Hoof friendly SRA

I thought it was a routine visit to my old office to meet the new owner and now my new friend the architect. I was glad to note that instead of the usual calm,there as hustle and bustle. Books were opened one after the other, teams were pouring over them, photos of houses were being downloaded from the net each time with the exclamation akin to discovery of the century. Meanwhile, my friend sat in his glass cabin glassy eyed barely recognizing me. I feared for some personal loss in his family. However, he brushed the air with his hand as if he brushed aside my fears and stated,‘Matter of joy that we have won a coveted tender of the Government. I was confused. ‘But you had mentioned that your work will always be design-based and not motivated by profit so what gives?’ He replied, ‘I have not changed my policy. This project demands design innovation & the tender was a mere formality.’ ‘You should have called me before you submitted the tender’ I scolded him reminding him that my costing experience would have helped him as I was pretty sure he must have blundered on the estimates.

Now realizing that I was not pushed into some free consultancy, I calmed down to the extent of being joyful. Slowly I asked him to divulge in utmost confidence if the structure was to be a landmark like the Gateway or some Crystal glass dome. Wide eyed, he replied, ‘In an oblique sort of way. The only problem is that no-one in the world has ever done this before and the time we have to design is so short that we are hunting the world over for an inspiration.’ ‘Cut the suspense and tell me’ I demanded. He shoved a week old paper under my nose and it showed the predicament of slum rehabilitation of an area where existed stables of buffaloes. As the set rule (of Slum Rehabilitation Authority-SRA) demanded flats for the residents, the law consequently had not specified them to be humans hence the predicament. The resident stable owner insisted on implementation of law and since area had to be developed…. ‘You are actually designing flats for buffaloes?’ I was rolling in laughter. After I finished laughing, he told me in a dead pan face, ‘Now the Government is wiser. Some of the plots may have other animals so a ‘generic’ design is needed for flats which are ‘hoof-friendly.’ I was still surprised. Now that we no longer have horses in the city, how many types of hooves can there be? I am aware of an area called Sarkari Tabela (Government stable) in Thakurdwar which is an old part of Mumbai where instead of horses, people are staying. ‘Exactly’ emphasized my friend, ‘Where horses stayed earlier, now people do; so why not the opposite?’

‘Amuse me’ I told him. ‘The approach is scientific’ he started. ‘As buffaloes and other 4 legged creatures are larger, the entrance lobby will have to be 4 times the regular. The lobby will have water troughs to quench them after they come from the day’s work.’ ‘What days work?’ I demanded; ‘You expect them to go to an office?’“Not to office silly” he admonished me. ‘Buffaloes will have to go to a ‘milking centre’. The club house of the society of humans will be converted as milking centres for the society of Buffaloes. Just as a common gym serves lots of buildings in the society, the milking centre will serve all the buffaloes of that society. They will be milked by modern machines’. I understood. ‘Just like the builders advertise modern equipment in their Gyms, you will keep modern milking equipment.’ ‘He replied,‘Yes and it will be totally air-conditioned’. ‘How will you manage about residential area?’ I asked.

‘We are yet finalizing that but I will tell you what we are moving towards’. He detailed, ‘Instead of a staircase, we shall have artificial circular pathways winding up a low incline lined with artificial bushes to mimic a hill which the buffaloes are used to. The area within the circular pathway shall be the ‘Dung deposit’ area where the buffaloes shall do their nature call. From any floor, it will fall to the ground with gravity. Here is where our eco-friendly design starts. No pump is necessary. All the buffaloes have to do, is face their rear over the banister and SPLAT…. gravity takes it to the ground.’ I shuddered as if I was on the ground floor and the buffalo on the 7th floor sent her smelly matter to splat on my head. ‘The ground itself will be sloping’; he continued, ‘to feed a biogas unit in each building. This will provide heat in winter and turn the fans in summer. Channel music which is proved by research to give better yield of milk will be similarly powered.’

‘But you forgot the building regulation of elevators for buildings having more than 4floors’ I nitpicked. He smiled calmly and said, ‘Regular sized elevators are insufficient for even a single buffalo. So we shall put a car elevator where at least 3 buffalos can be carefully transported. Buffalo friendly elevators will have door against which the buffaloes will have to push their horns and the elevator will be called to their floor.’ ‘What will be flat layout?’ I asked. ‘Bare external walls’ he replied. We do not expect any buffalo to demand separate living room and bedroom. There will be a tube through with hay and their food will be fed from the terrace and this too will flow due to gravity.’ ‘The main question is how will the flats be allotted? Do buffaloes have names?’ I asked. ‘That is one question I can answer’ he said. ‘Each flat will bear a number the same as the ear tag placed by the Insurance Company. This is one work already solved for us by the insurance companies.’

I acknowledged, ‘Your plans so far seem to be ‘hoof-friendly’ but what if the SRA is for a poultry farm? Will your plan be claw-friendly?’