City Of Dreams..

Whether it was the impact of Jodhaa Akbar or maybe I really did have a fascination for palaces, kings and queens... I don’t remember anymore. But I do know that I’m in love with them now. Jaipur has exceeded my fantasies. It’s funny how I never thought about visiting Rajasthan before. NIFT has certainly changed the way I look at the world now. The passion to explore has grown into us. The visual arts have become more fascinating than ever. It’s weird how much a mere painting holds. In fact it’s funny how much the small smile of Mona Lisa says. The world is full of textures and colour...every song has the ability to be converted into a profound artwork. The power we hold! The power to express...to think...to see...humans are truly blessed.

18th December, 2008, I scoot down beside my friend from Jaipur in the bus...rather unsure of whether it was a good idea to come along. I’m half tempted to step off and get on the first bus to Chandigarh that I see. Maybe they are just goose-bumps...my first travelling experience without family. The engine roars and we’re off. I hold tight on my guts and take a deep breath. Bon Voyage.


5 hours later we’re sore from the continuous sitting. We’re on the outskirts of Jaipur and I get my first glimpse of the Pink City. It’s love at first sight. We cross loads of palaces which have been converted to hotels. My friend, who incidentally got through the first phase of NID with me, had researched a lot about her city before the interview. So she was my personal guide to her hometown. It’s amazing how much she knew! I got queasy again...only this time it was inferiority complex. :-) The first night went fairly well. New faces...awkward ‘namastez’...great malwari food...and then sleep. I sleep like everything around doesn’t exist. It’s just me and my black void. Sleep at home is indeed the sweetest of all. Though I do end up having a weird dream of meeting my EOD (Elements of Design) teacher’s kids...but that’s about it.


NAARGARH
Remember Rang De Basanti? The ever famous jumping into the water? Naargarh is the same place the shooting took place. The view from there is breathtaking. Jaipur is actually enclosed within the Arawali hills. One can just keep sitting there...and stare. Stare like a lecher if you have to. But in front of such beauty...manners don’t really come into the picture. It is one of the major hangout zones of the Jaipur youth. I envy them. Most intensely.



RAMGARH
Can you imagine this whole space filled up with water? If you can, good for you...if not, you better. Ramgarh was originally a dam that supplied water to a lot of parts in Jaipur. Now its all dried up and kilometres of land stretches out as far as the eye can see. You sit on the steps stacked up neatly on the banks of the original water body and I tell you it is breathtaking...The land just keeps on and on stretching and on account of the distant fogginess...i couldn’t even make out the horizon properly. So seemingly, it was never ending. That was exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be alone, just me and the vast expanse ahead of me. And i didn’t want it to end. Have always wanted to be in a place like that somehow... Nobody else just me and myself.But practically it couldn’t be...we had to get going....there was a lot of Jaipur waiting to be seen.


GAITOR KI CHATTRIYAN
Gaitor...this was my favourite destination after Naargarh; A small area which were probably constructed by kings as resting grounds for their queens. A very serene, quiet location....an excellent place for photography. I was so badly regretting not having a decent camera with me. Yet the feeling that you get just sitting there staring out at the Arawalis is one of its kind. Thankfully, cameras can’t completely grasp emotions. Otherwise people would stop going places. No one would want to move their asses for a first-hand experience. Sometimes imperfection itself is a blessing.

Thats why I sometimes don’t like the idea of making movies out of books. It just somehow steals the essence of the book itself. The first hand experience is lost since we’re too lazy to go through the entire thing. Short-cuts everywhere. Though I can’t entirely blame movies adapted from novels...as a self proclaimed harry potter fan in my early teens, I never would’ve known the books existed, had it not been for the first movie.

Anyway steering back to the main point... This is the view of Garh Ganesh, on whose foot lies Gaitor. One has to climb hundreds...maybe a thousand stairs to climb all the way up to the highest point of the mountain where the temple is situated.





Besides these major spots....I went around the city and saw the birla temple, the Art Centre, the fave hangout zone, Saras parlour. Dined at one of jaipur’s famous dhabas...Sharma dhaba. Visited the exquisite jal mahal and hawa mahal. But thanks to all my Jaipur buddies...Neha, Dhwaj, Abhinav, Sagar, Tanay, Pragya and Rajul for making it an excellent trip! The jalmahal icecream was a really amazing experience! I’m never gonna forget my icebreaker hot-seat and the dhwaj’s excellent driving skills. Neha you have inspired me to learn driving this very winter by hook or by crook! And ofcourse I’ve just realised there is still so much of Chandigarh that i myself haven’t seen. Funny, how we want to roam the world instead! I still have more than half of delhi to discover by the way... hehe. But I’m definitely going back to Jaipur. I haven’t had enough of it yet. In neha’s words: my journey stands “to be continued...”

Sleepless in NIFT

4 0 clock in the morning....darius’ song “colourblind” makes a feeble attempt to keep us awake. The fear of the rat eating into my new sarojini sweater makes me pile up all my clothes on my already messed up, tiny bed. Besides that...a compass lies dangerously close to my butt, one of the colour pencils is already broken coz i luckily missed the compass and sat on it instead. The room is packed and nauseatingly messy.

