[RE[SEARCH [DIA]LOGUES
RE-CENTERING DELHI UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
C U LT U R E RELIGION+ RECREATION
INTRODUCTION Will Keel
A cross-section of the population of India will reveal one of the world’s most diverse and interesting groups of people. So many different cultures are spread throughout the nation, and no two groups carry on in quite the same way. Regional differences in heritage and religion determine much of an individual’s daily life, from daily rituals of purification to asceticism and recreation, the cultures and habits of Indian individuals vary widely. In Delhi in particular, the actions of an individual are curtailed so much by the structure of the city, as well as the political system that separates classes dramatically. People have no access to the river, an important instrument for holy rituals that is sorely lacking from the lives of those who live nearby. Any sort of recreation is mostly privately owned, denying the ability to participate to low income individuals, who represent a very large portion of the population. Very drastic steps must be taken to reorganize Delhi into a more accessible, intelligently designed city that cares for the welfare of its citizens.
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LOTUS FLOWER The lotus flower is one of the most important symbols in Indian Culture. Many Hindu deities are often pictured seated on a lotus flower, the Baha’i house of worhip in Delhi is shaped like a gigantic lotus flower, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s flag has a lotus as the symbol, and it is pervasive through culture and media.
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EATING HABITS Most Indians wash their hands, legs, and face before eating a meal, and eat only with their right hands. Women eat after everyone else is finished, and wasting food is a sin.
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MARRIAGE DYNAMICS Often, Hindu women will not address their husbands by their real names, instead refering to them as ‘father of my children’ or other variants because it is considered disrespectful to use their real names. In ancient and mideval India, suttees were common. They were a ceremony in which a widowed wife would throw herself upon her husband’s funeral pyre.
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CLOTHING India’s clothing varies widely across caste and location. While individuals living in urban areas often wear Westernized, tailored clothing, rural communities generally still wear anything from traditional, basic loincloths, to robes and shawls. Modern, Western clothing is more likely to be worn by Muslims and Sikhs.
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CLASSICAL DANCE Bharata Natyam is a traditional form of dance which expresses Hindu religious themes as old as the fourth century. Banghra is another form of dance which is gaining international popularity through Bollywood films and popular culture.
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TRADITIONAL MUSIC Indian music is divided distinctly between two main traditional styles: the Hindustani stule from the North and the Carthatic style from the South. Often traditional music will enact scenes from the Ramayana and other holy texts.
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MARRIAGE The family is the primary unit of Indian interaction. Extended families consisting of two or more married couples, and their children, often live together and share a kitchen. Divorce is rare and marriages are often arranged by family elders.
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CUISINE For most people, food varies very little from day to day. Often dishes are rice and bread based, with legume paste and sauce, and yoghurt if one can afford it. Curry is an enormous staple. India is the worlds largest producer of spices, and thus the food is often spicy and vibrant despite its simplicity.
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ETHNIC GROUPS Unlike many developed countries, India is composed of an enormous number of small tribal ethnic groups which seperate the population into distinct divisions. Haridwar is an interesting monument and center of pilgrimage for honoring family ties, as there is a large collection of genealogy information stored there from long ago.
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10 LANGUAGE Hundreds of different languages are spoken across the nation of India, because so many small tribes have seperate dialects which evolve and seperate over time. A vast majority of Indians speak Indo-Iranian or Dravidian languages.
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11 CASTE The caste system in India has existed for thousands of years. It sep-
arates communities into a hierarchy of occupations and classes that make movement between them virtually impossible. By job title and description, one could categorize easily 2,000 different castes.
Wikimedia Commons, Seventy-Two Specimens of castes in India
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12 UNTOUCHABLES Untouchables are the lowest class, consisting of individuals who are
considered to interact with too many impure and unclean practices to be integrated into normal society, or to even really have a real place in the caste system. Government programs exist to aid untouchables but social constructs don’t really allow them to gain access to the normal caste system.
