Waaay back in 1992, the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London offered me a Travel Grant to document Jamatkhanas in Gujarat, India. It was an exciting period for me, I was newly attached (to Joys, my partner) and newly detached (from my then previous employment).
The project was ambitious for me. I set out to photograph, analyze and categorize the Jamatkhanas of Gujarat. Little did I know that there would be more than 300 such buildings in India, more than half of which are in Gujarat.
My stay in India was a brief four months, one of which was spent photographing examples of Jamatkhanas all over Gujarat. Still today I have wonderful memories about the trip. They are fading, however, and much has to be done to achieve my goal of producing an architectural book on Gujarati Jamatkhanas.
What I produced for the IIS was an extensive library of slides with descriptions of what had been photographed. The analysis became a part of the slide descriptions and was never formalized into a cohesive document.
via RFAS PORTAL » The ongoing Research Project (someday it will get published!).
Ismailimail 