HISTORY OF DESIGN

The Key to the Alternate Present

2008-10-19T14:03:00.001-07:00

Right after reading the forgotten map by Manfred Max-Neef, I really needed some time jus to sit back and think about what he was trying to say. It is indeed very thought provoking. It gives a key or guide to answering the few main questions of Life and our existence on this planet, which every man has come up against, some ignore while others try to seek out the information or may I say knowledge. Manfred takes us through a small journey back in time where we discuss meanings related to terms “Decision”, “Direction” and “Reason”. Manfred even counters the same will of a man’s journey towards knowledge, in this case, our existence, and shows us that there are some things more important than knowledge if we want to realize the truth.
Manfred first discusses how we got here. “Here” in terms of Time. How important was the journey here? Well, after I had a read through, I’ll say It is as important and précis as it gets. In a nutshell, An action, statement or say even a word could have changed you, your beliefs and also your very existence. One tiny little change in the past would make hell of a difference in our time. Therefore a small change you make now makes a huge change in the future. As Spanish Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset had said “I am myself and my circumstance.”
12th century, Italy, Giovanni Bernardone or shall I say Francis of Assisi referred to a world full of love and relation within every being. Man would have had feelings for all that is there around us. But a little later in Italy, Machiavelli’s stated “It is much safer to be feared than to be loved” . He had made a statement sharing his views. But he had actually created a new world, a new direction. The gravity of the situation makes a huge impact when we think of it now. The reason? Well we chose to follow Machiavelli and thus came up with concepts for our social, political and economical concerns.
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola faced this world, but wanted to attain spiritual renovation and believed it could reconcile humanity. Did he set a new path? Not really. Francis Bacon suggested we explore nature. The more we unravel about the nature the more we unravel about ourselves. Now the people chose to believe this, and from then on research and knowledge was everything needed to know. But Giordano Bruno in 1600 AD believed that Earth and everything in it had life, that earth had a soul. Was it going to make a change?
There was change, but it was towards the path lead by René Descartes who had said “What I see through my window are hats and coats covering automatic machines.” as a result we have witnessed the triumph of mechanism and reductionism. From then on scientists, mathematicians, physicists and inventors were on the high. The Earth became a playground for science. Man was overcome by the wonderful feeling when he had discovered something new. Man started reasoning more, knowledge was power, science was the beginning and the end.
But Goethe, known more for his literary works than his successful pursuits in the field of science felt upset with the limitations of the Newtonian physics. For Goethe, “science is as much an inner path of spiritual development as it is a discipline aimed at accumulating knowledge of the physical world. It involves not only a rigorous training of our faculties of observation and thinking, but also of other human faculties which can attune us to the spiritual dimension that underlies and interpenetrates the physical: faculties such as feeling, imagination and intuition.” Science, as Goethe conceived and practiced it, has as its highest goal the arousal of the feeling of wonder through contemplative looking, in which the scientist would come to see God in Nature and Nature in God.
Now I could say that the path which we have chosen compared to the path shown by Bernardone, Francesco Pico, Giordano Bruno and Goethe, They are two different worlds. How vast the difference would have been.
But take the world we live in. We have reached science’s limitations almost. We have concepts to economize our lives. Systems to maintain balance. But are we successful entirely? Manfred points out that man is still missing something. He feels poor, and what Manfred is trying to implicate is that man lacks spiritual power. He compares the situation to love. We can have numerous studies on love from many perspectives. But scientifically we only attain knowledge, but not understanding. We have to experience love to understand it. Thus Manfred points out that the completeness of our being might rely on the relation between science and spiritualism. Science makes man think, gives him a medium to explore. Man might have just not explored spirituality yet. Now even thought man had a balanced approach towards this point there is still poverty, war and many other hazards. What if another path had actually found ways of bringing truth and peace through understanding.
That is what Manfred makes us realize. Our pursuit of knowledge has postponed our navigation towards understanding. Maybe the inner peace that Goethe is talking about might actually help in solving the confusions through attaining understanding of everything around us. He also proposes an idea to change the language. What if man realized the miracle of life, his perceptions would change drastically. This change could make a beginning, A new path.

Tiffin Story

2008-10-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

Tiffin carriers or dabbas are a kind of lunch box used widely in India for tiffin meals. Normally they come in two to three-tiers. Tiffin carriers are opened by unlocking a small catch on either side of the handle, then removing it.

It is very simple product, yet highly significant and efficient, with a basic purpose of storing and transporting food, a product which is easily affordable, and without any question, a product which is a part and parcel of every Home/Kitchen.

With the opening up of more and more restaurants, dhabas, canteens, messes and fast foods in every part of the world, the practice of “carrying food” has greatly reduced.

The Beginning:

In Indian context, the concept/idea of transporting/storing food dates back to the mythology of Mahabharat.

Lord Krishna used to steal butter from stacked pots hanging from the ceiling. During olden times, long ago when there was no use of metal vessels, mud pots were extensively used to prepare, store as well as transport food. Starting from bigger size, the next smaller sized pots are filled with food and stacked in size order.

For this purpose, coconut fibre is woven into a thick and firm ring of sorts, and a tight rope passes through 3 equidistant points in the ring, to form a cone when lifted. Now the pots, whose rims are covered securely by cloth, are stacked over the ring in size order. This whole thing can now be lifted by the rope over long distances.

Generally Indian women used to conveniently carry the stacked pots on their heads using the ring. In additional to that, storing food in mud pots is desirable due to their properties, especially water and other liquids.

So the whole process of stacking up food in containers is inspired from this. This tells us that the highly useful Tiffin carriers we use everyday have their root connections to a period since myth began.

Traditional Indian Kitchens:

Cooking vessels were not so sophisticated many years ago in India; though the food that came out of those traditional kitchens was as delicious, aromatic and flavourful, or maybe more.

Traditional kitchens had a distinctive but simple range of kitchenware. Still the number of spices and condiments stored in such a kitchen needs a veteran cook to expertise on. Many of these utensils are still an integral part of Indian kitchens. One of them is the Tiffin carrier.
Home and Kitchen: -

· The first thing which comes to our mind when we consider an Indian kitchen is the transition from a contemporary kitchen to a modular one.
· Whatever are the changes in an Indian kitchen, the richness and variety of food and ingredients remain the same.
· Do these changes affect the usage of tiffin carriers to any extent?

Let’s take a look at the transition of Indian kitchens:

Contemporary Indian Kitchen:

· The use of traditional, ancient kitchen implements, vessels and other utensils are still in sound use today not only in urban parts of the nation, but also in rural cities.
· The very significance of the implements like stone grinders, stone wares, brass utensils and tiffin carriers, etc. add a touch to the taste of the food in order to retain the Indian-ness of food.

Taste of Food:

· The change in usage of brass utensils and tiffin carriers to aluminium and stainless steel (SS) due to its heaviness, rare availability and high cost, has made a direct impact to the taste of food.
· Nowadays, SS is preferred to aluminium because of its soft metal properties, high corrosiveness to heat and its toxic nature.
· But as far as the taste is concerned, the delicious touch to the food is not retained when one opens an SS carrier, when compared to a brass carrier.
· A major Indian population have adapted themselves to a colonial range of food. Ex: - A South Indian would prefer to stick to his colonial thali rather than the north Indian thali in routine life.
· Indian authentic traditional platter is purely vegetarian.
· And colonial food culture is in turn affected by the availability of crops grown, cultivated lands, history and geography of the place, as India has a rich and ancient culture.
· We always prefer a particular range of routine traditional and colonial food to satisfy out regular appetite.
· And as far as tiffin carriers are concerned, the kind of food packed in them invariably change from state to state within the country.
· With the advent of Western food culture and more and more Indians getting adapted to it, isn’t it obvious that the significance of Carriers is depleting?

Context and Viewpoint:

· Let us look at the tiffin carrier with a Zoom out viewpoint.
· We find Stainless Steel carriers constantly being opened, used and assembled with respect to various contexts such as Lunchtime, working people, labourers, office going people, school going children, and occasional events like Festivals, Picnics, tourists, visits, etc.
· With such a massive usage of this product in day to day life, more and more industries are interested in this object‘s manufacture in mass production, to suit everyone of all economic standards.
· All this brings in variety in tiffin carriers that were, are being and will be manufactured.
· Another important context where we find the carrier is the “Dabbawallas”. Day in and day out they transport the precious food safely and on time, being a big helping hand to Human Society.

Ornamentation:

· Antique tiffin carriers made out of precious material such as Gold, Silver or Brass, and decorated with fine intricacy and richness, and portraying the influence of Asian Art is no more a part of daily usage or manufacture.
· These rare artefacts are either showcased or treasured in museums/libraries.
· The priority of the society for food and kitchen tools, especially women during the early times was very high.
· The designs, styles and techniques such as gold lacing, enamel paints, stone studded, floral prints and motifs, nature inspired shapes and forms were used to ornament the exterior of the carriers, when the interiors were kept as simple as possible, for convenience and cleaning purposes.
· Even the locking mechanism was heavily stylized, and it had the simple spoon fitting system (the spoon was beautifully ornamented).
· Today, the industries aim at providing this extremely valuable product to the general public of all economic classes which has resulted in the present form and function of the carrier today.

Colonial Encounter:

· A very interesting point about tiffin carriers in an article about the Raffles Hotel, Singapore – March 18th 2006 gives us an overview of its history:

“We have come for tiffin, and according to the sign outside, we are at the right place. This is the Tiffin Room at Raffles Hotel in Singapore - a starched white room with high ceilings and chandeliers, evoking a decadent colonial past.

The food is kind of colonial. "Is this tiffin?"

"Not really, most people think it's got something to do with Tiffany but it comes from the carriers - over there, at the end of the room."

Up on the wall, behind the chef's white hat, is a display case of brightly painted cans. They look like saucepans stacked one on top of the other, and their purpose is - or was - to carry food, keeping it hot or cold and free of flies.

The Raffles tiffin carriers have a history. Sourced from antique shops locally and overseas, the carriers recall a tradition that the British adopted from India and brought with them to Singapore.

When the Raffles Hotel opened, in 1887 - named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the British colonist and founder of London Zoo, who claimed Singapore for the British East India Company in 1824 - tiffin carriers were in common use.

With two, three or four tiers and decorated with enamel paint, they were used to carry food from kitchens to workplaces or on long journeys, keeping it fresh on the way.

By the mid to late 19th century the word "tiffin" had come to mean lunch. A light lunch - often curry - served about midday. In 1899, "Tiffin Curry" was a regular on the menu at Raffles.

Tiffin carriers are still common in India - used by contract caterers or those who prefer to cook and carry their own - but in Singapore's Indian quarter, Little India, they have become few and far between.

Tiffin carrying was popular until the 1960s - "I'll tiffin it back" meant the same as "I'll grab a takeaway" - but it is the Chinese, who have adopted the tradition today, claiming it was theirs all along.

"Some carriers are very plain, some are very elaborate," explains Ron Shing, an antiques dealer with one carrier that should be in the glass case at Raffles, it looks so similar to those on display.

"Some people carry them to weddings, or to the temple. With the Silk Road and the trade routes through India and China, it's hard to know who discovered them first."

The origin of tiffin carriers is debatable but there is no doubt as to what they have become. More airtight, but lacking the decor of their ancestors, today's aluminium "food carriers" are freely available from pottery shops in Chinatown.

It is more reliable for preserving your picnic lunch. You can buy a small one for about $10. Fill it with takeaway curry and have tiffin with no frills. Or go to Raffles, where the tiffin experience is served on china plates and the carriers are only on display.”
· During the British rule in India (The East India Company), after the Industrial Revolution, it might have been possible that the first mechanised Tiffin Carrier was manufactured?

The impact of Lifestyle:

· With the attack of western culture into the east, a great deal of changes has happened over the few years. The material world has set in. Economy, infrastructure, fashion, trends, quick life, etc. are the main criteria of this changing world.
· Lifestyle has not only changed the physical living, but has also added to the views of the people. Time being one of the most important factors today; a working woman wouldn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen.
· We feel that in such a fast forward world, the necessity of carriers makes it simpler for us, as far as packing and transporting food is concerned.

Modular Kitchen:

· Unlike any contemporary traditional Indian kitchen, in today’s city life, the major population prefers the completely designed Modular kitchens, not knowing that they still lack the fulfilment of an ideal Indian kitchen, however modern they are.
· A modular kitchen will look simple, seem simple, aesthetically designed for the cook’s comfort, proper spacing and lighting, use of artificial, long lasting materials, and all, but it is the most complicated task for the cook to organise, remember and sort out the kitchen items individually for his/her convenience, especially in such a kitchen.
· The Indian touch and taste to the whole process of cooking is enveloped by an artificial hi-fi sense of making food using all kinds of gadgets and artificial processes.
· This actually saves a lot of time, especially for working women nowadays, but it has affected the food habits, the adaptability to many kinds of food, and taste of food to a great extent.
· It’s actually a more hectic job to maintain a modular kitchen than a normal Indian kitchen.
· A modular kitchen uplifts the economic status and standard of living of that home.
· Well what we need is the sophisticated simplicity of a modular kitchen, Indian touch of cooking, designed more towards the cooking of Indian cuisine.
· Modular kitchen has made a great impact on the manufacturing of tiffin carriers.

How does a Modular kitchen affect Tiffin Carrier?

· It’s obvious that through this evolution of the kitchen, the INDIAN also has evolved.
· When one wants one’s kitchen to be designed elaborately, one would also want one’s kitchen implements like the Tiffin Carrier to be re-designed according to the modern age.
· Stainless steel industries not only in India, but also abroad are considering this product with high priority as the market demands for it more and more. Well in India and China, everyone already knows its importance and necessity.
· Well as far as any Indian home is concerned, modular or contemporary, old or new, the carrier always has its simple yet high significance. It’s just in today’s lifestyle, people are very conscious about user time, style and appearance of the carrier and it’s pricing.
· And fortunately, the carrier has its advantages at all these levels.

Health and Hygiene:

· Today’s Stainless steel carrier manufactures make sure ISO standard steel is used in their manufacture. Even the forms and overall shape of the carrier is enhanced in order to ensure easy cleaning, and maintenance of a carrier.
· But generally when a metal carrier is concerned, it is in no way any harm to the environment, on the other hand it reduces the usage of plastic food packaging.
· And a tiffin carrier is the safest thing to eat from, always.

Priorities:

· We have seen how more significant it is in today’s life, yet why do we get the feeling that there is a decreasing priority of tiffin carriers.
· In earlier times, a carrier was the first thing that was thought of when storing or transporting food was a concern. Especially with Indian and Chinese women, they are very nostalgically attached to the carrier for what it does. These can be some of the reasons why the earlier manufactured carriers were heavily ornamented.
· With the advent of fast foods, restaurants and packaged food systems, there has been a direct impact on the priorities of a carrier.
· Have the priorities changed over the other modern implements and these changes today?
· Do we still appreciate and acknowledge the fact of the significance, beauty of the tiffin carriers for what they are and what they do?

Technology/ Manufacture:

· Earlier, brass carriers were hand-beaten over moulds.
· Then came aluminium which is an abundant soft metal, cheap, but unhygienic to eat from in the long run.
· Since the Industrial Revolution, more and more stainless steel industries have come up converting the aluminium carriers into hard metal stainless steel, which is perfectly safe for the health, even in the long run.
· Mechanised processes and latest manufacturing techniques with high precision save manufacturing time and enhance the quality and precision of the product, etc.
· With the integration of new processes and techniques, the form, colour, material, and the tiffin carrier as a whole changes according to the market demand and target customers.

Evolution of form:

· The whole concept of stacking up vertically thus saving space has given rise to the basic form of the tiffin carrier.
· Later concerns relating to size, convenience, etc. have added to the evolution of its form.
· The tiffin carrier we see today is all about identical containers individually stacked one upon another fastened by a lock-handle mechanism, which has also evolved over the period of time.
· The rich decorated and ornamented forms have transformed into simple mass produced SS carriers. The essence of the rich decoration has today been replaced by the elegant simplicity of the product.

Materials:

· Brass carriers are ideal for the purpose, but expensive which ultimately led to the use of Aluminium as a material.
· But as aluminium is unhygienic and toxic to health on the long run, they have been replaced by Stainless steel.
· As industries prefer SS due to its cheap production and processing, SS have become ideal for today’s world.
· Today starting from the container to the lid, lock- mechanism, and handle, SS is used for the manufacture.
· With more and more research and technology coming up, tiffin carriers are also made using Melamine, which is non-toxic, scratchproof, heat resistant and insulator, easy to clean and maintain, weightless, aesthetically appealing, but expensive. E.g.:
Remmerco tiffin carrier (England) made of white gastronom melamine priced at INR 800/-

· Tomorrow, carriers may also be manufactured in ceramic (porcelain), like the vintage carrier, and porcelain being an amazing material for the purpose; it beats all other materials in use. With the use of Porcelain in carriers, one can also provide glazing and other surface designs to enhance their priority in today’s world.

Techniques and Processes:

· Since ages, the basic vertical form of a carrier has remained the same, but the locking mechanism has undergone changes.
· Initially, the lock system of the carrier was such that from the bottommost container, 2 thin vertical bars arise from the opposite sides. These bars run parallel to the carrier upwards. At the lid, they bend towards each other to form a handle. Both the bars have holes at the handle through which a metal spoon is fitted, in order to make the bars stay in position to be able to carry.
· Industrial manufacture no more use moulds or jigs for production. Automated CNC lathe machines and others have created a revolution in the production techniques.
· Nowadays, in order to keep the food hot for quite a longer period, hot-bags and hot packs have been introduced.
· The concept of Thermal Insulation (materials used to reduce the rate of heat transfer, or the methods and processes used to reduce heat transfer) came to India only during the 1970’s. With this industries like Eagle and Milton came up with hot packs.
· Vacuum flask cooking was introduced to the Asian market in the mid-1990s. The vacuum cooker is a stainless steel vacuum flask. The flasks come in various sizes ranging from 20-40 cm (8-16 in) in diameter and 25 cm (10 in) tall. A removable pot, with handle and lid, fits inside the vacuum flask. The pot and contents are heated to cooking temperature, and then sealed in the flask. The flask simply reduces heat loss to a minimum, so that the food remains at cooking temperature for a long time, and cooks without continued heating. Note that the food is not cooked in a vacuum. It is cooked inside a vacuum flask. The hollow evacuated wall of the cooker thermally insulates its contents from the environment, so they remain hot for several hours.
· A hot bag consists of insulated rexin cloth from the inside, which is stitched to a tough material outside with a long wrap handle for convenience. A hot bag keeps the food warm enough for at least 5 hours.
· Whereas a hot pack is an insulated plastic vessel with a lid, and it keeps the food warm for a greater time.
· There are also electric hot case tiffin carriers, where an electric heating system is internally available in the hot-pack. So one can heat up food later also for half an hour before the meal.

