Cosmic Symmetry Á La Mode

Bizarre? Not if you believe the vaastushastra, the ancient Indian school of architecture that has gripped the imagination of Indians across the country. Who believe if there is a problem, vaastu has the answer. The just-dethroned prime minister Deve Gowda has rejected eight vaastu-faulty houses. The late NTR courted vaastu by amending the facade of his house. Forget that, despite this faith, Gowda lost his chair and NTR was toppled by his own son-in-law.

Not just politicians. The vaastu contagion is spreading fast among corporate groups and the upwardly-mobile middle class of Indian metropolises too. There is a growing tribe of believers who think that happiness and prosperity can be had if you build your house, your factory or your restaurant the vaastu way. They attribute their misfortunes—be it the son they never had, the promotion that never came, the accident that crippled them, the deal that never came through—to rootless modern architecture. By violating the canons of vaastu they commit a kind of blasphemy, an architectural sacrilege, earning the wrath of the vaastupurush: the demon-god presiding over all buildings.

Helping you appease that demon-god are architects and astrologers who have jumped onto the vaastu bandwagon. Setting up vaastu academies offering crash courses in the shastra. Proselytising the uninitiated through seminars and debates in five-star hotels; CD-ROMS and books; through recording effects of surroundings on people's "energies" using the Lecher antenna; by appropriating concepts from modern physics—cosmic rays, the mysterious neutrino, and quantum mechanics—to validate scientifically vaastu's mystifying claims. In response, rationalist debunkers are deliberately building vaastu-wrong houses to prove it's yet another fad.

But it's a fad that's catching on. In Delhi's posh Sainik farms, houses are being demolished to make them vaastu-right. Flour-mill owner Dinesh Kumar Jain has been tinkering with his house for the last five years (much to the chagrin of other family members: "I can't stand it anymore," says his exasperated wife). Bathrooms have been shifted, the curved facade has been pulled down, the water pump has been relocated. "I'm certainly doing better as a consequence of these changes," he claims. And not so far in the friendly neighbourhood, S.S. Walia stands every morning under a bhel tree in the belief that he'll never get cancer. He abandoned his earlier house in favour of a vaastu-correct new one. And is convinced that the vaastu god has showered prosperity in return.

Sharing in this prosperity, of course, are the counsellors of vaastushastra. At consultation fees that vary from a few thousand to a few lakh. Rajesh Arya, a Delhi-based vaastu consultant dispenses its wisdom not only to Indian companies—Telco, Ashok Leyland, Ester India, LML Scooters, Hindustan Motors, Rathi-Ispat, the Taj Group—but also to enterprises abroad. Vaastu consultant B.B. Puri has, in addition to advising big-time clients, written two books on vaastu and founded the Vaastukala Academy in Delhi. While vaastu might have found ready converts among Delhi's business class, it's in Dravidian India where the shastra is celebrating its rebirth in a big way. Says Shashikala Ananth, a Madras-based architect exploring "vaastu's immense richness": "Unlike in the north, vaastu has survived here, thanks to the reverence for tradition. Many homes and temples are still being built vaastu-style. But this recent madness in cities like Hyderabad is nothing but a travesty of this ancient knowledge at the hands of paranoid industrialists, mercenary architects and astrologers."

In Andhra Pradesh, vaastushastra has become more than a religion. Entire colonies in and around Hyderabad are founded on its principles. Vaastu became a rage in Hyderabad in the 1950s when self-styled vaastushastri Mudragada Rama Rao wrote his Ramaraya Vaastu Shastra offering "valid, scientific" reasons for constructing houses facing south-west. Defending his wisdom, vaastu pandit K.C. Reddy says: "Constructing structures facing north-east is nothing short of declaring war against nature." Though he admits there's no explanation, he says: "The north-east is occupied by a source of water and the south-east by agni (fire). Can anyone dare fight water and agni?" To prove his point, Reddy, who advises several corporate houses, cites Asian Coffee, MTAR, Hindustan Foils, Hindustan Adhesives, among the business houses for whom vaastu has worked miracles. The fad has travelled even to Bangalore. The city's councillors reportedly refuse to grace the Bangalore City Corporation conference hall because it's not vaastu-right. Says architect C.A. Venkatesh: "Though vaastu gained credence in the last three years or so, it became a rage after T.N. Seshan released a book on vaastu here last year. The middle and upper middle classes have become very conscious of the need for their houses to be constructed the vaastu way."

Agrees V.M. Jayshankar, MD, Adarsh Developers, whose 45-acre house is completely vaastu-based: "About 40 per cent of the people planning to buy houses take the houseplan to vaastu consultants. who often reject them because of faults. So builders and developers are cashing in on the demand and ads are being released about how buildings have been constructed according to vaastu." Mumbaiites too are becoming increasingly vaastu-aware. In over 60 to 70 per cent of the flats being constructed today clients insist on a vaastu touch. "This," says vaastushastri Hariprasad Shompura who designed the temple in Bal Thackeray's Kalanagar residence, "is due to greater awareness following a flood of vaastu books and seminars in recent years." The current recession in real estate in Mumbai has further boosted vaastu sentiments. Builders in their sales pitch emphasise vaastu-correctness, especially in suburbs like Thane and other faroff areas. The idea is: since the flats on offer are vaastu-based, the buyers will have to pay 10 to 20 per cent more than the prevailing market rate.

