25th July, 2016. What is so special about this date?

This day marked the advent of something beautiful for all of us. Filled with emotions of pride of being admitted to an ‘IIT’,we felt a certain sense of anxiety as to what our beloved branch had in store for us. Trying to overcome these feelings, we entered the gates of the institute and mind you, it was nothing of the cliche regard that is usually shown on the television.

All of us had done our prior homework and had heard stories about the ‘struggles’ that an architecture student faced. Thus gathering the little courage that we could muster, we headed towards our department, a place that would be ‘home’ for the foreseeable future, in awe of the new beginnings that were potentially on offer.

It was during these initial days that we had to get familiarized by the entire ‘Family System’ that reigned through the close knit bunch of students of the Architecture family, a unique learning curve for us, one that would be cherished when we looked back upon.

The first few months went by with what I would like to call an ‘initiation’ for us.

Trying to answer questions like, “What is Architecture?” during the first half of the day in our department and trying to figure out the answer to,“Where is the list?” during the nights in Jawahar Bhawan, is how I would encapsulate the journey; we carried on,despite our struggles. Pulling off ‘all-nighters’ for submissions that made little or no sense and then sleeping during the lectures which made much more sense; we carried on.

Going to the ‘Intro Talks’ of the various groups on campus followed by the ‘Intro Talks’ with our seniors, is something that we will fondly look back to. Let’s leave some things to the imagination, shall we?

It became pivotal that we familiarized with the power of ‘unity’ in our batch. Submissions were too many, time was apparently ‘always’ less: to submit or not to submit was ALWAYS the question. During these secret late night ‘Archi’ meetings, we used to decide. All 31 of us, united and strong, with the fire of rebellion burning deep inside us, we would usually turn up to class empty handed. Despite the scoldings from our teacher, we inevitably walked away with our heads held high and with a more cohesive bond than before.

Everything feels so nostalgic as I see the army of Architecture ‘facchas’ (that is the campus lingo for the first year students) walking into the department with parallel bars and their numerous paraphernalia, all so intricately managed on two shoulders: an art that was eventually mastered by us as first year students too.

Today, here we are, looking back at an year filled with lifelong lessons and experiences worth cherishing forever. A year that brought all of us together. A year that none of us would ever forget. A year that would be like no other because it was in the duration of this time that we forged a bond that nothing can weather away: friendships that will be remembered and cherished by us and the many who we’ve interacted with,the troubles that our room-mates of other branches faced due to our ever so frequent ‘night-outs’ and the terrible mess that we made in our rooms during our ‘model-making sessions’, the times where we would slip out of class and head towards the canteen and have our so called ‘breakfasts’ that would run the span of the entire class, the times where we supported each other during our group assignments and how we vouched for each other when either of us got caught while marking a ‘proxy’.

I am so sorry but I have to end this post right here, because this is perhaps all the time I can devote to writing ; we as architecture students are up to the brim in terms of number of assignments we have to submit. It is how it is and this is how it is!

Cheers!