Rules for 40 plus Working Mothers

As working women or those who used to work before, now are in transition or career downshifting for care-giving reasons or for healing their burnout of those hardworking years , this reality check is for us! Finding out the underlying meaning of life and our real role in it, is a journey of ups and downs and relentless experiments.

In this scenario of ‘ If not you, there are hundreds waiting in line for the same job you are doing’ , proving your worth, carving your niche is difficult. It has taken me years of experimenting with different jobs to outline some basic rules for working mothers who are “slightly different” like me and are trying to fit in this ‘one size fits all’ world -

1.Your Boss should always think he/she is smarter than you. You have to play it down, seem unsmart, not too wise and carry an outdated phone.

2.You should never be unconventionally dressed or seem more fashionable than others, your Boss or his wife, for obvious reasons. No workplace wants a fashion forward, well informed, fit woman over forty. The opposite option is most welcome!

3.You should never be organised and systematic in your work. People prefer messy as it makes them look better in comparision.

4.Noone likes those who stand up against unethical behaviour and dare to question it. Everyone prefers those who suffer silently with their head down.

5.You should not have clear work boundaries. You should be willing to stay overnight, be underpaid, take disrespect with a smile, ignore racist behaviour, and be okay with working on the dining table with uncomfortable chairs, for as long as it takes the office to move to the more spacious upper floor, which was promised at the time of your interview. (Especially when the interview happens in a cafe or online, it is easy to mask many a harsh reality of the office!)

6.Your lunch box should never be filled with well thought out healthy options. People are scared of healthy eaters , they prefer unhealthy eaters, who give them company in ordering junk food everyday and dont make them feel guilty!

7.You should be absolutely fine with younger Gen Z colleagues continuously staring into their phones at lunch hour, not talking a single word to each other. You should be willing to have only plants for having a conversation, even if they are artificial! Having living office plants is a dream that only the lucky ones get! No one has the time to take care of real plants in today’s fast paced world! Even if it is a landscape architect’s office!!! And NO, you cannot bring your own desk plant. Never well received.

8.You should be ok with having your desk facing an unfinished unplastered dead wall, dark curtains allowing no light, underground pub ambience with irregular spot lights casting uncomfortable shadows under the gimmick of designing an “ exposed utilities minimalist modern office interior” They themselves dont really know what that is, by the way!

9.You should basically be like a slave, saying yes with a smile to everything they tell you to do! Gulp it down with a poker face. The best qualities for a female employee over forty is to have a poker face and no spine. You can do “ very well” at your work then.

10.You have to laugh at the boss’s jokes and let him/ her win at the game of ping pong . They set up the ping pong table to show their clients how much they care about their employees, remember! Noone is actually supposed to play, didnt you get the unsent memo! And winning against the Boss is like typing your exit letter yourself!

11.Never mention your kids at work. Your kids can never seem absolutely normal, sporty, smart and definitely not cute! If that happens to be the case, good luck with your next job!

12.Never invite any of those office “yes-men” home. They will report about your home interior design to the Boss! And if your home happens to be tastefully done(giving tough competition to the Boss), game over!

13.You can travel only to your sad little home country (preferably third world) , and never to any exotic beach location. Thats only reserved for the Boss and his family or his secret girlfriend!

14.Your Instagram page can never be more creative than your Boss’s or his wife’s(who may be secretly viewing your page. She already hates you, by the way!)

15.Your husband can never be better looking/ well built than your Boss/ your Boss’s! If he is, guaranteed, you will never get that promotion! In fact if you seem like a happily married woman with kids, the chances of getting anything are dim. They prefer it being the opposite.

16.Your car should never be quirkier than your Boss’s /Boss’s wife’s car. In fact, you dont even deserve to have a car. If its a hopeless second hand one, its ok. If you cycle to work or walk, showing commitment to sustainability (what the office brags about) then they’ll actually hate you even more! How dare you lead an actually sustainable life! Its making the Boss look bad, dont you get it?

17.You should never correct the spellings in the report already “ seen” by the Boss. Aww! His adorable dyslexia!

