Scene saver
The 53-year-old architect is nearing the end of a two-month walk from Kolkata to Delhi. Her mission: to shed light on how design can change lives. Along the way, she has documented a fast-changing rural landscape. That change must be shaped better by architects, planners and governments, she says
IIt hit me how different stress levels were in the villages. And the heat-island effect in cities is real. You feel a distinct whiff of comfort when you leave a city. GITA BALAKRISHNAN
t was not meant to be so hot, says architect Gita Balakrishnan. When she set off from Kolkata on February 13, planning to walk to New Delhi over two months, day temperatures averaged 25 degrees Celsius. Balakrishnan, 53, hadn’t accounted for an unusually oppressive north-Indian summer. “I thought I’d be dancing my way down that final stretch, but it’s 42 degrees here,” she says. Balakrishnan might still break into a celebratory jig. Her journey, Walk For Arcause, has cut through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. She has often walked 30 km a day, stopping at homes, schools, town squares, forts, forests, universities, palaces and crafts studios en route. When she ends her walk on Saturday (April 16), she will have covered 1,700 km.
The walk was organised by Arcause, a platform for architects, designers, engineers and builders, to highlight the importance of responsible design. Balakrishnan seems singularly suited for it. She studied at Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She has helped plan Tibetan settlements in India, shelters for the urban poor, a directory to help rural women access credit more easily.
In 2002, she set up Ethos, an organisation that aims to bring architectural and civil engineering students closer. She has also completed three full marathons.
“I chose to walk, not run, this distance because walking slows you down. It lets you see the world at a different pace,” Balakrishnan says.
“People, especially children, can catch up with you. You, in turn, are less of an outsider to them.” Often, fellow architects, local craftspeople and design students would join her for a stretch.
The walk has wended through towns big and small, taking only minor detours from main highways. “It hit me how palpably different stress levels were in the villages,” Balakrishnan says. “The heat-island effect in cities is real. You feel a distinct whiff of comfort when you walk away from one.”
Walk For Arcause revealed a fast-transforming landscape, as countless rural families take advantage of government schemes to upgrade their homes, typically razing traditional mud structures to construct generic brick ones. “They know that brick homes aren’t as comfortable in the summer or winter,” Balakrishnan says. “When I ask why they want to move away from a mud home, they say ‘Everyone else is doing it’. For most of them, design is not a conscious decision or a priority. No one’s thinking of what is needed or what can be done better.”
Some of the unplanned stops have been most interesting. In Madhya Pradesh, two brothers waved as Balakrishnan walked by, insisting she visit their home. It turned out to be a 50-year-old labour of love: mud walls, a roof of clay tiles, proportions and structural integrity worked out on site. They still hand-wove their charpoy, ground grains at home. It struck her then, Balakrishnan says, that today “we don’t know how to build a new home with the same passion.”
In most places, Balakrishnan says people were curious about her journey. “Often, I was the Pied Piper.” Children headed to school in the morning would follow her. Many had never heard of architecture as a field of study, so she conducted workshops before their classes began, and got them to sketch their own homes and discuss what they liked about them.
A common thread runs through Balakrishnan’s journey: Architects aren’t making themselves heard outside the big cities, resulting in ad hoc construction in towns and villages. No standard guidelines exist for which materials work better for a region and its climate. There is no culture of learning from others’ mistakes. Cultural markers like regional motifs and colour palettes are being erased.
“Many people cannot afford architects,” Balakrishnan acknowledges. “And architects get upset when you ask them for a readymade template or design. But surely we can set up a framework, perhaps a series of sketches and recommendations that can be made freely available in local languages.”
Local workers deserve to be included, she adds. “There are many layers between the hands that build and the ones that design. We need a stronger connection between the two.”
Balakrishnan and Arcause are hoping to submit a report on her observations to President Ram Nath Kovind, along with a plea for a framework for future construction.
“On one hand, the pace of construction is so fast, we’re losing so much, it’s slightly concerning,” Balakrishnan says. “On the other, there is a lot more construction to come. If we act now at the village level, there’s a lot that can be done.”
The long walk has long served as both the medium and the message. Since 2013, Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and member of the National Geographic Society, has been walking eastward, from Africa all the way around to South America, retracing ancient migratory routes and rediscovering the world on foot. The Out of Eden Walk is currently in China and will conclude next year. Part of the mission is to promote slow journalism.
In 1988, Serbian artist Marina Abramović and her German partner Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, intending to meet and marry in the middle. They did meet, but realised they no longer wanted to marry. They returned to Europe separately.
Last year, Tibetan freedom activist Tenzin Tsundue completed a 127day walk across India’s Himalayan region, covering about 20,000 km to raise awareness about 70 years of Chinese occupation in Tibet and the security threat it poses to India.