My training focussed a great deal on visual dynamics but India has taught me that a design has to arise out of the need of a community and it is that which brings life to it, not the way it looks. Without community involvement, there is no juice and a project will wither. After meeting my teacher, Sri Sainathuni Sarath Babuji who is a renowned devotee of Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi, I was shown that aesthetics are far deeper than simply external appearances. In fact, aesthetics is the juice or the rasa that flows through all that is. Therefore, it is not just the project we are working on that is important, but it is the attitude that we bring to it.

Sri Babuji said that anything that is done with love will have a value but that which is done without love is worthless. “A building made with love will affect all those who live or work within it but one that is built without love will be of benefit neither to the builder nor to those who come to use it. It is better not to build it at all!”

I now have the privilege of spending some of my time in the UK and some in India, learning to respond to each community however different they may be.