The Rebelle blog

While Mies said it with 'Less is More', Slavoj Zizek speaks about 'More for Less.' His fundamental idea is that, if we abstain from adding any superficial ornaments, don't fill in all the gaps for the completed form of our products, this very loss will generate an additional meaning and create a depth in understanding the gap between the inside and the outside space of a building, that layer of reality which makes the whole notion of volumetrical territory as something that belongs to a certain human status or class in our highly layered society. Aren't all of us trying to understand these internal immensities that give a way to us being visible to the outside world? How more could we establish this connect? This is an old thought. What matters more is our reluctance to address and ponder upon them. In a world full of conflicts, divisions and establishing rights, we are filling our lives with disputes that really mean little. I thi...

I have never till date felt so defenceless over a headache! In fact, I have never given power to my body to enslave me with sickness. I have always been healthy for years. My last bout of sickness was in 2005 when I was bedridden for a week apparently from the exhaustion of travelling to and fro from college. Architecture as academics was exhausting. Instead of expanding my health issues any further here, I would like to write about my recent disinterest in blogging.  On one hand, I have been reading excessively like a mad(wo)man, devouring a couple of hundred pages every day or so, and yet I find myself bereft of words to write here. I have also met some new people, readers who have turned their passion into a business, which is too cool, I think! The more I look at people who have developed this transgression from reading and owning books and then, selling them, the more subconscious I have become about my books at home. My Dad and I share a common giant wall bookshelf with...

SO TODAY has been a very mixed productive work day. I believe I have absolutely tired my eyes out staring at the computer screen so much in 9 hours. More than that actually. Do we ever stop working by the clock? I envisaged two lines of a story throughout the day just to keep up with my energies for some creative output for the day.  I was very happy in the morning after my dance class and decided to paint something today. The morning breeze and slight drizzle on the way back home put me in high spirits. I felt charged and every atom within me bounced with endless energy. Something about witnessing the bright day and chaos on the streets had me unexpectantly cheery for my usual self. There is a madness in routine and habits. Anthony Trollope is said to have written meticulously every day. He wrote every day for three hours, 250 words in 15 minutes and 66 pages per week was his decided course for a book draft. This kind of routine is sure to produce good writing habits. I have...

It's one of those days, you know when you are feeling low and your self-esteem is at a real zero, that the universe provides hope in unexpected forms. With me, this happened in the form of postcards, not one, two or three but ELEVEN of them. My Dad bought the post on his way back home and I almost cried with joy to see them all.  What makes a random activity like Postcrossing really click with people and invest their time in sending postcards with messages to strangers all over the world? I believe, it is the necessity to claim humanity, to claim the love that is lost in the vast sea pool of hatred, discrimination and diversity. The more connected the world has become, the faster we have lost our shroud of humanity. We are increasingly being divided on the basis of race, colour, religion, economy, culture, geography and politics, of course! Our conscious collaborative is not working amidst high powered business economies and commercial profit ventures. People who come from di...

I recently reread Norman Lowe's phenomenal book on History titled, Mastering Modern World History, as part of my preparations for upcoming exams. The first time I had read it was as a general reader who wished to know the events and timeline of progression of nations post-war and about independent colonies of the British Raj. This time when I read it as a student interpreting and correlating world events that led to wars, formation of UN, the Cold war era and subsequent disintegration of Soviet Union, it brought a methodical analysis to history as we should see and study it in current context. After reading through school textbooks about the French and Russian Revolutions and their fight for securing and protecting the apex human values of liberty and equality, it became even more important to start reading about the history of humanity that also went through two very disturbing and violent world wars that destroyed nations and people. This book was last updated in 1997, henc...

I don't even know how to express this or say that I have just fallen in love with Umberto Eco. It's some late love blooming. He passed away last week. Rest in Peace, Signor Eco. It's some coincidence that I bought a book written by him yesterday and a newspaper's literary supplement had his literary genius covered in their Sunday issue. Everything just seems to be inter-connected. I have begun to have more faith and see more clearly, albeit with my glasses on, about connections of the mind and the meta physical. How else could I explain something as crazy as reading about Balzac and the little chinese seamstress the other day in a YA book and then seeing this Balzac book on a trip to a new book store in town? Sometimes I long for too many familiar details like characters from books that seem to exist in real life or my very placid self succumbing to haywire imaginary plots and situations. Perhaps, this is all a wide array of chaos meant to contain within our human...

With the advent of Modi, people who earlier had moderate views have suddenly turned into fierce nationalists. People have started defending their religion with an ardent zeal and not just defending, proclaiming how theirs is the world's greatest religion. Is this all necessary? Isn't religion made for man, than being the opposite? How does a particular religion's superiority give anyone access and right to malign other religious doctrines? This is denouncing history. And, plain stupid if people think only their race is superior and hence reserves the right to inhabit a particular city or country. Highly illogical information perpetrated through half-read wikipedia pages. Why don't people who are up for an argument on religion and fundamentalism actually read "proofs" and theories that have been proved, verified and accepted by scholars worldwide. If one wants to limit themselves to some nationalist's version of events, his area of understanding would be s...