“We Call It Home”
I wasn’t looking forward to moving to a new city and facing a new life. Moving out of a comfortably set routine and a most happening college life at NIFT Delhi and adjusting to alien surroundings in Gujjuland, even as a thought, wasn’t very well received by my system. But knowing that sooner or later the state of forced fugue would have to end, I packed my bags (and unpacked them and packed them up again) and left for the land of khakhras. The mind is a very powerful tool in enabling a successful change to happen.
My mind though, for the first few months, was stuck in the streets of South Delhi, yearning for the long walks along Hauz Khas Village and Green Park market while lingering lazily in Gautam Nagar’s bountiful stationery shops. My work became mechanical and my personality, for the lack of a better word, hostile. Now, I don’t want this article to come across as a ‘Main pehle aisa tha’ commercial, but excuse me if there is a slight likeness. I speak the truth, and nothing but. Write, yes.
Negativity and unhappiness majorly stem from unrealistically set expectations of something and when the expectations as a whole are on the dark side, it gets darker. Black. Night. Now, I had nothing against NID.
I just harbored a lot of love for Delhi which is what probably made me hate my first few weeks in the land of dhoklas. I tend to make a lot of comparisons with food, sorry.
Stillness in motion is the phrase I would use to describe the lulled momentum I felt. Academically, I would say NID offered me a lot more than what I had experienced before in terms of education. Most of all, it forced and encouraged me in equal parts to develop a sense of wonder, a need for discovery and love for curiosity. All of the above are absolutely essential for creative minds to fuel the thought process behind their creations. I didn’t realize that all of this was happening to me while I was sulking away, wanting to flee the place. I loved the course work despite abhorring the place. Loving NID is and at the The long drawn process of falling in love with it began with the people and the culture. NID welcomes you with open arms, strips you of your ego and pride, and gives you a beautiful insight to what the world could be, if only everybody was as accepting of others as they are here. This happens only if you allow it to happen. It is as free as free could be. The seniors make sure to know who you are and what your story is. It is an endlessly inspiring place as you also get to know so much about people’s experiences and adventures. It pushes you to push yourself in being the best version of yourself. Ahmedabad or Gujjuland, as I like to call it, isn’t as remote and dry and vegetarian as I had expected it to be. Again, defying my negatively tuned mind, it has become a part of many cherished memories of mine. I often find myself musing about the differences I have found in thinking and living, the love for novelty and quality and acceptance of art and design, no matter who it comes from. The readiness that I have observed in people to take on challenges is something I have seen nowhere else. I suppose this is what makes design what it is: an aesthetically fulfilling journey of sorts.
I am surrounded by mad people, in a mad place, doing mad things to a maddening level of perfection and this gladdens my heart to a mad degree of madness.
I still find myself day dreaming about my walks around Hauz Khas Village and Green Park market but when nostalgia strikes, I take a walk along the Sabarmati riverfront and to law garden instead. When I crave street-side rolls, I go out for bun-maska instead. And I have found that I really don’t mind it all that much. Gujjus are definitely generous with their cheese.
BY :
Sudheshna Saxena
BDes , NID , Ahmadabad
(DESIZN CIRCLE ALUMNA)