little music

Our hearts will unite,

beyond this space and time

It's like I've been here before,

It's like I've met you in my dream. 

I’m at this cozy basement studio/theatre for a gig. It has a carpeted floor and cushions for seating, the walls of one end of the room are lined with strips of wood and its floor is raised slightly.  The room is filled with some of the finest musicians in the city of Delhi, who are pretty much performing for each other tonight. Towards the end, there is a point in the concert when almost half of the audience rises up to join the singers’ choir. They dedicate this last song to a very special person in the room.  There is a sense of warm excitement in the air. Just before starting, Chayan Adhikari (Advaita frontman and also the conductor of this choir) turns to the bassist (who is hidden behind this big bunch of singers) and says, “Zara saa toh doh!” (musician friends, help me translate this for the folks who are not familiar with Indian classical music!)

This is the Global Music Institute hosting their first Singers’ Night. Arguably, one of finest schools of music in Delhi, GMI also frequently turns into a venue that hosts spectacular music performances and jams usually with about forty people snugly sitting in as audience. Everyone in the room has come there pretty much just for good live music. However, what one experiences is much more than just music played live. There is the energy that emerges out of sincere playing and attentive, active listening.

The air that night was filled with little unspoken conversations happening on stage and in between, the exchanging of cues and glances, the changing body of language and expressions on when special moments were felt. And the air was filled with ease. I was happy to hear some of my most favourite musicians playing some of my favourite songs. But I was happier to have experienced live music the way I did that day, free of distractions, free of chatter and of food and drinks.

On little afterthought, I realized that even in the past, the gigs that I have absolutely loved the most have been free performances at public venues like the India Habitat Centre, especially the ones by the Balani brothers. Perhaps it was the comfortable scale of this GMI event that it took me a few weeks to completely get over that gig.

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Last week, I went for the launch of singer song writer Shantanu Pandit’s EP, Skunk in the Cellar. Anyway in the heat of June, what one could safely assume as off season for the music scene in Delhi, I remember feeling a little repulsed with this whole deal about email pre registrations and this quiet (almost secretive) build up to the event. The gig started at 9 PM and there was a lady at the main entrance checking for registrations. In the narrow lobby were CDs and artwork posters but also a tray with glasses of water and a bowl of candy. Another polite lady at the door to the theatre told us at least 2 times to switch off our phones and remain very quiet.

The warnings, however, were well worth the final little walk through a dimly lit narrow passage into the heart of the very charming Akshara Theatre. One entered at the aisle between the steeply rising audience’s seating and the performers, who today were two lanky (for the lack of a better word) boys in their happy place (for the lack of a better phrase). I had heard the songs on the EP online for a couple of days before the event. But I remember having no memory of them once I heard them live. Of course, listening to them now takes me back to that rather tiny seat in the theatre and that good feeling.

Minimal but full sounding, the songs were melancholic but charming. And so was the tone of the night. The sound, the lighting, the setting seemed like they were all deliberately chosen to add to the experience of the music. One needed this setting for these songs to be heard. And one needed this audience.

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Post gig conversations with musician friends tell me that more and more musicians have forever been craving for venues and event where they could be really heard and they could make conversation with their listeners. And it would also be true that this artiste-audience connection is easier to establish for singer songwriters, duos and trios whose music would sound better at venues of a smaller scale. What’s heartening is that Delhi is warming up to the idea of these intimate public performances, or perhaps just that I am waking up to them only now (and they’ve been happening all along, have they?).

On July 4, Delhi based artist, architect and singer-songwriter Aditi Veena will be sharing some of her work in progress on the her new solo project 'Mumblings on the impressioned interactions with four charming monsieurs in the life of ditty’. Through visuals and sound, her performance would explore the spatial and experiential relationships between the audience and artists. I am going because for this mostly because I am curious to know what this former sentence would mean in practice. You could find the details for the event here. 

The View from the Window

For the past few months, I have been doing the lights (turning them on and off on the console, really) for the Design x Design Exposé events that are hosted by Allliance Francaise de Delhi and Studio iF once every two months. It gives me the chance to be part of some of the back end processes of the events but also to experience it from the projection room. I can see the proceedings and sense the developments but I'm still not there, really. But then I get this wide window ledge of the projection room to leisurely place my notebook and the sketching paraphernalia and stretch out and listen and draw and write.

While I am drawing, I am disengaged from experiencing the conversation first hand, and seeing it unfold in front of my eyes as a spectator. I still cannot decide if I dislike more the fact that I cannot ask any questions during the discussions, or feel happy and privileged that I get the space and luxury to absorb and draw from an almost external perspective.

