indian landscapes

Narendra Dengle

raveling by train on my way back from Benaras, there was a gnawing feeling from within. I felt the experience of the city was trying to tell me something - and suddenly as I paid unhindered attention to it, it became clear that the city of Benaras wanted me to know that ..- architecture, planning, philosophies and struggles in creativity. are all very well but what matters the most is the place where you kick the bucket! It was a bit of a shock to draw this meaning as it upset the rational, emotive and social base that I had built for myself. It not only demolished this base but it seriously questioned the process of acquiring knowledge and experience of the world using established psychological norms to understand life as ones own life bound in time and space. A landscape that has the capacity to do this is all the more intriguing. Can one, for instance, look at a Banyan tree in Benaras forgetting that under this very tree the Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath? Benaras had made me introspective but not in any analytical way. It

was as if you had become one with the city and there was a new understanding that had dawned upon. In a strange way the analyzer and the analyzed had united. Who did this and how did it happen? I measured the events of the past four days. I had stayed and meditated at the J Krishnamurti foundation at Rajghat for three days, had taken a stroll through the lanes of the city, and visited the Kashi Vishwanath mandir, not to forget the boat ride that exposed me to the unfathomable rituals celebrating events from birth to death in a cyclic way. This happened back in 1978 when I lived in New Delhi. The experience was unmatchable and could not be deciphered by logic, rational or a theory. It could neither be termed influence nor could it be translated into architecture with known tools. I had to discover new ways of comprehending and transferring these perceptions into architecture and landscape if I was ever serious about them. It seemed like a job of a poet. As for myself, I could not merely experience and go on living the same old ways, for some mutations had occurred!

...architecture, planning, philosophies and struggles in creativity... are all very well... but what matters the most is the place where you kick the bucket!

20

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

images & perceptions

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

21

indian landscapes

The more I dwelled on this experience the greater I became aware that the known repertoire of handling space was inadequate. Calling it an essence of Indian experience would be too nave and simplistic. The complexity of this experience was dynamic and its impact total, like a thunderbolt. Could I observe it without making a value judgment about the experience of Benaras - I wondered? For instance, I was aware that everyone who visited the city may not have had a similar experience and therefore the experience itself had to do with the place-spacetime and psyche. A landscape is what adorns the land, air and water. Besides what is natural and man-made, the landscape also includes people and the precipitates of experience within them. The precipitate, of course is in the subconscious, often without a rhyme or a reason. After all there has to be something

that is viewed by someone. The funny thing is that the landscape seems to change with the changed perception of it. If people are told convincingly that they actually live in buildings that are truly wonderful then they do begin to see the point sooner or later. Their view of the world in turn changes. The ghats and the intention of the city were telling me that there was more to life than merely settling down on the bank of a great river. I needed to have a fresh look at the surroundings than get frustrated with the squalor, unkemptness, the ritualistic blindness, and the persuasive greediness of the pandyas, who serve the deity. I could not judge by comparisons alone. You must stay with the experience of Benaras without clouding it with the experience of some other city like Paris. This place had to be seen as a place in transition, like a port, to be embarked

and disembarked. I had to throw away the known clichs like the holy city because it had something more to offer beyond a ritualistic, organized form of religion. There was something which continued without or with little acquisitions. I could not say what that something might be and yet I knew that the message had come from the visual landscape comprising of people who were busy with rituals like ants searching for food. A cacophony of sounds that included rhymes, the holy dips, songs of boatmen, wails full of sorrow, ringing bells, and crackling wood fire, patterns of movement which beat any logic and disturbed notions of scale, textures of surfaces-of the ghats and ripples of water, a fusion of smells- pleasant and unpleasant- and so on...

22

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

images & perceptions

how would I comprehend this landscape of Benaras without dilution or blending, I wondered?

