NEW BUILDINGS ON OLD FOUNDATIONS

FROM HERE AND THERE

Talking of Old Foundations and New buildings…….    

The other day while on my sojourn along Tilak Road Pune, I happened to come across a very startling fact of life. A hoard of construction workers were just about finished clearing off the rubble of a demolished three storied 60’s vintage building. Another group was busy attacking the foundation to uproot it right out. On closer inspection, I found that it was going to be a Herculean task. The concrete beams were embedded into a solid natural granite structure. Possibly it would take them more money and effort to totally clear off the perfect but old concrete cast foundation, than demolishing the top three stories had. So curiosity got the better of me and I went across to have a word with the site supervisor. I asked as to why they were uprooting a perfectly good foundation. During our chat he told me, yes the old foundation was capable of supporting at least an eight storied building. The new design was planned for five stories yet the old foundation had to go. The fact was very simple. Howsoever good the old foundation, the new building would  have had to take the shape of the old one. Walls on the old foundation beams, pillars on the old foundation pillars, though the pillars and walls could go up to 8 stories. Hence the shape of the brand new building would just be like the old one and not in order of the new owners need. Spanking new plaster of Paris interiors, new design exteriors, may be plastic paints would make the new building unrecognizable compared to the old one. Yet the culture, philosophy and flow of the new structure would be ditto same as the old one. This may not fulfill the “Vision” of the new owners, so the extra money in uprooting the excellent foundation would be well spent for future happiness.

Well I was ashamed to say in the least, that I did not comprehend this fact of life. I had to be lectured by a supervisor to understand this simple fact which was sitting right under my nose all the time.

Thinking further I realize that we cannot build a new future on old foundations. The old foundations have to go. We can only learn from past mistakes if at all. 
During my interactions with industry, I find that this is their biggest woe. Expansion into new areas and new products led to new factories coming up. Yet the core or seed people who went to build these new enterprises were from the old institutions. The attitude towards Quality, Integrity, foundations of philosophy, work culture, traditions and behavior remained the same.  More upsetting was the fact that the old inauthenticities and negativities were the first to get ingrained into the new foundation. I find that this is more or less always detrimental for the new enterprises to do well in the new age of a different philosophy, a different work culture and the needs of different technology, quality and productivity. Here I always go back to the supervisor’s words, “Uproot the old foundation and build a new one based on what your vision for the new building is”.

Taking this thought a bit further, though diehards may not agree. I think let the new generation have a free hand once a “Vision” is created. Let them be the designers of a new foundation along with the new buildings. Let them learn from old mistakes and their own. Let them close gaps to the front and not to their rear. Let us not keep making them look into rear view mirrors all the time in terms of our righteousness, vanity, cultural, social and religious bindings. I think  the first step would be recognizing the fact, that “What was good for us in our times may not be good for them in theirs”.  After all how the world occurs to us, make our contexts and these contexts drive us. Similar is the case with the new generation. Let us not make their contexts. It would be the same as creating new buildings on old foundations, howsoever much we may feel that our foundations are the best.

Going a bit wider and looking at the state of our Nation, the above facts hit us like a sucker punch. Let the dinosaurs remain extinct in the mists of time.

Ajay