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KANPUR DIARIES-Day 5

Finality of finalities! We had to head to the studios for the grueling last-minute work. Jibi and I went only at 11 after the long arduous work. My partner, seeing my overnight brilliant progress, was more relaxed and FINALLY believed in my capacity to ACTUALLY finish work! :P

The last day, Ashwini and I went into hysterics laughing at random things. Blame it on the pressure or the fact that we ACTUALLY managed so much work. It might have been her overnight understanding of REVIT or my success at the plans. But the final day saw us actually working in unison rather than look at the differences and bicker.

It felt nice to be normal :)

Eddie and Rahul were working too much and trying to scare me. Devendra was doing views after views. Uma was way way way ahead in his work! Saarang and Kasturi had some helluva drafting done. Jibi was in hyperscared state. I was calmly working and having a nice time yapping with Saumya and working at once! :D

We managed our work somehow, submitted it, collected our train refunds and then headed for the celebratory dinner party that they hosted for our benefit. Yummy food after hard work and relaxed atmosphere after frenzy really had an intoxicating effect on me.

I was in great spirits, nicely fed on paneer and gobi manchurian and hothothot paranthas. Two nice round gulab jamuns and some yummy motichoor laddus later, I was in the most relaxed of moods. As the professors began to talk to the students, a few lazy souls, myself included, slithered away to yap. Saumya and I got so bored, we began to walk around idly and also ate some strawberry icecream just to while away time! :D

With permission to watch a movie and with Pankha and Eddie(alongwith Audi and Rahul) fooling me into signing for the projector, we all settled down to watch 'Jaane Tu ya Jaane na'. Sadly, that was project-fooling-us-number-2 and we ended up watching(me-sleeping) through the movie called 'Fool's Gold'. Although the hero was dumb-hot types, I couldn't quite watch it as I was so tired and exhausted in mind and body. I couldn't even get up and go 'cos those mad boys had fooled me into taking responsibility for the projector! HMPH!

So after a nice dozing off and catching bits of screen footage of the dumb-hot looking __________, I returned the projector and went back to the room to hear scary tales of IIT suicides from Jibi. Shit scared from that second, we both refused to go near the toilet without the other standing outside keeping guard from whatever-that-be! :(

Somehow... we slept!

*gulp

KANPUR DIARIES-Day 4

The last-but-one day of submission. We were asked to assemble at the Seminar hall for a small lec-dem on Resist software followed by the post-workshop quiz. And then we had to head to the studios.

Our pyramid concept seemed to pose troubles and my partner was going beyond hyper! :P And I was slightly losing my cool but considering how she was not familiar with computer execution of projects, I understood her position and kept calm.

More MP3 wars and food and glasses after glasses of nimbupaani went by and work was going snail pace. :D

I began to make sincere efforts to get to know everyone in the group. I began to pick conversations, get introduced and get chatty much to my poor partner's escalating blood pressure.

Work officially ceased at 12. Jibi and I however burnt oil post-midnight in our hostel rooms and slept a couple of hours. We got up again at 5 and resumed work till 10 am the next morning!

KANPUR DIARIES-Day 3

Day 3 was supposed to be a complete intensive studio sessions-with-breaks type. We headed directly to the never-ending drawing studio and the ice-cold computer labs to work.

The lemon juice(made mildly bitter by squeezing it too much), the terrible coffees and worst-ever chais with some yummy biscuits sustained us.

Eddie, Bhasker, Munazza and I took up the round table and bonded like hell. If Nimbupaani made Eddie sweet enough to get me every possible thing to eat at regular intervals, our songs brought a DJ-war between us. This would make Monazza clutch her hair in despair and ask us to shut up and Bhasker would keep a bottle of water in front and urge us to "doob mar"-ofy in the "chunnu-bhar ka paani"! :P And trust me to hear that as "chulha bar paani"! :P

Between Jibi's exasperated Tamil dialogues, Saranya's constant help and Saumya's frequent "I give up"s, we had FUN working! :D

The early-dinner on paneer rolls and dew and real juice and cakes with Nishita, Saranya, Jibi(DUH!), Saumya, Aditi, Rahul and Umadhar turned out to be super fun! Not only did we eat like there's no tomorrow and go berserk talking, we also confirmed plans to go for 'Jaane Tu ya Jaane na' and tour the city!

Work ceased officially at 12. We hit the canteen in the girls hostel for some food and I ended up staying a while with Aditi and Saumya talking. Nidhi, who works in Kanpur and stays at IIT-K, was giving us a list of places to go to. Hit the bed at around 1-ish.