Basically you should pretend to be a Big Zero in front of the Boss, become the loyal dog and wait for the charity biscuits to be offered to you.

If you choose to stay the carefree cat you are, you’ll never "make it" in this work world, dear woman!

So just stretch that flexible spine ...cat and cow, cat and cow, no downward dog and curl back to sleep. Its a beautiful day, to realize this, isnt it!

#careerminimalism #downshifting #workingwomaninamansworld #tothemalechauvinists #rulesforfortyplusworkingwomen

:: My favourite office space till date (late 2014  to early 2023) ::

The City within Me

Where is that large rain tree that used to cover the street with dappled sunlight? In that place stands an unfinished flyover bridge blocking all the light at ground level. Has it really solved the traffic problem? Perhaps not. But it has definitely spoilt the spatial quality of the place.

There’s a posh newly built glass building, I was invited to. It had an overflowing garbage dump right next to the high-end , not so pedestrian friendly entrance. Most well dressed office goers must be noticing this every single day as they step over. But no-one wants to do anything about it. Once you reach your air conditioned top floor office, little do you care about what happens on the street!

I was told about a “ High Street” , a so called happening location in this newly grown limb of the city. It is accessed through a slum, that seems to look bigger and bigger on the google maps each year. People have just trained themselves to turn a blind eye to everything that weakens the urban fabric.

I like how the word ‘park’ is so loosely used in the city context. There are taller and taller glass buildings of IT parks, but lesser play parks. And almost no place where one can ‘park’ a car, a bike and definitely not a cycle! (because even though it might be the most convenient means of transport, some think riding a cycle says you are not doing very well in life!)

I see no proper footpaths on these new streets, of course no cycle paths, lesser trees and therefore lesser birds. The experts also had plans to bulldoze out a road through the hills amidst the city to solve the traffic problems. The hills are the only green lungs left in this ever spreading cancerous growth of this city...this city that used to be my only home once upon a time...

All this is called “ development”. I am an architect, but this kind of haphazard development, with little thought on urban design and holistic town planning, deeply disturbs me. Beauty in irregularity and unplanned growth can be appreciated only in nature, not in the urban context.

I live in another city but this city still lives within me. This is where I was born and raised. I spent the first 20 years of life here. This city helped me germinate from a seed to a shrub. And hence I don't have a business relation with this city, I have an emotional connection.

But now when I visit it, I miss the soul of the city. Those old heritage stone houses are all being demolished one after the other to make way for new fancy buildings. All cute lanes and coloneys with quaint bungalows and balconies are gone. Streets looks different, with newer and taller structures, lesser greenery. There used to be a lake somewhere here. Its now blocked by some unknown unfinished construction. I have to turn on google maps to figure out my orientation.

I see, most people around me are staring into their smart phones, following that blue marked path, not even knowing where it leads to. The destination was filled in by someone else a long time ago. It is perhaps totally changed now. Yet, they continue to blindly trace that line without a doubt, without a question...perhaps all through their lives, with a hope to make a better living...

Back in 2005, I am glad I continued with the prototype design for “ (Urban) Empowerment Centre for (Rural) Women” as my Thesis topic for my final year of Architecture. My professors we advising me to go with some ‘happening’ topic such as an IT Park! But I wanted to design something I would continue to believe in throughout my life. I realise now, all my research towards that empowerment centre was the beginning of everything that took me to Amaira the little woman!

Its now upon people like us, who left the city in search of greener pastures, who need to think differently and find ways to restore the lost charm of our city and bring the greenery back. We need to return with arms spread out, as grown trees, to offer a selfless shade and share lessons learnt all along the way, with a hope to make a positive difference and give something back to our city.

#punecity #giveback #emotionalconnect #citywithinme #holisticplanning #restorelostcharm #undevelopment  #mycitymyresponsibility 

The Survivor

When we moved to this house, I brought along with me all my potted plants. The largest one amongst them was my frangipani. When I saw the community garden, I thought it was the perfect place to replant the frangipani and let it bloom freely in the deep soil, beyond the confines of the pot. With the help of the kind gardener, I planted it next to the entrance to our block. This was back in 2022 when our dear shrub was just about a metre tall.

