Or should I say PERSONALITIES! Meet Rakesh and Shikha Jain staying at The Palms, South City 1. Rakesh and Shikha both studied architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi and were classmates! Shikha went on to her PhD from UK in Heritage Conservation. Both of them are practising architects, though in entirely different fields. Rakesh concentrates on commercial and institutional buildings, while his beautiful wife Shikha specialises in the conservation of Heritage buildings. She is well known in her field, heads the Haryana INTACH chapter and represents India in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. She has been a consultant to the Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand governments.
Whilst Shikha travels a lot due to the nature of her work, I was fascinated by the fact that Rakesh, despite being a busy person, has turned his office building spaces into an urban organic vegetable garden. In the little time he gets in between meetings, he has researched and experimented with a variety of herbs and plants, and planting techniques. I was informed that when you do this kind of gardening, where the building gets environmentally friendly it’s called Biophilic architecture, and is fast catching up around the world where high rise and apartment complexes need breathing spaces. It basically increases the connectivity between the occupants and the natural environments.
Rakesh has grown vegetables on his terrace and balconies using the traditional methods and also experimented successfully with Hydroponics which uses a water based nutrient solution rather than the soil. For optimising spaces he has used a vertical grow tower, which can house up to 32 plants in 4 sq. ft of space.
The ‘grow bags’ he uses have a variety of vegetables and fruits on the terrace.
I saw palak, lauki, broccoli, dhania, tamatar, santra, nimbu, chikoo, aloo, pyaaz and even brussels sprouts!
Peacocks and a variety of birds frequent the terrace. Though monkeys are a menace, he has managed to restrain them by using nets.
He experimented with seeds also. Initially getting them from Kapashera but now sourcing online from good vendors like Sagenta, the Indian Horticulture Institute at Bangalore and e-kisan stores.
Just for my information, I tried to find out how many different pesticides are normally used by farmers who supply us vegetables and I was shocked to learn the staggering figure. We are the 13th largest users of pesticides consuming approximately 60,000 tons, so imagine how much we consume with our fruits and vegetables. Growing them organically at home makes a huge difference to our health and the environment.