Changes in Form/Colour:

· As we have already seen how the rich, decorated and ornamented carriers, even though they are treasured today, have been replaced by the aesthetically elegant simplicity.
· The basic cylindrical form is also played with, modifying it into slightly different forms.
· In the new carriers, every container has a lid. The product is today admired for the Stainless steel shine, rounded edges, ergonomically designed handles and locking mechanism, user sensitivity, and the long lasting effect of its clear shine.
· Earlier, including the Chinese carriers, a lot of floral, mythical and natural motifs were engraved or enamelled on them. This raised the importance of the carrier, brought in nostalgic moments to the user, transformed it into a product of extreme beauty, and also enhanced the cultural impact on them.
· The colour of the carriers is usually stainless steel silver, but different user groups prefer metal paints of various colours on them.
· With the packaging of carriers using hot-packs or hot-bags, the external appearance of the hot-packs and hot-bags are aesthetically designed.

Packaging:

· Tiffin carriers nowadays come as a lunch box set, along with spoons, forks, water bottle, etc. all packed in a zipped hot-bag neatly. This is one way of the Industrialist to attract customers as well.
· For example, let’s see a company’s profile:
Swanmac/Lunchmate is India’s first Stainless steel vacuumised tiffin carrier.

Made with the highest grade of stainless steel- AISI 304 (Salem Stainless Steel), Lunchmate is hygienic and very durable. It is vacuum insulated.Features:
· Avoid storing hot and cold food items together.
· Remove the inner containers and store ice cubes in the outer case.
· Boil milk. Allow it to warm. Add little curd. Transfer into Lunchmate and fix the lid as usual. Curd sets faster in Lunchmate.
· Lunchmate should be cleaned with warm soap water. No other precautions are necessary. When not in use, keep the lid open.
· Sizes: 2,3,4,5 containers.

· Packaging has become a very important factor for SS industries also. Thus packaging not only encases the carrier, but also adds a brand value to it, enhances the features to attract the customers and also gives protection to the carrier.

Branding:

· Advertisements of Ever silver marts give the public a general idea of all Stainless Steel wares, including Tiffin Carriers.
· The World Wide Web has enabled online shopping, e- ads, search engines providing information, and many more related to the purchase of a Carrier. E.g.: E-Bay, Amazon, online Bazaar, etc.
· The basic awareness of a tiffin carrier in market is done by Branding.

Economics/Pricing:

· Industries look at producing better carriers at lower costs. And since the competition is very high, they employ all possible methods to save money, by adding in new forms, more mass production, cheaper but sustainable material, choosing suitable production techniques, etc.
· They aim at minimum wastage of material, minimum usage of power, labour and maximum production and attract maximum dealers. All this is possible with new enhanced designs, new forms, better user interface, and better ergonomics and a dazzling appearance to the tiffin carrier, giving it a whole new dimension.
· Carriers are available in the market for all standards of people, from the poor, the middle class, and the upper middle class to the rich (categorisation done only for understanding).
· Depending upon the number of containers, the quality and company of the stainless steel and the lock system, etc. the tiffin carriers are priced. Generally the carriers come in 3, 4 or 5 containers in stainless steel.
· A very conventional stainless steel tiffin carrier of 4 containers would cost around INR 175-250/- Such carriers are mass produced and sold to the wholesalers who in turn sell them to the retailers.
· With the introduction of Hot-bags and hot-packs, the rates have drastically gone up.

Foreign Exchange:

· A lot of export of tiffin carriers happens in India, and Indian stainless steel experts also go abroad and work for their tiffin carrier production.
· In some cases, foreign industries visit India just to know about the product, its manufacturing techniques and processes…
· Foreign industries have also seen its significance and necessity in their places as well, so they have their production of a variety of carriers available to all international customers.
· Online shopping is in boom, despite customs tax, shipping charges, and other charges.
· Its priority and awareness throughout the world gets highlighted with foreign exchange.

The Dabbawallas:

Dabbawallas
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

The Financial Times reports on Mumbai’s dabbawallas, “an army of [5,000] men who deliver with faultless precision 200,000 meals to workers in the city direct from their homes in the suburbs using nothing but the city’s battered commuter railway system and bicycles.” (J. Leahy, “High-tech meets low-tech over lunch,” 8 May 2008.)

To fully appreciate the Dabbawallas’ achievements, a person first needs to see the rickety state of Mumbai’s infrastructure. A trip to the airport that should take 30 minutes can take two hours due to chronic congestion.

The trains are so overcrowded that people are frequently killed falling off the roofs of the carriages or being hit by poles alongside the tracks as they hang out of the doors. Monsoon rains regularly bring the city to a halt.

Yet none of this faces the dabbawallas. Daily, from about 9am, each dabbawalla collects a tiffin carrier – a tall, cylindrical, stacking metal food container loaded with different dishes – from 35 customers’ homes in the suburbs.

The colour-coded tiffin carriers are put in the luggage compartments of suburban trains and taken to the city, where the correct tiffin carriers are delivered to the correct individual customers starting at about 12.30pm, in time for lunch. From 1.15pm, the dabbawallas begin collecting the tiffin carriers again to deliver them back to individual customers’ homes, in a reversal of the whole process.

Like any successful corporation, the dabbawallas have a firmly entrenched culture and well-developed sense of mission and branding.
Founded in 1890, they claim to be descendants of the soldiers of Shivaji, the 17th century king who held off the Muslims in the area that is now the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the modern capital.

Most of them are shareholders of the [Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity] trust, drawing a monthly salary of about Rs5, 000.

“People recognize us by our Gandhi topi [hat] and our white kurta pyjama, which is our biggest brand,” says Mr Medge.*

While their average education is eighth grade, and many are illiterate, the dabbawallas have been given a Six Sigma performance rating of 99.999999 by consultants and a quality management system standard ISO 9001:2000 certificate. They claim to have an error rate of 1 in 16m.

*Mr. Raghunath D. Medge is president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust.
Mr. Medge presented Prince Charles a tiffin carrier and a traditional Indian Dress for his wedding anniversary. Prince Charles being impressed visited India to invite him for the wedding feast at London.

Symbolic Life:

· Any Chinese or Indian woman, who spends a great deal of time in the kitchen, would consider a tiffin carrier as a very symbolic and memorable part of her life.
· When she sees a tiffin carrier, she would definitely miss a bit because it is one kitchen item that she cannot do without.
· Basically a carrier refers to the countries of India and China.
· It also symbolises delicious home made food that doesn’t upset your stomach. It symbolises Lunch time, afternoon, routine life, etc.

Failures/ Disadvantages:

· Plastic containers have been a great failure in concern with food packaging. They are no match to any tiffin carrier.
· Any alternative ware to the carrier like Tupper wares has been a failure.
· A carrier is a disadvantage when it strikes public areas with a bomb placed in it:

Ahmedabad, July 26
Blast inside AMTS bus claims one life, leaves eight critically injured.

A powerful tiffin blast that ripped apart the roof and floor of a CNG bus belonging to the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Services (AMTS) claimed the life of one person and injured eight others. The blast occurred when the vehicle was passing through the sensitive Juhapura area opposite Amber Tower around 6.30 p m, the same time when serial blasts spread panic across the city.

Miscellaneous:

Tiffin genius:

The One Stop Thali Cafe in Bristol has been selling these Mumbai tiffin carriers to their regulars - so they can get takeaways from the restaurant using them. They're £20 each (Inc your first meal) and they've sold about 1,500 in the last 18 months.

This is genius. In one fell swoop they've:

v Created genuine differentiation for the business
v Done something environmentally responsible
v Made a little bit of extra money
v Tied their customers a little closer to their business
v Won themselves some interesting PR
v Actually improved their service (tiffin carriers keep the food hotter for longer)

And they've done it in a way that's:

v Entirely authentic to their business and its heritage.
v Incredibly simple and charming (not some fiddly promotional thing with forms and vouchers).
v Generous and open - you can use your tiffin carrier at any restaurant.

Tiffin Post Box:

This is a yellow post-box which has been painted to resemble a giant antique tiffin carrier (food container).
Back in the olden years, people used this multi-tier container like a lunch box. What made it efficient was that different types of dishes such as rice, vegetables and meat could be carried around, each one compartmentalised into a separate tier.
The artists have painted on pretty floral patterns that make the post-box look really quaint. Spot it at keong saik road in Chinatown.

Clay tiffin Carrier:

Description:

Ceramic container, Tiffin Carrier II from the series "....these are a few of my favourite things", white earthenware, wheel thrown, assembled, terrasigillata slips / oxidation firing, Jaishree Srinivasan, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 1995

Straight cylindrical form consisting of (-2:3) two stacked bowls, on (-1) wide base sitting on three small inverted conical feet. On each side, a figure holding a vessel on their heads with squirrels sitting on their shoulders. Shaped handle with pointed knobs. (-4)Domed cover with looped knop and (-5) spoon-like clasp inserted horizontally through handle and knop on cover. Overall colour dark green with bands of white and orange. Designed by Jaishree Srinivasan, Canberra, 1995. Srinivasan was born in Madras, India in 1954, and educated in Tamilnadu at a convent of European nuns. She graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Madras in 1974, and subsequently trained in the United States and Australia, completing an Associate Diploma in Ceramics at the Canberra School of Art.

Our Information & Media Partners:

Ø http://www.mydabbawala.com/
Ø http://www.neelammetal.com/
Ø http://shop.ebay.com/items/tiffincarrier
Ø http://shopping.rediff.com/shop/productdisplay.jsp?ELECTRIC-HOT-CASE---TIFFIN-/-LUNCH-BOX&prrfnbr=10185078&source=browse&frompg=Tiffin%20Carriers
Ø http://www.silkroute.net/
Ø http://www.sparklette.net/
Ø http://www.smh.com.au/news/singapore/carrying-on%20tiffin/
Ø http://suppliers.jimtrade.com/86/85112/37186.htm
Ø http://www.tradeindia.com/Supplier_Exporter_Product_Images/Home-Supplies/Thermoware/
Ø http://blog.ssrinivas.com/uploaded_images/tiffin-carrier-747918.jpg
Ø http://www.books.google.co.in/
Ø http://cgi.ebay.com.my/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170259116340
Ø http://chennai.justdial.com/hot-pack-tupperware_Chennai.html
Ø http://dir.indiamart.com/impcat/hot-pack.html
Ø http://www.foodproductdesign.com/articles/466/466_0600nt.html
Ø http://suppliers.jimtrade.com/86/85055/28244.htm
Ø http://www.google.co.in/
Ø http://www.wikipedia.org/

Ø My dear grandmother (Karur, Tamil Nadu)

Ø My Local Guardian (The Zaveri and co.)

Ø My mom (Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu)

Ø Extensive brainstorming

Ø My mom, dad and friends (Agartala, Tripura)

Ø The Financial Times

Ø Aakhash GV and Ratul Bhowmik

~ HISTORY OF DESIGN – 2008 ~

THE FORGOTTEN MAP

2008-10-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

The decisions humanity has taken in the past have led us to believe we are in a state of global crisis. Perhaps we made erroneous choices. Or perhaps it is simply easier to consider a situation that could have been better had we chosen what we hadn’t chosen. A classic case of the grass being greener on the other side or does our present scenario truly warrant an alternative approach? Maybe it is time to navigate the other routes, the ones we discarded in favour of our current path of reductionist science and neo-liberal globalization.
“I am myself and my circumstance”, pointed out the great Spanish philosopher Jose` Ortega Y Gasset. The decision I take implies all the decisions I did not take. The route I choose is part of all the routes I did not choose. Life presents itself as an unending sequence of bifurcations. A few minutes earlier or later or a few meters away in any direction might well have determined a different bifurcation and hence, a completely different life. What holds for individual lives holds for communities and whole societies as well. People in the west are what they are but they could have just as well been what they are not. It becomes vital to reassess the decisive bifurcations…
Sometime during the 12th century in Italy, a young man named Giovanni Bernardone decided to radically change his life. As a result of his transformations, we remember him today under a different name: Francis of Assisi. When he referred to the world, Francis spoke of brother Sun and sister Moon, of brother Wolf; and of water, fire, trees and people as close kin. The world he described and felt was a world where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning.
Sometime later, also in Italy, the resounding voice of the brilliant and astute Machiavelli could be heard, warning us that “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved”. He also described a world, but in addition, he created a world. Ironically, today the connotation of his name occurs in the same breath as that of politically crafty (marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith). Perhaps a far cry from the astuteness this philosopher once stood for. The world we have today is that propagated through the eyes of Machiavelli. Francis is the route we did not navigate. We chose Machiavelli and today our social, political and economic conceptions are constructed from the same source.
We have accepted, even embraced fear as a means to dominate and essentially, to survive. What other ratiocination can we attribute to the dictatorial behavior of so-called super powers of our time? While disguised attempts to eradicate world poverty are promulgated, the very same nations display ostentatious disparities between the rich and the poor. At just twenty-three years of age, Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola prepared himself for the public defence of 900 of his theses about the concord between the different religions and philosophies. Convinced that truths are multiple, and never just one, he longed for a spiritual renovation that could reconcile humanity. Years later, Francis Bacon, a fervent believer in absolute truth and n the possibilities of certainty, invited us to torture Nature so that through the delivery of her secrets we could extract the truth. Most significant of the many lesser travelled paths was Goethe’s; whose scientific contribution has been unjustly overshadowed because of his colossal achievements in literature and arts. For Goethe, “science is as much an inner path of spiritual discovery as it is a discipline aimed at accumulating knowledge of the physical world. For Galileo and Newton, Nature was mathematics. To them nothing that cannot be measure is important in science. Science is the supreme manifestation of reason and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being claimed both Newton and Galileo. Science as Goethe conceived and practiced it, has as its highest goal the arousal of the feeling of wonder through the contemplative looking, in which scientists would come to see God in Nature and Nature in God.
Two worlds once more. Another bifurcation. We are still under the spell of the overpowering luster of Galileo and Newton and have chosen not to navigate the route of Goethean science. Feeling, intuition, consciousness and spirituality have been banished from the realms of scientific understanding. The teaching of conventional economics, which, as incredible as it may sound, claims to be “value free”, is a conspicuous case in point. A discipline where mathematics has become an end in itself instead of a tool, and where only that which can be measured is important, has generated models and interpretations that are theoretically attractive but wholly divorced from reality. Spectacular successes have been attributed to the routes of Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton. Meanwhile Francis, Picot, Bruno and Goethe have been relegated to historical footnotes.
We have arrived at a point in our human evolution where we know a lot but understand very little. Our chosen navigation has been piloted by reason. We celebrate the apotheosis of reason, but in the midst of such a gala, we suddenly have the feeling that something is missing. Yes, we can achieve knowledge about almost anything we want. We can for instance, guided by our beloved scientific method, study everything there is, from theological, anthropological, sociological, psychological and even biochemical perspectives, about a human phenomenon called love. But once we achieve that complete knowledge, we will sooner or later discover that we will never discover love unless we fall in love. Eventually we will realize that we can understand that of which we become a part. Understanding is a result of integration while knowledge is an upshot of detachment.
In order to achieve completeness, it is essential to understand that the relation between science and spirituality is not through knowledge only. We therefore need to undertake, at last, the navigation we have long postponed. But in order to do so we must face the great challenge of a language shift. The first three centuries of the second millennium witnessed the dominance of a teological language; one that found its roots in finding a calling that was superior and beyond the needs of everyday life. This made possible the construction of magnificent cathedrals; after all they were constructing for eternity and time was not of essence. Gradually the shift in language toward one that was coherent with the historical challenge of the times was apparent. It is only in the twentieth century that the dominant language has become that of economics; a hard language that recognized economic domination as a means of survival. This language gave way for a more ‘developmental’ one, one that was visibly utopian, optimistic and happy. Promoting true development and overcoming world poverty were its taglines. True, the disparities in income strata’s are far more pronounced now than before… which brings us back to this moment in time where we must rest and reflect. Possibly by unearthing the forgotten map, we can pursue harmony between the many varied truths or maybe postpone our navigation of knowledge until we can truly understand the knowledge itself.
Or maybe, we need a brand new language that opens the door of understanding: not a language of power and domination, but a language that may emerge from the depth of our self discovery as an inseparable part of a whole that is the cradle of the miracle of life. If we manage to provoke such a shift, we may still experience the satisfaction of having brought about a new century worth living in.

The Forgotten Map,

2008-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Forgotten Map,

Every people on earth have their different way of leading there lives. Life usually deals with two things one is the reality and other possibility. Starting from the Iron Age man’s life has changed till now and that also drastically. The destination that we have reached today is a result of the decisions we have made in the past or the choices that we have made till now. Every point of time we have to take some choice or decisions to move ahead, the choice can lead good or bad for you but the point is that you have to take it.

The document actually says man have tried so much to gain knowledge for centuries and has amassed great deals of it. But the question that needs to be asked us here whether we have acquired the understanding to integrate all that we know to good application. We won’t be able to understand until and unless we experience it.

The Forgotten Map

2008-10-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

“I am myself and my circumstances”

-José Ortega y Gasset

The present in which one stands is determined by some of the various decisions and routes one has taken in the past. Different situation ends with different results and this also affects the present stature in the person. These decisions not only stand for an individual but also for the communities and the overall society.

Considering the Judaeo-Christian or the so called Western civilisation has also undergone these decisions or ‘The Bifurcation’.

The world is a place where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning. This was said by Francis of Assisi formerly known as Giovanni Bernardone. But the world we have today is not that of Francis but of Machiavelli who believed that it is much safer to be feared than to be loved. This was during some time in the 12^th century.

