Love Letters to Kausik

This is the pdf copty of the book made for kausik compiled from the letters sent to him on his retirement 30th Nov 2020

Shruti Sehgal Misbah Hararwala Kirti Karopady Shwetambari Shinde Chitra Venkatramani Vinita Gatne Gaurav RoyChoudhary Ipshita Karmarkar Sanskaara Lalwani Revati Shah Shivani Shah Farshogar Tangri Rajji Desai Richa Vulluppuri Neha and Yagnik Aparajita Bhat Kunal Bhatia Lovina Bajaj Jay Shah Krupa Shah Mishkat Ahmed Pathik Joshi Riddhesh Ghadi Amruta Sakalker Keerti Nair Ateya Khorakiwala Anandita Rangarajan Apeksha Gupta Shriya Bhatia Shireen Choudhary Shweta Ruia Mayuri and Amit Pradnya Mahajan Nainika Aggarwal Namrata Kapoor Divya Shetty Sonal Sundararajan Priyanka Paulose Deepti Talpade Manmohit Chawla Apoorva Iyengar Hussain Lokhandwala Supriya Gandhi Neha Gupta Prerna Chwala Jaynee Karia Deepti Maithil Sujith Pillai Monish Talpade Noopur Sejpal Abhijit Ekbote Zubin Parekh Apurva Parikh Aparna Parikh Rhea Shah Deepika Shetty Mayuri Sisodia Yashesh Panchal Palak Poddar Aishwarya Dharmarajan Pramada Jagtap Shravan Iengar Kshama Jain

Love Letters To Kausik KRVIA 1996-2020

Aiman Mukhtiar Shruti Sehgal Misbah Hararwala Kirti Karopady Shwetambari Shinde Chitra Venkatramani Vinita Gatne Gaurav RoyChoudhary Ipshita Karmarkar Sanskaara Lalwani Revati Shah Shivani Shah Farshogar Tangri Rajji Desai Richa Vulluppuri Neha and Yagnik Aparajita Bhat Kunal Bhatia Lovina Bajaj Jay Shah Krupa Shah Mishkat Ahmed Pathik Joshi Riddhesh Ghadi Amruta Sakalker Keerti Nair Ateya Khorakiwala Anandita Rangarajan Apeksha Gupta Shriya Bhatia Shireen Choudhary Shweta Ruia Mayuri and Amit Pradnya Mahajan Nainika Aggarwal

Namrata Kapoor Divya Shetty Sonal Sundararajan Priyanka Paulose Deepti Talpade Manmohit Chawla Apoorva Iyengar Hussain Lokhandwala Supriya Gandhi Neha Gupta Prerna Chwala Jaynee Karia Deepti Maithil Sujith Pillai Monish Talpade Noopur Sejpal Abhijit Ekbote Zubin Parekh Apurva Parikh Aparna Parikh Rhea Shah Deepika Shetty Mayuri Sisodia Yashesh Panchal Palak Poddar Aishwarya Dharmarajan Pramada Jagtap Shravan Iengar Kshama Jain Prajna Rao Kaumidi Bhide Lubaina Rangwala Jeenal Sawla Vandana Ranjit Sinh

Dear Kausik, There was a spider weaving a web connecting strands with carefully created strong adhesives. The spider caught everyone and over many years the web grew stronger.

The web now possessed strange camouflaging abilities. Some could see the web with their own eyes while some needed special spectacles to see this web. This is that web that you spun.

It is a collection of letters from people at KRVIA, students and some terachers who met you during their time at krvia Some came from across the seas, some from across time travelling online, all collected on the email id tokausikwithlove@gmail.com password: welovekausik2020@gmail.com (there are videos and photos on that email id and in the drive as well)

All Our Colllective Love

St

Inv

Stage 2

Role of a geneticist was explored through creating objects by altering their form and fusing them. This changed the way in which the object was perceived by an individual in different arrangements.

tage 1

visible Cities - Eusapia

Hello Kausik,

You have been the most unique faculty I have ever had in my life, first year and K.R.V.I.A would be incomplete without you. From suggesting me to remake a male genitalia as the Insect scorpion fly project, to calling me your daughter when you saw my waste art installation which was in many ways similar to your work as an artist which I was introduced to later. Meeting you in the college corridors and the staff room always sparks joy for one never knows what you will say next. You have always encouraged your students to try new things and to think eccentrically. I absolutely loved it when throughout the five years you introduced me as your daughter to other people.

I will miss you a lot, Kausik, already do.

Hopefully we do cross paths in the future.

Until then take care and be amazing as you already are.

Lots of love, Shruti Sehgal

Dear Kaushik, This is hard to write knowing you will soon be leaving us at KRVIA. Your name is so synonymous with the institute, first year will just not be the same without you here.

Kaushik you have probably been the most influential & important teacher in my life.

I don’t know if you know this but I was contemplating quitting in the first year and if it wasn’t for you and the first-year course I don’t think I would have stuck around at KRVIA. It really opened up my mind to the limitless possibilities of how design and making can be perceived. Of course, it took a while and I only understood all this in retrospect. Back then it was whacky, confusing, frustrating at times but your classes always left me more curious and intrigued. It was the first time we were being schooled as adults, taught to question everything; experience, privilege, politics, things we weren’t asked to think of before and it had a lot to do with your ideology for the school. Thank you for that.

A big reason why I came back to teach was because I got to teach alongside you and be mentored by you. I remember telling Rhea that if I ever went back to college to teach it would be Allied design.Teaching in the last three years has been such a privilege. Thank you for letting me be part of all your mad wonderful projects. It’s fascinating how your mind works and all the brilliant things it conjures. I have no idea what we are going to do without you. It’s literally the end of an era here at KRVIA. O Kaushik you shall be missed.

I will miss you for all your quirks. The excitement when you see good work (Bahh-amazing). The way you forget names and have new Bengali ones to substitute them with. All your stories, especially of your cats, I remember you telling me how you will document them through a series of comics one day. Please finish that. And the comforting hugs that you always shared.

You have been a warm, loving and nurturing teacher and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t agree with me.

I’m so so grateful to you Kaushik and I’m really going to miss you.

Lots of love, Misbah.

PS: Here’s a photo of the exchange program in Norway. Thanks for introducing me to sushi and Picasso.

Dear Kaushik You are my first angel in my most difficult phase of academic life. If it wasn’t you, I can’t explain in words what it would have been for me. Thanks for that concrete support, understanding, acceptance and smiles of care n love you showered on me n all of us. Not all are strong, but need the strength at that tender moment. Thanks for being one. Thanks for being YOU. You are a beautiful soul who groomed us to imagine beyond tough walls, to visualize and feel spaces through textures, who made us create and live our own fictional fairytale world, which is as rare n unique as you are.

You didn’t just shape me as an Architect but an Artist, who is growing creatively beyond her thoughts.

Thanks for handholding us in our rawest stage of academic life. You are the best teacher a 1st yr student could have.

Wish you a happy and beautiful life ahead ❤ Lots of love, hugs n tons of respect

Kirti Batch 2005-2010

From Shwetambari with love

Seeing and Drawing the World Chitra Venkataramani Kausik’s departure from KRVIA marks something in my life—indeed, in the lives of everyone who has spent any time with him in the studio setting. And yes, while I am deeply affected by it, it also seems to me a good time to reflect on the important intellectual shift that Kausik enabled for each of us and the tremendous ways in which he has shaped the conceptual outlook of an institution through his teaching and his art.

