Punita Mehta

Purnima Mehta talks about her childhood, her personality growing up and the things that interested her as a kid, noting how she was a sickly child who was very dreamy and imaginative. Since she stayed inside her home a lot, she remarks how this had an impact on her current profession somehow, given the nature of her solitary interests. Thinking about key moments in her young life, she talks about learning drawing and part with a passion, and talks about her teacher who made an impression on her. She then goes on to detail her experience of deciding to get into architecture and the people who nudged her towards the field. She describes the whole process of getting into CEPT University, liking the campus, being the only girl in her class, as well as other experiences as a student. Recalling her time at the University, she mentions how she started going to the office at a Mumbai-based firm, and shares the details of how the experience helped her grow. She notes how the senior architects at the office showed her many tricks of the trade and how she felt good about the independence she felt. She then goes on to talk about joining a much bigger firm in her fourth year of college to gain experience and how that was a vastly different work environment. She also worked with Hasmukh Patel at his office and mentions gaining immense exposure through these experiences. She then recalls the surprising way in which Jaimini Mehta and her engagement began, first professionally, and then how it took a turn when they got married. She notes how the change of circumstances didn’t affect her studies and growing career and talks about her following life post marriage in detail. She also shares comments about the employment and internship situation at the time and then describes her work ethic and approach briefly.

The session begins a discussion on Punita Mehta’s life after getting married and beginning her professional journey immediately afterwards. She mentions giving birth and starting going to the office three months later, and how it was never a conflicting thing to do. She shares details of the entire journey and how her work and approach developed gradually. Recalling an interesting incident while working on an Udaipur based project, that made a certain mistry uneasy with a woman practitioner at the time, she recalls how easily the discomfort went away as soon as they started focusing on the work they had to do. She then goes on to talk about the time she took over the office projects and management in a way because her husband started teaching full time at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSU). While managing this alongside her duties as a young mother, she notes how she never let it become a hindrance and handled everything extremely professionally. She then goes on to describe how her teaching career began.
In 1989, her second son was born and in 1991, a position opened up at MSU that allowed her to continue her teaching career to her heart’s desire. She interestingly remarks how she only ever gave a formal interview at MSU, and shares her ideas on teaching throughout these years with immense passion for both academia and architecture. She also notes how teaching and practice go hand in hand and recalls the time she spent at MSU, and how her pedagogy evolved. Concluding the session, she mentions how she was also able to go and teach abroad and recalls that as an entirely novel experience.

The session begins with a conversation around how Punita Mehta always wanted to pursue a master’s programme somewhere and how she had applied to several places, but that the circumstances never allowed her to go. But in 2000, as she recalls, she had the chance to go abroad and study in Australia. She recounts the experience in detail and shares several interesting anecdotes and insights from the time. She then mentions how she got back to India soon after, helped her husband set up a rental house in Goa for his teaching position there at the time, and joined back with the university. She further notes how she got to assist Gurudev Singh while she was in Australia and how she engaged with the other students there, encouraging them to work in the studio and many other similar details. She then goes on to describe how she got into planning and pursued that field as well upon her return to MSU. This was her experience of distance learning. During this entire time as well, she remarks how she kept teaching all her peers through the planning courses, assessments and exams, and remembers the entire time very fondly. In 2004, she also went to Goa to teach one semester. She concludes with a brief discussion on how she missed practising at the firm and how the years went on with the office.

In 2007, Punita Mehta engaged with and worked on an office design project with Nimisha Desai who runs a feminist NGO by the name of Olakh in Gujarat. This engagement came to her due to a student who was actually Nimisha’s daughter, and Punita fondly recalls the entire association and the work that went into designing the office space. This led to further projects with organisations like SEWA Rural, similarly in the field of NGO spaces, the details of which she shares briefly. She mentions how she gained immense learning and insights through her work with them, specifically on ethics, community work, quality, and commitment, sustaining values, amongst other things. She comments on how this entire association gave her life a new purpose and allowed her opportunities to enable even her students to start off their careers, since some of them had recently begun their own practices. Her association with them has also sustained till the present day and she notes how she is still their go-to person. She also shares her experience of working closely throughout this engagement with Anil Desai, who was a critical member and founder of the organisation, and commends his efforts and personhood while sharing anecdotes she recalls about him and his work ethic. Furthermore, she shares the ways it impacted the way she worked and mentored people in her own office, and goes on to describe in detail her approach to future projects. She also talks about several other institutional engagements she had over the years after retiring from her job at MSU, taking workshops, and developing courses etc. Concluding the session, she shares some memorable incidents from her teaching experience.

Punita Mehta goes into detail about her approach on developing a course curriculum, the learnings and insights that go into it, as well as the challenges and evolutions involved in the process. She notes it is equally important to know how to write a programme as well as how to communicate it to students and faculty members. She recalls an opportunity she received due to her work being observed by Krishnarao Jaisim, and shares comments on how your work can be perpetuated. She then shares her comments on creating foundation programmes which were unheard of at the time she started developing them. On the topic of being associated with NGOs she worked with, she mentions her engagements with support groups in detail and other insights she’s gained over the years by interacting with them. Talking about her continued work-life balance, she notes how all her learning through work engagements, teaching, and personal life have all come together in how she lives her life. Talking about this, she shares an anecdote about teaching her son a lesson about caring for one’s things, and veers off into the direction of talking about values, research, feminist practices, and urban planning and design. She speaks of how these things coalesce and how her insights led to a project that helped create a spatial change in the city of Baroda, in collaboration with several other activists, NGOs and people. They also worked on a seminar for the same.