The Train & the Storm a brief take on design equity and social disparity
Kabeer Guliani
The world didn’t start off as a sphere of concern for equity. The world never rendered itself as a haven for negativity and socially detached levels of what we now call ‘society.’ Our world was never a predominantly chaotic map of differences and constant turmoil. One may say these sentences are crude, with a dash of hopelessness; hostile, even. However, one can not help but simply accept the fact that we live in a realm of conflict and forced hierarchy, where reasoning sometimes shows itself out the door. It isn’t solely the fact that we as humans have gone to such great lengths to ‘rise’ above the ranks and soar miles above the expectations of the normal, but it also expands to the point of no return where we grow up to accept the machinations of this ball of water and dirt, and eventually force ourselves to find something, or someone, to blame when society doesn’t dance around our fingers. The blatant disregard for proper judgment and an incentive to make things right is why we simply can not find ourselves riding into the sunset on the bandwagon of hope and camaraderie. You are not reading the words of a pessimist. You are not reading an essay about hopes and dreams. You are neither reading the words of a self-proclaimed realist. You are merely part of something much bigger than yourself, the magnitude of which can be increased by, if all goes well, just an iota, and you may just find yourself back where you were before we actually began to wonder why things are as they are. Factually speaking, almost 70% of the country of India is sidelined onto the pathways of poverty and subject to the extremities that political endeavours can generate. The great Theodore Bagwell from the famous show Prison Break once told Michael Scofield that when things brew up top, the crumbs always fall to the ones down below – well, something along the lines of that; and he is never wrong. Those higher up the ladder tend to take the wit and brainpower of those several steps beneath them for granted. And for each such individual, it’s always only a matter of time before questions are asked, and voices are bound to be heard. Now of course we must not restrict ourselves to faults in the system along the lines of the economy; it may just be the biggest part of our lives, knowingly or unknowingly, but it can not be the most important. The more time we humans spend striving for progress, the more chances we have of falling apart, of forgetting how to live; survival becomes our best bet. Now, moving forward, we learn new things. We let majority win over us; when the Internet tells us that young teens with social anxiety are pathetic, young teens with social anxiety, do, indeed, become pathetic; when the Internet introduces us to its ‘cancel culture,’ we comply. Now take this very analogy and put it into the not-so-virtual world - what do you get? Cooperation. Mayhem. Goodwill. Pandemonium. Triumph. Scarcity. Harmony. Hell. Additionally, the toxic manner of the segregation of ideas and beliefs into different communities speaks volumes about where we stand as one united nation, as a united world. Our temporal concerns, our secular interests, our sexualities, our age, our physical and cognitive abilities, all converge and set out flares and rockets of differences in all directions, and what we end up with is a divided kingdom of Caesars’ and Brutus…es. As students of the mother of all arts, we have the ability to change water into wine. It is all simply a matter of how we use this to our advantage. Creating space is arguably the most important factor to be starting games for us managers of creativity. Each and every element of society owes its roots to the creation of a simple space where it was meant to carry out its functions, and ceaselessly expand, if ambitions were high. Nowadays, the entirety of the concept of ‘Design’ rests upon a beacon of ego and opportunity. The ideas of praise and recognition have infiltrated and poisoned our brains to become a particular type of people. It’s almost as if we’re all unknowingly part of a secret organization whose numerous hands stretch across the entire globe, oblivious to the actual good we can do with our set of individual skills. Rather than standing against architecture as a whole, we must come together to pull the switch lever and send our train onto the right path. It all starts with land. Land is constantly outsourced to individual buyers for their personal interests. Housing, however, needs the attention it deserves. Masses of people who do not have a sheet to cover their heads often do not find themselves mentally, emotionally, or even physically stable enough to break these chains and march forward with their heads held high. The very idea of not having a comfortable abode to retire to, the thought of losing it all, is exactly what stops the drive. As architects, our responsibility towards society requires us to be looking out for opportunities where we can take the form of the goddess Parvati and create something real out of dirt, not where we can prove to the world our artistic prowess (a very subjective term in itself), and/or how high we can pull foundations out of the ground. Creating a list of reforms may not be in question for a 1000-word essay, but we can ignite a flame by identifying exactly where the crevices lie and how we can fill them in with whatever hope and motivation we can get our hands on. By now we definitely know how far the government goes to bring reform; it’s not very far. In fact, it’s the bare minimum. Freedom of Speech isn’t just a block of cheese skewered by a toothpick on a platter at your local Big Bazaar, or a wooden spoon of Baskin-Robbins