When I was a student, we had visual studies and we also had a class on visual theory where Kausik would load up slides of Madonna and Child sitting on a throne shaped like the colloseum and ask us to see the shifting forces of power that Byzantine art captured during the early crusades. In slide over slide of different Madonnas, he constructed the history of perspective, giving new meaning to the structured drawings made in an architectural studio. Over a semester of only drawing leaves, he asked us to first see how forms articulated, and then, to draw those articulations on page. Plant after plant, he painstakingly forged a connection between the eye and the hand.

From plants we moved to objects, composing shapes and forms on page, and understanding the sheet of paper as visual space. I remember a class on seeing shadows that I found particularly difficult—Kausik took me to the library during the lunchbreak and opened a book that had Ramkinkar Baij’s paintings, one of them of a buffalo painted in ink. Pointing to the buffalo’s belly, Kausik explained tone and depth. Then we went back down, and he took my brush and, in a few quick soft strokes, painted my classmates sitting together in the distance. I could not see their features, but I didn’t need to see their features to recognize them.

This seems, in hindsight, a story about learning a skill. But I would argue that in fact, it is a story about how Kausik taught me to construct the world and my relationship to it on page. And yes, it is also about skill.

Berger (another author Kausik introduced me to) writes that much of how we live the world comes from how we see it, or rather, what we see. Our gaze is constructed and we construct the world and our relations through what we see. Berger shows this through advertisements, the female body, and the male gaze. It is a lesson that tells us to unpack what we are seeing and then critique it and re-see the world. It is also a lesson that goes beyond the commercial image and beyond sexuality and power. It is a steppingstone into learning how to get others to see one’s world by constructing their gaze—to understand the power of what one can do when one draws. To draw is not just to put down what one sees—that is indeed a skill—to draw is to construct the world. Kausik taught me that.

Not just the skill of seeing, of being able to put down what I saw with my hands, but also the capacity to ask why I was seeing what I saw. Most importantly, he taught me to draw in ways that I could get others to see=—to draw them into my argument, into my world, into a relationship with me.

Drawing is a fundamental part of my identity as a person and as a scholar. I can say that Kausik has a large hand in this. Over the years, I moved on, as one does. I kept in touch less. My career and desires took me in different directions. But the foundation remains. This practical and theoretical solidity is the ground on which I stand.

When I read a comic—my medium of choice—I have learnt to look at page and panel and structure and line. I unpack the narrative. I ask: how does this story move? How does it unfold in time? How does it tell itself through images? I have learnt to see the small details through which plot advances or affect leaps from the page. I have learnt to absorb them and deploy them for my own means because of what I was taught.

I also see Kausik’s hand in how I draw. I learnt to appreciate humor and roughness. To embrace quickness. That there is skill in the intrepid movement, just as there is in the repeated, controlled line. It is a deep and intimate embrace of play as a way of being in the world and drawing others into deep play as well. For this, I am deeply grateful.

Hello Kaushik!

It is such an honor to have studied with you. I largely am where I am especially because of all the experiments and hands on work with you in first year. And I think today I have the confidence to do things, even if they are against the grain of what is expected, is because you are so encouraging of experiments. Studying with you helped me figure out what I am passionate about - the act of making and trying things out!

And since I have met you, the experiments have not ceased to exist.

One thing that I hold dear to me from your mentorship and friendship is not to be afraid of failed attempts. Or infact, in most cases, there is nothing like a failure to begin with. To not hold back and continue‌ So a huge huge thank you for undoing ideologies of right and wrong, and breaking down structures and encouraging all the chaos.

Lots of love vini

To Kausik, Several hilarious anecdotes and memories have blurred into one as I look back on the time that you had spent teaching us in our first year. From finding a Bengali match for me (In college itself!), to counseling us on our career choices (Don’t go to NID!), to prophetic insights on personal habits (“You will end up smoking and drinking by 5th year, don’t be shy :)”) to being that initial person to handhold us from our secluded worlds into the big, bad, world of architecture, we (all your students) have come to owe you a lot for all that you have taught us.

How sad it is to see you go, and how exciting is the time to come!

With love, your Bengali Mein, Ipshita.”

PS- I have attached a photo of us all in first year in 2012,on our study trip to Chip lun, taken by Revati Shah, where Kausik was with us. I rifled through facebook and old photos to look for images of Kausik, and found none with him in it. But I found one of us all looking fresh and young, and that brought back memories of First Year too:) Best regards, Ipshita

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We met almost 8 years back, and it still feels like only yesterday. Your (along with Sonal’s) presence is crystal and vivid in my memories. I used to really be excited to go to school on BD and AD days, just to hear you talk, about art, design, space, expressing, reading, movies, songs, thoughts, about the madness of the world, and how in the ways of seeing can one find some sanity.

Thankyou for introducing me to the world of possibilities and making me believe a little more in myself.

Your honest, genius, genuine insights into my mind (through the conversations, crits, and lectures) had released me, (luckily early in the first year) from the clutches of the mundane. :-) I am grateful to have had this encounter.

Love what you do Love what you are All the best Thanks again Revati Shah

Dear Kaushik, I feel so grateful that I had the most amazing chance to be your student. All the things which you shared with me completely transformed my relationship with the world around me. I saw myself walking on the streets and thinking about forms and spaces and lines and colours in a way which made every living moment so much more exciting and fun!

I still think that 2010, my first year in krvia, was one of the most amazing years of my life. I was so excited to wake up and enjoy this wonderful space which your teaching practice created. I found myself constantly returning to so many of those possible ways of thinking and being as I entered the very traditional spatial practices as I graduated from college. Having that place of much more deeper engagements with forms which you shared made the more surface level architectural explorations more tolerable. Then I saw your exhibition at Chaterjee and lal and was so happy that something like that exists in the world! Thank you so much for doing what you do and sharing so much of your time, knowledge with us!

I will forever be grateful for all the love and encouragement you always gave us.

Hope you have the most amazing time ahead and we will miss you a lot! <3 Lots of Love, Shivani

Dear Kausik, Thank you Kausik for being my first mentor in my architecture journey. No words can ever describe how eternally grateful I am to you for believing in me when I did not believe in myself.

Thank you for always extending your warmth and love to not just me but everyone around you.

Your small, sometimes a little whimsical, gestures have had such a profound influence on the way I have grown not only as a student but as a person. One of the most instrumental lessons you taught me that has stayed with me since my first month at the KRVIA has been- the way you draw, is the way you see, and the way you see is the way you believe. Every now and then when I find myself on my drawing board, I am reminded of the exercises you did with us in our first year. You taught me to draw, to express, and be comfortable in my own skin. You opened up so many parallel mental universes in my mind that still echo with your influence.

How can any amount of words ever do justice to all that you have done!

I wish you all the love, peace, and well-being as you embark on this new chapter of your life.

KRVIA will never be the same without you around.

I hope I get to see you soon and be in the same space as your art. Love you so much Kausik.

Big hugs, Rajji Desai (Class of 2015)

I feel very fortunate to have had Kausik as my first instructor at Krvia back in 2002! It was one of our most formative times intellectually and personally and Kausikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influence was most pivotal to that growth. His casual warmth as well as stern and critical stance shaped us in many ways, and pushed us to transcend our comfort boundaries. Over the years whenever I return to krvia, I look for Kausikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hug and the adoring look in his eyes to see us all grow and flourish :) wishing him good health and a blissful well deserved retirement! It is hard to imagine the institute without you.

