When we call architect Bijoy Jain to talk about his new exhibition, Abhaya: In the Palm of our Hand, at Chemould Prescott Road, the conversation is peppered with long silences, as he tries to find the words to describe something that should be experienced. The materials he's used in the exhibition — cow dung, lime plaster, basalt, ash, clay and banana fibre — are those he uses every day in his practice.

But, he says, he isn't alone to come in their contact. "A lot of these [materials] are available to all of us. What's important to me when it comes to materiality is that all of these require water, air and light. That's what we are also physically made of. That's our construct, and that's what makes us physical." He follows this philosophy in the structures he builds as well, for his homes are filled with water, air and light.