Lock-free!

"I'm going to lock you in", she said.. "Hahaha, that only means that you will locked out", came the reply.

Let there be a world free of 'locks' !

Let the sun set...

You can't stop the sun from setting, but you can change the position from which you view it.

Sometimes in life some things will be beyond your control. What you can change though at such times is your point of view.

Nathdwara

Its afternoon, maybe evening.. its difficult to tell.

"It doesn't matter. We feed them when we get the money and not because its their lunch time", she tell us as she shouts "Radhe!" in the next second.. I don't know whether she mistook my name or was calling one of the cows.

She calls them by names...all 156 of them.

Re-do your space!

It takes a little bit of effort to energize and bring more life to your daily spaces... so why wait? I'm going to start with the work spaces today.. and more to follow soon!

Work Desk :
~you have a pile of files and papers - get really cool paper/file holders or separators. Your work stays organized, and desk looks cleaner.

~wires - even though we are moving towards wireless technology, we are still going to need them to charge our phones and laptops. Get a round shallow basket or a big mouthed mug and put it close to the socket. Wind up the wires and put your chargers in it, when not in use.

~get note-clip holders. Let them hold your appointments for the day, your favorite photos or quotes that you live on. One looks too lonely, so make sure you get about 5-6 of them. Cluster them randomly but close to each other.

~get rid of boring calenders, after all you have to look at them all year long! Get customized photo-calenders with photos you or a family member has clicked. Its all become very easy with the internet now. Really worth the effort.. and you don't necessarily have to be a pro to make one!

~a soft-board is too cliche - get small mirrors on the wall next to you!

Design like a child

Children are the most creative in this world, for the simple reason that they are not influenced by anyone. Their creativity comes from the modest joys of life - color, sand, clay, puppies and other things that most of us have stopped noticing.

Ask a child about his artwork once he is done. More often than not, it will be an exaggerated story expressed with animated hand-actions. They like everything to be larger than life and there is a reason to that too. When you look at the world from their eye-level, everything seems l a r g e…the people around, the cars, the furniture, the trees, etc. They believe that most things are larger than them and thus, like to portray a lot of 'big' things in their stories. Notice the words million, zillion, big, thousands, huge when they are telling you about something.

However this also makes them feel more connected to small scale details which we would tend to miss out on... crawling under the table, playing with low-height switches, patterns on the floor, insects to name a few.

Thus, it becomes important for designers to work in the "child-scale". A simple experiment to experience this would be to get on your knees and walk around the room…the ceiling will feel higher, the window inaccessible, the wash-basin too high to reach, the door handle unreachable and the dining table chair too low for comfort.

An essential thing to note when designing for children is their growth. If the same child is going to use the space for a long timeframe (5+ years), like a bedroom, then the space needs to be able to accommodate the child's needs through the years. However, in the case of a school, where a constant age-group of children is utilizing the space, the overall design can be more permanent.

Two most important people to connect with, while designing a space for children are the children themselves and the adult concerned (parent or teacher). If you are neither of the two, the best thing would be is to spend time with both. You will learn more than what any book can tell you. Participation of users in design just helps us learn and design better!

Looking forward

Don't look at your life in the rear view for too long (however pretty it was)...or else you will miss out on whats ahead.. and CRASH!

Live Safely :)

Handle with Care

Trust is like ceramic - Once broken, it can be put together again..but the marks will always remain...

It takes a trust years to build, and a minute to break...

So.. Handle it carefully!

I love COLOR!

Aren't we so damn lucky...? I mean, firstly for the reason that you can read what I'm writing... and another - that when you look around, you can actually see SOO many colors!

Take a minute...relish the richness of being able to see and distinguish between the awesome colors around us :)

Indulge in what you love most...

Once in a while... we all deserve a little bit of luxury, a little extra care and a spoonful more of sugar in our lives... :)

Let's treat ourselves with what we love most...not just on 'special' occasions but on regular days.. just to get the extra boost, the extra perk and zest into our lives..

PS - As you might have guessed, for me its good coffee.. :P

Life is Beautiful...

Just read an article about a student committing suicide in Delhi... I really can't imagine what the young man must be thinking before taking such an extreme step... or what anyone would be thinking before taking their own life.. A life, which was given to us by someone else.. We have no right to take it away..
Didn't the young man have someone to talk to...didn't his friends see him going in depression or they weren't successful in showing him everything beautiful that life has to offer .. ?

When I feel low.. I just look to shift my mood to children.. They have the super power to cheer you up in a way no one else can.. They are God's little gifts to the world.. Let's smile with them :) It's really worth living for... ;)

Reaching Out...

Nature continues to inspire us everyday in unique ways..its how we choose to look at it.. The last thing we should do, is take it for granted..

Look around...stop to stare at nature...relish its beauty...reflect it to your life...and smile :)

The String of Life

Sometimes images evoke emotions, and emotions make us philosophical... This particular image is one of them...it really got me so emotional that if I had the talent, I would write a song on it :P... but since I do write a little bit...let me share with you what it made me think...

