Those were the days my friend...we thought they'd never end....

Spent the last four days with my roommates from college. Something I had promised I would do when I quit my job. Four days spent talking, head banging after a night at Hard Rock, shopping, checking out a new mall, eating cheesecake and drinking coffee. Through it all we argued about open source v/s IPR, working v/s creating meaning, the larger good v/s individual short sightedness...reliving what we did for two years in college and wishing we could do this more often. Discuss daily mundanities while being able to talk about things that really move us or make us think. Four days of company, conversation and the comfortable familiarity of close friends made me think of the funny ways in which we meet people who become so integral to our lives and how we live....

The first time I walked into the 40 degree centigrade dusty hostel room that was my assigned acco in design school, I thought I finally had the answer to why Ivy league design education in India costs a fraction of Ivy league management education. In a 9’x9’ room with li’l or no flooring I saw 3 metal cots and one forlorn looking cupboard with doors hanging off its hinges looking back at me.

I spent the next five minutes pacing around the corridor outside thinking of a logical line of argument to persuade my dad or the bank to fund my stay outside of this oven; in a place where I had a fighting chance of getting through the Ahemdabad summer. And that's when I met the only person on this planet I know who can walk huffing and puffing into a fourth floor room on a terrace with weatherproofing for flooring and hospital cots and see a place that had the potential to be transformed into a Mocha like hangout.
When they say Bharatnatyam dancers speak through their hands and eyes, they are not kidding. This pear shaped dynamo, who turned out to be my destiny designated roommate, in words and sweeping actions cooed in delight at the room and the ‘view’ which in peak summer framed the drain sized stream of water snaking its way through a sandy bed; the erstwhile path of the river Sabarmati. Against the backdrop of this view I was shown (in my head) visions of blowing-in-the-breeze blue curtains, fluffy beds, comfy cushions, rugs on the floor and paper lamps throwing warm light across the room. Sucker for fine living that I am, I fell in line. All thoughts of living outside campus having being abandoned, I turned towards the only other object in the room that I saw as a problem. A tiny 5 feet steel almirah...in a room meant for three girls!! My classical dancer future roommate saw this only as a tiny li’l insignificant hiccup in the larger scheme of the fun we were gonna have living together. With a grand wave of her hand she democratically decided to leave the division of that li’l piece of furniture till our third roomie arrived. I didn’t realise it then, but I had jus’ met the most resourceful, enthusiastic and cheery girl I was ever going to know. Neeru still has a sweeping vision for everything she comes across and an answer for every impossible situation....well, almost everything.

When we came back from the orientation, we saw why sometimes dictatorships work and why hostels have li’l or no room for consideration. The cupboard that was left to democratic division was now firmly shut and locked and bore the distinct air of being full of someone’s luggage. Enter my third roommate. Jus’ when I thought that at 25, I wasn’t gonna meet or make any new lifelong friends (a rather cynical point of view, in hindsight) in walked the girl who having lived in hostels all her life obviously knew the protocols that bound sharing living space. The undemocratic occupation of the cupboard that seemed like a territorial human right violation to me was to her simply a way of making her life convenient, roommates she hadn’t seen yet, be damned!

Since conflict seemed like an avoidable solution to the problem of two big suitcases and 3 smaller bags waiting near the door, we upholders of democracy reconciled to living in a suitcase under the bed. If our common dislike for our dictator roommate brought us closer, so did the fact that we were from the same city, studied in the same college, the same course and were jus’ five years apart academically speaking. It also turned out that no amount of visions of comfortable or fine living could move our roommate who saw no need for curtains, cushions or carpets. Things we were subtly told, only first time hostel dwellers thought of as priority. But nothing deters the one with a vision and I found myself shepherded through state handicraft shops, big bazaar and roadside stalls. Through the two initial weeks of ragging and classes, icebreakers and griping about seniors, hand stitched blue curtains went up on the big windows and billowed in the wind, li’l cushions robed in mismatched covers appeared on the bed and plastic mats on the floor. Our third roommate watched with interest alternated with disdain. But living together is a funny thing, it makes friends of the people we swear never to talk to in the first five minutes of meeting them. And by the time we had to invest in the quintessential girl’s room asset, the mirror, three of us were scouting around together. That was where it started. By the time first year was over we had joint assets in the areas of clothes, shoes, varieties of tea, sunglasses and a hot plate for making maggi.

Our dictator roommate, it turned out, was jus’ like us, a regular girl with talents in different areas. The fashion sense of a diva, the aura of a friendly glass of beer, the taste buds of a foodie and at most times the common sense of a man. Yup! thats her all right. Over denim deconstruction, improvised long island iced teas, sooji ka paani puri and the perennial advice to us about not getting worked up about the smaller details and always looking at the big picture, we got to know Pooja. She’d cry over soppy animation movies and refuse to read long pieces of text. (Which makes me pretty sure she is not gonna read this) She had a playlist for everything from waking up to going to sleep and from heartbreak to head banging. She’d shop for and eat the freshest most exotic fruits in the beginning of the month when the money was jus’ in and mess food towards the end of the month.

