9:00 AM
I’d had enough caffeine to keep my system energized for a month, but even that wasn’t helping anymore. My eyelids were getting heavy, and the elevation render on my laptop screen had started to resemble a masterpiece by Picasso.
With heavy eyes, I looked at the senior who had her thesis jury that day. In 2 hours, she needed to be at the jury room, bathed (hopefully), and dressed, with all the sheets printed. I looked around the room; everything seemed blurred. The physical model with a million little plastic trees stuck around it was almost done (sustainability? tick). The room was a complete mess with 4 laptops scattered haphazardly (where were the laptop’s owners?), and innumerable empty packets of Lays, Kurkure, and Soya Sticks thrown on the floor along with packets of half-eaten chicken biryani (tragic events happen when you’ve got just 2 blood-curdling hours left for submission).
Drowsily, I stared at my laptop screen. Satisfied that my job was done, I set the laptop aside and finally laid down for a short break. After hours of sitting hunched over a screen, laying down was pure bliss. My back thanked me, and my head started to throb. Now, if you’ve not been to architecture school, you’ll never know what this feels like. It is a tantalizing paradise, that feels like a cup of steaming hot coffee on a breezy night. I pushed aside these caffeinated thoughts and closed my eyes for just a little bit. Noob mistake. It took me five seconds to fall asleep.
12:00 PM
I was floating aimlessly in a bizarre world. A land of forex pieces and A1 sheets. Amidst all the papers lay a packet of half-eaten chicken biryani. As I continued to stare at it, the packet grew a huge hideous mouth along with a pair of beady eyes, and started to call out my name. “Saumya…Saumya!” No matter how much I had always fantasized about talking to my dear friend biryani, I had to admit this seemed a bit scary. I woke up with a start. The senior was calling out my name.
“On which laptop did we save the sections dude. I can’t find them anywhere”.
Oh Crap! I checked the time at the bottom of my laptop screen. It showed 12:02, and I knew things were serious. I sat up and hurriedly searched through all the probable folders in which the files could be. Final Sheets, FinalFinal, FINAL FINAL FINAL, the sheets were nowhere. Giving up, I looked at her.
“I’ll render it again. We have the AutoCAD files, and I just need to render it on photoshop. Will hardly take an hour”, she said. Before I could remind her that the time was up, and rendering would probably take more than an hour, she had her phone in her hand and started to dial her friend. Somehow, she convinced him to request the juror to take her viva in the end.
I tried not to panic her more and started to arrange all the plotted sheets in a Photoshop format. I was painfully slow when suddenly, I heard the frenzied tapping of mouse keys. There she was, tapping furiously, staring right into the laptop screen, almost as if she was witched. This woman hadn’t slept in days, and still had enough energy to supply a powerhouse. Realizing the graveness of the situation, I increased my pace. By 3 pm, all the work was done.
3:00 PM
It was decided that I’ll go and get the sheets printed with her friend while she gets ready (bathing was, without a doubt, ruled out). I put on my fanciest sling bag (you think I’ll carry thousands of bucks in my pajama pockets?) on top of my scruffy old nightwear and flip flops, and rushed downstairs to meet her friend. As his jury was over, he had all the time in the world.
We speeded to reach the printing shop and found it crammed up with people. The owner informed us that it would take at least an hour to get the sheets printed. On the other hand, this woman was calling us every 5 minutes.
“I told them I need to go to the loo and now I’m hiding here in the washroom. You guys need to come here FAST”, she snapped.
I assured her that we’d be there as soon as possible and cut the call. But when I explained this to her friend, he cracked up, which in turn made me crack up too. Sleep-deprived people bond on a different level. Note that somewhere. Anyway, after an hour of hysterical laughing on the lamest of things, we got the prints and rushed to the jury room to hand them over.
4:30 PM
Looking around the room, I found a wide spectrum of phenomenal work; sections so long, they didn’t even fit the panel, concepts so detailed, it would confuse the juror himself. People with ligament fractures and people with big dark circles, all dressed-up wearing their best formal clothes, explaining in 15 minutes what they had spent their last six months to create. I saw them reminiscing the good old days, taking photographs, celebrating the end of an era.
Looking at them, I couldn’t help but worry about my thesis jury and indulge in my favorite hobby, self-doubt. Would I be able to pull off an amazing thesis like them? And even if I did, what would life be like after that? My stomach replied with a loud growl, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before.
The senior, whose thesis I had worked on, came to my rescue. Her jury was over and she seemed ecstatic.
“My jury went super dude. My treat tonight. What do you want to eat?”, she asked excitedly.
The past few days had gone by in a flash, with 5 am coffee sessions, blasting our ears with loud music, and working tirelessly. All that was over now, and it was time to go home. It is only in hindsight that we realize the importance of some moments. My stomach growled again, indicating that I had more immediate matters to cater to. I looked at her and smiled,
“Anything but chicken biryani”.
