meethapani

Individuality and Collective Identity Every human is 99.5% genetically identical to any other human. It is that 0.5% that makes each person distinctive and unique, which, for a non-scientist like myself, is a truly mystifying fact. From our fingerprints to our personalities, no two humans are identical, not even identical twins. Yet we also have collective identities such as humankind, tribe, family, social class, profession. This duality between individual and group is something we all easily adopt. We have learnt to separate our public and private lives.  However at some point or points in our lives we face a conflict between our individual desires and the social norms we agree to adopt. This conflict, when it becomes public, may lead to social ostracizing, imprisonment, in some extreme cases, even persecution. The only time when individualism is not only accepted but required is in the arts. Artists, musicians, poets and writers and all the creative arts are assu...

The Importance of Being Idle When my daughter was about 3 or 4, and we grown ups were busy talking she would say in great frustration “stop I can’t hear my voice”. She was referring to her inner voice, her thinking process. Of course conversely she would also say in despair “ I can’t stop my think” ! We all need those moments of silence and receptivity to cultivate our inner thoughts. Childhood used to be a time of playing in the neighbourhood with friends, creating imaginative scenarios, flying kites, playing pitho or gilli danda and sorting out disagreements. Then school got to its serious stage and slowly we were expected to be responsible and think of our possible future careers and lives.  Earning a living was important but there was always time to sit with family, or go on outings. People were not less ambitious then. Almost all our most valuable inventions were created before the infamous 80s  -  when the Yuppies ( young upwardly mobile ) defined  ...

‘ A book is like a garden carried in one’s pocket’ Cicero said “ If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”. Some  of my best memories are of reading a book through the night, then going out in the garden to watch the sun come up as the birds awaken, the sun rays catching the dew drops on spider webs. Reading and gardens have a natural association. Both reveal themselves slowly to those who are patient.  Garden design almost always includes spaces that lend themselves to a quiet read surrounded by teeming life that seems to echo the words coming to life as we turn page after page.  Many writers have found inspiration sitting in their gardens or wandering the countryside. Charles Dickens had ‘a Pavilion room in the garden, with a delicious view, where you may write’ More people read books than one would expect given the demands of life today, especially as digital formats are growing.  Even in Pakistan, the literature festivals...

Creative Protest Unpaid lady health workers, a slow investigation of a target killing, electricity breakdowns - regardless of the cause, the protests are usually all the same: burning  tyres or buses, pelting stones, closing main roads. The message is lost in the rioting and its management by the state. How do the silenced speak when there is none to speak for them? It requires creative thought to ensure the message is communicated. In the Bhutto era, when section 144 was imposed banning assembly of 5 or more people, the Lawyers took out an effective protest: 4 lawyers followed at a 20 ft distance by another 4  in a long procession along the road, not breaking any law, not stopping the traffic and yet having an impact. More recently the Fix It movement has been effective in getting the authorities to repair manholes. The poet Shelly wrote  The Mask of Anarchy in 1832, that may be  the first manifesto  of peaceful resistance,  asking protestors...

SHARING  CULTURES I came across someone in London who said he belonged to a group who used only Anglo Saxon words and refused to use ‘foreign’ words brought over during the 1066 French Norman invasion.  Stunned I thought, surely the Angles and the Saxons were of German origin, and 1066?  How long does it take for a culture to be assimilated? Ethnic identities are once again rising to the fore with Brexit and the new Trump era. Pakistan also has its own homegrown ethnic tensions.  Ethnic diversity and cultural diffusion have been the enrichers of human societies. Trade, especially the silk route travelling from Xian to Rome generated so much exchange of not just goods, but stories, language and customs. Wars also brought cultures into contact for years at a time, and in the pauses of active warfare, cultural exchanges took place, and many a friendship was forged, and knowledge exchanged. Migration, whether by choice or necessity, including the dark periods o...

The Transience of Architecture One thinks of architecture as designed  buildings intended to be, if not permanent, at least exist a long time, serving generations, defining cities, reflecting history. As Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”. And then an earthquake or flood or war or willful damage occurs, such as we have witnessed not just in Pakistan but across the ancient cities of Iraq and Syria.  It questions and undermines our authority over our lives, our ability to construct our futures. It makes our lives impermanent and fragile. A basti or riverbank in Karachi is suddenly bulldozed, a politician forces neighbours to vacate their homes at three day’s notice, a road expansion pays off homeowners to sell their collective family memories, a dispute over inheritance forces previous owners to see the painful dismantling of their childhood  paradise. The lofty quotes about designing architecture to last for ...

The Significance of small Things There was a month long strike by waste collectors in London during what came to be known as The   Winter of Discontent, 1978–79, when almost every union went on strike for better pays.  I saw the rubbish bags pile up on the streets till it became difficult for people to go to their offices. It made me realize that in any society, every role is equally important. One can imagine a society like an intricately patterned carpet where a missing thread renders the carpet worthless. 19 C Romantic Poetry  celebrated the “violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye”, the village blacksmith, village school master, or London’s chimney sweeps.  In the 20 th C it became Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine, Steptoe and Son, cheerful characters who found joy in small things    We usually interpret this span from insignificant to splendid in the context of social injustice,  Marxism’s  rich poor divide...