Aurangabad-Early Days-01

One of the first things I remember about Aurangabad is my unplanned stay at one of the cheaper hotels near the bus stand, which had beds like a dormitory and you had to keep your valuables for safekeeping with the hotel manager; there being no lockable cupboards. As I had no valuables to carry, that was not an issue; all that my luggage consisted was a small bag with bare minimum clothes. I do remember wondering all the night whether I had done the right thing in believing Jayanta, that this was the land of opportunity.

I went to Aurangabad by sheer chance. Jayant Pandit, my classmate from JJ was working in the department of Town Planning there. He had been to Solapur where I talked about opportunities for starting my own practice, and he had painted a rosy picture of how there were projects for taking in the whole of Marathwada region. Being in the Department of Town Planning, he had some valuable inside information.

At the time, the State Government used to finance the Municipal Councils under the UD-6 scheme for implementing the Development Plans, and huge sums of money were allocated for this purpose. However, as there were very few technical consultants available, leave alone the architects, most of the Municipal Councils in the Marathwada Region were unable to submit any proposals, and the funds were under-utilized, creating a problem of sorts for the Department of Town Planning, where Jayant worked. He saw an opportunity to start architectural practice here, but could not think of leaving the job to do it. So he thought of asking me to start the practice if I was willing to take the risk. He also found a temporary job for me in the Public Works Department (PWD).

Very few people are aware that there is a Department of Architecture attached to the PWD, but it is very much there, and it has regional offices, headed by an Architect (called the Deputy Architect to Government), who is in charge of providing architectural services for all PWD projects. The one in Aurangabad had recently taken up the task of providing architectural services to the Marathwada University projects, on the condition that the University would provide an assistant for doing all the drafting work, and it was this position that was advertised, and for which I had to give an interview.

I was told that the job was purely temporary and carried a salary of Rs. 500.00 per month - a good offer compared to my then salary at V. T. Kota & Associates of Rs. 425.00 per month. This was my first attempt at any formal interview for a job. I had got the earlier job at with Architect V. T. Kota, by just declaring that I have finished my course and was willing to work. This was OK as I had worked in vacations in his office earlier, and he knew me and my work. Facing an interview in an unknown city  was  totally different matter. But the prospect of independent practice was attractive and hence I decided to resign and caught the bus to Aurangabad.

However, Jayanta failed to materialise even after promising me to pick me up from the bus-stand, and I had no option but to seek a shelter somewhere for the night, convinced that Jayanta was kidding me about the whole affair, and that I must go back the next day. Next day, I remembered that I had a distant cousin settled at Aurangabad after her marriage, and I decided to pay a visit before going back. As luck would have it, after listening to my story, her husband helped me to find Jayanta's office, and I finally met him. If that had not happened, I would not have settled at Aurangabad at all.  

One Year at Nanded City

The starting point was rather uninspiring. We shifted to the Nanded City flat only as a stop-gap arrangement when Pranav, Amruta and Nishant came over from USA, and this flat was ready and in our possession. We were all too aware of it being in the wilderness, what with only a handful of people living in the large 700 acre Township under construction, and the distance from the main gate to the apartment building was a whooping 3 kms. There was no public transport within the Township area, and we had only one car - I had sold off my own car when Pranav went to US leaving his car behind.

Nanded City at the time had absolutely no facilities except for water & electricity, and you had to bring almost everything from outside. Fortunately, Pranav & Amruta, having lived in Jacksonville for the last six years, were used to a similar set-up. There was also the small convenience shopping lot near the apartment block with one grocery shop, one selling milk and milk-products, and the third one selling ice-cream and coffee. The fourth shop was taken up by a curtain-maker-indicating that the people had just started coming in because the first thing you need in a new flat-more than anything else-is curtains for privacy. And nowhere else this was more important than Nanded city where most of the flats were designed to have a good look at each other's bedrooms. Incidentally nobody in India knows that architects have anything to do with housing-no builder ever mentions the name of his architect in his advertisements -so it is not really surprising that people are not aware of mistakes made by the architects in design.

As a long-standing teacher in architecture, every year I have delivered a series of lectures on the aspects of privacy in design of housing, and have hoped to make an impact in the future design of housing through its implementation-but students seldom listen to your lectures anyway. Then again, the major advantage in architectural profession is that you never have to live or work in the buildings you design. For most of the buildings that you design, you only need to have a few photographs-mostly taken from outside-to impress your next set of clients-who are typically builders-and interested in the external visual image of the building to help sell it to gullible buyers-they would never even dream of living in them.

So a flat buyer has to fend for himself dealing with all the commissions & omissions of the architect-but while you can manage the interior spaces & most of your old furniture in your new flat, the curtains have to be tailor-made for the windows of the new apartment. Moreover the typical design of the flats in Nanded city-designed for good views of your neighbour's bedrooms, made provision of curtains almost mandatory.