I was furiously searching away in my room the other day, when my eyes fell on a familiar sight sitting on my writing desk. This was something I hadn't seen in ages - a notebook covered neatly in brown paper with a 'label' at the top right corner; the brown paper slightly frayed at the edges of the book. It was my old English notebook from school! I pushed my chores out of my mind for the moment and sat down to look through my book. English Literature was one of my favourite subjects in high school and college. There were notes on Shakespeare's Hamlet that I'd jotted down during classes, essays I'd written for assignments, summaries of poems we were taught as part of our syllabus...and this piece of writing below (I used the empty pages of my notebook for a semester or two in Architecture school till it was full).  


I wrote this in my second year at Architecture school as part of a documentation assignment and the reason I picked this out as a post is because it brings back a whole different set of memories and moods; different from my memories of the days of those lovely Shakespearean plays and Keats's poems.


My batch mate and friend in Arch. school, Maanasa, and me were part of a group that eventually broke up into smaller factions and pursued their own course for this assignment! So, here's the write-up I'd done...about seven years back! 


"Owner nai hai memsaab, Bombai gaye, pata nahin kab lautenge", was the reply we got from the supervisor of 'Uttara', the house we zeroed in on for our Documentation. Standing at the gate looking dreamily at that curved driveway, the lush green rolling lawns and the simple yet striking house, we knew we would document this house come what may. Well, but here was our first hurdle. Owner out of town, supervisor's strict instructions not to let anyone in, no amount of sweet-talk working, what to do?
That was one big question mark and we definitely were not going to let this house slip out of our hand for cliched as it may sound it was 'different'. The elegance it exuded, that 'green' factor had a magical quality - a quality of attraction.
The Architect, of course, he could definitely help us. It took a lot of coaxing to make the supervisor disclose the name of the architect. A. Hasan came the answer - Arif Hasan. That was all we needed to propel us to the telephone directory.
"Be there by 5:00 pm", came the clear, deep and charming baritone of Mr. Hasan through the telephone receiver after giving us instructions on how to get to his office. 
Mr. Hasan too could do nothing about our measuring the house as this was absolutely not in his hands. "But I can give you the plans, if that will be of any help", he said which almost made us touch the ceiling with joy after that dejecting news. Then came the other surprise, this house was featured in the 'Inside Outside' magazine in 1998. We scoured every book shop in the market to lay our hands on what we now consider a 'prized possession'. 
The plans were the key which literally took us 'into' the house...


After which came an exhaustive description of the residence in an architectural context. 


...Umm! Nostalgia feels good!