My notes on North East ...

Existential vs Sustainable/lity is the quintessential of the region NE…., so it needs to be taken ahead in the context of quote-unquote development in a way such that…Position it the way satisfying aspirations of the ethnic urban bred and inclusive of the local demography of ( sustenance and existential) through meta-laws and whatever to empower and Sustain its ‘existential commerce’. NE and so do many parts of this land on the globe people live on. On and on. 

Industry of the non environment polluting kind, that which is about: Self sustenance of products and services which are intrinsic to the region culturally, a Destination of Ayur for example, of Liberal Art, IT Resource industry, Tourism reimagined as a get away! with pace of life with nature…few directions…

Excerpt from my writing in progress...

- Ravishankar | Notepad | August 2022.

System Theory Paradox

We begin with abilities and then develop in capabilities and mediocrity to deal with the systems and procedures we have created around ourselves. 

Any system stabilises to mediocrity of status quo.

Disrupters come in once in a while, and nonconformists, many struggle in the system and die, the few left do whatever….. for a new familiar system which stabilises again to mediocrity… 

Present continuous Chaos is the order of the universe. 

A mindless continuity.

- August 2022 from my Notepad

Design Process in the Field

• Pick/work-given on area of Intervention 
• Data-Information-Knowledge 
• Go on into the field - validate, discover - Analyze | Synthesize | Intent
• Design 
• Give the design to the concerned and move to next.

Plain and Simplified for the designer to interpret. 

 Pics: NID Assam, ID 3rd year students, WIP, Bamboo Design Mini Project Guided by Dipanka & Akshay & Khan

In a D school, an explanation to each of these may be good by the mentor and the design head in a company.  Its about the fluid nature of the PROCESS which the designer is aware and comfortable with and in dealing with the stories and aspirations of many subjects she/he meets during the process. The assimilation of it leading to the INTENT conceived and the rational while scripting the draft of intent and way forward during the process go parallel in the  stages of the project. 

14 Nov 2022 from my Notepad

Kamala

Airports are like railway stations today, some are like bus terminals/stands. Airports you find, dressed up people, surrounded by brands of eateries, L/S products, etc and the smell of the eatery. They are all the same people, who once travelled by train or buses while their young ones I felt, some who never travelled on land! 

While I enjoy the comfort of air travel, I reminisce the time drawn train journeys and hopping in buses moving from district to districts with windows blowing wind on your face, the paradigm is similar maybe for the young today :) of my age then, of air travel today to them. 

Meanwhile we have the first time travelers from airports like Kamala, the whole sequence of entry to airport then to the platform of checks and to the plane and the aspect of flying 37k feet above and the instructions and the strange food and the stoic next seater and the feeling of not being part of fellow travelers who look like you btw and the amount spent for this new mode, I can just go on more about this new flying guest ! 

In this flow of writing I recalled another montage of memory. In Chennai once, I went to a big 5 floor super mall in T Nagar. I wanted to buy a white shirt, of a popular brand which was on the 5th floor. I walked in to the entry floor to the elevators. Waiting for the elevator, I noticed this young lady in her early 20s, in a synthetic printed saree, looking lost and in anxiety by the intimidating scale of the mall, she seemed a daily wage earner of her family. She didn’t know where to go, as in which floor. The lift attendant noticed her and in their conversation in Tamil, I heard her saying what she wanted to buy and the attendant said, go to the 1st floor. The mall had merchandise price vice on each floor.

I cannot forget her and her face even today. My heart sank forever, when she said, school uniforms for her two kids, and she I knew, is the daily earner at home and the whole world she is imagining ahead of her …., I went back to the hotel and cried that day. 

I still do when I think of her. 

Ravishankar, 11 Nov 2022 - Notepad

Attendance in Class!

 Is it a tick of an attendance in the stipulated time for the student to come in and be in the classroom or about ‘Being Present’ in the discourse.

…'How engaging is the discourse for me to be attentive/absorbed in it !’…'It’s so engaging that I drift away physically  from that stipulated space pursuing the thought provoked by the engager, working on it in spaces of my choice. I am Present in the class :)’ the tutor is so engaging … 

Now in the stipulated frameworks of academics and its standardised prescriptive structure where teaching, learning  are bound, the variant is the learner who is in transition of schooling oneself, while learnette, the teacher is constrained by the stipulation.

Institution of higher education (NEP) must address this paradigm of the quality of Engagement and Presence of the pupil in the engagement. And not worry about attendance, a term which may not play a role in the pupil’s performance.

This writing above fails maybe, when you have 100 like students and one teacher in the class.

So shouldn’t we then reinterpret by design, the learning means, the environment, the content structure and the channels of tutoring orchestrated by the tutor, with the sole intent of Engagement, Presence and Learning. The 3 entities for performance. 

⁃ this is inspired from Osho talk I heard once who has said to his teacher ‘I am always present…..'

5 FOCI OF DESIGN

Preoccupations & State of mind

Interfaces & Comprehension

Dignity & Independence

Self-worth & Pride

Experience & its Closure