Theory of Settlements - Assignments

Introduction to the Assignments: 

Below is a writing assignment for the subject of Theory of Settlements as part of my Bachelor of Architecture course at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India. The subject aims at analyzing and understanding the ideas and concepts through which emerged human settlements. It also looks at the evolution of these settlements into what we see of our cities today.  

The aim of the first assignment is to write a descriptive essay on a place that you may have visited in your formative years. The second looks at a place mentioned in a book of your choice which may be real or fictional. Its intended to critique a place or a series of places mentioned, as in a book review.

ASSIGNMENT 1: DESCRIPTIVE WRITING

Place visited: Dodital and Darwa Top, Himachal Pradesh

Going up to the mountains always rejuvenates me both physically and emotionally. The journey, on most occasions proves to be more intriguing than the destination itself. That is when I find the time and the patience to think and put those brain cells into good use. But today I would talk about my destination rather than the journey undertaken.

Every place brings with itself a unique charm and attraction, even though two may seem the same superficially. The hills transmit feelings of an untouched, almost pure environment that surrounds you with a gleaming aura which encapsulates your whole being.

One of those many such recollections, was a trek to Dodital and Darwa Top in Himachal, probably about 6 years back. The extensively long trek with a 10kg backpack on my tiny shoulders, the everlasting tiredness, scooped with those never ending paths covered with slippery dry pine leaves, seemed a lot more fruitful, when I reached the clearing that led me to the Dodital. A magnificent lake, covering almost the whole base of the valley that surrounded it. Standing tall, were the mountains around the lake which seemed to protect it from the external.

A small village comprising of maybe, 50 houses surrounded this serene lake. A small channel of water created by the villagers for their use, cut across the path that was to take me to the lake. I could have easily jumped across this small channel of flowing water to get to the other side, but a small wooden bridge further aside caught my eye. At that moment it felt unjust not to take this bridge across the channel. I think it was the need to keep the serenity of the place intact and my innate need to not disturb the usual course of the path I was obliged to take.

On the other side stood an exquisitely painted Hindu Temple at one end of the lake. The stillness of the lake added to the charm of this small temple that stood to prove its space in time. On speaking to some of the villagers and the priest of the temple, I was introduced to the lake as their God, their source of power and glory and the recipient of all their offerings. We are all aware of the state of the River Ganga in Haridwar which is the recipient of numerous offerings every day, but I was amazed at the purity of the water in the lake, which is in fact potable in view of the villagers. The presence of human interjections did not seem a burden, instead became an integrated part of the calm environment around. I cannot be definite about the kind of temple owing to my partial recollections, but I do recall the intricate detailing in the painted stories and scriptures presenting its past glory, on the façade of the temple that really intrigued me then.

Across the lake I saw the remainder of my journey to reach my second destination, a steep rocky climb up to Darwa Top. A walk around the lake, took me to the starting point of my climb up. The whole climb was probably around a km long, but the steepness made it seem so much longer. Every pit stop enroute the climb got me to sit and just stare down at the lake one last time before it disappeared from my line of sight. With the images of Dodital still wandering in my head, the yearning to know what lay ahead starts to peek in. Glimpses of snow capped mountains started to emerge in front of my eyes through the dense clouds that seemed to engulf me. The trek reached its climax to reach 11,000feet at Darwa top. With the blue sky peeking through white fluffy  clouds, and the white snow that bordered all that you could see, I truly felt on top of the world !! 

ASSIGNMENT 2: BOOK REVIEW

Book Name: Siddhartha

Author: Hermann Hesse

Translated from the German by Hilda Rosner

Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha tells the story of a young Brahman who explores the deepest meanings of life and the self. Siddhartha's quest for knowledge passes through several phases. During the first phase, he seeks wisdom in various religious philosophies such as Hinduism, asceticism, and Buddhism. He eventually abandons these paths, however, when he realizes that they all disrupt the unity of life by denying the physical body. After coming to this realization, Siddhartha pursues a life of physical pleasures and worldly success. He becomes a great lover and a successful businessman, but he eventually abandons these pleasures after they prove to be too superficial to satisfy his deeper spiritual side. In the third phase of his quest, he tries to reconcile the spiritual and physical sides of himself by becoming a simple ferryman. While performing his daily task of ferrying people across the river, he listens closely to the natural beauty of the river, and the river gradually teaches him how to recognize the essential unity of all life.

Through Siddhartha’s personal search for enlightenment, the river remains a common binding factor to all phases of his life. His life as an ascetic leads him to the river, where he and his childhood friend Govinda go their separate paths to attain enlightenment. The beginning of his second phase of life with all worldly pleasures begins from across the river and eventually ends at the same. It is in the river that Siddhartha once tried to jump into, to fulfill his childish wish of finding peace by way of destroying his own body. But, even then it was the river that spoke to him, and awakened him of his disillusionment. The river side is not just a place mentioned in the book but is the basis of Siddhartha’s understanding of the unity of life.

“His sleep was deep and dreamless; he had not slept like that’s for a long time…He heard the soft rippling of the water….He looked up and was surprised to see the trees and sky above him….he felt a desire to remain there for a long time. The past now seemed to him to be covered by a veil, extremely remote, very unimportant….but that he had come to himself by a river, under a coconut tree with the holy word Om on his lips.

….I will remain by this river, thought Siddhartha. It is the same river which I crossed on my way to the town. A friendly ferryman took me across. I will go to him. My path once led from his hut to a new life which is now old and dead. May my present path, my new life, start from there.”

On awakening from his deep sleep, it was under the coconut tree at the banks of the river, where he reunited with his old friend, Govinda and the ferryman Vasudeva. Many years before when Siddhartha was still a Samana (ascetic) Vasudeva had taken him across the river without payment and also offered him a night’s sleep in his hut near the river. It was now at the beginning of a new phase in his life, he reverts back to the ways of Vasudeva and decides to remain by this river, listen to it, and learn from it.

Because whoever understood this river and its secrets, would understand much more, many secrets, all secrets....