Religious architecture is also known as saved architecture. Religious architecture is with the design and construction of religious or spiritual or worship places like church, temple, mosque. Religious architecture expresses religious beliefs, aesthetic choices, and economic and technological capacity of those who create or adapt it and thus places of worship show a great variety depending on time and place. In Hinduism, the temple is called as Mandir. Each mandir is dedicated to a specific Hindu God or goodness. Today, the temples in India have reminded us of our past and the architectural brilliance of craftsmen in those days. Brahadeshwara temple, Tanjore, TamilNadu. Kailasnath temple, Ellora. Chennakeshava temple, Karnataka was the temple named for its architecture.

Christianity is the third largest religion in India after Hinduism and Islam. Christian architecture refers to the buildings of churches. Christian architecture styles are not Gothic or Corinthian or Roman with a colonnade as is the case with many churches capturing the present trend to Indianise the church, in line with the Vatican II, it’s every part is native. Islamic architecture is the architecture of the Indian subcontinent produced by and for the Islamic patrons and purposes. An immense mausoleum of white marble, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by the order of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife. The Taj Mahal is the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage. TheTaj Mahal was never a mosque, in fact, it wasn’t built by a Muslim but a Hinduin 17th century.

There are some  of the weirdest laws, we ’ve never come across. There are some laws and legislation, which are completely ridiculous and would make you doubt our Indian Constitution thought process . Let’ s have a look at some of them, and laugh our heart’s out.

According to the Indian Aircraft Act, if any person at the time of flying aircrafts, by any means hurt anyone or cause danger to their property then a fine of upto Rs.10 lac could be charged from them. Aircraft here would include flying machines, balloons, gliders and even kites. Never thought   in our childhood, that flying of kites could also land us to such situations .Next time, any one of you who wants to fly a kite specially around August 15 should be careful.

The next one, should be awarded for being the best biased adultery law. As per Section 497, adultery is  prohibited. This law punishes only men. For those men  engaging in sexual activity with women who’re married, without getting consent from their husband is entitled to be charged with fine ,or put behind the bars for five years. This  law doesn’t hold anything against the women, and taking full advantage of the law , they do whatever they want.

The law permits  anyone to use the restroom and  even drink water at any hotel, whether they’re staying there or not. This came into existence under the Indian Sarais Act,1867  some 150 years ago. “Sarais” actually means building  which are used for accommodation and shelter of traveller hotels. This law however, works in the public interest and the next time we’re travelling we  should definitely keep this in our minds.

Discrimination against LGBTs- Section 377 states that homosexual intercourse  as illegal , though there’ve been endless debates on this topic. The Indian constitution  seem to be snatching away the basic right of someone to choose their own partner.

According to the East Punjab Agricultural Pests, diseases and Noxious Weeds Act, 1948, people in and around Delhi are expected to beat drums ,in order to drive them away. This seemed to be taken seriously  this lockdown, when locusts in huge number attacked the farms. As a result, the farmers were instructed to produce high pitch noise , using  utensils and drums to scare them away from India, in an attempt to prevent our crops.

According to Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC), since one cannot arrest a dead person it’ s considered to be no crime. On the other hand, failing on attempting to commit suicide is considered to be illegal  and punishable .It’ s been specified that the act should be voluntary and intentional attempt towards self destruction. Cases where a person would die because of overdose of medicine, or mistakenly falling from a cliff , doesn’t  come inside under the IPC.

According to the Indian Motor Vehicles Act,1914 in order for anyone to qualify for being a motor vehicle inspector in Andhra Pradesh, need to get sparkly, white clean teeth. Maybe they’re under the impression, that in absence of electricity power there white ,sparkly teeth could be of great help  , as it would light their path ahead.

