Art History

Art history is the study of art works in their historical as well as stylistic contents which include; genre, design, format, process of making the work and the final outcome.

During the study of art history the focus is on the discussion of aesthetics and about the artist’s style of work. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy related with the nature of beauty, art, creation an appreciation of the beauty.

 Most of the questions explored while observing an art work are related to the key features of the final outcome, the meaning it conveys as well as the symbols involved.

Moreover, the exploration and observation of the visual function of the image is such that it aids in determining, whether the artist achieved the goal through the work. Artist’s goal could be as abstract as the time in which the artist lived and the movement supported by the artist. For example, artists who represented Dadaism believed in subversion. Thus, their works were such that they would break the rules set by the bourgeoisie and capitalistic society, which believed in tradition and conventions.

Cover of the first edition of the publication Dada by Tristan Tzara, Zurich, 1917.
Marcel Duchamp’s, Fountain (1917) Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz
Marcel Duchamp has used an inverted toilet basin to represent a figure of the fountain.

Dada artists believed that 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois capitalist society were a chief cause for World War 1. They expressed their rejection of that ideology through artistic expression such that the work almost rejected logic and embraced chaos and irrationality. Hence after observing the Dada Artists work, we determine, whether the goal of applying the philosophy of subversion has been rendered by the artist in his work.

It was generally believed that art history was a study pertaining to major arts which included architecture, painting and sculptures, or minor arts which include ceramics and furniture. Over the period of many years the categorization of art, has been stretched across boundaries and today art works of installation, theatre performances, music, and writing and wall painting, sketches are as much a part of the art history as the major arts. Infact the creative synergy of so many artists has led to a multi-layered and interdisciplinary outcome, of art works such that more than one or two, or more mediums have been combined to produce magnificent works of art.

For an instance, the American Artist, Robert Rauschenberg, came into prominence in 1950’s, during the phase which was gradually shifting from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, by his work called Combines. He explored several mediums like photography, printmaking, performance and papermaking, painting and sculpture.












Monogram, 1955-59. Freestanding combine

Charlene, 1954. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam © Robert Rauschenberg / Adagp, Paris, 2006

Canyon 1959, oil, house paint, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, buttons, nails, cardboard, printed paper, photographs, wood, paint tubes, mirror string, pillow & bald eagle on canvas National Gallery of Art (Washington.

Now is the time, when art is not strictly classified in terms of being a work which has been done through one medium.
The method in which any image or object of art is observed is based on: 

1) time 

2) form
3) and iconography.

Time and form

The time in which the art work is created in a chief signifier of the work as it gives an idea about the social structure, culture, history, economical background, political structure and the environment in which the artist lived.

By and large, it has a lot of influence on the artist’s life and the work reflects the same sometimes directly, or indirectly.

The observation of the form of work provides an idea of the strokes, the lines, shape, color and composition. The form can be seen with reference to both time and iconography.

For example, Cubism was a movement led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which revolutionized European painting and sculpture. The invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso and Braque, then residents of Montmartre, Paris.

Georges Braque, 'Woman with a Guitar,' 191
Some believe that the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of Paul Cézanne's later work: firstly to break the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of paint, thereby emphasizing the multi-layered viewpoint given by the vision, and secondly his tendency to simplify natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones.

The cubists explored this concept further beyond Cézanne; they represented all the surfaces of depicted objects in a single picture plane, as if the objects had had all their faces visible at the same time. This new kind of depiction revolutionized the way in which objects could be visualized in painting and art.

Form and Iconography

Iconography is related to the identification, description and interpretation of the images.

Pablo Picasso, Le guitariste, 1910

Marcel Duchamp, Nude (1912). Oil on canvas. 57 7/8" x 35 1/8". Philadelphia, Museum of Art.

Thus, now having a look at Marcel Duchamp’s Nude descending the staircase, ichnographically, we will be able to observe that it is identical with the style and form of Woman with the guitar by Braque as well as with Picasso’s Le Guitarisste.

Marcel Duchamp’s, Nude descending the staircase represents fragmentation and synthesis of the object. Though it is static, it represents, a movement almost giving an illusion of a moving image. It also relates to the philosophy of cubism.

Though Duchamp has been associated widely with the Surrealist and Dada movement, he has used the influence of Cubism as the painting was made in 1912, a time when Cubism was highly prevalent.

During the study of art history apart from looking at historical and stylistic contexts, worthwhile determinants could be exploring the reason as how the artist came to create the work of art as well as whether it had other influences which included the teachers of the artist, his/her contemporaries, students, audience, artists personal life and the meaning the art work conveys.
It is said that Vincent Van Gogh had been under a strong influence of absinth. Having known the experience from the artist life, one would be able to connect to the work of art.

 Self-portrait, 1889, private collection. Mirror-image self portrait with bandaged ear
The objective of art history is that of appreciating art and not necessarily criticize the same on set parameters, thus there ought to be more than one interpretation of the work of art by many observers, even as they look at the same work based on the same information available to them about the artist and his work.

