Madhavi Desai goes into detail about the projects she engaged in during her short joint practice with her partner Miki Desai, after coming back from the US. She recalls the kind of clients that approached her and the difficult experiences that led her to observe them as unprofessional. As a woman practitioner, she dwells on her engagements with gender and architecture. She remarks how it was tough to work while simultaneously caring for her young children and how she found it complex to juggle various roles within her joint family. 

Upon discussing her role as an educator, she recalls her first teaching position as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Texas, Austin, and then taking up more responsible roles in the later stages of her career. The first course she began teaching was – Introduction to the Regional Architecture of Gujarat, which she found to be quite challenging due to the lack of material available on the subject at the time. She maps her experience with the subsequent courses she designed and taught till she resigned around the early 2000s. She talks about her collaboration with Dr. Mary Woods of Cornell University and gets into the structuring of the project and the lack of resources available for the research and writing of her book; while also discussing the learnings of the women architects she interviewed. 

Expanding on the representation of women practitioners, she talks about the changes she witnessed in the architecture sector. She remarks that only in the past five years has any recognition for her work been sought and that the many challenges of publishing academic work in India are still prevalent. She concludes by reflecting on several topics, like gender parity issues in the practicing and education world, the National Symposium’s concept that was supported by the Feminist Collective, the feminist movement in India, and her experience in supporting bodies such as the Council of Architecture (COA),  The Indian Institute of Architects (IIA).