The weather was clammy and chilling with excitement which was overwhelming when we packed our luggage for our first professional trip of Sonajuri Arts. Our car was racing with the fast moving traffic of Salt Lake/ Rajerhat and our destination was ARMY INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, KOLKATA (AIMK). As soon as we reached the destination, many of us jumped in excitement because we were going to step into one of the most renowned institutes of Kolkata and would be staying here for the next 4 days…. Hostel life for some days is quite exciting as well as a little bit nervy, especially for me.

Aditi, Sourovi, Lopamudra, Mangaldip, Tamal and I worked together as TEAM “BUDDING ARTISTS” and it would be the best and most challenging project of our life. The role for us was to decorate the campus walls and give them life. Our mentor Col (Dr) Shantonu Roy simply briefs the project in six words “Every wall should express something different.”

‘A painting is just another way of  keeping a Diary’ inspired by the words of the legend Picasso, we held our brushes and canvas; started filling it with colors of passion and love towards the art that was clearly visible amongst the whole team. There are no words that can describe my feelings when us budding artists sat together with their canvases and got lost in the world of imaginations. It feels like a time filled with various thoughts and creations which passed in a glimpse of seconds. The Director of the Institute guided us how a painting can be so perfectly prominent with depth and finesse. Also, one day a senior artist came to visit us and shared some lessons with us.

The atmosphere was full with creativity and the greenery was making us feel more imaginative. The cool breeze in the room from the balcony gave us a soothing effect which brought to us peace and tranquility, whereas the empty corridors in the middle of the night scared us and made us feel eerie, as if we were in a Ghost Town.

I would also want everyone to know about my special friend I met there. Puchku, a dove nestling, I met on one of the empty floors of the campus. She was in a very fragile condition fighting for her life. Her home also had fallen down, maybe because of the wind.

I took up Puchku and took it to the room trying my best to save the little soul but it was a challenge for me. First thing, I did was to feed her water through the new paint brush – drop by drop as the bird was not in the condition to open the mouth. Another thing was to provide her shelter. While searching, I was lucky to find a cardboard box where I could keep her, but it was not enough and the little soul was feeling cold as there were hardly any feathers on her body. My room-mate ran towards the garden in the late evening just to bring some grass so that we could make a nest for him. From the next day onwards, I fed her some drops of milk through the brush. And that evening only Puchku tried to move and also tried to open it’s feathers.

I really don’t have any idea about hostel life but this trip gave me a sense of independence and zeal. The way we used to live our life was quite different in that place. In that huge campus, we were the only people and we girls used to stay in girl’s hostel and the boys stay in boy’s hostel. We used to walk through those corridors and tried to scare each other. One evening we played football in that huge field in the campus. I scored a goal also. We played racing games in our free time to refresh ourselves. In the evening, we went out for snacks at a nearby mall.

I really liked the atmosphere there. The campus is on the outer of the c