A lot of exchange has taken place between the field of psychology, literature and art. For example, Jackson Pollock had extensively worked with the Jungian psychoanalyst named Dr. Joseph Henderson. The drawings that Pollock had made had a great value as his work had become a therapeutic tool.

Jackson Pollock in his studio

Jackson Pollock's Painting 1948

Carl Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist, believed that the modern human beings relied a lot on the science and logic. He stressed that the human psyche, the forces which influence the human thoughts, behavior and personality is also an important aspect of one’s work. He proposed that the human psyche could be understood through the religion, culture, dreams, mythology as well as art. Jung also proposed that the collective unconscious could be identified from the work of art. Sigmund Freud, through his theory of psychoanalysis had studied Leonardo da Vinci’s work and had subsequently found out a lot about a his personality. He had learnt from his paintings that Leonardo was homosexual.

Art history is also associated with the museum curators, art curators, collectors and religious adherents. For, example one of the oldest galleries in the world are Sotheby’s and Christie’s and even if they contribute a little in terms of the creation of art, they become a part of  the history of art because they promote, record and circulate the objects of art. Museums also act as facilitators of art curation.

Paintings from Ajanta

Cubism (1907-1921)

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque lead the movement of Cubism which was initiated in Paris.
In cubist artworks, subjects to be drawn were broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of drawing them from a single viewpoint. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow visual. Cubism was a particularly varied art movement in its political affiliations, with some sections being broadly leftist or radical, and others strongly aligned with nationalist sentiment.

Juan Gris, Portrait of Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas

Dadaism (1916-1922)

Dada or Dadaism was a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts and poetry and literature as well as theatre arts. Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media.

Dada was an informal international movement, with participants in Europe and North America. The beginnings of Dada correspond to the outbreak of World War I. For many participants, the movement was a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity.

According to its proponents, Dada was not art; it was "anti-art." Dada represented the opposite of everything that art stood for. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics the Dadaists hoped to go beyond the traditional culture and aesthetics.

As Dadaist Hugo Ball expressed it, "For us, art is not an end in itself ... but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in."

Fauvism

Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism movement . While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only three years, 1905–1907, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.

Le Bonheur de vivre, 1905-6, Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA
Henry Matisse

Expressionism

Expressionism was a cultural movement originating in Germany at the start of the 20th-century as a reaction to positivism and other artistic movements such as Naturalism and Impressionism. It sought to express the meaning of "being alive “and emotional experience rather than physical reality. The style of an artist is that of wanting to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form.
The basic characteristics of expressionism are bold colors, distorted forms-in-dissolution, two-dimensional, without perspective.

Intense emotions were expressed in all the works.
All artists express emotions, here the exception being in the fact that the work of art may be aesthetically unimpressive, but the sense of elevated emotions was very high.

The Scream by Edward Munch (1893) which inspired 20th century Expressionists

Abstract expressionism

It was an American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.

Technically, an important predecessor is surrealism, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in Abstract Expressionism.

Additionally, it has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, and highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles and even to work that is neither especially abstract nor expressionist.
Pollock's energetic "action paintings", with their "busy" feel, are different, both technically and aesthetically, from the violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning's figurative paintings) and the rectangles of color in Mark Rothko's Color Field paintings (which are not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied were abstract). Yet all three artists are classified as abstract expressionists.

Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as Wassily Kandinsky.

Although it is true that spontaneity is characterized many of the abstract expressionist’s works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. Abstract art clearly implied expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious and the mind.
Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York like The Art of This Century Gallery. The era after World War II was a time of extreme artistic censorship in the United States.

(Magenta, Black, Green on Orange), oil on canvas painting by Mark Rothko, 1949, Museum of Modern Art. 

William De Kooning's Women V
1952-53

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members. Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions however; many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. As they developed their philosophy they felt that while Dada rejected categories and labels, Surrealism would advocate the idea that ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination. Freud’s work with free association, dream analysis and the hidden unconscious was of the utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. However, they embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness or darkness of the mind. Later the idiosyncratic Dali explained it as: "There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad." The group aimed to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism is "long live the social revolution, and it alone!"

 The Elephant Celebes (1921) by Max Ernst

Modernism

Modernism relates modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.
Modernism rejected the certainty of  thinking, and also that of the existence of a compassionate, all-powerful Creator. This is not to say that all modernists or modernist movements rejected either religion, rather that modernism can be viewed as a questioning of the axioms and beliefs of the previous age.

A salient characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness. This often led to experiments with form, and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction). The poet Ezra Pound's paradigmatic injunction was to "Make it new!"
These oppositions are inherent to modernism.

Hans Hofmann, "The Gate", 1959–1960, collection: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Hofmann was renowned not only as an artist but also as a teacher of art, and a modernist theorist both in his native Germany and later in the U.S. During the 1930s in New York and California he introduced modernism and modernist theories to a new generation of American artists. Through his teaching and his lectures at his art schools in Greenwich and Provincetown, he widened the scope of modernism in America.
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since World War II.