Last winter, with all the refurbishment and waterproofing works in the community garden, my favourite frangipani was in danger. I decided to take a chance by moving it into a large planter until they finished the repair work. Many of the larger trees with thick roots did not survive this process. They were mercilessly removed from their place.

I continued to water the frangipani through these difficult months of its confinement, with a hope that it would survive.

Last spring, when finally all the work was completed and the garden was transformed with new soil, new grasses and some new plants, my brave survivor found a fresh new opportunity to grow. With the help of the kind gardener again, I transferred my frangipani on the other side of our entrance, safely tucked away next to the balcony, from where I hoped to touch its leaves and flowers.

It's been three to four months now and our dear survivor has branched out till the balcony. I see the thick bunches of white plumeria flowers and I remember my *Frangipani Fest with the other favourite frangipani trees from a year ago! Sadly, none of them are in the garden now. They did not survive…

I see Ginger and Simba, the oldest two cats from the neighbourhood very happy to have their favourite hiding places back again. However, there is no sign of our dear cat Rumi. She never returned…

But our lone survivor, Miss Frangipani has now reached the first floor, spreading her roots and branches freely. I feel so happy, she is officially a tree, who survived and is thriving, showering us with many fragrant white blossoms.

Sometimes, my life in this country feels like the frangipani in the confines of a large pot ... All these years, there was room in the pot. But now, the roots have no space to spread any more. I kept replanting myself into different kinds of pots of different shapes and colours. But there is no free space to explore. Slowly the branches, like shoulders, start to droop down; leaves, like hair, begin to fade out and solitary flowers, like aspirations, display a dejected bloom.

I am waiting to find a permanent deep moist earthy setting to call this soil my own, to confidently take root and openly spread out my branches carrying happy blossoms and birds on bright sunny hopeful days.

Aren't we all survivors of some kind?

* Frangipani Fest - https://quiethappiness-tasha.blogspot.com/2023/11/frangipani-fest.html

Quietude

Four white-eared Bulbuls were having an important discussion in the garden this morning. Two of them, perched upon the edge of the birdbath and the other two hovering in mid air, circling around occasionally, trying to make dramatic performances!

They continued to debate endlessly, while the pair of laughing doves on the parapet wall heaved a hooting sigh and finally gave up on their turn at sipping the cool waters.

I was waiting in stillness next to the slender armed graceful olive tree that was creating dancing shadows on the sun-washed white walls. The garden needs to be watered, I pondered, before the already harsh sun rises higher up in the dust-lined summer noon sky, casting a blinding spell.

When I am in the garden, I wonder, am I not supposed to be working at this time… When I am at work, I miss being home at odd hours to witness the dialogue that happens between the flora and the fauna.

Not everyone will understand why one chooses to take a healing break for themselves from time to time. The bulbuls, I felt, were actually cheering for me and supporting my life decisions!

The birds kept gossiping . I watched them silently… just grateful for such ironical quietude Life gives us, by serendipity.

Solitary events, crafted coincidentally, completely ours to be savoured deliberately. It's in such still moments, collaged together, that Life compiles the mixed tape of unsung melodies.

#summerbreak #healyourself #creativehibernation #findyourzen #quietude 

:: My Zen garden and the Birdbaths:: 

Refill

As long as the stream is flowing,
fill up your cup.
Don't look back.
The other option 
was never that different.
Watch the same movie
over and over again.
Each time freshly eyeballed,
to sieve out hidden nuances.
It was never about finishing first,
but about attempting the new.
Go on, unstoppable.
Keep refilling… 
Until it's done.

:: Bali 2025: Tukad Cepung Waterfall  ::

 

We are ALL Responsible...but are we?

They just barged into the community garden one fine morning and cut down some trees, removed the grasses, and killed all the flower beds in the name of “refurbishment” and “general maintenance”...

The birds who had their nests in those trees have lost their eggs. They fly around trying to find a suitable place to rebuild. The cat who used to run around, climb trees, and jump in the grasses was stressed and confused. Where's the planter she pooped in? There’s just mud everywhere. What happened to the garden?

