Some questions on tradition, architecture and traditional architecture.

The word Neo-Conservation was something I never understood. Not the idea behind it, but rather what it sought to converse. When Yoko Ono and John Lennon started one of their many infamous campaign/exhibition art about protecting the family, they weren’t talking in the same lines as, say Mrs. B from a Bible Belt state who thought divorce is a sin.

The same closer home. Heritage, Culture and Tradition are words you are bound to hear everyday in India. Hear, Experience, Feel, See. With a history spanning more than more than three millennia, with more than thousand different philosophies, it is hard not to. The most truthful cliché about India is that it is a land of contradictions. The land of Jhansi Rani, Durga, Mira Bai and countless satis. The land of Khajuraho, Osho  and the most stringent censors. The land of Vinoba Bhave and Bhagat Singh. Of Balasaraswati and Rukmini Devi. Of Deivadasis and Devadasis. Every story, every legend, every history is a tradition.

So when we talk about heritage, conservation and tradition, which tradition are we talking about? The one where women were burned at their husband’s funeral oyre or the one where a sexually liberated dancer was the most respected person in society?

Every history and tradition has its good parts and bad. And the problem is, no one can agree on which is what. So how to do then decide on what can be ‘conserved’ and what cannot be? Was Constantinople recaptured or did Constantinople fall?

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