Charles Correa and the Average Indian Middle Class

In the ‘80s, like a vast majority of architecture students, I got into the field by accident. The accident being - not getting enough marks to get into a ‘higher branch of Engineering.’

That we were the poor cousins of Engineers, was highlighted when I was back home for my first semester break.

Now, the Average Indian Middle Class Family of neo India trained it’s children to get into Medicine or Engineering, which, apparently ensured them a safe future with the Government or a rosy future abroad. So your status in the social ladder depended on just one fact : the name of the college you got in. Well, Architecture or not, but I just about managed to score well on that. I was in a prestigious university (now) called IIT.

So here I am, back home after scaled the social peak, and was going somewhere with my chest out and head held high, with my father, also with C.O. and H.H.H., when we met the Average Indian Middle Class Neighbour. He stopped us asked the obvious.

This was the moment we had worked so hard for.

“So, son, which college did you get into?”

“IIT! “ came the superior reply.

“Great. Which branch?”

The result of that question was instantaneous on my father. Chest un-puffed a few millimeters and the head went from ‘held high’ to held medium’ position.

“Architecture”

Pregnant silence from Average Indian Middle Class Neighbour.

Dad chipped in, “Architecture isn’t too bad a branch, you know. Charles Correa just got the RIBA Royal Gold Medal at LONDON.”

Average Indian Middle Class Neighbour. was suitably impressed and moved away, respectfully. (If we had Google those days, we would have impressed him more.)

That’s what Charles Correa did.

Changed my career from a safe, social rung to something where I could aspire something beyond a car, a home or a foreign posting.
As an Architect, I could dream to be as famous as I could have been had I stuck on to Arts and not chosen Science as a stream.

Charles Correa didn’t just put Indian Architecture on the World Map.

He gave the profession respectability the way it happens in India.