NOT ENOUGH DOUGH !

Her husband owned a successful bakery in the city.  It did well - she wore a 24 carat  gold bracelet on her arm and spoke of previous holidays in the US and cruises around the Cayman Islands.  Her brother who had emigrated to the US, was a doctor in Atlanta, but he also owned a string of motels and condos !  But this evening in the gym locker room, she was full of indignation:  "What is this country coming to"  she fumed "business is down by 40% - nobody is buying anything, the shops are empty and if people can't afford to spend 18 rupees on bread, then how are they living ?" "It's the fault of the foreigners - they sell us their expensive technology and that has to be passed on to the consumer - suppliers are charging more and we are being squeezed in the middle - the labour market is getting more and more expensive.  They used to demand a pay rise at Diwali, now they want a pay rise every 6 months !" she added.  "The caste system is very necessary, you have to have some separation"!

ANYONE FOR A MANGO ?

WALL OF RESPECT

The young acupuncturist was carefully pressing very long, thin, needles, into her client's knees and one needle into the top of her head.  A small pulse of electric current passed through the needles to help relieve some of the joint pain she was experiencing.     "You see, women in India don't look after themselves, they focus all their attention on their husband and children.  Then when they're older they have problems with their weight and also their hips and knees, with crippling effects on their mobility", she told me.

The position of women in India is under scrutiny at the moment because of the horrific attacks of beating, rape and murder - these acts of violence towards women and children shockingly fill the newspapers on a daily basis.  Protests in Delhi have simply elicited yet more violence and no change in the statistics.  One newspaper claimed that women, seen out of the context of family, were considered by most of the population as 'objects' not people.

Of the BRICS countries, South Africa leads the league in  'Gender Equality', placed at 16th and the equal rights of women are safeguarded and entrenched in its Consitution.  Russia, Brazil and China, follow about 30 places behind.  But India is placed 105th out of the 135 countries!  In a patriarchal society, it is difficult to effect a change of attitude towards gender equality and it would seem that this hurdle, is one which has to be addressed for the sake of progress, for an emerging third world country, taking its place centre stage in a global environment.

In the last few days, large boards have gone up all over town asking people to write their comments on the desirability of empowering women !  The gist of many of the comments is that women are 'cute', 'sweet' and 'adorable'.......!

BIRD SONG AFTER RAIN

The rumble of thunder at midnight, so rare that I opened my windows to hear it more clearly.  Followed by the unmistakeable smell of rain - a good downpour lasting at least 20 minutes.  After a year of extreme dryness and hot days and nights, to see the curtains billowing with cool, damp, air, was like a miracle.

And in the quiet of the very early morning, everything seemed washed and refreshed, a cool, clean slate on which to build a day.  The clear sound of an Indian cuckoo rang out like a bell - it echoes and builds up in its crescendo, filling every space - the unmistakable sound of summer.  Bird song after rain is one of the loveliest sounds in India and the best of moments.

THE ART OF BUILDING

The Villa, built by the famous French Architect, Le Corbusier, (1887 - 1965) as a family home for a wealthy Indian cloth merchant in 1951, is off limits to visitors, but I managed, by special arrangement, to view it one day in the middle of the monsoon rains.  These were hardly ideal weather conditions in which to see a structure of this nature, which becomes, in the midst of a downpour, all gushing gutters, slippery steps and soggy roof gardens.

Along with the Villa Savoye (1929 - 1931) in Paris, equally inaccessible, these examples of Le Corbusier's domestic architecture expressed his concern for the house as a 'machine for living in' - the pilotis which raised the structure off the ground, freed this space for other purposes, the lack of external decoration, emphasized form, space and light and the interaction between indoors and outdoors, the flat roof provided space for a roof garden and in the case of the Indian version, provided a water chute down into a pool in the garden !   (Possibly inspired in part by the young son of the family who particularly enjoyed a French story book by Andre Maurois, entitled 'Patapoufs et Fillifers' or Fattypuffs and Thinifers, access to their world beneath the earth being via a stone chute') !

Architects necessarily need wealthy patrons who can afford to pay their fees and it is interesting that Le Corbusier built a number of structures in Ahmedabad, where wealth from cotton production, was centered after Independence.  But he was also responsible in the 1950s, for designing the layout of a new city with civic structures, including the High Court,  Parliament building and a University, in Chandigarh, in the foothills of the Himalayas - Chandigarh being the new capital of Punjab and Haryana, after the partition of India and Pakistan and the loss of the old capital city of Lahore.

Reinforced concrete played a dominant role in all his designs, whether in India or Europe, but he was sensitive to the demands of climate in India and orientation and the brise-soleil, were crucial to his designs, which also included, at Chandigarh, a water feature, to reflect an image of the monumentality of the capitol structures - a salute, perhaps, to the iconic Taj Mahal (1632 - 1653) and its lotus pond in Agra, built by an Afghan architect for the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan.  What a difference 300 years makes, the earlier structure built entirely of marble, emphasizing in its form and function, the wealth and power of one dynasty and the other in its embracing anthropomorphism and its unadorned use of concrete, the power of democracy.

PAVING THE WAY

Gujarat has some of the best roads of any State in India and they are a cause for pride.  Gujarat being the economic powerhouse of the country, requires an efficient infrastructure.  These roads are not only arteries of transport, but also generate trading opportunities for small scale entrepreneurs, who set up shop as tailors, barbers, cobblers, leather workers and fast food operators, including sugar cane juice providers, who wield their presses, feeding sticks of sugar cane between large wooden mangles, extracting a thin stream of juice which they sell by the glass - so the roads are a hive of activity, shared also by stray dogs and wandering cows and donkeys.

But a new phenomenon has hit this urban scene - heaps of sand, stone and broken bricks were the first harbingers of change afoot and over the last few weeks a honeycomb of small hexagonal concrete 'cobble stones' have been laid, to create the first pavements of Vadodara !   But it seems that this luxury is shunned by the ordinary pedestrian, who still elects to make his way in and out of the vendor stalls and compete for space on the roadside with hooting, jay riding scooters, on the wrong side of the road, adding to the usual confusion.

The new pavements with their ordered hexagonal patterns, remain pristine and silent, onlookers to the chaos of the street alongside !  Their very geometric regularity, alienates them and sets them apart from the crowded casualness of the street, littered with a jumble of life !

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT - MUMBAI

ANY SHADE WILL DO !

The first mangoes are appearing on the vegetable carts....new bird sounds from arriving migrants - the clear call of an early  Cuckoo....but above all the shimmering heat of summer has arrived, with temperatures of around 40 degrees !

As the heat ratchets up and reaches a peak about midday, things go quiet - shops hide behind makeshift shades, swaddling themselves and lights are switched off, as shopkeepers find the coolest place under the counter to sleep and while away the hottest part of the day.  The street empties of people and those few who are out, walk slowly, women hide their heads under their saris.  The dust of a long, dry, year, lies white and hot and fine as talcum powder, in drifts along the roadside.  A street dog has found a bucket, half filled with water and climbed in, immersed up to its shoulders in the soothing wetness, its head poking out the top, eyes dreamy as its panting tongue lolls out of its mouth. Street vendors relinquish the task of selling, to put their feet up and snooze away the day - this is the start of four long hot summer months in Gujarat !