Poison in Our Palette: Getting Wise to What’s Inside and Outside Our Homes

Painting the walls of our homes every year (for those of us who are more particular) or maybe every other year (for those of us who aren’t), is something quite routine - especially when the festive season approaches. And part of good practice to get us ‘beautiful homes’. Or so we believe.

But what if it isn’t really a good practice? Even a dangerous practice?

Most commercial paints contain toxic chemicals. Even those touted as luxury paints and with ‘Green Pro Certification’ which are ‘free of added APEO and formaldehyde and low in VOC’ — by their own admission still contain some VOCs. Some paint companies have now also started a line of organic paints which they claim have no VOCs at all.

So what are VOCs? VOCs is short for Volatile Organic Compounds. These are a large group of chemicals, of which some common examples are formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene glycol, toluene, methylene chloride, tetrachloroethylene, and xylene.

Some of these names may be vaguely familiar from high school chemistry. But, though we may not recognise their names easily, we are no strangers to them — VOCs are ubiquitous in modern life.

The Persistence of Toxins

Where else will we find them, apart from paints? All around us.

Varnishes? Yes. 

Vinyl flooring? Yes. 

Adhesives, composite wood products, upholstered furniture? Cleaning products? Yes, again. 

Laminated floors that pretend to be wooden? Yes. In and behind wallpapers? In all probability, yes.

VOCs are also present in stuff we use right next to our bodies, including cosmetics and air fresheners. If you have often found it difficult to breathe in cabs with air fresheners, it isn’t just because of their strong smell. It is what lies underneath and in them: VOCs. VOCs are present in fuel oil too, which is why many of us have problems breathing at petrol stations. Exposure to these volatile compounds can cause potentially severe health effects ranging from nausea to ear, nose and throat irritation; damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system; cancer and respiratory diseases. Children and elderly people are especially at risk.

Once VOCs are in our homes, they stay. The highest concentrations of VOCs are found in indoor areas when they are freshly painted or newly renovated. Particularly vulnerable are those who work with materials that contain VOCs such as painters, carpenters and upholsterers. But since these volatile organic compounds keep getting released in the air over a long time — called offgassing or outgassing — anyone who inhabits these spaces and rooms is at significant risk. A study published in March 2024 done over two residences at Guangzhou City in South China, observed that building and furniture materials are significant sources of VOCs and determine their long-time indoor levels. It found that: ‘The occupational exposure at the wall painting stage was the highest, and formaldehyde is the most significant contributor to both cancer and noncancer risks.'  

VOCs are found outside our homes too — primarily due to automobiles and proximity to factories. However, VOC concentrations in indoor air may still be several times higher than outdoor air. This is generally true for residential areas which have less exposure to vehicles and factories. In fact, because of the shut-down of factories and practically no vehicular movement as well as no home renovation works during COVID in the lockdown period, TVOCs (Total VOCs) decreased significantly. In a study done at five different monitoring sites in Maharashtra, it was found that on an average this decrease was 84%. 

First Principles

Now that things are back to normal, and there is as much — and more — heavy industrial production, automobile emission, vehicular movement, construction activity and tree felling, how do we protect ourselves? While we may not have much control over the public domain, we can improve the air quality in and around our homes. There are three main ways to do this:

1. through the materials we use, 
2. through the processes we use to put together these materials, 
3. through the amount of air circulation that we can ensure. 

• The first principle is to switch to materials with less toxins. 

It is common sense that the more synthetic the materials — whether used in our buildings or in our personal-care products — the more synthesised chemicals they will have and correspondingly more adverse or toxic effects.

However, completely natural materials may not always be easily available. In that case, we can choose less synthetic or industrially processed materials wherever possible. If natural wood is not available, it is better to use plywood instead of reconstituted wood fibres. If stone flooring is not possible, it is better to use tiles instead of synthetic floors or laminates. Using natural wax polish and oil instead of chemical varnish will help to make the indoors — where often the most concentrations of toxic VOCs are found — less poisonous.

When it comes to painting our walls (which is what we use to redo our homes most frequently), we can choose traditional practices and processes such as chunam or lime-wash rather than plastic emulsion and enamel paint. Apart from VOCs, commercial paints also have very high levels of lead as revealed in studies by NGOs. Despite resultant government regulations, high levels of lead continue to be present in many commercial paints. 

• The second principle is to be aware of the processes by which these materials are applied onto walls or furniture surfaces. 

VOCs are found in many adhesives and additives too. If we fix natural materials with synthetic adhesives, or add chemical pigments to paint, there will still be toxins in the air — though obviously lesser than if both the material and the adhesive are synthetic; so choosing natural pigments and glues wherever possible is a good idea.

• The third principle is that the more air circulation there is, the less the VOCs will stay inside the room and the house. 

If indoor areas are less ventilated and more artificially cooled or insulated, the VOCs that have already come in will stay with us and in higher concentrations. However, it is important to remember that by increasing air circulation we do reduce our immediate risks but at the cost of redistributing these poisons over a larger area. The toxins will not disappear; they will simply percolate to the outside air. We can further reduce the presence of these toxins in the air by judicious tree plantation which can absorb some of these toxins — but again by transferring the adverse effects to the trees. 

