It’s been a huge ride, this- B.Arch has given me one hell of an experience; every high and low one can think of. I have travelled the country, been understood and misunderstood, felt lonely and crowded, been written off and hailed to glory, been invisible and recognized- all at the same time. When work was crap, I was into volleyball- there I was ‘famous’; everybody knew and wanted to know me. When I got back into the studio, I was invisible again; nobody cared. It was a funny ride; memorable nonetheless- time well spent.

I have realized recently that everything in life is a phase. Everything comes to pass. No phase repeats; there is no absolute truth- no absolute value. Nothing remains from one to another; only memories, and those too, if you allow them. I seem to be a different person in each phase; different circumstances that define the phase seem to define me, too. Right now, I am standing at the end of one; I am waiting for another to begin. Something is missing; something is out of place. There are a few people who try to smuggle themselves into more than a phase; they are amused by the difference in me. I do not understand- feel like I am at the hands of some absurd power that I cannot see; something that makes ‘life’ what it is. I don’t know how to understand this word- ‘life’; maybe it’s a string of continuous phases- maybe the only thing common with all these phases is in fact, life itself.

Today I was asked to design a farm house for a family friend, and for a bizarre ten seconds, I sensed a void in me- felt like I was asked to ‘design’ after a long time. Felt like asking a fundamental question- felt like looking up the meaning.. I felt something similar when we were asked to ‘study’ for first semester structures- I had forgotten how to ‘study’. That was amusing, but this is dangerous.

“Imagination is primary; knowledge is secondary।”

When I am overwhelmed with emotion and don’t know what to do with it, I write. I don’t know where the words come from; it’s almost like I am in a sub-conscious state- nice state to be in! hehe... I have never really been able to pin down the source of what we call ‘ideas’- where do they come from? And why do they arrive like a hurricane in the head, and leave us all excited? What is it? Is it a function of one’s persona? Then why is unexplainable? Is it a ‘property’?

There are some people that you come across in life, and they never leave you the same. All they have to do is be themselves; and their impact on us is un-imaginary, unparalleled. Its amusing, really- it’s very, very rare; I am glad for the existence of these... one such is a colleague- shiny. You just have to be with her for ten minutes, and you immediately feel like putting her in a glass box to safeguard her; she is too precious to be lost into this world- although it is this very world that made her. She gives me hope- to be appreciated for what you are; and not evaluated at the same scale as the rest of the world. Patri se hatke bahut kam log soch paate hain- kho na jaayen ye- tare zameen par.

I have experienced the purest and deepest form of friendship once; something that I will cherish all my life... Time, though, is slowly etching off the soft memory; soon it will be a story I tell my disinterested grandchildren...I have realized, lately, that nobody really cares. Nobody really wants to know the depths of a person anymore; nobody understands either. Memories and how they make that person are meant for that person alone. Maybe except your parents. I do not know where they get it from- the unconditional concern and love; I cannot ever see myself being as selfless. Ever.