From the 1990s onwards, Indian artists began to increase the forms they used in their work. Painting and sculpture remained important, though in the work of leading artists such as Subodh Gupta, Vivan Sundaram, Jitish Kallat, Jagannath Panda, Atul and Anju Dodiya, Shakunthala Kulkarni, Vagaram Choudhary, Surekha, Bhupat Dudi, T.V.Santosh, Bharti Kher and Thukral and Tagra, they often found radical new directions.

Crucially, however, in a complex time when the number of currents affecting Indian society seemed to multiply, many artists sought out new, immersive forms of expression.

Ranbir Kaleka, Raqs Media Collective has produced compelling contemporary works using such assortments of media forms including video and internet. This development coincided with the emergence of new galleries interested in promoting a wider range of art forms, such as Nature Morte in Delhi and many more.

Khoj, an artist led alternative space, was established in 1997 in Delhi and has provided a forum for artists trying new modes of presenting work.
Contemporary Indian art takes influence from all over the world. With many Indian artists immigrating to the west, art for some artists has been a form of expression merging their past with their current in western culture.

Also, the increase in the discourse about Indian art, in English as well as vernacular Indian languages, appropriated the way art was perceived in the art schools. Critical approach became rigorous, critics like Geeta Kapoor, R. Siva Kumar, Gayathri Sinha, Nancy Adajania, Ranjit Hoskote, Roobina Karode, Suresh Jayaram, and H.A.Anil Kumar amongst others, contributed to the tradition of catalogue writing in the Indian context. Art magazines like Art India (from Bombay), Art & Deal (New Delhi, edited and published by Siddharth Tagore), 'Art Etc' (from Emami Chisel, edited by Amit Mukhopadhyay) complemented the appreciative catalogues produced by the respective galleries.



Bharti Kher, The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own 2006




Subodh Gupta’s, Very Hungry God, 2006

Teen Darwaza and Bhadra Fort in Ahmedabad, An Ethnographic Study

Art, Design and Environment

An Introduction

An occasionally vacant street, Teen Darwaza is a hub of action. (Darwaza means a gate in English and teen represents number three). The monument is three gates stretched across a street to become an entrance which leads to Ranino Haziro. (Ranino Haziro is Queens Tomb, which was built by the Founder King, Ahmed Shah in Honour of his queen).




 Located in the city of Ahmedabad (Gujarat), it’s a place to get lost within the crowd; it hosts a myriad number of activities. Bhadra fort is the area with an ongoing market and a place visited by a lot of worshippers, who visit the Bhadrakali temple, which overlooks the monumental gate.

 

It has evolved over a period of time from being an area where huge business turnovers used to take place,  a few decades back, to the one which recently comprises of a series of hawkers and shop keepers who earn their living, to old buildings in which people live and a place which attracts tourists. Teen Darwaza outlines an intriguing history of Ahmedabad to provide an overview of an ever emerging and ongoing synergy of change.

During our first visit to the place I was overwhelmed to sense how a place can uncover and arouse a huge number of avenues to explore and understand from. Starting from many colours which changed as a result of the series of events which unveiled subsequently to the ones which remained constant, and the varied products being sold at different periods of time made me think of order which rests in what seems to be a very complex and multi-layered setting by itself. For more, almost everything starting from jewellery to utensils is sold. Anyone starting a home can easily acquire all the paraphernalia.

I was overwhelmed to look at the number of expressions which people wore over their faces as I passed by them. Some perhaps bore fatigue of a worried sleep; some watched the foreigners with an odd curiosity expressing a cultural shock after looking at the very different way in which they carried themselves. End number of young sellers and their siblings around them sat as they worked to support the rest of them.

There is more than what meets the eye at the threshold of Bhadra Fort, which leads to Manek Chowk and Ranino Haziro. At the very first sight, unforgiving number of images splashed across my mind and the uncomfortable question of rendering the same experience in the form of an authentic outcome felt a challenging task. Moreover in an attempt to grope with my exploration of understanding the space in context of social, cultural, political as well as in the subjects unexplored such as expression and feelings for instance, I felt sounds of the activity of the market almost gave my thoughts a pregnant pause.

The pleasure I was given from looking at the possibilities of images to be captured, primarily was that of being glorified at the number of questions which rose in my mind to the enthusiasm of wanting to record as much as I could through the senses.

As I stepped into the space, every time with the camera, I clicked end number of images of the entire area to see how the form of the space transformed over a period of time.

One of the tasks I had on hand was to capture the place through my senses as well as present the same in a concrete outcome. Change in colours due to change in the temperature of the day as well as owing to the different festivals like Janmastami, Navratri and Diwali have been recorded through the camera in form of static images.

 One of the most insightful learning was about our relationships with the spaces. The relationship which people who occupy the place they share, and how the same transforms when the place changes. The relationships form from our experiences and we subsequently tend to identify the place in set ways or mindsets. Last year I was educated into fear as we were asked to evacuate the place foreseeing the threat of riots after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Pakistan.

Now that I have been to the same place oftentimes and quite to my surprise find the place in harmony, inspite of the manifold pulse of diversity it hosts in the form of socio-cultural, economic and architectural differences, I feel the comfort rests in the heart of the place.

