Aurangabad : Early days 10

During all these happenings on the professional side, a major event happened in my personal life - I got married. It was not something that I had planned but when I saw my wife-to-be for the first time, I fell head-over-heels in love with her. It was at one of the events planned by my family for an arranged marriage, though I was not prepared financially for the marriage and had no idea at the time what getting married would mean in practical terms. My wife-to-be was totally unaware of the fact that she was tying her knot with an upcoming, struggling architect and had not even had the opportunity to have a good look at me at the event. I was lucky on both counts.

The first year of marriage was fraught with difficulties of space, finances and relations. It was only after my son Pranav was born that we rented a house big enough to accommodate the family properly. Sanju had already started working at AAMCOL and my practice picked up a bit to give us a certain stability now. The days were full of activities, Pranav was the greatest, nicest and the best looking grandson ever, so much so that my mother was after me to buy a camera specifically for him, which I got for him by travelling all the way to Mumbai. It was at this juncture that I started thinking in terms settling down at Aurangabad by having a place of my own.

Though my experiments with collective housing by buying a plot with a few friends at Khadakeshwar resulted in a great deal of waste of time, money and efforts, it also gave me a great deal of insight in human relations, and a place to stay for a while. But the experience gave me the realisation that this kind of thing was not going to work for me, and I started looking for alternatives.

Around this time, two of my friends, Ashok Mudkavi and Mohan Phulambrikar were looking for plots to build their own houses, and as a consultant, I made many a visit with them looking for a suitable location. We zeroed in on the new settlement planned by CIDCO at N-4, as the prices were within their reach, and moreover, the surrounding development was assured, unlike the areas in Corporation area. I also decided to purchase a plot with them, but even at Rs. 10.00 per square foot price, I could not afford to buy a whole plot and I managed to convince Suresh Karkare to share the price and half the plot. It took us about 5 months to collect money for the purchase of the plot, and then about an year to collect a lot more money to build the house, as housing loan was very difficult to obtain at the time.

As luck would have it, LIC started its operations in housing finance at this time, and we became one of their first customers. Our loan file number in LIC was 25. But more than the loan part, it started a new career for me. After finding out that I was an architect, the loan officer inquired if I was interested in becoming their valuer. I had done a few valuations earlier for the properties under acquisition, and was conversant with the process, which came in handy and I became a panel valuer for LIC, and later LIC Housing Finance Ltd.

Anyway with LIC and many other market borrowings, we managed to build the house and moved in the new house in 1990. My struggling days were over, or at least we all thought so, little knowing the challenges that lay ahead.

Aurangabad : Early days 9

It was when I went with Sanju for some minor complaint at Dr. Joshi’s clinic at Paithan Gate, that we met Milind Ranade, who offered Sanju a job in AAMCOL, a company where he himself was working, and who needed a bright young recruit. Sanju had just come back from Warangal REC after completing his graduation in mechanical engineering, and Srinivas was about 8 years old when we moved to Auranagbad, the family was together again after quite some time, except for Viju, was then working at Mumbai, and living with Wamankaka at Tardeo Police Quarters.

It thus started a whole new set of friendships, when Sanju met Suresh Karkare at AAMCOL, and a lot of his friends eventually became my friends too. Ashok Mudkavi, Sanju’s friend from REC Warangal had also come to Aurangabad and had joined Arwind Machhar’s company ‘Anil Chemicals’, and for the first time after coming to Aurangabad, we were part of a small social circle. Though a lot of my time was spent on travelling to the many construction sites I had all over the Marathwada Region, we used to spend a good deal of time together.

It was also a phase where I did a lot of experiments in my practice, which included a Cinema Theatre at Parbhani. Jayanta actually got the project for me, as the owners, as always, were in search of a young architect who would do the job for lesser fees. I did the entire services for a contract sum of Rs. 5000.00 (about Rs. 1,00,000.00 in today’s value) which was a good deal of money those days for me.

This project became interesting because of two factors. One, it was the first ever and the only Cinema Theatre that I designed all by myself, and intermittently supervised the construction at my own cost as it was not the part of contract.

The second was the consultant for the air-cooling services was from Mumbai, who suggested that we built the ducting for the cooling system through the load-bearing main walls of the auditorium. I was quite confident now about the load-bearing construction system, having executed a few projects already, and designed the external wall of the auditorium accordingly.

This was also the project where I did the line-out for the work at site because the contractor was unable to do it on his own. The main theatre external walls were not parallel, and not at right angle with the end walls, posing an almost impossible problem for him, though having a good command of mathematics I had provided all relevant co-ordinates in the basic drawing, but the contractor could not execute it at site.

Ultimately, I had to go there at the site and physically draw the centre lines on ground. I also had the sight lines drafted accurately, but the owners did not believe in my expertise, and ended up with a flat slab for the balcony and the steps were made in brickwork, but of course, I had stopped visiting the work by then.

Looking back after all these years, I think most of my clients either were neither aware of the architectural services nor were they interested. What they actually needed was engineering services- making plans for approvals, getting the work done at site and at times checking and certifying contractors bills. If the building turned out to be looking better or designed functionally in a better manner, it was a bonus they had never asked for in the first place.

