With shining faces, we entered the life-revolutionizing phase of our life called ‘college’. Little did we know that we’d have shining faces all year round, thanks to merciless professors and sleepless nights.
Architecture college is revolutionary. It not only prepares you for adult life, but it also makes you realize that you may have little to no social life because slogging is the life of an architecture student.
Anyway, as you stepped in, the first year seemed to sail by smoothly, with teachers friendly enough to address your concerns, offer you advice, soothe you, and actually say, ‘you can do better, I believe in you.’ How refreshing and motivating that sounds….Until you enter your second year and you’re suddenly wondering, “Was this the same teacher?”
The wind in your life now becomes a whirlwind. It admittedly took you some time to be able to transition from the full-eight-hour sleep schedule of twelfth grade to the null-hour sleep schedule of the first year, and you had perhaps started thinking that things might get better from here on, now that you’re accustomed to some drastic changes in your biological clock. But, oh no, you should have known that – dammit, how could you have missed it– that the black coffee that we were drinking to stay alive and/or awake, was ominous of the bleak clouds hanging above your head: the worst is yet to come.
You roam around the class, talking, sharing, playing music. That had really surprised you in your first year because the professors never objected to that! Now you can’t understand how anybody could even study or work without music streaming in the background! You glare at your siblings when they comment that you only have to sketch all day long, “our studies are worse,” they say, but you know that only an architecture or design student can understand your pain. Even though there is not a lot of complicated physics or maths or biology involved, studying architecture is just as difficult, you argue, because it is a creative process! Nobody in the world can achieve perfection and creating and designing is only a process of striving to achieve that perfection. You know that in your heart but you also want to punch every person in the guts who comments, “drawing all day must be easy.” Yeah right. *rolls eyes*
Sketch, Scorn, Scribble, Crumble, Repeat.
That, in a way, sums up the lifespan of a sheet of a sketch done by you. The cause of its death was probably your anxiety or your professor. Either way, those sheets glare at you every morning from the trash bin, the spirit of the trees that they were made of accusing you and planning to haunt you. But you anyway put aside the tinge of guilt that was (admit it) starting to come over you, and go ahead and come back with more sheets (probably embarrassed by the way people were staring at you for clumsily handling the tons of stationery you might use twice that year). You sigh when you realize that you spend money more on stationery than you do on food.
And then, of course, there was always the fear that something might fail you, or that you might fail yourself. There is the struggle for motivation, for the will to continue further, but you still drag yourself up (with perhaps your best friend holding a knife to your throat), get ready and go to classes with your incomplete model and incomplete essay. That day was a luxury for you because you got to sleep-oh holy mother of God, you got to sleep. Other days are just a drag, with you and your savior Coffee hoping to be able to submit the assignments on time. Other times you fear that your software might fail you, that there may be no more storage left in your laptop or your hard drive; that your fingers might get stuck to each other thanks to FeviQuick, and your project might not look good even after that! You’re afraid that the Professor might shred your work to pieces, and (who are we kidding), even if he didn’t, you’d have to redo it anyway.
But, the worst fear of all time probably was that your room will never be even near enough to clean-what if your parents or your girlfriend or your boyfriend comes for a surprise visit?! Your friends, thankfully, are aware that you cannot be an architecture student and have your room clean at the same time. You always find solace in that. Remember the college festival days? The upbeat spirit about the campus, the thrill of dressing up, stepping out of your hostel room and into the courtyard, looking around for your friends, setting up stalls, performing in front of the crowd, and, in some cases, sneaking in alcohol and creating a scene in front of the college. Those were the days when you would see a different side of your professors, and realize that they are fun-loving too, on occasions, and that when it comes to academics, they love to take your fun away. But you’re dancing, enjoying, laughing, because you know that tomorrow is another day and another assignment awaits you.
Enter the third year, and you’re not even that afraid of assignments anymore. Instead, you are horrified when it’s been a week and no teacher has assigned you anything yet. Oh, how you cherish those days! But you also miss them a little, just a smidge.
You admire your seniors. You learn that AutoCAD is all that you’re going to be taught and it’s going to take a lot more to be an accomplished architect in the real world, so you cozy up to them, obey every command of theirs and you derive your inspiration from them. Despite their clumsiness, their imperfections, they are so cool. In sports, in academics, in operating myriads of software, they are your Real Saviours. Enter the fourth and the fifth year and now it is you continuing their legacy forward, parading your juniors to your tunes and teaching them how to enjoy the simple things in life: hanging out at the nearest chai ki tapri, the day your project finally gets rendered, having an adda that is officially you and your gang’s. You owe so much to your seniors and your juniors owe so much to you; everyone works in solidarity and you languish in the feeling of homeliness, unity and love.