Exploring the 3 months old notes, I see that my own perception has shifted magnificently from letting go off the fear to training my eye to observe changes in the form of colour, time, temperature- to holding a much detached study of the place, I have so come to be fascinated thoroughly by.

My old notes talk about my feelings and responses to the experiences we had. What I present now is a more focused view which is much more clarified, distilled and detached from the distractions that condition our everyday way of seeing and saying.

My insatiable curiosity of wanting to look at the relationships people share with the place and the environment found some intriguing answers in the process about my inquiry and myself.

This study also gave me a long awaited opportunity to explore several mediums which include photography, video documentary, collage and maps to gain an understanding of how they aid in communicating my learning.

Having understood design as a problem solving process I applied much of it to figure out a road map which will best express my experiences and at the same time observed that at Teen Darwaza, design sense and application of the same was all pervading though the artists and workers may not have been trained designers. 

The ongoing process has been a challenge because not everyone who worked there wanted to engage in a conversation and sometimes people would act differently when they saw the camera and the notebook. An easier path would have been to change my appearance and visit, and I felt that I would rather to embrace the challenge and the spontaneity of their reaction being the way I am, an outsider. I am humbled by the thought that not everyone always wanted to engage in the conversation when I visited, because it is how thoughts exist. An answer is not in the present moment at all times. Art was all pervading just like design. Teen Darwaza is a live example of how art and design are innate and that they do not necessarily have to be taught and trained.  

I thank all the people who talked to me about their stories and experiences.

These notes deal in the present. History cannot be photographed nor can the future be. A photograph, I feel only speaks of the moment, a brief one that too. A place is always there and I met new people every day, some who felt that a stranger with a camera was at the threshold of their house like chawl, and others who waited to smile before the camera and wishfully thinking that their photograph was to appear in the newspaper the other day!!

About Teen Darwaza

Adjacent to Teen Darwaza rests the Bhadra Fort. On the right hand of the Bhadra Fort is the beautiful Bhadrakali temple which is built in white stone. On the left end of the Bhadra Fort lies the entrance to the area which overlooks the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Office. Beside Bhadrakali temple, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has an Ahmedabad Book Depot. Walking towards Teen Darwaza the main road is subdivided into two parts as the statue of the re-known Industrialist; Chinubhai Ranchodlal, is located in the traffic Island. He was the first Baronet, great Industrialist and a philanthropist of Ahmedabad. Prema bhai hall overlooks the traffic Island whereas the extreme left of the same is a police station. Both the streets further meet before Teen Darwaza with shops categorically clustered at their ends and a vast number of hawkers.

Focus of the study

Teen Darwaza being a historical place comprises of multi-layered, socio-cultural, economical and religious diversity. Due to its history, which holds one of the most violent riots, it is more than often also perceived to be a place where riots could take place over religious beliefs and differences. The objective is that of forming an informed opinion of my own, as well as look at the place as an opportunity to seek answers beyond the most explored socio-cultural and economic and historical contexts. Keeping the utmost value for the insight that these contexts give, I was curious about mapping traffic, garbage, products sold, feelings, and experiences of the people who belong to the place and what it means to them. Therefore, this opportunity has been exploited to acquire knowledge about architecture and spaces, the hawkers and their working schedules, their feelings and food habits and opinions about the place. Moreover an interview was conducted to understand the relationship which people share with the space and environment and how any type of change affects them. Quite interestingly, documenting the change in the colours and temperature in form of the visuals as well as seeking answers to details about how Bhadra Fort and other buildings are protected and managed, the governance rules, to observing how the shops and their designs change as the price rates change, several mediums were explored to express the progress which took place in the inquiry.

 An attempt has been made to capture how the place changes over a period of time and recorded in form of visuals. The change could be due to varied reasons such as ongoing festivals, change of the time lapse over different days. 

After a close observation of the entire area, Bhadra Fort vicinity has been chosen to explore details.

Historical Outline of Teen Darwaza

Teen Darwaza was constructed in 141 A.D. by Sultan Ahmed Shah the founder of Ahmedabad. It has three long arched gates. (A gate in called a ‘Darwaza’, in Hindi language). It was built with an objective to provide for an entrance to Bhadra Fort, which rests exactly adjacent to the gates. It is one of the oldest gates in Ahmedabad and a representative of the beauty of Islamic Architecture. A tree of life has been drawn at the central window and five palm trees are put covered with snakes. Above the arches of the gates rests the windows which are carved.

Teen Darwaza is commonly perceived to be a riot prone place due to the religious diversity and it faced one of the most violent incidents in the year 1969 which had taken 560 lives in the city.

History serves as a function of time. A few decades back it was a place which witnessed a larger economical turn over with a stock trade market which is closed now, as well as a few financially established business men having shifted after the riots.

It is one of the oldest monuments in Ahmedabad.

Architecture and Design

Ahmedabad has a pluralistic society with a history of urbanization and a tremendous religious, geographic, ethnic, climatic and linguistic diversity.  Architecture, therefore, has multiple and manifold manifestations resulting in multi-layered built environments; through classic examples and display of rich heritage of vernacular tradition in buildings.

