On architecture...

"Architecture is a journey. It has a beginning.. but it never ends." - Aditya Chandrasekhar, USD batch 2008


The beginning of every college life is similar, the joy of meeting new people, being in a new place, knowing what being independent really is like. Especially in my case - being someone brought up in Saudi Arabia - a very strict country with even stricter rules for women - there were many reasons to celebrate the beginning of my college life.

Studying architecture was not at all what I'd imagined it would be like. Actually, I hadn't really imagined much as to what was to come. But when it did, I loved it.

USD was soon my home. The space-framed studio with no barriers between classes and the mezzanine from which you can gleefully observe the entire college and its activities, the computer labs, the library… all became points of meeting new people, learning new things, exploring the world of architecture every day. Everyone knew everyone else here. The lack of walls or separations or boundaries also helped everyone with socializing and getting to know each other better. Seniors, juniors, super-seniors, all ate under one roof in the workshop area below where Chandru anna would serve hot coffees and delicious open masala dosas every noon.

We shared our thoughts, opinions and our lunches here. We talked about architecture; we gossiped, had fiery debates, laughed and suggested books and movies to each other here.

The space-framed studio would serve us as our classrooms, exhibition hall, display area, jury room and during NASA or on final jury eves as even our homes, for we have spent nights working here together, we have stayed up all night and not even realized that the sun had risen, together.

The first 2 years were the most informal or 'relaxed' study semesters. We enjoyed the most in these semesters, making models, doing slideshow presentations, sculpture classes, and sketching live objects and even people. We went on trips every year, we saw new things, we learnt even more.

One thing about architecture is that it’s not like any other course where you learn from text books or lab experiments with a fixed syllabus and you score the highest in class if you adhere to them. No, in architecture there is no end to how much you can learn and from whatever sources you can learn. It’s been five years since I have been in this field, and yet sometimes I wonder, how much have I really learnt? Learning architecture is an endless process, where you learn more from the talks in the corridors, canteens, libraries etc. with your seniors or juniors or teachers or just about anybody else, more than you would in a theory or lecture room.

I have always wished that our college would have had more open spaces where we could go sit to take a break from the work or deadline stress and just relax our minds and help regain our creativity level to a normal, when we have reached the saturation point.  Or that the small canteen downstairs wouldn't have closed down and it would've been like the good old days in first year.

And yet, I still find my college close to perfect in terms of how it does not restrict you, because architecture requires creativity, and it does not come from being pressurized or restricted. One needs to be able to work with an open mind.

In an architecture school, you may not learn a lot about technicality, or even come close to really understanding what architecture is all about. You learn through a series of failed or successful experiments which you perform, ultimately producing something amazing, something you created, something which reflects you in so many ways… and you proudly realize: your journey in Architecture has begun.

Nostalgia...

Being in a field that requires a lot of travelling, you come across a lot of things passing you by. The scenes you see from a moving bus, the pastures and fields from a moving train, flashing by, the people doing different things, children playing, cattle mooing; The various faces of India, whether urban or rural, nothing goes unnoticed if you're travelling. Especially if you're a budding photographer (or at least that's what I think of myself), and you have an eye for these kind of things, something or the other is bound to be catchy sometime. Well except if you're sleeping in the bus, which is what I often end up doing although I would love to enjoy the sceneries.

Just the other day, I was on a bus journey and my eyes spotted these colourful flags on small straws. Nothing like the one in the picture, that's just there 'cause.. well, what's a post without a picture? Anyway so these flags, they were much more awesome (I may be biased here). They were plain‐coloured and of shiny glittery paper and as a child, glitter was totally my thing! I loved anything blingy and bright. And these were the epitome of my desires as a child. It had in it everything I ever wanted.

Seeing them fluttering so carelessly in the breeze in front of that dingy shop somehow awakened something inside me. Something that had been long‐forgotten.. Sudden waves of nostalgia washed me over and over until I realised how blissful childhood really was. Sometimes just a simple flag or a colourful pin‐wheel were enough to make the day, but now the grown‐ups that we are, nothing is sufficient. Nothing is ever enough to satisfy our never‐ending wants (wants, not needs) and we are all carried away with the materialism in this world. No matter what it may be, we never get enough. Enough love, or care, or clothing, or things to fill our houses and shelves with.. what went wrong?

We are never happy with the relationships we are in, or the amount of money we make, the appreciation we get, or the families we are born into. When children are born they are the biggest source of happiness for anyone around them: little bundles of joy. As we grow older the innocence fades, and that complicates things. The more knowledge we seem to gain, the lesser we seem to know to put it to use.

Maybe its time we stopped complaining and whining and find peace and happiness with whatever we have. We were all born with perfect minds, humble, modest and full of enthusiasm. I feel that sometimes all the world really needs is a little more childishness and a little less maturity, and everything will fall into place. 

As I put pen to paper..

The moment the pen is put to paper, why do I feel so at peace with myself? Like a huge burden is off my chest and I feel nothing but lighter and happier inside when I pour my heart out in the form of my black ink on the white paper sheets, with every word I write?

I travel through these pages.. these blank pages just waiting to be filled with words, sentences, paragraphs and punctuations.. They take me everywhere and anywhere I want to go. Just me, myself and my thoughts. Escaping away from the gravity of this word that pulls us down toward everything materialistic, dragging us to the painful reality, the sad realisations of what life really is.. that when it comes down to it, it is either happiness or sadness. And one cannot exist without the other.

Why would one want to be in a world where we are in fact not the ones who make our own choices, but they are made for us,  just an unbearable set of heavy loads that we are asked to carry all of a sudden, at any moment, and mostly when it's least expected.

Hence, I take my weapon in hand, the one mightier than a sword, and I am afloat. Rising above everything as soon as it is in hand.

