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.

If her daughter is a 'baby mother figure', husband, Harsh is Lambah's 'pillar of support'. Not only did he relocate from the US to India because his wife was terribly homesick, he also holds fort at home, whenever she packs her bags and pushes off to the back of beyond. "Every month we sit with the calendar and work out our travel schedules because his job, too, involves extensive travelling and we ensure one of us is home with Ambika, " reveals the architect who has developed multitasking into a fine art.

Three times winner of UNESCO awards, it is not unusual for Lambah to be working simultaneously on projects in Ladakh, Hampi, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. She is also a consultant, lecturer, writer and columnist.

Being able to handle various mindsets is another skill she has acquired over the years, often showing the way through sheer example. When Public Works Department engineers opined that the crumbling statues of Justice and Mercy atop the Bombay High Court required an acid wash ("Acid would have reduced the statues to carbon dioxide as they are made of soft Porbunder limestone!" she points out, still horrified), Lambah climbed up the rickety scaffolding, herself, to a height of 180 feet, sans helmet and shoes, and gave the mute figures a gentle facial with a poultice comprising multani mitti, blotting paper and ammonium carbonate, all of which didn't cost more than Rs. 800 - the amount a junior engineer had the authority to sanction! "The engineers, to begin with, were quite sceptical about me, wondering what this young girl was doing with kitchen recipes. But when they saw the black, soot-encrusted statues totally cleaned up, they placed their trust in me and even invited their seniors to come and take a look." Lambah then proceeded to slake lime on site and have a qualified sculptor fill up the weathered portions of the statues. After the facial, plastic surgery? "In fact, it is called plastic repair!" she chuckles.

Perhaps what was a greater achievement than saving these beautiful faces was the turning point this brought about in the PWD's approach to repairs. "For the first time they realised that you have to treat heritage buildings differently." No minor feat this, as anybody who has had anything to do with this stodgy government body will tell you.

Since then, this first class Master of Architectural Conser-vation has interacted with the PWD on a fairly regular basis. The next project she advised them on was the historical Elphinstone College, in Mumbai, through whose portals the likes of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta had passed. Completely gone to seed due to government lethargy, it was restored to some of its former grandeur through the efforts of the Kala Ghoda Association of which Lambah is a founder member. "For the first time the PWD agreed to a private consultant guiding them on repair works for a government building!"

That was only the first stumbling block the KGA overcame. Collecting funds, thereafter, for the repairs took all of three years. "We literally went around with a begging bowl," recounts Lambah who forewent her own fees for the project. "Contributions from donors like HSBC, Dorab Tata Trust and the Taj Group of Hotels enabled us to carry out the work in two phases. First, we restored the façade of the college; then, when we got more funds, we did the sides of the building and the entrance lobby." But all the effort was worth it. Today, when she meets ecstatic Elphinstonians who can't believe this is what their college originally looked like, Lambah feels richly rewarded. That UNESCO also acknowledged her efforts by giving her the Asia Pacific Heritage Conservation Award, 2004, for setting the standard for conservation work in Victorian buildings through...the use of non-invasive techniques was, perchance, the cherry on the cake.

After that, there has been no stopping the lady who had waddled in for the Eisenhower Fellowship interview, overweight and eight months pregnant. Royal Bombay Yacht Club, the University Convocation Hall, Deutsche Banks, facades of 19th C neo-classical buildings at Horniman Circle, Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum, the lobby of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Sir J J School of Art (for which she got yet another UNESCO award)...in Mumbai, Abha Narain Lambah is almost synonymous with the word 'conservation'. "We have an embarrassment of riches in this city and don't know what to do with them," she rues, referring to all the beautiful 19th century structures that stand neglected or abused.

It is not just this haphazardly developing city which she is trying to restore to some of its former beauty. From 2004 to 2006, she spent a large part of the summer months in Ladakh, repairing a 15th century temple of Maitreya Buddha that the World Monuments Fund had listed among the 100 most endangered monuments of the world. This involved not just the complexities of a different terrain and climate, but handling material of a very different nature and risks of not just the architectural kind. "The largely mud roof of the temple has a layer of birchbark that is available only in the terrorist-infested forests of Kashmir. This bark is a protected species and we could, therefore, not fell trees. So we contacted a local Muslim architect who got local labour to collect the bark that fell to the ground. And this had to be done a whole year in advance as the roads are closed in winter." Finance for this project was also procured in an unusual manner. "The World Monument Fund agreed to pay matching funds. And the villagers of Basgo, where the temple is located, matched this by providing the labour." Quite clearly, conservation architecture entails more than just pouring over reference books in archives and museums!

"It ranges from dealing with local villagers reviving centuries' old building traditions in Ladakhi mud architecture to convincing urban shopkeepers to follow regulations regarding billboards and signage on the busy, commercial spine of Mumbai," says Lambah. That she succeeds in doing so reflects not just her determination but also her passionate love for history that was born in her formative years and nurtured by "excellent teachers through school and college".

That is why she is seriously concerned about our invaluable heritage. "We spend ridiculous amounts on building obnoxious toilets that need not cost so much or planning hare-brained Taj corridors but won't have the funds for temples, palaces and monuments that should be our country's pride. Angor Vat in Cambodia is a major contributor to its GNP but our heritage sites lie neglected and badly managed," she points out, amazed at our skewed priorities. "India," she continues, "is at the threshold where she is letting go of historical urban areas. In each city, whether it is Shahjahanabad vs south Delhi, or the Fort area of Mumbai vs the anonymous glass boxes mushrooming all over, urban dynamics are threatening to develop one at the cost of the other. If we don't take steps now, we will soon lose out on whole chapters of our architectural history."