Teen Darwaza, Ranino Haziro, Jamma Masjid and Bhadra Fort are examples of Architecture at its best. Apart from the historical Monuments are the houses which are built overlooking the roads. A house form is a reflection of the members of the society and a representation of their identity. In addition to the cultural forces, the house form is affected by environmental constraints such as physical and climatic conditions, social and psychological needs, belief systems and symbolic meanings. Thus, due to the large number of constants involved, its design evolves through the gradual process of assimilation and a set of accepted choices which result in a type of the house form which reflects the communities’ world view. The houses located nearby Teen Darwaza represent architectural designs from of the olden times with wooden windows covered by and large in blue or green. Because Teen Darwaza has always been a place which has had several markets which include food, clothes and utensils, most of the houses have been built such that the shops are rested on the ground floor, thus serving the purpose of both living as well as a means of working space. The usage of place has been very tight and it seems almost every space available of the land has been exploited to its fullest to build such houses. The vicinity no more has any scope for future houses or new buildings!!

A few modern buildings are also seen nearby the Bhadra fort where a complex is full of shops and Bank of India. Overlooking the complex is Prema bhai hall which was created under The Gujarat Vidhya Sabha Trust. Prema bhai Hall inspite of being one of the most versatile designs is out of business today. One of the constraints it faces is the shortage of parking spaces. The area is full of traffic and calls for a proper planning. Bhadrakali temple is beautifully decorated on all weekdays and Goddess’ structure, which has been built in black stone in dressed in a new and colourful Saree every day. The Sarees come as offerings from the worshippers and every Saree worn once would not be repeated as a dressing. The used clothes are sent to the Trust which looks after the Temple and subsequently send to needy women.

Jamma Masjid during the evening prayer

Culture

Culture is commonly believed to be sharing the set values, beliefs, customs, and ritual practices that are subject to change in time and space by a group of people or a community. It primarily includes arts, languages, artefacts, and the relationships of people with one and another. A community evolves from the act of living together under the umbrella of the common culture, made up of people who share ideas and live together in a mutual relationship. The area of Teen Darwaza shares a culture of mutual respect by and large. Though we ended up observing a few disagreements over the usage of space by the hawkers, a place as huge as it is, with the amount of diversity and the activity which takes place in the market, it is best concluded to be in harmony with the environment. In the working community the hawkers spoke how they shared the spaces and never took anyone else’s place. That there was no body which took care of their interests as they look after each other’s interests. The place is ever changing in its form as it holds a custom that with the commencement of any new festival the designs would change and new accessories will be let out. Quite interestingly the forms of the products would evolve year after year. For Dipawali, the festival of lights, the Diya’s were very different last year compared to this year’s work. An interesting insight was derived as how an artist did not have to be an established and well known professional at all times to communicate such monumental changes which come about gradually. Meera ben, the lady who sold Diya’s shared in her interview that she would keep the old designs before her and re-look at them such that she creates something completely new. 

Women wear Saree or Salwar Kameez and men, formals or kurta’s and pants. The dress code is very similar to what people wear generally in the city. Young women wear heavy oxidised or silver jewellery.

A Toran seller wearing light jewellery

People share a meal nearby Bhadra Fort

Two women share the evening tea while they talk

Food

Teen Darwaza offers a huge amount of variety in food. In order to capture the place through all our senses.

We had the opportunity to taste the food served every day. The place serves both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Bhatiyar Gali is located a little ahead, on the left had side of the traffic island. It sells raw meat as well as cooked food. Outside Bhatiyar Gali are a few outlets which sell baked cookies. Husain Bakery is very well known for the same. Besides, a lot of hawkers sell the flavoured cookies as well.

Beside Bhatiyar Gali are a few shops which feed a free meal to the needy at every ten rupees which is donated by the visitor or a tourist. It is open throughout the day and a lot of people are found seated outside the shops, waiting to get fed.  Walking a little ahead towards the Teen Darwaza gate, a few hawkers sell flavoured Faluda (like sweet noodles).

A little ahead of Jamma Masjid, Walking towards Manek Chowk is a very famous sweet shop called Kandoi. Outside Jamma Masjid we find that there are a few Hawkers which sell tea and vegetarian dishes like Aloo Chat and Bhel.

Outside Bhadrakali temple (Bhadra Fort), there are several hawkers who serve Pulav with Dal and bread Pakoda. The Manek Chowk area located near Ranino Haziro (Queen’s Tomb) unfolds in the night into a food market which is very well known for the variety it offers. Pav Bhaji, Sandwiches as well as Chinese and different types of chats are a few delicacies. In the evening a few egg stalls are noticed nearby Bhatiyar Gali and Manek Chowk.

Girish Coldrinks is one of the most well-known and oldest cold drink sellers at Teen Darwaza. Moreover a lot of Lorries selling lemonade and flavoured Soda are seen, evenly distributed throughout the entire stretch of Teen Darwaza. A few fresh juice sellers sell seasonal juices.

A collage made out of the photographs I have taken of the food being sold at the Bhadra Fort

Stories which surround the place:

It is believed that the rivers carry the tales of the city! Ahmadabad’s rivers too carry some tales!

