This account is an ode to all those lost HB pencils and rounders, currently braving the unknown conditions and thriving anonymously, too lost to be found and too profound to be lost again!
The tale of the vanishing items is a long one and dates far back to the evolution of material instincts in mankind. “Seek, and ye shall find” would often lose its undertone in matters such as these.
But this is no ordinary tale, for it narrates the mysteries that are as unfathomable as the depths of Mariana trench. Perhaps an object would retrace its journey from the grasps of the Bermuda triangle, but to locate a simple half-chewed wooden pencil misplaced during the studio hours would be deemed as a herculean task.
Of all the spectacular events that I witnessed upon joining architectural college, the occurrences that caught my intrigue were the baffling disappearances of personal stationery supplies in studios. It could be an eraser; it could be a pen. It wasn’t a matter of ‘how’, but a matter of ‘when’.
Indeed, our reckless ways with personal items, careless behaviour and occasional bouts of forgetfulness were to be blamed for such mishaps. But who could even possibly be mindful in such circumstances with the most extended nap lasting the blink of an eye? From forgetting roll-pack filled with the day’s submissions in the train to forgetting to get oneself off the train, the peculiar struggles of starting as an architecture student shall remain etched in my memories.
However, the bizarre locomotion of ‘stationery’ items aroused wonder more than suspicion. The stealth with which these objects were devoured was simply ‘mind-bending’. From microns to Rotring pens, nothing escaped the dexterity of this stationery-hogging entity.
Among the innumerable martyrs, pencils were lost like pawns in chess. The sacrifice of the bishop was comparable to the loss of the triangular ruler, and that of set-squares meant the Queen’s. All goes unnoticed until the T-square is lost, for losing it earns one a week’s check-mate.
By the end of six weeks into college, other than the luxury of seven hours of sleep, I had lost one T-square, seven erasers, one roll-pack, two triangular rulers, four markers, one water bottle and the will to lend items. But that was not the end of it, and I certainly wasn’t all alone. The rest of the batch too grumbled about the unlawful teleportation of objects. An eraser misplaced a day before would oddly turn up a week later-terribly blackened and mutilated. One could hear its owner sobbing over the unfortunate sight.
Shining new drafting supplies, sparkling and clear set-squares, a thoroughly sprayed and clean T-square accompanied by a fresh batch of wooden pencils was a dream pre-drafting assemblage. Crisp white cartridge sheets waiting to receive their first strokes would invoke heavenly melodies and ring the most resounding bells of the soul. Amid this soul-stirring experience, one’s hand would graciously reach for the eraser. Only to be met with the metallic touch of the table. The sheer emptiness of the contact would race through the entire hand and send shivers of agony through the whole body.
The line between sanity and insanity is a thin one. One could even compare it to the expected thickness of construction lines in hand-drafted drawings. But a line so thin that every time something went missing, someone would pay a swift visit to the other side of it. Studio hours were intermittently interrupted with shrieks of wonder expressing despair over the loss of a beloved object. This strange defiance to “Laws of conservation of mass” was a newly observed phenomenon, and our batch wished to investigate it thoroughly.
Theories about the existence of a ‘black hole’ in the studio were proposed. They were soon rubbished and replaced by the presence of a supernatural ‘black soul’ in the studio. One would be considered wise to keep out of the science and occult practices debate, for in our predicament, neither of the two could adequately address the case.
We decided to resolve this matter once and for all and eventually started a lost and found department. All the unclaimed items lying about in the studio would be put away in the ‘lost and found box’. We diligently put all the stray things in the box and hoped they would reunite with their actual owner. A week later, the ‘lost and found’ box itself went missing.
Happiness, however, is found in the most unlikely places. So were most of the lost items. I once located my dusty old roll-pack that had been missing for at least half a semester, over an almirah cabinet of my college canteen. A part of my mind wonders about this fascinating re-appearance, while the rest hopes to locate the lid of the same roll-pack someday.
With increasing submission load and decreasing sleep hours, the whole commotion was soon side-lined and ultimately forgotten. I lost track of the items that I had squandered to oblivion and reconciled to the use of a singular, all-purpose HB pencil buried in the back pocket of my bag.
No matter how brutal the experiences were, they taught each one of us the value of the lost items. Ahem, quite literally.
Now that we spend our time at home and often manage to find everything in its place, the spirit shuffles through those memories of losing items but finding something precious to share. The sense of pure camaraderie is the most beautiful remembrance of the time spent together in studios. And for me, it is also perhaps the only dear thing too cherished to be lost.
