From Vivina Vishwanathan the fascinating story of an afternoon with Anisha Shekhar Mukherji & Snehanshu Mukerjee
Did you know, there is a deep linkage between a murder mystery fiction and the design of your dream home? Also, did you know, reading in your native language can help you understand the architecture of your neighbourhood better? To showcase this and more, on a hot summer afternoon, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, reputed architects Snehanshu Mukherjee and Anisha Shekhar Mukherji took the members of Juhu Book Club on a two-hour engaging tour which included stories from the British Council in Delhi to Satyajit Ray’s house in Kolkata, in between taking a stopover at Oxford Bookstores, Agatha Christie’s murders and Red Fort too—in their mansion and all over a Zoom call.Soon after the Club members were onboard, the duo hit the road and headed straight to the marvellous mansion of Architects’ Mind. At the first glimpse you could see that the foundation of the mansion was books cemented strongly with fiction and murder mystery.
While the Club members observed keenly from outside, Anisha explained that reading fiction helps you build empathy, an “absolutely essential ingredient” for designers. “There is a very simple connection between murder mystery and design—the search. You keep unravelling the truth and arrive at the final design. If you are lucky, you guess the ending. But mostly you wait till the end. There is that parallel,” points out Snehanshu. As Anisha and Snehanshu led the Club members into the mansion, the steps to the mansion indicated that books indeed were the first stage of construction, years before architecture happened to both. While Snehanshu’s childhood was spent in and above British Council in Delhi, Anisha’s constant companion was libraries while her army household uprooted every few years to a new destination.
The front door of the mansion welcomed everyone from the Club to the interconnected universe of books and design. “When you are surrounded by books, you become more restful. You get familiar with the world,” said Snehanshu, as he guided everyone inside. When the Club members looked closely at the walls of the mansion, they notice that every brick is in fact books of crime fiction writers—from Agatha Christie to Keigo Hagashimo. “Murder mystery is a piece of research, an inevitable part of design as well. Initially you are collecting all the information to build a picture—an exercise in analysis, research and imagination. Any book you read has a design or architecture component in it. The description of spaces evokes reconstruction in your mind, a good training ground for budding architects,” says Anisha, when she notices members spotting murder mystery authors on each brick. There are Boris Akunin’s Murder Mysteries, The Red House by A.A. Milne, Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, Behold Here’s Poison by Georgette Heyer, Feluda Mysteries by Satyajit Ray, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Nicholas Blake mystery stories and more.
Slowly, the couple directs the group to their messy study, which begins even before the living room ends. Filled with sketches of children’s books, forts and monuments, every corner of the study echo’s that every design has a story and every story has an element of architecture. “You can’t escape architecture,” says Anisha, who has written about the idea of pucca house through Three Little Pigs. Her books on Red Fort and Jantar Mantar deep dive into the complex construction and astronomy, respectively. Their study gives a sense of a sacred place where the mind toils and is constantly researching many of which went into building the books. As the Book Club members exit the study, there lies Anisha’s work-in-progress book on the attributes of Indian design.
Adjacent to the study is an attic filled with boxes, tools and toys labelled in Bengali, Tamil and even Sanskrit. When the group inspects the Devanagari scripts, the couple promptly reveals its existence in the mansion. “There is a huge cultural difference in reading in regional language compared with English. I realised it when I first read Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories in Bengali,” said Snehanashu. From Tagore’s short stories, Anisha leads the guests to a 100-year-old Mayamatam written by Mayamuni, one of the best books in design. She has read the translation first and is now reading it in Sanskrit. “Mayamatam is fascinating. Art, philosophy, science, construction, soil mechanic, urban dwelling, seat to palki, all in one text,” says Anisha, with a twinkle in her eye.Next we head to take a tour of the master bedroom. The pillow and the cushions are filled with the stories of Delhi’s British Council Library and theatre. “When I was a child, we used to live on top of the British Council Library. And All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFAC) was there too, which had the best theatre hall in Delhi, built in the 1950s. The connection with theatre and books happened then,” said Snehanshu, who read books from British Council at a time when it was not allowed for children to be members. The table lamp in the bedroom of the mansion has the story of theatre. “My father used to design lights for the sets which subconsciously ignited my interested in theatre. Reading books and watching sets being built, helped me,” said Snehanshu.
The duvet in the room has a story of Ruskin Bond. “When I met Ruskin Bond, he said two things: First, to be a writer, you have to be a reader. And, second, there are more writers than readers,” said Anisha. As the members of the Book Club stepped on the carpet in the room, they notice a story of an intern. “One of my interns said that she doesn’t read books. The problem today is that people don’t read,” said Snehanshu.As Anisha guides the visitors to their balcony, the Book club members could now view the mansion, aptly called Architects’ Mind, and are impressed with the depth and vastness of it. It is then that hostess gives an advice. “When you write, imagine two people—one who knows nothing and, the other, who knows everything. Hence, your writing should be simple and comprehensive,” said Anisha, who is now ready to take the group to the prized possession of the mansion—the bookshelf.
Bookshelves, they said, can be a prop or a necessity. The duo has designed the Oxford bookstores for the country, starting with Kolkata. “We have designed a number of Oxford bookstores around the country. Bookstores are designed as a library to give a sense of belonging,” said Snehanshu, who mentions that the section of the book, determines the size of the book. “Looking for a quick fix? Try occasional furniture for books where proximity matters,” comes the response from the host to the unasked question of a Club member who worried about too many books.As the visitors sat down for a cup of coffee, at the dinning table placed in the kitchen, the hosts continued with the bookstore narrative. The guests noticed the kitchen spice rack packed with the story of art galleries. “The first exhibition at the Kolkata’s Oxford bookstore, I decided has to be Satyajit Ray’s drawings,” said Snehanshu, who then got introduced to Sandeep Ray for the project. Did you know, Satyajit Ray used to buy his stationery from Oxford and the old-time manager Mr Mansukhani would know him personally? Though Sandeep Ray was assigned to arrange it, he contracted chicken pox, which took Snehanshu to Satyajit Ray’s house for the first time.“I was let into his famous study. I was given trunks of his drawings. They had kept the study the way it was. There was his famous arm chair. He had converted a movie camera tripod into his drawing board which you can tilt to any angle. His study was filled with books, piling up on the floor. You had to find a place to sit on the floor and look at the drawing,” said the host.As we head to the porch of the mansion and almost at end of the tour, the Book Club members noticed the basement.
The basement has the story of the connection between archaeology and historical monuments. “You will never find the correct answer to the historical monuments. The theories about The Great Pyramid and Harappa Civilization constantly change. Go with version of the archaeologists and not the historians. Archaeologists are like detectives, building stories on evidence,” said Snehanshu, point out that today archaeologist are joined in with geographers, geologist, plant scientist and other science disciplines.With that it was time for the Book Club members to go back to their homes. How did they know? Well, a wasp, the alien-eyed cousin of bees, beeped like an alarm.Long after leaving the mansion, the guests couldn’t stop thinking about the buzz in Architects’ Mind.
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