20 years ago I came to Delhi to study, a naive 17 year old with starry eyes in 2004, today setting foot in India’s capital city and my favourite I am still as naive and starry eyed, yet again filled with nostalgia. Delhi and I have really not changed, though now the former touched by technology and the latter touched a little by wisdom! I remember the old days scrambling to find transportation from the airport (the kaalipeelis) to now being whisked away by the tidy Ola! Thank you Bengaluru for sparking all the tech start-ups that make India just too cool. But Delhi you have my heart and yet again I haven’t got it back. Today Delhi is swarmed with cameras, well lit roads,
The friends, the activities, the studying, studying architecture puts one in the throes of a city, and Delhi with its verdant green, its architectural marvels, its pieces of history, its grand cultural scene, its openness and breathability (albeit the pollution) is a fabulous place to study architecture if not taste life. Whenever I visit a city I once stayed it I wonder why I didn’t settle there. Be it Hyderabad, Delhi or Singapore while Bangalore happens, it probably was meant to happen. Delhi made me dare, dare to dream, dare to make choices perhaps the best choices I made in life. It made my hair long, my spirit shine, and my heart aplomb. While we drive to our hotel in Lutyens Delhi crossing the most beautiful vistas of Chanakyapuri, South Campus of The University of Delhi, the Delhi Race club, and finally the gorgeous Lutyens Delhi!
My choosing to come to Delhi is a story in itself, it was inspired by a boy who prodded me to dream big, to go to the best college in the country while I decided to study architecture at my Dad’s behest. Many things or rather all things in life are chased by a will of the heart or by a connection of the heart, achieving the goals though is a stroke of randomness that governs the universe. 20 years later the dream is still on, I feel nervous coming to the city of my dreams without having scored even a part of my dream. The city on its part doesn’t keep count though of the years that pass by, keeping stylishly mum and knowing that life has its ways, it gently reminds and continues to inspire stating that not just Rome, even Delhi was not built in a day!
While I head to my college the butterflies in my stomach fly two-fold. I’d never have wanted to come here after not having fancy monuments to my credit, but going there with my monumental effort in question, my son makes it quite special! However the goal still remains, someday to be worthy of this beautiful city, to build a monument or a built intervention that makes a difference to this world, if not making this world a better place some way or the other. The college for its part looks more or less the same, the students look so similar to what we were like then, the faces different, the ethos the same.
While my six year old was upset to find the motorbike on the tree missing, he was delighted by several other installations that the following batches must have made. Meeting Prof Anil Dewan in the corridor brought back memories of college trips and studio happenings! Boards plastered all over the college saying you are under surveillance is unmissable, looks like all of Delhi is under surveillance now!
Vedasri Siddamsetty 