ITS OVER.......................

I can't believe its all over. Its been a while since 9th May (the day of my THESIS JURY) but i still can't digest the fact that its all over. Thats right - ITS ALL OVER!!!!!

Five long torturous years of Architectural Education. Over. Am i sad? Maybe, i mean i'll miss being in college and all. Am i happy??!!?!? HELL YEAH!!!!! Well i'm ALMOST an Architect.. why wouldn't i be happy?

This post is primarily an Acknowledgement page along with being a release of whats been on my mind for a while. For all those who have been associated with 5 years of architectural education, this post will just be something that sounds familiar, you may feel the same way that i do. You will totally understand what i'm trying to express. For those who have not, you can only start to think that you understand what all this means.

There are scores of people i want to thank. There have been so many cherishable moments associating with the people who selflessly helped me. I sometimes wonder if i deserve all the help i got, but then i think that if i didn't deserve it i wouldn't have got it. The following are the people who (apart from being very dear to me) SAVED ME.... Yes, they SAVED me.. i was in a trap... and they all got me out.. and trust me they had to pull REALLY HARD (considering my weight and everything)... Here goes... (This is in no particular order as such i'm just going with the flow)

1. Naidu - She has been my support pillar throughout this nightmare (the THESIS nightmare) which, because of her, turned out to be a sweet dream in the end. I hereby ADMIT that it would have been simply IMPOSSIBLE for me to have appeared for thesis this time if it wasn't for her. She is entirely responsible for single handedly rendering all my elevations and site plan (ever so beautifully) in photoshop, making my Panel No. 3 a reality, and also for my thesis MODEL (50% responsible) which i love and am very happy about. Inspite all odds she proved to me (set an example rather) how friends help each other in times of need. Thanks. A lot. You tolerated my temper tantrums and my impatience... I'm sorry if i was being difficult. I was just tensed and scared. Thanks Naidu.
   
2. Ninad - He encouraged me to accept responsibility of getting my own model done and then took that responsibility upon himself. I had never even thought of doing my own model. Due to this whole 'thesis hype' (which by the way is BULLSHIT) i had automatically considered getting my model done from a professional model maker. Thanks a lot, Ninad, for giving me the confidence and encouragement i needed to get my model done from YOU.. HAHAHHHAHAHHAAA>.... But trust me, both Ninad and i realized later on that no model maker would have done the model as well.. and as fast... either he would have driven me mad or i would have driven HIM mad (the chances of the latter would have been greater). Funny thought. The guy is great. Seriously. (I'm talking about Ninad). He'd come after a hard day's work at site from Bandra East to my house, then he'd have to deal with all my lazy-ass ways and laid back attitude... many time's the drawings for the model weren't ready but he'd always patiently ask and wait for them. Impressive. For a hot headed guy like him, really impressive.I had to remind myself many times that it was he who was doing me a favour and not the other way around. And yeah i'd also like to mention that he put up with a lot of my heavy rock music that he obviously didnt like... but then he also heard some new potentially favourite songs on my comp... those songs gave us company while doing the model. All those 5 minute breaks that we took (going down and all) were at first cumbersome but then they became a necessity. I just want to say that i REALLY appreciate your help. Thanks. You're a true friend.
   
3. Shweta - She is entirely responsible for executing my panel designs. As we all know, in thesis, the most important are your panels. I had three AMAZING panels... thanks to this girl and her smart and swift application of photoshop. I was skeptical from the beginning about starting my panels so late (shweta had her cousins wedding so we had to start late) but then i realized that ANYWAYS my drawings weren't ready for the panel to start. Luckily for the both of us by the time she could make it to my house matter was ready for the panels. She worked fast... and how... she understood my every want.. she understood the aesthetical sense i wanted to incorporate in my panels, she understood my colour schemes, everything. Like she always has all the years in NASA. We make a great team, i think. And we work smart, and fast, and unbelievably well. Shweta, you are seriously going places. We may not be best friends but still you helped me and made my thesis possible. And i appreciate it. Thanks. For doing it so well, for putting up with my fussiness, nitty-gritties and all that stuff. You're the best. You proved that you can be counted on.
   