When second year gave us the option of moving out to single rooms, we simply opted to take the single room next to ours and continue living pretty much the same way, with just a li’l more space thrown in. The only people in our batch who chose to stay with their year long roommates.

Sure, we had our down days, days when each other’s tastes in music or having to listen to one side of long drawn phone conversations drove us up the wall. When one person had a lover’s spat or was PMSing and the others had to take cover in the extra room, still the upsides far far outweighed the flip sides. I came back late one winter night long after the other two had slept off and as I sat on my bed taking off my shoes I remember thinking that sometimes company is just someone sleeping in the same room as you. Through phases of vegan diets, organic food, yoga and smaller issues like projects, all-nighters and college crushes, we grew into each other’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. We spent a winter day under the sun unmindful of classes going on. We ran down the hostel stairs in alarm one spring night when a 6.2 richter earthquake shook the building only to discover we were the only ones who came without our laptops or cameras. One hot summer evening we danced in the sprinkler that watered the gardens and wound our way through two years jus’ talking, eating and talking some more. The room that we had reluctantly shared in first few weeks towards the end of our time in college had become a den, where we held court and endless cups of green tea and countless plates of maggi were made for people who came over for a chat, some gossip, some gyaan or to ask the eternal question, “What do I wear?” When fourth semester ended and they left college for the last time, they left a day earlier than me since I wanted another day to say my good-byes. And it was then that it hit me, that there was nothing to say good-bye to. We had sold the last of the old newspapers and bottles to raise funds to despatch our luggage home and all that was left was the metal cots and the lone cupboard. I knew it then, that my two years were a sum of our experiences together. That we learnt more from talking to each other all night than we did at class. That without them, the education that became a turning point in my life would have simply stayed an academic experience. Together, we had found a way to make it a way of living.

Day One

Making a salad with honey mustard dressing, an evening spent playing with a puppy, a phone that barely rang, an afternoon nap and a leisurely cup of morning coffee marked my first day of joining the ranks of the unemployed. Without the preoccupation of having to get to someplace and getting back home, time seemed to move slower and I moved more consciously.

After the longest time, without the weather buffer called the office air conditioning, I could actually feel the weather outside my window and for the briefest of moments, while I vaporized, I considered telling my boss I would come back to work through the summer months. I ate only when hungry, made a glass of the perfect dark iced lemon tea and spent an entire day without getting behind the wheel of my car. A life I could get used to if only I could get rid of this nagging feeling that I am on a short holiday and before I know it I will be back to the life of living each day with a defined goal and a list of tasks that need to be accomplished.

When I shut the office laptop for the last time and drive out of the basement parking lot yesterday, I reminded myself not to trudge back there at 10.00 a.m the next day morning. So used am I to the habit called office; And breaking into a different lifestyle was little like a my first day at work, like seeing the place and the people for the first time. I noticed things like the afternoon sun on the floor of my home, I found the time to say good night to dad, I have the energy to write late into the night, to watch an IPL match till the last ball, basically to live more consciously in little mundane and urban ways. Not today the mindless ravenous chomping through dinner only to shower and collapse in bed or the mumbled conversation with family recounting vague details of the work day. Today, I lived every minute and moment. And tomorrow is another day. Thankfully not a working day...yet. :)

Au revoir

My first day in the ranks of the unemployed. More about that later. For now, here is a letter of good bye i mailed to everyone on my last day of work...


As a designer you're often a nomad or a gypsy, going from place to place and from one day to
another looking for meaning, fun and satisfaction in your work. You're looking for the feeling of looking
around you and seeing the things you've helped create or give form to. On the way,
sometimes you make long stopovers and sometimes short ones. And every now and then
you think you've found a place you can stay forever. But a few weeks or months down the line
and you realise that it is what you love about a place that holds you back from moving on. I
would know. My stopover at the Education and Stationery business was one of those,
where i found a place at work i could call home.

But designers come with a one flaw (amongst many others). A manufacturing defect :) An
insatiable need to see, experience and do newer and more things. So once again, i find
myself plotting a new course with one long last look at everything here that has become
familiar and dear...colleagues who have become friends, spaces that have become
comfortable, lunch partners who have shared meals, stories and lives, teammates who
have shared work insights, how-to-survive here tips :) and given generously of their time
and themselves. In the two years fours months that i have spent here lines have merged
and when i look around i know why good-byes' are the hardest part.

It would be a cliche to say i enjoyed my tenure here. And a bigger cliche to say that I learnt
a lot more here than i did at design school...both about people and about design. But
sometimes a cliche says it best. So,thank you everyone who has willingly or unwittingly
been a part of my learning and experience. i wish you all as much luck and good times
as i am hoping i find, as i chart out the course to starting my own design firm.


With warm regards,
Shikha