SERIES OF POEMS ON ARCHITECTURE BY KIRAN KALAMDANI

1. KIRAN KALAMDANI

2. “Every great architect is – necessarily – a
great poet. He must be a great original
interpreter of his time, his day, his age.”

3. Wright’s honest arrogance was best expressed in Walt Whitman’s
‘Leaves of Grass’, which he admired and based his life upon.
“Going where I list, my own master, total absolute, listening to
others, considering what they
say, pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, gently, but with
undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space.
The east and west are mine,
and the north and south are mine …
Beware of the moral ripening of nature.
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states of
men
Beware of civilization”

4. PROLOGUE
Urban space in pre-industrial Indian cities is characterised by traumatic transitions. Living
patterns are torn between changing social orders reflecting in transitional life support
systems and the omnipresent cultural continuum.
A rich mix of myth, religion, history and heritage seem to be fighting a loosing battle with
overcrowding, poverty, pollution, traffic jams and thoughtless renewal.
It might be a long time before the Indian urbanite comes to terms with the machine.
Meanwhile the election-crazy politician and his puppet bureaucrat are busy building
monuments to themselves in urban space. Their stepbrother, the corporate executive is
happy with cosmetic surgery or monumental disasters. The well-meaning bureaucrat and
the well-intentioned politician are too often silenced. It is high time the man at the
receiving end wakes up to his impending doom and forges the path to his own salvation.
Revitalizing Shaniwar Wada and its environs is but one step in this long and treacherous
journey.
Kiran Kalamdani, Feb.’ 91.

5. During V.P.Singhs
visit in 1990
The first
performance in July
2000 after
implementation –
Phase I

6. Quiet flows the Godavari at Gangapur
Unsuspecting and Innocent, Inspiring poet and painter,
Into the City of Nine Shikhas
It is Witness to the myths, the tirthas, the scent of man over the millennia
Serene and silent at Someshwar
It then thunders with a violence, cutting rock and fuming
In premonition of the debacle ahead
Cutting a wavy course through farmlands and historic sites
It arrives at Sunder Narayan to witness the spectacle,
The vast cauldron of Man and Myth, churning for salvation across the centuries
Through Kunds and Furrows, Ghats and Gates, along markets and below bridges,
It shrinks and swivels
To make space for God and Man
Aruna-Varuna, Medha-Shraddha, Gayatri-Saraswati,
Sister rivulets long-lost and forgotten, now mere sewers awaiting salvation,
The Gods sit silent in their magnificent and crumbling stone edifices,
while men continue their bizarre rituals of ravages of the Godavari
Washing sin and soil, before death and after.
Abused and deceived, she leaves the Holy Sites

8. The Kumbh Mela of 1991 – Maharashtra’s most important city that relates to the
religious geography of India (photo Kishor Ahirao)

9. TRAGIC TALE OF GODAVARI
Gloomy and Dark,
With little hope and much despair,
Once again at Tapovan she dashes through deep chasms,
Billowing clouds of surf and stench,
Wishing the Shurpanakha without a nose was a universal condition,
the Kapila meeting to console
the dark caves of Lakshmana mourning the tragedy
Further on at Takli, forlorn sits the Ramdas Samadhi
Casting aspersions on ‘Hindavi Swarajya’ and national resurrection
Uneasy flows the Nasardi, equally disillusioned with Humanity
the two sisters meeting quietly to continue their tragic journey
of neglect, abuse and uncertainty.
Kiran Kalamdani, Oct. 10, 1996

12. I am the G.P.O. – Pune,
A modest heritage cousin,
Of sixty others across the
subcontinent
A legacy of colonialism,
Of bureaucracy, ad-hocism and
discontent
I sit in the city centre,
In a Heritage Ambience
With scars of time, wind and rain
Beating me with a Vengeance
I reveal debts to Palladio,
To the Colonizers and the
Vernacular
To tireless stonecutters incognito

13. SWAN SONG
I look back at my past.
The elephants and horses,
Now forgotten stones alas.
My present lies abused.
Leaking, overcrowded and over-used.
I look forward to E-mail and
Electronica.
Helping people communicate,
Remains my Swan Song to
Eternia.
Hoping my conservation,
Urges an era of care and cure.
A balance of my past, present and
future
Of nurturing legacies and carrying
them gracefully
To the oncoming Century!
Kiran Kalamdani, 1994

14. POxacI c`c` Mh`je kay te phav.
.p/šK3Is p/šK3Is Mh`je kay AašfIs 0kda calvun
Ast. phav. trI 0kda k=n .Pa3Rnrixp navaca 2o.Da
.p/Ty9at vaStu ]waraycI phav. payavr paDun
Mh`je kay Ast. b6av 0kda .Kla0.3cI qrqr phavI 0kda
ba.2un 0ekun
.nkaxa kxasa#I lagto phav. .3šKsce p` hPte pahu 0kda
sa{3vr ja}n w=n
.0S3Ime3ce kse bara vajtat .dus–ya.nI keleLya cuka.pa{
mjle phave c!vun AorDa 0kda pahu qa}n
.iD3eil.gca kay bo–ya hoto .hatatl. kam gel. kI kay hot.
b6av. 4apI hatat 6e}n phav 0kda sosun
.kapoRrexnCya la{nIt phav. .keleLya kamaca &ey dus–
0kda 4a.bun yala im;alel. Paahu k2I
.lac, SpIDmnI, peprve3 idva;I pcvun
Mh`je iktI te trI pahu .rojcI mšc Astana yala
.tare vrcI ksrt k=n vaDg. p/šK3Is ka Mh`tat b6u trI
phav. ifrvun 0kda k=n
.
ikr` klmdanI