There is a lot of hue and cry about rights to architectural practice after the recent Supreme Court Judgement, which refuses exclusive rights to architects on practice, but whether the law decrees or not, I do not think you can make your services mandatory if people do not need them.

Aurangabad : Early days 08

It was actually because our entire family moved to Aurangabad on my suggestion, that I thought of setting up an independent office. My father was working in MSEB and we rented a place near the MSEB head office at Mill Corner. Incidentally the Police HQ at Aurangabad was opposite the MSEB office, and we got a place in a colony on the side of Police HQ, which was the only planned area in a sort of slum area in and around the Police HQ.

It was alleged that the land was owned by Aurangabad Mill, but there was some dispute, which was the reason for the un-authorised development. I do not know whether this is true, but I have never had any misgivings about slums. For one thing the Police HQ was nearby, but I have also seen the Mumbai slums quite closely, and found that it houses mainly good, kind people, though a bit short of resources.

Anyway, here I met Sanjay Ballal, his brother Hemant Rakhe and Vasant Bindu, all approx. of my own age, and we became friends very easily. Sanjay was working in an United India Insurance, and I do not now remember where Vasanta worked, and even Vasanta may not remember this now, as he is known to have changed his employers so frequently. Vasant’s grandfather was a senior government officer, and one of his uncles was an architect, employed in the AP Government at Hyderabad, who settled later at Aurangabad, and became a friend, but all this was much later.

In the beginning, we were all single young men, with the exception of Sanjay who was married, and it was good company for many exploits. My father gave me a gift of a Scooter, for which he had to obtain loan from his office, it cost us all of Rs. 6,000.00 at the time. This was in the year 1979, and before this I had been having a makeshift practice, travelling mainly on a bicycle in Aurangabad.

I was the 10^th architect to start practice at Aurangabad, and we used to have Sunday meetings at an open garden restaurant near Siddhartha Garden (where Hotel Devapriya is now), and I remember going to these meetings on a bicycle.

Owning a scooter changed my status immediately. Cars were very rare those day, and a scooter was some kind of indication that you are at least a higher middle class person if not rich. Near my office in Nageshwarwadi Meher Furniture had their workshop and office, and I made friends with the Manager Mr. Gaus there easily. He looked quite gruff, but was a very kind person, and when he learnt that I was an architect, he started greeting me with a great deal of respect.

Naturally, most of the furniture in my office and later at my residence was all bought at Meher Furniture, who had built up a reputation for using the best materials for all their products, which made them a bit costlier than the market but very durable.

This reminds me of the dining table that I have now brought in my Nanded City residence recently. When my father was transferred to Aurangabad, we had very little furniture, and no dining table. My mother urged me to buy a dining table, and I designed and got it manufactured at Meher furniture works, at a huge price (at the time) of Rs. 1,000.00 for a standard 5’ x 3’ table and six  chairs. This was my first attempt at designing any piece of furniture and as a design it is not great, but it has lasted for all of these forty-one years without much problem.

I thought of bringing it to Pune where I now live, when the new dining table and the chairs bought by my son Pranav started wobbling and gave way after only about four years of use. The old table only needed some minor repairs and polishing, which I arranged at Aurangabad and got it transported it here. It reminds me both of my mother who is no more and also the fact that the days of doing anything durable are over, at least for the furniture industry.

Aurangabad : Early days 07

I have been teaching the subject of professional practice to the students of architecture for quite some time now, and there have been always questions about the ethical versus unethical practice, both from the students and the fellow professionals. A major portion of my work came from the Government & Semi-Government organisations as well as some corporate sector clients, and it is alleged that you have to use certain unethical means to work smoothly with such organisations.

My own experience is very old now, having stopped working for such organisations for about twenty years now, but I can vouch for the integrity of many persons of authority in the organisations I worked for and can state with certainty that ethical practice is not only possible but can be flourishing irrespective of whether it is a public sector work or private sector. It all depends on your own character, integrity, beliefs and intentions.

My practice started with Mr. Kharkar, a freedom fighter from Sailu and man of integrity, and since then have met many politicians and administrators who have been quite upright and honest, and in fact my practice was built on the support of these people. In course of my practice I have also met my share of the corrupt and unscrupulous people too, but I have always been uneasy and out of my depth in dealing with them. I get similarly upset and at a loss when people, particularly, building contractors and the like try to do me some favour, though in the course of my practice I acquired a reputation for straight dealings and was not troubled much in the later part of my career.

One instance I remember is about issuing false or incorrect certificates. In the early eighties, cement was in short supply and was allowed to be purchased only on a certificate of a practicing architect. I would usually do this for free for my own clients for their need of cement, but once I was requested to issue a dummy certificate by someone who was willing to pay me for the certificate. He told me that the government officers don’t bother about the correctness of the certificate and nobody keeps count so why bother?

‘You can cash in your qualifications and the fact that you are a practicing architect, nobody would even read the certificate except for the figures where you mention the number of bags of cement’, he told me. I had to tell him that it was my reputation at stake for such a certificate, and I had to read the certificate before signing it, so I would not do it. He was not pleased, and must have taken me for a fool to lose out such easy money.

