Armed with a crossbody bag with water bottles, walking shoes, and placards, architect Gita Balakrishnan is on a mission. She is walking from Chennai to Bengaluru to raise awareness on the need for making design accessible and inclusive for all. This is the fourth edition in a series of explorative journeys of learning and exchanges on foot by Gita, following the successful campaigns in 2022 and 2023. “As architects, we have a profound responsibility to shape environments that embrace everyone, regardless of their abilities. Design must empower lives. People are now working in silos and not engaging with the community,” says Ms. Gita.
The walk, which began on January 7 from The Museum of Possibilities, Chennai, culminated at the Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru, on January 28. Both places were designed to be disabled friendly, which is significant to the 56-year-old’s campaign.
The campaign is also about creating an inclusive environment for all because the infrastructure that is built is rarely accessible for the differently abled people. The walk is aimed at highlighting the importance of architectural social responsibility, engaging communities, and inspiring a positive change along the route.
Ms. Gita said the start of the walk had been quite unpredictable. “When I started it, it was raining and and I was walking drenched for the first few days. The roads were difficult to walk through as there were puddles,” she says. Holding placards and slogans, Ms. Gita would walk three-and-a-half hours every day, meeting with people on the way, apart from the interactions, if any, scheduled at schools. Her day would begin at 4.30 a.m. so that she could resume her walk at 6 a.m. A car would take her out for the interactions before she was back in her room by 5 p.m. for dinner and she went to bed by 8 p.m.
“I decided to take this walk a little more easily this time and scheduled only one rest day in the 20-day period,” she says. This is not the first time that Ms. Gita has undertaken such an awareness walk. In 2021, she embarked on a 70-day walk, which covered five States, from Kolkata to Delhi.
When Ms. Gita founded Ethos Foundation, it also wanted to engage with society to do more. During her first walk, she had met with the Miss India Wheelchair and interacted with a visually impaired person. This got her thinking that design had to be made universal. Recalling her interaction with Harshvardhan Dubbe, who she was supposed to meet during the first walk, she said, “He came running up the stairs and switched on the lights. I didn’t know he was blind until he introduced himself. He told me that he could do anything at home without help, but it becomes difficult the moment he steps out,” she adds. This was when another vertical of the firm, UDita (Universal Design Is The Answer), came to be.
The 355-km walk began in Chennai, with Gita and other differently abled persons taking a symbolic walk along the pathway, created by the Chennai Corporation, on the Marina Beach. The pathway is the only way that disabled people have been able to access the beach. “Chennai is one of the places where change is definitely happening,” she says. Recalling a scene during her walk, she says, “Around 8 a.m., when I was at a tea shop interacting with locals, I saw three visually impaired girls trying to board a bus; each of them was helping the other, which stresses how much design plays a role in society.”
