Welcome to Samvaad, where art meets conversation, and inspiration knows no bounds. Here we engage in insightful conversations with eminent personalities from the art fraternity. Through Samvaad, Abir Pothi aims to create a platform for thought-provoking discussions, providing readers with an exclusive glimpse into the creative processes, inspirations, and experiences of these creative individuals. From curating groundbreaking exhibitions to pushing the boundaries of artistic expression, our interviews shed light on the diverse perspectives and contributions of these art luminaries. Samvaad is your ticket to connect with the visionaries who breathe life into the art world, offering unique insights and behind-the-scenes glimpses into their fascinating journeys.
Welcome to another insightful episode of Samvaad at Jaquar, hosted by Ruby Jagrut and brought to you by Abir Pothi. Today, the spotlight shines on a remarkable duo, Sarosh and Azmi Wadia, a married couple whose partnership extends beyond life’s boundaries into the realm of architecture. In this engaging conversation, their journey through the architectural landscape is illuminated, alongside their roles as educators and the intricate interplay between their personal and professional lives. With a rich reservoir of experience and a distinct perspective, Sarosh and Azmi offer profound insights into the evolving facets of architectural practice, the seamless fusion of teaching and real-world application, and the myriad challenges and gratifications of collaborating intimately with one’s spouse. As we delve into the lives and careers of these talented architects, their fervour and commitment to their craft become palpable, enriching our understanding of the narratives that shape our world. Thank you for joining us at Abir Samvaad, where conversations flourish and stories unfold, illuminating the tapestry of human experiences.
Ruby: Hello, I’m Ruby Jagrut. Welcome to “Samvaad at Jaquar.” Abir Pothi brings you enriching conversations around art and architecture. In this series, today we are going to talk to very senior, prominent practitioners from Surat, Sarosh Wadia and Azmi Wadia. They have a wealth of experience in architecture and teaching. They are partners in practice, partners in life, and partners in crime, which Sarosh jokingly denied just a few minutes ago. Welcome to Abir Pothi and Abir Samvaad. I’m very happy to be talking to you both today. Thank you.
Let’s start with Sarosh, because he mentioned, “I started my career when I was a student. I was also teaching even before I started my practice. I started working as a student and assisting Mr. Doshi in teaching.” Mr. Doshi is a legendary architect; he’s no longer with us, but we are here, and architecture is very much here because of him, as we can see. He was a pioneer, taking the first step in Ahmedabad. Can you please share your experience with working with Mr. Doshi?
Sarosh: You know, people talk about Mr. Doshi as the architect, yes, but even greater as a teacher. He was a great teacher, and I joined him as a trainee. Luckily, I was very interested in photography. I used to be the Lightroom in charge at my college, okay, in SEPT University. So, obviously, when Mr. Doshi got a space to display in the Venice Biennale, where he got the largest space—they give a running meter area—Mr. Doshi had the largest area to cover. He had a lot of projects by then. By the time I had joined him, I was a very young student, in my fourth year. Because of my photography experience, when he was trying to put things across, people noticed me. His consultant photographers noticed me and said, “Sarosh is with you, so why don’t you put him on the project?”
Being a trainee, you don’t get any value in the office because the office at that time, I think, had 40 people working with him. I was the last rung in the chain, you know. Three trainees: two from Chandigarh, one from Ahmedabad. We were the last round. We were kept away in a mezzanine, tucked away there. So, I just suddenly got a call from the reception saying, “Come down, wants to talk to you.” So I went down, and I asked him, “What is it?” He said, “Would you like to work on this exhibition because somebody from the office is to coordinate it, and you to put it together in, say, 15 days.” So I said, “What is the exhibition?” He told me, and I said, “Sir, you really expect us to do this work in 15 days?” Because at that time, all the printing and shooting, everything was manual. You had a negative you had to process, and that took time, you know. And my professor in photography was his consultant, and another, Dinesh Mehta, was also his consultant. And we had to put up the same exhibition, which was being put up by SEPT also in the same format. So we were helping there also. All three were involved there.
