MURALI A CITIZEN OF AOTEAROA
It’s been 30 years since architect Murali Bhaskar landed in Aotearoa. Virginia Winder discovers a tale of culture shock, purposeful adjustments and full immersion into New Zealand life.
Murali Bhaskar is relaxing on a couch in his inner-city apartment, a bright yellow tiki around his neck, the New Plymouth clocktower peeking through the window.
A partner in Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Brebner Team Architects, the flamboyant Indian man has five bright-coloured hei tiki made by Taranaki artist and carver Rangi Kipa.
For the past two years the father of two has been learning te reo Ma¯ ori at Te Wa¯ nanga o Aotearoa with partner Eloise Pollard.
‘‘The interest was already there having worked with a lot of iwi for several years now,’’ he says.
‘‘I felt that there was a need for our children to respect the history from both countries that they are linked to. I also want them to know the synergies between Indian history and Taranaki.’’
He is fascinated by the link between the prophets of Parihaka, Te Whiti O Rongomai and Tohu Ka¯ kahi, and Mahatma Gandhi. It is believed the Indian leader’s nonviolent protests were inspired by the Taranaki leaders’ passive resistance movement decades earlier.
One of his most-special projects was designing the wall telling this story in Pankawalla (now Koi) in New Plymouth. The wall design has gone now, but Bhaskar says the story is likely to be told in a different way in another establishment.
‘‘There’s a huge depth of culture and the language is just at the forefront,’’ he says. ‘‘There’s a lot you can learn by looking back.’’
So, let’s look back at Bhaskar’s life. He was born in Kodungallur, a little town in Kerala, South India. But he grew up all over the place in India. His father was an engineer and had to shift from town to town. However, Bhaskar remembers living in a little rented house in Bangalore in central South India.
‘‘You’ve got neighbours at arm’s length, so you can literally touch them. If someone coughs in your neighbour’s house, you could hear them.’’
Bhaskar and his brother, four years’ his junior, had lots of friends and played games on the street. His dad was a civil engineer who worked on highways, so received an average income.
‘‘In other words, we weren’t below the poverty line.’’
But they weren’t well off either, so his father had a firm belief that money should only be spent on housing, clothing, food and education. While Bhaskar was born a Hindu, the family never practised it.
Pollard explains why: ‘‘Your mum and dad used to say, ‘we believe in people’.’’
Unlike the Western society, which is more individualistic, the Indian society is based more on interdependence and collectivism. In India, he was part of this communal society, where you could drop in on someone without warning. ‘‘They would be hospitable to you; that’s part of that culture – they can’t turn you away,’’ he says.
In that people-centric world, he stood out. ‘‘My mum used to call me unmanageable as a child, which I guess in some ways I can see the same attitude in my daughter. She’s quite an individual.
‘‘I liked colour. I used to do drawing, again encouraged by my parents. As a high school student, I used to go to learn to paint from a close family friend who was an artist.’’
After high school he went to university where he accidentally discovered architecture. In India, most parents want their children to be doctors or engineers. Bhaskar decided on the latter, inspired by his father and his uncle, who was a mechanical engineer. He got into Manipal Institute of Technology in Mangalore, but missed the closing dates for his chosen course. The only way to get into engineering was to do the first year as an architectural student.
‘‘That was my way of getting into university, which I wanted more than picking a course. Architecture happened by chance.
‘‘In the first year, I started to get a feel for it and I really enjoyed the fact there was lots of drawing and painting and lots of subjects that involved the creative.’’
So, he stayed with architecture and in his second year was further inspired by a fantastic tutor who was breaking new ground in terms of design. ‘‘He played music and had just graduated from university and was a flamboyant, breakaway rebel kind of architect/ designer at the time. He showed me how to look at the design in a completely different way.’’
Bhaskar remembers a one-onone session in the cafeteria, where the tutor drew on the table with chalk and challenged his student’s
I knew it was around Australia – I thought it was an extension of Tasmania. Luckily it panned out.
Murali Bhaskar
thought processes. ‘‘In that one or two-hour session, we had lots of coffees, lots of cigarettes and I came away and I was fizzing. That could have been the turning point in my liking the profession.’’
From then on, he became extremely focused on and passionate about his studies and took pride in his drawings, which he would cover up at night, so they didn’t get damaged. After graduating, he worked in India, Malaysia and Singapore before heading to New Zealand. When he applied for a visa, he had no idea where New Zealand was. ‘‘I knew it was around Australia – I thought it was an extension of Tasmania. Luckily it panned out.’’