Exactly similar to this is the certificates Contractors require to continue their registration with the government. As most of the projects in the private sector are done without the tendering process, it is easy to falsify the records and issue dummy certificates to contractors whom you may have never met and earn some extra money on the side without doing much.

In all my practice I have steadfastly refused to issue such certificates, and have been called a fool, a simpleton and many other names. But I have since met many of my own professional colleagues, touring all over the nation while working for IIA, architects who are also scrupulous about this, and feel a certain satisfaction in being part of the ethical brigade.

When I look back now on all these facts, I think I should give credit for this to the people of integrity I met in my early career, who shaped the character of my practice and behaviour. If I had not met people like Mr. Kharkar, I do not whether I would have been able to maintain such a straight path throughout my career.

Aurangabad : Early days 06

Meanwhile, my practice was taking a good turn now, as my first project got certain recognition from both the Sailu Municipal Council and the Town Planning Department. The Sailu Municipal Council, impressed by my previous work decided to demolish its own old office building and entrusted me the task of designing a new one. I was, at the time, very much influenced by the work of my former boss, Ar. V. T.  Kota, and the office building shows a distinct relation to his work. I did a lot of experiments in the construction and the detailing, and I was glad that I could get a good contractor like Mr. Balchandani to get it executed.

However, by the time the building got completed, the state government dissolved the Municipal Council and appointed the Deputy Collector as an Administrator. This fellow, in order to be in good books of his boss, the Collector of Parbhani, invited him to inaugurate the Office Building and the ceremony turned out to be a sort of anti-climax, with me & our contractor felicitating the Collector for inaugurating the building instead of him felicitating us and giving some public recognition of our contribution in design and execution of the project. This was the first and only time it happened, and I was too young to notice the irony; it was Mr. Kharkar, the ex-president who pointed this out to me later.

Of course, as luck would have it, elections were announced and Mr. Kharkar was elected President again, this time by direct voting, instead of being chosen by the council members. He thus was now in a stronger position and executed many more development projects in Sailu. It goes without saying that I was entrusted with all the building projects in this scenario, but I was also entrusted with a lot of other work, like development of roads and construction of bridges, of which I had some awareness but not expertise. I confessed this to Mr. Kharkar, who said that he had implicit faith in me to get the right guidance from experts in the field, and get the works executed in the most appropriate way. I was overwhelmed by his confidence in me, and hope that I have not let him down in all the years I worked for the Sailu Municipal Council.

I am proud of the fact that my work with Sailu Municipal Council got recognition from the Town Planning Department, particularly by the Deputy Director of Town Planning at Aurangabad, Mr. Patharkar, who was also an architect himself. Two of my projects, a public library and a primary school, were adopted as type design for the department, though I did not get any royalty for the design. But I was content to be recognised, which made my work with the department quite easy, as they were our financers. It was the Town Planning Department who would approve the project, approve the budget and disburse the money, so it didn’t hurt to be in their good books.

On the background of allegations of large-scale corruption today, it may come as a surprise to many when I remember that at that time the Department of Town Planning was once the cleanest department in Maharashtra. The decisions were based on merits of the case, and I do not remember a single incident of any untoward practice. In fact, after we got acquainted fairly, the Deputy Director himself would phone me and take me with him in his own car for his site visits to project at Sailu and nearby places, and he would not allow me to pay even for the tea on the way. ‘Mr. Kulkarni’, he would explain, ‘the Government pays me TA and DA.’ It reads like a fairly tale now, but I can vouch for it as I have personally experienced the favours of the good-natured people all my life without any expectations of returns.

Aurangabad : Early days 05

When I set up my practice in an independent place in Nageshwarwadi, it was a very humble arrangement consisting of a single room about 15’ by 9’, in which I had an office table in the centre of the room and two large drawing boards facing the rear wall, behind my chair, one for me and the other for the large number of the draughtsmen I employed one after other as the attrition rate was high. I could not afford to pay an architect, hence I followed the standard pattern of employing a draughtsman with ITI qualifications, and training him in the ways of architectural drafting standards.

The problem was, once the man got trained enough, he would seek a better paying office and leave the job, making me repeat the whole process again. Once, getting tired of this, I tried to appoint an architect-trainee, but his salary expectations were very high and he also left after a while. My finances were so strained at the time that I could not pay his salary when he left, and had to send him payment after a month. This must have surprised him, as his letter indicated, and made me wonder whether I was the only one from his acquaintances who would keep his word.

I also bought a portable typewriter from my uncle at a huge price of Rs. 1400.00 and practised touch typing on it. Of course I could not afford to pay for a typist, I used to type all my letters myself, and outsourced the heavy typing work for estimates and tenders etc. I even bought an automatic ammonia printing machine by taking loan from the bank, and the set-up of the office was almost complete, except for the telephone connection, which I got after 10 years of waiting in the queue. During all this period, Meher furniture works, graciously allowed to use me their telephone connection, and I used to have a lot of informal meetings with the manager Mr. Gaus as a result.

