Mr Nari Gandhi and the Bus Ticket

Mr Nari Gandhi and the Bus Ticket, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

photo courtesy
www.forarc.com/adbp/books/narigandhi/about_nari_gandhi/

For a long time I thought I would write a few words about Mr Nari Gandhi the eminent nature friendly architect, but somehow it kept moving away from the horizon of my mind.

I worked at Kishore Bajajs Badasaab, 20 years back, and Mr Nari Gandhi was designing his Karjat farm house, that I had visited several times.


Mr Nari Gandhi was a fun loving man, humble, and his lady assistant was always with him, when they came to Kishore's fashion studio..he would chat with me as I was an avid reader and a pedestrian writer of sorts.

I had not yet ventured to cyberspace...he normally made his designs on the back of a bus ticket, he mostly commuted by bus.

I once remember giving him a thin book on Frank Loyd Wright that I had picked up at Chor Bazar, he gave me a smile thanked me and placed it with great care into his cloth bag that was part of his humble persona.

He knew I was Kishore's blue eyed boy, man Friday , but it was my colleague Subash who supervised the workers at the Karjat Farm, Subash was a designer too, till he met with a serious accident on his bike while coming back from Karjat on the highway..

Those days I did not really know why a Karjat bunglow was the cynosure of every eyes , I remember an incident a guy walked up to shoot the under constructed bungalow and Kishore known for his furious and tumultuous temper almost went after the poor guys ass.

Nari Saab loved Kishore Bada Saab..and they were seamed like two identities in one ..it has been almost 20 years since I left his job, but Mr Nari Gandhi stands out..along with the few memories that I have harbored in my mind.

I was not even a photographer than, sartorial serendipity got the better of me.. and I was not that wild too..

So I look back on those old times as misty eyed nostalgia...

I met Kishor Bajaj after 20 years recently, at his posh office space and it was a walk back into lost horizons and lost frontiers of the mind , we spoke , I still consider him my boss, and a person in the right sense who got rid of my alcoholism

.Kishore Bajaj is also a reputed builder a self made man he rose he rose ..remembers this thorn called Firoze , memories dont die unread chapters never close ..quietly the river of life flows..scavenging spirituality man the soul of a dove in the body of a crow...and I wish him his family his daughter Kresha the very best for all times to come..

My wife perhaps Kishore has forgotten always tied a Rakhi on Kishore's hand..on Rakhi day..a silken thread that holds the microcosm of mans heritage and a sisters love for her brother.

After leaving Kishore Bajaj I worked for another seven years with Nitin Manmohan film producer now builder at a shop still dear to my heart Prachins named after Prachi his loving daughter.

I left that 10 years back to come into my own...walk my own path till my friend Andy Sam photographer on Flickr told me he had worked on some projects of Mr Nari Gandhi...and this post came to be born.


The only sad part is the one bungalow of Mr Sadruddin Daya of Dawood Shoes designed by Mr Nari Gandhi at Versova, (when I last saw it )was in shambles , let out for film shoots and a real sorry state when I went to meet an actor at a shoot long time back..