There’s no getting around the fact that a key ingredient of an even-mildly interesting memoir is a life filled with instances that say something — about a business, a people, the times, the world, or some combination of these — of larger import than just the story of one person. Architect Gurjit Singh Matharoo’s decidedly interesting memoir — written by his self-appointed ‘sutradhar’ and one-time student at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Vagish Naganur — offers glimpses into 30 years of architectural practice in India. True, these glimpses are all funnelled through Matharoo’s experiences. But there’s such a varied bundle of stories — and such a vast cast of often rich and sometimes infamous clients — here, that the 196-page book is easily digestible and can be quite the page-turner.
Sample this story: When presenting the design for a massive house to a now-dead “Don” in the 1990s, Matharoo draws inspiration from his heroes Le Corbusier, Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and Scarpa. After some initial success, however, his plan for an expensive-modern-building-with-a-river-running-through-it is summarily rejected as resembling a “tabela”. Matharoo has to eventually oversee a Victorian-style bungalow in place of his modernist dream-house. But he exacts revenge in the way that only an architect can: he makes the path to the prayer room crooked, to say their ways wouldn’t lead them to God. If Matharoo had misgivings about working for criminals, those misgivings seem to have been of the most practical variety, with takeaways like “you don’t say no to the underworld”.
In another story, Matharoo is tasked with designing a “rocky riverfront” home. A mining licence is acquired, and attempts are made to close the distance between the house and the river using dynamite. When nothing else works, Matharoo dreams up the idea to flip the blueprint. It works.
In yet another story, he is keen on securing a view of a water body from his client’s holiday home but a tree in the neighbour’s yard stands in the way — here, his politically connected client comes to the rescue.
The chapters in the book are all tiny, and rarely sweat the details. There are descriptions when descriptions are necessary; like when the architects need to explain why construction sites were once full of donkeys, why they mixed and lay concrete at midnight, how hand-drafted building drawings called for a creative approach in revisions, why Matharoo calls in “specialist mandir decorators” when designing buildings for religious groups, and how at Matharoo Associates, the names of projects-people-clients are abbreviated in ways that can seem baffling to outsiders. But these explanations are in italics and can be skimmed or skipped, depending on the readers’ preference. For the most part, though, the writers seem keener to convey the job of the architect in balancing client expectations with architectural ambitions, and the exacting demands of engineering and the science of building materials.
To be sure, not all the stories are equally interesting. And some may interest architects of a certain vintage more than the general reader. But over his 30 years, Matharoo seems to have dealt with all kinds of well-to-do clients and all kinds of terrains and building problems, with his material of choice — reinforced concrete — presenting its own set of challenges and possibilities. (There’s an instance where his team is left scratching their heads about a dog walking across freshly laid concrete and another about securing a “floating” slab of concrete in a glass building.) A lot of the problems have to do with fighting gravity, but some are grave exchanges with owners with their own ideas of what is possible and desirable in the buildings they commission. There are presentations to religious institutions, and designs for public buildings as well as private homes. Over three decades, Matharoo seems to have developed a sense of humour about how some of these things come together in the end.
Finally, while this is not a book about projects that never took off or fell through for some reason, it ends with a story about one of his buildings that was “blown apart” with dynamite in 2019. (The book, again, does not name the client — but there’s enough information to put two and two together.)
Built on a rocky beach for “Fiery Fairy A”, the wife of Nirav Modi, who lost his final appeal against extradition to India from the UK in 2022, the home took years to make — just going to the site required one to travel by land and sea, and construction required approvals from multiple authorities. As time passed, people hooked up, got married, had babies. The home, already nicknamed MOHA, became a site of love in all these ways.
Eventually, as Modi's streak of luck in business faded, a cloud came over the 30,000-sq.ft Kihim Beach property too. Its destruction was live cast over the news. “With MOHA gone and becoming MAYA, the timeless waves on the rocky beach are now the only witness to the web of indestructible stories strewn around,” writes Naganur in the book. At the book launch, the architects showed photos of a luxurious property with a jacuzzi that had so much reinforced concrete poured in that bulldozers could not raze it — sadly, these photos haven't made it into the book. The authorities had to strip the home of its valuables and literally blow it up with dynamite — not the most eco-friendly ending for a building that was a labour of love for many.
To be sure, building a home is easily one of the most emotional things people do. Even if it is the second or third home for the mega-rich. It is also one of those spheres of life where many things intersect: design philosophy, yes. But also building technology, geology, and environmental concerns. CEPT, Ahmedabad-trained Matharoo’s memoir captures a slice of it all over the years, with a brand of humour — and perhaps a kind of calm — that is developed over years. For readers, his memoir — even if they’ve never seen one of his buildings — offers a quick read and a funny account of how the rich think about homes / temples / institutions, and how architects sometimes save them from their own worst ideas.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
