Pretends to have skills and qualification,
Belongs to other profession
With no license to practice, no registration
Is simply a quack by definition!
In architecture, quacks are a few site engineers,
Supervisors, surveyors, other profiteers
And those who look only for extra bucks
Just like a gory leech that sucks!
Do quacks have love for the profession? No, not at all!
But claims of professional expertise are just as tall
As the Himalaya’s glory
Or any other great story!
How does quackery happen in architecture?
Rules are bent, loopholes exploited,
Someone else appends name and seal:
A rot in the system that should heal!
Do away with quacks and heed my advice
As quackery does only extract a price:
Quacks are on lookout during pre-design works;
Unsatisfied with regular pays and perks!
A quack never returns to find you at the site,
I’m sorry to understand your present plight!
Your designs and drawings are illegally dumped
And not worth the money that you have pumped!
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Visions Rendered
Searched for a layman but couldn’t find one;
And so, my presentations were mostly in 2-Ds done!
A layman knows no drawing, I was long ago told
But lo! All have the belonging to the profession’s fold!
Sketch plans and a few words are my deeds
To explain all of the visual and spatial needs;
I take the client on virtual tour
From outdoors to the inside as spaces fill and pour;
A few times, my contract mentioned 3-Ds
And a hired team of experts slogged for the fees
As the so-called laymen were willing to pay;
It cuts time in decision-making, what come may!
Halls anew thronged for the handout pages
And for the hues and photo-realistic images!
In multitude, I had quietly thought
As art and glamour in profession was sought!
But are those laymen? No, definitely not
But affluent groups with exposures lot,
In the comfort of the funds not so hard-earned
Sculpting decisions through lessons learned!
Visions were rendered, all comments befitting,
An architect’s journey with heart uplifting;
From lines to dimensions, tales we glean
For the future where visual stories convene!
Monday, July 24, 2023
My path to architecture and more...
Amidst childhood's wonders I wandered free
Unaware of architecture's majesty!
Owner-built houses were rustic and serene,
With mud and timber, dreams were little seen!
Simple dwellings where hopes would reside,
Floors of cow-dung were my mother’s pride!
In schools of huts on hills so green,
Bamboo and mud were a haven serene!
A thirst for knowledge like a magic stream,
In nature's embrace I'd laugh and dream
Youth's embrace revealed a world untold,
Real buildings soaring, stories unfold.
In Drukyul's dzongs stood structures bright,
Dreams flashing under the sky's soft light;
Yet, the essence of architecture was a distant art,
A faint spark flickering in my heart!
A tough decision paved ambition's sway,
In architecture's lap, I found my way;
Poetry’s realm also tore me like a rough sea
Forcing diverse knowledge into me!
Through cultures diverse I seek my role,
No regrets for I've found my soul!
A slow learner's journey, step by step,
In both the arts’ dances, my passion crept!
Each piece of work I undertake is work of art,
Client's delight and the joy in my heart!
When the going gets tough I stand tall,
With unwavering spirit I try to conquer all!
Life's grand symphony, a masterpiece divine,
In architecture's embrace, I align.
A purpose awakened, dreams take flight,
In both the arts I find my heart’s light!
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Memories untold
In childhood’s realm I roamed carefree and wild,
With sticks and mud, I built dreams undefiled;
Amidst fallen leaves my imagination soared
While I knew not that my future path was stored!
By stream’s gentle flow, toy houses took shape
Crafted with wonder with no plan, no escape;
Nature’s apprenticeship, I learned from each bend
Unaware of the architect I would grow to befriend!
From humble beginning, some interest did bloom
Merging play and passion even inside a room;
In those innocent moments, the foundation was laid
Unveiling a transformation amidst all things said!
Now, as an architect, I seek to recreate
The magic of childhood where creativity’s gate
Opens doors to wonders and to spaces that inspire
A blend of thoughts where visions transpire!
For in every structure, I strive to impart
The joy and freedom found in a child’s heart;
To build not just buildings but memories untold
Forever cherishing the days of a childhood’s mold!
Architecture and poetry: what is so common?
Both architecture and poetry are forms of art
Both are precious providing balm to my heart
Both measure my time and life with precision
Both are creative forms of expression!
Both expose the human in us
Both exalt life’s purpose thus!