FOR vaastu pandits the ancient "science" is not just about rejuvenating sagging enterprises. It is a tantra  which can provide explanations for almost anything. Reddy claims Andhra Pradesh is accursed because of the Buddhapurnima Project "which goes against vaastu". He traces the beginning of the state's troubles to the structures north-east of the secretariat. "The then CM, K.S. Reddy, paid the price for this breach in the form of a three-month strike by government employees and the Telangana agitation. His successor M.C. Reddy managed to minimise the damage by raising structures in the south-west." For Puri, triangular plots are anathema, polygons are problematic and circular plots desirable if one were to go by vaastu.

But not all are taken in by vaastu's claims to solve mortal problems. Says a bemused Bhavik Anjaria, consultant with Trinity Services which does interiors on vaastu principles: "Vaastu is merely a set of rules following which people might get peace of mind. But how can it solve people's financial problems or their legal tangles? Why, even Deve Gowda and Narasimha Rao had their houses redone as per vaastu, but that's not improved their lives."

He feels vested interests are exploiting the fad. "Earlier there were vaastushastris who carried over the tradition from their forefathers, today there are get-rich vaastu architects hawking half-baked ideas. In the last two to three years, their number has risen to about 300. And I would say 99 per cent of them are bogus," he says. According to him while earlier vaastushastris held free seminars, today they hold it at five-star hotels at fees of thousands of rupees. A true shastri, says Shompura, does not charge any fees, but consultants these days charge a minimum of Rs 25,000 per consultation. The smarter ones charge a percentage of their client's first year profits when they design factories. 

What then explains this mania? Says K.T. Ravindran of the School of Planning and Architecture: "I believe vaastu madness has a lot to do with the insecurities spawned by liberalisation. People want to be sure their investments don't fail them. Intelligent decisions aren't enough; they want to shake hands with the invisible hand that eliminates chance." IIT Delhi mathematician Vagesh Shukla has an academic interest in the shastra. Says he: "People are generally disillusioned with rationalism, which despite its material success hasn't made them happier. Hence the resurgence of alternative systems of beliefs, be it ayurveda, yoga or vaastu. Likewise, investors losing money despite intelligent business strategies are turning to anything that deflects bad luck." Besides, it's become fashionable to live in vaastu-right houses, even if you're a nonbeliever. "With a novelty-crazed society, anything ancient instantly becomes a symbol of status," says Ravindran.

But what's the fuss all about? Vaastushastra means different things to different professors of this ancient lore. For some it is a set of architectural do's and don'ts, for others it is the if-you-do-A, B-will-happen kind of thing. Some treat it as useful empirical knowledge to be applied innovatively to modern architecture. For the Gestalt-inclined, vaastu is a comprehensive building philosophy that incorporates the inter-connectedness of everything in this universe; for them the popular prescriptive vaastu is fraudulent. Then there are others who study vaastu from an essentially design point of view, with scant regard for its metaphysical claims.

In essence, vaastuvidya or vaastushastra in its popular form is an elaborate set of rules that must be followed while building a house or a temple, a palace or even a settlement. Definitive and unquestionable, these formulae are derived  from the complex calculus of astrology, dictating each architectural nuance, from the site, orientation, shape and size of the house, to the location of various rooms, number of windows and doors, the design of the entrance gate and other artefacts. Disregard these rules and results will be disastrous, warn vaastu architects.

WHY that should be so, nobody knows. Mythology has it that the house is ruled by the vaastupurush, a demigod who if unappeased, destroys the house and makes life hell for its inhabitants. According to Varahmihira's Brihat Samhita written in AD 6 and considered an authoritative commentary on vaastu, Lord Shiva's killing of demon Andhakasura raised a lot of cosmic dust which was settled with Shiva's sweat. 45 deities brought this material together and buried it to prevent it from escaping into the cosmos. The buried material or vaastupurush encompasses the earth and the sky and is pinned down by 45 gods on a square plot, with his head in the north-east, knees and elbows in the south-east and north-west and feet in the south-west corners. And depending on which deity is pinning him where, the positions of the bedroom, kitchen, and the living room are decided. It's not too difficult to incur the demon's displeasure: place the water pump in the north-east corner of the plot; position the master bedroom in any but the south-west; locate water tanks on top of the main bedroom; orient beds in the north-east; curve the facade of the house; erect a house on a triangular plot; site the toilet at the plot's centre; keep cacti in the house; build a staircase inside the house and so on. Each such violation has a specific penalty. For instance, a water tank atop the master bedroom invites nightmares.

