Back during my undergraduate days, there was a classmate of mine who mentioned going for an internship in Ahmedabad. That was the first time I heard about Ahmedabad and I wondered why someone would go all the way from Chennai to intern in Ahmedabad. A few months later another senior mentioned an architect from Ahmedabad and she used to quote him often, and her experiences of being in the presence of that Architect. His name was entirely new to me and I wondered who he was – Prof.Neelkanth Chhaya.
Years rolled by and I happened to join masters in CEPT. ‘Introduction to Architecture Thinking’ – A mandatory course for the foundation studio in 2014, which was probably the last semester-long class taken by Professor Chhaya at CEPT University. In a recent conversation with Landscape Designer Lavanya Anbalagan, I said it was a mere coincidence that I happened to be in Chhaya’s lecture. She smiled back and said…’Yes, it was a coincidence but it happened. The coincidence happened! And that is important; remembering what Steve Jobs said: ‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.’
The first day of the class saw a fully packed auditorium and it remained full every week. I wondered why there were so many people in the auditorium other than those who had enrolled for the class. There was this thin man clad in a kurta and white pants with a small hard-bound notebook in his hand. He walked amidst all the students towards the blackboard with a smile that I had never seen with any of the professors before. As the class started there was a very simple question that was asked, ‘How Do Buildings Stand?’ I remember this question very vividly as he started explaining with a triangle that he drew on the blackboard in the simplest of terms, what the basis of architecture was.
For some reason, I had tears rolling down just listening to what he was saying. I did not understand why or what it was but I was in constant tears throughout the class and that was one of the most evolutionary moments of life, which I realise now. That was a moment of true bliss, a moment of witnessing what true wisdom is, a moment of understanding what the depth of a true teacher is, a moment beyond all these descriptions. That moment stayed with me forever and from then on I have been a secret admirer of this caricatured animated bearded child. I have never seen somebody so dedicated to what they are teaching that they become the subject. I have seen Professor Chhaya’s body bend in numerous ways that are humanly possible to explain a concept. He becomes the column, the beam, the door, the window, or anything he is discussing he becomes that. He is a child at heart and a very intense fierce and passionate doer, like his mentor Kurula Varkey…’ in whom a sense of seriousness is at once combined with a sense of mischief.’ It was in 2015 when the sixty-year-old school of architecture was going through a tremendous systematic change, the Kvdf forum invited Chhaya for the memorial speech. That speech almost summarized everything that was happening universally in institutions of education – systemisation.
In the words of Chhaya, “A teacher must be a cheater, who seduces the student to enter the world of adventure. A teacher and a cheater are not very different. Some students are equally good teachers and equally good cheaters. The work of a teacher is to explain the unexplainable. A teacher is an agent of transformation. He is not alone, for he himself has to be constantly transformed. So the teacher is never able to fit into systems. Never.” In another transformative lecture, there was a student who raised a question about the factuality of a story that he had shared and I wondered what Chhaya would reply. Chhaya smiled and said, ‘Yes you are right this is my story and this is how it happens in my story, You can always create your own story that is convincing for you…Storytellers should never be afraid of not being true…and for most teachers, the biggest joy is to tell stories, even though they try to pretend they are telling the truth’ and the whole audience erupts into laughter and applause.
Much later through a friend, I got to know the reading sessions that happen every Sunday at Chhaya’s place. With much hesitation, one Sunday we reached the house uninvited. The doors were open and a Hindustani gazal played from a silver colour boss speaker. He was baking bread in the kitchen and asked us to sit around the Japanese-style dining table. He got the bread to the table sat next to us and asked what music we listened to. As we fumbled to answer, he began to explain the difference between the keerthanais of Thyagaraja and Muthuswami Dikshithar, with the example of a banana. Honestly, I did not understand any of it as the moment was surreal and I would not believe I was sitting next to Chhaya himself.
