A peek through the Jaali

These days, whenever I pass by my 1 year old neighbour, my favourite game to play with her is peekaboo. What started as an instinctive fun gesture, became one thing that she associates with me now. So instead of the high pitched cooing previously, we play- boo!

Returning from a tedious afternoon of selection that involved finalising on a partition pattern, I couldn't help but notice, how the fingers of our hand are the first jaali we learn. How this simple game of partial visibility creates a source of mystery and glee for the human mind. This indelible fun experience, a solid and void distribution of partial visibility, is so deep rooted in the tropical subcontinent that we can see it as an inseparable part of homes even now.

My mind flies back and forth between our south Indian temple architecture frequented by the soap stone perforations to let light inside the pradakshina pathas of the Garba griha and the sand stone perforated windows of Rajasthani windows like the Hawa mahal. Apart from serving the visual intrigue of the building, it also ventilated the shelters adequately. Of course in today's times, ventilation has become standardised and so have the walls. We no longer use the jaali in it fundamental functional capacity. No longer is it held atop as the go-to shading and ventilation device in architecture for the common man. It is, however, embraced commonly in its new avatar in the sheltered space to define privacy in between the interior spaces. And what with machines evolving by leaps and bounds, carving the most creative patterns are a starting point as we travel deeper into sculpting parametric forms. But let me dwell a little longer in the format of jaali, commonly seen in the ASI heritage sites of stone walls dotted with stellar patterns. How the malleability of softer stones and artistic talent of people brought in via trade or slavery as were the customs in those days, revealed finer patterns historically.

A jaali can be anything that you want. It is only required to have an alternate of solid and void mass on a structural element that we use to separate ourselves, sometimes the outside from the inside, mostly the personal from the public eye. However, it is human nature to want beauty in especially the objects that they hold close to. They intend objects to announce their personal values in mute but elegant language of artistic expression and Voila! the jaali adorns Indian architectural pages with stories of all the people it saw passing by.

Limited only the tools and materials of their times, the artisans widely churned out geometric patterns across the outer skin of these tropical building, but with time, graceful curves challenged the best of them. One such motif is that of the Kalpavruksha, so satisfying in its origin story, message of hope, manifestation for the optimistic, and pleasing to the visual senses. Often, also known as the Tree of Life, I searched for which tree was it, that has captured our desires and imagination for eons, bombarded with popular notions of the peepal and banyan. But as I travelled across the country, I found each place had its own Kalpavruksha. In overlapping texts of vedas, jainism and buddhism, it is apparent that the Tree of Life was literally that.

Be it the Mahua of Maharastra, Coconut trees of Kerala, Palmyra of Tamil Nadu, the Shami in Rajasthan, Chyur in Himalayas, or Parijat in Mandu or the Peepul all across the country, they share the quality of providing for distinct wishes such as an abode to reside, garments, utensils, nourishment including fruits and sweets, pleasant music, ornaments, fragrant flowers, shining lamps and a radiant light at night, made out of each of them in that geography. Perhaps, we can map this fulfillment to everyday human desires beyond which, perhaps lies self-actualisation.

There was no one tree that is the wish fulfilling tree, it has many avatars like that of the many gods that we like to believe in. But, they are all one, in the way that they fulfil human desires of sustenance, of soul and body. We hold onto the symbolism of material fulfilment in all forms possible, an everlasting sign of hope. And perhaps, peering through the filgree of CNC routed MDF or metal painted Kalpavrikshas, we can hope to play peekaboo with our futures, trusting to re-discover the mystery and glee of our childhood games again.