He got a one-month visa and arrived on December 4, 1987 with $400.
‘‘The first thing I saw at the Auckland airport was this poster saying ‘27th January, Pink Floyd live in concert’ and I said, ‘I’m not going back until I see that… even if I have to be deported.’’
But, just before Christmas, he got a job with architect Brian Chong, who he worked with for just under a year.
He learnt a lot from the New Plymouth man, who invited him for Christmas dinner, which was confusing to a new immigrant. Chong said he would pick Bhaskar up at 11am. ‘‘I thought, that’s going to be great; it will be a whole day that winds up to dinner.’’
Eventually, they served up a big spread for lunch about 3pm. ‘‘I said to myself, ‘this lunch is so big, I won’t have much space for dinner’ – because I’m still thinking of Christmas dinner.’’
After lunch, Chong offered to drop Bhaskar home. ‘‘‘No, no, no, I’m happy to stay, because I’m waiting for dinner’.’’
Eventually, his boss insisted on taking Bhaskar home and the young architect decided he must have heard the ‘‘dinner’’ invitation wrong.
Also at that festive occasion, he learnt a new skill. ‘‘I didn’t know how to hold a fork and a knife, because in India you eat with your right hand. Brian Chong’s wife (Margaret) taught me how to slice a piece of lamb.’’
While Bhaskar spoke English, he had a strong Indian accent and he also used to shake his head when talking.
For a period of three or four years, he lived with serious culture shock, finding it difficult to go out. For a naturally gregarious man this was a difficult time. ‘‘So, I went to speech and drama and within three months of being here in ‘88, I learnt to pronounce things slowly.’’
Another sacrifice he made was to change his name by Deed Poll. He was M. Murali Bhaskar. The M stood for Madathiparambil, which was the name of the house he was from, but was too long for Kiwis to take in.
He knew personal and cultural transformation was essential for him to be professionally successful.
‘‘I felt that if I want to live here, which was underpinning my need to change, I had to make myself palatable to the Kiwis. And if I could lose any focus on my accent and my demeanour and the way I come across that will break the barriers,’’ he says.
‘‘There were barriers there. There was definitely racism and things, which I would just shrug away and ignore and run away from rather than confront them, because there was no point. Every migrant will have a story about that. It’s just people.’’
After his time with Chong, he got a job with the Palmerston North council’s planning and regulatory department. He was there five-and-a-half years and got a deep insight into local government.
During that time, he sat and passed his architecture competency and registration exams, ‘‘with flying colours’’.
At a conference, he was shoulder-tapped by Paul Goldsmith to apply for a job at the New Plymouth company and he joined Team Architects in 1994.
In 1999, he became a partner and is now an established and colourful member of the Taranaki community.
He’s part of the Taranaki Health Foundation, Art in Public Places Trust, Accelerator, Taranaki Futures, has been a judge for the Taranaki Daily News fashion art awards and for the Taranaki Stage Challenge. For the NZ Institute of Architects, he has been a councillor for six years and an external jury member.
When you see the WOMAD letters written with bold blocks around Taranaki and at the festival, think of Bhaskar – they are his design. And when you wait or pick someone up at the playfully designed bus station in New Plymouth, that’s another of his works. He loves storytelling as part of architecture and people can sit inside the station and read about the region’s moving past. Even his favourite home, a coastal house designed for Dot and Dave Antunovic, has tales to tell. Light panels – one of his signatures – encompass art and sayings from their four children.
Bhaskar, with his long dark hair, now streaked with grey, talks of his passion for architecture and the place he now calls home. He has high standards and won’t accept mediocrity.
‘‘There’s a line I always say to myself, which is ‘I don’t want to be a copyist’,’’ he says. ‘‘What I’m trying to say is this – there’s always this constant wanting to lead and break new horizons, rather than be following and looking and saying, ‘so and so has done this, we should do that’.’’
Laughing a little guiltily, Bhaskar says: ‘‘I remember there was a project, where we put a little Da Vinci Code in without the client knowing. If someone decoded it, it would say, ‘New Plymouth, design city’. They still don’t know it’s there.’’
He’s more forthcoming on te reo, which he and Pollard are learning to pass on to their fiveyear-old children, Milan and Anjali. They are looking forward to their third year of study at the Rangiatea campus. For both, it’s a time to say karakia, sing waiata and learn to embrace Ma¯ ori language, which they have a lot of respect for.
From a young man who didn’t know how to use a knife and fork, in 30 years Bhaskar has evolved into a true multicultural citizen of Aotearoa. And yes, he did get to see Pink Floyd.