Future School

Today I did a presentation on feature animation to the students at the Future School. Future school? you say. What the heck is Future School? Well, here in Auroville, they have some specific ideas about education. "The Mother" was very clear about what she considered the ideal in education: No grades, no tests, etc. Many people here take that stuff very seriously. So, the Mothers Will, it was. As a result, the first school here is actually called Last School, as in, it is a last school you'll ever need. (You are then expected to teach yourself). The former school here for high school aged kids is called Transition School. It's a place where students can direct their own education. Things are not very structured there. Unfortunately, it also does not provide any kind of certification for students who want to go on to university, etc. As a result, many kids were leaving Auroville for private schooling around age 13. ( or just slacking at Transition school. ) A couple of Aurovillians recognized the need for something new since the Future School / Transition School experiment didn't seem to be working. Future School was born.

At Future School, students can earn "O" and "A" levels in what is a more structured environment compared to Transition School. Compared to any regular western school the environment is extremely flexible, though.

The first thing I learned about Future school that blew my mind was the teacher student ratio. There are 54 students and something like 32 teachers. As a result many courses are more like tutoring sessions than "classes". The school also promotes a mentoring program where students may pick a mentor to help guide them.

OK, enough about the school. How did the presentation go? I would say quite well. The students were attentive and thoughtful in their questions. I managed to cover the concepts of pre-production and the various steps of production in 3D animation. I even had time to talk about the steps of "traditional" (i.e. hand drawn 2D) animation for some students that showed interest. At the end I covered the various paths one could take to get into the business. (There are many!) I also made sure to tall the kids how lucky they are to have such an awesome school. I really wish I could have gone to a high school like Future School. It's more like having a team of personal tutors than a regular school. How could any even semi-motivated student go wrong in such an environment?

Bin-O-Media

I've been storing my movies at a site called Media Max. The idea was to link them directly from my blog posts, but out of sheer laziness, I haven't been keeping up. There are quite a few now.

If you want to see the movies you can go right to the bin-O-media:

http://www.mediamax.com/lordtangent/Hosted/

Also, don't forget that you can click on all the images on the blog to get a bigger view!

Diwalli

I'm back in Auroville. Michael was about to leave for AV himself, so he caught a ride with me.

Today is Diwalli (Dee-val-ee). It's a huge holiday here. Like Christmas in the USA. People give gifts and employers give an annual bonus, usually equal to two months pay. Oh yeah... and there are fireworks! Fireworks in India are insane. Technically, there seems to be a limit to how large a fire-cracker can be. But it's based on noise pollution laws, not any sort of energy, powder charge, or anything like that. The "M80" or "Cherry Bomb" type devices are known by the name "A-Bomb" or "H-Bomb" here, if that is any indication of how powerful they are. They are hand-blower-offers, if I have ever seen one. "Two Inch" firecrackers are still available here as well. (IMHO, two inch fire crackers are the only proper fire cracker to begin with... unfortunately, they are considered too dangerous in the States.) Of course, I could not resist participating in the festivities! On the way back to AV we stopped at one of the numerous fireworks stands and picked up some stuff. I didn't go for any of the sparkly stuff. Only things that explode. My only photographic proof is a single movie shot by Michael of some of the crackers going off. Excuse the shakiness. He said the first cracker scared him so much he flinched. The sound on the video can't do the sound of these things justice. They are vastly more loud than the wimpy crackers in the USA. I also set off a few "A-Bombs". There is no video because Michael was too busy covering his ears to shoot a movie! (They are freaking loud)

The particular type of A-Bomb I got was called the "King of King" and for what ever reason features Bruce Lee on the cover:


Along with the obvious Hindu inspired names and images for certain fireworks i.e. Lakshmi Bombs, Vishnu, etc, I noticed surprising number of the boxes featured male and (mostly) female western actors. I doubt the images were licensed. Anyway, it was really weird. I mean, what do Britney Speers and Sarah Michelle Geller have to do with Diwalli?