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13 RELIGIONS India is the birthplace of four of the world’s major religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Busshism, and Sikhism. Individuals from these religions now make up around 20% of the world’s population.
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IN DELHI 14 RELIGION Delhi consists of an incredibly diverse population existing in very close proximity to one another. When designing, one must keep in mind the cultural differences that are inherently a part of this diverse city.
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DELHI’S RELIGIOUS BREAKDOWN: 73.8% Hindu 16.3% Muslim 5.4% Sikh 1.1% Jains 0.9% Christian
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OF WORSHIP 15 PLACES This map indicates major places of worship throughout the city, and their denominations.
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CULTURE, RELIGION + RECREATION
Delhi Zoo Domestic: 20 Rupees Foreign: 100 Rupees
Delhi Golf Club 18 Holes 2400 Rupees
Air Force Golf Club 18 Holes: 650 Rupees
Fort Siri Sports Complex Membership: 20,000 Rupees
Key Public Park Private Recreation Stadium/Arena Hindu Temple Mosque Sikh Gurdwara Christian Church Yamuna Floodplain
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MELA 16 KUMBH The biggest festival in the world, the Kumbh Mela takes place in India
every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, and were able to be photographed from space.
BBC News
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17 CALENDAR The Hindu calendar is highly variable depending on region and culture.
In Uttar Pradesh, the consensus is that Hindi New Year is March 31st. The months are based on the cycles of the moon, and they days of each are highly variable to ensure the year keeps approximately the same number of days every year.
http://www.hattours.com/blog/why-do-indian-festivals-change-date-every-year/
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18 HOLIDAYS Hindu holidays mostly consist of lavish festivals involving feasts, pa-
rades, and other festivities. These are scattered about the entire year, and occur often, usually around full moons.
kmhouseindia.blogspot.com
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Since Delhi is the capital of India, national holidays are more emphasized there than in other cities throughout India. During India’s Republic Day, large military parades are staged, as well as other festivities and celebrations of the country.
19 INDIA’S REPUBLIC DAY - 26 January
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AMAVASYA - 30 January 20 MAUNI Amavasya are new moon rituals. in particular, Mauni Amavasya is
Jan 30. It is believed that water of the most sacred river, the Ganga, turns to nectar on this day. Thus, it is the most important day to make pilgrimages to sacred rivers.
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SHIVARATRI - 28 February 21 MAHA The day the god Shiva married the goddess Parvati. Devotees bathe in the local river at sunrise, and perform traditional shiva worship at temples.
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- 17 March 22 HOLI The festival of colors is a time for doing what is otherwise socially
unacceptable with impunity. People go wild celebrating with tons of brightly colored dusts, which they throw upon each other and smear upon each others faces in revelry.
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WEEK - 31 March to 8 April 23 RAMAYANA A celebration of one of the two great Hindu epochs, in which Rama, an
incarnation of Vishnu, journeys to recover his kidnapped wife from the king of Lanka. Celebrants fast and devotees read the entire Ramayana during these nine days.
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- 29 June 24 RATHA-YATRA Ratha-Yatra – a large festival that involves transporting deities on a chariot through town centers, especially in the state of Orissa
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JANMASHTAMI - 17 August 25 KRISHNA Celebration of the birth of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, during which male youths make human towers to reach a high-hanging pot of butter and break it.
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- 23 October 26 DIWALI Festival of lights - The biggest Hindu festival, Diwali consists four days full of feasting and celebration, including firecrackers, light shows, dances and parades. It celebrates several stories of Krishna and Vishnu defeating various demons and tyrants, and the tradition of lights comes from the returning of the demon Bali to the Earth once a year to light lamps to spread love and wisdom. Revelers traditionally gamble for good luck, as this day is especially auspicious.
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27 RECREATION Sports play a large role in the daily lives of many of Delhi’s citizens.
Among the most popular are cricket, field hockey, football, badminton, and in urban areas, tennis. India participated, and often won, the Commonwealth Games, hosted by Britain among the numerous colonies, which takes place every 4 years since 1930.
