wonder world

It's been long since i even looked at this blog of mine and made a post on it. This blog was started at a time when i was in the middle of my thesis at SPA, almost on the verge of failing and giving up on my thesis. It served a purpose then, it was a place where i could express my ideas, ideas which made me wonder, write about everyday things which gave me happiness, and talk about issues dear to me. I make this post today to revive the blog, find some newness for myself in life and also for someone who is some what in a similar situation, and what better way to do this than to write about a lecture I attended today which was a part of the 'D D Kosambi FESTIVAL OF IDEAS 2009'.
The Kala Acadamy at Goa designed by charles correa has always fascinated me. It has been a great good place for me for many years. a place where one can go and spend a couple of hours doing nothing. a place where i can enter one of the auditoriums and attend a performance, or be a spectator to an event which one would never have made an attempt to come for otherwise. Today's was one such event.
Dr. Ramchandra Guha, an internationally acclaimed historian and Intellect (that's what the paper says, though i have never heard of him before) was to give a lecture of "Why India is the most interesting country in the world". Having taken our seats in the auditorium, the first thing Sidhi and me did was to hope that there would be some slides/visuals along with the talk. As 'Architect' we have become so accustomed to seeing visuals that i seldom believe that a talk can be made interesting without it.
The anchor started the event with a rather boring speech, using punctuations after literally every two words, making it extremely difficult for us to comprehend the sentence in our minds as we heard him speak. Finally when his introduction was over, came on stage Dr. Ramchandra Guha. From the corner of my eye i spotted my school history teacher sitting in the other end of the audi. I never enjoyed reading history text books. I thought then that history was a dumb subject, full of dates and names which i never managed to remember. Though i loved the classes when this teacher of mine 'told' us history like his-story with lots of humor and masalla filed in it.
And here again i was listening to a historian who was telling history as if it was his story.
At the beginning of his story Dr. Guha put forward a hypothesis that 'India is the most interesting country in the world'. The examples which he used to prove his point were extremely hilarious and interesting. moving swiftly from the histories and ideas of nations to life stories of unknown individuals, Dr. Guha orchestrated the whole talk in an amazing manner and with absolute ease.
He spoke about how only in India, in a north eastern state where all major projects and landmarks are named after the Gandhi family one would suddenly find a signboard saying 'Punjabi Amrutsar Dhaba'. How only in India would a hard core liquor drinking, meat eating Punjabi farmer would use a 'Indian bank' whose head office was somewhere in Chennai on a street named after a hardcore vegetarian bramhin. How in India the rich biodiversity could allow for a vegetarian meal to have 40 different items in the plate. How once upon a time at the gardens of Raj path, an anthropologist could understand the issues raised by people from every part of the country through the placards, cartoons and slogans used by different demonstrators for and against the same issues at different time of the year.
A die hard french will speak french, will be a catholic and will hate the English, while the English will hate the french will speak English and be a protestant. While most other nations are formed on the idea of a single language, a single religion and a single enemy to fight with, India remains a nation potpourri of different languages, cultures, ideals, religions, and almost no enemy to fight with.
Moving swiftly from countries, spaces and places Dr. Guha narrated histories if unknown individuals who have been instrumental in shaping some big ideas. How in India a dalit cricket player who played at the Hindu Gymkhana ground in mumbai, plays an important role in bringing together a mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi never enjoyed cricket and cinema) and an ambedkar to sign a pact on the issue of cast system in India.
Dr. Guha concludes the lecture with an idea that it is the diversity of India which is its strength and needs to be nurtured, that it would be foolish to dream of India as a superpower, rather it should dream of becoming a nation with equal opportunities to all and work towards becoming a first grade democracy with a first grade constitution.