Industrial development at Aurangabad was in full swing, resulting in a large influx of people, and construction industry was booming. I had a large number of commissions, even when I had virtually no local contacts, save the ones I made socially like at Vasantrao Naik College. Of course, it did not bring in as much money it would have brought in a place like Pune or Mumbai, as majority of these projects came in from the middle class segment, people building a house for themselves for the first time in a few generations, spending their entire lifetime savings and naturally, paying architect’s fees was the last item on their agenda. I now realise that people were looking for cheaper options in architectural services, looking for a inexperienced person, and that it the reason I had a huge number of clients.

Of course, my projects with the Sailu Municipal Council gave me a certain financial stability, and I did not mind the miniscule fees I used to get for these projects, as was one way getting known in a city where I had absolutely no family ties or any other prior association. Of course the agenda was not for a great architectural design in any of these projects, but only a workable plan with least construction cost. That meant that most of the projects were based on load-bearing wall construction, a pattern I had learnt to work on a great deal while working at Solapur under Ar. V. T. Kota.

When I moved from this rental office to my own place at Shangrilla Complex, near the Varad Ganesh Mandir, I had already completed 10 years in the rented premises, and found out during the shifting process that I must have designed at least about 800 houses during all this time. If I had received even the miniscule fees I was promised for all these projects, I would have become a very rich person indeed. But the problem with architectural practice is that you never get any respect nor fees when you are young and gullible. May that is the reason why it is called an old man’s profession.

Aurangabad : Early days 04

The first project that I designed for the Municipal Council, Sailu was for a Multipurpose Function hall, with some sports facility. I still remember the day of bhoomi-pujan (ground-breaking), where I was invited to speak about the project in front of the assembled guests. I did the presentation well, and spoiled the whole impact by turning to the President and asking him if this was all I was expected to speak. Anyway, the project was completed to the satisfaction of everyone, the Contractor Mr. Balchandani turned out to be a good choice, the President and the Council very much interested in doing a good project than anything else.

President Advocate Kharkar was a freedom fighter and a man of principles, and would not allow any corruption to happen under his guard. This was rare, even in Marathwada, which was a backward region in many respects except corruption, but I did not know it then. I don’t remember even paying for tea in his presence and he rarely would come to Aurangabad those days so the question of my entertaining him did not arise it at all. Not only that, he would keep a strict eye on the happenings at the site, as I later found out.

Sailu Municipal Council was my only major client at the time, but there were others too. The most notable amongst them was the Vasantrao Naik College, whose Principal Dr. Rajaram Rathod, became a good friend over time, and I did many projects for the college. The first project was the design of the hostel, which was a straightforward block without much scope for design, but later I did the Principal’s Bungalow at the campus and also his own private bungalow in N-3, CIDCO.

But more than the projects, it was the friendships I nurtured here that have lasted me a lifetime. Many illustrious people were working as faculty then, including the Principal Rathod, Dr. Ajit Dalwi, Bapurao Jagtap, and many others. I had a lot of free time in the beginning of my practice and I enjoyed conversation with these learned people about anything and everything. I had a slight leftist leaning at the time due to my previous participation in Yuvak Kranti Dal activities in Solapur, and it turned out that the majority of people at Vasantrao Naik college were either leftist themselves or at least sympathisers of the cause.

This association with Vasantrao Naik College also gave me an opportunity to meet notable people, like Hon’ble Sharad Pawar, whom I met at a school run by Late Mr. Omprakash Shinde. Vasantrao Naik college was at the forefront of the Namantar movement, and many teachers had a direct rapport with the great leader. Pawar saheb was also the Chief Guest at the Inauguration of the Vasantrao Naik memorial at the college, which I had designed, and at time he remembered meeting me earlier, which I found quite remarkable for a public figure who meets hundreds of people every day.  

I became a part of the many activities that were taking place at Vasantrao Naik Collge, and when the college decided to take out a weekly paper, I wrote two articles with tongue-in-cheek humor, my first attempt at political satire, and I think if I had continued, I would have become at least a free-lance columnist, but I started getting more and more work after establishment of a proper office with a reasonably decent set-up, and all thought of being journalist was lost under the pressure of work at the office.

Aurangabad : Early days 03

After doing the agreement for architectural services with the Sailu Municipal Council, I decided to resign from the job, which was anyway a contract appointment and would not have continued for long. I remember getting Rs. 95.00 for the last six days of my work, and the argument about the experience certificate, which the clerk refused to issue for the entire duration as I was not allowed to have any leave but took one anyway and there was a break in service. Finally we settled on a certificate which stated two separate periods, before and after the break, but I have lost the certificate now obtained after so much trouble.

We had now moved to another place in Osmanpura, which was an outhouse of a bungalow, and had already two residents, Avinash Gore and Prakash Patwardhan. Avinash was a steno-typist in LIC, and Prakash was his cousin, working in the ST Workshop at Chikhalthana. The two cousins could not have been any different. Avinash was short and a bit overweight, a bit diffident and looked every inch a white-collar worker he was, while Prakash was 6’ tall, about 4’ wide and had a rough voice and manners. It was Prakash who would get us tickets to all the movies, by pushing forward with exact cash in hand at the crowded ticket window. This was before the advent of television, and the ticket windows at the Cinema halls were always a battleground, which made it a perfect place for Prakash.

