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Where it all begins...


My name is Antara, by profession-an architect(with a licence ;) ), age-  somewhere in the middle of where everybody wants to write a blog, become pensive and share it with the world, DoB-a cusp-born and a true Arian at heart, this, is my first blog, so please cut me some slack and don’t expect any refined write-ups! I am not a writer nor am I very fond of writing, although, somehow I think writing blogs will keep me inspired and remind me what I want to become and not what I am becoming gradually into, drifting towards the money automated world.
 Although I am a bong, I haven’t quite lived in Kolkata for more than 5 months, (for my training, we’ll come to that later),I am a true Kanpuria  at heart ,where I had spent more than a decade of my life,I was born in Chandigarh and spent a few years of my early childhood in Pune. I graduated from Lucknow and currently I am working as an architect in Bengaluru. That pretty much sums up my introduction.This blog briefly summaries how it all began. My journey as an architect.With a dream to do something big, sometime in near future. But what are the circumstances?
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The most common question during your Fresher year is why you want to become an architect? And the most common answer is- because I didn't want to become an engineer. Well, the same was my answer. Like all Indian dads, only cooler(you’ ll know soon why)my dad wanted me to be an engineer, because I got him good scores. But during my 11th and 12th at St' Joseph’s I was pretty sure I cannot spend my life doing something which is so boring and where everything is based on mere assumptions! Me and physics just didn't go along well together! I wanted to be an Interior designer, because I didn't know about anything that could be as interesting as it , may be a wedding planner!? Dad was worried as to where I was heading to. I still don’t understand why he and most of the people of his age and generation think that Interior designing is just a diploma course or a hobby and not something from which one can make a career of. Thankfully, there was this neighbor and a dear aunt of mine who suggested ‘‘why don’t you become an architect?
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College life was fun, but you start learning when you start your training. I did mine from Kolkata-The capital of West Bengal, second largest city in India after Mumbai, known for its literary, artistic, and revolutionary heritage; the former capital of India, it was the birthplace of modern Indian literary and artistic thought- Kolkata has been called the "City of Furious, Creative Energy”.I never thought a city so “furious and creative “ can have such a dull, boring and lifeless office! 



Before going any further let me acquaint you all to a little fact about me. People, who know me, know that I am an extreme positive thinker and I only speak good things about me and things related to me (wish I could be so damn lucky as it seems.). People who know me, in real, know that I speak good, only to NOT try to make my situation worse by talking about it. A camouflage I create .That’s my way to deal with the situations I face! My real version comes once it is out of my life forever! Till then, “I love my life”,”I love all people around me”, “I love my job” is what keeps me going without complaining! You will see a lot of this in my next blog “The Devil need not always wear Prada”

So, back in Kolkata, my office was the most hostile and unfriendly office with most employees in their 50s! Where even my co-trainees sat in a different area. Where the first day I was handed over a long list of clothing I can wear to office, which included salwar suits and kurtas with sleeves,formals included shirts with length right upto my hips!-handed over to me by a lady who seemed to be in her late 30s but I think she was somewhere around her early 20s. She wore a mis-fit kurta and salwar in some dull colour. The bald man sitting next to me , talked to me sometimes which suddenly stopped and was replaced by annoying expressions! What kept me going was the exposure -big projects, lots of working drawings and detailing. But in such a colourful city, an office so grey and boring, was I really becoming an architect? Or was I simply a walking AutoCadd? 
...to be continued

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