Ahmed Shah, the founder of the city decided to build it because as he passed by the area on his horse he saw an incident which inspired him to build a city. He witnessed a rabbit being chased by a dog. The rabbit retaliated for self defence and saved its own life. Ahmed Shah is believed to create a city because he was awed by the rabbit’s courage. He expected the people to have the same qualities.

About Teen Darwaza it has been said that the great Mughal emperor Jahangir used to go there along with his beloved wife Noorjahan, to take a look at the procession that started from this grand gateway and went nonstop till Jama Masjid. 

One of the hawkers, while we interviewed him also related his own story of how he was asked to shift to the new part of the city after which how incurred a financial loss such that he had to return to the same place.

A story underlying the Bhadra fort also relates to how Mataji came to see the king, Ahmed Shah and because the king could not believe that Mataji had come to see him, he refused to join the guards till the gate. Unable to convince the king to come to greet Mataji the guards had sacrificed their lives then and there in the king’s court. Mataji had remained there waiting nearby the gate as she learnt about the loyalty of the guards. The story is a myth associated with the reason behind the fort and the temple sharing almost the same wall. From then it is believe that the Goddess’ (Mataji) temple rests beside the Fort.

Design

Design is generally perceived to be a work of drawing done on paper. However, it is a problem solving process which that, design refers too. During the study I observed that though the people working there did not study design; they innately applied some of the principles in their work. 

The way in which they arranged their products to communicate its utility or come up with the new look for their product the very next year keeping in mind the old one gives an insight to how think and bring out solutions.

At Bhatiyar Gali, a lot of waste was discarded such that the stray animals could feed themselves and at the same time, the waste could be gotten rid with.

The shop which feeds the needy is also though provoking as it becomes a place where the ones who want to donate could do their bit without having to look for the people they want an access to.

Moreover during our conversation with the Toran and decorated pot sellers, we learnt that they re-designed the same products to suit the needs of two different festivals which are Janmastami and Navratri. This way they could sell the products they haven’t been able to sell in Janmastami, which takes place before Navratri.

Looking at the applicability of design in terms of space and environment, the places have been mutually distributed keeping in mind the religious, cultural and social differences. Outside Bhadrakali temple, only the vegetarian food sellers will be found whereas outside Bhatiyar Gali we will come across as few egg sellers. 

The prices would also change according to the place where the product is being sold. Having a conversation with hawkers and the shop owners who sold the same product, they explained that they had set the prices with the mutual understanding that the shop owner was bound to charge a little higher than the hawker.

The pots which are re-designed by the workers using cloth

Earthen pots lie outside the temple nearby the tree.

Space and Environment

Teen Darwaza today has hardly any area which remains vacant. Considering it to be an expanse within which the market runs I was curious about how people in such an environment perceive space and what could be their relationship with the vicinity. And further ahead how the cultural, political, social and economic diversity affects and builds their mindsets.

Though factually speaking Teen Darwaza is a public space, however it is almost a home for people who earn their living from the market. I have attempted to map the psychological perception of a space, understanding that much has been already done about the application of space is scientific and mathematical and architectural contexts.

By a psychological space we mean the perception of one’s surrounding in context with the survival as well as in individual’s idea of personal space. Psychologists who analyse a perception of the space work on how recognition of an objects physical appearance and its utility is perceived by people.

A personal space is generally defined as the region that affects an individual’s psychology in terms of being their own domain and one gets discomforted when anyone else enters that area.

A person's comfort is is highly variable and difficult to measure accurately.  Estimated studies reveal that it is at about 24.5 inches (60 centimeters) on either side, 27.5 inches (70 centimeters) in front, and 15.75 inches (40 centimeters), behind for an average westerner.

An environment would mean the surrounding of an object.  The analysis refers to natural, built and social environment.

The relationships between space and environment is transient and always under constant change. Infact both are interdependent. Any kind of change in the space would affect the environment and vice versa. People by and large share a very close association with spaces due to the environment they live in and the utility or the experience that place provides to them. Therefore certain places appeal and mean more to us than the others. A worthwhile insight was gained during the observation and dialogue with the hawkers.

I was curious to know about what the place means to them because it would never mean the same to a person conducting the study or a tourist. 

To hawkers it is the place which they work at day in and day out. Some of them have spent decades in the vicinity and as I realised that minding the gap between what I sought as an outsider was a challenging task and mapping the same or writing about it, more so. To have a more informed idea about people’s thoughts, opinions and experiences, the hawkers were interviewed within the vicinity of Bhadra Fort.

Two people not affecting each other’s personal space                       

  

What happens when personal space is affected

Bhadra Fort is a heritage monument around which there are a huge number of hawkers who earn their living. During our several visits we observed that the people to whom this place is almost a home, are hardly talked with when a study is done to associate History,  Socio-cultural and economic contexts. Ironically they are the ones who are the most prominent part of the whole set-up. In fact our conversations made us realise that any of the most researched contexts including the ones mentioned above are only incomplete without knowing about their experiences and observations. An attempt has been made to go beyond the factual study and probe into their lives very subtly through our questions. 

