Work That Made Me A Wanderer

It is lovely when work makes such wanderers out of us. For a fleeting moment, I am made a part of so many lives and stories associated with homes. What meets the eye are merely bricks and stones but what lies hidden in those are countless tales that are unheard and buried. For me, the idea is to excavate those stories and give them a voice of their own – through Buildofy.

It was 29th January when I made my way through the palaver of Mumbai traffic to the airport to depart for a weeklong sojourn down south, documenting four different homes with distinct personalities.

It was about 2:15 pm when I landed in Coimbatore. The surging green contours of this beautiful city in Tamil Nadu, as seen from the aeroplane reduced to a bustling airport cacophony, not different from any other Indian town. This was my first time in Coimbatore, yet I was engulfed by a strange sense of piercing nostalgia. Maybe it was the airport humdrum that is reminiscent of homecoming or the familiarity I found in the noise that surrounded me, all sweet in Tamil, taking me back to my college days in Chennai.

I made my way out of the airport, trying to book a cab to my hotel, which can be quite a sport because either they cancel on you or demand extra cash. Now, this is a territory I am familiar with but not used to, and I blame Mumbai for that – for having spoilt me with the most efficient vehicular conveyance in the country.

After I reached the hotel, I remember burying my face in the pillow, making the best of whatever was left of Sunday. What was devised to be a power nap, ended up in a four-hour-long slumber. I woke up in a cold dark room, famished and grumpy. My agenda was clear: A dinner of rice and ghee podi, and an early night to get enough rest for the hectic and exciting week that was impending. A blissful addition was a beautiful kovil (temple) visit in the evening.

Waking up at 5 am on a Monday morning is what nightmares are made of for most people. But I only had colours to count.

I've come to discover that an integral part of my job, which can be extremely overwhelming and tiring at times, is to savour every small bit of it. I had four amazing shoots planned for the week and with that came four sartorial plans, each in some way connected to the house I was about to document. You can call it vanity, but for me, romanticising my work is an essential elixir that keeps me going.

This time, we were working with a new team of cinematographers from Kerala. After a formal exchange of greetings, we geared up for work.

The sky started out cloudy, turning sunny by noon, but moving on to cloudy grey only to pour violently by the time evening rolled around. As the sky changed its mood, we went about with our cameras and ideas, and in no time, it was 7 pm and the cue to call it a day.

The sky the next day was cloudy and windy. I anxiously headed to the Kolam House by OWM Architecture. It was a stunning property rooted in colloquiality. But Lord Sun had not bestowed his holy presence upon us yet, and the filmmaker in me wanted the wood and beige textures in the house to be accentuated by solar royalty. I wanted to capture the tradition of kolam making in the wee hours of the morning – and the camera needed the sun. However, what needs to be done, needs to be done. What followed was an encyclopaedic experience of design ideas and details from Ar Sowmya.

My bus to Pondicherry was to depart from Coimbatore a few hours after the shoot ended. I was creatively rejuvenated but life is such a leveller. I heard of my mom's ill health immediately after the shoot ended and it resulted in a sleepless bus ride to Pondicherry.

It was only the next day in the morning when I saw her on a video call that I was a bit relieved.

The skies in Pondicherry were resplendent in gray. Personally, I love such weather. I am a ghoul who fancies gloom. Professionally, however, it can be challenging because the cameras don’t share my emotions. I had a day off to travel and get enough rest before the next schedule began.

Pondicherry for me is another splash of nostalgia – unimagined this time. I was loitering around the familiar streets till I reached the statue of Gandhi on the promenade. A bittersweet feeling engulfed me as I saw a vision of a younger version of myself posing in front of the statue, with my arms around my dad. Time drew a parallel co-incidentally and I was made to think of how so much of it was gone: the yearning in my eyes, a few inches of my hairline, him.

I was brought out of this abysm by hunger pangs. With two good hours still ahead of me before I could check, I headed for breakfast and visited the Aurobindo Ashram picking up postcards for my colleagues back in Mumbai, something that adorns every work desk here now.

A figment of my worst thoughts came alive when it was raining on Thursday morning. We were shooting Le Tranquil by Studio Whitescape, a house that used the sun in all its glory as its biggest advantage. And yet, there was not a moment where the sun peaked in. We went about shooting the house without it but I was not happy about it till 5 pm. I was looking around in one of the bedrooms when I saw a candle. And that is when I decided to flip the script to make up for all that we had missed because of the lack of light.

Thus, the candle was lit, the gimbal was picked, the warm lights were switched on, and a new story was churned that brought the house's glory in the lack of natural light to the forefront and became the narrative that carried the film. John and Amal, our cinematographers jumped at this idea with equal zeal along with Ar Chaithra and we went on playing with golden lights until the candle had diminished and the day had crawled to an end.

The fourth shoot was on a Friday. The last of this tour.

La Serenite was a sea-facing villa on Serenity Beach. I knew what I wanted to do with it when it first came to me. The sea, the sand, the gorgeous dame sitting boasting of a rich history and heritage, it was the universe's answer to my quest for creatively satisfying projects.

Sonal’s passion for her design and my fascination for telling stories of spaces that have a personality came together to make this house a totem of tropical cottage core aestheticism. I could hear La Vie En Rose, play as I went through the pictures for the first time and later, we shot a whole segment with the same music playing in the background. The entire journey orchestrated itself in a beautiful fashion, exactly how I had manifested. I didn't mind getting my clothes dirty holding a branch and etching the name in the sands of fleeting time of the beach where La Serenite proudly sits in all its glory.

That brought an end to the shoots.

Pondicherry for me was all about clouds, croissants, crepes, coastal cacophony, and creative wins. I couldn’t have asked for a better architectural palette to work on. Simply blissful. I was supposed to leave for Chennai, the next day to catch my flight back to Mumbai. However, I decided to change my plans a bit. Instead of heading over to Chennai, I took a bus to Bangalore the same night, to check up on my mom who was still recovering from a scary infection. I couldn't have asked for a better way for this sojourn to end where I could talk to her about my past week before I left for Mumbai. I have this tradition of listening to this song every time I land by aeroplane, so as the mighty vehicle barnstormed into the thick darkness of the night, I upheld it. I could hear a chanteur's sigh of love, loss, and longing as I landed in Mumbai almost at midnight to the sound of Brendon Urie humming,

“I know the world’s a broken bone,
But melt your headaches, call it home”