The load of work in architecture is so extensive, and the students’ time management so poor, that “all-nighters” become a regular occurrence. But sometimes the mind and body get so fatigued that they refuse to co-operate, damn the consequences. This is one such incidence, where the worst enemy of an all-nighter invaded, and everything went haywire.
Lectures for the day had just finished. I was tired, but there’s really no room for tiredness when you’re doing architecture. We had a big group submission lined up for tomorrow, a model for History. Our group had gathered in a little circle, enjoying the brief reprieve and discussing plans. It was decided that I and Divya would first go to the laser-cutting shop to pick up the cut pieces, while the remaining four people would go on ahead to Siddhi’s place. We had chosen her house as the model-making studio because it had an entire unoccupied floor where we could spread out cutters and glue and cardboard without danger of some poor innocent family member tripping, slipping, or otherwise putting his/her life at risk.
And so we went to the laser-cutting guy. We had given him the job the day before and he had promised that he would have the pieces ready, yes, definitely, by noon. But stationers are among that class of people who are known to never keep their word.
“Didi, the machine had hanged because of a huge order. Not my fault. Just wait for 5 minutes, you’ll have the pieces.” He said at 2.00 pm. The clock ticked on. It was getting stifling in the tiny shop. More people came in, very few went out. Our patience was thinning.
“Bhaiya, how much longer? We have been here for half an hour now. There’s a submission tomorrow.. quick, please,” I complained to the completely inattentive Bhaiya. By then, we had already had calls from the rest of the group who were comfortably settled in Siddhi’s house, waiting to start the work.
Finally, a quarter of an hour later, I and Divya walked out of the shop with a bag full of tiny windows and walls. We were greeted at our pretend-studio with much grumbling.
“That was an excellent waste of time. Let’s get to work now, shall we?”
“Oh God…we are never going to complete all this in a day… what took you so long??”
And so forth.
Everyone finally cooled down and eventually settled into their roles. I was the cutter, along with Tanay. Avi was the gluer, Siddhi and Divya were switching between plan readers and contour makers. In a short time, the entire floor was strewn with debris.
There was a part where we had to make a coffered slab. We achieved this by cutting the foam board into really tiny pieces and then sticking them so they formed a grid. So of course, I, accident-prone as ever, cut myself. We got a break fussing over the bleeding and band-aids and stuff. Just then, Siddhi’s mom called us to dinner. We hadn’t realized it was so late. The plan had actually been finishing the model by 10 pm and returning home. As always, we had misjudged the work and our speed. It was decided, unspoken, that we were all spending the night making this model.
After dinner, we again got down to work. Everyone was feeling a little drowsy, maybe from the gulab-jamuns during dinner or maybe from too much eye-strain. But there was no option but to persevere. We had now moved on from cutting pieces to assembling them.
If you ever want to cause serious injury with very little effort or expense, Fevikwik is your weapon.
Along with sticking pieces of cardboard/model paper, Fevikwik also efficiently sticks fingers, burns skin, and makes holes in clothes. Sure enough, within a few minutes, there were a lot of pained cries, blistered, reddened fingers, and holed pants. But did we let that stop us? Of course not. We continued in hopes of a finished, clean, beautiful model. To ward off drowsiness, Avi put on some screechy rock music. The process continued- measure, check, cut, stick, measure, check, cut, stick.
It was now 2.00 am. Those of us awake were working on auto-pilot by this time. The bits of cardboard, paper, sponge, discarded blades littering the floor had reached such amounts that the room looked now akin to a minefield. Little particles of thermocol floated about like dust risen into the air after a bombing. And, incredibly, amid all this debris lay Tanay, deeply asleep. Avi too had long since given up any pretension of model-making and was now stretched out on the sofa, mouth open and snoring.
The model was still only about half done. About an hour later, even our auto-pilot started failing and we decided to wake those sleeping beauties and get some well-needed shut-eye ourselves. We had to shake them awake. When they finally got up, disoriented, we made them promise to wake us up an hour later so that we would finally be done till college time. We went to sleep with prickling eyes and muddled brains. It seemed like in no time at all the early rays of the sun hit my eyelids. I awoke with a start. The clock showed 7.00 am. What? I hurriedly awoke the other two girls. They looked as disheveled as I felt.
“It’s 7 o’clock? Why didn’t those two wake us up?!”
“Oh…that model better be complete. College starts in half an hour. We are such terrible people!”
Muttering darkly, the three of us went out into the living room. There, in the exact same spots we had left them four hours ago, our two friends were calmly asleep. The model, too, stood exactly how it was, not even a stray piece of thermocol added onto it. It stared up at us mockingly.
My head was spinning. “We did wake up the two of them at three a.m last night, right?”
Siddhi looked bewildered. ” Yeah, I thought so too. But then what’s this?” Siddhi gestured at our sleeping friends and the shamefully incomplete model. It seemed like our tired brains had played tricks on us.
Divya had more pressing concerns. “Never mind about that! What are we going to do about this model?! It’s awful. We are not submitting that!”
Hearing the commotion our two delightfully lost friends returned from the land of slumber. Seeing the half-model and our faces, their expression soon turned shocked, then confused. “So, what now?” asked Avi with as much calm as he could muster.
“What now? We’re all failing History, that’s what now!” I yelled. “And also, did we or did we not wake you up at three in the morning? You even promised that you would wake us up an hour later.”
” You did? And we did what? I don’t honestly remember.”
I was fuming.
Tanay meanwhile, had gotten over his shock and was now looking into his phone.
“Mr.Patel, would you kindly focus on the crisis here please?” Siddhi was looking daggers at Tanay.
” Well, yes, but didn’t you all see the message in our group? The college has declared a holiday today. Founder’s anniversary or something.”
???
We all hurriedly looked at our phones. There was indeed a holiday declared. If there is a God, he was looking out for us that day. Our looks immediately changed from dark clouds to bright sunshine.
” What are we still doing here? Let’s go out, have a nice breakfast somewhere. Come on guys, there’s no submission today, we have been slogging half the night, and we still have the weekend. We deserve a break.” I said.
There were some misgivings among the sincerer people, but eventually, everyone agreed. And so, abandoning all pursuits of model-making, leaving the room in its post-apocalyptic mess, we all trotted out into the cheerful Friday morning.
