A woman bathing her daughter every day in the open. Children playing on a footpath that is also their home. Snatches from the lives of the millions who live and thrive on the streets and slums of India. And now these moments are being closely watched and chronicled by nine students of architecture from the University of Florida.

Led by Prof Shivjit Sidhu of the UF School of Architecture they are here to “learn about urban Indian civilisation and for that we need to observe even the smallest details.We are studying what Pune was 20 years ago to what it is today. We want to notice its people, its culture and lifestyle and then imbibe all these important observations in our further studies and designs.’’

Sidhu leads this team of American students who have been in India since September 12 to study the way housing is coming up in various cities and understand historical documentation of different cities in the country in the 12th, 14th and 20th centuries. This is the first time that an American university has taken up an initiative like this in India. Usually they have restricted their studies to Europe.

In India, Pune was chosen apparently for its rapid transformation that, says Sidhu, has been faster and on a much more massive and compressed scale than any other city in the country. “The entire city is a construction site and we were very intrigued to learn how Pune would be 10 years from now. Moreover, the city’s social pattern has changed drastically and we thought it would be very interesting to explore Pune for future projects,’’ he adds.

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