Avinash was an LIC employee and a better wage earner than all of us, and being of a generous nature, did not mind sponsoring a lot of activities of the group. But we were all actually in the category of struggling youths. When I decided to leave my job to start full time architectural practice, we were not sure whether it would work, so Jayanta decided to retain his job at the Town Planning Department and support me in his spare time, so what started as a partnership idea eventually landed me in an individual practice without any security of future.

When I look back to those days now, it looks like the worst way to start any new venture. Not only we were living in an out-house with two totally unconnected partners, there was virtually no set-up there for an office. We would draft the drawings ourselves sitting on the floor, and the typing work was done initially by Avinash, as he was a professional. But there was no way we could call it an office space, and we did not have any money then to start with a decent set-up. It was a wonder we could retain clients, with the kind of set-up we had, or maybe, nobody had any idea as to what should be the proper set-up for an architect’s office. After some time we again moved back to Rokadiya Hanuman Colony, which was a better accommodation, but still a shared residential space. It was here that I first met Ashok Desai, the structural consultant, who was a next door neighbour, and became a very close friend later on.

Jayanta got transferred to Nanded and I was left alone to carry out all the tasks involved in practice. Fortunately my two year stint at V. T. Kota and Associates at Solapur had prepared me for this and eventually I was able to open my own independent office at Nageshwarwadi after two years of landing in Aurangabad.

Karad Diaries-7

One of the other subjects that I was fond of, apart from mathematics, was Sanskrit. I scored easily in the subject, and was dismayed when I was not given the lead role in the college Sanskrit play ‘Columbus’. I just did not have the personality for the role, but this was something I could not understand at the time. I also had a morbid fear of public speaking, and participated once in a debating competition at my school to overcome this. I remember mugging up the entire speech, and delivering it mechanically, but that was all. It was only after I joined IIA and was invited to make a speech at the IIA National Convention at Nagpur, that I thought I need to do something about it. I wrote the entire speech, punches and all, and read it at the Convention. I still remember the butterflies in my stomach sitting on the stage before delivery of the speech, but I started out in earnest, and I received good response from the audience, which encouraged me to continue.

After this event, I tried every opportunity of speech at every public event, either by submitting papers to conferences or by impromptu interventions in the form of questions from the floor at every event, which sometimes resulted in invitation to the dais for making a small speech. Eventually I became quite adept at it, which gave me some recognition in the IIA circle, made me Chairman of the IIA Centre at Aurangabad and many other positions later.

This was a far cry from the shy and introvert demeanour I had as a school student in Karad. In spite of my participation in many outdoor activities with my friends, I was essentially an indoor person and did not mind staying put at a place and spending time alone, reading something or the other all the time. I remember reading almost all the hindi novels by Premchand one after another borrowed from the Municipal library at Karad. So reading ‘Dostoevsky’ was not a one-off activity, it was part of a pattern. Looking back, I think all this reading also made me a bit more introvert and less a man of action, which I tried to correct in my later life by joining the Communist Party, but that was after I started my professional career at Aurangabad.

In Karad, the only other activity I remember had to do with the religion or at least a practicing branch of it. Datta Bal, a spiritual Guru, had become famous when we were in school, and I used to attend the prayer meetings run by one of his disciples every Thursday evening, with some of my friends. The meetings were held in a closed room, with the light coming only from an oil lamp in the room in front of a large photograph of Datta Bal, the Guru, and the room would be normally filled with the smoke from the incense. We would try to concentrate on the diagram of Omkar painted on the wall, and recite the prayers en masse. I do not recollect getting any better intellectual or spiritual capacity as a result of these meetings and when I went to 11^th standard, with the pressure of study and other matters like clearing the Intermediate drawing examination for architecture admission, I stopped attending the Thursday meetings.

But the religions and their associated philosophies are fascinating topics, and my interest in religion has continued all my life. Recently I came across ‘The Case for God’ by Karen Armstrong, which stipulates that all religions in the world are basically trying to make their adherents better persons by prescribing a set of rituals about how to go about in life. I never considered myself a religious person as I do not carry out any of the rituals prescribed in my daily life, but found out that by Armstrong’s definition, I was actually a deeply religious person, though a bit gullible one, as many of my forays in being a good Samaritan have resulted in a good bit of trouble for me and my family - but that is a subject of another blog.  

Karad Diaries-6

My college life thus started with stay at my uncle’s place during the term and back to Karad in vacations. I was thus at Karad for the winter vacation in the second year of the course when the youngest of my brothers, Srinivas, was born. My father was away in Mumbai, and the task fell on me to write a telegram to him to come back as mother became suddenly very ill and it seemed that she would not survive the childbirth. I was 17 at the time, and was more worried about the wording of the telegram than the seriousness of the situation we were in.

I later felt guilty about this kind of frivolous concern taking hold of my mind at the time, but I am told that the human mind works in funnier ways than this. Anyway, father came back as a result of the telegram, mother was admitted to the hospital, and everything turned out to be just fine.