River and lakes are almost as old as civilization itself. The roads and rails are, admittedly a much later phase. Even in the prehistoric days, the waters formed the prime routes. Naturally, commerce, art and culture and even raids or invasions were largely dependent on it.
Venice is a city of lakes even today. In Europe, the rivers Peo, Rhine, Seine and the Adriatic Sea; and in Egypt, the River Nile was the chief sources of that imported and exchanged the various centuries. They contributed largely to the Mediterranean culture. In India the Gangetic and the Indus Valley are riparian.
The cargo boats in the Ganges ply trade materials like the bamboos and logs of woods. In Myanmar(Burma), and Yangon(Rangoon) the timber trade is a regular feature of the commercial use of the rivers. When road traffic gluts in big cities the authorities take recourse to the rivers. To cite, in Kolkata the Gange now lends large scale relief to the town administrators, and boat ferry has made the movements of commuters and others much easier as well as healthier. Again the rivers provide and have provided a never-ending source of enjoyment, fun and games. The Dhakuria lake in Kolkata becomes seasonally a site for delectable rowing by the member of the KolkataRowing club. The river Thames that skirts many towns and cities in England becomes alive often with rowing boats. Needless to mention that this event is centuries old in England.
These days there are adventurous feats for ambitious youths in which the river plays a significant role. Rafting for instance. Many young boys and girls jump into the fray regardless of the hazards of the game. It involves a pluck and courage to dare the turbulent current of the reader. It usually takes place in the upper reaches of the Ganges. Sometimes although very rarely, one is lost in a vortex. But the joy is in the adventure itself, a fit enterprise for the youth.
Thus the rivers are the natural outlets of the stored energy of young men, whereas the lakes are artificial ones. Such amusements and exercises are avowedly healthy ones and the phenomenon is steadily gaining ground.
There are some places in North Bihar and Bangladesh or Assam which have intricate river network. Although today we have improved modes of river communications, in more primitive days the men there had to depend more on showed greater pluck and courage in negotiating watery tracts. It is interesting to read the stories of their lives. They lived to plunge into the river day in and day out and very seldom suffered from cough and cold. In the rainy season, they shifted to safer and higher regions loading their belongings which they could savage on wooden cots that served as boats. What struck terror in the hearts of town dwellers, was those lads interesting and play like.

It was a week of truly longish, unplanned blackouts. The pillar box was hit by a truck, and power went off in a block of buildings. Our world plunged into non-connectivity during the day and total darkness at night.

Ever notice how when there is a blackout, everyone goes outside? We flatmates met and introduced ourselves, though we’ve lived a few feet away from one another for months. In that break from our frenetic schedules involving mobiles, Internet, video games and TV, we connected with people. We had no idea when we’d see “light”, so we talked about “coping” and soon realised we all sounded happy.

We talked of a time when grandma didn’t depend so much on electricity, dad remained supremely efficient without a cellphone, our aunts brought all the local gossip from temple visits and weddings, and not from websites. We talked of buildings without ugly power grids or cellphone towers, of fewer road accidents, riding bicycles, of clean ponds and parks.
A teacher from a digitally modern school told us this story. “A computer techie messed up our server system,” she said. “It was near-disaster! Our computerised attendance register was gone, and so were LAN, mark sheets, teachers’ notes, question papers, classroom material, presentations and a lot of the students’ work.” But that lasted only for a day, she said. The teachers woke up to the challenge and roped in kids to do the “paper work”. Together they prepared the teaching aids, kept the attendance record straight and wrote lesson plans for the coming week. “The kids said they were very happy to do the work,” she said. “I felt I got closer to a lot of them.”

What neurologists say

Neurologists already talk of how our brains are shaping to respond to a “gadgetised” life. A micro-chip induced life could blur our view of the line between living and non-living machines, they warn. We already see an example of this when we try to give directions on the phone. Somehow even simple directions have become rocket science, the caller half following what’s said and calling a dozen times till he reaches the door. Is it because constantly interrupted by digital intrusions, we’ve lost the capacity to analyse, plan, remember and execute work? Does gadget dependence take away our confidence in our abilities?

“Electronic devices, like pharmaceutical drugs, have an impact on the micro-cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behaviour and our characteristics,” says Professor Susan Greenfield in her book. “It’s pretty clear that the screen-based, two-dimensional world that so many teenagers — and a growing number of adults — choose to inhabit is producing changes in behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and there’s a marked reduction in the ability to think abstractly.” The games-driven generation interprets the world through screen-shaped eyes, she insists. It’s almost as if something hasn’t really happened until it’s been posted on Facebook or YouTube.

Psychologists tell us that we could be raising kids who live only for the thrill of the computer-generated moment. They are in danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world, they say. As for us, we live in a world so technologically dependent that even a computer crash gives us many anxious moments. . Question is: Should pleasure be defined by the endless hours spent in front of a computer console? Should it be defined by our giggles at online comics?

Connecting with people

In a business-centred existence, there is probably no going back to a pre-computer age. That age will demand that we do more of our work ourselves; information won’t travel so quickly, and medical science may get frozen. But consider this theory: If all modern technology shut down and we were forced to live without e-appliances and gadgets, we’d adapt. It might signal more face-to-face time with people instead of emails and texting, might mean more walking and knowing what goes on in our neighbourhood. We might come out of the “lonesome boundary of life” that teleworking creates, and stop to smile at our neighbour, rather than at a shadow appearing on a pixellated screen. Some of us might even start a campaign for the rights of pedestrians.

Maybe it’s time we cut down the computer/cellphone/television-coloured hours and step out to look at the moon. Or go to one of those lovely resorts in the Mudumalai forest which are not “connected”, and spend time fishing, swimming, taking pictures of animals or simply gazing at spotted deer.