Posts Tagged ‘Mumbai’
Mumbai Revisited: An Appreciation for Innovation, Creativity & Resilience
A view of greater Mumbai (Bombay) using an image gathered by the NASA and USGS Landsat 8 satellite on Sunday February 23rd, 2014. Gray areas are built up urban parts of the megalopolis. There are significant areas of “green space” in Mumbai’s hinterlands as revealed by the image. These areas, such as Borovali National Park and several mangrove-laced estuaries show up as red and deep red in this false-color image. The satellite is picking up 11 different multi-spectral layers of data-most of which are not visible to the human eye. The 5,4,3 band combination emphasizes vegetation by assigning the infrared band to the color red while leaving green and blue with their normal bands. Other notable features include the Bandra Sea Link, Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, Elephanta Island and numerous ships in the ocean. Click on image to see enlarged A3 version at 150 DP
Back at ASB, after the morning visit to Elephanta, I enjoyed three invigoration days of thought- provoking demonstrations, workshops, lectures, interactions and talks at the ASB Unplugged. The workshops were crowded with 400 or so participants from across the globe and we were joined by the ASB staff, students and staff. The three days were split between student demonstrations, classroom visits and then “hands-on” learning institutes. The first day was capped with a Tedx talk.
There were many personal outcomes that I got out of the conference: I relished learning about strategies for effectively integrating technology in my classroom, interacting with students about their personal application of technology in the DP and CAS programs and sitting in on several excellent interactive lectures by learned experts. It was difficult trying to choose from the myriad workshops but my choices of Larry Rosen’s Brain-Based Learning workshop and Suzie Boss’ Project-Based learning were just right for my own needs. It was good being part of a whole school team approach and the six of us OSC participants regrouped frequently to share learning and outcomes from various workshops. Our family friend Alok Parashar is ASB’s head of administration and we reminiscing about our years together on MUWCI’s distant hilltop. Interestingly, there were no geo-spatial workshops on offer and it appears to me that this is a key deficiency in the program that will perhaps offer an opportunity to address at the next conference. Thinking about this, I started the download of a Landsat compressed file of Mumbai (taken just five days earlier) from Earth Explorer on the first night. It has taken several hours of processing and has helped me rediscover this neck of India that I know well from a decade ago. The image above is the outcome of that process. I have also started working with several other cloud free images from the Pune, Nashik and Ratnagiri areas.
ASB is an impressive learning community and they are blessed with outstanding resources. Like anyone in Mumbai and other urban areas in India they face a challenge in the day-to-day reminder of extreme income disparities in society-something there are few quick fixes for. Perhaps what is most interesting to me is their singular focus on their mission and purpose. The focus on innovation and creativity at all levels of the school is something that many of us could learn from. The space and time given for students and teachers to apply learning in practical ways was energizing. ASB’s Superintendent, Craig Johnson, passionately articulated this in his welcome and concluding speeches. These were positive ideas to bring back with us to Colombo. What they didn’t have in Mumbai was the greenery, fresh air, island hospitality, spicy sambol and quiet neighborhoods that are a blessing to the OSC community and it was with happiness that I returned to my family in the eastern suburbs of Sri Lanka’s capital city!
Scenes from a taxi window: the Bandra Sea Link, Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) growing on a Colaba buildings, and a Fiat on the newly opened Eastern Expressway.
REFERENCES
Future Forwards Exploring Frontiers in Education at the American School of Bombay. Mumbai: ASB, 2013. Web Link.
Riebeek, Holli. “Why is that Forest Red and that Cloud Blue? How to Interpret a False-Color Satellite Image.” NASA Earth Observatory. 4 March 2014. Web. 5 March 2014.
Elephanta: A Pilgrimage
Mahesh Murti (Trimurti) in Elephanta: a sublime and colossal example of6th-8th Century Hindu cave architecture in western India. Taken with a Canon G12 and edited with Photoshop Plugins from Nik Software.
In the last week of February I had the opportunity to participate in the bi-annual ASB Unplugged, a series of technology-oriented workshops and talks aimed at international educators. The visits to Mumbai, after a long nine-year gap, offered a chance to reconnect with cultural aspects of the Sahyadris (northern Western Ghats) and explore paradigm shifts in the way we use technology in schools.
Before the conference began one of my Sri Lankan colleagues and I took a day trip into the city to revisit Elephanta Island. This is a special, albeit popular, place that most good tourists visiting Mumbai see. I got to know Elephanta in 2001 when I spent a month in Mumbai exhibiting my Western Ghats Portrait and Panorama exhibition. These 6th Century temples are some of the most exquisite examples of cave-excavated sacred spaces and are on par with the more extensive Ajanta and Elora caves in central Maharashtra. The Elephanta cave temples are mostly dedicated to Shiva and are of the Gupta-Chalukyan art style (Harle 124). I’ve been intrigued with these cave temples and others in the nearby hills near Lonavala and Pune because of their cultural connection to the physical geography of the Western Ghats. The rock that the temples are cut from is basalt, associated with the Deccan Traps (see H.C Sheth’s scholarly article link below for a fascinating exploration of volcanism in the Deccan). Their estimated date of roughly 65 million years makes them relatively young when compared to the pre-Cambrian horsts of the Southern Western Ghats ranges.
The caves are set into a wooded hillside that overlooks Bombay harbor (see linked Landsat map in next post for location). Being caves with deep recesses they have subdued, exquisite lighting conditions that help create an ethereal experience for pilgrims and visitors. For photographers it is a challenge to do justice to the interior spaces and carvings without using artificial lighting. On my visit in 2001 I had used a Mamiya 6 medium format 6cm x 6cm film camera to try to document the Elephanta caves. Remembering back, it was a somewhat frustrating photographic experience since I had not been allowed to use my tripod by the ever-vigilant Archeological Survey of India guards. Thus I was forced to shoot hand held using a strobe to light up the deities. This time, I was travelling light and armed only with a small Cannon G12. The versatility of digital cameras is something that I appreciate though I really would like to return with a tripod and higher end DSLR. The pictures here are the result of the latest hand held experiments using the G12.
Mahesh Murti composite panoramic image.
Nagaraja at west entrance to Elephanta caves…a series of view including one showing Portuguese (?) graffiti from the distant past.
Dvarapalas (guard figures) at Elephanta with Siva (Andhakasura Vadh) in the back left.
FURTHER LINKS
Harle, J.C. The Art & Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. London: Penguin, 1986. Print.
Sheth, H.C. “Plume-related regional pre-volcanic uplift in the Deccan Traps: Absence of evidence, evidence of absence.” MantlePlumes. August 2006. Web and PDF.
Sahyadris: A Photographic Gallery. See High Range Photography.