If someone murders a garden in the name of renovation, what happens to the entire ecosystem that thrives on it? Birds, cats, insects…who cares about them? It's high time we stop normalizing these urban activities in the name of “development”.

Who is responsible for all the lost animals and birds? All they care about are paint flakes, steel pipes and waterproofing membranes. What about the soil enriched with live insects? What about the planters with flowers , the butterflies flitting around them? What about the laughing doves, who stopped laughing? It's not funny! Someone destroyed the garden and people around it are expected to continue living “normally”??? The cats have left the compound. There are no more dancing shadows of the trees on pathways. No more ‘red carpet welcome’ of the Jatropha flowers. No more ‘frangipani fest’ of my most loved Plumeria trees. No more barefoot walks on the grass. No more yoga, hide-n seek or badminton in the garden. Everything has to pause till they finish all the work…My favourite almond tree with red leaves is no more. The bulbuls have lost their home. I tried to save the frangipani I planted two years ago into a large planter for it to be replanted later in the same spot after the repair works are done, with a hope that it will survive the next few months in this make-shift arrangement. Does anyone else care? Is this a maintenance contract or contract killing!

The other day I heard, a school trip had gone to the “zoo” where the seals clap their hands in front of a gang of giggling gadget-held school kids. They are taught to believe, this is all “normal”! Watching another “sea world” inside a big mall, they are told, is perfectly normal!!!

Is it “normal” for tourists to expect getting “snow” inside a mall in the desert? Since when is chopping down full grown trees to deal with waterproofing issues considered “normal”? Is this what “developed” nations look like? Let's discuss this “environmental issue” sitting inside a tall air conditioned glass tower. Let's invite delegates with their private helicopters and planes to throw some light on these “earth issues” Let's make a fancy summit for social media! Wow! One million “likes”! Problem is solved!

We are taught to believe we are privileged to live here? Ironically, we are the “ landscape architects” of such masterplans! I would definitely prefer living in a village to this kind of pseudo development! Cutting down large trees is not acceptable. Disturbing any garden environment should not be allowed. No wonder all the “Rumis” who loved the gardens so much are running away in search of greener pastures… but all they find are more and more concrete jungles and blinding bright lights!

We have to ask the question to those “Environment Protection Acts”, how come approvals are not required before mercilessly chopping off mature trees even in private developments? For every slaughtered tree, there should be two new ones planted. Isn't that the rule?

Does anyone take note of the disruption to flora and fauna? Who is responsible for broken bird nests and lost cats? We are all responsible…but are we really “responsible”?

I Am...

I am a flowering tree,
and I bloom with sunlight.
But is it your closed dark mind
that needs the light of truth?

You are the big stone in a stream
held by helpless yes-men around you.
I am that playful gush of water.
Does my free flow shake your existence?

I am the wind of change,
you're scared to open the window for…
Lest it may uncover insecure demons
snaking inside you…

The mirror of reality,
you've been avoiding for long…
Show it to the grumpy man-child inside
that sits sulking and stomping his feet.

My beliefs, firmly rooted in this earth
may crush the walls of your fiefdom!
The mind’s canvas is much larger…
with ideas, too big for your caged mould.

I am! I am! and I will be...

:: In this work world full of ego-centric male chauvinist "Bosses", surrounded by their yes-men, its difficult being an independent minded woman with strong beliefs. He habitually said, "Everything is Important", but I say nothing is more important than respect and job satisfaction! 

If I don't even have the freedom to open the studio curtains for allowing the right amount of sunlight on my work desk, then definitely its not the right work environment for any Landscape Designer!!! Its ironic to find the desk plants droopy-leaved, dull and yearning for sunshine in a Landscape Architectural Office!!! Its our basic right to sunlight!(especially when its abundant in this part of the world!!!)

It can never be a Yes and No! 

