The Great Indian Chaos

Controversy is becoming the middle name of this blog. Anything I happen to state affirmatively stirs up a fresh war of words. That's nice to know because that indicates that people have their own strong convictions.

Coming to today's topic, people from South India who subscribe to The Hindu must have seen the new layout design the 126 year old newpapers flaunts. Starting 14th April, The Hindu sports a new look and feel designed by Mario Garcia, an internationally acclaimed newspaper designer.

Garcia and his staff worked for months to come out with a design that focuses on whitespaces, functionalism, pastel shades and sans serif fonts. The result is a liberated, free flowing format that's not only pleasing to the eyes, but also to the soul.

Well, the idea of this blog is not just to share this news. I liked the new look to the extent that I was eagerly looking forward to the next day's edition. If you keep April 13th and 14th editions together, you will know what Garcia has done and appreciate his 'pure design' principles. Today, Hindu truly has an international outlook.

This brings me to my the nagging question. Are Indians not good in design at all? Do we need an 'international designer' to come and spruce up a century old newspaper? I know I'm courting controversies by saying this and before you minimize this window and begin tapping angry words from your inbox, please take a deep breadth. I'm not saying we are not good. Recenly I went to Fab India and was awed at the designs that are distinctly Indian. But the legacy of ethnicity cannot be boasted as the evolution in our design tastes. For instance, barring the Indian master Ray, our movies and books still sport western design attributes. A pleasing, coherent design attempts seem to be rare to come by.

Why should Hindu hire a western designer to spruce up its looks? I know because our designers could never have performed the Garcia feat. As a nation, we seem to lack a coherent identity. For instance, our streets don't have a consistent look and feel. Even in the upmarket urban India, the houses in a single street look quite botched up.

To explain this further, the pavements in a broad road are not continuous and suddenly become quite narrow or even vanish. What has the designer of the pavement thought will happen to people walking on it when it narrows or vanishes? Will people start walking on the road? If yes, then why have pavement in some parts and why not do away with them completely? I've seen and walked on the pavements of developed countries where the pavements never abruptly end. They guide you right through the end. In TV, I was watching a star night falicititating a veteran film director. There were dances, songs and speeches by famous film personalities. People goofed up in group choreographed sequences, singers lost meter, drummers went faster and glibly slowed down to catch up with the singers, speakers who were given two minutes took twenty. Nobody stopped them because 'he is a big personality'. Interestingly nobody bothered.

Being consistent, meticulous and quality conscious is what perhaps our schools need to train our children on. Above all, the need to be original in thoughts and deeds comes along, then we can expect something substantial from our future generations.

That's the point and now let the mails and comments roll! I'm already ducking spotting a rotten tomato being hurled by Devika!