retirement

i retired from service on 30-11-09.there was function arranged by staff and students of maths dept.it was a unique touching experience.actually u can see one snap of durga completely brokendown.
thanks for all those who wished on that day.
here is the link
http://picasaweb.google.com/ranganadhams/Retirement#

And of course...

I knew Laurie Baker was a 'Gandhian' architect by reputation. But from his website I came to know that he was acquainted with and interacted with Gandhi a few times. But this excerpt from his website is revealing.

Here, as an aside, I would like to mention that I believe that Gandhiji is the only leader in our country who has talked consistently with common-sense about the building needs of our country. What he said many years ago is even more pertinent now. One of the things he said that impressed me and has influenced my thinking more than anything else was that the ideal houses in the ideal village will be built materials which arc all found within a five-mile radius of the house. What clearer explanation is there of what appropriate building technology mea than this advice by Gandhiji. I confess that as a young architect, born, brought up, educated and qualified in the West, I thought at first Gandhiji' ideal was a bit 'far-fetched' and I used to argue to myself that of course h probably did not intend us to take this ideal too literally. But now, in my seventies and with forty years of building behind me, have come to the conclusion that he was right, literally word for word, and that he did not mean that there could be exceptions. If only I had not been so proud and sure of my learning and my training as an architect, I could have seen clearly wonderful examples of Gandhiji's wisdom all round m throughout the entire period I lived in the Pithoragarh district.

So all the fancy terms of sustainability and organic materials that are now in vogue were voiced a century ago by Gandhi! I think I will never cease to be amazed at the wisdom and all-pervasive influence of Gandhi.

Laurie Baker

Since we are now in the process of building a house, that too an unconventional albeit traditional house, I have been reading about architecture in India. I was recommended Laurie Baker's website as a good source for this. Laurie Baker, as I am sure everyone is aware, is an Englishman who settled in India and has been a pioneer for low cost housing in India (primarily Kerala). The website link is:http://lauriebaker.net/site/info/photos-and-videos.html. There are some pictures of the houses he has designed, and all of them look wonderful. They remind me of the Kavali house, specially in the times when we were children, and there were huge open spaces at the back and side of the house, populated only by cattle, us kids and trees.

On that website, I found an interesting article (http://lauriebaker.net/work/work/alternative-building-materials-timeless-mud.html) about the use of mud as a construction material (he has another article about Lime as well). Some excerpts:

Before we came along with our high technologies and our science, people over thousands of years were doing what we are now pleased to call research and development. Anywhere you go in India, any village, any rural area (and remember, there is still over 80 per cent of the population in rural areas and their needs are 80 per cent of the needs of the nation), there is this, `rural' design that is steadily going on, and this research is not something that was thought out suddenly. They did not have research institutes. It was a system of trial and error — an empirical form of development. People have used what is actually underneath them and around them: the earth, the things that they can pull out of the earth and so on. They used simple materials to protect themselves from the rain, sun, animals, insects and other human beings. They had very primitive forms of transport, and there was never any thought of importing materials, all of which has resulted in this very distinctive architecture. I insist on calling these 'rural indigenous designs' for building. I think they're very fine examples of pure architecture because they use materials honestly and straightforwardly in an enormous variety of ways, and find solutions to all the problems we human beings have, living in a somewhat hostile world.

{another section of the article}

I have to think twice when I have to build a house — an ordinary 2,000 ft for middle class/upper middle class persons, because I'm responsible for the death of four large trees! In Kerala, all bricks are burnt by wood; we don't get coal. It's too far away and transport is too difficult, so I have had to lay off wood. What are my alternatives to things that bricks normally do? One of them is stone, another of them is mud. The biggest problem that I have in using mud is not with the mud itself, (I have done two-storeyed buildings with quite heavy roof structures and so on, and intermediate floor structures with mud) but it is the client: "We don't want mud", or "Mud? You mean to say I should build my house with mud?"; "But you do understand, don't you, that in my position...." This is the usual reaction of so many of our clients and we just give in and say, "Yes, all right, if you don't want mud, we'll have brick." We don't tell a client that he is going to destroy four full-grown trees to have his bricks. Are we using our knowledge and our position and our professional status to suggest these things and even insist on them with a private client, and these private clients are probably only 0.01 per cent of the population?

There are other compelling arguments in that article why houses (specially for the poor) can be built at a low monetary and energy cost, just using timeless techniques from India. Made me thank my stars we had the good judgement to choose the house we are now building is to be made precisely of that material: MUD. They are compressed mud bricks, not fire burnt bricks. Here is the link to the architect who is building our house (http://www.biome-solutions.com/). My question is: Why are not more people doing this?

Bhramaramba Avva

Dhulipalla Bhramaramba was my father’s paternal aunt. She was fair, beautiful, well read and highly intelligent. She was called “gouramma” (gora=fair) by the servants who could not pronounce her name.

She was married to dhulipalla sundara ramiah, who was her maternal uncle. He was no match to her in any way. It seems after the marriage he was found jumping with joy saying “where will she go now. She is mine”. She has never gone to attagari illu; instead he came and lived here. She was called by every body singampalli bhramaramba and not dhulipalla.

He used to borrow money, buy registration stamps and sell them on credit. The buyers never returned money and this resulted in bad debts. After his death she collected some of the debts ruthlessly going to villages, confiscating even a cow or crow. That made her very hard boiled .Still most of property was lost, and that is how the house next to viswams house was sold away. She was child less and bequeathed her remaing properties to my mother. They were like mother and daughter with well defined boundaries in house management.
My father was only 13when grand father died. Grand mother rangamma (after whom I was named) was very innocent and not worldly. So the burden of managing properties, educating, marrying and settling the young boy fell on her shoulders, which she did with great efficiency. They put up family in Nellore and then at Madras for his higher education (at that time the house was rented for 4or 5 years).In fact we can say that she was the pillar on which the prosperity of singampalli family rested.
She was embodiment of vyangam, terror of the street. Our friends were terrified to come to our house. The” durvasa” my father was like a pilli in front of her. Many a times we were saved from his beatings by her intervention.
There is much to be told about her and friends as remarked by gopal, but may be in a later post.
You now know from where the strong genes of all singampalli girls come!!!!!!!!!

Hats off to you Attah

Attah remember Krups had called you the other day to ask about how to engage kids in the school, for the same class sometimes Krups is not there and I go to teach those kids. Being a short tempered person it is so difficult for me to manage them :), I really admire you for being patient with kids and also you must be a fantastic teacher as kids love you.

One more thing I have realized that as we are adults now and we work in offices, we are hardly in touch with kids so it is difficult to relate with them and with their psyche. Like after sometime kids start losing concentration, all of them would want to go to the toilet, suddenly they will start talking...phew... :)

I didn't have much agenda on this post just wanted to share my experience with you. :)