The best option is to reduce toxins in the first place, by not choosing to use toxic materials.

Some Alternatives

Indeed why do we use such materials at all if they have such life threatening consequences? 

The answer is that most of us are unaware of these consequences. As the opening quote in this piece shows, paint companies have now started stocking and selling commercial paints with less VOCs but they have not discontinued the regular range of paints with VOCs — which they often price cheaper. Also, low VOC paints are not easily available. In the area of Noida where we live, after much searching we were able to find just one shop that stocks these. So, most people end up using paints with high VOCs because of:

• lack of information about their toxic effects (it is not mandatory to list paint composition in India); 
• lack of easy availability of low VOC paints; 
• and a real or perceived difference in cost between regular paints and low VOC paints. 

Even better than low-VOC paints is no-VOC paints. Recipes of traditional paints in India used perfectly safe ingredients, many of them actually still figure in our kitchens: jaggery, urad dal, harada, baheda, amla, egg whites. In fact, British administrators in colonial India such as Sir Isaac Pyke took advantage of observing such local Indian practices and made detailed notes of their ingredients, proportions and techniques in 1732 CE, with the objective of sending this information about ‘making the best mortar’ to England to replace or amend their own methods. 

The Question of Choice

Most of us are so short on time these days that the convenience of premixed commercial paints, which can be applied quickly to yield a smooth surface that is touted as being durable, is quite irresistible. But, the alternative of chuna or lime wash is also a fairly quick and cost-effective way to paint walls. 

Or if we find the texture of simple lime-wash too raw for our aesthetics, there is the option of using lime plaster or lime punning which gives stunning tactile and visual effects. In fact, the shimmering white columns and arches of the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience in the 17th century imperial Red Fort at Delhi, (discussed at length along with other principles of design in my book) which was actually lime plaster applied on red sandstone, was mistaken for marble by many European visitors! 

The dominance of industrial materials has led to a drastic reduction in such building crafts, and it is not easy to find skilled masons in lime. This is also one of the reasons many of us do not find it possible to use lime plasters and renders. However, thanks to the efforts of heritage and craft-organisations, directories with details of craftspeople who work in such materials, have been compiled. 

We do have to remember that lime plaster and render is a slow process. Like most good things in life, using natural materials generally takes longer than using industrially processed materials. So, if we cannot use natural materials and opt for ready-made and processed materials, please look for those with low/ no VOCs, read through their data sheets/ ingredients, and do some background research. 

Ultimately, we have to decide which we would rather have — convenience or our health and safety. 

Walls painted with chuna (lime wash) and bookshelves in commercial-board rubbed with natural wax

A Public Puzzle

 Here is a puzzle for all of us. 

Imagine a public organisation funded by tax-payers’ money. 

Part of the duties of this organisation, is to maintain records of photos and drawings of public buildings and objects. Some of these buildings and objects do not exist anymore; some which still exist are difficult or even impossible to visit or access in entirety. 

Now imagine that you wish to see these records for research or teaching, or just out of interest and curiosity. You expect — quite naturally — that your interest and research would be welcomed by the organisation and its staff. 

The organisation lets you see the photos and drawings after tortuous processes and weeks of written and verbal requests. But when you identify the particular drawings or photos that you need, they refuse to share any copies of these. 

They say they have a rule that they cannot share anything that is not previously published by them. 

But — and here’s the catch — they have published practically nothing of what they have in their keeping; nor do they plan to do so in the present or in the foreseeable future. 

This is where the puzzle comes in. 

What is the purpose of making and keeping these records? And what is the purpose of the organisation?

‘Learning From Jaisalmer’ and Professor Vinod Gupta in Talking Architecture 15

(Image Courtesy IIC)

Photo Credits: Vinod Gupta

‘Learning From Jaisalmer’ by Professor Vinod Gupta

Discussant: Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee 

28 March 2025

The data presented and analysed by Professor Gupta in his talk on Jaisalmer (based on his PhD study from IIT Delhi finished in 1984) explained how the architecture and planning of Jaisalmer respond to the constraints and contexts of its situation and location in the desert region— primarily from the point of view of thermal comfort but also from other, less tangible markers of comfort. It additionally busted certain ‘myths’ of urban development, and gave clear directions about how we can deal with the issues plaguing our cities — if we have the will to do so.

One of the key points (for me) that Professor Gupta underlined was that comfort is a state of mind, and it cannot be reduced to just thermal comfort. He related an anecdote about his student group in Jaisalmer working contentedly and energetically till they were informed what the temperature was — and then they suddenly started feeling listless and uncomfortable! Comfort is thus also related to whole-hearted engagement with what we are doing; to beauty, conviviality, the sense of being in tune with the rhythms of the natural world. In other words, an entire experience. 

From the point of view of thermal performance, Professor Gupta explained Jaisalmer’s architecture and planning in terms of :

1. Orientation: the siting and location of Jaisalmer fort, town, main streets 
2. Form: typology of dwellings
3. Scale: heights of buildings/ number of floors 
4. Material of construction: of walls, roofs 
5. Detail: chattris, chajjas, water-spouts, decoration.