I think we are conditioned to converting our experience towards making a comfortable life around us. We want to strain it of its complexities and like a mali who makes endless borders of diagonal brick and flowering plants, want to streamline it. The sails of the boats in the Ganges, cycle rickshaws driven by seasoned hardworking bodies with deep lines in the face in the gallies, the sound of the poorab thumari giving insight into deeply nurtured traditional performing arts, too make a collage that may be different from the religious collage and yet equally provocative and thoughtful. How would I comprehend this landscape of Benaras without dilution or blending, I wondered? Because if I managed it then perhaps I might be able to address the complexities of life through design without any adulteration and thereby discover something totally refreshing. It is like a huge

tree becoming aware of its roots. Bonsai-ing life though very philosophic seemed abstract, even cruel. Haikus are different. The ghats of Benaras have a backdrop of architecture that is created with the same enthusiasm as todays exhibition grounds. Having concluded that the place was indeed of importance, the owners built their havelis, mandirs, samadhis, dargas and palaces with designs to outwit each other. There seems to be a competition to create better and more prominent architecture than the neighbours. While this is what one can achieve by means of design and perhaps wealth, signifying the individual and his achievements leaning towards indulgence and fashion, the streets and the ghats embody the notion of universality and equity. They rejoin death to be the great equalizer and

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

23

indian landscapes

leveler and thus point to mans realization that in fact the individual cannot sustain without the universal. Over time the ghats become witnesses and narrators of events and rituals. I do not know of any places elsewhere in the world, where the ghats become embankments of rivers with the consistency that is found from the north to the south in India. Besides the popular commercial Hindi cinema, I believe the ghats are the only other unique elements of architecture that embody Indian psyche. The latter I believe is more mystic than the former! I am aware that the contemporary urban

psyche may not be similarly connected with the ghats and yet I do believe that deeper down even urban youth would discover the dormant connections. The ghats also symbolize the end of a journey. There is no further to go. This is where time and space dissolve, into an abyss of universality, together with the consciousness of the ego. The attributes of the experience of Benaras begin with the intention of the human to settle down. The place is selected, and an edifice of belief is created around it to make the habitation a

worthy experience. Curiously, this intention is without the hue of any particular religion; which is why the hakims, Sufis and saints give importance to the place. A very renowned hakim in the neighbourhood of East Nizamuddin in New Delhi, who was blind and without pupils, once told me that it was not his doctoral skills but rather there was something in the place which helped cure his patients. I realized immediately why different religions built temples, according to their respective beliefs, over the existing temple sites of other religions.

24

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

images & perceptions

Urban space, I thought, must be seen as part of such complex landscape, which is both physical and psychological, that Benaras offers. The rational and the irrational, the narrative and the individual perception must find ways to overlap, in newer ways, every time. The cityscape and the riverscape are intertwined into making the landscape of Benaras. The built form is unassuming in that it consists of a hybrid landscape of layers of intensions, aspirations, visions, nave simplicity and articulate form, installations that are flexible, all contributing to a living and performing culture. Its uninhibiting form is its strength because it

assembles a landscape inspired by an empirical thought process, albeit ambiguous and uncultivated by articulate training in universities but at the same time quite comfortable in the latters company. The message that I drew from Benaras did not come from the scholastic study of its history, or that the Hindus believe it to be the center of the cosmos, or the politics of the Uttar Pradesh, but I realized that it came from its unique landscape. The visual image, although a residue in its own right, consists of messages inclusive of the non visual world pointing toward something beyond.

the message that I drew from Benaras... came from its unique landscape... the visual image consists of messages inclusive of the non visual world pointing toward something beyond

All images by Ashish Lahoti. The author would like to thank Ashish (architect-urban designer) for his enthusiasm in sending the images and also allowing to use them.

Narendra Dengle (born48) is a practicing architect and academic. His works, since 1974 include rural and urban projects
addressing contemporary cultural, environmental and aesthetic issues. He is Design Chair at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies, Mumbai and member- the Urban Conservation Committees for Pune and Mahabaleshwar. His book Jharoka, on critical issues in architecture was released in 2007. He has made films on Architectural Appreciation. E-mail: narendraden@gmail.com

landscape

no. 25 | monsoon 2009

25