Love always, Richa

We have dreamt of being a teacher like you. Calm. Approachable. Brimming with ideas.

Hands-on. Experimental and Totally fun.

You played by example, showing us how to be confident, like the stroke of charcoal on newsprint. Not to worry about staining the sheet or our faces, but just make, because beauty is in making. You pushed us to be playful and imaginative, and always found a spark in the silliest of our ideas.

Thank you for filling our formative years at KRVIA with the joy of creating. We carry this piece of our life everywhere we go and try to inculcate the values in our everyday.

Campus will miss the little wizard cooking up magical projects and tinkering about with absurd machine.

The KRVIA landscape is about to change, but you will always have a special place in our hearts!

Much love, Neha (Pacheee) + Yagnik (Jogi)

Dear Kausik, Congratulations on your retirement! It’s been a long and beautiful journey that deserves a worthy celebration and I wish I was there with you to commemorate the occasion.

What a fantastic run! However, I can’t believe that there’s a whole bunch of future students that won’t get to spend time with you unlearning almost everything that they’ve been taught before architecture school! I know for a fact that you will stay involved with KRVIA to some extent and your students who are now teaching will honor your legacy moving forward.

Thank you for exposing me to a world of art that depicts the world we live in through distinct perspectives, very different from my own. Our discussions and readings on ‘Ways of Seeing’ and ‘Gardens’ from first year Theory of Design and Basic Design will stay with me lifelong. You helped me fall in love with art and design in primordial ways outside the realm of architecture and building science.

I remember asking why you called me ‘Intellectual’ and you said - “that’s because that’s who you are - a thinker!” Thank you for helping me see myself that way when I didn’t really know who I was yet and for your undiminishing fondness and love. I hope you are staying safe and taking care of your health. Please do convey my love to Mohua and the cats.

Lots of love and big hugs,

Aparajita / Pushpanjali / Intellectual <3 Here’s a picture of us from our Norway exchange trip that you went with us on. I believe this is from Copenhagen in Oct/Nov 2010, exactly a decade ago!

Kausik was perhaps the best introduction to architecture school that one could ever wish for! I remember the lost and confused souls that we were in our first few days, weeks and months at KRVIA. Starting from the Introductory Workshop to being the Year Master for the first year; leading the design studios to accompanying us on the study trip, Kausik will always be synonymous with the beginnings of all our architecture journeys! His gentle prodding, forever kind words of encouragement and generous empathy no matter how young & naive we were or how old & experienced we got, will never be forgotten. Thanks Kausik, for being you and always being there!

Much love, Kunal.

ANALYSIS OF A PAINTING I YR BASIC DESIGN

‘THE INVENTION OF THE TRUE CROSS AND TH RECOGNITION OF THE TRU CROSS’, 145

the project consisted of understanding the geometric forms of a renaissance painting, and then modelling these abstracted forms spatially. the challenge was to understand the kind of spaces attained within the painting.

Hi Kaushik, Thank you for all the help and support during my five years at KRVIA. I remember the wood workshop and the clay workshop of second year and have preserved some of the work that we did under your guidance.

Thank you so much.

Lovina Bajaj 2001 batch

Short man Squinty eyes Wide smile Cigarette in one hand Charcoal in another His infectious energy A cat lover A hugger A flatterer A genius Kausik Mukhopadhyay To that short man at KRVIA! We love you!

Thank you for the warmest of the hugs through these years. Thank you for some of the most intriguing conversations and projects. School would never have been the same without you and the your energy!

Wishing you all the happiness and so so so much love for doing what you do!

- Jay Shah

Dear Kaushik, THANK YOU! Thank you for being a crucial part of our journey in becoming better thinkers and by extension - better human beings.

Attaching below the only photo I have of yours from the trip to Dehradun in 2017! (When I was a TA for the then fourth-year batch) Sending love and gratitude!

Krupa Shah

Dear Kausik, I remember joining K.R.V.I.A two months after normal academic year had already started, my first day was also the B.D jury of project one (The prosthetic device) of my batch. I attended the jury as a spectator, I realized how much of learning I had missed in these two months. I was completely lost! I remember coming to you and saying “I don’t think I can manage to cope-up, do you think I should join back next year?”, you simply told me, “Arrey Babu, you can easily copeup, keep coming to me for all your doubts or go to Abhilasha or Shivani they will help you out. I did not end up coming to you a lot, but instead went to Abhilasha and here we are married for 5 years with a baby now. All thanks to you :) !!!

You are among the finest teachers with whom I have had the good fortune to have trained under. Thank you for the wonderful memories and teaching us the most important aspect of learning to design, “un-learn” first. When I heard that you are retiring I thought this is the end of an era. KRVIA will not ever be the same without you.

Have a wonderful life 2.0, wish you good health and all the happiness .

Lots of Love, Pathik (2020) (Batch of 2011)

Episodes with kausik

1.

Monsoon 2016.

It’s the First year introductory workshop. The ground floor auditorium is filled with students, faculty(Kaushik and Nebedita) and fifth year T.A’s.The student(S) is explaining his work. He made a drawing of ganpati which was projected to avoid using POP. Kaushik said, “baah!”(wow). He found him skilled and called him to shake hands.

S felt shy and he then blushed. shy-blush,shy-blush Kaushik exclaimed to the class,”oh my god! this guy is so shy as if I have touched his.........”

2.

Monsoon 2012.

Again, it’s the first year introductory workshop.The ground floor auditorium is filled like always.Kaushik and Sonal are reviewing the work along with TAs. Kaushik asked R who do you think is beautiful?

R: a first year student, replied Aishwariya Rai. K:Why do you like her?

R:she has pretty eyes, and she looks like a ...

Kaushik asked this time to the class. very few hands rose. turning to R,K continued, “you know Aishwariya Rai had an affair with Amitabh Bachhann, that she is married to him actually and the daughter is ....(pause), you know that?”

from Riddhesh with double love!!

*******

One of the very first assignments we undertook as younglings at KRVIA was to sketch a tangled pile of chairs. At the end of the class, Kausik patiently gave each of us a wonderfully unique and thoughtful critique of our scribbles. He awarded value and dignity to our productions, seeking the intent behind strokes that many of us could not yet comprehend. This was the start of five years and more of Kausik opening the door to wonderful new worlds for us to learn from, while also teaching us to think and critique for ourselves.

Kausik, I am so grateful for your joy, heart and encouragement, for not holding back your harshest and kindest words and for helping us break out of our thought bubbles.

Wishing you all the excitement and good cheer in the world!

Love, Keerti

*******

To an amazing teacher, mentor, friend Dear Kaushik, Thank you for being such an amazing teacher, I am so fortunate to have been taught by you.

Please find attached a letter I have written and a few photos from the studios you conducted.

A photo of the Lizard model I made in 2015, a picture from the Bamboo B.Tech Studio and Allied Design.

Warm regards,

Anandita

Dear Kaushik, My first memory with you is from the introductory workshop on ‘Pets’ in 2015 when you told us about your cats as you introduced the workshop to us. It was also that day that I happened to call one drawing 'objectifying' and you somehow never ever forgot I said that. It's amazing how you have seen so many students come and go and you still remember small things like this over the years.