It must have been my feeling of inadequacy that was responsible for this kind of concern rather than the problem with the language, which was a part of my studies in school, and moreover, my journey of the English literature had started at Karad well before the admission to architecture. I was already an avid reader, one of the tenants at my mother’s place in Kolhapur was owner of a bookshop and used to have a number of new books delivered at the residence, which he graciously allowed us to read, on the condition that we read them then and there without spoiling them in any way. It was thus my hobby of reading was nurtured, and has stayed with me ever since.

When we moved to Karad, my next door neighbour was an enterprising and ambitious young man, Anil Kulkarni, who gave me a copy of ‘Crime & Punishment’ by Dostoevsky, told me it was a classic and insisted that I must read it. As my knowledge of the language was limited, I read the entire book with a dictionary at my side. In retrospect, it seems a bit too heavy a book to try out in a new language, but strange though it may seem, I developed a taste for English literature because of this first experiment. Anil eventually went over to USA after his graduation in Pharmacy and was quite successful there, became a US citizen and married a Punjabi girl. I googled him and wrote to him when I first went to USA in 2009, and he invited me to visit him, but somehow or the other I could not make the trip. 

Anil was my mentor in many other ways. He lived with his family next door to us, and all of his family members used to carry out all household tasks all by themselves. We were also from the same middle class section of the society, but we had maids for cleaning the utensils and washing the clothes, and I never thought that you need to do anything about it yourself. Anil taught me many of the skill involved in these tasks, including ironing the clothes and I remember we also did a lot of experiments including taking out a blue-print and measuring time by using the solar shadow angle and so on.

He was admitted to the first batch of the pharmacy college that opened at Karad, and I remember attending a cultural event at his college in winter, in which Anil was one of the actors in the play “Shantata Court Chalu Ahe”, a serious drama, the depth of which I could not really understand at the time, but remember a very sad incident on the way back from the event, where I saw a bunch of college students burning a blanket in the bon-fire depriving its owner, a poor man, of his protection in the winter. This happened at least 50 years ago but it is etched on mind as some kind of proof of human carelessness and pointless cruelty.

Karad Diaries-5

Even though my number on the merit list of Sir J. J. College of Architecture was 4, and there were 80 seats, I could not get admission due to a certain rule of Mumbai University regarding groups of subjects, and I was not eligible as the seventh subject I had opted for was Arithmetic and not any of the languages. My father fought about this rule in the University which relented after a month and I was admitted, along-with one other student, Sharad Mahajan from Pune, who was actually number 1 on the merit list but had the same problem. Both of us joined the college in July.

I still remember the day I finally went with my father to Mumbai to stay at my uncle’s place. When we reached CST (VT at the Time) station in Mumbai in late evening, it was raining heavily and no taxi driver was willing to take us. Ultimately father told me take out the raincoat, and we both walked in the rain with our luggage to the uncle’s place, from CST to Yellow Gate Police Station at Indira Docks (Alexandra Docks at the time). Mumbai was much less crowded those days and rain actually cleaned the road, where the storm water drains worked, and the journey via P. D’mello road was something I would remember all the time.

My uncle was a police sub-inspector at the time and had quarters above the Yellow-gate Police Station. It was the only residential premises in the area, all the other buildings were  warehouses, and would have some activity only during the day. I don’t remember any shop or any other kind of building in the area, besides our own building. The ground floor of housed the police station, and the two upper floors had quarters for the sub-inspectors. A service building in the same premises had servant’s quarters, built along with the Police Station in the British era. Both the buildings were in stone with typical british detailing. Once, after coming back from the movie ‘Dracula’, I noticed that the doors opening on the terrace were similar to the doors in the Dracula’s palace, and couldn’t sleep as the frightening scenes from the movie were still fresh in my mind.

The first day of college turned out to be quite disappointing, considering all the effort that we had put in to get admitted. I was told to join a studio in which everyone was drawing parallel lines on a large white sheet of paper, and having drawn first the horizontal lines, we were asked to draw vertical cross lines to form neat square pattern. Though I had all the requisite materials, bought the day before, I remember thinking that it was a frivolous and unworthy task and kept thinking that I have made a mistake in joining architecture. Added to this, the first person I met was Wong Tat, who could not understand any other language than English and my communication skills did not include English at the time, leaving me to talk by gestures alone, which must have puzzled him no end.

I would have left the course the very day, if I had not discovered later in the day that there were also many Maharashtrian students in our class. In fact we had a Marathi Mandal, which carried out cultural events and took out a Marathi bulletin, which featured articles and poems. I became an eager member of the group and contributed poems on a regular basis, so much so that my nickname was ‘Kavi” the poet, though I think it was more in jest, as I now realise I was no great poet, though I fancied myself one, and bore the title proudly.

Karad Diaries-4

One thing that I shall always cherish about the schooldays in Karad was the exalted status they gave me as one of the brightest students, particularly in the subject of mathematics. We had a new teacher in the 10^th class, Mr. M. N. Joshi, who was one of the SSC Board toppers and he decided to test our acumen on the very first day of joining. That year the SSC Board had changed the pattern of the examination, where questions were not directly based on the text-book, and unless you had a certain problem solving ability it was difficult to even translate the question properly in the mathematical framework. Mr. Joshi used this paper to test us, and I scored the highest in the class, 41 out of 75.  As this was a question paper for the 11^th class while we were in 10^th, even this score was remarkable. I was famous for scoring 100 out of 100 in Mathematics my earlier school at Kolhapur, but in Karad I was a nobody till this incident.