4. Saloni - Ever since she accepted the sole responsibility (ever so cautiously) of doing my thesis book, a very heavy load was off my back. She accepted a task that was seemingly simple but presented its own challenges and indiscrepancies (or so she claims) along the way. I tried my best to provide her with all possible material she'd need for the book and i don't know what she did with it but it was all in the book and my book looked good. Well composed, neat, thick enough, smart and impressive. I had always known my book would happen last minute and had even assumed it would be a nonsensical replica of Nandish's book. But it wasn't that (thanks for that). It had a lot of extra input. And even though the book was barely opened by the jurors (they opened it to sign in it), its something without which i couldn't have appeared for thesis and something that i'll always keep with me. Thanks Saloni. I appreciate it. Note: Special thanks to her sister Kruti for her help with the book and more importantly driving madam to and fro my house)
5. Bob (the builder) - My little sister also deserves a mention in this list. She was at her sweet best in front of all my friends who were over to help (and she even won them over, i.e. conned them into thinking she is actually sweet). Little do they know of all the different kinds of noises and faces she made and how difficult it was to wake her up in the morning to help with the model. But all said and done, i really appreciate her effort, considering she isn't at all used to the strenuous schedule that we were following. On top of that, being a non-architectural person, she picked up the cutting and sticking skills really well and her nimble fingers found themselves to be useful many times. I love you bobby... thanks for helping me... u proved me wrong... (almost)...
   
6. Gau - She gave me all the little little help i needed but that was very crucial... she lent me her laptop (without which my thesis would not have been possible) for a long time.. she had my book typed for me.... (thanks a lot vanaja).. she gave me all the miscellaneous things i needed like pen drives and cds and what not. Thanks a lot Gau without you my thesis would have not been possible. She was more tensed than me for my own thesis ya! (how sweet). She even looked high and low for my cars and trees.... thanks.. i love you..

For all those who i havent mentioned, its not because you'll are not important enough or anything, its because this is getting a bit too monotonous. My parents supported me throughout and gave me whatever i needed... So thanks to them too. Nandish helped me as much as he could, Ritesh and Aparna also deserve a special mention. Thanks.

As a tear

A tear-
So dear to me.
Piercing but gentle
Comforting but disturbing
A weakness? Not sure.

When the world around
Seems silent
Seems hollow
As a tear
An eerie calm wraps my eyes
As they close to give life
To a tear.

So full of potential energy
Potential to wreak havoc
Or curl into a reclusive ball
Like a threatened hedgehog.

The world is upside-down
Going backward, not forward;
The longing for being somewhere
Lingers in this nowhere man's head...
And he waits in silence,
Evaporates sublimely
As a tear.

As a tear falls
In a second, or two
The whole universe explodes
Into a transcendental plane
Leaving him suspended in the middle of nothingness
Alone, weary, lost, and in profound darkness.
The same darkness that prevails
The same train of thought that derails
When is shed a tear.

The Croft

Wariness of a clear and present situation
Weariness of monotony and unchangeables;

May I have a little croft for gardening and things alike?
I'd grow a bunch of cucumbers to keep me cool within,
A horde of succulent watermelons to keep me hydrated,
And a couple of fluorescent orange carrots to improve me eyesight.
I'd let the earthworms slither in and out the moistened mud
Let the caterpillars carve out beautiful shapes from leaves,
I'd love to scatter earthen pots, meaninglessly and thereon
Allow them to grow into unfastidious microcosms
That reveal little but contain a whole world within them.

I'd quench its thirst, the little croft, and look it from my porch,
My porch, of wood, a simple one, is a world within itself,
With its rocking chair, a table, and ash-tray being the protagonists,
And my walking stick following close behind.

I'd trim and clean my little croft as often as could be,
The sowing seeds and picking weeds'd go on unrelentlessly.

Wariness of a clear and present situation
Weariness of monotony and unchangeables;
Would it be so hard to think how life would end?
How it would be to be old? With wrinkles and flappy skin?
It all seems so serene, so serene.