There's no point in continuing in a place that does not allow me to be myself, breathe and bloom freely!  THE END for now... or is it...a new beginning!::

#toallmalechauvinists #workworld #workingwomaninamansworld #swimmingagainstthecurrent #daretobedifferent #worklifeimbalance #goodriddance #dowhatyoubelievein #worstworkenvironment

#worstjobsofar #saynotoinjustice #dontbeaslave

Frangipani Fest

As landscape architects, we generally know how to design around plants and with plants. But to really understand the behaviour of plants and trees, we must know what a gardener knows. A good gardener feels the pulse of each plant. He knows how much to prune a plant and when. He intuitively waters the plants according to their needs through changing seasons. Basically, he can read the minds of plants! And that's exactly why, these days I am doing an internship with the gardener of my compound. And funnily, he doesn't even know that I am trying to be his student ;) But he's one happy chappy, ready to share a few gardening tips every now and then.

This morning, I saw him chopping off some branches of my favourite Frangipani tree. I ran outside a tad annoyed. But he told me that the increasing bunches of flowers this season have been weighing the tree down to one side. He needed to prune the branches on that side to keep the balance of the tree and stop it from bending down. I agreed, the tree needed pruning.

Immediately I began collecting the fallen branches that still carried loads of white and yellow flowers. He was saving them for me. These are the flowers I collect every morning.

He also warned me about the white sticky ‘milk’ that leaks from the chopped branches of a frangipani tree. I was actually aware of it. I have grown up around these trees in my childhood garden in India. We didn't exactly have this particular frangipani (plumeria obtusa) but we had the one with pink flowers(plumeria rubra) . My sisters and I used to have our hands smeared with that white sticky milk while playing “flower sellers”!

Soon I had several large bunches of long stemmed frangipani flowers, enough to decorate one tropical beach wedding party! Oh what a treat! I arranged the flowers in baskets on my terrace and made a few bridal bouquets as well. Oh I felt like a flower queen! It was indeed a frangipani festival marking the beginning of pleasant weather.

Barefoot Soccer Mom

Since childhood, I have been into sports. My favourite sport was and still is table tennis. I used to play for my school and for my college. I have always been one of the good players in our office, playing table tennis at lunch times and in between times. I  represented my school for throwball, kabaddi, yoga and sun salutation competitions. My sister and I learnt swimming at a young age and we would proudly go to the pool on our cycles, swim a good 500m and cycle back.

My husband is the one who’s into football and hence my boys. Which is why I have also been a soccer mom for the past decade. Yet, somehow, even though I can safely call myself a sporty woman, I have not felt comfortable being around a football field! 

As a landscape architect, I have designed parks and open spaces with many a football field. Yet there's something awkwardly uncomfortable around it, for me!

When you have one boy playing in the U14 and the other in the U9, the “waiting period” associated with it can be excruciating, especially for a sport that I am not really interested in!

My boys keep talking only about football, football players, home kits, away kits, centre forward, center mid , off side, GOAT etc. I just don't get it! My mind automatically switches off , exactly like the times when people start speaking in Malayalam with me, because of my surname!

When the boys have football matches, I spend hours and hours waiting around the football field, pretending to be interested, cheering for some time and then quietly walking away with my book, to sit and read somewhere. But as the weather is getting better with October leading us towards a much awaited desert winter, I came up with a great plan!

Every morning , my routine includes a ten to fifteen minute barefoot walk in the lawn, saying the mantras after my flower picking ritual. It's followed by a ten minute meditation under the Frangipani, listening to the birds.

And I thought, why not continue my barefoot grass walk by the football field!!! Football field is the only place that has well maintained natural grass all around it. What could be better than a Barefoot Walk while I wait for the matches to end! Barefoot Soccer Mom! That's my new name!

Landscapes: Outer & Inner

My recent presentation about Landscapes: Outer and Inner gave me a chance to look back at my own life for the past 17 years and pick out my favorite projects and moments to share. 
I have often wondered, what makes a story worth telling? Is it just the achievements, awards and designations ? Perhaps not. It's this rich mix of hits and misses, experiences of joy and sorrow, memories created and lessons learnt along the way that makes a story interesting.  It's the way you choose to tell your story that makes all the difference.

