Art, design and charity

From architecture appreciation in Delhi to charity work in Tamil Nadu...for teacher-turned-gallerist Anna Hunter, India has been therapeutic on many levels.

Her fascination with the work of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens is evident "" back in Surrey, England, the home she lives in is also his artwork.

But for Anna Hunter, it is this trip to New Delhi that has proven to be an insight into one of his greatest achievements "" Lutyens' Delhi. Sitting by the pool in a central Delhi hotel, she disapprovingly points up at its skyline and admits that the city's beauty lies in the lack of skyscrapers and subtle skyline marked by greens all around.

And for a city so beautiful, Lutyens' Delhi is has more character and life than the famous Stonehenge Village, which is nothing but stones on display.

Hunter is not new to India. Her relationship with the country began 15 years ago, when on her first visit she fell in love with the country, its people and its diversity.

"Some people from the West come to India and see only the poverty. They miss the point," she says, shaking her head.

But Hunter, on this most recent trip, accompanied by other members of the Lutyens Society, discovered a whole new point in Delhi, one that many Indians have missed themselves "" the Delhi Order of architecture, a form of architecture developed by Lutyens. "The most classic and breathtaking example of this is the stately Rashtrapati Bhavan," she says.

Hunter's love for form, architecture and art has taken her all over the world, yet it was in Delhi that she found the most beautiful parliament in the world, that would put to shame the most overpowering palaces and parliaments in London, Paris and Washington.

"The sense of proportion in the Rashtrapati Bhavan is perfect. It's the perfect fusion of the East and the West and the combination of red and white stone is absolutely breathtaking," she gushes, adding that though she's not an architect, other architects in the group have told her that the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of the most proportionate in the world.

She used to be a teacher of economics and politics until, during the days of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she decided to follow the trend and set up her own business "" an art gallery in central London, Belgravia Gallery "" to display art and photographs by select artists like Nelson Mandela and Prince Charles and Indian photographer Amit Pasricha.

Some day she hopes to exhibit the works of M F Husain, whom she met recently at the House of Lords in London.

But it was during her interactions with Nelson Mandela that Hunter learnt to look beyond the present and into the future. "He is like Mahatma Gandhi," she finds, "they both have the grace and heart to forgive and move on."

When she lost her son a few years ago, it was through these interactions that Hunter found the courage to move on, to look beyond the present and to become an agent of change for the future.

And so, in 2002, she returned to the country that had caught her attention so many years ago. "I have friends here who had been doing charitable work and they told me stories about the education of children taking a backseat."

This was enough to get the teacher in Hunter going. She held exhibitions and auctions at her gallery in London and raised funds to establish the Sebastian Hunter Memorial Trust, a charitable organisation to fund and build or renovate schools in remote villages in India, with Tamil Nadu being the starting point. "This is the best possible memorial to my son. It's a living memorial," she says, blinking back tears.

Tragedy has its ways of changing the way you look at life, and the experience of losing her son, she remembers, brought her closer to life, to the little things that are important. It took her to tribal villages in Tamil Nadu, where she proposed to set up a school and was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm the tribals showed towards educating their children.

"But," she recalls, aghast, "some of the kids came to school wearing clothes made from rice sacks." Hunter decided it called for the provision of free uniform for the children and along with her family, raised money for it.

Her attention to detail and humble outlook spills over into everything else she does, whether it is choosing art, attempting to make changes at the grassroots level or even admiring architecture and thought.

For what Hunter finds most beautiful about Lutyens' architecture is not the form, it is his foresight. "The first element in his planning and design was trees. He put trees everywhere so that the common man could walk to work under the shade. This should be a model for all town planners," she relates as she bids me adieu with a warm hug, "and for India and the world, Lutyens' Delhi should be given the status of a World Heritage Site."