A journalist without a pen?” he asked as I fumbled to find mine in the recesses of a big bag. “Here’s an architect’s pencil instead.”

That’s how I jotted Charles Correa’s quotes as notes. He was, memorably, the very first interviewee I had the privilege to meet at the start of a journey into journalism in 1984. Fresh out of college, raring to cut my teeth in a career I was set on from the school years, I sat quite nervously in his Opera House office. The editor’s stern forewarning rang in my ears: “Do your homework he’s the finest mind of our times.”