You were my guide in my first ever project at KRVIA, the studio on ‘Metamorphosis’, trying to figure out how to build an installation around a lizard. I was so lost. I recall feeling stupid and so out of place when my classmates were all effortlessly figuring out their projects and I just kept struggling to make sense of it all. Yet somehow I did manage to finish that installation and I have you to thank for even making it to the end. Thank you for believing in me at the time. Amidst all the chaos, of moving away from home, figuring out a new city, new friends, of starting a course so challenging and rigorous, you made first year so enjoyable.

We could laugh in AD discussions, sitting in the canteen listening to you exclaim with excitement when someone got something right, when you saw old students walk by and you would call them and introduce them to us. I can't recall any other AD discussions being so open and fun like those. The studio atmosphere was just instantly more homely when you picked nicknames for everyone. Some of those names have stuck with us through the five years and become a way for us to often call each other as well. I don't recall ever having a nickname though, you just always referred to my girls gang as dangerous.

All of this made coming to KRVIA so special.

I cannot not mention the Theory of Design classes and electives you took. If I think I understand some art now it is all because of those classes. There are three paintings that have stuck with me and the discussions I can clearly recall, a Mark Rothko, Las Meninas and the Bharat Maata you showed us. Most of us were so clueless when it came to even being able to appreciate these works and it's incredible that we were able to learn about them from you.

When I heard you were leaving, I honestly couldn't believe it. It always seemed like you would be at KRVIA forever. It is hard to imagine first year in college without you and Sonal conducting the studio.

Who will give everyone nicknames now? Who will find the strangest two people in class and bet on them becoming a couple? (and sometimes get it right) Or who will teach us to not think like architects for once? To just do and make and trust the process. I wish I understood these things when you told them to us in first year. We probably couldn't figure out what we were doing back then but we all learnt something valuable for sure. Something that set us apart from the others who weren't taught by you.

I feel happy that I was so warmly greeted by you when we passed on the staircase in college for five years. That I could walk into the faculty room and you would smile at me and always ask me how it was going. I knew I could tell you exactly how it was going. Thank you for some really wonderful conversations. I feel so fortunate to have had you as a guide, a mentor and a faculty like a friend.

I hope you continue to teach students, and inspire us like you have been. It is a huge loss for KRVIA that you are leaving, and even though I'm younger, I wish you all the luck there is for what is next. I hope you remember your time with us as fondly as we do.

Thank you for teaching us Kaushik.

Cheers!

Warmest regards, Anandita Ayesha Rangarajan (2015-2020)

Dear Kaushik, He was the first faculty we interacted with in 2002 and made us immediately feel at home. His smile and a tight hug always turned a bad day into good one. He always stressed on freedom of expression. It was not about the skill, but about bringing confidence in the students to draw and express ones feelings, ideas and thoughts.The same got translated into models and installations at later stages in the course. I will always remember his installation work in the workshop. It was amazing to see his ideas transform into his installations. He was one of the most humble teachers to have taught us.

And one of the youngest at heart. Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ever imagine that he is retiring now.

Will miss the hug and the smile that we always received as we went back to school as an alumni. Will Miss you Kaushik.

Best wishes, Shriya Bhatia 2002-2007 batch

sik, Dearest Kau

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With Lots of Love Shireen

Kaushik, You have been the most positive influence in my life. Ever encouraging for somone who was new to Mumbai and unsettled in the college.

Wish you all the best for the future.

With love Form your

â&#x20AC;&#x153;First girlâ&#x20AC;?

Ar. Shweta Ruia Mehta

Hello Kausik, I and Amit feel so fortunate that we got to learn from you. Your immense knowledge and humble nature made learning with you absolute fun! I loved our visualization classes the most and used to look forward every week for drawing/charcoal sessions with you. You never restricted us to classrooms and always encouraged us to think out of the box. Your sense of humor would always crack us up and we still laugh every time we remember how you used to call Debashri - Debajani. Your art exhibitions have been such a source of inspiration! Very thoughtful, nuanced and unique. Curious to know how you will be spending time post retirement!

Thankyou for the immense joy of learning you have given us over the years! I pray that our son also gets a teacher like you at some point in his life!

Love and hugs - Mayuri & Amit

Dear Kausik, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think anything I write here would be sufficient, but nevertheless, thank you!

I remember the first few months of my first year being tough, especially because I felt utterly clueless and a misfit. However, all the discussions with you during BD studio (the Hejduk POP), finally helped me understand, to enjoy the design process.

Thank you for teaching me that it was okay to not have all the answers.

Later on, I got to observe your interaction with first years as a faculty, albeit briefly.

You have not only been a guide, but a haven.

I was unable to visit college frequently, but the few times I did, it was always reassuring to see you with the first years.

KRVIA wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the same without you! You will be sorely missed, by many.

Please take care.

Best Wishes and Lots of Love, Pradnya Mahajan

Kaushik, KRVIA will miss you a lot and always honour you as an amazing guide and year master,specially for the first years,so welcoming and approachable.Your way of thinking has helped me to look at things differently,to read things with a different perspective.Thank you for making us-newbies feel at home at KRVIA. Even though my surname is Aggarwal,my ears are suited to Nainika Chatterjee now,because thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what you have always called me.Thank you for always being there,will miss you a lot :) Nainika Aggarwal ,2nd year

Dearest Kaushik, You are the only thing I remember from my first day at KRVIA. I don’t remember my cohort, no senior, no other teacher. I remember sitting in the stilt area and you introducing us to our workshop exercise. We picked a household item and made drawings explaining them. I made some silly drawings showing how light travels through a light bulb as electrons and after 5 days converted them into life-size muppets.

Your exercises left my mother perplexed. What did that muppet have to do with architecture? Why were we carving out shoes out of POP? She once threw out my carefully tessellated peel of mosambi skin thinking it was garbage - I was trying to flatten a globe using triangles. To be honest I didn’t really have an answer to her questions back then! But everyone in the family accepted that this education was going to be different.

Kaushik, you are synonymous with that difference and the difference that it brought to me. It’s not an exaggeration, never before had I enjoyed learning so much. Just being present, thinking, listening, seeing, making.

I can’t think of you and not think of the exercises on describing self, then the other, then tracing how my family came to the city, all through wondering how that relates to the “theory of design” and then realizing over and over how that relates to how we live itself. Seeing slides and slides of artwork - understanding gaze, getting interested in the idea, tracing it in every photo, every advertisement, every movie and even my own work.

I can’t think of you and not think of how complex movements can be choreographed using simple circuits. You made everything familiar strange and everything strange familiar. You simultaneously unsettled me and soothe me. Meeting you intersected with that time of my life when space suddenly expanded and you provided us with the scaffolding to peer into that horizon.

Thank you for just being in my life. Thank you for all the effort you took and the patience you showed.

To be honest I can’t imagine going to school and not finding you at your desk. I am glad I won’t be visiting school anytime soon.

I love you very much, Namrata

Dear Kaushik, Some teachers teach you about the world, and some teach you about yourself. For me, you were among the latter. Thank you for making me see the world beyond everything else taught in architecture school.

It’s been more than 10 years since we did our first Basic Design exercise, and I still fondly remember every one of them. I remember how fascinated you were by my poorly drawn human figures that I was so embarrassed to show. How intrigued you were by my grungy gypsum model that was falling apart as I tried to sculpt the wet plaster. How impressed you were by the film we made even though it was a conglomeration of overdone sound effects and bad acting! You didn’t care about how much work we produced- you cared about how much we saw in the work we are producing. Those ways of thinking have stayed with me till today.

