When I first joined Sandarbh, the three seniors - Sulu, Ananya and Harshitha seemed like they had so much experience working here and I could only imagine it would take years to get to that level. Turns out, they have just recently completed a year at Sandarbh. In an attempt to commemorate this, I'm bringing back the 'Perspectives from Sandarbh' series. Interviewing Harshitha has been nearly impossible, Sulu has been hard to catch too but I had a blast while speaking to Ananya. Read on to see what she has to say about her experiences at Sandarbh...
Me: So Ananya, one year at Sandarbh! How do you feel?
Ananya: Honestly, it feels great. My life has changed a lot in the past one year. The person that I was back then and the person that I am today are vastly different. I don't think I would be able to recognize that girl if I saw her now. The journey though hasn't been a straight line progressing upwards. There have been a bunch of ups and downs. Its kind of been like a wave actually. When I initially started here, I was hit by bouts of homesickness. I kept wondering 'Why Bangalore?' and didn't particularly want to be here. The city tends to grow on you and once the homesickness settled down I started to really enjoy my work. The firm is great and the work is engaging. This went on for a while but then certain doubts from the past started to surface again. I was never sure about architecture and whether it was truly meant for me. Again I started questioning what I was doing and had pretty much stopped enjoying architecture. That was definitely one of the major lows. Then I realized that Sandarbh was giving me the best opportunity I could get as an architect - I'm working in the profession but I don't necessarily need to do all the things that I dislike about architecture. At this point I simply feel great about it. I never knew that I had so much potential. I kind of look at Sandarbh as a start-up with a whole lot of experience. I get to do my own thing - the kind of work that I enjoy. The kind of responsibility I get is something I could never had imagined a year ago. All in all the amount of freedom I get in the kind of work that I wish to do is amazing!
Me: You talk about a great change between 'Then' and 'Now'. How has Sandarbh been instrumental to this change?
Ananya: Ok so let me start off with telling you about the last week : I went for the first meeting with a client, essentially creating the first impression of Sandarbh. Then I sent out like 4 presentations. The presentations were also put together by the small team of 4-5 people that I have been managing. This was really not how I imagined things to be. This was not my expectation. I imagine that I would just to sit at a desk and be told what to do. When I talk to my cousins who are doing MBA, these are the kinds of responsibility that they talk about. I really did not think I was capable of this one year ago. Its not like I didn't think I would eventually be doing these things but just always imagined them to be in like the distant future.
My professional growth has been exponential and so has my personal growth. Both of these things have gone hand in hand. As I grew professionally it had an impact on my personal life and as my personal life improved so did my work. It has kind of been the virtual cycle that Sai keeps talking about. An improvement in one led to an improvement in the other which again led to an improvement in the first and so on. Early I used to be very worried about sharing my opinions - now I can do so more easily. The thoughts that come to me now instead are the kinds where I am figuring out my happiness in all spheres of life - personal and professional. I'm not saying that any of these changes and improvements did not exist before now, maybe I have just become more observant and aware of them. Now, I don't just wait for things to change. Rather I'm consciously working towards bringing about a change. A lot of the credit for all this definitely goes to Sai and the innumerable conversations that I have had with him
Ananya really seems to have taken on a new life. In an attempt to better understand the degree of change, I decided to probe more about her initial days at Sandarbh. Come back tomorrow for some fun and interesting stories about Ananya's first day at work...
-Mannat
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