India for Beginners

I am mindful of the fact that this collective account is about my travels through Africa. This project, however, has grown tentacles as these initiatives often do. Hence I found myself in India for a week: attendance at the Asian Planning Schools Association conference in Ahmedabad and a visit to the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Delhi. A week is hardly enough to inform a balanced view - a year would probably just be enough!

India is unlike any place I had been to. It is completely overwhelming: the colour, the crowds and the constant traffic noise. Hooting has replaced traffic signals and conventions as a means of communication. I tried to deconstruct the code. A short friendly little playful honk: 'be careful I am about to change two lanes at once and you are in the way'; a longer insistent but not terribly agressive hoot: 'don't veer into my lane because the vehicle on your other side is about to do so by changes two lanes...'; a loud and aggressive hoot is reserved for slow drivers, non-motorised transport users and those paying attention to traffic signals....

I was able to make this (probably flawed) analysis from the back of a three-wheeler, ubiquitous little vehicles that dodge traffic with enormous skill, are cheap and appear to be available anywhere at any time. Apparently these little gems of mobility run on two-stroke engines and provided a much needed source of employment with Ahmedabad's textile industry restructured in the 1990s. Travelling in them is an adventure as they dodge buses and cross 3-lane traffic circles with ease. I could touch some of the vehicles we overtook and intercepted!

Besides its textiles, the city of Ahmedabad is famous for its 400-year heritage and intends to have its walled area declared a World Heritage site. Quite what that means for the city and its inhabitants remains unclear to me. The symbols of its Jain, Hindu and Islamic heritage are stunning. Colourful and intricately carved temple exteriors provides community focal points for the various pols (enclosed neighbourhoods) and elegant chabutras (bird feeders) emphasise small public squares where narrow lanes converge. Juxtaposed with these elements of ancient urban design are buildings designed by Le Corbusier, Doshi, Louis Khan and Charles Correa. Paradoxically, the former plunges one into the chaos of the city whilst these latter monuments to the machine age and the proud era of post-colonial India provide solace from the din of street traffic. Khan's Institute of Management is impressive in an intimadating and inaccessible way. Correa's work I love. I spent a whole afternoon inGhandi's ashram as a testiment to the great man but also to revel in the beautifully articulated spaces that so effortlessly interface with the lush natural surroundings.

In an article entitled 'How to be a Cultural Superpower' the Times of India outlines 3 easy steps: export Indian items such as yoga, cinema and ayurveda; open Indian cultural centres in major capitals and offer subsidised courses teaching appreciation of Indian culture. It strikes me that all this is unnecessary. India does not need to try so hard.