I’m not sure if you remember me Kaushik, but you’ve had a big influence on my life. Even as I’m writing this today, I emailed a classmate of mine some links to your work (Father’s House) for a project he’s working on.

I imagine I will always be referencing your thoughts and work throughout my time in this world. Thank you for that!

I hope we get to see each other someday. I would love to talk to you about your cats.

Lots of love, Divya Shetty Krvia ‘14

Dear Kausik Thank you for everything!

I’ve been thinking of what all to say as a thank you and fare-well at your new place and there was too much and too many tears to think straight. But today because its a nice cold morning, while doing the dishes I thought it was very important to say some things that you’ve done for the school that made the school what it is. I don’t think it has been said enough and everybody knows that the school should be actually called Kausik’s Really Vild Institute for Architecture and Environmental studies and now will go back sadly to being Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi institute for architecture and environmental Studies I’m now making a list of all the things you did for the school 1. For Architecture and Architectural education A way of thinking and making- concepts, processes and material working not as sequential tasks so that many complex meanings and ideas could emerge. The idea that a process is dialectical and not “ lateral” or “linear” or yuckily- “out of the box” which was how some people who don’t understand describe it.

Building 1:1 as a way of learning -of thinking through making.

Architecture as a part of the world and not caught in its limited discourse of tectonic and type, or even the mystifications of light and scale, but all these are real lived material things and ideas all at once.

The bringing of critical theory into formal processes and ideas which I don’t think anyone knew how to do until you came along.

That ideas can come from many sources and places.

I think this has informed design studios in school as much as the city as laboratory idea.

The idea of knowledge as a frame for thinking and not as instruction or diktat -that everyone is always only trying things and learning.

A rigour in the clarity of fundamental concepts, processes and form.

Bringing a Visual and Design culture that no one has ever seen before and was therefore never understood by those who always looked for the familiar.

2. For students and all of us faculty A freedom and confidence to be different and make their own particular ideas of what they can be as people and architects.

For women faculty and female students especially- a space away from the macho world of male architects, with their patronising ways and no imagination beyond narrowly defined and patriarchal space of practice , where even all those shy and soft spoken underconfident women became more confident and fabulous in very different ways.

3. For me Everything!

I was so under confident (and may now have become monster.) The best, most fun and most mind opening education I’ve ever had was in the studio and class with you. All the magic of your amazing mind will be missed. There is no replacement possible.

I cant imagine everyday not seeing you at your desk and I will miss you too much.

Love you!

Sonal

Seldom do you meet a teacher who has a significant impact on your life. For me, that teacher is Kaushik. He was my very first impression of life at KRVIA, and what a fantastic one at that! Always radiating positive energy - from the moment he stepped into the auditorium to brief us on the 1st year workshop, right until the end when we struggled with our thesis projects, Kaushik was always there with a big smile, tight hugs and encouraging words.

For all the five years I spent at KRVIA, the first two are my most cherished and I have Kaushik to thank for that. He recognised an artistic potential in me that, at the time, I was too under confident to realise. It is only now that I truly comprehend how much his encouragement and respect for my ideas helped me come into my own as a designer. All through those first few years, he had me curious, engaged and greatly enthusiastic about art and design and for that, I am incredibly thankful to him.

When I first read that he was retiring, my first reaction was that of surprise, then pity and lastly gratitude. Surprise because with the kind of energy I have seen in Kaushik, I truly felt he could go on teaching forever. Pity for the future generations of KRVIANs who will miss out on the kindest, most inspiring teacher. The corridors of KRVIA will be much less colourful without Kaushik’s periodic exclamations of “Babuuu”. But most of all I am thankful that I had the opportunity and good fortune to be taught by a wonderful educator, brilliant artist and a fantastic mentor.

To Kaushik, congratulations on your retirement. I wish you good health, success and happiness for everything that is to come. Thank you for everything.

Lots of love, Priyanka Poulose P.S - I am attaching a few pictures of the 1st year workshop titled “Twisted Fairytales” from 2009

Dear Kausik, There are very few artists + teachers who leave an everlasting impact on their students. Your entire approach to deconstruct the education pattern and create a new raw base for upcoming years of architecture was amongst the main reasons for KRVIA to have such an amazing bunch of creative graduates. To top it up, was your simplicity and humble attitude which is so rare to find in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world. Rare personalities like yours are never easy to be found despite having such a large population!

Your retirement is a loss to the education curriculum of KRVIA not only because you are a very good teacher but also because you come with very welcoming and warm vibrations to everyone you meet. I will fondly cherish all the amazing times we spent together and I will always be grateful to you for teaching us how to re-learn the fundamentals techniques and question the norms we have followed blindly.

I wish you could continue as a visiting faculty or start your own classes from home or a convenient location. It will be a pleasure to keep in touch!

Wish you the very best of life and may you continue to spread joy and creative encouragement as always!

Kind Regards, Ar. Manmohit M Chawla MRICS MSc. Development Planning (Felix Scholarship) | B. Architecture

Hi Kausik, A flood of memories come rushing back to me as I begin to write this. Probably the most prominent among them would be during the first discussion in our Introductory Workshop, as our group was struggling a bit (actually, a lot) to get ideas for our installation. I, the then (and still) shy one, said something in my barely audible voice, and suddenly something struck you. You spoke a few sentences of how we could use that idea and walked away. And I remember feeling a little confused, like most of us, but also a little more confident.

And sometimes after all these years in the middle of another project, the understanding of so many of your critiques and conversations now strikes. Perhaps that is the sign of an exemplary teacher- to know and see for the student/ individual what she/he cannot themselves and to let that teaching remain for years.

I never thanked you for your encouragement and sharing your experiences of failure when I came to talk to you after my final thesis disappointment. I do remember feeling so much lighter, and that conversation with you will always stay in my moments of self-doubt.

I cannot comprehend my sheer luck in coming to KRVIA and meeting teachers like you at the most difficult phase of my life. You heard my voice, helped me see things I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t myself and gave me a place I could call home. All your efforts, love, hugs, teachings that you put into that helpless shy little girl still lives, and she will never stop being grateful for the same.

I wish you lots and lots of love, KRVIA will be a lot emptier without you.

-- Apoorva Iyengar

Dear Kausik My time with you in KRVIA was amazing.

You were always supportive ,encouraging and unpredictable with a zany sense of humour.

Of course in the classroom you were an amazing guide and mentor but out of it ( in the smoking zone ) you were even better as your thoughts were unrestricted and boundless.

I remember the time you wanted to protest against college management for not giving us a holiday on Eid , it was hilarious Today I am a young architect working in this big bad world On both a professional and personal level, my decision making , ideals and thoughts are subtly informed through a lot of my time spent with you and others in the school I often reminiscence our hour long conversations in the smoking zone.

We spoke about everything under the sun .

Our conversations were often politically charged and opened me up to alternate perspectives “It’s easy to teach and preach but extremely difficult to instil and inculcate “ This one line sums up my learning experience with you ,Kausik ❤️

Lots of love always Hussain

Hey Kausik, I hope you know what a big impact you have on every single student that you have taught. We all came to you fresh faced and eager in the first year and you loved us and challenged us, helped us unlearn things and little by little opened up our minds - not just to art and architecture and all things design but to everything from the idea of beauty to politics and debate.