So, that time, I came to know Doshi very personally, you know, how human he was. Sometimes I used to work late at night. Sometimes I used to go back at 12:30, and Doshi used to visit us around 9:30 or so, you know. So, he would ask us, “Okay, have you had your dinner?” So I said, “Sir, what dinner? I’ll have it later when I go back.” So he said, “Why? Where do you have dinner?” So I said, “My mess keeps a covered thali, so I go and eat there.” So he said, “What time does the mess close?” “9:30.” So he said, “Meaning you have cold food at 12:00 in the night?” “Yes, every day I do that.” So he said, “No, no, no, today you’ll order, and why you go back, you sleep here. We have got a guest house on top, and actually, you are all going to work there because there’s the largest space which is blank in the office, so you sleep there only, and you order whatever you want, and my staff will get it for you.”
You know, I was surprised because I was a trainee, the last rung of the office, and I used to get, and I used to work 24 hours because of that. The only thing which he did made me work. He also knew where human-to-human touch was needed, and he was a great teacher. I taught with him, and exchange students from Pella, there were two-three exchange trips, and we used to go to Rajasthan, so that we could measure some havelis there or measure the site there, and then they would do the studio there. I used to assist Doshi in that, to go to Rajasthan. We used to, me and my friend used to study all the history needed for that place, and then in the bus while traveling, now used to vomit it out to the students that, “Okay, this is the place you’re going to.” So they are in awe, and they see the place, and they were really in awe because Rajasthan is a beautiful place by itself, and there where small things mattered, you know. We used to tell them, and that is how I learned teaching from Mr. Doshi.
Okay, and then a very funny incident happened. Then all that was put aside. I finished my thesis, and actually, we had gone for her… this thing, to pick up her degree certificate or something like that, and she had to give a No Due Certificate to the College office. So we were climbing the ramp, and I hear somebody, “Sarosh, Sarosh.” I turned around to Mr. Doshi, so I walked up to him and asked him, “Yes, sir?” He said, “Tomorrow you come and have breakfast at my place.” I said, “Sir, but we are leaving today evening. We just came to pick up some things, and give her no dues certificate.” So we just came. “No, no, no, you stay back, cancel your tickets, and stay back. Very important things to discuss tomorrow.” I was surprised. So I said, “Okay, sir, but tell us something.” Doshi sir said, “you have breakfast, then sit and talk.”
Azmi: So, you were actually quite concerned because a person like that doesn’t just say he needs to talk to you, you know? Young, yeah. Anyway, we went for breakfast to his house the next morning, and after we sat down—he’s got this round table and things like that—we sat, and he says, “Okay, I’ve got a complaint against both of you.”
Oh, so he said, “You know, what is the problem?”
So he says, “I’m getting complaints from senior architects in Surat that they want to start a school of architecture, and you two are not cooperating.”
Oh, so we said, “Sir, there’s, you know, that kind of… the kind of teaching staff that you require, the dedication that you need… you know, because both of us being from SEPT, we’ve seen how dedicated our teachers have been. And Surat, 30 years ago, was a very, very commercial city. It is still very commercial, but now you can see that there’s a lot of good design. But 30 years ago, it was weird. I mean, there were all kinds of things which were going on which you didn’t really call architecture.”
So we said, “Sir, you know, that dedication, the environment is not there.”
So he says, “But instead of being outside of something and cribbing and complaining about it, get involved. Get involved and do something good, do something positive.”
And that is how we both got involved in what is now the SEPT College of Architecture, you know, the Faculty of Architecture. So, we got involved at that time, before you know it, it formalized while the syllabus was being made and things like that, and then we chose to continue to be there. We’re still very much a part of SEPT, but we never got involved as full-time faculty.
So, we are very much a part of it. We both like teaching. I think it keeps us young, it keeps us on our toes. It also improves our relationship with our own children because you’re constantly dealing with young people who, you know, who have got ideas which are sometimes wild, curious, you know? And it’s really nice. I find teaching very therapeutic, actually. Okay, and studying too of course.