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HOCKEY 28 FIELD Often considered India’s unofficial national sport, Field Hockey has
been vital in shaping the country’s attitude toward sport in general, as India’s team won gold in the Olympics as early as 1928, giving the country the first of its gold medals.
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29 CRICKET Cricket is by far the most popular sport in India, and one of the only
sports they lead on an international stage. Delhi has programs for youth cricket, semi-professional teams, and a professional team. Many speculate that the reason India is not as good at othe sports, despite its enormous population, is that so much focus is put on cricket that it detracts from potential participants for the other sports.
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30 STADIUMS Delhi plays host to multiple stadiums in close proximity. Included
amond them is the Jawaharial Nehru Stadium, which regularly seats 60,000 people for multiple sporting events.
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CENTER ACCESS 31 SPORTS Many of Delhi’s residents don’t have access to any sort of real sporting facilities because they are privatized, exclusive and expensive. Many people turn to interstitial spaces or inferior public parks to practice and play.
http://www.dda.org.in/sports/sports_complex.htm#
The Siri Fort Sports Complex is Delhi’s largest and most popular sports facility.
It costs 20,000 Rupees for a yearly pass. The average yearly income is 2.01 Lakh.
This means the sports complex costs 1/10 of the average yearly income.
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SPORTS 32 TRADITIONAL Kabaddi, primarily an Indian game, is believed to be some 4,000 years
old. Combining elements of wrestling and rugby, the team sport has been a regular part of the Asian Games since 1990. Kho-kho, a form of tag, ranks as one of the most popular traditional sports in India, and its first national championship was held in the early 1960s.
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33 BOLLYWOOD Having a long history since the 1930s, Bollywood is a specific film
company in India which dominates the film production industry for Hindi cinema. Bollywood movies are extremely popular, and have a large impact on the daily lives of most citizens because they’re easily accessible to most. Almost all Bollywood productions are musicals.
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SETTLEMENT 34 URBAN Urban settlement and density has further defined the caste system by segregating castes through housing consitions. Some Indian slums, especially in large cities like Delhi and Mumbai, are some of the most dense living conditions in the world, forcing individuals who live there to work harder for unavailable resources.
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BASTI 35 YAMUNA A Basti is a shantytown. The banks of the Yamuna in Delhi have
enormous shantytowns lining the river on either side, with subsistence farming and poor, self-made housing dominating the landscape. Illegal construction and degradation of the environment continues virtually without bound.
Youtube.com
http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PMKnsPf8cXA
-A video of illegal construction on the banks of the Yamuna
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CLIMATE 36 POLITICAL India’s govenment is a democracy, with leaders being elected and a
large bureaucracy that runs the day-to-day activities of the country. Many of India’s political leaders are elected on platforms that emphasize rejuvenation of urban areas, especially rivers, such as the renovation of the Sabarmati river bank in Ahmedabad.
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PARTIES 37 POLITICAL India’s political system has many different parties, with a few that
dominate the political climate. The major parties, in order of size and importance are the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Indian Nation Congress, the Communist Party of India, the Bahujan Samaj Party, and The National Congress Party. the Bharatiya Janata Party currently holds 282/543 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Wikimedia Commons, flag of the Bharatiya Janata Party
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MINISTER 38 PRIME Narendra Modi is the prime minster of India currently. He is the first
prime minister to have been born after India’s independence, and is the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. His administration is controvercial in India as well as internationally, as it has been criticized for failing to prevent the 2002 Gujarat Riots.
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39 CURRENCY The Indian standard currency is the Rupee. The conversion rate
between Rupees and US Dollars is 60.86 Rupees to one Dollar. It is illegal to take Indian currency out of the country. While more than a million Indians are millionaires, a majority of citizens live on less than two dollars a day.
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40 NEWSPAPERS Several thousand newspapers circulate in India, with the most popular being the Times of India and the Hindustan Times, which are both written in English. The media functions with very little government censorship, which includes radio and internet publications.
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