Richa Garg makes it look so easy to manage family and career. Read the life of an architect, who is also a mother.
Until school, where I am? What I want to do? How to do it? These questions really do not matter. But when it comes to selecting a career, belonging to a small town, it starts hitting you under your belly. The field I was going for was unconventional in the 90s. Books, teachers, coaching, information, everything was not easily available, finding study material was like digging for treasure.
When I went to CEPT for my entrance exam into architecture, did I realise the scale at which students are doing their preparations to get into this field. Amazingly, girls applicant at majority.
Getting through the degree, was complete a transformation for me. From Muzaffarnagar to Ahmedabad was a big cultural, psychological, ethical shift.
I moved to Jaipur after my graduation, again a new state, which at that time had its only school of architecture. Architectural craze was bleak, hence the knowledge about the profession. I got into teaching. Meet a lot who were going through the same information crisis as I did.
With the purpose of spreading the knowledge that I attained with much pain, I started my coaching institute, which then was the only coaching institute run by an architect. Barely minimum infrastructure in hand, and 2 to 3 student that year, today the institute has its separate studio. We are a team of 10. Almost 100 students are trained every year…Still growing.
Other than this I am Associate Professor with Aayojan School of Architecture. I also visit many other institutes for guest lectures and as design jury, some of them being Poornima University, Jagannath University, Apex Group, Nifd, MJRP University.
I am a freelance landscape consultant, with project like Moksh Dham, Farm Houses, Bungalow gardens to my credits.
Above all a mother to a 7 year old notorious boy, enrolled in a lot of extra activities in the evening like karate, skating, I accompany him for all. If nothing of these then we both go cycling in our neighbourhood.