The Power of Seeing: Humane Urban Design Project is based on the following observations:

There is a glaring discrepancy between our insides and outsides, i.e. the insides of our homes and the streets outside. What we allow and accept outside on the streets in terms of design, construction, maintenance or repair would be absolutely unthinkable inside our homes. And this may be a) due to the overwhelming abundance of chaos that surrounds us, but b) also due to our engrained attitudes--cultural, social and economical

We are exclusivists in that we are generally disconnected from our environment and consider the outside as not "ours," or even impure and polluting, thus maintaining a psychological separation from it.

A pivotal point is that we do not place the body as a central point of reference when we make our cities, i.e. we do not regard the convenience, safety and comfort of the body when we design street elements. Most of our elements are borrowed and superimposed not keeping the ground reality and the need of the people (the real users) in mind. For the most part the pedestrians have no place in our scheme of affairs. The human body is not only disregarded but seemingly held in contempt at times.

We privilege positive space over negative space, i.e. we privilege built space over open space, or privilege material over empty-space. Therefore we clutter; more so even encroach and eat into space meant to be kept free for movement. As a dancer my observation is that we as a people do not privilege movement, we’d rather acquire material wealth than have the open space to move freely.

The Message of the Power of Seeing Project is that the time has come when we’ll have to take responsibility! If we are genuinely concerned about the environment then we have to pitch in on a personal level. If we are concerned about the Yamuna but seems too daunting a task to clean it up, we certainly can take care of the storm drain outside our house; if we can’t take care of the denuding forests, we certainly can assure the health of the tree in front of our house; if we cannot take care of the depleting wildlife, then we can take care of the stray animals in our lanes. We have been conditioned to turn a blind eye to the chaos that surrounds us for too long. We no longer can do that, or else our cities will come to a halt, come to a stand still, caught in the gridlock of its own disorganization. Disorganization of its treatment of space, no monitoring of excess, spilling over, encroaching material property and disregard for free space crucial for free movement.