KANPUR DIARIES-Day 2

 

More lecture sessions followed this day- not as great as the first day's, or maybe I was just plain tired and sleepy. I have this tendency to run a temperature or keep dozing off if I haven't had my beauty sleep of a minimum of 6 hrs everyday! :P

Doze I did in the lectures and hence, I'm really not in a position to talk of its contents. Mr.Suresh Ailawadi, a godfather of sorts to all the participants- making sure their stay was comfortable, sending taxis to pick and drop etc- made a rule. A wonderful rule, if I may add. He made it compulsory that we don't sit next to a person from the same state/city and keep shuffling after every lecture.

This way, we got acquainted with people easier and also got introduced to all the people they knew! For the lecture on Day2, I sat next to Aditi from Chandigarh's supposed snoot-sabha! (Boy... I want to hit myself hard for being so wrong in my judgement about them!!! :P ) Aditi turned out to be just the opposite and was a very dear sweet girl. I was introduced to so-thought-super-snob Saumya who turned out to be my soul sister!!! :D

We began bondingbondingbonding. I met Jyoti from Lucknow who turned out to have attended the SAME workshop in X class as I had!!! I got introduced to Umadhar and Saarang too.

Saarang was this fellow I instantly became friends with. I mean, he was one of those people you see and you KNOW you're gonna be great friends with!!! :) hehe. I told him that too! :P Trust me to do that. And we realised that he was a Saggitarian and I was an Arien- and BINGO, they are supposed to be the best of friends according to Linda Goodman!!! :D

Point to be noted here: I had not yet been acquainted with Himanshu, Hemant or Vishwanath and I thought Rahul was either too introverted and quiet or a super snoot! :P Ditto thoughts about 'Eddie' Aditya and Umadhar(although we DID speak).

We had some intense studio sessions where we were supposed to be working. My partner was a hyper-tensed super-scared female and I am this procrastination-is-my-middle-name type when it comes to architectural design! :P So you can imagine how many arguments, near-tears fights and fissures we had. But valiantly, both of us stood by one another, made some adjustments and flexibly finished our designs. It took both of us immense strength and a lot of letting-go-of-egos to get the work done and I'm mighty proud of her and me! :) Best part- we did multiple designs!!! And we both worked on both!!! :D

Studios, food and tea sessions brought Saumya, Aditi and our previously formed gang of Audi, Pankha(dear Pankaj who's this bro-come-buddy to me!), Nishita, Saranya, Jibi and I, together. A visit to a boring structures lab revealed Aditi's prowess of the Tamil language and my god, we had a roaring laugh over her expletives!!! :D

A city tour followed, where I met the rest of the junta who were to be a part of our gang- Rahul, Himanshu, Hemant and Vishwanath. And again, I ate my words about the CCA group! :P Rahul just takes time to open up with people! He ain't a snoot! LOL! To think I thought SAUMYA was one!!! GOD!!! :D

The city tour was restricted to two things- the JK Birla Mandir and the Naveen Market. The rain further restricted the city tour's extent. We were drenched to the skin and yet had a jolly good time! :)

At the end of Day 2, we were all acquainted. And I was discovering what delightful people the others were too! :)

KANPUR DIARIES- DAY 1

DAY 1

Reach we did for the stipulated 8:30 am seminar, but at the wrong seminar hall! After some searching, calling and exercising my thoota-phoota Hindi speaking skills(sans Tamil accent! Ha! I'm proud of the fact that everyone I have spoken to so far, has told me "tumhari hindi sahi hain. Aur tamil accent bhi nahin!!!" Arrey waah! ;D ), we found the right place.

After registration and inauguration and a few mutual exchanges, we set off for the ever-necessary 'group photograph'. At that time I was like, "God knows how many of these people I'm ever gonna remember. But yeah...whatever! I'll pose!".

Well, for once I was mistaken and GLAD I was! :D

Enter seminar hall after the photo shoot, and we have a monstrous quiz which I had no clue about(once more I was mistaken. I scored a decent 14 on 25! :P). The sessions soon started and we had interesting lecture hours with earthquakes, structural behaviour during quakes, techniques to prevent collapse etc. Then the dreaded design problem was introduced. We were to design a multi-storey residential complex with around 160-190 houses in the span of 2.5 days!!!

And for this we were divided into pairs to work. Nishita(the cake-holding Guwahati girl from the previous night's convo near the room-without-the-fan) sweetly asked me to be her partner. But then there began this whole big issue as to 'partners kaise choose karein'. Deciding on lots, I finally ended with Ashwini from AOA,Mumbai a III yr student.

This whole partner-separating session stemmed off some issues, which I was asked to resolve, as Nishita found me the 'most reasonable person of the lot'. From then began a time where responsibility began to be thrust upon me and people began to think I was some self-appointed leader and hated my guts! :P

In the process of resolving Nishita's group mates' issue, we became acquainted with fellow-tamil speaking Saranya from Chennai and the entire Guwahati College junta. We also got to speak to this super-snooty-cum-i'm-too-intelligent-to-be-talking-to-you-looking peeps from Chandigarh.

