Look mamma, Cinderella's coach," exclaimed two-year-old Ambika, when she saw a buggy outside her window, on the grounds of the Chow Mahalla Palace, in Hyderabad. Mamma being the much-awarded conservation architect, Abha Narain Lambah, who was - at the time - a consultant for the restoration of the palace. Palaces, 15th century temples, stained glass studios.... Little Ambika is as much at home at any of these sites as she is on slides and swings, for she has been accompanying her mother to most of the heritage monuments her mother helps restore, from the time she was a babe in arms.

"I was still nursing her when I had to make a power-point presentation for the heritage streetscape of Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji Road, in Mumbai," relates the dynamic architect. "So I took her along with me, fed her in the washroom, left her with our maid in the reception area and proceeded for my meeting." But Ambika didn't like being thus abandoned. "She just wouldn't stop crying! So eventually I took her to the conference room with me and rocked her on my lap while holding forth on the aesthetics of street furniture, shop signage et al." That she went on to bagging an UNESCO award for the same project is another story altogether!

On a previous occasion, Lambah's dilemma was far more serious. She had to leave her eight-month-old baby with her mother when she went on a two-month Eisenhower Fellowship to the USA. "It wasn't at all an easy decision. In fact, I had got the letter of appointment one day after Ambika was born when I was going through post-natal depression. I couldn't stop howling at the thought of being separated from my baby for two months." And, of course, it didn't help when friends predicted that her daughter would fail to recognise her when she returned.

Now, all of five years, it's Ambika who mothers Lambah by giving her a head massage when she's tired and solicitously asks her, what she is restoring next! "I might have made more money designing glass and steel structures...but I would have hated my job," she says. "It's an unconventional family that celebrates festivals like Christmas amongst the temple ruins of Hampi...or Diwali in the precincts of Islamic architecture in Jaunpur. Far from complaining, husband, Harsh and Ambika, both seem to enjoy these unusual sites for holidays as much as Lambah. "While I do my documentation, the two of them explore the surrounding areas. They have a great time bonding with each other," states the architect whose own childhood holidays were spent frolicking amongst the tombs of Delhi.