It is live sketching but it almost feels like it isn't. 

Here, are notes from the last event held on May 29 featuring Srishti Bajaj/Designbait and Plural Design+ Oracles Landscape.

Notes from B.Town (Day 2)

Moving out of the old city proper, I travelled to explore some of the suburbs of Mumbai. Starting at the Marine Drive, I went to the Banganga tank in Walkeshwar, the mills of Lower Parel and then to Bandra and Pali Hill. I was surprised to see that many Gymkhana Maidans along the Marine Drive do not have any boundary wall facing the main street; made the urban open space feel larger, more public.

I vividly remembered my last visit to the Banganga tank and wanted to relive the experience of this urban oasis, introspective and calm; as much beyond the city as it is inside it. The neighbourhood reminds me of the ruins of Hampi, ancient and oh-so-stable, as though it is going to remain exactly the same for another hundred years. The temples become the social anchor to the tank, holding the essence of the place together in all the bustle and transformation of the city.

Lower Parel was quite a surprising mix of the old and the intervened, with many fluid and elegant multi-storey glass buildings abutting grimly old low lying neighborhoods. This was a story of aggressive urban transformation, that I think would have had equally powerful social consequences. While rehabilitated people occupied humble four storey housing with hand painted signage; offices, stores and meeting rooms occupied the the glass towers. I then went to the Mathuradas Mill Compound, my taxi cab driver told me that most of these towers were built on mill compound sites that would have looked much like this at one point. I did sneaky tours of a few places and finally planted myself at the very pleasant Cafe Zoe. While all of the internal adaptive reuse was interesting indeed, these establishments just felt very disconnected from their setting, almost oblivious and opaque. It felt like the city had here been reduced to architecture, buildings in cement and steel and was then worked with, just formally and spatially. This was quite different to all that I had observed the previous day, but in some way very familiar (almost similar to a lot of Delhi).

I then went Bandra to meet my architect friend Pallavi who took me around Bandra. Lunching at the maze like Candies, we walked to the village of Chuim. Starkly different from the intense urban villages of Delhi, this was pleasant and quaint. Pallavi told me the villagers here were well to do but more importantly content with their peaceful lives. Walking past a few cool studios we came across this partly hidden funky signage to the Hive. Curious much, we walked in to find ourselves in the middle of this inspiring and engaging place that hosted coworking, independent events, workshops, classes for village children, a cafe and a sea of possibilities on their spacious terrace. The discovery excited and inspired me at many levels. How much does the Hive owe to its setting? Are there places like this in Delhi? How can I help sustain these creative projects?

The following visit to the Ranwar village only made many of these questions clearer. Walking across the main bazaar street selling fresh fruit and vegetables and everyday things we reached the neighborhoods that housed quaint cafes and street art. It was pleasant and pedestrian in a very good way. There were many people and houses rich and poor; young and old, but essentially ordinary and comfort. The place was eventful but not intense, it was comfortable. It made me wonder how the urban villages of Delhi became so intensely overused and abused, as hotbeds of volatile rental real estate and repurposed architecture disconnected with its neighboring social fabric?

And still every inch of urban space felt utilized skillfully and defined. Later that evening in front of Salman Khan’s home, Pallavi and I talked about this thrifty spirit everywhere in the city. She told me it came from how perhaps everyone comes to Bombay and struggles for a few years, working really really hard and only then does life become a little comfortable. It is not embarrassing to have less money. It is not embarrassing to travel on local trains and buses. It is ordinary life and there are many more people living this ordinary life, sharing public space and transport. How does this compare with Delhi? The metro has made so much of a difference but has it?

I clearly have to spend more time to figure out and visit many more places in Mumbai and Delhi. Crawford Market, Kala Ghoda, Dharavi, Versova, Thane and many many more places are still left to do. Do let me know if you have any recommendations/ suggestions or any starting points of answers to some of these questions.

Notes from B.Town (Day 1)

I went to explore the older parts of Mumbai on the first day, Bombay. Starting from what was possibly the first establishment of Colaba, the Sassoon Dock, I went to Fort, Yazdani Bakery, Horniman Circle, and stopped at Brittannia Bakery in Ballard Estate for lunch. The air mostly felt dense, almost suffocating at places that were not ventilated. While the fish, sea food, flower and everyday goods market by the Sassoon dock became one of the most (overwhelmingly) memorable sensations of this trip, walking through the busy markets into the bylanes of Bhuleshwar with signage reading in many many locally spoken languages made me got me closer to the city’s real diversity and its cultural intersections.