Critics dismiss this as a lot of humbug. Indeed, not all reactions to vaastu are necessarily reactionary. Consider Delhi architect Gautam Bhatia's. While reserving comments about its validity, he feels it is authoritarian and inimical to an architect's imagination. Well-known Delhi architect Raj Rewal compares it to the Kama-sutra: part commonsense, part nonsense. Sreemay Basu, head of SPA, dubs it as "a return to the middle ages". Delhi architect Yogesh Singh bemoans the fact that self-styled vaastu consultants have become more important than architects. "Now you design only to be rejected by a vaastu pandit," he says. Achyut Kanvinde, the architect who designed IIT Kanpur, calls it totally irrational. Bangalore's Venkatesh believes vaastu principles are no longer relevant to modern society. "For instance, in ancient times toilets were supposed to be away from the main house because they did not have a sewage system then and needed to contain the stench. What's the relevance of vaastu today? But despite educating clients it's difficult to convince them not to insist on vaastu."

But shorn of its esoteric rituals, vaastu is just another school of architecture. There are any number of living examples—temples, palaces and houses—of this age-old tradition. That they've survived the ravages of time is testimony to the skills of our sthapatis (master builders). But can we separate the material face of vaas-tushastra from its mysticism, its physical attributes from its metaphysical claims? "Indeed, that's the orthodoxy of modern belief: anything that's not arrived at after rigorous thinking, experimenting and analysis is dismissed as non-scientific," says Ravindran. Hence the controversies over claims of alternative systems of knowledge such as homeopathy, yoga or transcendental meditation.

TO circumvent uneasy queries from the sceptic, ad hoc vaastu-adherents have adopted the pragmatic approach of homeopathy: If it works, good enough; who cares for the WHY? When confronted with demand for proof that it actually works, they fumble. Consider this oft-quoted explanation: "One shouldn't sleep with heads facing north-east because of the negative impact of earth's magnetic field on our bodies." Or the astrological claim that a star's gravitational pull affects our personalities.

Chennai-based V. Ganapathy Sthapati, a renowned champion of vaastu, has a jesuitical viewpoint. "If a part of the vast space is bounded by four walls called a building, the building becomes a living being, in as much as we enclose a particle of space in our body by virtue of which we also vibrate. These vibrations are quan-tifiable. If the vibrations of the outer space (building) respond to those of the inner space (inner being), they are said to be in perfect harmony with each other. This is spiritual harmony, the basic ben-efit gained from vaastu planning. It is this harmony that gets extended to physical welfare and material prosperity," he says.

Convinced? Mathematician Shukla calls it nonsense and the people who spout it cheats, "for they neither understand science nor ancient systems of knowledge...and I can't see what this hoopla is all about. We are talking about two totally different world views. Being rooted in astrology, vaastushastra is fundamentally irrational, thereby not amenable to reason or science. There is no question of science trying to validate vaastu as both are epistemo-logically poles apart, speaking mutually unintelligible tongues." Ravindran agrees, though he's less absolute. He claims to be an agnostic, ignorant of the validity of vaastu's claims. "But if I'm not to dismiss some personal experiences as mere coincidences, then there seems to be some truth in vaastu's absurd claims. I know of several cases where altering a house has had positive results."

 B.V. Doshi, well-known architect from Ahmedabad and founder of the Vaastushilpa Foundation, agrees. He believes "if people claim they are doing better, it must be because their body system is in harmony, their energies are balanced and so they are richer in thought". Doshi was also quoted in a magazine as saying that when a house doesn't conform to vaastu, problems such as marital discord or ill-health arise. "In the south-west you get a lot of sun, so vaastu says this part of the building should be heavily built up. On the north east, you get less sun and plenty of shadows so this part should be kept open. It makes sense." Mumbai architect Bharat Gandhi, who has produced the first CD-ROM on vaastu, defends the shastra by linking it to five factors: solar energy, the magnetic field, wind, gravitation and the cosmic forces. He claims vaastu harmonises all these to make for a healthier and richer life.

The non-believers, of course, attribute such claims to either coincidence or the placebo effect. Says Yogesh Singh: "It's in the nature of faith or blind belief that negative results are conveniently brushed under the carpet, unlike in science where even one negative result can dethrone a theory. This is perhaps one reason why unquestioned tested ideas grow into cults." From a purely philosophical standpoint, the symbolism of vaastu is the language of mystical knowledge. To quote Fritzof Capra, author of the controversial Tao of Physics: "The eastern religious philosophies are concerned with timeless mystical knowledge which lies beyond reasoning and can't be adequately expressed in words." Can we subsume vaastu under this? "If we concede, as people of Capra's persuasion do, that knowledge gained by the mystic and the scientist are equally valid and complementary, then it would be presumptuous to dismiss vaastu simply because you don't know what it is," says Ravindran.