My journey with architecture started in the year 2000. Little did I know that architecture is not just a course, but it becomes a way of life. These 5 years are like a perfect foundation course for all things creative. Thereafter you could choose landscape design, interior design, graphic design, fashion design, photography, set design, furniture design, poetry, pottery …the possibilities are limitless. Architecture grooms us for something that I call a design-conscious living, in which every little aspect of life can be done in the most creative way. It's this seed of creativity that architecture has planted in my mind, that I am carrying as a gift through all these years of my professional and personal life. 
 
We are all unique and everyone is born with a different skill set.   Our life’s secret mission therefore  is to find out what we are good at and what we enjoy doing. It's when we  realize our strengths, new avenues open out for us. 

My reason for  wanting to become an architect was simple— to design houses. But what is a house without a garden! There's something magical about houses with gardens that makes architecture and landscape inseparable. One such magical garden did exist in my childhood home in Pune.  

I discovered my connection with landscape, which thus finds its roots in my childhood days. The garden of my childhood home in Pune has a special place in my heart. It had a huge variety of plants and trees that, my sister , my cousins and I grew up with. We climbed trees and collected flowers and leaves. Whenever I select plants for any villa project, I close my eyes and get transported to my childhood garden to find them all there.  My mother's profession of flower decorations gave me a chance to go with her and collect flowers from agriculture college. I knew the names of flowers and plant species at a young age. And it was this special bond with nature that has influenced my choice of landscape as a profession. 
My dream projects thus became those houses where architecture, landscape and interiors are thought of as one. 

To be a sensitive landscape designer, one must truly love nature. Landscape architecture does not happen sitting inside tall glass towers. We deal with living elements and not just stone and cement. One must be willing to be on site, get their hands dirty and be in touch with nature. 

I worked in India for a couple of years and then moved to Abu Dhabi in the UAE, after getting married. I am extremely grateful to my college because it's here that I found my architectural life partner, which made our journey a creative collaboration, and we learnt a lot from each other.

UAE is a melting pot of cultures. I got a chance to work with colleagues not just from the US or UK, but from Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Greece, Philippines, Indonesia and many other countries of which I did not know much about.  When we work with people from different cultures and faiths, it makes us a sensitive designer. Because we design keeping everyone in mind. It's this cultural diversity that exposes our minds to new ways of thinking. 
Living outside our home country gives us a bird’s eye view to  our own lives. I still remember the first time I returned to Pune after staying for a year in Abu Dhabi, when the airplane was landing at Pune airport, I saw the curvy organic river, and the beauty in the disorderliness, the 50 shades of green and the rain clouds! My heart cried with joy!
I spent the first day taking pictures of every tree that grew upto 3 floors and above! My friends were surprised when I told them I was taking pictures of Junglee Maharaj Road, where the Albizzia trees along the street had canopies touching each other, creating this natural shade structure over the entire street! I had missed this so much! And I realised this only because I had stayed away from all this for a whole year! 
And when I went back, while landing on the Abu Dhabi airport, the city looked like a uniform beige architectural model with neat roundabouts, straight roads, clover leaf junctions and the liquid curves of the desert. This landscape has its own subtle beauty. And I realised, I could have the best of both worlds! Lush Green and Minimalist Brown!  Now I live in two cities at the same time.

Architecture is one unique profession that allows all creative forms of expression such as photography, sketching, painting, poetry, creative writing , film making and such to coexist in harmony as they become a part of our architectural journey. When I talk about inner landscapes, for me, poetry has been the most interesting medium of expression to convey ideas and concepts with a sensitive touch.  Nature has always been the source of inspiration that connects all these creative mediums. I have always found comfort in this medium as I juggled between being a landscape architect and a mother. 
Balancing these two roles is indeed a difficult task. But we must celebrate both roles, without feeling guilty at any end. A woman’s career graph is slightly different than a man’s. Motherhood brings many challenges in our path. But we should not consider these challenges as a setback to our careers, but in fact celebrate these challenges as a beautiful part of womanhood. 
Sometimes I have literally felt like a warrior on horseback, with the baby tied to my back, going to fight my battles each day with a sword in my hand! But then I thought of Cinderella’s story. Like her, we take the professional avatar and go each morning to work. When the clock strikes 12, (by the close of working hours) , we need to rush back to the homely mother avatar. Its only when we unplug ourselves from one role and plug ourselves into the other role that we can achieve that balance that may give us that little sliver of personal time between the two, to keep doing what we love. And then, we become like the goddess with many hands, balancing swords, paint brushes, pens and cooking pans at different times! 

