The Urban Construct

Equipped with an ample idea about the living spaces inhabited in villages by the construction workers, we were eager to see how they have adapted to a contrasting urban counterpart of their lives. As we reached the endless stretch of an on-going construction site, we were welcomed with choking wafts of omnipresent dust. Hunting for appropriate site for research, acquiring permissions and informal negotiations for a quick visit to the housing camps would make up to an entirely another interesting story! (Thanks to our faculty and classmates).

The dim lit dorms, the grim and dirt that nurtured parasites, awkwardly built passages and corridors that spared old trees, chulas, in or out, smouldering and smoking, witty hacks at every nook and corner, and of course the swarming dozens of curious children are some things we could always recall from the experience. It's not hard to misplace yourself in one of these tin jungles.

The never seen spatial setting and the lifestyle patterns that crystalized around it puzzled our novice minds but discussions we had in the subsequent classes led to more intriguing questions about larger things governing our lives. Several constraints (We were often mistaken as journalists and whistle-blowers) pulled back the students as well as the workers from having free conversations but the Ranipura anecdotes we shared with them became the ice breakers. Some of them were brimming with pride for being the breadwinners while few shared how their twisted fate led them there. Everyone had a story to tell. These stories had ghostly reflection in their aspirations and expectations, in the drawings and sketches we made there and in the visions and objectives of the welfare projects we forged eventually.