‘Truths are multiple and never just one.’ This was said by Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandolla in the year 1497 when he refused to be enclosed with in one doctrine. But again this route was not navigated because a few years later Francis Bacon, a fervent believer in absolute truth and possibilities of certainty invited us to torture nature so that through the delivery of the secrets we could extract the truth.

In the year 1600 Giordano Bruno believed that everything has a life and has a soul. Everything for him was a manifestation of life. ‘What I see through the window are hats and coats covering automatic machines.’ This was whispered by René Descartes in his Metaphysical Reflection. The later took the upper hand and we have seen the triumph of mechanism and reductionism.

Science is the supreme manifestation of reason and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being. This was observed by Galileo and Newton for whom the language of nature was mathematics. They believed that We and the Nature are two separate entities where the former is the ‘observer’ and the later is the ‘observed’.

Science as Goethe conceived is in which the scientist would come to see God in Nature and Nature in God. He believed that science also helps to attain spiritual knowledge through proper training of observation, thinking, feeling, imagination & intuition.

That’s the way it is. The route which has been navigated has achieved spectacular success and achievements whereas the other route has remained as historical footnotes remembered by bookworms. The routes of the Newton, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon & Machiavelli has been highly used by Universities compared to the routes of Geothe, Bruno, Picot & Francis.

Mathematics instead of being a tool became and end where importance was given to things only which can be measured and be made to models to be interpreted that are divorced from reality but are theoretically very attractive.

This sudden change of the world into a world of confusion and a world of disenchantment where progress became paradoxical and absurd and we had to run into something as virtual reality to seek refuge. These are the reasons for the schizophrenia, depression and narcissism which have now become the mirror of the existential reality.

We are celebrating the glorification of reason but suddenly we have the feeling that something is missing. Our route has been guided by reason which has been a very successful one but the fact remains that we know a lot but understand very little.

Understanding is holistic whereas knowledge is fragmented.

Understanding is the result of integration whereas knowledge is the result of detachment.

Knowledge is not only the road to understanding rather it requires a different navigation on the whole.

A human phenomenon such as LOVE, we can study all the various aspect of it such as philosophical, sociological and even biochemical prospective. The result- we would know everything about love but we would eventually discover that we will not be able to understand it until and unless we fall in love.

So now we are becoming aware that knowledge itself is not enough but we have to learn how to attain understanding in order to achieve the completeness of our being and science.

Knowledge without understanding is HOLLOW, and understanding without knowledge is incomplete.

Language influences our perceptions and hence shapes our reason. Different ages of generation or themes has its own language

The dominant language of the first three centuries of the 2nd millennium was of teleological nature, where the actions by humans were related to a calling that was superior beyond the needs of everyday life. The construction made in this phase was enormous and time was never a concern because it was being built for eternity and eternity is timelessness.

The important lay in the deed and not in the time it might take.

The dominant language of the 19^th century was marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts of the historical challenge of the times.

Economics became the dominant language of the 20^th century. In the late twenties and the early thirties the result of many crises was a language which had the capacity of interpreting the crisis as well as overcoming it known as the Keynesian language. During the fifties and sixties the economist felt that they had found a way to overcome world poverty and promote true development. There was a positive change of many things in this period.

The last three decades of the 2oth century, the neo liberal discourse, has been a brutal one. It dramatically increased global poverty, many national economics have been crippled by the burden of debt with a brutal over-exploitation of both people and natural resources which leads to the destruction of ecosystem and alarming levels of biodiversity.

We tend to comfort ourselves being the members of the successful culture. But the truth lies that no matter how much we convince ourselves with concept of success we still are incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and spiritually poor. And this poverty is responsible for the uneasiness and anxieties of the world today.

Thus the time has come for us to search for that undiscovered route that we did not navigate to help us to rescue from our existential confusion. We now have the opportunity to study the hazards and success, the tragedies and the glories of the already navigated route to unearth the alternative map for navigation.

And as a consequence we may be able to

Perhaps see everyone as brothers and sisters.

Perhaps to believe the harmony of many truths.

Perhaps to believe that Earth has a SOUL and everything has a life.

Perhaps to realise the value of intuition, spirituality and consciousness.

Or in Geothe’s words “if we seek comfort in the whole, we must learn to discover the whole in the smallest part.”

Our quest for knowledge has delayed our navigation towards understanding.

Thus to avoid the increasing distortion of reality and contributing to our confusion and to the falsification of knowledge and to avoid the spell of neo-liberal discourse one such navigation towards understanding is the call of today.

So there is a need for a new language that opens our vision towards understanding rather than power and domination. It would emerge from the depths of the self discovery as an inseparable part of the whole that is the cradle of miracle of life.

Thus the path which has not been taken or being avoided by choosing the already navigated or the successful path has to be unravelled so as to help us realise the essence of the knowledge and understanding as a whole.

The time has come to avert the various issues of global crisis and to find an alternative route from the past than the current path of reductionist science and neo liberal globalisation.

This change in language will give us a satisfaction of having bought about a new century worth living.

Thus the historical footnotes will bring about a renaissance to the modern day theory of comfort and educate us about the other aspect of life which is yet to be discovered and lived.

Biswa Bikash Singh

Product Design, PGDPD, 1^st Sem

The Forgotten Map

2008-09-29T08:22:00.001-07:00

Our life is the result of all the decision taken by us at that precise moment of time, at a given place in that given situation. These decisions have a decisive effect on the rest of our life. As a result of our decision and acts whole community and whose society is affected.
There are many people who decided to radically change their life like Francis of Assisi (Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandola) who prepared himself for public defence of his 900 theses. He refused himself to enclose himself within narrowness of just one doctrine. He spoke about brother sun and sister moon.
Even Machiavelli who warned us that it’s much safer to be feared than to be loved.
Even Giordano Brono who was burned at the stake, victim of his pantheism, as he believed that earth is life and has a soul.
Science is through reasoning and human’s attribute is to reason. Nothing that cannot be measured was important in the science according to Galileo and Newton.
Science is not only the accumulation of knowledge of physical world but also an inner path of spiritual development.
We have chosen a path of Galileo and Newton and not navigated through route of Goethean science. Feeling, invitation, consciousness and spirituality are still banished from realm of science. We are totally divorced from reality as we think that only what can be measured is important.
We follow the route that is there in front of us, which is been followed by others from past many years. We don’t look around and thus only bookworms remember the path not navigated.
As we seek refuge in a technology that offers in an escape into virtual realities, we find ourselves in world of confusion.
KNOWLEDGE IS INFORMATION. The understanding of the knowledge is lacked by most of us. Understanding is basically the experience we get of the knowledge we have example love. We define love in many ways if asked by some one but unless and until we experience it. We cannot tell that we understand it. This is basic different between knowledge and understanding.
Thus those of us who are concerned with relation between science and spirituality are finally becoming aware that knowledge is not enough and we have to attain understanding in order to achieve completeness.
The language influences our perceptions and hence shapes our action. Eg. In 1st 3 centuries of 2nd millennium, the dominant language was teleological nature, in 19th century it was consolidation of nature-state. In 20th century economics great depression with emergence of Keynesian economics, developmental language and finally neo-liberal disclosure in which global poverty has increased dramatically.
The decision humanity has taken in past have led us to a place of global crisis.
Now finally the time has arrived in which we should analyse with honesty, our navigation map and see the alternative map route on which we haven’t navigated. Perhaps we should start thinking the way round. We need new language and we should open doors of understanding. If we manage the shift, we may experience the satisfaction of having brought about a new century worth living in.

Malav Sanghvi
3rd Semester
Product Design

The Forgotten Map

2008-09-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Recalling The Route; the forgotten map

2008-09-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

The path that were defined earlier makes other to follow, preaches us guides us. So the decisions made are taken on the decision made earlier, which clearly implies that this is not the only path. Our community, society, civilization also get affected by this kind of bifurcations. May be this was one those paths which is not suppose to be taken. At a particular moment in once life when a given situation occurs may effect on rest of his life. Now what matters a person matters a whole group a society. As we know our so-called Judeo-Christian civilization is result of this bifurcation, it would have been something else.

Francis at Assisi related his surrounding and all worlds as a family, Machiavelli on the other hand not only described world but also created a world. Similarly we did not navigate the route of Bruno, which says everything is life. So clearly as I think, there was one side, which had feeling, imagination, intuition, and emotions art, and there was other side as, mathematics, practicality, economy reality…basically a side to choose between philosophical belies and scientific applications and implementations. The direct and indirect impact is what we see as in how the world has turned out to be.

Last but not the least, the author states that there is a vast difference between knowledge and understanding and that we must experience to understand whereas knowledge is detached. Understanding is the membrane that connects knowledge into something more organized I’d rather say something more complete and solid.

Maybe the time has come when we need to reflect n rethink not only on what we have done and the path we have taken but also all that we have missed out on,to amalgamate the both and complete our world.
So lets recall the forgotten map........

Refrigerator

2008-09-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

Groupmembers- Amit, Aniket, Bernard, Charandeep.

Forgotten map

2008-09-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

THE FORGOTTEN MAP

The route that are created earlier makes other to follow, so the decisions made are taken on the decision made earlier which may be the path which is not suppose to be taken. At a precise moment in once life when a given situation occurs may effect on rest of his life. Now what holds for an individual’s holds for communities and whole societies as well.
Our so-called judeao-christian civilisation is result of this bifurcation it say the west would have been something else if not what it is now. The changes that Giovanni bernardone (francis of assisi) took in his life when he referred to the world about describing the world where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning. Whereas Machiavelli describe it has it is much safer then to be in loved. So where we live today is the world of Machiavelli from which we have constructed social, political and economic conceptions.
With the routes of Descartes we witness the triumph of mechanism and reduction. So every route that we consider has impact on next route we select.
Considering Newton and Galileo for them mathematics was the way to express, whereas for Goethe literature and arts so his scientific contribution are overshadowed by Newton’s and Galileo. Economics is also overshadowed by mathematics .The navigated path gets successes while the route not navigated stays in book.
There are lot of things to study but we lack practically because there is difference between saying and understanding. We only understand the things of which we become part .so looking at different perspective and to learn in order to achieve completeness of our being.
The way country put there dominating language it becomes that of economics as there writing mainly promote true development and overcome poverty.
Finally no matter how far succeed we are incomplete and this gives poverty that makes us realize our existence in world. So we have opportunity to analyse the truth and navigate the map as any path we take there will be hazards and successes. But that will give world an option to decide their route on map. And there can be rescue solution to come out of confusion.
Every route that we take on map should be taken in consideration with respect to all aspect which will make a shift in world. And looking the world with wide understanding.

Tejesh Goregaonkar
(PGDPD)

The Forbidden Map

2008-09-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

“The century maybe dying but the hope of a better world is not.”

Max Neef has the remarkable ability of getting his readers to question their existence: ‘Why are we here?’, ‘Where are we now?’ and ‘Where do we go from here?’ trying to get them to navigate their correct path from knowledge to understanding.

WHY ARE WE HERE? Life is an unending sequence of bifurcations. The decision I make implies all the decisions I did not make.

We hardly ever hear history described as infallible these days. We are well aware by now that history makes mistakes, that is gets distracted, falls asleep and loses its way. The official history is a mutilated memory, a long ceremony of self praise of those who call the shots in this world. Their reflectors just illuminate the peaks but leave the base in the dark. We chose to live in fear in Machiavelli’s perception of the world rather than love in the world created by Francis of Assisi.

The civilization that confuses clock with time also confuses nature with postcard. We have exploited Nature and just dwelt on a single aspect of science. Science is not only physical but also involves spiritual maturity of faculties such as feeling, imagination and intuition.
Pico della Mirandola, Bruno, Francis, Goethe may have been invisible but the usual invisible beings form part of the scenery of history, like Bollywood extras. It is they, the actors in the real history, the denied, hidden protagonists of past and present reality, who embody the splendid fan of another possible reality.

We are so disillusioned in our present mundane world that the hope of a Utopian world does not astound us but we rather look at ways of escaping into a prison of only virtual realities.

WHERE ARE WE NOW? We have arrived at a point in our human evolution where we know a lot but understand very little.

The progress we have made in the last century has been remarkable, yet we function mainly as machines, trying to guzzle down as much knowledge as we can, thinking its going to fill the void we feel inside. Knowledge itself is not enough. We have to learn how to attain understanding in order to achieve the completeness of our being.
We have been enslaved by the rising economic liberalism and before we realize it, the shackles maybe too difficult to break.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? There is a tendency to perceive ourselves as members of a successful culture. However, the truth is that no matter how much we extend the concept of success, we are still incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and spiritually impoverished.

If we are ever to feel complete again, maybe we should

‘ dive into the depths of time,
And bring from out the ages that have rolled
A few small fragments of those wrecks sublime
That human eyes may never more behold
And let the guerdon of my labour be: my complete self ’

Maybe the miracle that we all have been waiting for is us; to open our eyes and take the road less traveled.

Mitsu Shah

THE FORGOTTEN MAP

2008-09-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

the forgotten map

2008-09-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

The forgotten map introduces a completely new ,or probably old but neglected approach to understand science . It compels us to look back to our past and rethink if decisions we took then is the reason for the global crisis we are facing today . It suggests an alternative route for a new language that opens the door of undersatnding .
We have constructed our social ,political and economic conceptions on the basis of science which believed that 'nothing that cannot be measured is important'.they never trusted Giordano Bruno's belief that 'the earth is life and has a soul' . Everything is a manifestation of life .

Maybe if we would'nt have discarded his ideas and navigated the materialistic route shown by Newton and Galileo,we would have learned to respect nature instead of torturing her in order to extract from her what we believe is the truth .
Gothe believed that science is not just the accumulation of knowledge of physical world but it is an inner path of spiritual developement and its goal is to arouse the feeling of wonder through contemlative looking and seeing gos in nature and nature in god .
Inspite of the fact that the route we chose had its own fascinating and spectacular achivements and there is much to be admired ,but we are actually accumulating virtual knowledge without understanding .
Knowledge and understanding are two separate things . Knowledge is the information as in definitions and formulas . We can achive knowledge of everything we want while Understanding
is the result of integration and can only be experienced or felt. like we can know as many definitions of love as is given by different people but we can understand it only when we fall in love and actually experience the feeling. Knowledge and understanding are two inseparable aspects and are incomplete without each other .
Although we are proud of our succesful culture but actually we are incomplete beings. Materially overdeveloped and spiritually poor.
Exploiting both people and natural resourses,destruction of the ecosystem and biodiversity ,and extreme poverty is not the sign of a succesful culture .
Its high time now to we need to realize and act. To analyze all the hazards and sucesses , tragedies and glories of the route we adopted in our past . Perhaps this will be helpful to imagine and believe that the earth has a soul and that everything is a life .
We need to adopt a new approach to life ,which is based on understanding and not merely knowledge . May be this new approach could give us the satisfaction of having brought about a new centuary worth living in .

.

the stove

2008-09-16T13:35:00.001-07:00

The Forgotten Map

2008-09-16T13:20:00.001-07:00

The author has put forward an interesting statement in the beginning itself. He talks about life being a result of bifurcations that are constantly being made. In a sense it is true. I mean, we are what we are because we chose to do something at a particular point and place in time. And that having done something else may have totally changed the course of our lives forever. I candidly must confess to not being an avid reader. I am not using it as a tool either for defending my ignorance of the existence even of most of the great men that have been mentioned in the extract provided. I first of all must apologise for this as I do realize these people have shaped history or have played a prominent role in it indirectly even if it may be so. For instance I particularly liked what the great Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset said about his perspective on life

"I am myself and my circumstance"

The author has clearly listed out a lot of bifurcations that our ancestors made that has led us to this point in life that the author describes to be that of utter chaos and confusion. Well I do agree with the author on many points but do feel that he has gone a little overboard with his emotions. With due respect, I do not think economics distorts reality totally to an extent that the author describes it to be. I feel it is economics on the other hand that has led to the development of science and technology by leaps and bounds for that matter of fact. It was man's realization for the development and implementation of economics in for example, manufacturing processes itself that sped up the industrial age. Before responsible economics was developed, manufacturing plants all across the globe were running on heavy losses until Fredrick Winslow Taylor, (though his ideas were not completely original) came up with the concept of Industrial Engineering. Industrial Engineering basically involves the optimization of processes in a manufacturing facility and that directly relates to economics. The revolution that took place after companies started incorporating the use of Industrial Engineering has been profound and undeniable. It has brought in a lot of revenue for the companies and understandably the revenue of a company is proportional to its investment in research and development. This is how science has taken those giant leaps and bounds in the last 30-40 years in my opinion. Well then again it's all a matter of perspective. Its ones temperament that has been developed over the years due to this surroundings, upbringing and so on that determines his/her perspective in the end. And every person may choose to have a different perspective on the subject. But I feel what the author is trying to communicate is in fact valid. I do to a certain extent feel that knowledge does not necessarily imply understanding. It is also true when he says that understanding is holistic and that knowledge is fragmented. But I do not feel knowledge is a result of detachment. I mean it is true that science leaves no room for conscience and spirituality and that everything in science is a result of thoughtful reasoning but that does not imply only understanding can solve a problem holistically. Understanding again is a result of perspective. It is a point of view that one has on a particular subject. Take for that matter, the extract where the author talks about science and its attempts to decipher the emotion called "love". Yes, science cannot provide a holistic answer or explanation to it, but can the author actually claim that understanding really explains love? Two people need not have fallen in love in similar situations. Doesn't that also mean that the understanding of love that each one of those people have about love may vary according to the situations that the person has been through and the temperament that the person is made of? Like I said, it again comes down to a matter of perspective. Understanding of a situation is subject to the perspective of a person.

I do not exactly agree with the author's claim of the different languages that apparently prevailed in different periods of time. This may tend to project my ignorance on a larger scale if I were to discuss what I actually feel about the topic, but I would rather not vouch for something that I am not sure of. Which is why I am not disagreeing with him aggressively. Spirituality is another topic the author talks about in his extract. I am truly not very religious but do not deny that spirituality is quintessential in this world. I do agree that if it weren't for that, the world would have ended long back. It is probably the fear of an entity we call God that probably stops a good number of us from committing a lot of sins every day. Did we choose a wrong path all along? I am not quite sure. I do agree detaching spirituality and conscience from science was the wrong path chosen for science, but I do not honestly feel that is the root result of what the world is right now. One instance where I felt that the concept of spirituality and science actually made sense is when I happened to read the book "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown where he has seamlessly integrated the story and concept of antimatter with the creation of the world itself. I mean many of us tend to reason things out. It may be as a result of science and the way science eventually functions. This is how we have been taught in classes since our young age. For example in a laboratory test for the cations and anions in a chemical mixture we tend to reason out the possibilities of the various chemicals present in that mixture by reasoning it out via certain tests. That is how we have been taught. I am not trying to be an atheist and that I am not. But how can be possibly incorporate spirituality in such a scenario where logical reasoning is the only way out? But I also agree there are many fields of science where spirituality could play a positive and responsible role like the rampant destruction of rain forests and ruthless slaughtering of the whales and so on.