The number of hours at work do not define our worth, but making a difference to our workplace in our unique ways does. Quality time is not just towards children, it should be towards the office too.

Lets empower each other. My poetry book, Amaira, the little woman celebrates exactly this journey through womanhood, enjoying all the beautiful forms along the way. 

So be your own sun, be your own rain! 
Work on a well rounded personality. We are not just the landscape architect or the mother. We can be so many other things! 
Travel, take long walks, ignite the inspiration again. 
Find time to do what you love. Stay fit. 
Afterall, what is success? Even if a few things are ticked off our TO DO list by the end of each year, it spells success to me! 
Make To-Do Better lists!

Finally in  our journey, life often gives us a choice between two paths. I have made my choice. 
The beauty of a creative life is that there is no one right way. It's what you choose, becomes right for you. 
Like poet Rumi has said, 

Somewhere beyond our ideas of right and wrong, there's a garden. I'll meet you there.

#alumnipresentation #landscapesouterandinner #givingbacktoalmamater #speakyourmind

The Unlived Life

A few weeks ago, my son very casually exclaimed, you never laugh these days…You’re always worried. When I had to go to the dentist, he said, “Your jaw seems very tight. Don’t you smile enough”, he joked! These statements seemed light on the surface but had an underlying deeper meaning. Something I wasn't happy with had started showing on my face.

To be a good designer, one must be a sensitive human being. Being sensitive does not mean being emotional. It means to sense things around us. To be observant. To look with our heart and feel with our eyes.

Landscape design cannot happen sitting inside tall glass buildings. As landscape architects, we need to get in touch with nature. We work with living elements and we design livable spaces for living beings!

It's from here that the road forks and asks us to make a decision. One is a natural mud path lined by grasses and trees, with birds singing often and butterflies fluttering about freely towards the creative side. The other promises to “climb the ladder”, wearing the uniform of the collared white shirt , formal black pants and running shoes, hurriedly in an ever-stressed mode towards that race where everyone is running. Where? Why? No-one wants to know.

As we sit behind a wall of multiple computer screens, armored by headphones and keyboards, discussing one square inch of landscape somewhere inside a mall in a far off country, let’s not forget to water that little plant sitting meekly in a pot by our desk! Let’s talk to each other and share our emotions. Let’s be human again and not racehorses who don’t even know where the finish line leads to.

Do we like that doctor who does not examine us anymore, but just continues to type into his computer screen, confirming the prescriptions from google?

Let’s start believing in acquiring knowledge. Just stop running for a while and look behind. Am I running just because everyone else is running? Where have I come from? Where do I wish to go? What we choose to do for a living is a means to an end and not the end itself. It’s time to rethink and to reset.

Deep down in our hearts, we all know what our role is to play in this universe. It's not for no reason that I strive to find time to pen down my thoughts and doodle away my daily woes. If you think you are different, then dare to wander away from the flock and find your own freedom. It's time to snatch the opportunity!

Its time to question everything that takes away our creative freedom…our need to make something beautiful…our chance to see some order in this chaos.

All these days I was trying to find my old comfort on this crisp new chair. But I guess one needs to adjust or accept what comes their way, or then have the courage to challenge it and change it!

A frozen moment of freedom is like a pause between two chapters. I want to enjoy that instant where I can escape responsibility and just bathe in the essential oils of the NOW. It's only when we are ready to release what we think isn’t for us, can we truly embrace the rainbow of Life’s hidden gifts.

There is always a way to be good again. I want to go back to myself. I want to live the unlived life!

I am keeping my diary open and inviting destiny to come over for a relaxed cup of tea, to write something new for me. Something that was always meant for me and is seeking me as well.

#unlivedlife  #freedom # dosomethingnew #quittheratrace #innerpeace #selflove 

Landscapes (Under)Designed

It was just before the pandemic, last year, that I had visited the project site with my colleague. It was a natural woodland along a busy street of the city. The intent was to design a linear park for the neighbourhood. To me, this was one of those many seemingly simple projects, with an underlying sense of experimentation.