In the evening the people at Mitra, the hostel where I'm now staying, also set off some rockets and sparkly fireworks.

Overall, the quality of Indian fireworks is less than that of the Chinese fireworks we typically get in the USA. For example, not a single one of the rockets we fired off at Mitra functioned close to the same. One even exploded after only flying up about 6 feet. There were tons of duds and "fizzlers" in the strings of crackers and the A-Bombs I set off were all different in power. (None of them were "weak" but some of them were frighteningly more powerful than the rest!) One of them dudded out... what do you do with a dud A-Bomb? I just moved my whole "stage" area to a different place. There was no way I was getting close to that thing!


All the fireworks felt like a celebration of my return to Auroville. I haven't had that much fun with fireworks since I was a pre-teen.


As far as my new accommodations, I have to say that Mitra is pretty great. 110 Rupees per day and you get "breakfast" (Which really is nothing but whole wheat bread and tea) and Dinner. OK. SO the food isn't great. But you gotta keep in mind that 110 Rupees is like $2.50 a day. The accommodations are basic. A room and a shared bath/lav. But it's clean and the rooms are nice. I lucked out and I'm sharing what would normally be a dorm room for 6 people with just one other person (Michael). We have tons of space. It's great.

Bangalore

Today (after a pretty brutal day of driving) I'm in Bangalore. Bangalore is like Los Angeles on steroids (or maybe crack?) Imagine all the same problems LA has and then multiply them by 10. Crappy traffic, bad air, poor public transportation, homelessness...etc. The developed areas of the city are good. That's is, they have side walks, the buildings are fairly well built (well, they look good at least) and the infrastructure (other than the roads) seems OK. But one thing the city clearly isn't ready for is the recent explosion in car ownership. From what people have told me cars are a totally new thing. Individuals owning cars only just started in the last 5 years or so. Bangalore (and other big cities) are buckling under the pressure of all the new traffic. I got to experience it first hand when I went to visit my new friend Michael's orphanage, Children's Project. On the way there, it took us over an hour and a half to go about 20km. As it turns out, that was making good time. It took us over two and a half hours to get back to the hotel! (during rush hour)

Pretty much grid-locked. Even the motorcycles can't move:


You'd think that they would have learned from the experiences of other developed cities. Why not plan for and install public transportation before the rest of the city is to mature for it to be easy in install?


My guess is that it's mostly the poverty of the government. They just don't have the resources to make transportation in a developing city. Of course, there are ways that they could easily make developers "pay as they go" for the instillation of city-wide public transportation. (American cities like LA could do the same thing) Or at least purchase the land for future transportation development BEFORE the city is complete, when it's still relatively easy and cheap to do so.



In Bangalore, even the old bus system didn't seem like it was ever quite up to snuff... but now the roads are jammed with cars, three wheelers and motor cycles, even the buses are starting to lose their value. They are jammed up with the cars! Add to that the issue of parking... there is none, anywhere. In this respect, Bangalore is worse than any other city I've ever been in, including Boston. (The silver lining to that is the self limiting nature of the potential car culture that might develop. Like Boston, who will want to drive if parking costs 25 dollars a day!) Then, of course, is the issue of pollution. Between all the two strokes and the terrible old smokey diesels the air is nearly un-breathable. My lungs were sore after one day. I thought Chennai was bad, but Bangalore takes the cake. If they don't do something about the air quality in the cities here they are going to have an explosion of lung disease cases in the coming years.