Most of the wandering on the first day made me feel like Mumbai was far more urban than Delhi was and had been a mature and bustling centre of urbanity for much longer than Delhi has. It was thriving with density and diversity, with its people, shops and transactions. Walking through the Fort and Ballard Estate area, with most buildings dating back to the 19th and early 20th century colonial lineage, there was this sense of comfort for the human scale. The formal building edge, the generous footpath and the sufficiently wide road seemed to really make it comfortable for people and also impressively accommodate for the many cars of present times. The synergy felt deliberate.

In Dhobi Talao and Bhuleshwar, the expression on Old Parsi and Gujarati owned buildings changed to become more localized. The street grew tighter (and busier but organized) and the neighbourhood felt a lot more intervened upon and contemporary. The teleporting threshold of the big Krishna temple under renovation at Bhuleshwar felt suspended between the busy transactional hub and the temple courtyard that humbled you amidst other old Gujarati women and men. This un-urbane nucleus was at the centre of all of this city and yet quite outside it.

The city had this amazing intensity that came from its efficient and thrifty use of the available urban space. Seating created by buildings, shop fronts, places for plants, the edge of the sidewalk, the entrances to buildings, large urban doors that could be opened only partly to work like smaller windows. Bademiya in Colaba surprised me and inspired me. It actually manifests itself in a way that the main kitchen and seating area separated by the main street! So it functions as a take-away and a dine in restaurant with the service circulation being its most public access. Among other things, this also got the centrestage to the food. I often miss this efficiency in Delhi where I see tonnes of public space wasted because it is left unclaimed or undefined.

Notes from B.Town

I was recently in Mumbai for a short solo vacation after a close cousin’s wedding. It had been quite a while since I had really been unoccupied enough to just absorb the spirit of a place, draw of it and draw from it. This was ideal. The intention was to pretty much get lost in the city, see the city life and city lights. The plan was simple; to just walk around town, visit neighbourhoods and food places and observe and draw. Much inspiration for drawing with brush pens came from the Superheroes at Turmeric Design and the happy notebooks from Paperbox. 

Having been to the city a few times before and being decently skilled at the Marathi language (though I did not end up in many places where I needed to use it), I was able to easily break the touristy ice and hunt for the local flavour, get a feel of of the city. My Mumbai based uncle insisted that I can never get the real feel of Bombay until I spend a night on a footpath. After having spent almost all his adult life in the city, he claims to have never wanted to get this feel of the city for himself.

On the first evening of this trip, I walked to the very charming Abode, to prepare an itinerary for the coming two days. In the itinerary were things/places my friends in Bombay insisted I do, along with suggestions from Abedin Sham at the Abode. Right after, I spent an hour at the Gateway of India. 

My Bombay bucket list was solid and the tone was set;to unearth the old and to understand the intervened. Having recently done a fair bit of Delhi Dallying I was looking forward to explore the city as cultural and architectural narratives woven together. Now that I go through these notes again, I see a whole bunch of grammatical and etc errors. But, I also see spontaneity and honesty. 

I consciously decided to have no music playing in my ears mostly through the trip, but Avishai Cohen’s album Gently Disturbed seemed to be getting the vibe quite well. Articulating an underlying structure in the city that you can surely sense but cannot decipher lucidly, the music during the breaks was as engaging as the city itself. 

Here are notes from Day 1
Here are notes from Day 2

Of songs and their names

Travel between work and home consumes about 3 hours of my life everyday. It also gives me about 3 hours everyday to listening to music actively. Active meaning, I play it to listen to it and do nothing else, only listen to that music with activities like walking or travelling on the side.  A lot of this active instrumental music has been much  fascinating me lately.  It makes me wonder, how do wordy names emerge for tunes that were created to escape from the burden of words and translation?

This piece by Tigran Hamasyan is a song that flows like a slow stream of water that smoothly begins to evaporate into nothingness. He’s done this with a faint vocal section that begins in a structured fashion but then transforms into a fading poly rhythmic form that dissolves into itself, soon enough, quite like vague memories that fade away to feel like dreams. He’s one of those artists I listen to without even looking at what each song is called, and I check out names only once in a while. I saw the name ‘A memory that became a dream’ today evening. The awareness of the name really transformed my experience of the song. There was joy in how closely I had sensed the artists’ vision, a success of his capacity to articulate an idea and my capacity to absorb (to some extent, maybe).