The many existing mature native trees on the site offered a large shade canopy over a thick layer of dry leaves acting as natural mulch. All a landscape designer was left to do was to work around these beautiful trees and carve out some minimalist playful spaces amidst this natural environment, only to make it slightly more usable. The purest design intention was to only provide the right stimuli for children, without taking away the character of the place.

The field of landscape design, I believe, balances itself carefully on a fine line between the natural and the man-made. While architecture bends more towards the man-made, landscape needs to willingly swing towards the natural side.

With the addition of locally made simple elements for play and fitness under a cluster of existing trees with natural dry-leaf mulch underneath and a wide shaded shared path following the linear tree lines along the centre of the site, for walking and cycling, the place was transformed into a simple but activated open space. This minimalist quality of landscape satisfies all the basic needs of a neighbourhood park, providing small active physical play pockets with social interaction nodes, leaving room for imaginative and sensory play, making it all the more inclusive.

We did not have to give an invitation to the birds when the place was officially open! They already have their homes in those tall trees, with the evening sun and summer breeze playing hide-n-seek through the branches. The children just seemed to follow the wind and sunshine and birdsong, and within a few days, the linear open space became a favourite.

It's such little gestures that liven the urban fabric. Landscape isn't about manicured lawns, expensive water features or bright exotic flowers! All the children need is a shaded spot amidst trees to weave their colourful imaginations through.

What COVID has silently taught us is how to live a fuller life only with what is absolutely necessary and sufficient, in spite of the many emptinesses it has created in our daily lives. As a landscape architect, I wish to fill this ‘understory’ layer around big existing trees with lively stories of many-an ‘under’designed landscape!

Wind's Kiss

She told her secret
to the shy bud, shivering
on a cold winter’s night.

Then one day,
with the wind’s warm kiss,
those words trickled out
as a poem,
handwritten,
on poised pink petals
of a blushing blossom.

Tree Story

My relationship with trees started from my childhood days when I used to spend the entire vacation in my grandmother’s garden. As a little girl, I loved to play alone, immersed in dreamland, in cool tree shades against the bright summer sun.  My best friend was a “chikoo“ tree (Manilkara zapota), an evergreen tree with a textured bark, dark green leaves and soft brown fruit that is especially loved by crows! I used to whisper my secrets to the tree, hug the tree bark when I was sad and kiss the leaves when I was happy! Little did I know of the therapeutic benefits of this exercise back then!

I remember a game called “Tree to Tree” that I used to play, back in the day, with my sisters and a group of neighboring friends. This game can be played around minimum three trees. The number of players needs to be one more than the number of trees. Each player must hold onto one tree and then keep exchanging trees with the other players from time to time. While the players continue to exchange trees, the extra player must grab a tree. The player left without a tree becomes the “denner”. This is just one of the countless games that we played with and around trees.

An urban life, as a working mother, allows me less chances to get carried away in this childhood connection. I miss having a huge tree in the garden, its branches spreading to the first-floor balcony, offering me natural hiding places for mysterious conversations and wild encounters with birds, cats and butterflies.

Somewhere, the mother in me wants my boys to experience similar natural wonders. And hence, as a landscape architect, all these years while designing playgrounds I kept exploring what the best urban play element can be.

Recently, I attended a landscape and playscapes summit that discussed about the design of play spaces and how, in these times, we often tend to overthink a playground in terms of safety and regulations.

As children, we learnt to climb trees, often fell off trees and scraped our knees. The tree branches became a swing and the tree trunk, a climbing bar! Trees taught us many important lessons of life…and that’s exactly what a play element is supposed to do! And thus, I got my answer!

A tree is the best play element for any playground! --- in any part of the world, for a wide range of age groups, providing shade and play value at the same time. Whether it is hanging, climbing, balance, movement, swinging or imaginative play, a tree becomes a combination of various play elements in one and can holistically contribute to the overall development of a child from early years.

Let us bring more trees back to the playgrounds. Let their branches weave through many a childhood story…