Rhyme or rhythm, metaphor or meter
Path-crossing and no less than gold’s glitter
Inspiring each other, both reach my eye fast
Solid and void or sound and silence are cast;
Looming large the structure in both stands,
Both bury me deep: soul searching, my friends!
Both, through the mind pierce my heart
Arousing robust feelings for both the arts;
For my mood and spirit both are best fit
And, on land or paper, both for ownership sit!
Monday, July 17, 2023
Embracing the dawn of a new city!
I’m waiting for a grand headline news
About a city poised to get its dues
Of crowds overflowing, rustling and hustling
And businesses prospering and forever bustling;
Tracked, winged, channeled, greened and AI-fed
With records to be overtaken and reset;
A smart sustainable city to be proud of
For a great leap forward with care and love!
Within the womb of mother Drukyul,
Outshining the dreams bountiful and beautiful,
Perhaps, the present shall be left behind
And the city becomes the only one of its kind
Where the place shall be at its best to reckon with
The now pious whispers that form its monolith;
Nature and technology shall merge together
With endless possibilities, now and forever!
The town seems impatient for an upward ride
Far into the future as markets slide
Towards rock-bottom with hopes high with visible strain
Even as the human capital is sparse with brain-drain;
Information, too many, trickle; slow and small-
Mostly fickle word-of-mouth and ‘believe-it-or-not’ call;
One moratorium after another is swiftly imposed
While some key activities are actually closed!
Well, how far can we move into the future
While with age-old traditions and culture?
Hopefully, tourists shall flock-in through the border gate
In numbers that could change the city’s financial fate;
The city, otherwise too, shall cater to the nation’s health
Proping the pillars of happiness with revenue's stealth;
Hopefully, it shall be a melting pot of culture for prosperity
With grandest news each day for it to cherish till eternity...
And yes, this is about Sarpang-Gelephu stretch
As we embrace the dawn of a new city with a faint sketch!
Source: Facebook
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Sketching to begin...
I often sketch to begin a project,
A scribble of thoughts to later refine or reject;
At times, creating a mess to fit on a sheet of paper
Providing clarity of the proposal altogether!
A motion is set as the mind scans
Through the process to evolve the plans
With images normally farfetched
For a skeleton of the proposal sketched!
Forwarding a quick solution is the craft
For clients wishing for an immediate draft;
A pencil and a piece of paper is magical
For an apt solution inevitable!
Hand-drawn sketches can be depth compliant,
With lines dark and grey to attract the client;
No over-thinking, no mood is tense;
Complex ideas are sketched with simplest sense
Sketching isn’t much the effort lost;
It’s over a cup of coffee and at leisure with lesser cost;
It takes lesser time to convey the final option to be
And with informed decisions, it is easier to secure the fee!
A notebook and a pencil remain in my big pocket,
To fulfill my wish-list and satisfy my work bucket
To clear the pathway for dark, bent and hazy lines
As life around me evolves in my own confines!
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Baakal (tree-bark) House
How to deal with exterior artwork and architecture
when no two pieces are same in texture,
colour, thickness and strength?
Options: orient in two or more directions
and/or adjust the lengths!
It provides the warmth and coolest comfort inside,
while, with the Nature, it blends to abide,
among others, with the tide of simplicity and honesty
in a spotlight that it deserves to be!
Long ago, I carried the pieces on my shoulders and head
while elders built a fabulous livestock shed.
Long ago, my interaction with the material was established
and since then, not a bit of memory vanished!
Well, what’s so great about this?
A reminisce of memories that kiss and that life isn’t amiss
as simple good old days return to be full of bliss
with added advantages of what it is
to working with newer tools to hide the boundaries
between the panels; the bark serves mankind for centuries!
Thursday, August 25, 2022
City in Wilderness
Godly creatures with gory deeds and their trampled rights
Banana bushes at the road sides to rampage a few nights!
Marauding the city roads amidst the chase being cracked
While danger looms large with fear of life being hacked!
The bulky beasts were at their best in the wooded tract
At Hatisar that was called their home: a mammoth fact!
In the decades past, they were paraded out or hunted down
How they return now trumpeting to claim the town!
An abrupt encounter would cost a human life again
A conflict we say but condone the killer amidst the pain!
Elephant rights are trampled but we dislike a menace;
For their freedom in the woods, we shall bow in reverence!
Sunday, July 17, 2022
Materials, Materialism and Spirituality
Materials and spirituality are contrast to date,
But, in architecture, the two are together as mates;
We say, to be spiritual one has to be less materialistic
But in spiritual places, this is far from realistic!
Places of worship have so much of material wealth;
It’s stacked in built forms too, perhaps, for history’s health;
Ages old carvings and paintings on best of best materials
Stand the tests of the worst times surreal!
“As material is to the body, spirituality is to soul;
Without a body, the soul cannot achieve its goal!”
Says a pious monk though not in his solemn prayers,
Narrative remains as the time rolls into layers!
It appears that life itself is a major contrast;
Interpretations clear and vague both do last;
A small near a big, a white against a black
A void and a solid, objects do unusually stack!
But, materials and spirituality juxtaposing seems unique,
Or, at least what many think is a relationship oblique;
However, if a soul from a past can influence us to date,
With less physical wealth, spirituality can be our best fate!
Sunday, July 3, 2022
It is almost magical...
It’s almost magical if it appeals to the heart
With glamour becoming a part of the living art;
Expressive spaces with modest colors and play of light
Impressively enhancing the living for day and night!
I wish for rainbows in interiors; broad and soft
As I clamor for glamour to rise nonstop,
I wish for the spacious, lighted and sleek
And for surfaces and facades to prevail and speak!
Elegance in colors, lights or shades,
Enchanting us for many decades;
Uplifting the moods to a new height,
Environments befitting for lives bright!
With architectural glamour in simplest forms
And romanticism infused in the living norms;
Each dawn I wake up energetic and fresh
And at dusk, I retire to bliss and happiness!
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Renovation, restoration, reconstruction and remodeling...
There is a revised drawing on my table
Of an ancestral house unstable;
Nicely done, with colorful legend to indicate
The changes for its most modern fate-
“To be dismantled’, ‘to remain same”
And “new walls” to play the latest game!
And at site, I pulled aside a near-rotten frame
But something else fell apart and down it came;
Opps! The older walls were crumbling down
To be redone and to be finished brown;
Renovation we say but to reconstruction everything sums up
Or restoration is the need but remodeling is what it becomes of!
And, there was also a house on the hill
Partially gutted by fire and in ruins still;
We wanted to rebuild souls with its story
By restoring it to its former form and glory;
Ruins speak aloud to tell the past,
May be we are inviting nostalgia to last;
Generations of memories are cast again and again
That reign forever in every brain
Monday, June 20, 2022
It is past midnight...
It is past midnight so soon;
From between the hills rises the moon;
I didn't keep awake to watch it though,
I am enjoying its lustrous glow!
The halfmoon looks like my teaspoon,
It stirs my mind out of a cocoon,
While its luminous glow seems to propose
My stay deeper into the night, I suppose!
With the clouds, the moon turns maroon,
The color of demand these days in the saloon;
And there, the moon is only a half balloon
But at unkindest times, a pleasantest boon!
Now, it's dawn so soon,
Half the journey, travels the moon,
It is still a teaspoon though not maroon
With brightly lit blue sky as its cocoon!
Sunday, June 19, 2022
A tree stood at an edge...
A tree stood at an edge of our farm land
As a landmark; firm though not too grand
For a flash of memories of relationship love-hate
And a splash, that was, of bittersweet fate!
The tree is called gante, a local name
And there was another one with the species same
At a water source where I bathed and washed
At dawns, joyfully, with hopes high but soon smashed!
Flowers yellow, attractive and bright;
Big little wild bees searching nectar in dizzy light!
I was wrong to assume that the bees would die;
Poison filled, I suppose, and yet the bees could fly!
Then, as the flower fruited to coconut size,
A langur white dashed in for nature’s prize;
I again assumed that he would die
And, again, I was wrong and I knew not why!
Later, my cattle fed on fallen young leaves;
The poison then did not deceive!
And, yet again, I knew not why the hell broke loose
Till I understood gante and its use and misuse!
For ages, the seeds have been a source of edible oil;
Poison evaporates as we put the raw oil to boil;
As for the landmark, it is indeed a memorable one
With bittersweet taste of love-hate relations bygone!
Sunday, June 5, 2022
The so-called tenders...
The so-called tenders and quotation calls
Have always been of certain shortfalls;
Lowest bidder in terms of price is selected
All others, no matter how best, are rejected
Whether it’s for works, services or supply of goods,
Rule books, latest, may appear to spur the moods
But, at a closer look, it’s old wine in a new bottle
And, for reasons best known to none, systems throttle!
There's my rate passed in time through the gate,
One in envelope marked original, the other marked duplicate,
Both contained in one more called the outer cover
With no bidder identified and sealed with burning rubber
Speaks the chairman about transparency and accountability;
Bid rejected without assigning reasons is no responsibility;
New committee with new members on corridors of power;
The brands of items, however, are not mentioned at this hour!
Page by page, each member signs the documents
As it’s just an opening committee without arguments;
With no one for assessment and award and no fixed date
Each bidder shall be waiting to hear his fate!
Friday, May 13, 2022
A park: I remain lively...
I remain lively in the neighborhood that I stand,
A peaceful piece at the centre of the buzzing land!
A focus of many structures in the vicinity
And a smart landmark to remain for infinity!
I am fenced for safety on each side,
The cozy town peeps into me to envy my pride;
I belong to everyone in the neighborhood
Young or old visits me to refresh one's mood!
Early morning is the time that pigeons flock to feed,
Then come the monks with the prayer beads
The elderly lot gather in shade and sun
While the evenings are for children for play and fun!
I offer the changes against routines that bog down
Inside homes and offices in a small buzy town;
I provide the best space in time to relax
A small window in space to find the time out!
Thursday, April 21, 2022
The mind is a room...
The mind is a room I guess
Where bubbles of ideas move and press
Shaping little things in one’s own controls
And in layers upon layers as the time rolls!
The mind has the walls I guess
Where issues push to address;
It has no limits unsurpassed
And yet within us heavily massed
The mind has a roof I guess
That blocks the sky for access
But it flies highest at speed of its choice
Evoking a ruthless silence to a pitched voice
The mind has facades I guess
And yet the sight I search is too less;
A door to it is the communication
Built on a hard-rock foundation
The mind is a vast space to function,
Walls are barriers of compulsion;
The roof, a limit capped in hardest times
With facades flowing in rhythmic rhymes!
Saturday, April 2, 2022
A Concept.....
A nucleus of thoughts and notions
Whereby all basics relate to in creations;
A concept revolves centrally and rests as a foundation
With a pulling force for an ultimate exaltation!
The built-form tells stories of an empire
Of structures with deepest purposes to inspire
Keeping concepts of living through history
With the fallen hero or a towering victory
It captures the eras in gold,
Human curiosity and mystery untold
As life evolves through to the present form
With peace as dynamics of the living norm
And, we respond with time for the future
Blending the past and present with architecture,
Creating a multi dimensional time-space
Recording a new trace of living-art in place!
Crazy mind may crack a concept weird and wild
Or it may be just reinventing a far off child,
Oceans apart, bridging a long gap
For, in architecture, ideas are no scrap!
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
We say that the husk sells...
We say that husk fetches a higher price
Than the valuable fine grains of rice
Only if a greater role the power of words assume
To confer the husk a better resume!
A curriculum vitae, no doubt, has to speak
And way above others rendering them weak;
Remember all roses are colorfully bright
But the perfumed nectar is the bee’s delight!
Mentioning education, experiences and all that
With takeaways from a previous CV format
To suit new requirements isn’t enough I feel
To ranking a candidate for the required skill!
On a positive note, it’s a matter of communication,
Whereby, a resume is not just a formality or a fashion;
Hope never ends to carry out a project of your choice,
And, the more one works, it could still be, less a voice!
Well, there is a so-called portfolio for architects
As preferences for details vary in many aspects;
Meantime, I have discarded doing my resume long ago,
Spending some time on it could fetch a project though!
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Where do we keep our shoes?
The shoes, all over, make the main door messy
Strewn around, the space is not so dressy;
We walk over to get into a posh apartment
But the entrance speaks of a shoe department!
Another problem is of not finding the shoes,
The pairs are displaced adding to our woes;
So, how do we go about for a tidy living
Or, a small niche at the beginning?
A very few apartments have the shoe spaces,
Right behind the main doors are such places
A rack where one can also hang the keys
Just a small space to be at ease!
Helmets, umbrellas could also go in there
Organizing the space means time to spare;
But what if house plans do not confirm that way
We may still, with interiors, play!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)