Yashwant Pitkar Sir J. J. College of Architecture: Then & Now. I came to Sir JJ College Of Architecture first in 1985 to join the Masters course in Architecture and then as a full time teacher, from 1987, that’s almost 24 years. Then and now, actually, nothing has changed. Anybody who leaves the college feels there is a change. I’ve been here for 24 years, I see no change. Nothing changes. Except, I think more than 10 trees have fallen down and no tree has been planted by anyone.
If not teaching, then what would you be doing? One thing that I enjoyed was, to fly. Fly gliders, not commercially, but have fun, jump out of an aircraft and travel in deserts or ruins all over the world / all over India.
Does humour play a role in teaching? I think I would put it like this, that teaching is a very serious business but if you are teaching very seriously it might not catch attention of students so in case of humour I would say, to make it light and interesting enough, so that people will listen to you. And only if they listen to you, they will learn.
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2011 | SHILPASAGAR
Memorable moment? I think in 24 years there might be atleast 15-20, but the one I can remember is holding a rock concert by Rock Machine (Now Indus Creed) for NASA because it shook almost the whole college and the staff of having a rock band playing for our college. I wish we have more such events, its great fun dancing, though I don’t. ’Architecture is the last resort’ what do you think? I think it is not a good thing to ‘think’. One should join only if he/ she is serious about architecture. Unfortunately the education upto 12th does not tell you what Architecture is all about. Very few join with a serious thought, and most of them learn about it later. I wished there was some mechanism which could allow them to leave Architecture after 1st year because it’s something much serious. What you learnt from students? You can see a lot of change and the easiest way to see change is through younger people and accept change. One can resist also, if you don’t agree to certain things. But one has to find the reason behind change and then one understands why change takes place. Message for the students. Architecture is a very passionate thing to me and I think, one should be serious about it. One could look at it as making four walls and a roof, but it is much more than four walls and a roof. Bye!