lakes (Udaipur).   


Friday 8 January 2016

inclusive


Coming from very structured space where most of the things are tend to be defined named and marked: street, courtyard, plaza; pedestrian, car-road, bicycle line; human, animal, fruit, vehicle it’s hard to believe that same things exist in environment out here, because at first your eyes see completely new landscape. Everything seems to be so mixed, so dense and at the beginning you ask yourself isn’t it a perfect chaos? Bit a bit you find yourself part of this chaos that apparently also has a very clear structure. It’s not exclusive according to the name, but inclusive, because everything has place and time to be.
There are many layers in this note, but I would prefer to come to each of them bit a bit in each next post. In the end it would make a full story. I’m still looking for a language to write, that’s why it’s also bring some obscurity now.

Thursday 7 January 2016

transparent leaves

This are actual leaves on the tree in Margao. 

decision

People used to say to me before I left to India: you will either fall in love with this country or you will hate it. First thing happened to me. I fall in love with this place, people and environment since first steps in the airport. I would love to share this love and draw interesting lessons from living in this place and compare it to my experience of staying in my hometown and other places. Cultures are so different that I needed to become a child and learn everything since the very beginning at the age of 24. It's an amazing, sometimes, for sure, uneasy experience. I would try to share it little by little.