I was already in the A Division meant for the brighter students, and this incident made me a contender for a place in the list of honours at state level, alongwith Dinesh Deshpande, Pradeep Kashalkar and later Chandrashekhar Sabnis, who joined us in 11^th standard. After some time Mr. M. N. Joshi left the school to found his own coaching classes and we were students of his first batch, classes for which were held in a makeshift place previously used as a gymnasium. Mathematics ruled the day here, and once, when I declared my inability to attend an extra class due to my prior commitment to a drawing class, everyone laughed and derided me for putting drawing before mathematics. I had to explain that I needed to clear the Intermediate Level in the State Drawing Examination as I intended to join architecture after my matriculation. Unlike the current aspirants to the course of architecture, I had absolutely no idea what architecture was all about, only that I needed to clear the Drawing Examination for eligibility of admission to the course.

None of us could, however, make it to the state level honours list, to the disappointment of all, though I managed to get 99 out of 100 in Higher Mathematics and 91 out 100 in Arithmetic. Dinesh Deshpande joined UDCT, Pradeep Kashalkar joined Arts in the hope of making it to IAS, but could not make it and had to contend with a good position in a Bank. Chandrashekhar Sabnis became a doctor, but later died young due to a tragic accident. I met Pradeep later when he was transferred to Aurangabad, but have no contact with Dinesh after school and have no idea of what happened to him.

But my closest friend at Karad was Shrikant Sane, who did not figure in all this competition. Shrikant used to stay near my place, and we would be together for almost all the time. Shrikant taught me swimming; he was an expert, and with him and other friends I used to roam around doing trekking & many other exploits together. Once we had a shot at sighting the ghosts on the riverbank where there was a cremation ground and were told that the ghosts generally loiter there on a no-moon night. We used to study in the night at Shrikant’s place and decided to check this out, but when we ventured out on the next no-moon night at about 11.00 pm, our courage failed us after reaching the bank of the river and we ran back reciting Ramaraksha all the way. Of course, the other exploits worked, like trekking in the mountains of Agashiva and Sadashiva. Agashiva was a difficult trek, crossing over a few ranges, but Sadashiva was easier and I remember running all the way down the mountain just for the heck of it. Those indeed were happy days.

Karad Diaries-3

The earthquake occurred in the early morning, waking all of us up instantly. We were all sleeping on the floor as usual, but earth under us moved to and fro as if we were all sleeping on a giant swing, and we could not understand what was happening at first. We were all frightened, Sanju suggested we recite Ramaraksha and we all started reciting it in earnest. This went on for what felt like eternity, but could not have been more than a few minutes. After the movement stopped and everything was quite still, we rushed out of the house and assembled in the front courtyard. All the members of the landlord’s family had already gathered here, who, like us, were in their night-dresses, and there, in the sight of other people, we recovered enough to talk animatedly about the experience.

As it turned out, this was not altogether a novel experience for some from the landlord’s family, who used to live at Koyananagar, where earthquakes had occurred previously, but of course, they were of a smaller magnitude. We later learnt the devastating effects of this quake, which had caused havoc in Koyananagar and surrounding area near the epicentre of the earthquake. Our school was converted into a makeshift hospital to cater to the large number of people who were caught in the collapsing buildings and suffered injuries. After this quake, there were many aftershocks, and I remember sleeping out on the street en masse, for fear that the house would collapse over our head and later we moved to Kolhapur for a few months as the school was closed and we were given temporary admission in Vidyapeeth High School near Ambabai Temple in Kolhapur.

Surprisingly, there was virtually no damage to the structure of the house we lived in, mainly because it was a single storied structure with brick walls and a lightweight roof of steel sheets. So after a few months, we came back and continued to live in the same house as if nothing was amiss. I continued with my studies, and it was about an year after that I tried to take my life for reasons I can not remember, nor justify in any way.

As I recollect, we had a few choice locations for study, which I had found out with my friends in the school. One was under the old bridge over Koyana, where there was a gap between the steel girders and top of the stone pier of the bridge. This was quite high up and tricky to reach from the road at top but not really scary as the pier was very wide and the height of girder was about 6’, giving a good headroom. The other location was inside the shikhar (roof) of a deserted temple on the bank of the river, which was slightly dark inside but gave enough light from the opening to enable us to read if we sat just near the opening. It was in this location I tried drinking Tic-20, an insecticide, but apart from its horrible taste it turned out to be quite harmless. I have forgotten where I procured the bottle or why I did it, but remember that I felt relieved after I found out it did not work.

Much later, in an IIA seminar on character building, we were discussing the fears and loss of self-confidence in the young who are unable to accept the reality about them; I disagreed with the speaker and said nobody can feel insecure about his physical features or appearance, which is genetically programmed, but later recalled this incident and felt there might be some truth in this after all, as I recall no other reason for me to be so unhappy as to try to take my own life at the time.