15. Practice…Practice…what is it lets try it, let us indulge in the Let’s know what it is to set up office with no money to spare,
What it is like to have lots of work & no help, or little work and
agony & ecstasy of it, too many hands to share,
Enough of classrooms, submissions, imaginary Or being paid at long last your dues that were yours with no one
projects, hypotheses and design ‘crits’, to share!
Let’s get into partnerships that are difficult to bear, or ones with
What is it like to actually get a building built? friends who care,
What is the use of a drawing? Let’s go to the site and find Let’s form consortiums, joint
out, ventures, companies, trusts, foundations that then make us
swear,
What is the role, status, image & value of an architect in a Let us collaborate with fellow professionals to see how a project
real world, day in and day out? fares,
Structural, electrical, acoustic, ventilation, interiors, landscape
What happens to an estimate, tender, lets add storeys to a experts to hire you would dare,
building and find out, Complaints, criticism, suggestions, unwarranted intrusions, let us
Whether there is God or the Devil in the detail lets dig it out, learn to bear,
What is the exact meaning of success that happens in
Let’s que up in the local authority to know the meaning of private, and failure that is in public glare,
sanctions, nocs, bribes, paperweights, speed-money What is a tax burden at the end of a year?
and Diwali, What is an assessment, inquiry, audit, advance tax, professional
tax let us be clear,
Explore the maze of What happens when someone else makes a mistake whose
contacts, contracts, liaisons, agreements and blame you have to share?
undertakings When some one else takes away your work how hard it is to bear,
What is it like when someone else takes the credit that was yours
Lets walk the tightrope walk and take the begging bowl to share,
around, Why is it called a Practice when it is a match everyday, and it is
your soul that takes the wear and tear!?
Experience the frustrations of
bills, compensations, competitions, reimbursements Kiran Kalamdani December 26, 2008
and returns,
The triumphs of
awards, adulation, appreciation, admiration and
recognition!

16. O quiet courtyard, O timeless courtyard
How many virtues you behold
You are cool, you are bright
You are safety incarnate at night
With strong walls around
You are a child’s playground
You are festive, you are active
With trees and plants, fountains and
pools,
You are cool-evaporative.
You are a space within a space
To the ensemble you lend grace
Introverted, ornamented, colonaded, ar
caded,
Your types are many-faceted
The ‘haveli’ is yours, the ‘wada’ is yours,

17. The
‘gadhi’, townhouse, ‘mandir’, masjid
, all are yours,
You are omnipresent, ubiquitous
You cut across regions-humid and arid
You are indeed the priceless inheritance
of the tropics
You may be round, you may be square
But of senseless planners you beware
How much life you nurture,
How many lives you nourish,
In future we hope you won’t perish,
Long live the courtyard
O quiet courtyard, O timeless courtyard
Kiran
Kalamdani, Narakchaturdashi, Nov.
2, 1994

18. Are you Commodity firmness and
Delight,
Are you Agony and ecstasy? or ‘Magnificent Volumes in Light’?
Are you real or a fantasy? Are you the churning of climate and
Are you the ‘Holy trinity’? culture,
A process or a product Prima Donna, Partnership or Joint
Conscious or Spontaneous, Art or Venture?
Craft? Structure or Space,
Economy or extravagance?
Do you embrace form or function? Are you Simplicity and honesty,
“Complexity or Contradiction”? Or of Time yet another travesty?
Are you ‘less’, are you ‘more’
But certainly not a ‘bore’? Oh Architecture, Mother of All Arts,
Of society are you a Mirror or a mould? Machine for living and ‘Invisible
Repository of Memories and Miseries fountain’
untold? from which all rhythms flow beyond
Are you ‘Silence’ or are you ‘Sound’? time and infinity.
Frozen Music, Figure or Ground?
Are you Poetry or Prose, KIRAN KALAMDANI
‘Symbol or Social Purpose’?

19. Three weavers in a nest,
Weaving together a dream in right
earnest
In unity is strength, support and
security
But also a compromise rooted in amity
Each one free to explore his world
But with a common responsibility
Beyond the marriage of convenience
Into a partnership of sharing and
harmony
Kiran Kalamdani, Oct. 22, 1998

20. Oh colourful horizon between sun-
up and sun-down
Oh meeting of earth and sky
You are the consummation of
aspiration and ability
Nudging me onward on an endless
journey
In search of new horizons
When I’m sure I have reached you
just,
You open up another world, another
sky, another horizon
Kiran Kalamdani, Oct. 22, 1998