India, Jan. 27 -- AnantU - as we fondly call it - is India's first design university in the making located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The campus, these days, is a mega construction site, save a spanking new and trendy academic complex. The students are around, building prototypes of homes, green cities, furniture, fashion accessories, cars, in the studio classrooms, labs, and outdoors on campus. They are encouraged - by faculty and practitioners from India and abroad - to be rooted in indigenous techniques and aesthetics, yet informed by the world.

I am on the AnantU campus for a few days every month all round the year. Spearheaded by the inimitable power-packed trio of Ajay Piramal, Abhishek Lodha, and Pramath Sinha, I have been ask...