It takes me through time and space, through worlds and spaceless spaces, through timeless memories, through faded nostalgic moments.. It fills my heart with indescribable emotions, unbinding me from my inhibitions and I feel as elated as a deer running through an endless field of fresh green grass. The grass blades tickle my feet and the dew sends pleasing tingles down my spine.




I am free.

War and Love

I ran through the fields;

Tried escaping the wrath.

My fear knew no bounds,

As I treaded this warpath.

Blood soaked the ground;

Boiling beneath the sun,

Cries echoed around me

But nowhere to run.

The smells choking me

To the insides of my lungs,

I see my hands bloody;

Feel the dryness of my tongue.

I rushed to the alley
Where you said you’d wait.
Praying for an end
To this city’s cruel fate.

A war without victory

A war without virtues

No matter what happens

Mankind will lose.

At last, your silhouette
Appeared in the haze.
You waved, reached for me
Through smoke and blaze.

I stumbled toward you,
Never once did I see
That this moment would end
In a final farewell to me.

The explosion struck.
I crashed to the ground.
Your face - a frozen gasp -
Fading into sound.

Before the lights go out

I whisper in your ear

"You are my everything,

I've loved you for years".

And as I looked at you
One last, fleeting time,
I memorized your face,
Each detail, each line.

I held your hand tight
As my senses withdrew -
No matter what happens,
Life must continue.

Invisible Cities : Italo Calvino - Zenobia

My feelings as I read the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.
Thin Cities - Zenobia

Excerpt from the book:

"Now I shall tell of the city of Zenobia, which is wonderful in this fashion: although set on dry terrain it stands on high pilings, and the houses are of bamboo and zinc, with many platforms and balconies placed on stilts at various heights, crossing one another, linked by ladders and hanging side-walks  surmounted by cone-roofed belvederes, barrels storing water, weather vanes, jutting pulleys, and fish poles, and cranes.
No one remembers what need or command or desire drove Zenobia's founders to give their city this form, and so there is no telling whether it was satisfied by the city as we see it today, which has perhaps grown through successive superimpositions from the first, now undecipherable plan. But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines, with its pilings and its suspended stairways, a Zenobia perhaps quite different, a-flutter with banners and ribbons, but always derived by combining elements of that first model.This said, it is pointless trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it."

I arrive in Zenobia and I'm filled with awe and wonderment at the undecipherable plan with its crazy array of buildings on high pilings and stilts.

I look up at them, suddenly feeling very tiny, as they tower around me. They are interlinked by criss-crossing stairs  platforms and balconies.Although the inhabitants are happy and content to live amongst these chaos, I feel somewhat claustrophobic. I wish there would be some more openness to the city. Something more for the happy citizens.

One of the streets comprised of a typical building which is repeated in different manners along one particular street. I memorize its appearance and it lays etched in my mind..

I keep on walking, I see people celebrating, people fighting, people singing and dancing. I long to be a part of it all, and yet I find myself lost in the narrow, crooked streets of the darker side of this city that is otherwise teeming with energy. I encounter those who live hidden here, ones who have loved and lost, ones who have no friends, people with illnesses and sorrows and either have no one to share them with, or choose not to. I feel even the last drops of joy from inside of me vaporize, as I'm consumed entirely by this perpetual sadness.

I wish to lend a hand to those who suffer, but alas! my hands are tied up with the guilt of my actions and I've nothing to offer. I wish to be the shoulder to cry on, for those who need it, but alas! my shoulders are burdened with my grievances. I wish to be a friend to the ones that are lonely, but I myself am not a good enough friend. I swirl in my whirlpool of depressing thoughts, every one of them gnawing at my insides, punishing myself, causing myself pain. I want to scream out loud, but I have no voice. I want to call out to the gods of this city, but even they can't hear me from this corner of the world.

Just like this city, I live on.. I add on more burdens than I can bear, more sorrows than I can share. And yet I am happy with what I am, and what I have. Always content, always glad. With my burdens, pleasures, sorrows and celebrations. Through the years, my desires giving form to my changes...

Overcoming...

I want to write again
And yet I hesitate..
I don't know why
But I can only hope,
That by following where
My thoughts take me,
I'll reach somewhere unknown
Somewhere extraordinary.

Something holds back
From inside of me
Something invisible,
Only to be felt..
Like thin strings,
They pull at my thoughts;
Hold them back in,
Not letting them spill.

I try to break free,
I try to move on
To some place new
Some where unknown
Wherever my imagination takes me,
Where my faded memories lie..
Places from books,
And places from poems
Places I grew in,
And places dreamt of..

As I severed the last of the bondage
I ran out into the gloom..
Far out I ran,
Without looking back,
Gasping for air
That I'd been so deprived of
Breathing in with the utmost greed
I took it all in, without second thought.

The lights and the shadows,
They played on my eyes..
And I danced to the tunes
Of their silent music
I was overjoyed, ecstatic and elated!
At my self-righteous freedom,
Which I had, for so long awaited.

I closed my eyes to thank my God,
And I realised..
The darkness was no more.
Not even with my eyes shut,
Not even at night.

As the day ends..

I sit here, between dawn and dusk
My least favourite
Time of the day..
All these things around me
Painful reminders of
The bygone joyous days

I pick them up one by one
Each one washing me over
With waves of emotions one after the other..
Illuminated by the orange rays of the sun
They glow ominously
Staring at me

Yes, I know what they're telling me
How badly they want to tear me apart
Just like the wind as it grows chillier
Hissing angrily in my ear
I feel like they too are angry
"Why would you come, if only to depart?"

I put each one away
Try to get my packing done
Just like my memories
Tucked away in the corners of my mind
And even then I only wonder..
"When will I see you again?"