Otherwise, the future is pretty bright. There is clearly a LOT of money pouring into Bangalore. I have never seen so much construction going on all at once in any place I've ever been. It seems like half the buildings are brand new or under construction. Sadly, they are still using the same brain-dead way of building them. No matter how big or small the building it's pretty much always the same: Ferro-cement with brink or cinder-block (i.e. fly ash / concrete blocks) infill. There often seems to be pretty poor or no engineering on the structure. For example, I've seen buildings with WAY more steel than they need. It's a total waste. IN addition, the concrete is still often mixed in small batches and carried up the building by hand. (they have "ready-mix" services here, but many contractors still seem to just use manual labor rather than concrete pumps, etc.) As a result, the concrete is often mixed and layed up completely incorrectly. Here is a photo where you can see where a whole section of concrete has totally failed:
The structure isn't even complete and it's already falling apart. I've also noticed all kinds of really bad workmanship on other under-construction buildings: Not plumb, level , or square masonry; bad bond patterns; incorrectly anchored rebar; etc. In the end, everything is always plastered over with some sort of cement based plaster. Not too many of the mistakes are visible after that. (But the problems are still there). Also the final "finish" of the building often leave much to be desired. For example, they often don't bother to put any plumbing or wiring in the walls or create wet walls. Instead, pipes and conduit can be seen running along the inside and outside walls. It's as if no one ever bothered to put them in the blue-prints. (It isn't universal, but I am seeing a LOT of it)

Often things also seem overbuilt.

I'm no engineer, but this looks like an awful lot of steel.

It LOOKS good, but what's under the skin?


It could be that there is SO MUCH construction going on that contractors can't find any skilled workers. Or, looking at it more pessimistically, maybe it's contractors looking for the cheapest labor regardless of experience. I actually saw a child laborer working on one of the construction sites I walked though. I even got a photograph. (He ASKED me to take his photo) :




My main reason for wanting to visit Bangalore was to see Michael's orphanage. As he warned me, it is a very humble operation. Right now, due to some financial complications, they operate out of a two bedroom condo. I was impressed by the energy of the place regardless. The kids are all angels; very well behaved. And you could feel the genuine love that they have for Micheal, Aleli (his wife) and Rangeeta (Their main teacher and helper). Of course, the adults love them all as well. I took portraits of most of the students. The kids were all so full of happiness, it was quite easy to get good shots. They make me look like a master photographer! It really is hard to share with words the happiness and upbeat attitude of the kids. Considering their backgrounds, it is astounding. Many of them come from the most terrible situations you can imagine. One child, who was only four or five years old, was so neglected by their former guardian that they had scars from skin infections. A few of the kids have been abused sexually and physically. Normally, the prospects for such kids aren't good. Yet after a few years of living in a place where their foster parents provide a safe home, decent care, and plenty of love, it seems that they are well on their way to a bright future. They have the safety to be allowed a proper childhood.


There are so many shots I just combined them into a single sheet. The kids are so radiant, it made my job easy. (Click the link for the image [5MB] .)

http://www.mediamax.com/lordtangent/Hosted/ContactSheet_LARGE.jpg

I met Michael at the earth architecture workshop. His reason for taking the workshop was to learn enough so he could build his new facility. Recently, the Childrens project was lucky enough to acquire some land in Coorg, which is an area in the tea/coffee region. But resources are stretched to the limit, so the money he has to actually build with is limited. They are going to have to make every penny count. He plans to build the structure himself. (But no offer of help will be turned away!) You can see more about the project at childrensproject.org

Hampi

Hampi. Where to start. Wow.

Today I explored Hampi. Hampi is a large archaeological site (i.e., ruins) of a 14-16th century city in South India. The site is huge, about 26km2 One day is definitely not enough to see this site. Sadly, that's all I had. The contemporary historical writing regarding Hampi during it's hay day describe an exceedingly rich city. It is even compared to ancient Rome. For years it was the imperial city of several south Indian kings. It was then attacked, conquered and then systematically looted and destroyed over a four or five year period. It was never re-built and at that point sort of just faded out. As a result, even though there is great damage, Hampi feels like something of a time-capsule. Pottery fragments litter the ground. Some building still even have their plaster. Walking though Hampi it's easy to imagine what it must have been like. Even though the only buildings that remain are the solid stone structures their number is so vast that one cannot realize that it must have been a bustling city. My head was about to explode. Seriously. I mean, like many times during this tour, I was hit by this "I'm touching a thousand year old carving. People used to use this." Of course, in this site nothing is quite a thousand years old, but you get the idea. Hampi is a city. It was a city that for 250 years was comparable to Rome in wealth and sophistication. (Aqueducts, public baths, etc.) It's like you can feel the people who once lived there as you walk though it.