The research methodology followed in his study was to survey representative samples of the commonly used typologies and dwelling forms in and immediately around the city of Jaisalmer. These were identified to be of four main types. Three of these were inside the city:

• the smallest/most basic version of a small single room with its courtyard and verandah; 
• a larger variation of this dwelling type with more rooms, more than one court and verandah; 
• the most elaborate version of this dwelling type with multiple courts, rooms, verandahs and with double/multiple storeys.

The fourth type was outside the city: the village dwelling (bunga). 

The data collected for all these types of dwellings, consisted of:

• measurement of dimensions of the dwelling, 
• measurement of temperatures and humidity during the day and night inside the dwelling (different rooms and courtyards), 
• measurement of temperatures and humidity levels during the day and night outside/adjacent to the dwelling; 
• water systems at the settlement and dwelling level. 

Temperature measurements were compared with the meteorological department’s temperatures, which are as a rule taken in the open area surrounding the city. In summer these ranged from 25 to 40 degrees centigrade, and in winters from 5 to 25 degrees centigrade.

According to the research findings:

1. The temperatures in the city of Jaisalmer were less than the meteorological department’s temperatures measured in the surrounding open area. 
2. Temperatures inside the dwellings and adjacent/immediately outside them were not very different and were mostly in sync — unlike houses today where the time lag is between 4 to 5 hours, so that peak heat inside our houses in our cities is felt 4 to 5 hours after the hottest temperature outside. This is why evenings and nights are very hot and unbearable today, and there is no respite from the heat even when the sun has gone down.
3. Temperatures in Jaisalmer even during the day were not too high. This was because of design elements such as: building orientation, width and location of streets; heights of buildings adjoining/flanking these streets; and the shade cast on the streets/on the buildings due to their placement and volume. 
4. There were planned provisions for air circulation at street, dwelling and city level through connected courtyards, ventilation-shafts and jalis, which helped to reduce temperatures.
5. The intricate jali-work and carving in traditional architecture of Jaisalmer was found to be not just decorative but to yield multiple benefits. It increased shadows on wall surfaces; reduced direct heat intake; allowed air passage and ventilation.
6. Thus, the two major principles followed in the architecture of Jaisalmer was to decrease heat-gain (by limiting exposure of buildings and streets to direct sunshine and by diffusing the sunlight, and thus reducing absorption/ radiation), and to facilitate heat-loss through evaporation, ventilation and increased reflection. Despite the fact that there was not too much greenery or shrubs in Jaisalmer, thermal comfort was achieved in an urban situation by adjusting and fine-tuning the density, detail, punctuation and placement of the urban mass. 

These findings refute standard notions of thermal comfort in urban dense areas, and standard methods and conceptions of city-and dwelling-form current today. The urban heat island effect that we experience in our cities at present, as enumerated by Professor Gupta, is primarily due to two reasons: automobiles and air-conditioners. Apart from the heat generated by automobiles and air-conditioners, in the case of individual dwellings there is a huge increase in radiant heat intake - as brought out in the discussions following the presentation - primarily caused by the materials and methods of construction: such as thin walls and roof slabs of industrially processed brick and concrete, large expanses of glass windows, etc. 

As opposed to the modernist notion of bare,’clean’, unadorned walls that we have adopted as the progressive way to build, the function of decoration in providing both places of beauty and reduced heat intake, is amply clear in the havelis of Jaisalmer. This aspect is very significant; it provides yet another instance of a lakshana or distinguishing characteristic of the tradition of Indian design where the functional, structural and the decorative aspects are integrated seamlessly in any artefact or piece of architecture. I have written about this at length in my blogposts (https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/2013/06/national-and-regional-identity-in.html) as well as in the book on Attributing Design Identity; Identifying Design Attributes (https://ambiknowledgeresources.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/forthcoming-attributing-design-identities-identifying-design-attributes/)

Professor Gupta also dwelt at length on the role of courtyards. Courtyards give light/sun/air to individual homes; at the same time, their effectiveness in cooling at an urban level is due to the continuous wind-flow and movement possible because the multiple courtyards in the dwellings and in the city work in tandem. Their benefits span six broad categories: granting light, ventilation, social space, varying levels of privacy, spillover area from built rooms, connections to circadian rhythms.

This is a feature of other traditional cities of the subcontinent. The proliferation of courtyards can be seen as a group of perforations in the urban mass; singly they would not be able to achieve the wind movement, evaporative cooling or level of thermal comfort that they do as a connected series of perforations. This is visible in urban large complexes such as the Red Fort too; the provision of multiple courtyards and verandahs in the original design of the Fort does not just work at the level of providing social space, maximising efficiency, and granting flexibility of functions. It also works to ensure ventilation and comfort throughout the Fort — working like a lattice at a plan level, what I call the ‘jali effect’. 

As I write in a blogpost ‘The City as a Place of Learning and Healing’ describing the design of Shahjahanabad and the Red Fort: (https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-city-as-place-of-learning-and.html) 

‘Like an Escher painting, as you zoom in and out of the city and Fort, different variations and scales of this interlinked pattern reveal themselves, simultaneously simple and complex. Tried and tested in the Indian subcontinent from Harappan times, this pattern was composed of sequences of walled courtyards-verandahs-halls-pavilions: a fluid building typology with some of its finest examples visible within the Fort, as analysed and described at length in The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad. 