My roommate’s working religiously on a paper mosaic assignment (10 by 10”) we have to submit by 10 in the morning. Funny, how the number 10 seems to be quite a favourite with the college. For those who don’t know, paper mosaic is the technique of cutting bits of coloured paper and pasting them on paper. (Insane. I know) I still haven’t tired of thinking whether the faculty confuses us for some machines whose sole purpose in life is to sit up like owls overnight and work. But owls are better off anyway; At least they sleep during the day. I guess we must be a new, evolved breed then.

Here comes the call of the faithful roommate who stays up all night with me, sharing my torture. She needs an eraser. Firstly, NEVER, EVER ask a niftian for an eraser. We will have the longest range of painting colours in every possible tint and shade, the latest most expensive set of colour pencils, an H to a 10 B pencil...drawing inks to photo paints to all the swanky new stationary one can think of.....but NEVER ask for an eraser. An eraser is officially jinxed. An eraser, you see, has this amazing ability to vanish from the face of the earth just the second, no, the millisecond, you ask for it.

Since my roomy had already committed her sin, an intriguing and enigmatic search begins for the ever illusive, eraser. This is the precise point when you want the whole world to have ringtones like the blessed cell phone. Well, since we have no such luck, I begin brushing through piles and piles and piles of magazine paper, pastel sheet, crepe paper and a lot more I don’t really remember right now. I’ve stacked and unstacked paper, turned a 360 degree on my bed, pushed the pillows and blankets off, half dangled down the bed running my hand like a blind person on the floor...finally with a nasty curse I sit back down and there is another poke on my butt. Voila..like always it’s been there all along.

It’s 5 o clock now. After 5 hours of trudging through my assignment, I’m not even half way through. Paper mosaic can get torturously slow. I grab at the last few strands of patience I have left, straighten my back and get to work. My eyes are popping out with fatigue and both of us desperately search for any silly subject to talk about to wad off the sleepiness. We make fun of each other, cull out any wit our already tired minds can pull together and try to crack funny jokes. The stress is on “try”. I guess we have already reached the heights of lameness by now. I’m pretty sure I’ll get enlightenment one day. But the easiest bet is to bitch about people. You don’t have to think...You take one person you don’t like and you scrutinise them from each and every angle, add a little more from your side, or simply... just rip them apart. Also, the pent up frustration adds to it.

I think the world would be a hard place to live in if all people were nice. Bless the bad ones for a change.

6:30. The usual ‘I hate my college’ ritual has begun. 7 o’ clock is the official deadline for us. Before 7 o’ clock its still night. After 7 o’ clock it’s day. That means panic. Panic big time. 3 hours before the submission deadline, our cursing has increased tenfold...cutting paper furiously quick...one hand in a packet of chips and the other sticking paper. It’s funny how shortage of time makes us multitasking super-humans. I always thought we have something supernatural inside us. NIFT just somehow brought it all out. J

7:30. We’re hurrying down the road, hugging ourselves in the chilly morning wind. Deeksha, is the lifeline of all niftians bad at time management. That could, in the end, include all unless someone’s a superhuman all day long, irrespective of whether it is 7 am in the morning. Deeksha is the only place in the whole of Gautamnagar market that gives print-outs at decent rates and thanks to the never ending projects and presentations we have to give, it is jam packed any time of the day. Especially when you most urgently need a print out. So to avoid the usual crowd we head towards deeksha 7 am in the morning to get peaceful printouts for a nice change. We’re actually done in record 15 minutes. Oh happy day. Had I slept for the past two days and had the energy... I might even have skipped.

9. Panic is on the all time extreme. I’ve just finished my assignment. Not slept so technically we’re not going to brush our teeth. I grab my wallet and rush out of the hostel towards the stationary. Have to get ring-binders for the other THREE submissions I have to submit at 10. For all the hair-fall, the immunity problems, the dark circles, the one thing I’m not worried about is getting fat. Despite the junk food we have. Obviously, since I run around so much throughout the day...I think that’s taken care of pretty well.

I miraculously return before time and stuff my sheets in the ring-binder. Its 5 minutes to 10. My roommate’s still working and finishing other submission tasks. I rush to college. Don’t even remember what I was wearing. It’s weird how people imagine niftians go to college all dressed up and swanky with D&G glasses propped on their faces. I’ll just say one thing....dream on...
I reach college... they tell us we need all the submissions in one whole packet. We run to the nearby Cafe coffee day to ask for some huge bags, no luck. I curse. Again. I’m muttering nasty things and then i run down to the station get a huge chart paper, wrap them up and reach the submission room. Yes, I’m already late...but dare anyone say they’re not gonna take anymore submissions I would’ve strangled them right there. And miraculously the submission time has been extended till 2:30. Tragedies of my life...don’t even get to strangle people. Volunteer...anyone?