If you are going to tour south India, I highly recommend you see Hampi.








There are clay pot fragments everywhere.









"Queens Tank"

Flat Tire

Today we drove. A long way. Over some of the worst roads I've seen so far. I mean, at times the road was basically a dirt road. Actually, a dirt road would have been better. What we ended up driving on much of the time was a half-dirt half-paved road, which is even worse. Along the way one of the tires got punctured. The driver pulled over to a road side tire-fixing-guy-station. It was basically a shack with an air compressor. For whatever reason, it took half an hour to fix the flat even though they had nothing else to do.

The flat-tire-fixing-guy (I would hesitate to call him a mechanic) used a sledge hammer and a couple of crowbars to remove the tire. I guess they've never heard of a manual bead breaker in this part of India.


I was surprised to see an inner-tube in our radial tire until I though about the quality of the roads. It kind of makes sense to use an inner tube in that case. Also, if a sledge hammer and crowbars is the way every shop removes tires, (I've since learned that it is) an inner tube is the only way the tire could ever be expected to hold air...


I finally got a good photo of farmers using traffic to thresh grain. In this case they are processing raggi (sp?) It's a millet like grain. Why buy a threshing machine when there is a constant supply of bus traffic?
A nice ox team.


These guys were moving camels from Rajistan to Bangalor. (He hit me up for fifty bucks just for a photo)



My view from the Boulders Resort outside Hampi.



And my cabin:

The owners home really is his castle... At least it looks like one.

More Detail Than You Can Possibly Imagine

Today I transferred to Behur to see a couple more temples. On the road I began to see the first examples of rammed earth homes "outside of the lab" (In Auroville) I've seen since arriving in India. Here you can see a lady pumping water manually from a bore well, with her cows and house in the BG. One interesting thing I noticed about the rammed earth houses is that most of them are rendered (meaning plastered, for you CG folks!) on only the front. The sides and back seem to be left raw. Obviously a cost saving measure. But even in poor rural India, we must keep up appearances, mustn't we? You can see the raw earth on the side of the house. Based on the eroded quality I observed on many houses, it's pretty safe to say that they earth is truly raw. No stabilization. It appears that the builders didn't bother sieving out the larger stones either, which isn't strictly required. But it can lead to better life in the wall sometimes, depending on the soil. The buildings I observed which had the worst damage always lacked one or both of the two basic requirements for earth homes: "Good boots and a good hat" Usually the eves where too small to protect from driving rain, most usually on those raw, un-rendered sides. Often the foundation was also inadequate as well. It appears that stone is abundant in this particular area, so there is no obvious reason for the short stem walls other than maybe as a cost saving measure. Of course, when your house ends up melting away over a couple of monsoons it's pretty safe to say that that sort of cost savings is "penny wise and pound foolish". Regardless, I saw many examples of poorly constructed houses. (This house seems pretty well done)
Most of the raw un-stabilized earth houses seemed to be holding up quite well. (even the poorly constructed houses) Now, contrast the modest earth home to this gaudy concrete house. OK, it is fugly. But if that is what floats your boat, it could be executed in earth for less than concrete. I wonder if the person who contracted this abomination knew all the options what they would have chosen. They would have had so much more in left in their budget for tacky trim if they'd gone with earth...
After seeing the damage on the poorly constructed earth houses, I can see how they may have contributed to the seemingly poor reputation of earth. First of all, earth construction is associated with poverty. "Poor as dirt"... and all that. Second, it seems you only ever notice the earth houses that are falling apart, never the houses just next door that are holding together just fine. For some reason, people can look at a dilapidated wood house and not conclude that wood is at bad building material. But earth doesn't seem to get that sort of slack.