Professor Gupta’s point about the perception of the experience of comfort — and therefore, the formulation of architecture to foster such an experience — is, I believe, an intrinsic part of the Indian world-view. In ‘The Concept of Beauty in Indian Tradition’, Rajendra Chettiarthodi’s notes that: ‘[w]hile western aestheticians equated beauty with symmetry and similar mathematical properties, Indian thinkers did not try to locate it in such clearly defined objective factors. Their concept of beauty had always some reference to the experience generated by the beautiful’. 

I found it extremely interesting that the principles of the architecture of Jaisalmer, as revealed in the talk, seemed to reinforce some observations made in a paper I presented on the theme on ‘Beauty in Architecture -- and Design’ at the Kurula Varkey Design Forum 2023 at CEPT, Ahmedabad. I’ll quote briefly from it:

‘Thus, the concept of beauty in the Indian tradition centres on experience. What sort of experience? That which grants us a sense of knowledge and blissful discovery. In architecture, such experience ought to be determined by function. Fundamentally, there is no contradiction between pragmatic needs and aesthetic concerns of creating space. Architecture needs to do both. It did so in the main, before the artificial split between function and beauty, which is the outcome of compartmentalising life into separate categories of work vs leisure, quantity vs quality, mundane vs spiritual. If we consider function in its complete sense: social, technical, ecological; and empathetic and satisfying all the senses, we would automatically provide for aesthetic qualities of light, texture, proportion, detail and spatial comfort.’

Unfortunately, habitable space is now designed as sealed containers in a thoughtless imitation of western ideas, without any provision for correct orientation and ventilation at the dwelling and city level. Wide tarred roads and extensive stretches of concrete /hard infra-structure absorb and radiate back heat during the day and night, adding to a ‘man-made’ increase in temperatures, and decreasing the ability of built-mass to quickly lose heat through evaporative cooling. 

Even in Jaisalmer so many years ago, as Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee recollected in the discussion following Professor Gupta’s presentation, when he along with the other students accompanying Professor Gupta on the field-study stayed at the ‘modern’ RTDC Tourist Hostel, it was so unbearably hot that all of them dragged out their mattresses every night and slept over the roof of the portico, rather than inside their rooms! The fact that such unsuitable architecture was made in Jaisalmer despite the evidence of the exemplary traditional architecture all around, is a testimony to the extent of brain-washing perpetuated in the name of being progressive and modern.

Professor Gupta's study and analysis of Jaisalmer is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. Perhaps even more so, given the extreme challenges of climate change that face us today, exacerbated by our architectural and urban responses which cause such acute discomfort and danger that reverses the very notion and meaning of shelter. We must realise that if the planning and architecture of cities can cause such unsustainable and severe implications on health, society and environment, the solutions must also lie in tackling it at these levels. In other words, at the interlinked macro and micro scales; at overall planning and regulations as also architectural forms, materials and detail.

By learning from Jaislamer, we can extract the principles at macro and micro scales, for tackling the unsustainable and miserable conditions we have created in our cities today. And instead generate places of comfort and beauty for all our citizens, while sharing our learnings with the people of Jaisalmer. This was clearly brought out in the discussions following the talk, with Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee and members of the distinguished audience that included the architects Professor Ujan Ghosh, Professor Basavi Dasgupta, Professor Kawas Kapadia, Peeyush Sekhsaria, Rohit Gulati and many others from different professions as well.

The first principle is that of correct orientation of buildings to reduce heat gain: something we were taught in college, but regrettably do not practice. The other principle that we are not taught sufficiently in college, is correct orientation of the town itself, including its main streets as well as its main buildings. Thus, as Professor Gupta noted, the Jaislamer Fort performs a protective function for the town, not just in terms of security but also in terms of climate, by protecting the rest of the town from hot dusty winds. This is an important principle to learn from and incorporate when we build monumental buildings and large institutional complexes in our cities and towns. Such planning would certainly reduce to some extent the necessity of artificially cooling our buildings through air-conditioners — which themselves add to heat-emission.

The second principle is the importance of sufficient open spaces of the correct scale and dimensions. Very large open spaces exacerbate climate problems apart from leading to social problems. In Jaislamer, it is the frequency, placement and size of the courtyards that helps to create overall air movement, while providing shared spaces for outdoor living that reduce the amount of built-up area and lead to healthier, convivial ways of living.

The third principle is to reduce the autocracy of the automobile — at an urban level as well as at an individual dwelling. By locating neighbourhood services that are walkable; by planning and providing for pedestrians; by encouraging non-heat emitting transport such as cycles and cycle-rickshaws; and by ensuring sufficient environment friendly public-transport. North Calcutta is a good example of this. It was devised with shaded internal walking and rickshaw routes that went past house fronts and public parks in the residential areas. These routes tied up with wider public roads and market-streets where trams, buses and taxis were easily available. While greatly reducing the need for automobile transport, this design promoted healthy and pleasant ways to navigate the neighbourhood and also caused less urban heating.

