Dear Friends,

A few months ago, we inaugurated a new building on our campus - Saraswati.  It was inaugurated by Swami Tadrupanandji and Mataji Tanmayanandji.

Why the name Saraswati - Saraswati is the Goddess of Learning.  And the building Saraswati is meant to be the administrative headquarters of Somaiya Vidyavihar University.  My wife - Amrita suggested the name and said - What better name than to give it the name of the Goddess of Learning.  Saraswati is also a river.  Rivers flow.  Saras means water, that which flows.  Knowledge is always meant to be like water that flows.  Knowledge is never meant to stay stagnant.

We started the University in 2019.  We always knew that the University would need a headquarters.  A place for the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, the Registrar, the CFO and their staff.  

The idea has always been to build an institution that is proudly Indian, world class in education and research, global in the reach if its ideas and universal in service.  The institution - Somaiya Vidyavihar which has sponsored the Somaiya Vidyavihar University, is Indian.  We are wanting to learn from the best, but are not moulding ourselves to be the copy of any other.  We want to be from our own legacy, our own imagination and our own dreams.  That legacy that stems from our founder, our nation, our culture and the world.  Then the University headquarters must have a sense of this heritage.  An Indian sensitivity, Indian aesthetics, and an Indian architecture.  A student or visitor to the campus who visits its seat of leadership and management should get a sense that we have a beautiful aesthetic, and evoke memory that takes us to the dreams of the future.  Where memory meets fantasy.

My father in law - Jitendra Mistry was an architect, an art collector and a wood worker.  He had worked with Walter Gropius at The Architects Collaborative in Boston before returning to India.  He learned from the best and built and designed a variety of spaces.  

I had seen some of his work that brought the tradition of Indian art, craftsmanship and architecture together.  I had told him that I wanted him to design a building that evoked this tradition and beauty, and that would meet the functional needs of the University.  We had worked together on this theme in the past and made the Kutchi Haveli, the K J Somaiya College of Physiotherapy, and for those who have visited Sameerwadi in Karnataka - the guest house there.

He designed a beautiful building.  A building that at once reminds us that we are in India, and in an Indian education institution.  A country with its own aesthetic that reflects a rich civilisation that at once connects the past to the present and the future. 

One thing that has always bothered me is the taking down of our old buildings and their replacement with not so beautiful structures.  As India grows, it is inevitable that we will need more space.  And so that makes way for new structures in place of the old.  But that results in the loss of built architecture.  Our architecture existed in all places, temples, mosques, palaces, but not restricted these places.  They were everywhere.  In the windows, doors, pillars, beds, chairs, tables and everywhere.  These are vanishing from view and we must work to also preserve this heritage is some manner and form.  (Another initiative https://president.somaiya.edu.in/en/view-communications-page/316).

So I had asked my father in law that we will buy material from salvage (from discarded parts of old buildings), and incorporate that in this new building.  So we purchased discarded pillars, window frames, doors, windows, balconies, and more.

Then came COVID.  My father in law passed away during that time,  (I wrote about this then - https://president.somaiya.edu.in/en/view-communications-page/204). He had also designed Ekalavya (for our sports).  Both these buildings - Ekalavya and Saraswati came up after his passing.  But they are beautiful testaments to his design.  Form and function.

His team comprising of Jigar (civil engineer and project lead) and craftsmen led by Indramal and Laljibhai completed Saraswati.  From our side Brigadier Patwardhan and Narendra Solanki with the entire Project office of Somaiya Vidyavihar led from the front to together translate this design to reality.  The building has a courtyard in the middle with a Tulsi plant and a water fountain around it - evoking once again the sound of a flowing river.  Each room has a different character.  And it is Indian.  It is traditional and modern.  It also shows that modernity, beauty and function can thrive together.

On the outside of Saraswati, we have a statue of Dariyalal. By ethnic background, our family are Kutchi Lohanas. And Dariyalal is our guardian deity. The Sindhis revere him as Jhulelal. The Sufis of Sindh also revere him as Zinda Peer or Lal Shabaz Qalander (famously heard in the song Damadam Mast Qalander). This statue is a memory to the tradition to which our family belongs, but is also a symbol of our syncretic culture.

Do come visit Saraswati.  It reflects our shared heritage.  But we do not want to crowd the building, since it is a working building.  So come in smaller numbers and see the building, which itself is a work of art, and a place where memory meets fantasy.

Samir Somaiya