E X P E C T A T I O N

If there ever is a way
Will someone please tell me?
Is there a way?
How do i find a way... to get rid... of all expectation...
Ruiner of relationships, weakener of spirits, catalyst of postponement, mother of waywardness, giver of grief, taker of sleep, and god of all life's problems, expectation seems to be the one thing i can neither understand nor escape. It drives me to think crazy things, and then do even crazier things like writing this blog. I feel weak, defeated, and dwarfed by this phenomenon that deserves neither my attention nor time. I can't write about my bad experiences with expectation here on this public blogpage but trust me when i say its given me a lot of numbness in my head. I think i could even establish a link between my previous blog and this one... maybe the subject of this blog led to the writing of that one.

Anyway, we all expect certain things from people. I'm trying to break this is into something very simple. Although i have a knack of complicating things, I'd like to keep this really simple. Let me start again. We all expect different things from different people. We expect our parents to love us no matter what, take care of us no matter what, stand by us no matter what, and many other 'no-matter-whats'. We expect our younger siblings to be good and older siblings to be our friends and understand us. We expect the milkman to bring us milk everyday, the newspaper man to bring the newspaper, and so on. We expect our friends to do a lot of 'no-matter-whats' as well. Same for our girlfriends/boyfriends. Thats all very good. Perfect. The line is drawn so nicely..
So whats wrong?

Here's where it gets bad. Here's where it gets complicated. Here's where the line is crossed. When we cease only to expect and start to expect MORE and MORE out of the people we LOVE. Its simple. But deadly. Lets face it - we're human beings. Most people think that the human race is the most intelligent and hence superior species on the planet; but let me tell you, thats far from true. We're flawed from the word go, too complicated in our thoughts, approaches, and physical construction. There are many species that are far more simple, productive, and effective. So whats the difference? What am i getting at? What differentiates us from them? The answer is FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. Not that other species don't have feelings and emotions. Many of them do. But at a level thats simple enough for them to be able to live with themselves peacefully during the course of their lives. I guess our inbuilt complexity and confusing emotional systems are the price we have to pay for being, well, a more evolved species. Maybe sometime in the future we will go back to being normal and simple and then our lives wouldn't be half as complex as they are now. After all, the universe is all about cycles and equilibrium and further evolution is inevitable.

So how do we know when to expect, what to expect and how much to expect? I wish i knew. Deep down inside i think i do. I only wish that that knowledge would supercede the one thats creating havoc inside of me and all around me. I need to learn to unexpect. Unexpect - is there even such a word in the dictionary? No there isn't. I just checked. We all need to learn to unexpect. I've realized one thing - unfulfillment of expectation leads to worry and disappointment, worry and disappointment lead to anxiety and depression, and anxiety and depression lead to negative thoughts and wastage of precious time. So whats the point in vehemently expecting something from someone? There's no point. Even though that may make us less human or whatever. We don't need at every point to prove that we're human anyway. If rational thinking is the boon of being human then i think all of us are still animals. But in the end thats what we are. Just another species of animals living in a different jungle.

Wasted Days

I know quite well they'll never be back. Or will they?
Wasted days are piling up like logs of wood on my back. The question is, does my body have the compressive strength required to transfer the load of the logs to the ground without buckling? I guess i should be using my mind for better things than insignificant metaphors.

Anyway, this is my first ever blog. I've been meaning to start one since forever, but i dont think i had anything to write about. Today just seemed like the right day to start one. I dont even know what to write about..... I wonder how it is that people stumble upon other people's blogs and actually read them and sometimes comment upon them! I dont even know if i'm expecting anyone to read this while i write it, but i guess thats a good thing so im not conscious about what im writing. The only thing on my mind right now are the scrumptious hot pizzas that await me at Karma. My maasi's been meaning to take me there for dinner since a long time and today when she asked i just said yes (its not like i had anything on my agenda anyways). I've grown a little more concerned about my family as of late so i've decided to take all of them along.

The thought of making some serious money and the realization that very soon i will be the breadwinner for my family hit me hard today like a slap on my face. I tried thinking of what i will be able to do post May to make some money apart from the measly salary i'll earn working as a junior architect in Mr. Hyderabadwalla's office. But the guy is phenomenal. He called me today and expressed his dissatisfaction when i said i'd be resuming work post-thesis. He said there was a bungalow to be designed in Alibaug and that he wanted me to handle the client from day 1. I guess that was the highlight of my day and i was actually smiling after the conversation with him. Everyone likes feeling a bit important.

Another day wasted. Do we always strive for what's precious? I know time is precious. What am i getting at?