I have known G (Gurjit Singh Matharoo) since the days I was a student, and him, my teacher, who gave one-liners or sometimes just one-word lessons at the School of Architecture1. One day, he was on the public phone at the School, maybe a distress call from a client, and as I was jaywalking past him, he pulled me over and asked to join him. As destiny would have it, I ended up as a proud intern in his three-person studio.

Those were his struggling days, and with the practice gathering pace, a magazine approached him for an article on his work. He, instead, asked me to write something hurriedly. Just to avoid my discomfort with academic jargon, I said I would write about wit in his work, to which I was a key witness.