Having said that I would like to conclude by saying that the extract provided was interesting and very thought provoking all though I would not exactly accept all of it written in it.

Reflections...

2008-09-16T12:59:00.001-07:00

The forgotten map
It is all about the choices and decisions that we make. Life throws up a lot of problems and challenges. The way we tackle them depends on us. The decisions that we make have long standing implications….. Selecting a way also includes those ways that I refused to select. As to why I chose something that I chose is a question we all need to ask ourselves if we want the betterment of our lives and the others. Being at a particular place ,at a particular time might be a matter of chance but what we make of it is completely up to us.
The rules that hold good for an individual ,are true for a whole community or society as well. Every generation has its ups and downs. What we need to do at present ,is to sit back and analyze the decisions that were taken or the routes that were chosen by our fore fathers . Have they done us more harm than good? During the discussion ,when we were asked to name some events important to us as individuals or as community ,we more or less mentioned wars ,independence struggles or some kind of revolution. Another major thing for us is the industrial revolution and scientific and technological advances that have made our lives easier( have they really done so is something that we really need to think about). Somehow I feel that it has ended up in making our relatively simple lives complicated. It has caused an imbalance in nature where everything big or small has a role to play and still everything exists in perfect harmony and balance.
Man has been chasing after knowledge for centuries and has amassed great deals of it. But the question that needs to be asked us here whether have we acquired the understanding to integrate all that we know to good application. We cannot understand until we are a part of something or some experience. Understanding is a holistic view. We need to really delve in all kinds of aspects of a situation from materialistic to spiritual, from technological to natural ,if we want to bring ourselves out of the mess that we got ourselves into because of our pursuit of progress or evolution sans understanding and consideration.
We need to look at sustainability in all walks of life. We need a change in viewpoint. Because without it we will be ruining the lives of our generation and as well as that of the coming generations. We need to show the next generations that sustainability is the way of life if they want to improve this current scenario where there is of fragmented knowledge, distortion of realty and confusion in our priorities. It has been proved over time that sustainable development is the most effective form of development.
Devika Singh
Product design
Sem III
GDPD

Chakla Balan in rural Kachchh

2008-09-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Recently I went to visit the coastal areas of Kachchh using the opportunity to find out more about the chakla balan and its place in the home. The reaction I received when asking people if they would mind showing me their chakla balan and telling me about it illustrates the nature of the object in it's cultural context. It is integrated completely, losing it's importance(as why would you bother questioning about it? its a chakla balan). It is used so much for staple diets - a fact of the Indian kitchen.

Interview 1:
Two farming Villages
When speaking to Surendra's wife about their kitchen, the level of laughter was great however they told me happily about the history of her chakla as I played with it. The chakla was a gift to the farmer's wife as part of her dowry. Her mother included it, and it was seen as a practical and necessary part of the dowry. The rolling pin was decorated with patterns to mark the auspicious occasion, it was beautiful and the daughter was very proud of it.

The design of the object gradually thinned towards each end, this according to the woman was to create greater control and could thin out where wanted. It was made of wood and the length was quite small (probably 25cm) and the maximum diameter was 3cm.
If I wanted one could just get from the market. She said there were many different types and many new ones, however was happy with her sentimental one, so I should just go and buy one. The women would share the kitchen however eat separately with their immediate family.The board had small legs on it, this was so one could roll without hitting the edge of your hands on the surface. I should point out that the clearance was enough for smaller hands - a gender integrated object - women will do the rolling!

The next place that I spoke to two women about her chakla balan was in a hindu temple where they supplied food for the surrounding poor every dinner. The amount they were making was a lot more. Again I was greeted with much laughter. They had about twenty rolling pins. The design was different and was used for pressing down harder - this may be due to the courseness of the grain or the style of bread - I am not sure. They were not very decorated which may be due to the fact that kitchen was not a home. This was also designed to be used whist sitting on the floor. Most of the kitchens we observed, the floor was the work area, with the burner, chakla and other necessities. They told me that men do not use the chakla unless it is in large factories. The women were sitting on the floor readying the meals for many people.

The next encounter with the rural chakla was in a friend's house. Their child was sitting out the back rolling mini-chapatti - she must have been 2 years old...

The last encounter was within a children's hostel. The women were making dinner for approximately 30 kids in the YMC hostel. Here the design was similar to at the temple however the pin was smaller. The woman was using a small stool as well to sit on whilst preparing the chapatti.

One village was a farming village approximately 5km in land from the coast. The village sustains itself well and has a long history of this way of living for hundreds of years. There are obvious changes, one man we spoke to had just bought a tractor that he used for his own fields and helped in the fields of others. The houses were made of concrete where as they had been made of mud brick a few decades before. Electricity had been installed twenty years before. One of the family's we visited lived in a row of four houses with two shared kitchens facing the verandah area. The kitchens were small with little ventilation.

The farmers farmed juwari (holcus sorghum), wheat, budjri, mung and BT cotton. Juwari and wheat are an old crop: 'The wheat and juwari crops of Upper Sindh may vie in richness with those of Egypt even, where, it may be remarked, they occupy the same positions, being the spring and winter grains.' The use of this crop, farmed in a traditional manner and has for along time formed the staple diet. 'A favourable season for crops depends entirely on the extent of inundation. Wheat is sown in November or December, and reaped in April. Juwari is sown in the latter and reaped in the former, being irrigated the whole time by the river....The other dry grains -are Badjri (Holcus spi-catus) ; Mung (Phaseolus Mungo) ; grain and barley." ['Personal Observations of Sindh'Thomas Postans p91]. Thomas Postans was writing early in the British colonisation to pursuade the British of the welath to be had by infiltrating India. We saw all of these crops being grown still. These grains are used in creating traditional flatbreads, through the use of the chakla balan. The crop is directly responsible for the widespread and integral use of the utensil.

The interesting aspect is now only is this continuity lacking. The crops are faltering because of water over use, the changes in seasons and are switching to corporate seeds such as BT.
BT cotton is a cash crop and the preference for this due to higher profits and a four year crop cycle. From the farmers we talked to this meant farmers would farm even though they knew it was resource intensive to do so. They were aware that the groundwater was falling rather quickly. Their traditional methods of farming ensured that the land remained fertile and this season would not negatively impact the next. Due to the necessity of working within global markets and want for greater profits the pressure to modernise implicates the crops depleting resources as artifiically supplying the condition for them to produce the yeild.
The villagers were quite worried about the influence of industry and the rapid approaching industrialisation that loomed closer and closer. The village is near the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) set up to boost the Gujurati economy . This is very much at the cost of the locals. Industrial growth is sucking up the groundwater, polluting the water, air and soil. The factories are encroaching on farmers land without providing any alternative rather to sell as they cut off the local markets by flooding them with global produce. Inflation and migration into the area is huge, within Mundra the town is now made up 0f 80% non-Kachche. Whilst walking in the fields of the farmers the steel factory in the background created a visual analogy. Within the year a nuclear power plant is to be built close by as are many other factories.
This is an interesting framework to discuss the transitions of the chakla balan as an integral tradition in the Indian kitchen as is farming and village life a social foundation. Without this social foundation, the pressure of foreign culture, the way in which the local cultures survive is under serious question.
My point is a utensil is defined by its use. It has a purpose. In the case the chakla balan in Southern Kachchh is directly unified with it's material - the flour, which comes from the fields. This direct linkage is changing, thus the continuity of the culture will also. The nature of the utensil and the strength of food tradition in Indian culture does not point to the extinction of use. The changing realms of the community indicates soon to be changes in preparation & process even at the most basic level of the village.

THE FORGOTTEN PATH

2008-09-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

There are always sequences of bifurcations about decisions, situations, and events in life. All such things have a decisive effect on the life. Our community, society, civilization also get affected by bifurcations. Bifurcations also tell us about what we are not.
There are some examples of decisive bifurcations. Always we find a conflict between two routes among which we choose one. Francis at assisi related his surrounding and all world as a family. Machiavelli not only described world but created a world. We followed machiavelli’s route and constructed our social political and economical conceptions. In same way we refused Giovanni’s thoughts that truths are multiple and we accepted Bacons invitation to torture nature for extracting truth. Similarly we did not navigate the route of Bruno which says everything is life.
For scientists nature was mathematics. They don’t relate science with spiritual things. Goethe stated that science has spiritual dimension that deals with feelings, imagination. We are still under influence of Galileo and Newton’s science.
The ways which are not followed are remembered by very few. Universities have chosen routes of Machiavelli, Bacon etc. and Francis, Picot, Bruno, Goethe are remained as footnotes.
Although we have achieved success by the routes which we have followed there are some negative lines to the success. Right now we are in a situation that we know a lot but understand very less. The success we achieved through navigation is the result of knowledge about reasons. Still understanding is a different from knowledge. Because of this people are getting aware about relation between science and spirituality. This realization leads to follow the forgotten path; but language shift is the major challenge in front of us.
Every generation faces certain challenges, events and crisis. Every generation having its own theme or language. The important thing as long as generation’s language is coherent with challenge, everything is fine. This language do influences our perceptions and hence our actions.
From past centuries we have witnessed language of teleological nature, consolidation which is coherent with historical challenges. In 20th century dominant language became economics. In starting, the time was of great depression. This is the result of crisis. The language shift occurs during fifties and sixties. The language was optimistic and happy. The language serves some of the goals successfully. Still in the last three decades of century global poverty has increased.
If we think about success, no matter how overdeveloped we are, but still incomplete because of poverty, anxieties. Now this is the time to analyze our navigation and then unearth the alternative map of the route. For this we have to explore all the routes which we have refused. At the same time we should give more emphasize on understanding.

The stove

2008-09-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Forgotten Map

2008-09-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

The title speaks for itself. I think of a map or a route which was forgotten for some reason. The reason will be clearer as we proceed through the article and find out as to why the decisions taken in the past have led us to a place of global crisis.
It is time now to think over the forgotten path which we discarded in favour of the present path. The present path of reductionist science is an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things, and also neo globalisation which can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a new single society and function together.
Life is one big event full of uncertainties and always gives us bifurcations to see how we choose our path. Some decisive bifurcations thru 12th, 14th, 16th century by famous people like Giovanni Bernardone, Machiavelli, Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, Rene Descartes, Galileo and Newton, Goethe said “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved”, “What I see through my window are hats and coats covering automatic machines”, “Science path of spiritual development” and many more always showed us two worlds. And we accepted the one which we felt was easier to follow. Also some particular Universities have chosen the same route that we have chosen and the other people whose philosophies were not accepted have just become historical footnotes. The paths set by these great people have combination of reality and virtuality in their principles.
And hence all of a sudden we find ourselves always in a world of confusion. We are tempted by two worlds, reality and virtuality.The world in reality is great and really difficult to achieve and hence we desperately seek happiness in technology which gets us closer to the virtual world. We also have reached a point in human evolution where we know a lot but understand very little. We can achieve a lot of knowledge through our scientific means. Just consider for instance will knowing everything about love without actually falling in it help us? The answer lies in this simple statement “We can only attempt to understand that of which we become a part”. Hence understanding is more important and holistic while knowledge is fragmented. We are slowly realizing that Knowledge without understanding is hollow i.e. it has no solid evidence to stand for it, and that understanding without knowledge is incomplete. And hence we need to undertake this shift, but also have to undertake the great challenge of a language shift. Language Shift necessarily doesn’t target any specific language but in a broader sense it means that we have to undergo a huge shift or reformation in consideration to our present selves.Ortego said that “Every generation has its theme “and every generation or historical period is dominated by or falls under spell of a particular form of language. This language should be dominant and coherent with the challenges of that period. Language influences our perceptions and shapes our actions. Examples: During the first three centuries of the second millennium of Western civilization the human actions had to be justified in a way which was superior to the present way i.e. Importance lay in the deed and not in the time it might take. And hence we saw the construction of big cathedrals, monasteries which took their own time to get built as no one was in a hurry and all that mattered was the Deed. Even the language of the century that dominated was coherent with the historical challenge of the times.
In the 20th century the dominating language became economics. The Keynesian language was born and had the capacity to interpret and finally overcome the crisis. During the fifties and sixties emerged the Developmental language which was optimistic, utopian and happy. This language did not achieve the hoped for goals but was partially coherent with its historical challenges. The last three decades of the 20th century saw the emergence of the neo-liberal discourse. This language still dominated over a period in which there was lot of turmoil. And hence this language was absolutely incoherent with its historical challenges and had its own ill effects which left holders of power looking in opposite directions. We always think of ourselves as part of a successful culture though we are still incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and poor spiritually which has resulted in our present being.
So now is the time to sit and analyse the present route with all its hazards and successes and seek whether the alternative route which we did not take has orientations to rescue us from this present situation. So perhaps all the previous principles which we left on the alternate path can be thought of. And as Goethe said “If we would seek comfort in the whole, we must learn to discover the whole in the smallest part”. We have passionately progressed towards knowledge leaving understanding behind. No understanding can live without a proper language shift. A new language will be needed which will have the power and dominance, and emerge from one’s own self discovery. If we are able to do so then we are looking forward to a century worth living.
In Relation to the class we had on last Wednesday we can relate this article as follows. We had discussed as to why some things that were designed for specific purpose have still retained their shape, form etc? What were the different reasons that triggered the invention of such things? What could have been the history behind a particular design? Why the particular form? And so on.
Even in this age where new things are developing at a fast pace we still prefer some things as they are. Why the pair of tongs used in the kitchen has not changed their design so far or for that matter the knife. And slowly we recognize that in process of fast paced design developments we forgot some old paths and accepted new paths. Some new accepted paths might not have had proper language shifts and hence are unable to coherent with the present environment. So it’s our duty to select proper paths and take important decisions. Have language shifts that will make us to think ,understand and pay more attention on Deeds so that we may discover our true selves and bring about a life close to reality and worth living for.

HISTORY OF DESIGN ASSIGNMENT NO: 1 ROHAN V JADHAV
1STSEM
PGDPD (T.A.D)

Reflections on 'The Forgotten Map'

2008-09-16T11:46:00.001-07:00

The passage points out the mistake in the decision taken by humanity which has led to a global crisis. The human race was so near, yet so far from the right decision. A little thought in the right direction would have taken us on a different bifurcation, and hence, on a completely different life.
To cement this truth, the passage tells us about several examples for justification.
Giovanni Bernardone, who would later on be remembered the world over by the name Francis of Assisi described of a world where love was not only possible but also made sense and had a universal meaning.
However the world today follows Machiavelli’s ideas which are based on the ‘it is much safer to be feared than to be loved’ notion and we have constructed our social, physical, political and economic conceptions based on this.
We continue torturing nature in order to extract her from what we believe is the truth. This is in line with Francis Bacon’s idea of belief in absolute truth and in the possibilities of certainty.
We did not navigate the route of Bruno. Rather we chose the route of Descartes and as a result, we have witnessed the triumph of mechanism and reductionism.
Due to this tendency of the human race, feeling, intuition, consciousness and spirituality are still banished from the realm of science.
We have arrived at a point in our evolution which is characterized by the fact that we know a lot but we understand very little. We might have achieved all the knowledge that we could ever gained; and some more. But we will some day realize that all this knowledge is nothing without understanding. That we will never understand this knowledge unless practically applying all of it.
There are those amongst us who, in Goethe’s perspective are concerned with the relation between science and spirituality and are becoming aware that knowledge is not enough and that we have to learn through understanding in order to achieve completeness of our being and our science. We have to realize that knowledge without understanding is hollow and understanding without knowledge is incomplete.
The passage also describes the various themes that every generation has followed throughout the ages. This is generally seen in the form of a design language. This language shapes our perceptions and hence our actions.
The first three centuries of the second millennium was influenced by a teleological language. This era saw the construction of great cathedrals and monasteries. This was possible because the people believed that the importance lay in the deed and not in the time it might take.
The language dominating the 19th century was that of consolidation of the nation state. It was only in the 20th century that the dominant language became that of economics, especially during the second half. This saw the emergence of the Keynesian language during the period of the Great Depression.
This was followed by the language of neo-liberal discourse in the 20th century, one which is dominating even today. This is characterized by global poverty, debt burden, brutal over-exploitation of people and natural resources, destruction of ecosystems and accumulation of wealth. The disastrous effect of this language is for everyone to see, although decision makers prefer to look in the opposite direction.
We convince ourselves that we belong to a successful culture. However, we do not realize that we are still incomplete; materially over developed but spiritually poor. And it is this incompleteness and poverty that is responsible for the uneasiness and anxiety that gave permeated the world today.
Perhaps, the moment has arrived to rest and reflect. The time has come to unearth a forgotten map; to start seeing our brothers and sisters surrounding us and to start believing in the possibility of a harmony between many possible truths.

The forgotten map

2008-09-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

The Forgotten Map

Life in a big context has various dimensions. Life usually deals with two things one is the reality and other possibility. Every point of life one finds bifurcation. The path a person chooses is due to the circumstances that occurred at that particular time ,particular place or because a person appears in at that instance. People believe that” they are what they are”, but there is a possibility that they could have been something else if had chosen other path. In earlier centuries there had been great thinkers, philosophers, scientists each having there own ideology of what living, science, spirituality is. The thinkers had diversity in there ideology. Some believed life and science based on practical principles i.e. mathematics ,and some believed science and spirituality are interrelated. Again there was bifurcation. There was one side of coin which had feeling, imagination, intuition, art and there was other side as economy, mathematics, practicality. The world followed the the path of practicality ,could have chosen the other one with spirituality, feelings. The direct or indirect consequences of which are today’s world. The world with material richness, practical laws, virtual realities, depression, incompleteness, knowledge of subjects without understanding. The roots of which lies down in the coherence of language of each generation with its historical period. Language here is in much larger terms as it shapes the perceptions, beliefs of people.
Probably the time has come to rethink on the way we lived, perceived life and navigate the route we never considered. It will be a paradigm shift and a century filled with spiritual richness.

