The day the house was almost done, all the way from Delhi, I rushed in through the front door, Mr Baker jumped out from behind the door with a welcome card -- mango-shaped like my courtyard -- and in glee showed me around the details...a peephole to check who is on the front verandah, the peacock balcony, the psychedelic lighting from the setting sun through not just one green bottle, but a whole wall of it, the spot in the kitchen where winds from three directions fanned you, the bird bath placed strategically by the kitchen window to brighten your kitchen-weary moments, the swaying palms and the fleeting clouds and crashing rains through all windows, the granite Nandi bull in the courtyard placed in the right direction.

My dream house did not belong to the realm of dreams, but of fantasy. Mr Baker joked that a burglar trapped in those winding rooms would plead with me the next day for release with nothing having been stolen and the terror of a maze stamped into his wretched self!

A few stand out more poignant than the others. An old man I had noticed at the site who uploaded no more than a few loads of bricks all through the day, Sajan told me Daddy used him at all his construction sites and let him do his mite. Old age was no excuse to exclude a willing worker.

Mr Baker asked me one day, 'Are you free tomorrow, I'd like to bring my wife to show the house?' The next day, he brought her and the three of us viewed the marvel, first from the outside and then from the inside. Mr Baker was like an adolescent showing off to Dr Elizabeth, the way he had woven space magic through brick magic and she with an appreciative smile and nod...I stepped back. Here was the answer to my second question, why did he come to Kerala, so long from home?

Also see: Dilip Chitre: Portrait of an artist

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