Nowhere City

A deep and abiding disdain for India and its conditions makes any foreign idea a favoured option, however ill-conceived its application. It has taken the politician and bureaucrat 60 years of tireless foreign study tours to look for solutions to Indian problems. A two-week tour of Sydney to study Olympic facilities, a week to study expressway interchanges in Los Angeles, a month of serious scrutiny of the Brazilian rain forest, a careful week-long assessment of the Russian metro system, a thorough investigation of Singapore and Hong Kong airports. All, to what effect? Is there any similarity between Hong Kong, and say, Delhi airport? In fact, is there any similarity between Hong Kong and Delhi? Are Indian forests any better preserved after the international study?

In the government8217;s eyes, the physical visible landscape has always been the most potent sign of a country8217;s progress. The sudden urge to connect all major metropolitan cities in the 8217;90s with the Grand Quadrilateral of highways was meant to be just another symbolic reminder of India8217;s arrival on the world stage. If you took the highway in western UP, the four-lane road had all the attributes of the American expressway: high speed driving on a raised tarmac, steel guard rails, and a surface so utterly smooth and flawless, it was hard to imagine you were in India. Till suddenly, without warning, you encountered a series of broken embankments, crossings of bullock carts, and a complete disruption of traffic flow. In the urge to be global, the minor details of Indian rural life got missed. And over time, the surrounding villages created the cross traffic required to connect them to each other during harvesting season.

The recent fiasco with the Bus Rapid Transit was similarly flawed. Even though its failure 8212; measured from the car owner8217;s perspective 8212; overlooked the fact that numerous bus passengers got to work in relative comfort and efficiency. Successful in Bogota and Jakarta, the copy of a time-tested model could not go wrong unless the imitation was itself inaccurate. Without underpasses, speed control, or incentives for car owners to use the alternative, the Delhi attempt was half-hearted and incomplete. It took only the picture of a cow happily squatting in the only usable lane to give a clearer experience of the local conditions within which the foreign copy was set.

In the interest of Delhi8217;s citizens who commute long distances daily, the government needs a radical shift from foreign clones to a scheme that allows people to abandon private cars altogether: to develop a traffic master-plan that effectively integrates all forms of public transport into a cohesive map, and links all points in the city through the BRT, Metro, three-wheelers, cycle-rickshaws and pedestrian sidewalks. With a road system free of private cars, this is a distinct possibility.

Unfortunately, the farce will end in blame and recrimination. The engineer under-designed it, the contractor went over-budget, project management caused the delays, the politician was unavailable for the inauguration8230; And yet, the fault lies less with the government, than the Indian inability to stretch the bounds of civic and urban imagination into a sustainable Indian model, and indeed, the will to persevere with its execution. A time-tested replica from a remote corner of the globe is a much safer bet, than treading the dangerous waters of self-evaluation and experiment.

In the springboard of ideas for civic infrastructure and urban space, the two Asian giants 8212; China and India 8212; are at different stages of development. In an aesthetic race with European and American cities, China seeks only the best of the west. For roads, civic life, building design, park systems etc, architects, engineers and planners from all over the world are placing the Chinese city at the threshold of cutting edge design and technology. By comparison, the Indian city is created by administrative rulings. It has taken Delhi four years to begin physical action on the Commonwealth Games. Antiquated structural technology 8212; as the one recently used to upgrade the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium 8212; places columns in the middle of seating areas, thereby restricting a clear vision of the field. Many structures have to be over designed to compensate for graft and pilferage.

However, the 60,000 capacity Olympic 8216;Bird8217;s Nest8217; stadium in Beijing is measured by different parameters. An engineering marvel, the building has no structural counterpart anywhere. It sits in an ethereal landscape that is informed, innovative and as experimental in design as in engineering. The steel mesh that encloses it defies all the conventions of architecture and creates an unsettling sense of wonder and newness. Yet this framework is ingeniously conceived to contain everything within its eccentric pile: stairs, walls, roof, facilities, rainwater collection, passive cooling 8212; even things not expected of a stadium. However west-derivative such a building, the Bird8217;s Nest has to be admired for its great leap, and its ability to chart an architectural future. Disagree you may with China8217;s ideology and harsh methods, but for public works, the Chinese model produces a more arresting and coherent landscape.

Meanwhile, the other giant, mean-spirited and loud-mouthed, races on in a competition with itself 8212; stepping on its own toes, running a relay that carries on with the eternal belief of a great urban future, a future that never comes. Inconvenience regretted.

The writer, a Delhi-based architect, is author of 8216;Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture8217;