Like the image above, our life is also like a string...the little lamps being the different people who have touched our lives... They bring the color, joy and festivity in our lives and our life is filled with darkeness without them. They all come into our lives at different times, in numerous ways and for unique reasons... When we look back to those whom we are no more in touch with, we realise that their impression still remains on our lives even after their physical absence.. From our side, it is important that we pick up the positive impression that they have left on us...isn't that the reason to live life - to always see the brighter side :)

I hope to write down more such thoughts with my other pictures...'coz when they make you think, you know you have clicked a good one!

The Art of Giving...

A mother feeds her child milk, a teacher imparts knowledge to her students, a doctor nurses the needy...etc... These are the BIG acts of givingin our lives... and these are specialties of just a few. It is not necessary to aim at being the biggest givers... What matters most is the small dad-to-day acts of kindness..
How often do we give without expecting anything in return... how often have we heard people saying that they stopped sending cards to their friends, because they weren't getting any in return or stopped sharing food with their neighbors because they never did the same? What are we going to get by being so selfish? And actually speaking...it is more difficult to keep account of what others did for you or didn't do for you than anything else! Why waste time on such trivial matters... when life has so much more to offer to us :)
When I'm baking a cake for a friend, why should I think about what I will get in return..? When I'm looking for a cute dress for my niece, why bother about when I will get a return act of favor... or keep account of when was the last time I bought her something...
Giving today is going to bring a smile on our faces today... The frowns on our faces need to go. And trust me, giving without expectation is one of the warmest human feeling ever...
There is so much to live for in life.. why worry about what happened in the past when it is something we can never change forever? But small acts of giving can give the joy which can heal wounds...which can bring smiles...which can create lasting impressions...which can strengthen all bonds... Isn't this why we have this beautiful life?
Give, give and give... not necessary expensive gifts or money.. It can be a flower, a card, a phonecall, an email or even better - a letter! Can you imagine the joy of receiving a letter.. and how much time does it take to write one? Maybe 10 mins...but it is something the receiver will hold on to for life..and place it in his treasure box..
Life is like a treasure box...lets keep filling it with wonderful things :)
God Bless!

Miss watching cricket....

When I was growing up....cricket was a part of our daily lives...series would come and go and we used to watch the matches, enjoy them, critique them, and then wait for it to start all over again....I never knew what it would be like to not be able to see a match Live...

Cricket has been in my genes...Grandad follows it (and even makes grandma watch it!), Dad passionately watches it (juggles between office work n somehow manages to watch a couple of overs) and Bro has been in US for over a decade, but still follows every match online... So there is absolutely no surprise that I am a major cricket fan!

When cell phones were only for the lucky few, Dad had a pager...and I remember when there was a match going on and if he was at work, I would send him the score on his pager as a numeric message..the last digit was for the number of wickets and the rest was the score...And now thanks to cell phones, he calls home every hour and either mom or me would tell him the current score...

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Ajay Jadeja were my favorites (and some of them still are)...As a school kid, I had their posters on my wardrobe and wrote the Indian team congratulatory messages via the newspaper reader's column...I guess I can owe it to cricket to my first foray into the print media...

Moving to India only increased my passion for the game. The whole atmosphere during matches was something I never experienced in my school days. Living in a hostel meant that we woudlnt get to watch the matches that went up till late, but that's when the radio would help! Radio as entertainment was beginning to catch popularity and what better combination than Hindi songs and cricket updates! I was totally hooked on to it...

I lived so close to the Wankhede stadium, that if there was a match going on...I could actually hear the thousands of people from my room...though all I could see were the shining lights in the black sky... Watching the matches in the hostel tv room was quite an experience too! One match stands out in my mind... the Ind vz Pak match during the 2003 World Cup...when India won.. The girls had gone bezerk watching the match... the room was overflowing the over enthusiastic girls and some of them actually managed to break the sofas in the room... after which all seating was removed from the room and they places mats for us to sit on to watch tv! Sometimes when we did'nt have the time to watch the match, we would be working in our rooms and we would here the ectatic cheers of the girls from the ground floor till the 5th floor every time Sachin hit a six or Bhajji took a wicket....

Another good part about being in Mumbai was that we actually made a girls' cricket team in college and played inter-batch matches...it sure was fun.. One compliment I got from a guy-friend in those days that I shall never forget - "I've never had a gal-friend who would talk so much about cricket with me!" It was true... I never got tired talking about cricket.. and I guess I still dont!

Coming to America was like such a BIG disconnect from cricket.. I had never imagined that it would ever be this way... but this was my new way of following cricket.. cricinfo.com... the only problem I have is of the time difference.. The matches start when you are about to sleep and by the time you get up the result is in.. On most days, the first thing I do as soon as I wake up is pick the laptop and check the score...ya even before I stepped out of bed!

And now I am yearning to watch a Live match... I realise that it sure is such a luxury!

Meeting Deadlines

Can we all really work without deadlines??

Well each of us may answer to this question differently, but the fact remains that with deadlines we definitely 'push' ourselves harder.. We have deadlines all the time, don't we? Deadlines for homework, submissions, bill payments, phone calls, signatures, production, etc etc etc.... And there is always someone on the other end who reminds us of the approaching deadline!