Now that I've done the earth building course I'm well acquainted with the various strengths and weaknesses of earth as a building material. As I drive though India I see so many places where concrete and fired brick is being used for basically no reason at all other than convention. Earth would do the job just fine. I'm even talking about multi-story buildings, which all seem to be ferro-concrete with brick infill. The brick is just a complete waste. They could do things in a similar way but with a different material and save money and energy in the process. Speaking of saving energy, the ferro-concrete/ brick in-fill buildings I mentioned must be TERRIBLE energy wasters. I'm sure that eventually, many of them will have some sort of air conditioner installed. They don't appear to have any insulation at all and the thermal gain of the brick is terrible. Earth would not be much better in this regard, but it wouldn't be any worse. And with earth one could afford to make the walls more massive. (Which helps fight the thermal gain with the "flywheel effect")


The first temple I visited was the Chennakeshava (a form of Shiva) temple in Belur. The quality of the sculptural detail is amazing. It's by far the most detailed temple I've seen so far. (It took over 103 years to complete!) One reason for the quality of the carvings is the material which is soap stone. Its smooth texture and softer surface allows for more detail. Unfortunately, it also makes vandalism easier. There were many areas where I saw vandalism.

Some of the most obvious modern vandalism was visible on the highly polished Nandi. I wish I could beat the jackasses who perpetrated it. (You can't see it too well in the photo)


Check out the detail on this sculpture. It's about 4 feet tall.



Lathe turned columns inside the temple.



After looking at the Chennakeshava temple we went to the Hoyasaleshwara temple near by in Halebid. Hoyasaleshwara is also executed in soapstone and also has the same level of insane detail. Actually, it is even more detailed. It's the newer of the two temples and no doubt the queen who commissioned it was trying to out-do the older temple. (Both were built
by the same dynasty.)

A child herding pigs on the road to Hoyasaleshwara temple. I never knew you could herd pigs.


One interesting thing that happened to me at Hoyasaleshwara is that some locals started chatting me up. Indians have a very different sense of privacy than Americans. They think nothing of asking very personal questions right off the bat. In this case, the guy asked me if I was traveling alone. I mean, traveling alone, huh? Why would he care? From a suspicious Angelinos point of view, you really wonder how you want to answer a question like that, especially when you actually DO happen to be traveling alone. At this point, members of his group started gathering and surrounding me. OK. So now I'm being surrounded by a bunch
of strangers who want to know if I'm traveling alone... really it wasn't a truly threatening situation. But it's tough to shift your mindset from what you know. The villagers seemed naive enough to not realize that there might be anything at all threatening to their actions. Once all of the guys group had gathered around, it was time to answer other questions. I got a barrage of the now recognisable as standard questions: Your good name? What country are you from? Are you married? But then I got a couple of new ones: What do you think of Indian culture? What religion are you?" At this point one of the group decided to display his knowledge of regional demographics "Christian"...Americans are Christians. I quickly corrected him. I told him, "Not all Americans are Christians. What about the Indians that live in America?" He looked at me with a "Whaa...?" kind of look. Apparently, he hadn't gotten the memo that plenty of Indians carry American passports. Eventually they cornered me with THE question: What religion was I? "None", I replied. They had a hard time understanding that one. I didn't have time to explain it to them.

Check out the size of the people to get a sense of the scale of the carvings. They are all so small relative to them they are hardly visible in the photo. You can see them in the foreground of the shot. Insane detail.
Each little carving is not just a relief, it's a fully dimentional carving. Each "stone" of the building has many such carvings.


One of the guardian statues of the inner sanctum. Very detailed.

It seems that, like many projects in India, even temples are never completed. So, here we have some 500 year old columns sitting in the corner of the temple grounds. (Un-installed) Are they spares? Were they for a new shrine? Maybe If I'd sprung for a guide I could have gotten the inside scoop on what they were meant for. (originally)