Mahesh Shinde
Transportation and Automobile Design
NID.

mapping forgotten map…..

2008-09-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

About forgotten map…..

The article is having a soul, which is trying to come out from the words and want to settle down in us.
The author succeed in pointing out that, how we, the human society got bifurcated in these evolution, revolution, whatever we call as development / modernization. He gave all the relevant examples of different philosophers, scientists and all the others who made us to follow their footprints.
One important thing I would like to mention is that the language of measurement / economy. In the whole life we tries to calculate our each n every minute, which is because an impression we are having beneath us, it is just because we have been nurtured like that, even in such spiritual things, we use to calculate like if I am worshiping some god, then subconsciously I think that, he should fulfill all my expectations.
Till today I was thinking that I am on the right track, but now i…I wont say that, I got the direction, but I’ll say that I am still confused, though I got some kind of inspiration, motto from this particular article.
I think this the time to think beyond…….no not beyond rather it’s the time to reveal the beneath. I would like to thank Suchitra, who gave us such an article.
In this particular article, one thing which pricked my soul is that, the author always called SHE, whenever he talked about earth and that is how he embossed that EARTH is also having a SOUL, which we ever neglected.

Snehal Pawar.
(Transportation & automobile design 08-09)

Maya Civilisation

2008-09-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

This presentation is about the practices of the mayans which have influenced the current society in a different ways even after so many centuries.

Maya Civilization, an ancient Native American culture that represented one of the most advanced civilizations in the western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. The people known as the Maya lived in the region that is now eastern and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. They thrived for more than 2,000 years.

Presentation done by

Mahesh Shinde

Mushtaq Anis

Gopal Krishna Pai

Snehal Pawar

Darshan Patil

(Transportation & Automobile design)

GREEK CIVILISATION

2008-09-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

the forgotten map

2008-09-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Initially the paper looked like some essay or story kind of thing by the illustrations it had but as I gone through it I remembered the dcc lectures by ranjan.

I think right from the beginning of mankind there have undergone the changes in his lifestyle and as the things progressed some landmark products as we discussed in the class, were made and those are still used without any change and some have always been developed over a period of time and as per requirement of function and form.

These products and their usage had developed a rich material culture and in a way the whole lifestyle. This can be said the other way round also.

But some points that are mentioned in the article were really convincing that there were a set of people who proposed the system of education but it did not emerged like that and it just remained as if the set of theories to be taught without finding its application and just finding the reasons. The education system emerged as of scientific only and not the experience and application based learning, and fundamental cause of education.

And that is what happens when we try to bind something like knowledge and its application in restricted fremes of textbooks.

This is the basic reason why this perception of hollowness wrapped with the dense brackets of bourgeoise!

But hello where is the extreme power of the world where is the grand design called NATURE and where is the spiritual entity on which everything runs and every single design has got the essence of intution at that point of time wheather analytically it may be right or wrong.

Then the article talks about love as an experience and just not as an discription but the understanding.

So, finally looking forward as designers we must, u know avoid these mistakes in the history.

amit chordiya

3rd sem pd (gdpd)

The forgotten map

2008-09-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

The forgotten map reminds us how the destination that we have reached today is a result of the decisions we have made in the past or the choices that we have made at every given point in the past.Even the choice of being at a given place at a given time which might seem unimportant can have an impact on our lives.These choices that we make also imply all the choices that we did not make and all the paths that we decided not to take.We would never know what our lives could be like if we had made those choices thus our lives are not only the result of the choices that we made but also the paths we decided not to take.
Society as a collective body has taken several decisions as the author states,we have shunned the path of spirituality,feeling and understanding and have chosen instead to tread the path of knowledge,science,economics etc. We do tend to believe that the route we have taken is the right one,infact we do not even consider all the other options we had and all the other bifurcations we could have taken.Glorifying our progress,we tend to turn a blind eye to the fact that maybe chosing a different route or outlook could have given us better results.We have chosen the material outlook where money and technology are our prime concerns but all of us do often feel that something is missing from our lives,we are never happy with what we have achieved or what we possess or how much we possess.There seems to be an emptiness which is leading to warped minds and mental illnesses,maybe we are ignoring a very essential aspect of our lives,downsizing it.Mental illnesses like schizophrenia and depression are constant reminders of what we are mission out on,reminders of the fact that maybe we should not neglect essentials like spiritualitly,emotions,interpersonal relations,which are part of the road we have long neglected and slowly forgotten.
Also,we can clearly see how history is a matter of perception and not bare facts as its often claimed to be.In the example of comparision between Newton and Goeth we see how Newton is praises as a great scientist and hero whereas hardly anyone knows about goeth!This was probably because Newtons thoughts corresponded closly with the path that we have decided to taken whereas Goeth has been forgotten,just like the forgotten path even though both of them might have done equally important work.
The author also speaks about how different eras have had varying languages or thought processes i.e the people at that given point of time,atleast the majority of them thought a certain thing was important,maybe it was spirituality,politics,progress in the scientific field or economics.This also i feel would have a major impact on history not only from a point of view of glorifying or playing down certain aspects or happenings but also for example if in the 1900s scientific development was the predominant mood we could expect to fond several instances of progress in technology and this would in turn play down other happenings such as wars or maybe this would affect the way wars were documented or fought!which again would lead to different outcomes.
Finally,the author states that there is a vast difference between knowledge and understanding and that we must experience to understand whereas knowledge is detached.Understanding is the matrix that amalgamates knowledge into something more complete and concrete.Maybe the time has come when we need to reflect not only on what we have done and the path we have taken but also all that we have shunned or missed out on,to amalgamate the both and complete our world.

IDLI STEAMER- through ages

2008-09-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

IDLIs

The origin of the favourite breakfast item, ‘idli’ (sometimes spelt with a fancy ‘y’) is not known. The name is said to have its origin in the Tamil phrase ‘ittu avi’ (ittu-‘laid’ or ’kept’ and avi- ‘steam cook’ i.e. ‘kept or laid steam cooked’)

It is logical to surmise it is a simplified variant of the ‘Kanchipuram idli’

(or kudalai idli – name based on the flower basket of bamboo thatch and leaves used to steam cook the dough). For centuries, the preparation was confined to temples, especially in North Tamil Nadu, where these idlis provided an all-time, any-time alternative to other offerings that were plain rice based and had an advantage in terms of some keeping qualities, remaining fresh up to another day, a boon for many pilgrims. Also the idlis were wholesome in terms of carbohydrates, proteins and fat content.

The dough is a ground, wet- mix of rice, urad dhal kept fermented through over night storage. It is then spiced with jeera, pepper, salt, chopped dry ginger topped with a generous helping of pure ghee, This mixture, is poured to fill a few bamboo knit flower baskets- small cylinders of 4-5” dia and a foot long, open only at the top- These are kept hung inside a huge earthen pot that is filled with some water to generate the steam needed to cook the dough inside the porous baskets, The pot had a lid with holes that can be plugged or kept open to regulate the steam.

To day’s idli is a simplified version for popular consumption, sumptuous enough and easy on the purse. Mass consumption, basically as a breakfast item happened as a result of commercial activity and urbanization in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries that encouraged the ‘tiffin’ ( fillers between meals) habit. Coupled with coffee drinking, promoted by many coffee- clubs (primitive restaurants) idlis were actively supported by the growing urban middle class. Politics or poetry, movies or music, career or counseling- every thing got lined up over a plate of steaming idlies and hot coffee. So much so that idli habit got spread as an all time safe refreshment – a day long affair in Nandyal-AP ( ‘Idly Ramiah’ as the joint was fondly known) to a 24 hour mass ritual in the business areas of Madurai.

As the main item is an ever-green formula (some sanctity and respect got attached to this fluffy white entity), the sizes vary these days, from the ‘big brothers’ in Andhra to the ‘mini-idlis’ in some urban cities. The side dishes have also come a long way. Originally the fare was confined to a coconut-gram mix chutney, sambhar ( usually with onions) and some chilly-dhal in gingely oil paste, Now you get some variety of chutneys and powders– mint, coriander, tomato and dhal, you name it you get it!

The utensils varied in shape and make according to consumption. From earth pots to brass cauldrons and iron pans to cozy stainless steel containers. The vital unit, the trays with shallow, hemi-spherical pits with perforations/ holes to allow steam percolation have not changed in shape. Years ago, wet cloth was spread over the pits to facilitate easy removal, but now light greasing of the trays does the trick.

Left over idli dough, further fermented, needed dilution and hence got converted as ‘oothappams’. Further refinements in the dough led to the ‘dosas’ that have become popular, so popular that a new genre of non-vegetarian fare has appeared, but that is another story altogether- a biography with more ‘masala’, one would tend to muse.

EGYPT CIVILIZATION.

2008-09-12T10:27:00.001-07:00

Egyptian civilization originated over 5,000 years ago, and the country’s historic sites are among the world’s greatest tourist attractions. The first seeds of civilization were sown in the fertile Nile Valley, surrounded by the endless desert, at the crossroads between East and West. Here, the first multinational state was born, the first writing system using hieroglyphs was invented, the concepts of kingship, religion and bureaucracy were developed. It is little wonder that Egypt continues to capture our attention as we search for the roots of our humanity.

Team Members:

Animesh S

Rajeeb K

Rohan J

Abhilash S

Namit B

Philipa

2008-09-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

Tiffin Carrier:
The Beginning:
In Indian context, the concept/idea of transporting/storing food dates back to the mythology of Mahabharat.

Lord Krishna used to steal butter from stacked pots hanging from the ceiling. During olden times, long ago when there was no use of metal vessels, mud pots were extensively used to prepare, store as well as transport food. Starting from bigger size, the next smaller sized pots are filled with food and stacked in size order.

For this purpose, coconut fibre is woven into a thick and firm ring of sorts, and a tight rope passes through 3 equidistant points in the ring, to form a cone when lifted. Now the pots, whose rims are covered securely by cloth, are stacked over the ring in size order. This whole thing can now be lifted by the rope over long distances.

Generally Indian women used to conveniently carry the stacked pots on their heads using the ring. In additional to that, storing food in mud pots is desirable due to their properties, especially water and other liquids.

So the whole process of stacking up food in containers is inspired from this. This tells us that the highly useful Tiffin carriers we use everyday have their root connections to a period since myth began.

Traditional Indian Kitchens:
Cooking vessels were not so sophisticated many years ago in India; though the food that came out of those traditional kitchens was as delicious, aromatic and flavourful, or maybe more.

Traditional kitchens had a distinctive but simple range of kitchenware. Still the number of spices and condiments stored in such a kitchen needs a veteran cook to expertise on. Many of these utensils are still an integral part of Indian kitchens. One of them is the Tiffin carrier.

Origin and evolution:
A basic tiffin Carrier consists of several metal containers stacked one on top of another, used to carry prepared food.

The above tiffin carrier is made of stainless steel, but the ancient carriers were made of brass or aluminium. Even now, aluminium carriers are being used. Stainless steel is advantageous over aluminium because of the fact that steel can retain the heat of the food for a longer time (say 2-3 hours) than aluminium (say 2 hours).

Every container of the tiffin carrier except the bottom one consists of a rim a little above the bottom of the container to firmly fit into the next one. The top container of the carrier has the lid.

Initially, the lock system of the carrier was such that from the bottommost container, 2 thin vertical bars arise from the opposite sides. These bars run parallel to the carrier upwards. At the lid, they bend towards each other to form a handle. Both the bars have holes at the handle through which a metal spoon is fitted, in order to make the bars stay in position to be able to carry.

Now, the clip system has arrived in the market which has made opening/closing/transporting of the carrier easier. An image of such a carrier in shown below:

Today the conventional tiffin carrier has undergone a lot of changes. The latest carriers have a lid for every container in it, and come in different shapes such as cylindrical, conical, pyramidal, cuboids, oval, etc.

Range of Tiffin Carriers:
‘Tiffin’ Carriers are a fantastic eco friendly alternative to plastic lunchboxes and other unsustainable single use, disposable containers, made from food grade stainless steel. Clever yet simplistic, the carrier is a set of separate stacked compartments and snapped in place with a convenient carry handle.
‘Tiffin’ Carriers are ideal for carrying several kinds of food in one easy container. Each compartment can be filled with hot or cold food, with a clever design keeping food separated, avoiding any nasty surprises. Each compartment also comes with its own lid/plate, making it the ideal entertaining partner.

Depending upon the number of containers, the quality and company of the stainless steel and the lock system, etc. the tiffin carriers are priced. Generally the carriers come in 3, 4 or 5 containers in stainless steel.

A very conventional stainless steel tiffin carrier of 4 containers would cost around INR 175-250/- Such carriers are mass produced and sold to the wholesalers who in turn sell them to the retailers.

Tiffin carriers come in all sizes- from 2” to 5” in height per container, and from 4” to 8” in diameter.
A traditional Indian carrier consists of 5 huge containers, with a small cup in the top one for pickle. The base container (biggest)
Is generally filled with boiled rice, and then comes rotis, curry/curries, vegetable(s), followed by a traditional sweet and pickle, all in proper quantities. “YUMMY!!!” The very sight of a heavy tiffin carrier reminds you of delicious food.

Hot Packs/Hot Bags:
In additional to the tiffin carrier, in order to keep the temperature and freshness of the food intact for a quite longer time, hot bags/hot packs are used.
A hot bag consists of insulated rexin cloth from the inside, which is stitched to a tough material outside with a long wrap handle for convenience. A hot bag keeps the food warm enough for at least 5 hours. Whereas a hot pack is an insulated plastic vessel with a lid, and it keeps the food warm for a greater time.

Indian Companies like Arihant enterprises (Chennai), Milton, Stylo, Big Boss and Swanmac manufacture high quality tiffin carriers with hot bags at reasonable prices.
Swanmac/Lunchmate is India’s first Stainless steel vacuumised tiffin carrier. Made with the highest grade of stainless steel- AISI 304 (Salem Stainless Steel), Lunchmate is hygienic and very durable. It is vacuum insulated.
Features:
· Avoid storing hot and cold food items together.
· Remove the inner containers and store ice cubes in the outer case.
· Boil milk. Allow it to warm. Add little curd. Transfer into Lunchmate and fix the lid as usual. Curd sets faster in Lunchmate.
· Lunchmate should be cleaned with warm soap water. No other precautions are necessary. When not in use, keep the lid open.
· Sizes: 2,3,4,5 containers.

Tiffin carriers are not only used in India, but nowadays they have become an integral part of a kitchen all over the world. Carriers are exported from India to other countries. Tiffin carriers are also manufactured abroad in a variety of designs and materials: Remmerco tiffin carrier (England) made of white gastronom melamine priced at INR 800/-
Cinnamon tiffin carriers (Melbourne) made of stainless steel priced at INR 1700/-

The Dabbawallas:
Dabbawallas
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
The Financial Times reports on Mumbai’s dabbawallas, “an army of [5,000] men who deliver with faultless precision 200,000 meals to workers in the city direct from their homes in the suburbs using nothing but the city’s battered commuter railway system and bicycles.” (J. Leahy, “High-tech meets low-tech over lunch,” 8 May 2008.)
To fully appreciate the Dabbawallas’ achievements, a person first needs to see the rickety state of Mumbai’s infrastructure. A trip to the airport that should take 30 minutes can take two hours due to chronic congestion.
The trains are so overcrowded that people are frequently killed falling off the roofs of the carriages or being hit by poles alongside the tracks as they hang out of the doors. Monsoon rains regularly bring the city to a halt.
Yet none of this faces the dabbawallas. Daily, from about 9am, each dabbawalla collects a tiffin carrier – a tall, cylindrical, stacking metal food container loaded with different dishes – from 35 customers’ homes in the suburbs.
The colour-coded tiffin carriers are put in the luggage compartments of suburban trains and taken to the city, where the correct tiffin carriers are delivered to the correct individual customers starting at about 12.30pm, in time for lunch. From 1.15pm, the dabbawallas begin collecting the tiffin carriers again to deliver them back to individual customers’ homes, in a reversal of the whole process.
Like any successful corporation, the dabbawallas have a firmly entrenched culture and well-developed sense of mission and branding.
Founded in 1890, they claim to be descendants of the soldiers of Shivaji, the 17th century king who held off the Muslims in the area that is now the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the modern capital.
Most of them are shareholders of the [Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity] trust, drawing a monthly salary of about Rs5,000.
“People recognize us by our Gandhi topi [hat] and our white kurta pyjama, which is our biggest brand,” says Mr Medge.*
While their average education is eighth grade, and many are illiterate, the dabbawallas have been given a Six Sigma performance rating of 99.999999 by consultants and a quality management system standard ISO 9001:2000 certificate. They claim to have an error rate of 1 in 16m.
*Mr. Raghunath D. Medge is president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust.

Today, speaking of tiffin carriers only makes everyone’s mouth water. Starting from school children, working people, picnickers, tourists, travellers and everyone else use tiffin carriers (dabba) in day to day life. It is such a product which has, is and will remain in production and use forever…

Recipe of death inside tiffin box:

Ahmedabad, July 26 Blast inside AMTS bus claims one life, leaves eight critically injured
A powerful tiffin blast that ripped apart the roof and floor of a CNG bus belonging to the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Services (AMTS) claimed the life of one person and injured eight others. The blast occurred when the vehicle was passing through the sensitive Juhapura area opposite Amber Tower around 6.30 p m, the same time when serial blasts spread panic across the city.
It’s just sad news that apart from its innocent significant use, a tiffin carrier is also used to plant bombs at public places. A bomber would choose a tiffin carrier for such a purpose since it is the least doubted spot for a bomb. Well, a person would never see a tiffin carrier in that way. Moreover it is big enough to fit in a powerful bomb. Really SAD?!

