Dr Abhishek Kumar, Associate Professor and Director, Staff Training and Development, held a session with the foundation-year students titled 'House and the Mind - Excavating the Poetic Imagination'. The broad scope of discussion was how our house affects our imagination, how places in our homes hold unique meanings, and the different aspects of a building that define it. The basis for the discussion points was a renowned book, 'The Poetics of Space' by Gaston Bachelard.

Dr Kumar started the session by explaining that the house that comes to mind on being asked to imagine your "home" is usually the one where you spent your early childhood. Your memories are more like those of a poet and not a historian; there are layers, memories and scraps of information that shape the image in your mind. This is known as poetic imagination, and is associated with the creativity of an individual. Thus, the recall and recollection of your home can be used as an analogy to describe what your imagination may be like in other aspects.

He continued the discussion, saying that the images of "home" that come to mind are rich, and have depth and meaning. Your favourite spot in the house was special for a reason, and this reason should be isolated and analysed. It is your corner of the house. In a larger scheme of things, where your house was your first world, it is your corner of the world, where you felt truly like yourself. A house is also an integrator of thoughts and memories, feelings and dreams, and is timeless. Regardless of your age, when you think of your house, you imagine yourself as a child, and your house gives you the continuity of childhood. Memories especially are seen and read as psychological sites and defining moments. He then told us to sketch ourselves in our favourite spot, using our poetic imagination and rendering accordingly. The aim of the exercise was capturing not only the space but the emotion it elicited in us. After the exercise, he explained that our association with the house captures the depth of the mind - a single mention or visual flash is enough to imagine the house in its entirety. This also indicates the power of the mind to connect and correlate. A beautiful house conceals simplicity and places for intimate reflection.

The essence of a person in their house has two dimensions - the way of living, and the verticality or height. Both height and depth have socio-cultural, mythological, and psychological effects on a person. Height may represent fear, closeness to the gods and admiration. A typical house also has a historical verticality; each segment of its height is imagined as being from a different era in time. Our thought process too has its own layers and verticality, and a historical timeline that lends an enormous depth to our minds. The ‘iceberg’ mind can be divided into three rough parts - the preconscious, the subconscious, and the conscious.

Dr Kumar then described how different parts of a house hold different purposes in our minds. Corners are hiding places and represent solitude. Wardrobes and other storage spaces are secret and timeless, and somehow magical in their ability to preserve without discrimination parts of you and your identity. Lamps and light sources show shades of intensity and also affect your relationship with your house.

The concluding points of the discussion were related to modern buildings and houses, and how they have lost their sense of verticality. Skyscrapers are simply boxes deposited on top of each other, with no real roots and roofs. This severely compromises, if not eliminates, verticality, and thus removes one of the two essential elements of the essence of your relationship with a house. Thus, there stays deeper relationship with space, and life becomes rootless.