I remember talking to you about Dadaism and the history of art, about form and function, about trapeze artists and bamboo installations. You have been instrumental in my education - not just as an architect but also as a fully engaged human with an open mind.

Thank you for being you. Wishing you much joy and just like you in this photo - simple pleasures, creative thinking and restfulness.

Thank you again, Supriya Gandhi Architect the workshop

A Note Of Appreciation I remember my first day at KRVIA like it was yesterday. Amongst a sea of uncertain faces was a bespectacled round smiling round face that called out to all the uncertain faces with an endearing ‘babu!’. Kaushik- a teacher, mentor, a friend and a father like figure to all (all animals on the campus included).

Through the semesters, Saachi was his Chip and I became Dale. It’s been 10 years since I graduated and maybe 12 since Kaushik last taught us, but never has a teacher left such a lasting impression on me. His task was hard- make us unlearn what we have learnt in 18 years and then open our minds to what he was trying to show us. The warmth and love with which he taught his students, safe to say, is incomparable.

To the next batches coming out of college – I hope you get a chance to experience the force of nature that Kaushik is. And to Kaushik – Good luck to the next phase!

Best regards,

Neha Gupta (Batch 2005-2010)

Hello, I went through all my backup but literally have no digital pictures prior to 2007 unfortunately.:( But here’s something I wrote for you, Kausik.

Thank you for all the years!

November 8, 2020 Kausik called me “Prorana” and also “botterrrflayi” (aka butterfly because of a tattoo I got in my third year) and I never got tired of it. He was a significant part of our 1st year and helped us transition into the KRVIA “out of the box” thinking.

I remember our first week at the introductory workshop when Kausik would always get mad when someone called him Sir. He would say “the Britishers left behind this legacy… please just call me Kausik”. It took me a week to unlearn this and a lot longer to unlearn more. He always said “kya karega” when he wanted us to think for ourselves when faced with a problem that he knew we could find a creative solution to. I really enjoyed and soaked up all I could in his classes because it was just something our 18-year-old brains were never exposed to. We were just sheep taught to remember facts and figures but never taught to question. Here, there was never a right answer, we had to figure it out for ourselves what is the path for us individually.

I am very grateful to you Kausik, without you I would never have had the experience I did at KRVIA. You are a massive part of why I am a thinking opinionated person. I didn’t know much about anything when I landed at KRVIA. I probably could count the number of artists I knew on one hand. You really exposed me to a world outside my little sheltered bubble and instilled in me the need to know more. TOD classes were my absolute favourite and put the world and our position in it, slightly into perspective.

When I came to the states for my grad school at CalArts, I remember this statement from my mentor in the first month. He suddenly looked at me and said out of the blue “You have had a very good education”. I didn’t know what that meant and whether I should have taken offense or was it just a compliment? I know now and I completely agree- I am privileged to have had this education and it is an even bigger privilege to have been taught by you.

Lots of love and reused everyday objects for new art pieces…

Prorana Prerna Chawla KRVIA- 2002 to 2007

Just Kaushik

being Kaushik!

I remember thinking how carefree and bindass he is, laughing out loud but also reminding myself that that’s how I’d want to be!

Thank you Kaushik for giving me a new name (Khaynee- haha), I’ll never forget it!

KRVIA was the luckiest to have you, as were we, and you’ll always be our favourite!

Thank you for being you!

Lots of love, Jaynee 2018

Dear Kausik (sir) , I hope this email finds you well. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think you will remember me though but I hold all your learnings very close.

I remember how you helped me unleash the artist within by appreciating every little thing I drew. It helped me immensely to shed all the self consciousness that had been perpetrated into my psyche by my very dominating father who happened to be an artist himself. His criticisms were nullified by your constant encouragement. Being treated as an artist and not an amateur was a huge morale booster for someone like me who was constantly looking out for validation. You found art in each piece of work that came in front of you.I still have all my sketches saved and your comments resonate in my mind everytime I see them ! Though you appreciated my work in every class but somehow it never got exhibited at any of the exhibitions that were held during college :) so I did nurse some regret there! Hopefully this time around it will reach its fruitful destination.

I hope you continue to inspire lives and nurture talent ! Good luck and Thank you once again!

Warm Regards.

Deepti Maithil (Batch 2004) P.S - I am attaching a few sketches that you had praised by saying â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nice set of monochromesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Hi, These pics are from the 1st year study trip to Devgad and extended trip to Goa in January 2005.

Kaushik was 51yrs old back then. (I vividly remember this, because while booking tickets for the trip and when Kaushik mentioned his age, no one believed him to be that old.)

The boat pic brings a funny memory, as Kaushik was worried that the overloaded boat was going to sink.

Regards, Ar.Sujith Pillai

WHEN IT RAINS! When I joined college I had no idea what I was getting into. No one in my family had ever been an architect nor did I have any kind of guidance as to what all happens in an architecture college.

In my very first year, I was introduced to so many new things that my mind couldn’t assimilate the things thrown at us. Out of which the most bizarre one was Mr. Kaushik Mukhopadhyay.

A Five-foot something man with a loose fit, muted color Tee shirt, and loose cargo pants with a silver spectacle, stubble, and a beaming smile. I can never forget that image. It got even better when he began to talk to us. His language was a concoction of words, accents, and funny names all mixed into one. It echoed through our classrooms, the corridors, and especially the workshop. Where this man spent most of his time in a corner either sanding, chopping, hammering, or breaking something. Half my first year went by trying to understand what Kaushik said and the other half in what he meant. I understood jack shit!

On top of this, he used to give us assignments in his broken language and leave us like sheeps t go around the college or Juhu grazing for god knows what “Kaushik” wanted. We had no clue what we were doing. He asked us to sketch beggars, we did. He asked us to see the unseen. We tried. He asked us to not use an eraser and instead go over the lines again and again. I would have never known there were so many kinds of pencils from H to 12B and even more, had it not been for this man. In fact, till his lecture, I have always assumed charcoal was something with which my granddad brushed his teeth or something on which we roast nice juicy kababs, why the fuck is he asking us to get that to class?

Kaushik, Kaushi, Kaushik. When ever I crossed the first-floor corridor to come to the cooler or on the way to the loo I always saw a semi ajar door to the work shop and a silhouette of a man standing by the half-broken window meticulously fixing one random object to another. I always kept thinking what does this man do and why the fuck does anybody get paid to gather old used objects and then put them together to form another god knows what object!

The best part used to when we all used to assemble back post coming back from grazing all around Juhu, Kaushik used to hold a “Sabha mandali” with our class, either in the stilts or workshop or any such place. And all us “Gopiyas” would sit around him in a circle while our “Kanhaiya” went through all our work. I kid you not the feeling was nothing less than winning a lottery when we heard the words…”AEY! KYA KIYA RAY! SHOW SHOW!” And then there was a big pause while he took our sketches and kept looking at them. We didn’t know what the fuck was going to come out of his mouth. It was purely like winning a lottery. Sometimes it was “Maja nahi aya! Look more” Or sometimes “Aye tu ja don’t show me your face” But sometimes there was this big pause while Kaushik kept sipping on his tea, staring at your work that was in his hand.

