This is so refreshing. Winning after a lot of hard work is so encouraging. And especially winning a prize that one always wanted to. So it’s an achievement.
When we reached college yesterday at 12:30 pm, we were said that the Charles Correa Jury was already over. This brought in a lot of goosebumps because we were under the impression that the thing is going to go on till 4 pm. The jury called it off quite early.
I was also excited to see Dushyant’s thesis work. It was very nice of him to wait till the names of the winners were announced. Unfortunately his presentation was cancelled. But I called him up in the evening to thank him for encouragement and to meet him up for his presentation.
But before that, the announcement story…
We assembled in the hall. We took seat. And it was as quick as nothing. Kamu Iyer came on the stage. He said, I know you all are waiting for the name…and it is a project called “Cinema for the Blind”. Just for a fraction of a second I was lost in that dream which I always dreamt. But not wanting to miss the rest of his explanation, I came back in reality. While I held Dhaval’s hand quite tightly, the third name announced was his….this was the soney pe suhaaga…
I said to Dhaval, "wow…what a birthday gift dhaval" and he was happy too.
Later on , I was called on stage to shake hands with the master himself. I sneakily handed over the camera to Dhaval telling him to take pictures…and he obliged.
As I approached the stage, I could not believe myself shaking hands with Charles Correa. "Ah….!" my mind said. Now, Correa is a tall figure - you have to anyways look up to him. He had a gliding smile; soft, very soft gesture. Then I shook hands with others – Ravi Hazra, Narendra Dengle, Kamu Iyer and this is when, Sen Kapadia handed over the mike to me asking me to tell the story of the conception of the project…
I felt like I have to give a speech after winning an Oscar Award…and I stupidly said the following:
“Since morning I have being thinking of various things to speak, but now I am actually speechless. So please pardon me if I may go wrong."
"Are you excited?", Wandrekar sir (our trustee) asked.
"Yes! I am...very much" I replied
"That is very good."
I continued, "About two years ago, now three, I had gone to Nehru Science Centre where I saw these blind students walking around the exhibits. This was the point which put me into questioning that what are the blind students doing in a place where there is everything to see. So blind got stuck in my head. That is how the inquiry started…”
Sen Kapadia said, “But this is something that you have already mentioned in your dissertation…the real story must be something else…”
I said, “Actually in my last five years of architectural education, I have never made exciting forms, because I always used to question this form, what is form? And when I got this idea, I thought this was the best way to carry forward my questions”
Sen: But it must have been difficult…how did you convince your faculty?
Me: Yes, it was very difficult. I had to fight a lot, telling them that this is possible. i actually have a paper still, in which one of my jury members said, “Scrap this project”. But I knew that this was possible. so it was not easy. I had to argue a lot and my professors sitting here know that…
Sen then asked the jury panel if they had any questions. I don’t remember who, but someone asked : What is blind?
This is one question that I have never been able to articulate… I tried, “who is blind? I myself don’t know who is blind…I am still in the process of finding out who is blind…but blindness exists. There is this one quote in the last page of my dissertation, which reads that ‘we are blind people who can see, but do not see.’ so I think we all are blind, and we are in this cinema…!”
Sen asked me to take back my seat in the audience. And he continued, “I think the blind is a metaphor, and some time ago we were talking about what is the future of the architecture… I think Mr. Adarkar, you don’t need to do anything, your students are already on the right path.”
Adarkar sir requested Mr. Correa to say a few words…and this was something special…
Correa came and said, “I am not going to talk here about any specific thing, but all these projects raised some issue. In all the three projects there is some sensitivity, with respect to the city. The winning project is talking about his site as the old cinema hall, which is itself is a landmark, and how do you work around it. I think what he is talking about is the insensitivity…you see it was the television which came in to picture and then there were these lots of images. I think this non resolution of the blind must have helped him to take the project the way it is now. May be what he means by blindness is the insensitivity, about the people who can see, but do not look…”
Later, Dhaval and I presented our thesis, and I realized that my pendrive was not showing the presentation file. So I quickly took out my cd…(this is where I appreciated my own preparedness). Though the presentation was old and not updated, I somehow managed to complete it. It was a very ok kind of a presentation I gave. We then left…came out…met Correa. Correa invited me to his office sometime. Ravi Hazra invited me to his college. We met people…it was a nice feeling…very nice feeling…