We somehow resolved the issue and ended up going for Adithya(Audi's) birthday treat at the restaurant near the IIT Supermarket. Some yummy paranthas and panner guzzled down with fanta-later, we realised this was the very same brat-pack that refused us answers the previous night in their Audi-budday-celebrations!

Chuckling, we bonded over the bitchings and food and took some crazy snaps(on the road, at the traffic police-ka-stand, with random kids who thought we were victims of some hit-and-run on campus etc) and established a wonderful friendship! :)

A movie on the Mexico quake followed where AGAIN I happened to walk in late and hence was entrusted with operating the projector!!! Some more 'god this girl is so exasperating' looks were passed. I am so used to people hating me in the beginning, that I ignored those looks! :P

Day one ended with people knowing who Sandhya was and hating her for her supposed 'self-made leader' attitude! :(

KANPUR DIARIES-1

(written a week ago)

It was a great surprise when my lecturer called me and asked me if I was interested in applying for a "Workshop for Earthquake Resistant Design Practices" to be held at IIT-Kanpur. I was pretty excited! For one, it was going to clearly be the first Architecture stuff I was going to participate in. Even in the NASAs and ZONASAs, all I did was take part in the culturals, writing or such on-stage events. But nothing architecture except for the trophy works.

Secondly, this was an individual participation thing- which was thrilling and confidence-boosting. I could learn something and get more direction as to what to do for my thesis.

With all the above in mind, I sent a filled-in form. And surprises of surprises, I DID get selected. So now, I am in Kanpur, with my friend and class mate Jibi and we are having a nice time...

Well, I should have added 'now' when calling it a nice time. It didn't quite start that way. We had a really horrible train journey which got extended by 3 hours for 3 reasons- a)we ran over a buffalo(R.I.P. Buffalo), 2) the engine burnt off and 3)a rock got stuck beneath the train and had to be removed by chiseling on it.

To top it all, we realized that the womenfolk of the nation have no option but to forever carry a pack of sanitary napkins every once they take a train! Not one convenience store in any of the stations that we got down at. Exasperation and anger reached new heights. It must be made imperative for every train to have a sanitary napkin dispenser or a convenience store should be present in every platform!

And finally, when we DID reach Kanpur, it was only at 11:30 pm. One must remember that this city sleeps off by 11. With rumours about Kanpur being the i-shall-carry-guns-around-and-may-shoot-you-down-anytime blinking at the back of the mind, we desperately searched around for the cab that was sent to pick us up. Many cabwallahs creepily and uncannily came and asked us- "IIT Kanpur jaana hain?" Evading all those omniscient cabwallahs, we finally found the one meant to pick us up and discovered a 'SandhIya(yes with that obnoxious I) and a 'ZIVI'(instead of a Jibi) placard in his hand.

The drive to IIT was scary- deserted roads, very few people loafing around and some creepiness lurking in the air. Our Brijesh Bhai(cabwallah) was a very naive fellow. We reached Kanpur at 12:00 precisely and were very sweetly dropped in Guest House-1(GH-1) instead of Girls Hostel-1(also the same damned GH-1) and so had to lug our baggage(that definitely weighs twice as much as I do) all the way back on the clean deserted streets of the IIT-campus. But that is NOT why he's naive. He was very innocently asking me if Kolkatta was near Chennai!!! No wonder foreigners used to refer to India as 'land of snake-charmers and elephants and diseases'. Our own people are so much in the dark!

Somehow we reached the destined GH-1 at around 12:15 to see three girls and two guys jumping near the entrance and ignoring our "excuse me...is this the girls' hostel". After a nice mental cursing, we signed in. But well, doom it is that befalls the doomed! Like, DUH!

Enter Sandhya and Jibi into the room and we notice we get no beds, no pillows and well... no fan!!! After almost 2 whole days/40 hours of sweating it out in a filthydirtyirritatingslowdarned train, we lost it! We JUST lost it. We demanded a nice room with fan and get we did. Just that we still haven't got the beds and blankets. But 'looking at the condition of the one mattress we did get, we decided against asking for another! :P

We met some people with a yummy licked-off-all-the-cream-proclaiming box of chocolate cake from Guwahati. We didn't realise THEN that we were to see a lot of them in the coming days and they were the same brats who did not answer our questions of "...is this the girls' hostel?"

After a nice long shower and some frantic calls, we left to grab some grub at the canteen in the hostel that is open till 2 am. A yummy paneer parantha and a bottle of Tropicana Twister(I have literally been drunk on it all the while! So much so that the aunty who runs the canteen takes out a bottle when she sees me!)We hit the bed at 2 am, only to be reminded by our organiser that we need to assemble at 8:30 am the next day!!!