There is always baked bread and green tea, along with a reading chosen impromptu. But the reading always does answer, the unasked question of someone present in the circle. It is not the book that is discussed but it is disguised as a tool that triggers and reorients the moral ‘inner compass’ of the students. In a recent session attended by architect Chinmayee, she shared similar experiences of being with Chhaya for the first time in person. It is indeed a goosebump moment and continues to be surreal, for it definitely has to be experienced by everyone in person. In a conversation with Cuckoo Sivraj Anna, he mentioned that it is in the eyes of the person you understand what they are. I realised this with Chhaya, eyes so powerful and so intense that you cannot look back into his eyes that are completely filled only with compassion, wisdom, grace, passion and love.
A few years later when I was teaching at a University in Chennai, one of the students Akshaya, wanted to do her architectural internship with Chhaya. I was very happy, that a student knew about Chhaya during her college days, unlike how I was. Her dad had accompanied her to the office. ‘ While I was sitting there tensed and trembling, Chhaya was instantly able to make a dialogue with my father which lasted for more than two hours. Though there was no vacancy for an intern, Chaaya immediately called a few other offices, which were run by his students and got her into a firm in Ahmedabad and also kindly accepted me to come to his office whenever I could. The moment was so magical’ recounts Akshaya.
After graduation, Akshaya used to write letters to Chhaya on her Koru postcards explaining the reason she wanted to work with Chhaya. She was very persistent that she wanted to work only with Chhaya. Months later Magic happened, as Professor Chhaya later said in one of the office conversations “She is somebody very different. There used to be no space to sit, no system to work, not much stipend we could afford her…but still she just refused to leave. She came with a sketchbook and was persistent in being in the office. She always has something to gift someone, like the elephant she had gifted Doshi, which Doshi safely preserved. She has a sketching skill so good, which even I do not”.
Akshaya now works as an architect with Professor Chhaya on the conservation of the Gandhi ashram, probably the only architect who has the privilege to work from inside the Sabarmati ashram, and definitely the only person who has a conversation with the statue of Gandhi every evening at sunset. She sits right behind Chhaya’s desk in the office, makes ‘Darj’ Tea every morning for Chhaya and is inspired constantly by being in the presence of the Master and has a lot of stories to share. “ Chhaya notices everything, about everyone. He always keeps thinking about, the needs of all his students. He exactly understands what each one of us is going through personally and comes up with a solution which suits the situation the best.” adds Akshaya.I was not in town for a week and unexpectedly Chhaya walked into the office and said ‘Akshaya your back in the office…I have a job for you come let’s Go to the ashram ‘ with his typical smile and that changed my entire emotional state of being.
‘ His process of designing is very intuitive and I consider as lucky to have been in close quarters and observed the process. At times Chhaya might work on a door design for an entire day.
He might reject it the next morning and will come up with something new and his ideas are fresh and evolved. It’s always a wonderful experience to go with Chhaya for site visits. After one such recent visit, we discussed what we all had observed. It’s when Chhaya explained about the process of visualising the spaces through sequential narration of experiences and building a plan through it. Chhaya always says ‘Whenever you are visiting a space be a thief… take something from the space…learn about the proportion, scale, material or anything you find interesting’.
‘After a phase of multiple rejections, waiting with the unknown, and general stress, one summer evening with the crisp Ahmedabad heat slowly settling with a bright setting sun, Prof Chhaya, myself, and Meer Kanhai (his grandson) sat down to make Aam Ras. Sir was at it with full focus, his mind and body were completely present with the mangoes, while Meer was on my lap and I stared at the process, struck with awe at how it was being done. Sir was explaining and demonstrating that because of the particular state and consistency, it can be made into ras, how he still prefers to make ras with his bare hands etc. And then little Meer gave a surprised ‘ooh!’, to which sir said ‘Haan yes, you cannot expect mangoes at any time, they are ready only at their particular months and are best to be eaten only then, everything has its’ own time!
There was a moment of realisation for both the baby and myself, as it probably hit us at various levels. I understood then that things take time to reach fruition, and hurrying a process may not allow you to enjoy the state of Aam Ras. Trusting time and process was something I needed to hear then – aloud. I often find myself hearing from sir something that has been on my mind, as a question, thought, worry, or simply a meaningless moment to be answered or attended to by sir, without him knowing it may be, and of course without me mentioning a word about it. It fascinates me how one can be a teacher of various sorts and scenarios in life, not the classroom/studio alone’ exclaims Soundarya, another architect whose life has been transformed by working closely with both Chhaya and B.V.Doshi.