And with each sip, his smile grew and his eye brow twerked, and slowly his entire face had a glow! You knew you had struck GOLD! Though you didn’t know the shit you had done Kaushik had found something in it that he has been looking for. And then he used to let out a shout - “AEY YEH KAISA KIYA RAY TU? HOW YOU MANAGED?” And then he showed your work to the entire class and as it got passed around no one understood why the fuck that sketch was so “Kaisa kiya ray worth!” But if Kaushik says it must be.

I remember a famous kissa that went around during our times. It was regarding Subhod Sir (My all-time favorite) and Kaushik. And it was passed down through classes either by Prasad Shetty or Nilesh Rajyadaksh but it was my favorite story. The one about Subhodh sir entering a design competition project in which they had to choose an artist for whom to design a house. And Subhod sir had designed one for Kaushik. And when ever I heard the brief I would laugh till I teared up. Apparently, the brief was Kaushik likes the shade, He loves to paint when it’s windy and it rains and he loves to drink rum. That was the brief. JUST THAT! And I believe Subhodh Sir had designed a ground structure - a box with a parachute lite material canopy on the terrace and placed it by the beach. And that was the design. The solution being when it’s

windy the air will fill up the parachute and it will fly up in the air creating shade on the terrace for Kaushik to get his easel and bottle of rum and when it rained he could drink and paint all he wanted.

I am so glad I had such lovely mentors who would not just teach you but open your minds. That was the parachute that Kaushik opened in all of us. I still donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite understand half the things he says but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the beauty of it. I love him for that and I will always be indebted for the love and passion he brought to the college. We just wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the same without him in our lives. Thankyou Kaushik Dada! May it rain always and may you paint more dreams sipping on rum all your life. God bless!

Monish Talpade

To Kaushik, The ever so warm and one of the most loving teachers I have known. You have understood us well during the days we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand ourselves, and gently exposed us to so many new ways of looking that really set the foundation of how we perceived ourselves. You have never judged any of us, and always looked at the work irrespective of who it was coming from.

It aches to know that the students in the forthcoming years wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be able to experience the pleasure of learning under your guidance. You are the best teacher I have ever had, and this is only but a small way of giving back and expressing deep gratitude.

I wish you all the luck for everything life withholds, and I will always remember you.

Thank you for everything!

Love, Noopur Sejpal.

(2009-2014)

Love, Abhijit

Kausik!

You are one of the only few who has been genuine with all students through the years for the school.

You have had a big hand in conditioning our growth from teenagers to young adults.

You’ve always been a person who has accepted people for the way they are and that’s what has helped you to guide us for the better always.

Personally you’ve been more of a friend than faculty inside or outside the gates.

Thank you, remain the fantastic dynamic individual you have always been!

Best wishes, Zubin Parekh

Dear Kausik, I don’t even know where to begin and how to say what is in my heart without it sounding like farewell, because this isn’t one. It is a new beginning and an exciting prospect for young minds to grow into wonderful practitioners under your watchful eye. Which is why, I think it would be best to start at the very beginning.

August 16th, 2005, the day is etched in my mind forever. The memory is crystal clear as though it was yesterday. After a week spent at another school, I walked into KRVIA (which I learnt much later, while travelling the country with your work is Kausik’s School) where we were ushered into a lecture hall where you stood with your back against the wall with a team of young people and students, teaching assistants. Now that I think of it little has changed, well, you have a beard now, your glasses are different, and that salt and pepper hair is really coming into its own. Everything from that day onwards, has been a series of life changing moments for me.

2020 also marks 15 years since I first met you Kausik!

I have seen you take on so many roles for those around you, and me especially, a father, a friend, an artist, a teacher, an architect and a colleague. It is overwhelming to think if a time when you will not be around us in the same space, the morning greeting with a big smile and a warm hug, stealing sips of coffee from your mug and bites roti-omelet from dabba, and coming back from the studio, sometimes excited, joyous, frustrated, angry and just planting my bum on the chair next to you and chatting! I will also miss your voice saying, “chol appu! We have class!”

I just wanted to make a list of some of the things that I remember, and I wanted to share with you.

These times have shaped me as an individual, a teacher, a thinker and a professional, and all of it is to do with you. I will start from the top.

1. During the introductory workshop, you put a drill machine in my hand. It was one of the most exciting moments for me. You set in place a work with hands and think while you make work ethic which I follow to the day, whether I am at site, or at home, I think of the day every time I open my cupboard and see my drill machine resting till it can be used next.

2. Your visual studies and theory classes, discussing art and why the Mona Lisa is ugly.

3. First year study trip, you made us cook for the whole village! What a day that was!

4. Saturday mornings of my second year, spent watching and discussing films with you in Visual Studies class.

5. B.Tech elective, excavating in the monsoon to build a foundation for a wall, was by far one of the most hilarious ideas we have had, made possible only by your encouragement. And what fun we had while we were at it!

6. Conversations with you in the canteen, especially during thesis time.

7. You very happily stepped back to let us take charge of the introductory workshop when we were TAs in the 5th year.

8. Working on Cinema City with you. Designing the stand for the bioscope.

9. Travelling around the country with your work, installing shows and meeting people who were so excited to meet me as I was from Kausik’s School!

10. Teaching B.Tech with you for 9 years, coming up with all those ideas, making those projects, designing and discussing details and working with the kids has been so much fun! (if you ever think of re-starting a class like that, anywhere, count me in!)

11. Study trips, walking around with you, afternoon naps under the tree, drinks in the evening, the whole thing.

Please always do what you do best! Please build more institutions and thinkers and exciting minds!

Lots of love, will miss you a great deal, Apu

Rhea Shah

Dear Kaushik, You were an inspiration for us to being art and design together. My memories of doing the painting for college day which was combination of masterpieces three storied high was sn amazing experience. You chaitanya brought critic and understanding of art and artist to us. Your exhibitions in industrial warehouse was also very thought provoking.

I am forever grateful for the experiences you created for us and also you as a person also were so cheerful.

Thank you for being such a person and inroducing art in such a way when we were students.

Kindly keep in touch my email id is deepika.jeevan@gmail.com Regards Deepika Dr Deepika Shetty

Apu VS Studio 2005

On our first day of class, Kausik assigned a reading from John Bergerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book titled Ways of Seeing. Admittedly, I found it hard to grasp immediately, and returned to it several times that year and beyond.

In some ways, that book title and my engagement with it aptly encapsulates Kausikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mentorship and its significance for me. He introduced me (and several others) to new ways of seeing a reality I took for granted and to challenge internalized world views. Several years later, I continue to reflect on the complex ideas Kausik introduced me to and respect him for pushing me the boundaries of my imagination.

Kausik has always tackled even the most challenging issue with a great deal of humor. He has shown me how to examine serious issues without taking ourselves too seriously. Kausik also consistently demonstrated how it is possible to challenge students and critique their work while showing compassion and kindness.

Beyond all of this, Kausik has been a friend, a confidante, and a mentor through college and after. For me, Kausik is someone I consider synonymously with KRVIA.

With much love and a big hug, Aparna

When you think of Kaushik, your mind walks into the space of first year. The bizarre space where you hardly understand much, there is no grip to hold onto & meanings that you have considered normal come crashing down. The space of study trip to coastal villages, where after seeing work Kausik would find shaded verandah & take his afternoon nap like a cat. The year passes by without understanding much. But now when you look back you realise no one can do what Kausik does in First Year. All the fixed set of preconceived notions & meanings everyone walks in with, Kausik through his conversations & projects would undo all of them. A process that is critical for the education of any creative discipline. He can see through students work & discern patterns of ideas & form embedded in the work itself and give a clear direction. As an architect it is difficult for one to understand what he is thinking, but if you observe him over time you realise how limited our thinking tools are. He can easily see through the ideas when a student brings a model made up of sticky gel with sparkling particles sprinkled over it. A lot of us would freak out seeing those models due to our own love for pristine & finished objects, but he is able to see through them. May be it comes from his training & practice as an artist, or vast experience of teaching or just simple genius that he is. He is always able to see more, philosophically & formally.

