Saturday, November 05, 2011
A revist in ways more than one!
I did not expect this to happen. No, not exactly, but it is happy coincidence. I am sitting in the shade, this an early November afternoon, on a bench overlooking the little pond that dominates the main square in Paragpur a village in Himachal Pradesh. The water is still, behind a low pale blue wall, and gives no impression at all of life until the first of the fairly huge fish chooses to make its occasional loud splash and disappear again.
Across from me on the other side is a 2 storied building, grey slate tiled roof, white painted upper floor, and earthy red painted ground floor, a neat little projecting marking the separation of the two colours. Red, white and grey – a set of rather formal and complimenting colours. What strikes me slowly is their universality.
At the first instance this isn’t so apparent. But think again, red and white and grey, the Buddhist monasteries of Tibet, of Ladhak and Dharamasala, of Bhutan. The temples of Nepal. The Dzongs of Bhutan, the peoples’ houses, The colonial British buildings of the Raj, the Indo-Sarascenic Style, the Scot- inspired architecture of Shimla and Nainital, red-white- grey, St. Joseph’s College Nainital 1890, Dolmaling Nunnery, Dharamsala 1990.
This is not why I started to write, I started to write, because as I sit on the bench, to my right is a Sulabh Sauchalay, ( yes, I am coming back to that old post out of alwar: see blog post for March 2011) It isn’t out of place, it doesn’t jar, frankly other than an identifiable signboard one can barely tell the toilet from the rest of the place. No eyesore, no jarring, you wouldn’t notice it until you needed it.
It is quiet, it effortlessly finds its way into the frame of an ancient and delicately balanced village. With no disruption or intrusion into the spatial or visual experience of the village chowk and pond.
I have been sitting here for roughly three hours. Yes, the toilet is exactly 20 feet from where I sit, and feels perfectly in place. So does the red white and grey building across the pond, so does the pale blue pond wall, and the fish.
There are now four men sitting on the thin edge between the pond and the building, playing cards. The picture and the place both seem complete, and and yet in that complete-ness they seem like the perfect frame.
There is a reflection of the men playing cards on the waters surface, and I watch it from where I sit. A while ago there was an incessant whirring of the numerous toilors’ sewing machines on the street that leads out left from here.
In a quiet square, a quiet toilet, tucked quietly behind a well kept building.
Labels: heritage village, Paragpur, pond, Public toilet, public toilets, quiet, seamless
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Two Toilets and Two Cities
Two public toilets. In two cities, 175 kilometers apart.
One at UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the other at a Historic Palace, slowly crumbling from government apathy and public indifference.
What first struck me was the sheer disregard and almost un-thought(if there is such a word!) placing of the toilet complex at the Humayun’s Tomb, (a monument much in the news for its recently completed restoration by the ASI, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the National Culture Fund). The toilet complex stands left of the entrance gate to the Char Bagh at the centre of which is placed the tomb. The placement surprises me. After the 650,000 USD that were spent on the restoration, a toilet so callously placed seems to leave a jarring note. It’s not just the placement that irritates, but the almost everything about it seems to spell some sort of absolute architectural incapacity and blindness or administrative apathy, or worse oversight of the conservation exercise in the first instance ( thereby requiring of the administration of the ASI to add a toilet as retrofit).
Frankly I am not concerned with how it came about, but what really does annoy is that IT DID come about. The toilet seems to have been designed with the opinion that all structures in historic precincts must be built in rubble masonry, and all roofs, slabs etc. must be camouflaged with an over-pink plaster. Of course that the doors are of aluminium frame with cheap white PVC infill panels, with rudely scrawled “ GENTS” and “LADIES” in black paint is something we have come to accept of all municipal toilets strewn across the city. The huge vinyl poster on the side wall does little to apologise for the toilets presence.
It doesn’t really stop there, when you exit the toilet, you are greeted by the ghastly site of the water coolers. I could go on and describe that ugliness but I shall let the one picture suffice.
Frankly I am not concerned with how it came about, but what really does annoy is that IT DID come about. The toilet seems to have been designed with the opinion that all structures in historic precincts must be built in rubble masonry, and all roofs, slabs etc. must be camouflaged with an over-pink plaster. Of course that the doors are of aluminium frame with cheap white PVC infill panels, with rudely scrawled “ GENTS” and “LADIES” in black paint is something we have come to accept of all municipal toilets strewn across the city. The huge vinyl poster on the side wall does little to apologise for the toilets presence.
It doesn’t really stop there, when you exit the toilet, you are greeted by the ghastly site of the water coolers. I could go on and describe that ugliness but I shall let the one picture suffice.
If the experience at Humayun’s Tomb had been an isolated incident, I might not have been so bothered by it. But 175 Km south of Delhi, in a town still quite unpopular with tourists stands another public toilet of similar consequence.
This is the Sulabh Toilet Complex at the City Palace of Alwar, the earstwhile seat to Sawai Jai Singh, Maharaja of Alwar.
This is the Sulabh Toilet Complex at the City Palace of Alwar, the earstwhile seat to Sawai Jai Singh, Maharaja of Alwar.
When one enters the main gate of the palace compounds, this would arguably be the most prominent structure you see. Its stands before the main entrance ( marked by a blue sign board over a dark door way leading into a winding corridor) to the Alwar Museum and Law Courts and other district machinery . Ways and directions are hard to figure out in this complex, but the toilet, a red, ugly, edifice sits centre stage and calls the visitors attention with little other competition. One could argue this toilet as the centerpiece of the fore-court!
I could rave and rant, I am sure, and I would not be un-justified in doing so. But I fear the argument might be lost. So I will just let the pictures do the talking.
There isn’t much that separates the two toilets. Both ugly, both badly placed, and both impressive and unforgettable.
The placing of toilets, and their consequence on the public memory of the (public) place seems to be a worrisome reality in the realm of the historic landscape. A reality I have no idea how/ or by what process it is arrived at. And a reality I am quite certain we should want to alter.
The placing of toilets, and their consequence on the public memory of the (public) place seems to be a worrisome reality in the realm of the historic landscape. A reality I have no idea how/ or by what process it is arrived at. And a reality I am quite certain we should want to alter.
p.s. The derelict Alwar Museum houses a fascinating collection of artifacts, miniatures and weapons. A sliver Dining Table, a vast collection of Persian manuscripts, and Sawai Jai Singh’s all chrome bicycle are amongst a fascinating collection of exhibits.
Labels: Alwar, ASI, Bad design, Conservation, Heritage conservation, Heritage sites, Public toilet, Toilets, ugly