Karad Diaries-2

The day I ran away from home was the day of Ranga-panchami, a day in which people throw colours on everyone they come across. People all over India celebrate this on the second day of Holi, but in western Maharashtra it used to be done on the 5^th day after Holi.  Though hailed as a celebration of colours, it doesn’t stop at colours; people throw muddy water at each other, smear each others faces with grease paint and hit unsuspecting bystanders with balloons filled with water and sometimes even push visitors in water tanks and so on. All in all it is a rowdy celebration and I hated it immensely, but that was not the reason I ran away from home.

We were three brothers then, and Vijay being youngest, was the spoiled child of the house. I and Sanju (the second brother) resented this, sibling rivalry being what it is; there were always some or the other kind of petty quarrels. Vijay, of course, would colour every incidence and report to father earnestly, resulting in him scolding us which was something we took for granted. We even had a nickname for Vijay, an abbreviation of ‘a puppet of the ruling power’. All this was normal, but the day before Ranga-panchami a complaint by Vijay made my father so mad that he beat me mercilessly with his shoes, which was more than I could take and decided to run away from home.

So in the morning of Ranga-panchami, I just took my bicycle and rode away, but had no clue as to where I would be going. So instinctively I thought of Grandma who was at Kolhapur as she adored me and would be consoling me and may even scold father for beating me. The distance was about 70 kms., and I managed to reach there by evening. The only incident during all this journey that I remember is that the rear tyre of the bicycle got punctured and I had to seek help of a puncture repair shop on the roadside who knew next to nothing about bicycles, there being no bicycle riders on the highway, but managed the job sufficiently for me to carry on riding. I do not remember paying him, but I used to have no money at the time and it never struck me that I would need any. So much for the planning to leave home and start a new life.

As it turned out there was no new life for me, only a change of place for a few days. Of course, as I learnt later, there was a great deal of search operation at Karad, when everyone realised my absence and Sanju bore the brunt as he was sent to search for me and became an easy target for all the rowdy activity of the day. This is something I had not anticipated and felt sad when I learnt about it. As all search at Karad failed, my father made a phone call to my mother’s ancestral home in Kolhapur, one of the very few places that had a telephone connection those days, and someone came to inquire about me at Grandma’s place, where I had reached by then.

So a great rebellion turned out to be a tame affair, the only outcome that I can now record is that I proved that I could ride a bicycle all day and travel 70-75 kilometres when young. I have a bicycle now and ride it occasionally for minor errands, and the maximum distance I can manage these days is about 5 kilometres. But then I am 65 now so that is also worth celebrating.  

Karad Diaries-1

Of all the towns I have ever stayed in, Karad happens to have some very special memories for me. It was here that I experienced firsthand the tremors of an earthquake, ran away from home for the very first and only time in my life and tried to take my own life for reasons I do not remember now. It was also where I explored the surrounding area with my friends, bicycling and trekking in the mountains, swimming in the river and doing many more exploits of similar kind, usual for a teenager.

I was all of 11 years old when we moved to Karad, and was admitted in the 8^th standard at the Tilak High School, which was about a mile from home, a distance I used to walk merrily with friends everyday. The School building was quite old, in typical british pattern of stone walls and verandahs enclosing a large courtyard where we had our morning prayers led by the Principal, who looked like the First President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, with his bushy white moustache, white dress and Gandhi cap.

We lived in a rented house, like most of the lower middle-class families at the time. The house had high compound wall with a central door leading to the front courtyard, and was divided in two parts, one for us and the other larger portion belonged to the landlord. The front courtyard had a large champak tree in the centre, and also had a common loo and a bathroom on one side. We had two rooms, the outer just enough to accommodate a folding bed, two chairs and a small cupboard. The inner room was slightly bigger and was used as kitchen, also had an open washing place, and a door leading into the rear common courtyard, which had a banana tree and scores of other plants all using the waste-water from kitchen. As I now realise, it was a model of a sustainable household, with almost no waste, and the only services we used were water supply from the city mains and electricity from the grid.

My father had purchased a big radio in Kolhapur, which was placed on top of the cupboard in the outer room, with its indoor antenna in the form of a wire-mesh about 4” wide and almost 10’ long spread all across the room at top. It was an extravagance on the part of my father, as its cost was more than double his monthly salary at the time, but my father did not bother about such things when it came to things he really fancied. I remember going to dramas with the entire household (we were 5) and the tickets were really way above what we could afford, as I realise now. He never spared expenses when it came to school-books, dresses and many such items, and I remember suggesting him once to buy second-hand books to save money, but he would have none of it.

We lived in an area called Dubal Galli in Shukrawar Peth, and here I faced a lot of bullies who would call me names, curse me for no reason and throw stones at me when I was not looking, and it was difficult to pass the road without something or the other happening almost every day to school. Once one of them caught hold of my schoolbag and ran away with it. I told my father about it and he ran after him, but couldn’t catch him. After this episode, I found out an alternate route to school and never had to face them again. The lane was actually famous for a very different reason, as it had a house belonging to the late Home Minister of India, Hon’ble Yashawantrao Chavan, and I remember once going to the place when he visited and joining the crowd of the visitors to have a look at him. He was a very simple person, who met and listened to all visitors earnestly before replying. I managed to get an autograph from him, and should have saved it for posterity, but can’t find it anywhere now.