S p a c e. In between and beyond.

Space is such an underrated concept. Although I have been taught and reminded of its importance quite often as a design student, I realized its significance as an individual only on my recent trip to the Rann of Kutch.

I was asked this question by a professor during my exchange program in Paris, “What makes a house? Is the four walls or is it the space in between?”. While she was only trying to make me realize that space demands equal importance as the other elements, this question has stayed with me. Isn’t space the same? By constructing walls, we are only demarking the function of that enclosed space and giving it a way to serve a purpose. It's like putting a sealed bag of water inside an ocean. Maybe with a fish inside. Just that in this case, the fish has no free passage in and out because of lack of a door. And in this sense, its funny how we can mark a particular area and put a price on it, when in fact the whole concept of space is that it is free. We build extrusions called buildings and even assign the vertical space a meaning.

People often say, “I don’t have the mind space for it right now”. It’s amusing how the concept of space in one’s mind could be so limiting. And I am no exception to it. Maybe we simply fail to harness the limitless potency of it in our mind. One reason we fail is because of the constant visual blockages we have all around. Cubicles, walls, facades, buildings, billboards, trucks and of course all the screens we constantly stare into! This is especially true in cities and fast developing towns, where our vision hits something even before it travels a few meters. I always knew at the back of my mind that this was a hindrance. But never realized how much it impacted me until I got lost in the vast expanse of barren land in the Rann of Kutch. The first time I saw a curved horizon kissing the sky with no identity of the sea or the ocean! It’s nothing really. Just barren land. Endless. Not even a tree! And yet that infinite space fills you with a calm that is hard to put in words. It cradles you, fills you with hope and makes you shed all your inhibitions. You get all that by just being there! Not even doing anything. How powerful is that. Just space. The same space. Just clutter free.

“Our mental space stands in direct proportion to our perception of physical space.”

I read somewhere that our mental space stands in direct proportion to our perception of physical space. Now, I believe it. No wonder most people around me in Kutch were speaking Marathi and multiple people told me that most tourists are from Mumbai! All probably trying to escape the narrow spaces of life in Mumbai, home to around 20 million stomachs. Here, the visual chaos begins at inches not meters. The city life is so fast, so rushed that people don’t even breathe fully. In a boxed up world, where everything around is a cuboid from our phone, television, bed, rooms, lifts, buses to our buildings, we fail to find ways to ‘unbox’ our lives. To live, to be. The nature around is so limited that we hardly get a break from the horizontal and vertical organised chaos to let our eyes or our minds to wander amongst the natural beautiful organic forms. Our large windows with a narrow view of the surrounding do little to help us. How will we have any mind space!

Abstraction and imagination opens up new views and vistas for a human. When you look at something from just a few centimetres away, to a few feet distance, to a few meters distance, the thing you are looking at changes. The pattern of fields on the earth visible from a plane and the shape of a mountain from far are very abstract renditions. And we need such abstractions. Why? Because it opens our mind to look at things for what they could be rather than what they are. And to find such abstractions, the space in between is very necessary. So how do we find this much needed space in a city? The simplest way would be to look up. Watch the endless sky above us. Watch the clouds make random patterns. Try to see the stars beyond the halo of the city lights. Watch the moon dance rhythmically. Become one with the cosmic space. Let the mind wander a bit. Perceive the infinite outside and through it find the infinite within. It is the same space. Our mind shall stretch like the sky and we’ll stand a better chance to absorb, be creative and feel alive.

The Great Rann of Kutch

Maybe one day, we shall see space for what it is, in its true nature. Without all the elements and abstractions. For it is not just something that separates or connects, it contains us all. Holds us in. We are born in it and we die in it. The question is, can we see the unseen? Can we be one with it?

Space. In between and beyond.

Nothing, or everything?

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