After a few visits we sat down to bring our questions in black and white such that the answers which we receive give us an insight about what it is to belong to the space and the relationship which they share with each other and the environment.

                                                                                                                                                              Comment on Space and People’s relationships with the environment

In this study I learnt that our primary relationship with the space comes from the experiences we have had being in the same area. As a result of which we tend to associate our feeling with the space such that we almost feel that we own it in some way. Teen Darwaza is also one such space which has been a home for the hawkers.

Change being the only constant, even if the place remains static, its environment changes, due to external factors which could be social, cultural, economic and political in nature. The environment would also be subject to change due to weather conditions or by introduction of people from other spaces that bring in a culture of their own. When such a change takes place a lot of people who are used to the same place find it difficult to cope with the change and look for old associations.

• It was inferred that there was no governing body as such. The entire place as far as spaces and their utility is concerned, it runs on mutual trust.

• The hawkers also said that, there has never been an instance, by and large that the space has been taken over by the other entities.

• A worthwhile insight was that inspite the diversity; people had built their own comfort areas in what seems to us like a place which is filled with sound and is almost always bustling in action.

• After having a conversation with Akbar bhai we realised that a lot of hawkers were asked to evacuate the place in the year 2002, after the earthquake. As a result of which they had to go through an emotional uplift as the space that they used meant like a home to them. They earned their living and their families were dependent on the business. After being relocated some of the hawkers made a decision to come back to the vicinity of Bhadra fort, and just like Akbar Bhai a lot of them had lost their old spaces which they had used.

• The people who had spent a lot of years in the same area by and large did not want to shift, however the hawkers who wanted to make more profit or who had lost an older place in the same area where they made more money, were willing to leave if incentives were given to them.

• Looking at history for cues we find that the place has gone through a massive economic change as well established businessmen had shifted after the riots, thus affecting the space and environment.

• When asked whether they pay any ‘hafta’ or protection money in return for the place they use, the hawkers refused, however we noticed that the people who are supposed to guard the interests took the products they sold for free from their lorry.

I realised that the place may actually be very different from what it is commonly believed to be. People often associate it with the history of riots. However after having talked with people and with the careful observation, I feel that it is much more in harmony with the space and environment then commonly believed.

Art, Design and Environment have interdependent associations with the place. I observed that people share a very close relationship with a place. When the change takes place it affects people adversely as they still look for old associations. Much needs to be done to plan a place like Teen Darwaza such that the issues like excess traffic and pollution is taken care of. In order to run Prema bhai hall a separate amount of traffic planning should be designed and executed. Studies which take the feelings, experiences and thoughts of the people who stay in a certain place must be conducted and understood to be of equal grounds with the factual, mathematical and scientific researches. Infact any study which concludes without having taken an open minded communicative experience would sound incomplete in today’s context when environment is changes like never before. For an instance when the workers were relocated in the year 2002, their interest may be taken in mind, but their opinions were not heard and thus, people hawkers like Akbar bhai struggle even today to earn their living. Speaking from a humanitarian point of view neither are such instances conceived nor recorded to later. On a concluding note, I feel communication is required at all levels and in all studies, which include the prospect of affecting many lives.

Lines from Ben Okri's, The Famished Road

In this post are lines
I loved reading, lines

written by Ben Okri 

in his wonderful book

The Famished Road

To be born is to come into the world weighed down with strange gifts of the soul, with enigmas and an inextinguishable sense of exile. So it was with me.

It may simply have been that I have grown tired of going and coming. It is terrible to forever remain in between. It may also have been that I wanted the taste of this world. To feel it, suffer it, to know it, to love it, to make a valuable contribution to it, and to have that sublime mood of eternity in me as I live the life to come.

But I sometimes think it was a face that made me want to stay. I wanted to make happy the sad and the bruised face of my mother.

I was born not just because I had conceived a notion to stay, but because in between my coming and going the great cycles of time had finally tightened around my neck. I prayed for laughter, a life without hunger, I was answered with paradoxes. It remains an enigma how it came to be that I was born smiling.

Being born was a shock from which I never recovered.

I learnt afterwards that I had lingered between not dying and not living for two weeks.

One world contains glimpses of others.

Realized with a shock later that it was the strangeness that was familiar.

Everything felt the same. The only difference was that I wasn’t used to the sameness.

This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.

His cigarette burned angrily as he dredged up a fresh variation.

The spirit child is an unwilling adventurer into the chaos and sunlight, into the dreams of the living and the dead. Things that are not ready, not willing to be born or to become, things for which adequate preparations have not been made to sustain their momentous births, things that are not resolved, things bound up with failure and with fear of being, they all keep recurring, keep coming back, and in themselves partake of the spirit child’s condition. They keep coming and going till their time is right. History itself fully demonstrates how things of the world partake of the condition of the spirit child.

