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.