Architect Abha Narain Lambah explains the political power of her vocation

Narain also discusses the need for a vision and the usefulness of chai

How difficult is it to sell heritage conservation to a people obsessed with their past? “Incredibly hard,” says Abha Narain Lambah, conservation architect who won the Hudco Design Award for 2017 for restoring the Royal Bombay Opera House. It took her close to 10 years and “blood, sweat and tears” to restore the 100-year-old structure. The project had her scouring old books, international journals and Bollywood movies to better understand what might lie beneath the layers of gaudy paint and false ceilings.

Lambah has been ferreting out the hidden histories of heritage structures and the settlements around them for as