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Idli Steamer

2008-08-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

idli steamer- through ages

2008-08-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

IDLIs

It is logical to surmise it is a simplified variant of the ‘Kanchipuram idli’

references and acknowledgements:

>http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/idli_and_dosa_a_south_indian_treat_part_1

>http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/ET_Cetera/Idli_saga_A_study_into_the_origin_of_the_idly.Idli - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia>

> Mr. veera vijaya raghagavan and his mom from chennai who is a treasure trove of information

Pressure Cooker

2008-08-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

One of the most commonly seen appliance seen in the Indian kitchen is the pressure cooker.It has brought about a radical change in the lives of homemakers and chefs since its introduction.The higher temperature causes the food to cook faster; e.g., cooking times can be reduced by 70 percent.Since pressure cooking depends on the production of steam, the process cannot easily be used for methods of cooking that produce little steam, such as roasting pan frying and deep frying. People claim that the pressure cooker is easy to cook with in comparison to other modern gadgets - it is certainly versatile. Pressure cookers can be used to prepare a wide variety of different recipes, covering most cooking styles and foods. Also more than one preparation can be done in it simultaneously. It is truly a boon in the kitchen.

Pressure cooking is a method of cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure. Because water's boiling point increases as the pressure increases, the pressure built up inside the cooker allows the liquid in the pot to rise to a higher temperature before boiling

DESIGN AND STRUCTURE
Pressure cookers are generally made from aluminium or stainless steel. A gasket forms an airtight seal which does not allow air or steam to escape between the pan and the lid; the only way the steam can escape is through a regulator on the lid when the pressure has built up
To seal the gasket, some pressure cookers have a breach lock with flanges that interlock when you turn and tighten the lid on the pot.Others, like Hawkins have slightly oval lids and openings. With these, you insert the lid at an angle, then turn the lid to fit the pot. A spring arrangement, in Hawkins' case the lid arm with a hook to the pot arm, holds the lid in the right place. When cooking, the pressurized steam inside keeps lids tightly on.
The food to be made is placed in the pressure cooker, along with some amount of water. The vessel is then sealed and placed on a heat source.When the water reaches boiling point at atmospheric pressure it begins to boil, but since the steam produced in the pressure cooker cannot escape the pressure rises, consequently raising the internal boiling point. Once the pressure increases to the designed amount above air pressure a relief valve opens , releasing steam and preventing the pressure from rising any further.
ADVANTAGES
Foods are cooked much faster than other methods,and with much less water than boiling, so dishes can be ready sooner. Less energy is required than when boiling, steaming or oven cooking, particularly if multiple foods are cooked at once. Since less water is necessary, the foods come to cooking temperature faster.The food is cooked above the boiling point of water, killing all germs and viruses.The pressure cooker can also be used as an effective sterilizer, for jam pots and glass baby bottles for example, or for water while camping.

With pressure cooking, heat is very evenly, deeply, and quickly distributed. Many pounds of vegetables or meat can be quickly cooked with just a cup of water - immersion of the food in boiling water is not necessary.

Since foods need not be immersed, vitamins and minerals are not leached(dissolved) away by water. Since steam surrounds the food, foods are not oxidised by air exposure at heat,so vegetables do not lose their colour and vitamins on heat.

IMPORTANCE ON HIGH ALTITUDES
The pressure cooker speeds cooking considerably at high altitudes, where the low atmospheric pressure otherwise reduces the boiling point of water and hence reduces water's effectiveness for cooking or preparing hot beverages. This is especially useful for mountain climbers at very high altitudes, reducing cooking time and fuel requirements.
Mountaineers and winter campers find the pressure cooker a very valuable tool for melting snow and ice. In an ordinary pot, melting snow is very slow because the water evaporates more than it melts. In a pressure cooker, not only is the steam kept in, it transfers heat to the rest of the snow and water very effectively.

DETOXIFICATION OF FOOD
Some food toxins can be reduced by pressure cooking. A Korean study of aflatoxins in rice showed that pressure cooking was capable of reducing aflatoxin concentrations to 12% to 22% of the level in the uncooked rice.

GROUP MEMBERS
Devika Singh
Deepti Khosla
Gaurang Nagre

Kitchen Knife

2008-08-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

History of Knife

Knives are one of the oldest and most useful human tools. Our ancestors used sharp stones or wood pieces to do what knives today do. They were used to cut, prick and carve and stood as a symbol of bravery. With the invention of metal, there was an evolution of the most used human tool, knife. As civilization advanced, various types of metals used in making knives (through the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age) emerged.

With the advancement of the technology and the discovery of guns, however, the knife lost its place in battle fields. As time evolved, knives are adopted to be used in the kitchen.

Anatomy of Knife

A	Point:	The very end of the knife, which is used for piercing
B	Tip:	The first third of the blade (approximately), which is used for small or delicate work
C	Edge:	The cutting surface of the knife, which extends from the point to the heel
D	Heel:	The rear part of the blade, used for cutting activities that require more force
E	Spine:	The top, thicker portion of the blade, which adds weight and strength
F	Bolster:	The thick metal portion joining the handle and the blade, which adds weight and balance and keeps the cook's hand from slipping
G	Finger Guard:	The portion of the bolster that keeps the cook's hand from slipping onto the blade
H	Return:	The point where the heel meets the bolster
J	Tang:	The portion of the metal blade that extends into the handle, giving the knife stability and extra weight
K	Scales:	The two portions of handle material (wood, plastic, composite, etc) that are attached to either side of the tang
L	Rivets:	The metal pins (usually 3) that hold the scales to the tang
M	Handle Guard:	The lip below the butt of the handle, which gives the knife a better grip and prevents slipping
N	Butt:	The terminal end of the handle

Types of Knives

General knives
Meat knives
Small knives
Cheese knives
Japanese knives
Chines cleavers
Specialty knives

Group members:

Biswa Bikash Singh
Subash Chellamuthu
Tejesh Goregaonkar

Orange Juicer

2008-08-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

Appliance: Orange juicer

Today, orange juicer is one of the most common forms of juicers found in every other Indian household. Citrus juice is easiest to extract even without the help of manual equipment. For example, lemon juice can be extracted just by squeezing it with fingers. But then, over the centuries technology has been improving every day and now, hundreds of different citrus juice extractors or simply, juicers are available in the market. Ranging from manual lemon squeezer to electrical orange juicers, orange juice is now so easy to extract with great efficiency of extracting juice out of up to 70 oranges in a minute.

Above: you can see the photo of the orange juicer toy we got from Suchitra as a start up to be looked more into this product

I have still not been able to find when exactly was a real orange extractor invented, but i have come across a patented design of an orange juicer dated 1944 in America (http://www.google.co.in/patents?id=GQ9kAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=citrus+juicers+commercial&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA2,M1)

It has details of the product, supplemented with drawings. It would be nice to have a look at it as it is a real bulky design as compared to the sleek designs of modern world, for example one designed by Philip Starck (can be seen in the photo below).

My next post would be about the information we gather at the Vessels Museum, Ahmedabad. I hope to get some information about a orange juice extractor there.

Following areas shall be looked into for our research:

· Product function
· Product history: invention and evolution of the product through ages
· Product form in today’s kitchens
· Fads
· Designer products

For this assignment we’ll be following the methodologies mentioned below:

· Data collection through web search
· Data collection from books, journals, etc.
· Vessel museum at Vishala, Ahmedabad
· Interviewing the kitchen appliances shopkeepers
· Interviewing orange juice vendors about their experience with the juicer.
· Interviewing old grannies about their experience with orange extraction during earlier times.
· Interviewing professional juice makers such as in restaurants, hotels, and other food outlets.
· Photographic analysis of the various forms of the juicer.

Group members:

Gunveen Kaur

Manjari Chaudhary

Swetal Khaire

Microwave Oven

2008-08-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Appliance:- Microwave Oven.

Group Members:

Animesh Shrivastava

Rohan Jadhav

Gopal K Pai

Darshan Patil

Write Up:

"Microwave Oven " ,a new innovation in the field of cooking .In hindi what you call it as " TANDOOR".Its an appliances that can be found in most of the modern day kitchen.Another alternate that existed before was a "simple oven" that was either kept on LPG gas stove for heating ex Dal Batti oven and or one was an Electric one,which works on electricity ex cake oven.Microwave oven is a fast,reliable,power saving device that has a tendency to cook variety of cusines via different methods.One can use it for Boiling or Baking or Tandoor or cooking daily vegetable.

In my home I remember when microwave came my mother started using it more then the conventional LPG stove.The reason i asked her why? she told me its fast and better and its easy to use and helpful.She even uses it to boil milk.

When you go to some Desi Dhabba along side the high way you find there a big hollow struture made of mud or clay.They call it as Tandoor used for either preparing Tandoori Roti or Tandoori Chicken.So the name Tandoor itself has given birth to a special class of food.

Submitted by:

Animesh Shrivastava

TAD

Chakla Baran - Notes and references so far

2008-08-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

'Chakla' is a small round platform usually made of marble or wood, the 'belan' is a wooden rolling pin; the two are used to roll out the dough to make various Indian breads such as chapattis, paratha, bhatura, poori and roti.
The above dough based staples make the chakla belan indispensible in an Indian kitchen. Modern electronic versions are available, one known as a Roti Maker, which combine the chakla, belan and tava (used to cook the breads). However most households still use the traditional utensils of chakla and baran.

When doing this research (so far) the lack of information is rather strange. Past a basic definition there is hardly any publicly accessible information on the origins of these kitchen utensils. So below is a compilation of notes and further references to continue with.

History of related food types:
Chapatti:
Chapatti is so common throughout South Asia and parts of Africa that in first internet searching I can filter very little useful information, except that they are related to many languages (Hindi, local dialects and Urdu; Urdu suggests the ancient origins of the utensils).
Paratha:
"The paratha was conceived in ancient north India but it is unclear which particular north Indian cuisines actually inspired it. Its origin is likely to have been a result of several influences (Sindhi, Punjabi, Garhwali, Bihari, Bengali and so on)." [http://www.answers.com/topic/paratha-1]
Bhatura
Poori
Roti

Origins of Chakla Baran
Within history (www.harrapa.com) state utensils fall into a category of "important and virtually unknown archaeological remains of the Indus Valley civilization (2600-1900 B.C.). The ancient technologies of Harrapan culture are different to other civilisations of the time(Egypt etc). "These differences can be attributed to the fact that each civilization evolved from local cultures which have roots extending back to the earliest Neolithic farming and pastoral communities, dating in Pakistan and India to around 6500B.C." [http://www.harappa.com/indus/industext.html].

According to the Infinity Foundation the chakla belan originated in the Harrapan era, or even before. Harrappa existed around 3300BC lasting until 1600BC within what now is Punjab and was part of the Indus Valley and Cemetery H civilisations [wikipedia]. This civilisations were highly organised and were centred in regional cities and towns around crossroads and rich agricultural areas. Farmers were cultivating wheat and barley as early as 6500BC which suggests that these were staple food items and would have had to be prepared in some manner that may have included early forms of the Chakla Baran. The spread of the technology would have been helped by the large trade networks within the Indus Valley civilisation and later with Aryans (to the rest of India).

Problems of History
The Infitinity Foundation are a group who are looking to create an encyclopedia of Indian Science & Technology in response to a belief that "intellectual repositioning has not yet been achieved for India, which is still depicted based on the “caste, cows and curry” images too often. Indian culture is frequently depicted as being mystical in the sense of being irrational, and in lacking a sense of advancement in the material plane of society." [http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_pr/t_pr_book_projects.htm]
This lack of a formulated history of culture, objects, methods, changes and consistencies really does present a problem within this project. The greater implications are the impact on identity and culture today, particularly in the age of globalisation and a rapidly changing face of India.

Further references to look up are:
Kenoyer, J.M., 1997, Trade and Technology of the Indus Valley: New insights from Harrappa Pakistan, World Archaeology, 29(2), pp. 260-280, High definition archaeology
Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1991). "The Indus Valley tradition of Pakistan and Western India". Journal of World Prehistory 5: 1–64. doi:10.1007/BF00978474.
Library of Congress: Country Studies. 1995. Harrappan Culture. Retrieved 13 January 2006.
Rau, Santha Rama and the Editors of Time-Life Books. 1969. The Cooking of India. Time-Life Books, New York. TIME-LIFE BOOKS, New York.
Barer-Stein, Thelma. 1999. You EatWhat You Are. A FireFly Book, [GT 2850 .B371 1999]

Museum of Everyday Art

2008-08-21T23:29:00.000-07:00

It may also be useful for you to look at the collections of the Museum of Everyday Art. The website address is http://www.sanskritifoundation.org/
This museum is in Delhi and was established in 1984. Objects of everyday life connected with the manners and customs, beliefs and practices of the urban and rural populations of India are displayed in the Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art. There is a catalogue of the collections written by Jyotindra Jain in the library.

INVESTIGATING KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS - GETTING STARTED

2008-08-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Researching Indian products through published material is invariably difficult because Indian products are not documented and written about much. So this is why what this batch of students is attempting is very important. I don't think any of them has realizes this yet! So other methods of collecting information need to be used. Ahmedabad is fortunate to have a museum of vessels (http://www.vechaar.com/metal_utensils.html) and a visit to this museum good could be a good start. The bulk of the information would really come from oral testimonies - from senior product designers, from the older generation, from professional cooks, owners of shops selling kitchen ware, hotel owners and the like. The internet would also throw up something, especially from websites of companies manufacturing kitchen equipment. Also old magazines which product advertisements - the NID library has bound volumes of the Illustrated Weekly of India for instance. Find out what the object you have chosen to study is called in different Indian languages and that might give a clue (for instances see if the word is Arabic, or Persian, or indigenous - that will give you something to follow up). See if the kind of food related to the object is eaten in other cultures - for instance roti, tortilla, pancake - check what implements are used in those cultures.

Record all the information along with all available visuals. MENTION SOURCES FROM WHERE INFORMATION WAS ACCESSED - For oral testimonies mention person, date and time of interview and place of interview. For websites - mention url and date it was accessed. For books - author, title, publisher, date of publishing and place of publishing. Make a start on this and see how it goes.

KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS IN INDIA TODAY

2008-08-20T08:31:00.001-07:00

To explore the idea of continuity and change in the design of products we are going to investigate implements used in Indian kitchens – to see where they came from, how they are adapted to Indian food and cooking methods and how they have changed in response to changes in taste and lifestyle.

We have brought into the classroom a toy kitchen set – a set quite appropriately called INDIA TODAY! Working in groups of three and four, we will be studying the pressure cooker, idli steamer, knives and other cutting implements, chakla-belan, oven, gas stove, tiffin box, refrigerator, orange juicer, cup and saucer, food processor and toaster.

SYNTHESIS, CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

2008-08-19T07:02:00.000-07:00

History is often seen as a catalogue of changes over time. Yet, most cultures have living traditions which go back millennia and while a study of the history of design looks at how things changed over time, we also need to account for how some objects, images, symbols and rituals persist – often with little change.

In groups, participants investigated ancient cultures from different parts of the world – Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Indus Valley, China, Central America – to explore their cultural achievements, their contact with each other and the synthesis and sharing that this led to and elements that persist to this day.

HOMO FABER, HOMO LUDENS, HOMO SYMBOLICUS - HOMO DESIGNER?

2008-08-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

What were the first acts of design? The course participants looked at ways in which early humans used elements from their environment to fashion tools made of bone and stone, shelters from wood, leaves and hide, clothing from bark and hide, visual expression in cave paintings and through hand gestures and ways in which these transformed human societies. Central to this investigation was the role of fire - the security it offered, the possibility of cooking food and its implications for hunting and leisure, gathering around the fire and its impact in the development of song, dance and storytelling and so on. There was also discussion on how 19^th century archeologists, anthropologists and adventurers investigated, uncovered and deciphered this aspect of human achievement and transformed our knowledge of human history. And in the process our understanding of Homo Designer.

The Forgotten Map

2008-08-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

Due to the decisions humanity has taken in the past have to lead us to a place of global crisis.
Life is an understanding sequence of bifurcations. The Decisions in the life are very important. The understanding of Life holds for individual as well as for Community is the same.
` The world described in the 12th century was and felt was a world where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning. For the centuries there are always, two worlds representing the route we navigated, and the other the route which we still have to navigate. We and Nature, the observer and observed are separate entities. Science is the supreme Manifestation of reason, and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being.
A discipline where mathematics has become an end in itself instead of a tool, and where only that which can be measured is important, has generated models and interpretations that are theoretically attractive but totally divorced from reality. All of a sudden in the last century we found ourselves in the world of confusion; in a world where progress becomes so incomprehensible that we desperately seek refuge in a technology that offers us an escape into virtual realities.
We have never in all of our existence accumulated more knowledge than during the last 100 years. We are celebrating the apotheosis of reason, but in the midst of such a splendid celebration we suddenly have the feeling that something is missing. The result will be that we will know everything that van be known about love. But once we achieve that complete knowledge, we will sooner or later discover that we will never understand love unless we fall in love.
We have learnt that knowledge is not enough, and that we have to learn how to attain understanding in order to achieve the completeness of our being and the completeness of our science. We are, perhaps, beginning to realize that knowledge without understanding is hollow, and that understanding without knowledge is incomplete. ‘Knowledge is not the road that leads to understanding but understanding is the result of integration, while knowledge has been the result of detachment.’ Language influences our perceptions and hence shapes our actions. In the past there was nobody who was in hurry. After all they were constructing for eternity, and eternity in Timelessness. The language dominating the 19th century was basically that of the consolidation of the nation-state. It was only in the 20th century that the dominant language became that of economics, especially during the second half.
We have a tendency to perceive ourselves as members of a successful culture. However, the truth is that no matter how far we extend the concept of success, we are still incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and spiritually poor.
We need a new language that opens the door of understanding; not a language that may emerge from the depth of our self-discovery as an inseparable part of a whole that is the cradle of the miracle of life.
“If we would seek comfort in the whole, we must learn to discover the whole in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.”

Girish Wagh
girish_w@nid.edu
Product Design

RESPONSE TO FORGOTTON MAN

2008-08-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

History of Design
Philippa Abbott
Reading: “The Forgotten MaN”
Manfred Max-Neef

This article is very interesting in terms of how we can look at the past to see how we are to move forward from our current point of global crisis. The idea of “paths not taken” as a starting point for interrogating how to move forward is wise and sad. Many great peoples voices have been lost over so many centuries in favour of “reductionist science” and because of this it is true that we “find ourselves in a world of confusion; a world of disenchantment where progress is paradoxical and absurd, and reality becomes so incomprehensible that we desperately seek refuge in a technology that offers us escape into virtual realities” (p8).

