Narrative

Our quench for thirst confines the belief to realize water as a commodity; thereby failing to understand
this element as a metaphysical reality. In its entirety, water observes. It observes Cultures, Beliefs,
People, and consequently their Attitudes. Our behavior towards this entity reflects the reality we adopt
with fellow beings; If clean, you’re regarded, when stained you’ll be casted. When crashing against the
Ghats of Varanasi, water is elevated to Divine rituals, but detested through its stench at the banks of
Ganges. Hence, water becomes the mirror of our society and of ourselves. Our demarcating conventions
between good or bad, pure and filth, has blindfolded us to the nuances of gestures, metaphoric
connotations and their assorted meanings. Water carried our presence as it separated from darkness, held
us safely during wrathful floods, cradled our slumber in reed marshes and anointed our spirits through
cascading ravines. If we are born out of this element, why is it that we now stand detached, unable to
understand the Language of Water. Perhaps, our unending labor on societal Ziggurats has made us forget
the essential truth, that life originated not in sandcastles but sprouted in a blanket of flowing waters.

Argument
The crossroads between BRB and Hudiara narrate Mark Twain’s allegorical divide of the Prince and the
Pauper. A conformist depiction of our modern society, where Hudiara’s dirt, filth and stench signifies the
working class while the maintained and protected embankments of BRB, denotes an affluent’s
domain. While flowing through varying levels, both channels symbolize the vivid hierarchy found within
society; the rich rowing atop picturesque waters while the down-trodden crashing through swamps and
stones. Here, the syphon isn’t just an engineered divide but personifies the stark reality of our classist
community.

This paradox recalls Galton’s nature/nurture conflict. Here, nurture bears the supreme cause. As both
streams are linked through the binding Nature of water, it’s our difference in its Nurture which has
constituted such distinctions. One may extract that societies founded on demarcated cores, lie on a verge
of unparalleled havoc; and its best framed through the site itself. Up from the skies as you observe heads
down, a vast pagan cross emerges through the land; echoing its warning as a metaphor for death. The
following extract balances the scale well,

Up he resides in fine lined groves; unaware of down-street trends, where gluttonous marshes have engulfed my soul,

He slumbers upon paved beds, made out of stone; a constant reminder to my crook jagged flow

My channel lies exhausted by insults and forlorn; so I creep silently, under my counterpart’s home

Bathing through caramel threads, he races due course; those plotted blinkers around, guard him against the flock

Boys, buffaloes, bells, clamor in his domain; while bones, beetles, brooms despair through my terrain.

We do greet by the bridge, every once in a while; blending our reality that makes us unite

The former stanza emphasizes on a contrasting reality, structuring the paradigms we live through. Today,
we breathe an air of what doesn’t look nice, cover it up with something that does. Be it palm lined
avenues or cracked vinyl planters, our frivolous attempts to conceal ugliness has revealed our own
aesthetical hypocrisy. Why do proportionate scales or cladded ideologies define parameters of
beauty? Who decides what is ugly and who defines what is true? Like Victor Hugo quotes in Les
Miserables, “A sewer is a cynic, it tells everything.” We can deduce from Hugo’s expression that because
man’s reality is mirrored in such waters, he hates to even look at its surface; hence calibrating the former
to cover his own filth.

Architecture’s own premise often chalks out a similar line between metaphoric and pragmatic concerns.
The former, debunked romantic is considered lacking application; while the latter being functional, is
seen rather banal. As a result, one oscillates constantly in this diverging pendulum; never realizing how
cohesive is its whole chronography. Maybe this divide stems from the fact that in realization for the
purpose, we have altogether forgotten the poetics.

Julia Watson’s theory of socio-ecological spirituality, projects this symbiotic relation between man and
his abode; nature. Watson challenges the synonymous clichés of low-tech as Primitive; indigenous as
bygone, elaborating intricately how archaic settlements have and still are accomplishing tasks through
nature’s participation. “-in our rush towards the future, we tend to forget about the past”. (TED Watson
2020). The Meghalayan tribes of Garo or Mawlynnong exemplify their resonance with complex
ecosystems through poetic sensibilities. Their spiritual homogeneity with Gaia’s elements, transcend
pragmatic realms; they worship the verdant-scapes they breathe through. So, while designing for man,
they never dismiss her maker.

As conceivers and creators of the future, our explorations and experiments should align similar
trajectories. It’s high time we stop associating dystopian fantasies or Sci-fi realities as Futuristic
archetypes. Instead of mapping out over nature, maybe it’s time to share a trek with her. Perhaps learning
from water, and flowing likewise; orienting through her realms in a mystical journey.