Renaissance Idiot's ramblings

There used to be a time when I lived more on my balcony than inside my room. Now I sit down in the same spot on my study table, facing the window, trying to look out through the negative spaces between the drying clothes. As days go by, I miss how the outside of my window used to look. When I was 12, my family unanimously decided to annexe the balcony into our rooms. On paper it was a great idea; the balconies were tiny and any added space in our small rooms would be awesome. I recall the process of this annexure, with numerous masons working in the house, demolishing a few existing walls and then constructing new walls and windows. I remember thinking how astronomically huge the rooms felt to me at that age, although the extension was barely 2.5 feet in width. I would frequently play cricket in that tiny extension, with no clue of what I had lost. Another 13 years later, now I feel we didn't gain much, the rooms are darker, the quality of space in the house feels low and we have b...

This essay was drafted as a response to the question "What was your initial idea about design?" during the introductory sessions in NID Ahmedabad . Dated July 2025. Design as an architecture student was to design buildings at the end of the day. A well-designed building was climatically efficient while being geometrically and visually pleasing. We were taught design as something scientific, where material constraints and space use needed to be understood. Every drawing was meant to address all human activity and needs, while balancing client requirements and aspirations. Design became a formula to achieving the fundamentals to a good building. Although we were taught how design borrows from art, it was never a comparison between the two; architecture was different and superior. As I worked in Charles Correa Foundation (An organisation dedicated to keeping the ideas of the imminent post-independence Indian architect relevant) I was opened to the social role of architecture an...

Time vacuum sucked me in and dropped me on the 19th of January with waking up to give the next exam. It felt like reliving the day I gave my NID exams but now I was seasoned and approached the situation ritually. The day started out strangely similar, with constant déjà vu on my mind as I left the house. I remember this time asking my friends to wish me all the best, as even they had become accustomed to me taking exams now. As I started out with my dad, he had all the confidence in the world that we would reach the center on time. We started out much earlier than the previous exam and I stayed calm and confident in the trip. As we reached closer to the exam center I could see the number of cars increasing, to our surprise a huge crowd of parents and their eager children were already there to give their exams. This included the CEED students as well as undergraduate applicants. Dad, being a seasoned veteran at these ordeals, made the decision to park well ahead of the exam center and w...

It was the 5th of January 2025, the temperature was down a couple points; I had to get up early in the morning and get ready for the big day. The previous day was marked with hurried revisions, drawing/shading basics and mugging up theory questions. All my friends wished me all the best beforehand and had made me feel confident for the day to come. As mom and dad had woken up before me, I woke up to find some commotion already in the house. Mom was busy cooking breakfast and lunch tiffins for me meanwhile dad was half asleep as he sat down on the living room sofa. Without wasting a minute, I brushed my teeth, took a warm shower and checked my bag that I had packed the night before. Dad was constantly reminding us the time we need to leave from our house to make it to the exam center in time. Mom was keeping track of how much time she had till then.  As the time neared for me and dad to leave, everyone finished their tasks and helped see me off. I took blessings of success from my p...

Gregory Samsa wakes up to see himself turned into an insect. I llustration by Richard Johnson. It's my routine: I go to sleep, prepared to repeat the same old daily routine or work. But, when I open my eyes, I cannot seem to get up. As I look down, my arms and legs are turned into a bug’s. Even my body has become hard and resembles that of a beetle/centipede. Now, what do I freak on about first? My body that doesn't look human anymore? The fact that my body hurts and cannot move? Or my work and the morning train that I have surely missed? Gregory worries about the latter and the consequences that will follow if he misses this day or even dares to show up late. It takes a unique level of conditioning where one discards their own wellbeing for work. Written in 1912, I am not sure if Kafka’s time had corporate toxic work culture but he was able to accurately predict and satirise a way of living which would be the norm 100 years later.  Myself, my peers and even my seniors have emb...

Render by Author. Change always hits you from around the corner. It’s all smooth sailing to the goal till everything turns upside down. And then you have to have to stop pick up the pieces that remain and keep walking. Or sometimes change the goal because the said goal is impossible to reach now. It is demotivating and people will usually fall in a slumber or a pit of self-pity. For me it was my own self-hatred returning, It takes a long time to look myself in the mirror and blame myself for the situations that have come forward.  I know the person on the other side feels the same if not worse. Nevertheless, somewhere my heart does not want to acknowledge that. My heart takes for granted that it’s always more valid that it is the one that aches and nothing else. Is it romanticism then? That will make me be content with being miserable. Or is it the fact that somewhere, I have grown to think that to succeed in something, it really takes someone to be awful; either in his circumsta...

 Gun House as built in 1960, copyright Charles Correa Associates, courtesy of Charles Correa Foundation * After wrapping up my fellowship at the Charles Correa Foundation in Panaji, Goa, I needed a time-off to think about what I was going to do next. After listening to about a hundred different versions of my future from everyone around me, and disagreeing with all of them, I returned back home only to quickly elope to Gujarat for a well-earned time off. Amongst the places I got to visit & the people I got to spend time with, one experience took centre stage for me. Working on the Correa Archive, I had developed a good understanding of Correa’s work. One such was the Gun House, and knowing I will be so close to it on this trip; I had to make it a must to go and see it. The idea of the Gun House, from its name, shape, to the stories of its current fate brought tremendous interest to my mind. It is rare to see a work of a significant architect that goes through such massive deg...