Of the many hundred of people that I've come across over the past twenty years of my life, there are only a few whom I can call interesting, and only a handful I'd label as intellectually stimulating. From this subset of people, one of the most exciting whom I've met is a man who was both teacher and friend; Hussain Indorewala. With a name that long, you would expect someone who is tall, religious and uptight, but life has funny ways of imbibing in you simple, yet important lessons - one of which being "Never judge a book by its cover".
Standing at (I assume) barely five feet tall, Grandfather glasses on his nose that framed his big eyes, a mouth that was always in a smirk and wavy hair that had tints of gray catching the light, Hussain had the look of a man who was a school-teacher's worst nightmare and the brain of the same teacher's most cherished dream.
Taking a subject that was as vast and rambling as Basic Design and streamlining it to suit an architecture class's syllabus, is no mean feat; yet, he managed to do it with creativity and elan. If you spoke to him about a design that you had in mind, he would encourage you to push it forward, break barriers (including gravity for one assignment that included creating a design based on Jorge Luis Borges' "Library of Babel".), and show you designs made by other architects, that were similar in conception, to yours. With his brow furrowed, his eyes would twinkle behind his spectacles' frame and his smirk would grow as you explained an idea. Yet, for all his idealistic tendencies like refusing to eat meat of animals that were bred for the slaughterhouse; refusing to use even public transport because he believed that cycling thirty kilometers a day instead of using the bus to reduce his carbon footprint; or even simple, whacky ideas of meddling with our naive heads like asking us why we needed a door to define an entrance-way; his sense of mischief and fun was always an integral part of making us learn. Mind you, this included playing practical jokes on his colleagues as well. Such was his attitude to life, wherein having an argument was futile if you planned on winning, but not having an argument with him would be wasted opportunity.
Many others will come and go in my life who will pique my interest and intrigue my gray cells, but Hussain I will always have special regard and respect for, even if he annoyed me to no end.
Standing at (I assume) barely five feet tall, Grandfather glasses on his nose that framed his big eyes, a mouth that was always in a smirk and wavy hair that had tints of gray catching the light, Hussain had the look of a man who was a school-teacher's worst nightmare and the brain of the same teacher's most cherished dream.
Taking a subject that was as vast and rambling as Basic Design and streamlining it to suit an architecture class's syllabus, is no mean feat; yet, he managed to do it with creativity and elan. If you spoke to him about a design that you had in mind, he would encourage you to push it forward, break barriers (including gravity for one assignment that included creating a design based on Jorge Luis Borges' "Library of Babel".), and show you designs made by other architects, that were similar in conception, to yours. With his brow furrowed, his eyes would twinkle behind his spectacles' frame and his smirk would grow as you explained an idea. Yet, for all his idealistic tendencies like refusing to eat meat of animals that were bred for the slaughterhouse; refusing to use even public transport because he believed that cycling thirty kilometers a day instead of using the bus to reduce his carbon footprint; or even simple, whacky ideas of meddling with our naive heads like asking us why we needed a door to define an entrance-way; his sense of mischief and fun was always an integral part of making us learn. Mind you, this included playing practical jokes on his colleagues as well. Such was his attitude to life, wherein having an argument was futile if you planned on winning, but not having an argument with him would be wasted opportunity.
Many others will come and go in my life who will pique my interest and intrigue my gray cells, but Hussain I will always have special regard and respect for, even if he annoyed me to no end.
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