The fourth principle is to be mindful of the materials we use in construction, as well as the way in which we use these materials. Industrial materials are convenient and easily available but they are not the miracle materials they are touted to be. Natural and local materials when used with skill and knowledge, can prove long-lasting and more appropriate for our climate. It is the responsibility of the building profession, of which architects are a vital component, to disseminate information about how to do so.

And finally, the fifth principle is to understand the value, place and function of decoration. We need to analyse the validity of the anti-decoration modernist aesthetic which advocates bare, unadorned surfaces. Decoration has many aspects, from rendering beauty to expressing identity to communicating the characteristics of materials — and as we saw in Jaisalmer — to also reducing heat absorption.

Link to the recording of the talk:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mMbP1i6OH_rdMepdBZJbb5tPgTF_-BU5/view?usp=sharing

Link to all the sessions of Talking Architecture:

https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/p/talking-architecture-at-iic.html

Authority in the Indian Tradition — And the Architecture of the Red Fort

Authority in the Indian Tradition —  And the Architecture of the Red Fort

Text of the Talk delivered on 16 April 2025 to the History Department, Lady Sri Ram College, Delhi, at their Annual Academic Fest

To understand the connections between the manifestation of authority and the architecture of the Red Fort, it is important to first clarify the meanings of authority. I would like to spend some time to do that.

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that authority is: ‘the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience;' or ‘a person or organization having political or administrative power and control.’ 

Therefore, within the ambit of that definition, our exploration would be: how does architecture articulate ‘the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience;' or symbolise ‘a person or organization having political or administrative power and control’? 

However, there is a difference between this current standard notion of authority and the characteristic attributes and conventions of authority in the Indian tradition. Attributes of authority depend on what is seen as the purpose of authority. I contend that in the Indian tradition, the purpose of authority is not merely the enforcement of law, order, obedience or control of power; the purpose of authority is also to promote growth and happiness — and in what may seem irreconcilable with obedience and order, to foster freedom as well. 

In The Arthashastra, ascribed by many scholars to be a work of great antiquity, Kautilya enumerating the ‘Duties of a King’, is clear that;

In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects. {1.1 9.34}

This is the first point: that authority is not just about rights, but also responsibilities. The second point I would like to stress is that one of the key ways in which this happens is through the practice, as much as the patronage, of architecture. Since architecture is the setting for all life-processes, it is through architecture that those in authority can exercise control, for the better or worse, over the lives of those under them.

Architecture has of course been called ‘the mother of all the arts’ in many traditions and through many ages. In modern times, the celebrated American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright is famously attributed to have said: “The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” 

In the Indian tradition, we also see that architecture is part of a larger pervasive term, Shilpa, which constitutes the creative process together with the product. Systems of knowledge are actually and symbolically part of the same family-circle. Thus, the Vedas credit the knower of crafts as vijnanika or scientist, with theoretical, technical and creative ability; and A K Coomaraswamy notes that all the main guilds of Indian craftsmen claim to be descended from the five sons of Visvakarma, the divine architect.

This is something I have dealt with in detail in my writings. Here I will just say that architecture is not only a manifestation of construction, detailing and decoration (what are today termed as the decorative and the industrial arts) but also the stage, setting and container for all the performative arts that animate life processes: including music, dance, literature, poetry and so on. When I use the term ‘architecture in the Indian tradition’, I use it to mean all the various and manifold arts that it encompassed.

Given this background, we need to appreciate that the role of authority in the Indian tradition as manifested in architecture, is not just about commissioning architecture as lasting symbols of power, but also about being adept at, and connoisseurs of, the tenets, aesthetics and objectives of the different arts that are contained in architecture, or take place in it.

Let me expand on the link between all the arts by quoting from the Foreword by Dr Sudhir Lall, in my book on Attributing Design Identity, Identifying Design Attributes. Dr Lall reproduces a dialogue ‘between the king Vajra and sage Markandaya in the Vishnudharmottara Purana’ where ‘The king Vajra wishes to build a temple with icons that may always manifest the dieties’. On asking the sage how he may do so, he is informed that ‘one who is not familiar with the principles of painting can never know the art of making icons’. Very well, says the king: please teach me the canon of painting. The answer he gets is that this cannot be done without learning the art of dance, for in both ‘the world is represented’. 

The king is willing to learn dance too, but that is also not possible — he must first know the principles of instrumental music. Please instruct me about instrumental music then, asks the king. No, says the sage. Familiarity with instrumental music is not possible without knowledge of vocal music. If that is so, please explain vocal music to me, requests the king. Vocal music, says the sage, has to be understood ‘as subject to training in recitation that may be done in two ways: prose and verse’. Finally then, the king begins training in recitation as a necessary prelude to building the temple with its icons.