I heard Arjuna (the two part composition) by Tarun Balani for the first time at a small private concert in 2013. Tarun announced the name the piece and the band performed it. Then I went home and heard the song on the album again and again. And again. Upbeat music that changes gears between the two parts to charge at you more definitively; this is a great demonstration of building up focus with a change in time signature, rigorous and meditative repetition, and slowly revealing the true nature of something through its journey. To me, this song could be called nothing but Arjuna. I cannot imagine for it to have any other name now. How much would change if I would have not heard its name before listening to the song? It would still stand for focus, perhaps, but not in the context of its Mahabharata reference. Would the piece be different if Tarun had never read or heard about Arjuna or the Mahabharata?

I’m trying to resolve my feeling about the times where I have felt little connection with the artists’ intentions and found my experience of a song to be quite different from its intended meaning. This happened especially in the case of the riveting Piano Textures by Bruno Sanfillipo. The tracks are organized in an order and are called Piano Textures 1, Piano Textures 2, Piano Textures 3, Piano Textures 4, Piano Textures 5, Piano Textures 6, Piano Textures 7, Piano Textures 8. 

PS. Hunting for relevant pieces for this made me realize how live versions could often be diametrically different from studio versions. It is Jazz after all. It is all the energy in the improvisation.

PPS. Happy 2014.

On Teachers' Day

This is one of the many (few) things that I feel truly fortunate to have experienced and documented for life during my time at architecture school. Among many other things, you haven’t completely experienced SPA Delhi if you haven’t been screamed at theatrically by Prof. Chishti (preferably outside the studio walls). Too bad if you have passed out already! I bet you have the most vivid memories from your life at college of his incredibly eventful Theory of Design sessions in the open air theatre. Professor IM Chishti is an institution all by himself.

In February 2013, Dr. Anil Dewan initiated a project for our professional practice studio to research and plan for what we would want to become ten years hence. Pedagogy had always been one of the million things on my mind after architecture school. So we began collating quantitative and qualitative information on our quest to become teachers, Wate Zheimi, myself and #thisunbelievablybrilliantguyinstudio! (who I call) Professor Dendup. This interview was part of it.

This is a (very bad quality) recording of my interview with Prof. Chishti about pedagogy, its objectives, nuances and lessons. Please write to me to help me make better this timed list of highlights from the interview. Also do share with me your opinions on any of the questions and answers from the interview to take this conversation forward. This interview is fairly long, but hey it’s been a while since you heard him speak!

Spoiler Alert: Too bad, there was no Chishti’s signature snorty laughter. I missed it too.

00:30 Ideologies of teaching

2:15 Pedagogy has to be a long term process. There has to be a vested interest in being a teacher.

4:15 Difference in the position of a studio director and being part of the faculty team

5:20 Architecture schools having ideologies

5:57 Willy nilly

6:00 SPA has ended up having a rounded ideology of a design school

7:45 The School of ‘Planning and Architecture’ was set up understand the Indian conditions. Vernacular regional studies have always been taken up extensively in the middle years.

9:20 Making a difference to contemporary society, senior years topics changed with global situations. Responsiveness to the changing conditions of the country.

12:30 SPA location in central Delhi has certainly affected us.

13:50 When the hostels were closer to campus there was a certain kind of energy.

14:45 Do good students make good teachers?

15:50 Measures of a good teacher

16:05 Being part of an institution

17:20 These values must mean something to you even outside the institutional framework

19:20 Belief systems of self discipline

19:55 Running a practice that is part of pedagogy, understanding the intersections and mutual dependencies

23:00 Scales of operation between practice and institution

23:40 Integrity as a teacher

24: 12 Teaching and working in an architecture office and not your own practice

25:00 New forms of flexible employment in both educational and professional institutions

26:22 Disconnect between studying and real work, apprenticeship?

27:45 Running a studio practice, parallel to curriculum in campus

29:40 Why are students not involved at all in the construction/renovation projects that happen in the school building?

30:40 Summer jobs within the school,

31: 30 Art thesis

32:45 If I apply for a job with the school what will be the parameters?

33:25 Do you have a contribution to make?

34:15 Are you a good communicator

34:55 Taking phone call

35:28 Of the TOD session that he just walked out of (which fortunately created the time for this interview to happen)

36:10 You get feedback qualitative and quantitative from your class intuitively

37:20 Chishti blasted a young architecture student at his thesis jury, only to be thanked years later at the twenty under thirty five exhibition by the same student who was now a designer invited by him to exhibit at the event!

39:50 A bad architect spoils a building but a bad teacher spoils a whole generation of buildings.

While he says this is only almost true, what it is completely true is that this teacher has positively instigated a whole generation of graduates from the SPA, Delhi to really think and therefore be. This Teachers’ Day I thank him and all my teachers (so many of you don’t even know I see you as one), for inspiring me. I will become one of you as I begin my journey as a teaching artist with Music Basti very soon.

In other news, I graduated from Architecture School.