But above all I love him as a teacher for the way he supports students with unconditional love, care & warmth. You turn up being at much more ease with your own self, more confident and not so quiet.

A lot of us would not be the kind of people we are today if Kausik didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t teach us. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I would ever be able to imagine KRVIA without him. It would take time to get used to not seeing him in his corner taking a nap like a cat !

I will miss you Kaushik!

- Mayuri

I joined architecture school in 2008 unaware of what design means, or worse - to manifest a concept into something tangible. I had joined because I wanted to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;design buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and our first year Basic Design class was anything but that. It was an exploration of form, spaces, and making possible what seemed abstract at first. I transitioned out of school in 2013, and the approach that Kaushik taught us stayed with me, and set the foundation to my thought processes I follow till date. I am able to convert my formless dreams into a reality because he taught us how to visualize. I am indebted to how patiently he makes all of us understand the nuances only ever so slightly losing his temper, but loving us unconditionally.

Thank you Kaushik.

PS: Some pictures attached

Yashesh

Dear Kaushik, The most transformative exercise for me, and I am sure for most others was to sit on the canteen floor and create absurdly large charcoal scribbles on newsprint. I was always the most cautious person, trying to draw a line perfectly, carefully. It took me a couple of years to be at ease with the freedom this exercise brought with it. You may not know that it is a process I still follow for my drawings, to sit with a large drawing pad and rub charcoal over it.

The seemingly wacky stories you told us in our first month, and the affection you showered, completely unhinged us! I remember interpreting a Hejduk poem, most naively, and creating a painting as part of the design process. As I nervously showed it to you at the very end of class, you excitedly exclaimed ‘baah!’, allowing my interpretation, however incorrect, to avoid any imposition in my process or ideas. It was difficult to grasp your persona within the school, and I for one started discovering more through the body of work I observed later, at Chatterjee and Lal, the biennale, the film squeeze lime in your eye- through the whimsical paintings, and enticingly disturbing exhibit at the biennale. And while we cannot imagine this program at KRVIA, without your frenzied ‘baaah’ easing us into the first year, I look forward to discovering more of you through your work.

Love, Pramada

It was amazing having Kausik as a profesor the past year and a half. He genuinely made studios enjoyable, his movies made visual studies an absolute delight and it was really amazing having him as a professor and as a person you could talk to in college. I have so many memories of his classes, him taking my first ever jury to him his crits in my most recent on, his advice on some of my work and his humour in the classroom. I remember after a heavy AD jury he planned a simple sketching exercise for Visual Studies so we could have something more simple to do instead of a heavy class for students who spent all night working on our juries.

Attached is a picture of a sketch I did for that exercise, jokes aside, I still consider it one of my best hand sketches in terms of quality till date.

Kausik, it was really wonderful learning from you, and I wish you the best for everything beyond KRVIA. Thank you so much for everything I learned from you, and all the memories.

Lots of love, Shravan.

Dear kaushik Never thought that this goodbye will come so soon, To the first teacher in college as if it were yesterday, u coming in that AV 1...giving us those chits...the first review...and so on. The memory is still so vivid.

We will Miss ur team up with sonal...

That green so many pockets pants paired up with grey tee U giving each of ur std a unique name...esp mine... Kshama ka khama could have never imagined that before..

Ur stories...ur passion for paintings and cats..ur that never finishing chewing gum We are gonna miss every bit of it. We are gonna miss u Kaushik.

Sorry for being the most impossible, stubborn, annoying kid.

If i were u, i would have killed myself, atleast once. Thank you for putting some sense into us....seeing the world out of the prospective view.

Thank you for not giving up on us. Thank you for treating us like ur own children. Thank you for shaping us all into what we are today. We might have never told you this but we love and respect you a lot. We will make you proud soon.

Love , respect and gratitude for life.

Khama!

To Dear Kausik Mukhopadhyay ; Hope this letter finds you like the Email in the first year. “It was by chance I got an admission in this college” this is what I kept feeling until I met you and Rohan. All I want to say is that I wouldn’t be able to grow and be happy as I have, if I hadn’t met you. I still remember the first time I showed you work, I could hardly speak and was laid back but things changed as you encouraged me. I haven’t met a Kind and an intelligent person like you and I think won’t ever meet one because you are so special. The amazing work that you’ve done with the observation skills that you have practised in all these years and the instinctive decisions taken while making those intricate and stunning installations ; have guided me and many like me , And would always push me to do more in future.

Do you remember this model from the first year? I lacked in consistency and patience which I tried to cope it with your help, and as a result the final model was noteworthy out of the other previous models of mine after trial and error ; I was very lazy I still remember and You and Sonal were there to guide me through this process.

This is not a good bye letter; I would refrain from writing one. This is just to tell you that I will always be thankful to you for the knowledge and understanding that you’ve helped me gain through these years; I will always love you and also watch Bengali films time to time  .

With lots of love, One of your cat, Kaumudi More 

Dear Kaushik, I write this note with my deepest gratitude. There are few teachers who become voices in your head, and speak to you for years after. While reading Foucault in college (2008) in a strange land far away from home, memories of a month long theory of design class (2001) came by; suddenly it all made sense! How do you teach difference, diversity, tension, love, personal space, to a bunch of teenagers? - you sent us to a friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house and asked us spend time with their family. And brilliant, we learnt so much: by eating together, by understanding difference through compassion, sharing personal space, diversity, solidarity.

I came to you as a strong headed 19yr old who believed in god, in being spiritual in doing good for the world. I left school a skeptic; willing to challenge norms, to create my own notions of empathy, and boldly stand against all that I find stupid. This is a gift I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ever repay.

Thank you for laughing with me, and at me in endearing ways.

Thank you for never telling me how to think. Thank you for keeping us puzzled, curious, involved, and thank you most for never shying away from a good scolding followed by a warm hug.

It has been a privilege and I wish you a world of joy and many more years of moulding young minds!

Love, Lubaina.

2012 monsoon- resting space, first lecture- Riddhesh Ghadi

‘There is a little bit of Kausik’s spirit in all of us.’

Jeenal Sawla

Kaushik Where did our years go?

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve saw Kaushik reclining in his corner chair dreaming fantastic dreams ...many strands of dreams. Many years ago they came past us chugging on strange trains endlessly looping their stories around and around.

Then the funny creatures crawled across vast deserts and squeaked their messages into our ears. .. the years passed. ... strange gadgets flashed and we saw our past.. our mothers homes and music rooms in cathode tubes. These were Kaushiks dreams all interwoven with cats and paws and then more and more cats.

But what else did Kaushik do all these years ..... he made impossible fantasmagorical stories... which had wings and became kites and planes and Google maps. The children came year after year and flew away on these stories...they made their own strange narratives .. Kaushik taught them to dream....until one day they grew up and became architects.

With all my love dear Kaushik DREAM ON....Vandana

Love, KRVIA