This dialogue does not just ‘highlight the interrelatedness of Indian arts’ — in Dr Lall’s words. It also shows that it is not strange or incongruous for kings or those in authority to be trained in the arts. To cite a few historical examples: Maharaja Bhoja in the 11th century CE, who ruled over the Malwa region, is ascribed to have authored the Samarangana Sutradhara, an encyclopaedic work covering town-planning, military engineering, architecture, painting, iconography, dance postures, etc. In the 13th century CE, JayaSenapati, the chief of the elephant-forces of the Kakatiyas, authors Nrtta Ratnavali, a well-known treatise on dance. Many of the Mughal emperors too — including those who were famous for their military and administrative prowess, such as Shah Jahan  — displayed a skill and a temperament for the arts, especially architecture.

Despite this, an active interest in the arts is seen by many other traditions as effeminate, and contrary to the attributes that those in authority should display. This is a dialogue from the film Shatranj ke Khilari between General Outram, the chief representative of the British East India Company posted at Luckhnow and one of his officers. In revealing how Nawab Wajid Ali’s fondness for poetry and his piety, are seen to be utterly contemptible and unworthy pursuits, we see what the British hold to be the purpose and desirable characteristics of authority. 

In the Indian tradition, such accomplishments are not deemed unworthy of a ruler. Thus, Kautilya in listing the qualities of an ideal king, apart from those of leadership, intellect and energy includes that of personal attributes, and specifically states that: ‘He should be well-trained in all the arts.’ This of course, does not mean that he advocates that all training and time is devoted to the arts. It is a balance between the twin objectives of ‘enforcement of law, order, obedience or controlling power’ and ‘promoting happiness and freedom’, which is advised. And it is this balance that is manifested in multiple ways when we study the architecture of the Red Fort at Delhi. I will explain this by briefly presenting to you aspects of its planning, layout, and detail — as well as by revealing aspects of the persona of its patron, the Emperor Shah Jahan. 

In the words of W E Begley and Z A Desai, in the foreword to their edited English translation of The Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan: ‘For more than thirty years, from 1628 to 1658, Shah Jahan held absolute sway over a vast Indian empire stretching from Assam to Afghanistan and comprising a total area almost half the size of Europe’.  Even before he took over as emperor, Shah Jahan, from the days of his youth, evinced a strong interest in commissioning architecture and participated closely in experimenting with different versions and scales of architecture.

The Red Fort, constructed in the second decade of his reign, at a time when Shah Jahan had consolidated the Mughal empire and was looking to further expand it, was intended by him to be an enduring symbol reflecting the peak of his political authority. It was also the culmination of his previous experiments in architecture. Arguably the richest ruler of his time, among Shah Jahan’s main motivations in establishing his new Fort and city, were the demonstration of his political power, and the resources he could command, as well as the opportunity to give full reign to his own refined aesthetics — through the medium of the superlative artists in his empire who could realise his dream through their craft.

Thus, in The Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan, the ‘Account of the Founding of the Fort’ is described in these words:

‘Several years before, the thought came to his Majesty’s omniscient mind that he should select some pleasant site on the banks of the aforesaid river, distinguished by its genial climate, where he might found a splendid fort and delightful edifices.’… In accordance with the ever-obeyed mandate, skilled artisans were summoned from all parts of the imperial dominions, wherever artificers could be found — whether plain stone-cutters, ornamental sculptors, masons or carpenters. By the mandate worthy of implicit obedience, they were all collected together, and multitudes of common labourers were employed in the work.’

(Emphasis mine)

Shah Jahan’s active interest in the conception as well as the construction of this Fort, is also revealed in his court-histories. We are told that:

‘On the 3rd of Z’il-Hijja 1057 (30 December 1647), the imperial camp overshadowed by its arrival the suburbs of Delhi…On the morrow (31 December), as there was a halt, the emperor paid a visit to all the buildings in the fort of Shahjahanabad—which had been designed in accordance with his own noble taste for architecture—and ordered additional improvements to be made wherever it seemed suitable to his august mind.

We are thus explicitly told about the Emperor’s announced intention of establishing ‘a splendid Fort and delightful edifices’, and ‘the summoning of skilled artisans from all parts of the imperial domain’ to construct it — ‘in accordance with the ever-obeyed mandate’. The meanings of authority as enforcing obedience, of having political or administrative power, are unambiguously stated — as is the purpose for which this power is exercised. Shah Jahan’s involvement in the design and construction of the Fort is recorded, and reference is made to these being in accordance to ‘his own noble taste for architecture’. It is evidently essential that to develop this taste, it is necessary to have knowledge of the various arts that come together in architecture. Such knowledge is also necessary to command the process of producing and using architecture in meaningful ways.

How does the architecture of the Fort reflect this knowledge? How does it live up to my contention about achieving a balance between ensuring order and giving freedom, that have been part of the ideals of authority in the Indian tradition? And how can we read the architecture of the Fort, given its radical transformation through the 400 years of its existence? I do so by foregrounding the evidence of what remains of its original buildings on ground, using architecture as its own primary source in reading its history — and studying this in relation to the secondary evidence of records of its original design, as well as of its form and use at different times.

