Hailing from a family that prioritises education, she grew up, one of four sisters, in an environment where the focus was on assertively expressing views and feelings and doing what one believed in. Always encouraged to pursue her dreams, Mumbai-based Trupti Amritwar Vaitla opted to take up architecture. For, as she points out, medicine or engineering were the only two options for good students — which she was.
On re-routing her career, she recalls, “I returned to India in 2006 and started teaching classes on urban issues at Mumbai’s Rachana Sansad – Institute of Urban and Regional Planning, and I launched the urban design cell there. I worked on many research projects with government agencies, and this got me interested in contributing to the actual concerns faced by the city. During this period I met Ashok Datar, who had founded the Mumbai Environmental Social Network think tank.