Incidents of such inexpressible coincidentive compassion happen every day in the presence of Chhaya to someone or the other. Amidst the different things that he’s engaged in consistently, he always makes time for those who are in need. For the past more than four decades that he has been with the students he would have influenced at least a few thousand directly and many more indirectly with his presence, probably a trait learnt from his mentor B.V.Doshi. In a series of ‘Cuckoo Conversations’ with mentors from various walks of life, the conversation between Chhaya and B.V.Doshi is indeed a significant one, as it is probably the only public conversation between them directly accessible online.
Excerpts from the conversation:
Doshi: I will ask the canteen people to give me 40 cups of tea and we will have tea together in the class. The first thing is can we make the students, part of us? The first thing is you must have a sense of equality. There is respect, but not fear. There is a reverence for what you are, but not what your position is. I think this is the fundamental difference.
The second thing is, very often when the girl children were working late in the night…I am talking of 1965…Parents would be worried …I would go pick them up and drop them back at home…Now, the whole idea is, that it is not an impersonal institution but an extended family, where everyone is learning from one another. The idea is to integrate and not segregate This is the principle. We used to sit with the students, pick up the pencil and draw along with them.
Chhaya: ‘ But Doshi… isn’t this spoon-feeding, to draw with the student?
Doshi: No, it is not. Actually, if you are careful..next time the student is working on his own.
You are verbally explaining to them, why you are doing it…You tell me…Teaching cooking is not spoon-feeding. We are cooking together. The idea is we are together. We are talking about togetherness and not hierarchy….We are talking about learning without boundaries.
Chhaya: But..when there are no boundaries to learning,
one is afraid one can go wrong.
Doshi: No, How can you go wrong, when you don’t know anything?
Having been fortunate enough to be associated with Cuckoo Forest School and CEPT, I find both of them to have the same intent – ‘School without boundaries’. This Conversation hosted by ‘Paraa’ Mirra Kannan, the only architect in the world to work in a piano drome; is a conversation between two curious children with an immense passion for questioning and learning; a conversation filled with so much love and laughter; a conversation between a 70-year-old student and a 90-year-old teacher. In another conversation as a homage to Doshi, Chhaya adds ‘It is difficult to remember Doshi with any sadness. He had such a wonderful sense of life. Two months ago before Doshi died, Doshi would invite me to his place and both of them would sit in the garden. Though he was very weak, we would spend about half an hour in the garden.
One day I remember, a leaf fell from the tree ..and as it was falling, it was twirling…and fell on the grass..And Doshi said something, very very unexpected..’Can we sense, what the leaf might have been feeling about the two of us sitting here? What might be the leaf’s perception of us? And that ability to transport himself into other beings was something that helped him absorb life and make his architecture such that, it could take place in such vigour, but it also allowed him to make institutions like CEPT.’
Neelkanth Chhaya joined as a student of Doshi at CEPT in 1965 and retired as the Dean in 2013; almost half a century of association with the school. ‘In Gratitude’, the final lecture by Prof.Chhaya, as Dean of the school and probably the last lecture in the school in which Doshi had participated …‘ The institution is not the objective. The objective is the transformation that happens in the student and teacher at the point of learning, not the student alone. What has been the most exciting thing about being here is, that every semester I have changed from what I was.’ It would not be exaggerating to say, the world would be hard-pressed to find another Guru-shishiya like Doshi and Chhaya.In observance of the birth anniversary of Doshi, the Vastu Shilpa Foundation, has Introduced the ‘Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award’ 2023 and has announced Professor Neelkanth Chhaya as the inaugural recipient of the award in recognition of his exceptional contributions to education, innovation, and transformative mentorship.
In the words of author Jeyamohan ..’ The teacher stands as an ideal example before the student. He gives away himself to student. The image that he wants to be. His future stands before him in human form. Imagine the upheaval it would have given at that young age. The future. Destiny! What is it but God? The other side of it is the teacher. As far as he is concerned, the student is his future.
Through him, he can transcend time.
He is the proof of his immortality.
Their words do not perish.’