Let us first examine the Fort from the level of urban design. We see that it is positioned at the eastern end of its contemporary city of Shahjahanabad, such that it forms the climax to the two main urban axes. The two main streets of Urdu Bazar leading up to the Lahori Darwaza, and Faiz Bazar leading up to the Dilli Darwaza, meet at the Fort. On the one hand, the Fort commands the banks of the Yamuna, the river-route and the fertile, productive river-basin. On the other hand, it is at the farthest end of the west and south roads that connect Shahjahanabad to strategic trade routes, entry points into the sub-continent used by invaders and traders, and other urban-centres and regions. Its location demonstrates power and privilege. Whichever route you traverse, land or water; whichever gate you enter the city from, it is the vast circuit of the towering Fort walls that rise up in front. All roads lead to the Fort, and its presence — and by extension that of the emperor who resides in it, personifying the source of political and administrative control — is a palpable physical feature of the city.

Notwithstanding this unequivocal position of power, the location of the Fort is also designed to provide several dimensions of freedom and well-being to the inhabitants of Shahjahanabad. To begin with, the fact that it is situated furthest away from all the entrance gates of the land-routes, implies that the daily traffic supporting the court-ritual and formal ceremonies of the Fort, does not interfere with the functioning of the rest of the city. The Fort dwarfs everything else, but it does not get in the way of the citizens, or restrict their movements. 

This twin role of authority in securing privilege for those in power, while simultaneously being considerate to those under their power, is a consistent theme of the Fort’s design. For instance, while it is true that the Fort visually blocks the view of the Yamuna from the formal western entry into Shahjahanabad, it is also true that almost all of the river-front is spatially accessible to the residents of Shahjahanabad — even the river-banks directly in front of the Fort, from where on occasion the Emperor enters the Red Fort. It is on these banks, every morning that people gather for the morning darshan of their emperor.

This ritual is not just a proclamation of his authority and a reiteration of his symbolic association with the sun, the source of all energy and life. It is also an opportunity for people to directly intercede with the Emperor. Contrast this with today, where it is not deemed permissible by those in authority that citizens should easily access the river; when architecture and town-planning separate people from the river as well as from the centres of power. To continue with the Fort’s design, the Emperor’s private river-gate does not just give him the advantage of a secure, direct entry, but also ensures that his comings and goings do not incommode the city. The significance of this would be realised by any one of us who have ever been held up on the roads of Delhi because of that phenomenon called VIP Movement.

When we go closer to the Fort, we see this same combination of control coexisting with freedom. The roads leading up to its main gates broaden out into grand chowks in front of the Fort. The chowks are surrounded by gardens, which are essentially orchards. The landscape around the Fort is devised to add to its grand visual effect. Francois Bernier, the French traveller who lived in Shahjahanabad about a decade after its inauguration, writes about the beautiful effect of the green plantation against its red walls. At the same time, all this is not just for visual effect; it allows ample social advantages to citizens. The chowks are spill-over open-spaces for the Fort, where the Rajas on duty mount guard at night, where the royal horses are exercised in the morning — but they are also places where at other times all manner of products and skills are displayed; where sellers and buyers, performers and spectators, gather. All the areas around the Fort: the wide chowks, the cool sandy banks, the shaded garden-orchards, the ghats, are open to the public where they can swim, bathe, offer prayers, stroll, picnic, watch performances, view the Emperor in his public balcony, etc. Directly after these areas, are the tree-lined main streets of the city, cooled by a central canal running down their lengths; and surrounded by houses, temples, baghs, mosques, shops and sarais.  

Thus, privilege does not cocoon, but creates a great degree of spatial and social coexistence and creative collaboration. The close relationship between the authority of the Emperor centred in the Fort and the lives of his people in the city, is also manifest in the design of the direct entrance into the Fort through drawbridges from the chowks in front of the Lahori and Dilli Darwazas. These have to be entered today through smaller side-gates, as those of us who have visited the Fort will know. The original visual and spatial connection between the Fort and Shahjahanabad — where the Fort’s two public gateways open out into the city, and the people of the city come right up to the gardens around its walls — is a very important part of its design. So much so, that when Aurangzeb after taking over as emperor, ordered that the straight entry into the Fort should be blocked, Shah Jahan, reportedly wrote to him from Agra Fort where he was imprisoned: ‘Dear Son, you have made the fort a Bride, and put a veil upon her face’. 

What happens within the Fort — the actual centre of power? Well, the architecture of the Fort is devised towards three main objectives: to regulate entry and activity within the Fort, form a backdrop and setting for the Emperor; and to create conditions for a certain way of life. It does this through a sequence of grand built-and open spaces that work together to create a crescendo of public movement, leading up in stages to the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience — with the Throne of the Emperor at its very centre. These built-and open spaces consist of gateways, pavilions and arcades set in walled forecourts and streets, all constructed in a geometrical relationship whose order and symmetry proclaim Shah Jahan’s power and presence, as the supreme authority of the Empire. 

This sequence of formal public spaces are devised like the spine of the Fort, and were probably laid out first of all, generating the sub-divisions in which other buildings were later filled in. Yet, interestingly, these same grand public spaces, while enforcing control and regulating movement, also simultaneously foster freedom for other inmates of the Fort. Multiple functions with people across the social spectrum inhabiting a fort, is part of our indigenous tradition. And in keeping with its attribute of hosting a multiplicity of city-level functions, the Red Fort is of a formidable size. James Fergusson in The History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, compares it to fort-palaces in the western tradition and notes that: ‘…the haram and private apartments of the palace’, cover ‘more than twice the area of the Escorial, or in fact, of any palace in Europe.’