There are many who are of this condition and do not know it. There are many nations, civilizations, ideas, half-discoveries, revolutions, loves, art forms, experiments, and historical events that are of this condition and do not know it. There are many people too. They do not all have the marks of their recurrence. Often they seem normal. Often they are perceived of as new. Often they are serene with the familiarity of death’s embrace. They all carry strange gifts in their souls. They are all part time dwellers in their own secret moonlight. They all yearn to make of themselves a beautiful sacrifice, a difficult sacrifice, to bring transformation, an to die shedding light within this life, setting the matter ready for their true beginnings to cry into being, scorched by the strange ecstasy of the will ascending to say yes to destiny and illumination.

I was a spirit child rebelling against spirits, wanting to live the earth’s life and contradictions. Ade wanted to leave, to become a spirit again, and face the captivity of freedom. I wanted the liberty of limitations, to have to find or create new roads from this one which is so hungry, this road of our refusal to be.  I was not necessarily the stronger one; it may be easier to love with the earths boundaries than to be free in infinity.

Given the fact of the immortality of spirits, could these be the reason that I wanted to be born- these paradoxes of things, the eternal changes, the riddle of living while one is alive, the mystery of being, of births within births, death within births, births within dying, the challenge of giving birth to ones true self. To ones new spirit, till the conditions are right for the new immutable star within ones universe to come into existence, the challenge to grow and learn and love, to master ones self, the possibilities of a new pact with ones spirit; the probability that no injustice lasts forever, no love ever dies, that no light is ever really extinguished, that no true road is ever complete, that no way is ever definitive, no truth ever final, and that there are never really beginnings or endings. It may be that in the land of origins, when many of us were birds, even all these reasons had nothing to do with why I wanted to live.

Anything is possible one way or the other. There are many riddles amongst us that neither the living nor the dead can answer.

A dream can be the highest point of life.

And because the road was a river it was always hungry.

There wasn’t one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigors of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.

shoes and segami

Friends have often asked what segami means, it mirrors the word 'images'.

My shoes have always meant a lot to me. They are my travel mates.

This ones the first photo I took four years back, in 2008

when I set out on a journey to discover what images and visuals mean to me.

My new Puma Shoes

Gulaal, The film

Anurag Kashyap creates a benchmark and goes beyond it in his very next work. Before a few days I watched Gulaal.

Set in Rajpur town of modern Rajasthan, Gulaal is a film woven with stories of student politics and a covertly local rebellion emerging, for an independent Rajputana. The meek, Dileep Singh (Raj Singh Chaudhary), is an idealistic man who gets caught in the student politics and much more, as he gets pulled into the world of Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh), Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay), an autocratic local Rajput leader who is leading a planned armed movement to reclaim Rajputana for Rajput, a brother-sister couple (Aditya and Ayesha), the illegitimate children of an erstwhile Rajput king who are seething at their  status (Aditya Srivastava, Ayesha Mohan) and Anuja (Jesse), a young teacher who becomes a misfit in college after an incident she goes through in her college.

Dileep gets used as a means to an end by people who matter to him and ends up being an unwilling player in a sinister plot.
The film deals with the question of illegitimacy, sexuality, and sectionalism- themes least explored on screen by and large.

An illegitimate child suffers from the inferiority complex and hatred towards the social structure which has treated him like an outcast. It is more of his desire for the name than his need for the position of the throne. The roots of the insecurity and power being associated with the position were sown from his childhood. So much, that he kills his brother Rananjay, without a feeling of belongingness or thought. Lord Acton had rightly said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The film also explores the idea that in spite of being less deserving and with clear evil intentions he takes away the throne.

Sexuality has been depicted through the emotional perspective of a man- Dileep. The common belief of a women suffering at the cost of a broken relationship has been challenged. It is shown how it holds equally true for a man to lose his balance and well being when he realizes that he has been only a means to a political consequence.

The tragedy of Dileep hurting his true lover (Jesse) and being carried away by the physical relationship leading to an emotional attachment and a subsequent betrayal, from Aditya’s sister, is heart rendering.

Sectionalism today is set in a big way and the film is the true reflection of where our society stands today.

The lyrics and music provided by Piyush Mishra are outstanding. The way the words are written gives a concrete meaning to the sub-text of the songs. For an instance in the song, Arambh he Prachand, he shares the idea of greater love being considered insignificant compared to the battles on the war front.

However in the culmination of the film, not all the characters’ lives were shown.
The audience does not know what subsequently happened to Dukey Bana’s wife, Mahie Gill and how their lives changed. Had a few shots been shown of how things changed forever; it could have left a much sharper impact. Nonetheless the audience could derive their own points of view which may be different from each other since the director chose an end most appropriate to his perception.

The cinematographer Rajeev Ravi has done his bit extremely well. Gulaal is an extremely well shot film with Anurag Kashyap and his team at their best- thus, rendering it as a masterpiece.

The mind body dichotomy by Ayn Rand

-Lines from the introduction to the Night of the January 16th

This was my first (but not last) encounter with the literary manifestation of the mind-body dichotomy that dominates today's culture: the split between the "serious" and the "entertaining" -- the belief that if a literary work is "serious," it must bore people to death; and if it is "entertaining," it must not communicate anything of importance. (Which means that "the good" has to be painful, and that pleasure has to be mindlessly low-grade.)