Presentation to Maharashtra Police Officials..

It is going to be quite a long post.I cant help it, I have a lot to say about today. I am sure I will take at least a week to overcome today’s events. I knew it was supposed to be a big event, but didn’t know how big. The director general of police, Maharashtra had invited me to present my thesis concerning imagination of a police station to a bigger body of police Department officials.

Till now I had only presented my thesis to architects and communicating my ideas to stiff policemen didn’t seem easy. After hearing Charles’s advices for the day, my mind was trying very hard to imagine what was about to take place. Since morning my mind was behaving like a violent animal. Some strange and irrelevant events and images kept on flickering like flashes in my mind. I was finding it difficult to structure my thoughts.

Mitali and I managed to reach an hour early to the Police headquarter, Colaba, A spectacular colonial building, opposite Regal. We waited in a double storey volume with wooden roof, stone arches, some ordinary seating and a flame orange colored artificial plant with plastic sparrows on it. Everyone other than us sat like good boys in school with hands crossed. Everyone spoke in soft voice other than Kalpit. Other than three of us, there were two man who looked like some politicians, with thick gold chains, Dark Golden Kurta, two police man who looked really sleepy and one very intelligent looking man. I thought this might be my audience for the day, but was very disappointed when one by one everyone disappeared. It was almost one hour by now and I feared canceling of my dream event. Finally one fine English speaking Constable took us to the D.G.P.’s cabin.

I had met D.G.P. before, a very sharp and intelligent person who kept on calling me ‘putar’ in his Punjabi accent. I was told to arrange the laptop in the conference room adjoining his room, a very still double storey volume with rosewood paneling and golden lights. It seemed any form of motion had not touched this space for very long. It looked more like a dining table. Everything lied fixed and frozen in time. All crockeries arrange at fixed center to center distance, all napkins at 860 angle. I kept the laptop and was afraid of disturbing the rigid order of the space when Kalpit did it with quite an ease.






As we made our arrangement, the space started filling with more and more policemen, all very strice looking, few with uniforms and guns. I didn’t know any of them. I could just hear some words in air. Additional D.G.P., Commissioner, Joint Commissioners, I.G., D.I.G. etc. I had forgotten my hierarchy chart also. All chatted like some school boys in a lunch break. With every arrival my blood pressure rose. By now there were more 20 than police officials and the room seemed tiny to hold the bunch. I was quite pleased with the disappearance of that disturbing stillness. Everyone sat having tea and snacks discussing with me about who am I and why was I there. After a while D.G.P entered, who was about to head the table. He told us to shift to a bigger conference hall.

The bigger conference room looked grand in scale as well as in texture. D.G.P., Maharashtra sat in the head position, with Commissioner of Mumbai on one side, Commissioner of intelligence on other side and rest of them sat along the length.

This room had a very different air, very formal and stiff. Everyone spoke with microphone. Suddenly the atmosphere had turned into a formal meeting kind. Mr. D.G.P. was hosting the show and introduced me as a young architect, who works with his 30 year old friend Charles Correa and has done thesis concerning police stations in the city. I started the presentation casually talking about how my mother scared me of ghosts when I was a child, how I always wanted to know how those ghosts looked like and how I had found faces for my ghosts when I visited a police station. Thankfully my story managed to break the ‘formalness’ of the place. Everyone listened with attentive eyes.

It went pretty well. All had questions, queries and smiles. When few understood the larger idea well, few began questioning finer details, cost factors etc... D.G.P. handled these questions very skillfully, he explained that It needs t be understood as a larger idea which can applied to any police station in the city. He also said that they as a Police Department, institution of state need to conceive these ideas with flexible mind so that we can inculcate fluid relationship between the city and the institution. He also said that my Jogeshwari Police station needs to be understood conceptually to evolve new image for the institution. He said “we should begin the process of renewing the police stations in the state as civic spaces. We can invite funds and demonstrate examples so as to begin the process.” Then began specific discussions about my Jogeshwari police station, site, area, cost, D.P. reservation, financial model, functionality etc. They asked me to submit few set of soft copy of my project to I.G.

Everyone left telling me wonderful idea, good project, good concept etc. when we sat in corridor outside. Constables outside looked with suspicious eyes wondering what were we (kids) doing in the meeting. Few even questioned which ‘company’ we came from. I was quite drained off, there was very good breeze, stone building felt quite cooler, my eyes were heavy with sleep and relief.