I actually like deadlines...they make sure that I keep working timely instead of pushing off things for later. I wish I could be more organized like some people around me, who have everything planned out neatly..stating what they are doing in the entire month or sometimes even more ahead! I've always taken things as they come and tried to achieve short-term goals than the long-term.. well, I guess that explains why each individual is so unique! Throughout our growing up years and then college, we kind of understand the system that we work best with.. And by the time we start work we apply it to our daily lives....

Coming back to deadlines...I really am amazed at how people at the daily newspaper work. Theirs is one of the strictest deadlines I've ever known. They have to find, write, edit, proof-read, place stories - all in half a day, to make sure the entire newspaper is brought together with no mistakes, no alignment issues and printed on time for a million people to read the next day! I guess in this case the deadlines are for a team.. and the entire team needs to work together to bring about the newspaper.

Do we work best when under pressure of deadline? I've had like a million deadlines throughout my undergraduate and graduate study. Mainly all for presentations, submissions, research papers, models etc. It makes it all crammed in the end, but we always manage to pull it off. I've heard quite a few friends of mine who complain about the strict deadline and feel they could have done better if only they had extra time, maybe just a day more. Well, I'm always glad when a deadline is coming closer, 'coz I know that after that I will be done! And even though if I had a day extra, I would really not be able to achieve anything magnanimous, so why bother! It's best to be just done with it!

I don't have a deadline to write this blog...but I'm still writing it tonight.. because? Because I don't need deadlines to do something I love doing!

Designing Schools

Every city, every village is flocked with buildings/spaces for their different purposes. Amongst the many, a school is a must. Even the most simple of villages will have a space, even if it is under a tree, for a school. The student-teacher relationship has dated back centuries. It is considered by many a holy place where the future of the children and the world is shaped. The space where knowledge passes from one generation to the other, thus becomes an important one.

The trend in school design these days is "Interactive Design". The space that houses the school should help engage the students, teachers and visitors alike. The architecture and interior design becomes successful when it becomes a part of the teaching syllabus. This is a contrast to the traditional classroom style teaching which is prevalent in all schools around the world. Research shows that children can learn better by 'doing' than by 'listening'.
So, how can designers help engage the occupants with the building in a positive manner? This question can be answered if designers engage in a dialogue with the educators and children. It will really help if the designers understand the syllabus and try to bring about a change in the teaching style. For example if students were to learn about solar energy, they should be able to walk up to the roof which has solar panels. Other concepts like rainwater harvesting, nurseries, glass house, wind/water too can be incorporated in the design of the school itself. It also helps integrate nature into children's daily lives which will help ward away Biophilia which is common amongst children today. It will help them experience the concepts before getting an explanation on it.
The environment of the school should be bright and positive. It should be an atmosphere where children can engage with one another. Social interaction is as important as knowledge, and hence it is necessary that gathering spaces within the school are well designed and are numerous in number with varying sizes.
Children are our future. What we shall give them today, we shall get tomorrow. It is our duty, being in any profession, to give the best to children without expecting immediate gains. We have to think about new solutions for the future, and for that we have to understand human needs, values and desires.

Those days....

Its been a year....seems like a lifetime... seems historical.... since my last day in the hostel.... the place where I spent almost 5 years of my life... I really miss it!

the paani paani chai,
the powdery coffee,
the coffee energy,
the hardly working tv.....

the late night gossips,
the early morning shower lines,
the 'anytime' maggie,
the 'no-reason' parties.....

the millions of cats,
the walls that had cracks,
the funny deadlines,
the warnings millions of times...

the friendships,
the bonding,
the groups,
the learning....

i miss being a part of it,
i cherish the memories bit by bit...
i wish i cud roll back time,
and relive each moment, each line...

can i just go back one time?
i promise i wont take long....

Friends

Isnt it amazing how some people can form friendships so quickly...while others will take years of being together to develop...
Well, I have made friends with a couple of sweet ladies at a history class...we just meet once a week during class but its jus so amazing to hear each others stories as we all come from different backgrounds and cultures...When I moved to Boston, I always wondered what it would be like to have friends from other countries.. Well, I think its great.. The little talks just tell so much and seem so much fun...
Back in India, I made awesome friends in college and in my hostel life...there is was like my friends were my family as they were with me ALL the time.. It was amazing how much time we spent with each other.. They are all the best memories ever...Im hoping most of them survive the test of time and distance...!

Tests!

Tests....

Ahhh.... I think of writing about this now as I am in the middle of studying for a history test which is due tomorrow...
Now to think about it, we have give "tests" almost a million times in our lives so far.. And I am not just referring to school and college tests, but also tests that life gives you...when there are difficult times ahead, we call them as "testing times" don't we?
Scheduled tests are always fine...its the surprise tests that gives us the creeps...but I guess after a while we get used to it, and probably good at it too...
The best part about a test I feel, is when the test is over.. :) Its like a feeling of achievement of crossing a massive hurdle...results at this time don't matter too much...Its the feeling of "being done" that is amazing...
And well, every test has to have a result...that can be pretty nerve wracking too!
But, who the hell cares...bring it on, and I'll do my best to face it!