We have pillaged the earth and much of it’s people for the creation of industrialised society with an undying thirst for more and more products and more and more money. Social progress and individual success is too often gauged in monetary terms and the translation of this into objects beyond necessity. Each object in this system has an integrated cost which is not financial. It is social. It is environmental. These other costs are invisible to the eye of gleaming consumerists, like monkies with shiny objects we want without consideration of the input of every object - the transportation, the embodied energy, the human disempowerment and poverty creation; the self destructive character of societies that allows this in the name of “neoliberal globalisation”. We have simultaneously constructed the delusion of searching for happiness and the attachment of this too material wealth, and many other social myths to displace the guilt of our ways and where we have come to.

Each man listed spent a life interrogating what was the meaning of life - what ideas could be used for an individual and society to live. Francis of Assisi believed that love is embodied in nature and is the path to universal meaning. Machiavellian thought created a dark world of fear as an effective means to control society. Mirandola believed that the reconciliation of different philosophies/religions and the respect and understanding of them was the key to social harmony; society constructed many truths rather than truth being static and immoveable in meaning. Bacon believed truth was absolute - inferring there was one right and by consequence everything else was wrong. Effectively creating a policy of inclusion/exclusion creating the Other. This Other is a dichotomy that is interlaced through all Western social constructs today - one such example is the “haves” and the “have nots”.
Absolute truth creating one right answer meant creating an absolute system of power. Those who were right, or in other words, knew the absolute truth had power over all others. Those who believe in different truths were automatically outcasts and the target for harassment or worse.

This was underpinning society before Bacon however his association of absolute truth with extraction of “fact” from nature under the name of science became particularly poignant in view of the past few centuries; the industrial revolution, technological advancement, consumerism and global crisis.

The beliefs of Bacon or Descartes become the dominant belief systems when articulated and accepted publically by the majority, or for the majority by those in power. At these points we see bifurcation. We see a place to start looking for what other opportunities as societies and individuals we have. By looking at Mirandola’s views we can then see how the other avenue may have worked, critically analyse this in terms of modern day issues and find a way forth.

It is interesting to then think about how the social conditions of how the theories of Bacon, Descartes, Newton or Gallileo became the path creating such drastic implications. The growth of past societies in such a way that society as a whole desires these thinker’s theories as an acceptable path. When I read Descartes, “what I see through my window are hats and coats covering automatic machines”, I do not believe he meant for the “triumph of mechanism and reductionism”. To me it is a social comment on the lack of initiative among the people around him, a feeling of alienation within Descartes and his desire for creative thought and individualism within the world he lived in. I here a forewarning in this quote of mechanism & reductionism as negative and to be feared. This is not in my view a call to rapidly create a dysfunctional society obsessed with technology, Descartes is saying society needed to recognise itself to become human.

This in itself is an interpretation of truth. I do not absolutely believe Max-Neef or my own explanation. Each though, can be argued as an engagement with the past to construct a world view in the present. A way then, of perceiving reality and create the next path.

What then does the next path hold? What can be drawn from Francis, Mirandola, Bruno and Goethe? There is a pattern of characteristics throughout the fields, that of integrating notions of love, feeling, intuition and contemplation of the world around us into scientific and thus wider social discourses, as a part of multiple accepted truths. This would mean accepting Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton also. All paths are truths due to the nature of truth, tolerance of difference and enlightenment. They are a key perception at a point in history of the world and their ideas of the future.

Max-Neef comments on Goethe’s contemplation, “the arousal of the feeling of wonder through contemplative looking in which the scientist would come to see God in Nature and Nature in God”. (p6) Much has come from the minds and hearts of many great thinkers who were also greatly religious - there is no doubt of this. This seems to exclude those without religious faith as having any power to believe in that which cannot be proved by scientific method. Science is beautiful, the discoveries from within it are incredible and prove the awesome power of the universe itself. This is Goethe’s contemplation however without the absolute truth that is created of the believer’s God. This may be Christian, Muslim or Jewish. So I think it is not a fair comment of Max-Neef to say, “Feeling , intuition, consciousness and spirituality are still banished from the realm of science.” I think the scientific method is to prove or disprove a totality in practice; it still allows contemplation of ethereality in the findings of this method. So although I agree that we do need to bring other senses into our interpretation of the world on a mass scale; this is not to say it as been banished from all discourses and that this in itself is the cause of “virtues such as faith, hope and charity manifest themselves today metamorphosed as schitzophrenia, depression and narcissism“ (p 8).

There is a deeper quality within basic values of mankind no matter the God that is tied to the Earth and the way in which we interact with it and each other.
The plethora of knowledge created from science is a means of bringing us to the point of navigation to experience. Unfortunately at a historical point we chose to use this information to advance technologically and lose our connection with nature and other people.

Max-Neef’s explanation of the difference between knowledge and experience is very enlightening. We can know many things however the less we experience and involve ourselves the more disassociated we become, “understanding is holistic, while knowledge is fragmented”.
I think this is particularly pertinent within the West where the indirect channels of goods to bring the product to the user (completely unattached to it’s origins) to become a commodity in a supermarket. Children in Australia have no idea beef comes from a cow. Meat originates in a supermarket to them. Although children voice this more clearly, most adults have also chosen this path also. They are so inebriated with consumer culture, so disattached from the experience of a cow‘s death to satisfy their hunger. Instead it is a slice of meat, cut, packaged in plastic (with no though of what has gone into creating that plastic or the transportation of livestock) available on a shelf in a supermarket.
I wonder whether this is a culmination of guilt, deliberate disattachment due to a subconscious or underlying realisation that all is not quite right with the world and we may not have chosen the right path, that each person must change to make any change. This is as Max-Neef states:

“a period in which global poverty has increased dramatically, debt burden has crippled many national economies and generated brutal over expolitation of both people and natural resources; destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity have reached levels unknown in human history; and accumulation of financial wealth in ever fewer hands has reached obscene proportions”.

We as Westerners are locked within our self inflicted reality and too addicted to change. Consumerism is an addiction and one with drastic consequences as Max-neef describes well. This must change, we cannot live in bubbles with our things whilst others suffer. I differ from Max-Neef in believing knowledge is incredibly important factor in the experiencing of the world, we need to integrate this knowledge into the experience. Without knowledge we could not talk of Descartes or Goethe. Without knowledge we could not read this article or discuss possible paths. It is the importance of not justifying actions for the sake of knowledge, knowledge needs to be living and breathing. It would be incredibly “wise to unearth the alternative map of the route we did not navigate”. I think this map needs to be learnt from and experienced through the reformation of social systems in accordance with values that have been swept aside by the whirlwind that is the pursuit of knowledge. These values are a spirituality however do not need to be attached to a God, and if they are, this may again be their denial once again. The world is suffocated : there is no longer any bifurcations if we want to continue living upon this Earth.
Knowledge itself has to be deregulated and sustainability must be the key to experiencing the world once more as something outside ourselves and our absurdly short time frames. We need to see ourselves as part of the living system that has been for many eons before and hopefully will be for many after.

The Forgotten Map ??

2008-08-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Is it really our decisions that have landed us in the ‘crisis’ that is today?
May be it is time to navigate the alternative routes? Well, maybe not. It may be just another fabrication that doesn’t make much sense. Let’s examine.

Life is a sequence of bifurcations. Well, it’s not that simple. It is a sequence of events that take place and are all affected by a huge number of parameters, some of which depend upon the results of the first event, i.e. a chaos system. Of course, choice of one road is important but the event in the choice is a variable change. And it has to be accounted for. It’s non linear and it’s literally complex.

Background check on Francis of Assisi:
This person was actually a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. And as all high up in the Church, life was a gift to them. They knew no vulgarities of nature, didn’t face the darker sides of life. They had to perform neither toil nor any hard work without their consent (slavery). The church took care that they lead a life like none other. And thus, all he had to do is preach. Preach. Preach.

Background check on Machiavelli:
This person was a practical, down to earth man. He did what his reason told him was right. He himself worked in his fields and did all that a common man would do. So, it may be said that he was in sync with the realities of the world back then. And whatever he claimed, he had actually put into practice or proved it. Hence, the masses accepted it.

Hence people followed Machiavelli and not the Francis of Assisi. That was the most logical thing to do in that context. I feel that it was the right thing that had been done then. Following the Francis of Assisi would have proved to be against the laws and order of nature, as it was imaginary.

Now about Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
This guy was a philosopher, who I would say, failed in actuating his real genius. A sorry tale for a person with such talents, but he had a right approach, though it was quit beyond the society of that time to understand.
One can go on questioning the people like the above believe or say or do. But the underlying principle is that a person and his beliefs are always a function of his intellect and the circumstances in which he is plus a small variable change (∂x) which is very critical in determining his entirety or completeness.

About Giordano Bruno
Bruno is known for his use and development of the art of memory, a mnemonic system based upon organized knowledge. He was also an early proponent of the idea of an infinite and homogeneous universe. It was for this reason that he was burnt at stake by the Roman Catholic Church. The official reason for the Roman Catholic Church was, of course, to retain the social order. But it was the fear of loss of authority that actually drove them to take such a step. Something we may claim to follow the principle of Machiavelli. Something which in later years was termed by scientists as “survival of the fittest” (NOTE – the term ‘pantheism’ was coined only after 1700s, long after Bruno’s execution)

Gothe’s science – well, it is more a philosophy, rather a great philosophy made to sound like science. More importantly, research (and hence, science) is still on in the fields related to feeling, intuition, consciousness etc. Research in these areas has partly led to the development of psychological warfare. A wrong application, but it’s the evidence that the fields are still of interest to the scientific community.

This world is now in confusion?? Is the universe or the nature ordered? These are all interlinked questions whose answer science is trying to work out – the Theory of Everything. Moreover, what we think is chaos is because we fail at the present point to understand the underlying pattern. Would there have been no confusion had we followed “the other/forgotten route”

“Knowledge is not the road to understanding.” Well, then what is?? Knowledge is formed from the innumerable steps we take with the view of attaining total understanding, some of which get a bit luckier and some get unlucky. So, it is always knowledge that is always the road to understanding; especially when the case is love. Can a person in love or who has been in love define it? More importantly, does he/she understand love; when it started and when it ended or may be quantify it?

There is nothing wrong in the dominant language if it copes up with the challenges of the period. And yes, it does shape the perception of the common man at the same time. But the phase transition from one language to another is a period in which several sub-languages emerge and try to come onto the main screen. It is in this phase when we are most likely to lose focus and control.

For example, the Wild Wild West or cow-boy type of culture that was once prevalent in US suddenly re-surfaced with Bush Junior taking up the reins at the White House and has made it clear that some privileged people can actually devastate the entire system. Changes like these are effected by the leaders of the masses, in which case, can it be said that Al Gore or the members of jury in the Supreme Court who ruled in favour of Bush Junior are to be blamed for failing?

The whole problem is with one new language coming over by replacing an old one. That, I dare say, led to all the problems in the first place. So, instead of actually trying to figure out and implement a completely new language, we should try to focus on the re-drawing of the perspectives and improvising or upgrading or optimizing the language. And, regrettably, this is no decision to make; it’s a path to be followed.

The Forgotten Map by Manfred Max-Neef: A Critique

2008-08-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

The present is a reflection of the past. The state we are in today, whether good or bad, is a result of our actions of the past, the decisions that we made and the paths that we chose. Equally, the paths we choose today will determine our future.

The article is mainly concerned with the fact that the current state of spiritual vacuum and emotional turbidity that today’s generation finds itself in is a direct consequence of the ill-conceived decisions that were taken by the past generations. According to Max-Neef, human civillisation has chosen to bask in materialism and reason, while ignoring the spiritual. So while the world of brotherhood among all creations and nature introduced by St. Francis of Assisi was forgotten, we lapped up the principles of Machiavalli. Be it Pico Della Mirandola and Francis Bacon, or Giordano Bruno and Decartes, one point of view has always dominated, and shaped the perspective of people, the perspective of narrowness and mechanism.

In science, we have celebrated the doctrine of Galileo and Newton, who put reason and logic above all else. We have accepted mathematics and cold hard facts as the core of the so called scientific temperament. Goethe, at the same time had expressed the idea that the goal of science is spiritual enlightenment. That it is not possible to isolate the observer from the observed. That a spiritual dimension underlies everything physical. However his ideas have been obliterated by the sheer popularity of Galileo and Newton.

Thus, according to Max-Neef, our previous generations set humanity off on a downward spiral that has culminated in today’s world of unmitigated discontent and angst. As opposed to understanding, which is a holistic approach to learning, mankind has embraced knowledge, which is fragmented and incomplete. We are, therefore in a state of complete chaos, which is nothing but a result of the failure to take better decisions in the past.

The future, however does not have to be as hopeless. The decisions we will take today will present themselves in the future. We have to veer more towards harmony and true understanding as opposed to merely gathering knowledge. But for that to happen, a paradigm shift is required in the ‘language’ the governs this generation. According to the author, every generation has a dominant language the has to be consistent with the particular demands of that era. That was true until the present era, where ‘neo-liberalism’ has taken over the world. To change our approach to perception, we first need to change this language. Only then can the future generations escape the circle of spiritual poverty and detachment.

The article, although giving mostly one side of the argument, is not bereft of truth. Max-Neef feels quite strongly for the subject, as evident from his language and choice of words. It is true that for the most part, today’s generation is unsatisfied and frustrated. It can also be argued that such dissatisfaction is a result of the emotional bankruptcy and moral destituteness of present humanity as a whole. The decisions of the past, which included following the single-minded pursuit of knowledge leaving no room for spirituality has no doubt led to such a scenario.

Nevertheless, it is also true that such a pursuit has led to what we call progress. Perhaps if we had put more emphasis on spiritual upliftment, we would have been satisfied with whatever we had and not strived for a more convenient world. So while we can mourn all we want the loss of spiritual enlightenment, we have to accept that without the fruits of progress brought forth by the collective decisions that humanity took, living would have been a lot more difficult than it is today.

THE FORGOTTEN MAP

2008-08-02T05:07:00.000-07:00

The article states that route taken by man all through these ages has led to the current global crisis. The author feels life would have been very different if man had taken the alternative route that had come across him though out his history. He tries to trace back in time, where man went terribly wrong in making decisions. He brings to notice few people from different periods of time whose ideas of love, spirituality, soul, hope are suppressed by ideas of fear, reasoning and mechanism and depression.

At first it feels like the author is trying to regret at whatever man has done. It feels like he is trying to convey that man has made some major blunders in making some major decisions, which is very true when we look back to history, but we don’t know under what circumstances those decisions were made. Sometimes situations have aroused in history like in wars where some decisions had to be made whether good or bad. The author tries to trace back an alternative route, by pointing at some decisive bifurcations which man can trace again to make the world a better place.

Man, through all the ages has always been selfish in all aspects. He feels it is safer to be feared than loved. People began to believe in only what they see, or was it people were brainwashed to believe only what they see. We see in history, how Christianism, during it upcoming shunned every other religious idea that was against it. Everything else was just suppressed or oppressed. Missionaries were sent all across the world to make people believe only on their ideals. As the author rightly points out the Christian virtues such as faith, hope and charity have metamorphosed into schizophrenia, depression and narcissism.

Man began to believe in reasoning and had the feeling that he was on his way to discover the truth which led to confusion on what was right and wrong. In this chaos, the ultimate truth of spirituality, god, love was lost somewhere. Man has progressed, but is it to just isolate himself from the society, lose his social identity and try to find virtual identities where he is someone else. Is it that man wants to escape from what is happening in the world or has he realized that some major blunders have been made in the past and its better not to indulge more. Or is he at just another bifurcation in life which he should not have taken.

I personally have always felt that we are in an age of ignorance because whatever is being done has no inner meaning or ultimate understanding. We are just happy in skimming through the surface and happy in collecting data and flaunting about it. Man has all the knowledge he wants about anything, all at the click of a button. The respect of value of knowledge is gone. Like the author says the journey in accumulations of knowledge has been great but where is all this leading to.

Every generations has its theme, the article says that man has been pretty good or successful in tackling the historical challenges prevalent in those periods by respective languages of those times. But isn’t this contradicting with earlier topics discussed in the article that man has failed in taking the decisions which could have led to a better world.

The author points out the emergence of neo-liberal discourse (a programme of methodical destruction) in the last three decades which has led to the doom and all the chaos. The result of which is a large gap between the rich and the poor. Money began making money. Rich became richer and poor became poorer. Bringing in a new theory that the rich are powerful and are the decision makers giving no place to huge mass of common people in any decision making. I sometimes wonder how the same man with money is so different from his counterparts with no money.

The article makes us realize we still have time to reflect back on what we have done and try to find an alternative map out of this confusion. The article is written in 1992, after which the map has gone much more complicated. One might feel how can an individual bring about a change or even think about bringing a change in this current world of chaos and confusion. But the problem is we begin to look at things largely and ignore all the small things. We’ll have to start out with bringing about changes in small things which sometimes can become a TIPPING POINT or may even become the new language of this period.

MUSHTAQ ANIS

mushtaq_a@nid.edu

TRANSPORTATION AND AUTOMOBILE DESIGN.

2008-08-01T23:01:00.001-07:00

A Different World:

Why we ask questions at different phase of our lives?Why we remember our birthday? Why we remember dates? Why we remember accidents? It’s because something on that came into existence. Someone was born. Something happened that day which changed the way we live and think. The events that occur today will be a history of tomorrow. Today’s decision will certainly leave an impact on what we do tomorrow or in the near by future. The path we selected today will certainly lead us to a new direction tomorrow. A Direction, with its own thinking, lifestyle and challenges . But what if I do something today that will alter my direction tomorrow with the previous thought. We choose to be in love today that may give us a love tomorrow. But if we choose to stay away from love today then it will certainly be opposite to the one before.
So what is responsible for, what we really are now? The fact behind this is our behavior. Our thinking that is based on logic. Selection of what is right and what is wrong. Comparison of good and bad. And it is not only the single factor called “Conscious Mind” that determines our behavior. There are the ideologies, social thinking, education system etc. that leads and moulds us to accept, what has been accepted as truth and requirements in the past, in the history.We see all around us a web that has been confined within a thinking. A thinking, that was developed by some and which was accepted by all as a path to achieve social, political and economic growth and appreciation. We define our destiny at a point with two or many directions and we choose what we think is best considering all what we have have experienced in the past. But when something strange happens or something happens which was not expected to be, then we always think of what we had as an alternate path.
The thinking and theories of Giovanni Bernardone (Francis of Assisi), Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandola, GiordanoBruno which were swept aside and now have become a history itself, explain the importance of existence of love and its meaning, spiritual renovation of humanity, life on earth. On the other hand , what we accepted were the behavior based on fear for love, hatred against nature , becoming automatic machines and the science of measuring that which can’t be measured.
Science is what that has defined and shaped us today.The way we walk, live, talk everything we measure in terms of science called technology, lifestyle. But when we look on the other side or better to say to the other path of science which we have swept aside then we see the knowledge we have to gain related to our existence, spirituality, our identity. The feeling like imagining god inside and outside. Science can help us to provide the knowledge of observing the other aspects of physical world.

