A Slave who became Emperor Chapter 5

The old city hall was now being used as warfare training center for military troops . Thus a need arised for new city Hall . Now the city Council was being held in open grounds beside the palace . Manipura has extreme climactic conditions . Due to untimely rains or harsh winds it was not very easy to hold city Council sessions in the open . The palace has not got a big enough Hall that could hold the entire population of the city .

Samyukta wanted to take up this project on her own . She stepped into her study room and started sketching various building designs . She couldn't sleep the whole night . The challenge was quiet interesting for her . She wanted to give something back to the city of Manipura and its people .

Her proficiency in architecture was well known . She thought of a unique way of utilizing simple means to control the costing . On the second day, she woke up with a brilliant thought .

She was extremely excited . She took some white parchment and started making the design . It took six hours for her to complete it . She was very much satisfied by the end result . Samyukta got ready and visited her father . The emperor read her face and understood that she came up with a solution .

He said, 'go on my child, show me your design . . '

She brought the drawing near to the emperor and started explaining . 'The structure will be in the shape of circle . . this will help in such a way that fresh air and light comes easily into the whole structure, there is no need to construct extra ventilation chambers, there will be a network of small pipelines constructed into the walls through which water will run helping the building to cool down during hot summer days as a natural air conditioner, during winter the same water can be diverted through another set of pipes and used as recycled water for domestic cleaning purposes or for irrigation by a simple lever mechanism . The council can hold its meetings in the huge hall that is built in the center . This hall is surrounded by living quarters above it . Since the council members are already having their own residences, these quarters will house the orphans and abandoned elderly of Manipura . Since kids make a lot of noise, I intend to minimise the noise levels by lining the ceiling and walls of the hall using adobe (sun dried blocks) so that council meetings are not disturbed . There will be two separate entrances . One from the back and the other from the front . The front entrance will be used by council members while children and elderly can use the later to enter their quarters . This is the construction plan . Coming to the decorative elements, we will use tinted colored glass panels mounted on the walls for the building exterior,it will be cost effective and the appearance of the structure will be pleasing . The interior walls of the city hall will be adorned by madhubani art of our Magadha, this structure will serve the purpose of council hall in the morning, a theater to practise arts like drama, dance, music in the evening, a residential place for orphans and elderly . Since it is multipurpose, we can justify the cost . But even then the cost of construction is five fold lesser compared to the earlier design' she concluded . The emperor was impressed, but to satisfy the chief minister he asked, 'why should the interior walls be decorated? 'Samyukta said, 'the walls will be adorned by Madhubani art, but not by skilled craftsmen who charge us a huge sum, the design will be done by poor widows of our society who practice this art using it to stich craft items which are sold in weekly market, this will help them to get good amount of money to sustain them for few weeks at least' the emperor gave a big smile and looked at the chief minister, 'how will the cost come down by five fold? 'the chief minister asked,Samyukta said ' to start with this is a four in one construction . I am aware that there are upcoming projects for orphanage, home for elderly and a theater . I am giving this one structure to avoid further cost of future constructions, there is no huge cost to provide artificial seating, since the hall is circular, there will be a high platform made of Stone in the middle encircled by rows of stone seats . This will be a permanent seating arrangement . The seating rows will be in the form of concurrent circles with the outer circle having a greater radius than the inner one . So it will be a circular gallery which will help all the audience to have a good view of the stage . Still I suggest for you to take this plan to the chief architect to take approval . He is a senior . If he approves the design, we can go ahead' the emperor said, 'well done dear, now we will have this examined before approval . . but I must say that if executed properly, it will be a jewel in the crown of Manipura', Samyukta bowed to the emperor and said ' I shall take your leave then'

Chapter end