Ruby:I think my guru, Toofan Rafai, used to tell me, “You have no idea how much I’ve learned from you.” You know, so it has always been a vice versa situation. Along with the teaching, you also built your practice, right? That’s what I understood from our conversation earlier. So, how did you balance these two? And, being a professor or a teacher, would you say being a practicing architect is sometimes not a good thing to have?
Azmi: No, I think it’s a very good balance. It gives you a fresh perspective. You know, when you’re in practice all the time, there is a tendency to say, “Okay, you know, why don’t you just look up that drawing and see how we can modify things?” At least in interior design, a lot of that happens. You have templates which are then modified slightly and reused. But when you are constantly with fresh blood, with young students, there are so many fresh ideas. You have to read up also, meaning you go into class and they have questions. If you’re stuck in your office all the time and you don’t update yourself, then you’re not going to be able to relate to the younger generation. There’s something going on in Pinterest, there’s something going on in Instagram, which we are not very conversant with, but at the same time, let us at least see what is influencing them. Then you can also give feedback or you can guide them correctly. You can say, “Okay, this is something which is flashy, this is glossy, but this maybe doesn’t have depth,” or “You need to look at it from a different perspective.” So, I think, sometimes, yes, it does eat up into our time, but like I said, we enjoy it.
Sarosh: I have a different perspective on it, that, yes, it teaches me all the time. It shows me where our practice is going, okay? Because most of the time, they want to study our buildings. Oh yes. So then, what you practice, you preach, yes. We realised very early in life, in our first few designs, that our students are going to see it. Yes, scrutinised, yes. So then, we can’t do mediocre work. We can’t do work where they come and say, “This is done by somebody,” you know, because, finally, they’ll find out who designed it. So, we always have that kind of a take on it also—that our students are going to see it sometimes.
Ruby: You rightly mentioned the influence of Pinterest, Instagram, and the social media chaos, which is very much a reality of this time and age. There are clients who come up with photographs, and that’s a change I’ve been noticing and hearing a lot about from many architects.
How do you deal with it? In earlier times, architects used to educate and make their clients aware of what was good for them, what was in their interest, and what was in the interest of design. But in this time and age, people come up with photographs of buildings designed in Sweden, Japan, or somewhere else, and there’s an expectation like that.
You also have to cater to that. You also have to be very objective, see where it is coming from, and maintain your philosophy and your design sensibilities. How do you manage that? Because, on one hand, you’re working with the younger generation, so you’re also aware of the madness that has started along with the architects because of social media.
How do you retain this, and how do you strike the right balance between these two?
Azmi: This has been happening not just recently; it’s been occurring from the very initial projects, particularly when it involves residences. That’s because your references are often TV serials, so, like in our case, we’ve also been given video cassettes since the ’90s.
Ruby: Okay, I was not aware that this has been happening.
Sarosh: Since then, okay, I’m very sure that in the older generation of architects, this was happening too. I wasn’t aware of the video cassette thing, but I’m surely aware of this new age scenario where Pinterest, Instagram, websites, and YouTube are very much part of it. And you were saying that this was happening earlier.
Azmi: That was happening, yes, absolutely. It’s just that the media has changed. The references that clients bring have evolved; now, on the contrary, clients are more aware, so they understand that context is also important. Okay, so, you know, they would not expect something from Sweden, for example, understanding that it might not be appropriate. So, they are a little more educated now in that respect, but they also have more exposure, so they will question you more, okay, about what you’re doing, what your theme is, what your concept is. But you were talking about how we strike a balance, and I think that’s very important. Earlier, the approach, you know, I think when you graduate, the approach is to be slightly stiffer in the sense of, “Okay, okay, I’m qualified, I know my job, and this is how it’s going to be done.”
Sarosh: Especially if you’re from SEPT.
Azmi: Yes true
To be continued….