When we talk about the knowledge, then we are not talking of this physical world but we are talking about the knowledge that has been taught to us through books, the daily practice of our society. The society which is far from what is reality. The habbits and learning of today’s world is influenced by the navigated route where we compare our success with success of others.Where we compare achievements of ours with what has been achieved earlier, with the same path followed as they did.But what happens when we come to a point where we have to compare our same level of success and achievements with two other unfamiliar paths.That point is what we called as the point where Confusion comes into action.This is the point where we ask ourselves and start believing on the virtual world that the science can take us into.
We read in the books and listen from outside the story of our past, like the story of our evolution but little we come to know about the same. Its because whatever has been told to us or written is based on the knowledge and facts that we have explored over some years. We take help of the same science to explore our story which in turn is again based on same theories. When we try to figure out the real reason of being then we cannot find a suitable answer to the query. Its where now the knowledge of real world comes into play. We have books, the theories, the sociological data, psychological data etc but still something we find is still missing. Its sooner or later we realize is the knowledge of love for that, which we want to understand .Knowledge is like an island for us , to reach we require a medium and that medium is love. Once we have love and we learn to fall in love, we will have the basic need. So what important to us is not the knowledge but how to attain it is what more important to have. This love can also be termed as understanding.
So now we realize that knowledge without understanding can’t be achieved.This understanding also has a medium we call as Language.Its the language through which our perception and hence our actions get shape.Evry ear , every age has its language as per the needs and perception.The language of 19th century was the language of nation considerations like political speeches by leaders.The language of 20th century was what have become the important domination of history, the language of war.And now is the 21st century having a language of economy.Whatever we think, do and write is in the terms of economic language.But also what came along was a mis conception, carelessness, disaster aginst nature, ecosystem etc.These are the disastrous effects of language.
So now what we need to really think about is what the various languages in histry has left for us which is still untouched.Its time to turn back the pages and search for what we called as true reality.What all we have discovered can now be used in other forms.The mathematics , science which have been used as tools for our development can also be used to discover the true value of being here.

2008-08-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

History of Design:

Why we ask questions at different phase of our lives?Why we remember our birthday? Why we remember dates? Why we remember accidents? It’s because something on that came into existence. Someone was born. Something happened that day which changed the way we live and think. The events that occur today will be a history of tomorrow. Today’s decision will certainly leave an impact on what we do tomorrow or in the near by future. The path we selected today will certainly lead us to a new direction tomorrow. A Direction, with its own thinking, lifestyle and challenges . But what if I do something today that will alter my direction tomorrow with the previous thought. We choose to be in love today that may give us a love tomorrow. But if we choose to stay away from love today then it will certainly be opposite to the one before.
So what is responsible for, what we really are now? The fact behind this is our behavior. Our thinking that is based on logic. Selection of what is right and what is wrong. Comparison of good and bad. And it is not only the single factor called “Conscious Mind” that determines our behavior. There are the ideologies, social thinking, education system etc. that leads and moulds us to accept, what has been accepted as truth and requirements in the past, in the history.We see all around us a web that has been confined within a thinking. A thinking, that was developed by some and which was accepted by all as a path to achieve social, political and economic growth and appreciation. We define our destiny at a point with two or many directions and we choose what we think is best considering all what we have have experienced in the past. But when something strange happens or something happens which was not expected to be, then we always think of what we had as an alternate path.
The thinking and theories of Giovanni Bernardone (Francis of Assisi), Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandola, GiordanoBruno which were swept aside and now have become a history itself, explain the importance of existence of love and its meaning, spiritual renovation of humanity, life on earth. On the other hand , what we accepted were the behavior based on fear for love, hatred against nature , becoming automatic machines and the science of measuring that which can’t be measured.
Science is what that has defined and shaped us today.The way we walk, live, talk everything we measure in terms of science called technology, lifestyle. But when we look on the other side or better to say to the other path of science which we have swept aside then we see the knowledge we have to gain related to our existence, spirituality, our identity. The feeling like imagining god inside and outside. Science can help us to provide the knowledge of observing the other aspects of physical world.

When we talk about the knowledge, then we are not talking of this physical world but we are talking about the knowledge that has been taught to us through books, the daily practice of our society. The society which is far from what is reality. The habbits and learning of today’s world is influenced by the navigated route where we compare our success with success of others.Where we compare achievements of ours with what has been achieved earlier, with the same path followed as they did.But what happens when we come to a point where we have to compare our same level of success and achievements with two other unfamiliar paths.That point is what we called as the point where Confusion comes into action.This is the point where we ask ourselves and start believing on the virtual world that the science can take us into.
We read in the books and listen from outside the story of our past, like the story of our evolution but little we come to know about the same. Its because whatever has been told to us or written is based on the knowledge and facts that we have explored over some years. We take help of the same science to explore our story which in turn is again based on same theories. When we try to figure out the real reason of being then we cannot find a suitable answer to the query. Its where now the knowledge of real world comes into play. We have books, the theories, the sociological data, psychological data etc but still something we find is still missing. Its sooner or later we realize is the knowledge of love for that, which we want to understand .Knowledge is like an island for us , to reach we require a medium and that medium is love. Once we have love and we learn to fall in love, we will have the basic need. So what important to us is not the knowledge but how to attain it is what more important to have. This love can also be termed as understanding.
So now we realize that knowledge without understanding can’t be achieved.This understanding also has a medium we call as Language.Its the language through which our perception and hence our actions get shape.Evry ear , every age has its language as per the needs and perception.The language of 19th century was the language of nation considerations like political speeches by leaders.The language of 20th century was what have become the important domination of history, the language of war.And now is the 21st century having a language of economy.Whatever we think, do and write is in the terms of economic language.But also what came along was a mis conception, carelessness, disaster aginst nature, ecosystem etc.These are the disastrous effects of language.
So now what we need to really think about is what the various languages in histry has left for us which is still untouched.Its time to turn back the pages and search for what we called as true reality.What all we have discovered can now be used in other forms.The mathematics , science which have been used as tools for our development can also be used to discover the true value of being here.

Animesh Shrivastava

The Road Not Taken

2008-08-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

LOOKING AT THE PAST

2008-08-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

In our early discussions we talked about how history is not just a bunch of dates or a list of incidents and how an analysis of events in the past could illuminate the present and point towards actions to shape the future. We also talked about the idea that no analysis is value free. Here is an article from Resurgence which is thought provoking ...

THE FORGOTTEN MAP

MANFRED MAX-NEEF

The decisions humanity has taken in the past have led us to a place of global crisis. Perhaps we took the wrong path. Perhaps it is time to navigate the alternative routes, the ones we discarded in favour of our current language of reductionist science and neo-liberal globalisation.

Life is an unending sequence of bifurcations. The decision I take implies all the decisions I did not take. The route I choose is part of all the routes I did not choose. Our life is inevitably a permanent choice of one among an infinity of ontological possibilities. The fact that I was at a given place, at a very precise moment in time, when a given situation occurred or a given person appeared, may have had a decisive effect on the rest of my life. A few minutes earlier or later or a few metres away in any direction might well have determined a different bifurcation and, hence, a completely different life. As the great Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset pointed out, “I am myself and my circumstance.”

What holds for individual lives holds for communities and whole societies as well. Our so-called Western (Judaeo-Christian) civilisation is the result of its own bifurcations. We in the West are what we are, but we could also have been something we are not. Let us then revise some of our decisive bifurcations.

Some time during the 12th century in Italy, a young man named Giovanni Bernardone, while still very young and very rich, decided to radically change his life. As a result of his transformation, we remember him today under a different name: Francis of Assisi. When he referred to the world, Francis spoke of brother Sun and sister Moon, of brother wolf; and of water, fire, trees and people as brothers and sisters as well. The world he described and felt was a world where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning.

Some time later, also in Italy, the resounding voice of the brilliant and astute Machiavelli could be heard, warning us that “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved.” He also described a world, but in addition he created a world.

The world we have today is not that of Francis. It is the world of Machiavelli. Francis was the route not navigated. The navigation we chose was that of Machiavelli, and inspired by it we have constructed our social, political and economic conceptions.

In 1487, at just twenty-three years of age, Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola prepared himself for the public defence of his 900 theses about the concord between the different religions and philosophies. He refused to enclose himself within the narrowness of just one doctrine. Convinced that truths are multiple, and never just one, he longed for a spiritual renovation that could reconcile humanity.

Some years later, Francis Bacon, a fervent believer in absolute truth and in the possibilities of certainty, invited us to torture Nature so that through the delivery of her secrets we could extract the truth.

Again, two worlds, one representing the route we navigated, and the other the route we navigated not. We did not follow the way suggested by Pico della Mirandola. We opted for accepting Bacon’s invitation, and we continue applying his recipe with efficiency and enthusiasm. We continue torturing Nature in order to extract from her what we believe to be the truth.

In the year 1600, Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, victim of his pantheism, since he believed that the Earth is life and has a soul. Everything, for him, is a manifestation of life. Everything is life. Three decades later, René Descartes whispered in his Metaphysical Reflections: “What I see through my window are hats and coats covering automatic machines.” We did not navigate the route of Bruno. We chose that of Descartes, and as a result we have witnessed the triumph of mechanism and reductionism.

For Galileo and Newton, the language of Nature was mathematics. To them, nothing that cannot be measured is important in science. We and Nature, the observer and the observed, are separate entities. Science is the supreme manifestation of reason, and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being.

Goethe, whose scientific contributions have been (unjustly) overshadowed because of his colossal achievements in literature and the arts, felt upset with what he believed to be the limitations of Newtonian physics. For Goethe, “science is as much an inner path of spiritual development as it is a discipline aimed at accumulating knowledge of the physical world. It involves not only a rigorous training of our faculties of observation and thinking, but also of other human faculties which can attune us to the spiritual dimension that underlies and interpenetrates the physical: faculties such as feeling, imagination and intuition.” Science, as Goethe conceived and practised it, has as its highest goal the arousal of the feeling of wonder through contemplative looking (Anschauung), in which the scientist would come to see God in Nature and Nature in God.

Two worlds once more. Another bifurcation. We are still under the spell of the overpowering lustre of Galileo and Newton, and have chosen not to navigate the route of Goethean science. Feeling, intuition, consciousness and spirituality are still banished from the realm of science, some new enlightenment arising from the field of quantum physics notwithstanding. The teaching of conventional economics, which, as incredible as it may sound, claims to be “value free”, is a conspicuous case in point. A discipline where mathematics has become an end in itself instead of a tool and where only that which can be measured is important has generated models and interpretations that are theoretically attractive but totally divorced from reality.

That’s the way it is. A route not navigated remembered only by bookworms, and a navigated route to which we attribute spectacular successes and achievements. Universities in particular have chosen the routes of Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton. Meanwhile, Francis, Picot, Giordano Bruno and Goethe the scientist have remained as historical footnotes.

Because of the route we have navigated, we have managed to construct a world in which – as suggested by the Catalonian philosopher Jordi Pigem – the Christian virtues such as faith, hope and charity manifest themselves today metamorphosed as schizophrenia, depression and narcissism. The navigation, no doubt, has been fascinating and spectacular. There is much in it to be admired. However, if schizophrenia, depression and narcissism are now the mirror of our existential reality, it is because all of a sudden we find ourselves in a world of confusion; in a world of disenchantment where progress becomes paradoxical and absurd, and reality becomes so incomprehensible that we desperately seek refuge in a technology that offers us an escape into virtual realities.

We have arrived at a point in our human evolution characterised by the fact that we know a lot but we understand very little. Our chosen navigation has been piloted by reason, leading us into the port of knowledge. As such it has been an overwhelmingly successful navigation. We have never in all of our existence accumulated more knowledge than during the last 100 years. We are celebrating the apotheosis of reason, but in the midst of such a splendid celebration we suddenly have the feeling that something is missing.

Yes, we can achieve knowledge about almost anything we want. We can, for instance, guided by our beloved scientific method, study everything there is, from theological, anthropological, sociological, psychological and even biochemical perspectives, about a human phenomenon called love. The result will be that we will know everything that can be known about love. But once we achieve that complete knowledge, we will sooner or later discover that we will never understand love unless we fall in love. We will realise that knowledge is not the road that leads to understanding, because the port of understanding is on another shore, and requires a different navigation. We will then be aware that we can only attempt to understand that of which we become a part. That understanding is the result of integration, while knowledge has been the result of detachment. That understanding is holistic, while knowledge is fragmented.

At least we have reached a point in which (many conventional academics notwithstanding) those of us who, in Goethe’s perspective, are concerned with the relation between science and spirituality are finally becoming aware that knowledge is not enough, and that we have to learn how to attain understanding in order to achieve the completeness of our being and the completeness of our science.

We are, perhaps, beginning to realise that knowledge without understanding is hollow, and that understanding without knowledge is incomplete. We therefore need to undertake, at last, the navigation we have so far postponed. But in order to do so we must face the great challenge of a language shift.

Ortega, the Spanish philosopher already mentioned, used to say that “every generation has its theme.” We might add that every generation or historical period is dominated by or falls under the spell of a particular form of language. That is the way it is, and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as the dominant language of a given period is coherent with the challenges of that period. The important thing to keep in mind is that language influences our perceptions and hence shapes our actions. Let us go through some examples.

During the first three centuries of the second millennium of Western civilisation, the dominant language was of a teleological nature, meaning that human actions had to be justified in terms of a calling that was superior and beyond the needs of everyday life. That made possible the construction of the great cathedrals and monasteries, where time was no issue. The construction would take six hundred years? So what? Nobody was in a hurry. After all, they were constructing for eternity, and eternity is not infinite time, but timelessness. Thank God that the language of ‘economic efficiency’ had not yet been invented. The importance lay in the deed and not in the time it might take. It was a case of coherence between language and historical challenge.

The language dominating the 19th century was basically that of the consolidation of the nation-state. The great speeches of political leaders such as Disraeli, Gladstone and Bismarck are examples. Without going into details, we might also say that the dominant language of the century was coherent with the historical challenge of the times.

It was only in the 20th century that the dominant language became that of economics, especially during the second half. A quick overview shows some interesting perspectives. The late twenties and early thirties, the time of the so-called Great Depression, coincided with the emergence of Keynesian economics. The Keynesian language was in many ways the result of a crisis, having the capacity of interpreting the crisis as well as overcoming it. It is, again, a language (or rather sub-language) coherent with its historical period.

The next sub-language shift occurred during the fifties and sixties with the emergence of so-called developmental language. This was an optimistic, utopian and happy language. Economists writing in those days were mainly dominated by the feeling that, at last, we had discovered how to promote true development and overcome world poverty. However, what should be pointed out is that although the hoped-for goals were not fully achieved, many things during those decades changed in a positive manner. This was a language at least partially coherent with its historical challenges.

And then came the last three decades of the 20th century, with the emergence of the neo-liberal discourse: a language that is still dominating over a period in which global poverty has increased dramatically, debt burden has crippled many national economies and generated brutal over-exploitation of both people and natural resources, destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity have reached levels unknown in human history, and accumulation of financial wealth in ever fewer hands has reached obscene proportions. The disastrous effects of this language, absolutely incoherent with its historical challenges, can be clearly seen by anyone, although decision-makers and holders of power prefer to look in the opposite direction.

WE HAVE a tendency to perceive ourselves as members of a successful culture. However, the truth is that no matter how far we extend the concept of success, we are still incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and spiritually poor. And it is most probably that incompleteness, that poverty, which is responsible for the uneasiness and anxieties that permeate our existence in the world today.

Perhaps the moment has arrived in which to rest and reflect. We have the opportunity now to analyse with true honesty the map of our navigation, with all its hazards and successes, and with all its tragedies and glories. And then it might be wise to unearth the alternative map of the route we did not navigated, and see whether we can find in it orientations that can rescue us from our existential confusion.

As a consequence of the unearthing of the forgotten map, perhaps it would make sense for us to start seeing brothers and sisters surrounding us. Perhaps it would be good to believe in the possibility of harmony between many possible truths. Perhaps it might be to our advantage to dare to imagine and believe that the Earth has a soul and that everything is life. Perhaps it would be good to realise that there is no reason whatsoever to banish intuition, spirituality and consciousness from the realm of science. Or, to put it in Goethe’s words, “If [we] would seek comfort in the whole, [we] must learn to discover the whole in the smallest part,” because “nothing is more consonant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.”

Our passionate pursuit of knowledge has postponed our navigation towards understanding. There should be nothing to impede the undertaking of such a navigation now, were it not for an economics which, as practised under the spell of the neo-liberal discourse, increasingly distorts reality, thus contributing to our confusion and to the falsification of knowledge itself.

No sustainability (which obviously requires understanding) will or can be achieved without a profound language shift. We need a new language that opens the door of understanding: not a language of power and domination, but a language that may emerge from the depth of our self-discovery as an inseparable part of a whole that is the cradle of the miracle of life. If we manage to provoke such a shift, we may still experience the satisfaction of having brought about a new century worth living in. •

Manfred Max-Neef is an economist who received the 1983 Right Livelihood Award in recognition of his work for development alternatives in Latin America. He is co-author, with Paul Ekins, of Real-Life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation, published by Routledge in 1992.

This article first appeared in the March/April 2008 issue of Resurgence magazine and is reproduced here with permission from the Resurgence team. For more information please visit www.resurgence.org.