The architectural organisation of the Fort allows close proximity and efficient permutations of administrative, residential, manufacturing and recreational functions — in which various social groups participate. Thus, scenes of resplendent public court-ritual are located right next to semi-public and private areas. Since they are screened from each other by arcaded walls, neither security nor comfort is compromised. The walled open-spaces create multiple domains where the area of the Emperor’s use can be very formal, ordered and symmetrical, while the rest of the Fort can develop typologies of buildings that are organic and free-flowing, As I write in my book on The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad:

 

‘Although conceptually, the emperor was lord of the entire Fort as indeed of the entire empire, the Public and Private Common domains of the Fort were almost invisible to him and the imperial family. Hence, they developed in ways not normally associated with palaces, and displayed a built structure thematically consistent with the city, even without much enforced control. The segregation of movement patterns and the consequent variety in living spaces was a reflection of the social order at that time—a combination of control and freedom. This combination was effective in balancing the disciplined ceremonial needs of public space and the freedom essential for personalising individual space.’ 

Thus, different users experienced the Red Fort in different ways. This is one of the drawings I have made to show the perception of the Fort to noblemen, one category of the different users of the Fort who range from the Emperor and his family, to soldiers and ordinary people of the city. Movement was regulated and access controlled so that, unless given access to special vantage points, areas of the Fort remained invisible to those who were not meant to use them. Many visitors and artists therefore assume that the formality and symmetry seen in its public parts is a feature of the entire Fort, or depict it without its informal domains which were actually central to its functioning.

The multi-functional and regulated co-existence seen in the Fort is also manifest in the detailing and use of the Emperor’s formal public buildings and his private palaces. So, for instance, the Diwan-i-Am pavilion and forecourt, the climax of the public formal route into the Fort and the centre of court-ceremonies, is used everyday in the early morning hours by the Emperor to preside over the assembly of officers of the realm, and to conduct administrative affairs. Daily inspection of parades, of horses, hunting animals and arms are held in its chowk; every Wednesday it turns into a court of justice for people of the city with scholars and judges attending. On festive occasions such as at the inauguration of the Fort, the Emperor’s birthday, or Nauroz celebrations, this same space is used for formal public celebrations. Yet again, private rituals preceding weddings of the royal princes are held here; as are public rituals of laying food for charity on Id, etc.

As for the palaces of the Emperor, these are not formidable, multi-storeyed structures. They are delicately proportioned pavilions, adorned with finely carved and inlaid with precious stones, shimmering mirror work, and jali traceries of lace-like fineness. These pavilions are enclosed by gardens planted with fruit trees, fountains and flowers. Sitting within their translucent walls, one would have breathed in fragrances; watched the play of light and shadow and the sky change colour at dawn or dusk; heard the ripple and splash of water, felt the coolness of breezes. The scale, decoration, detailing and luxury is not intimidating, but humane and multi-sensory, dexterous and delicate.

Thus, we realise that the original architecture of the Red Fort is a refined resolution of space; of buildings not used as sealed objects but interlinked with open areas and each other: flexible, permeable, efficient and adaptive to different seasons and multiple use by a wide number of people across the social spectrum living in proximity. This architecture and the functions assigned in it reflect: 

a patrimonial bureaucratic rule where the emperor was represented as a benevolent father who had the welfare of his subjects at heart, who personally oversaw even routine matters in the administrative and political affairs of the empire and who set both the trends and standards of social behaviour as well as artistic patronage.’

This, in turn is the embodiment of the underpinnings of life in the sub-continent with coexisting cultural and spatial identities. All this was destroyed by the British after 1857, in keeping with their ideas of the purpose of authority, which we can see manifested in the very different buildings that they constructed within the Fort. These buildings are alien to the architecture of the fort - austere, solid in massing, forbidding stern barracks — in stark contrast to the remaining airy Mughal pavilions. They sit isolated in the Fort, instead of being integrated with the open space around. They are devoid of ornament or delicacy; designed to keep out people and the natural world. They are made for a singular function, of housing the British military instead of all the pulsating life and the multiplicity of activities, knowledge-systems and skills, embodied in the original architecture of the Red Fort. We can see the transformation in the Fort, an empty shell within its enclosing walls, with the entire relationship of its interlinked built and open spaces obliterated, in these drawings depicting it before and after 1857.

The Red Fort is now a barred space, some parts of it occasionally used as a stage-set and backdrop for celebrations. These ironically dwell on its memory as a symbol of resistance to colonial British rule — while continuing colonial concepts of rigidly keeping people out and controlling their movement and access to the Fort through barriers, fenced lawns, circuitous and difficult entrance routes, and incomplete, fragmentary information. We must remember that architecture is an act of community as much as it is a manifestation of authority. What does it say about our ideals and existence today — when we reinforce the forlorn appearance and barren use of the Fort set forth during its colonial occupation?

And so to end, I would like to remind us of the concept of authority enumerated by Kautilya in the ‘Duties of a King’:

In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects.