Architecture, Art & Beyond

Published by National Interest

https://nationalinterest.in/m%C3%A9moire-49dbcf276c9c

With age comes wisdom and at the end comes a memoire.

Memorial

There is something eerily clairvoyant about the grey concrete cuboids laid out in an austere grid across a vast plot in the city of Berlin. Flanked by buildings and sprinkled with tall trees along its periphery, it is a sombre expanse in the midst of the glittering city. It appears as an even plane from above but takes you into a maze on an undulating floor where sometimes you can see above all the cuboids and sometimes they tower over you entrapping in their grey embrace when all you find for company is the clear blue sky above. Often the lonely walk in the narrow lanes in interjected by an unknown person trying to find the meaning behind the installation and experience. The face of a stranger sometimes stops you in your track but then their embarrassed laughter eggs you on. A walk through the grid evokes many a thought but most importantly it makes you ask ‘Why?’

The underground museum and the seminars to certain extent answer the questions. The Holocaust Memorial, in Berlin has many a critic. Some may say it is a failed design, while some may just not be able to define its purpose, neither Architect, Peter Eisenman could do to everyone appeasement. But it was not intended to appease or provide answers; it was designed and built to evoke emotions. It is one of the many reminders Germany had built to remind visitors a scarred past it regrets and to spread the feeling of harmony and tolerance for coexistence.

Remembering

One unparalleled virtue every Indian has is forgetfulness. We tend to mutually forget things that happen only to be jolted into remembering by something or someone only to forget again. And such is our propensity with forgetting that it ranges from forgetting to buy salt on the way back from office to electing a particular member of parliament. We condemn lack of civic amenities during floods, pollution or agitate after losing a cricket match against Pakistan, rape, murder, scams, etc. we react with holding marches, protests, burn effigies, hold placards and in matter of months forget only to return with the act when an incident repeats itself again and then we forget again. This happens repeatedly like the waves of an ocean, each wave crashing anew but with the same repetitive act.

Every year, somewhere at the beginning of the first week of December we remember the wounds left behind by the incidents and aftermath related to the felling of the Babri Masjid, in Ayodhya, we talk about it, read about it and listen about it only to slowly forget about it by mid December when the cold weather and dense fog across North India starts to make the headlines. Similarly in the weeks preceding 15^th August each year we remember the rift caused by Partition. We read, hear and remember the brutality, communal violence, loss of life and pain the nation(s) underwent during what is the largest forced human migration in recent history. But then with the unfurling of the flag and the sprinkle of the flowers and flying kites in the capital we start to forget and as months of festivities arrive we completely forget for another year, till the cycle is repeated again.

Only two types of people remember, the ones who suffer and the ones who politicize, while the third type of people are too busy to make ends meet or too distant to care. The first type hardly heals from the wounds in a society and system where ‘justice’ is hardly prompt. The second type remembers and reminds as and when it suits them. The problem with the third type is that they are swayed by emotion and leadership and choose to follow instead of reason and are the majority. 

There is importance in remembering. Our memories guide us; aid our instincts in making decisions at important junctures. Incidents which have hurt us remain as memories which make us cautious from taking the same path due to the fear of possible repercussions. Some brave it and take a chance, most don’t. But what happens when you have not gone through the experience to remember later? When repercussions are not known it is easier to follow someone else’s advice and be swayed by leaders we create and choose the easier path to follow, sometimes this is calamitous.

Memoir

Or Mémoire in French means an official note or report or a narrative composed from personal experience. A person usually writes a memoir at the end of a career, be it a job or life and in it is recorded important events, secrets and fond or incriminating memories. In a nation’s perspective a memoir is better built than written, even if it is not at the end of the nation, but at the end of events to persevere as a reminder.

Almost all socially polarizing events that have happened in our country can be associated with a piece of land or town or village. In all such cases events die but the legends and wounds survive which cut open communities again and again.  What is essentially needed is to arrest the essence of such an event in a symbolical built form which is beyond the realms of religion and politics and which will allow the common man and child to relive an experience, be aware of the repercussions and be allowed to figure things out on their own.

So what can possibly be this symbolical built form? It can be a religious building designed to be based on an all embracing purely secular new religion which will be welcomed by all communities. Perhaps it will have to wait till the world is governed by Artificial Intelligence. It can be a sky kissing high statue of an eminent person which will not stir a political debate, or make environmentalist question without being the end product of taxes paid by the common man. It can be a public building like a school, library or hospital or park to serve all equally and be named after a deceased politician or eminent personality without taking up Parliament’s precious time in making a decision.  Or perhaps it can be a memorial, a figurative built form touching the lines of the ethereal, a space that can capture the essence of a past event and present it to the visitor as an experience without being blunt with images and inscriptions.  One that will be able to speak all languages without speaking any, one that will be able to write all texts without writing any and one that can touch our inner selves, mostly cowered by the rigours of daily life. Of course a nation with its richness of culture and spirituality will be able to understand and appreciate it without having to give it a name, just keeping it as a reminder, a memoir.