Nazreen Sansoni

She worked with architects and saw many houses. First, it was in the looking and in the answering of a question thrown here or there by the lead architect of the group. She wasn’t quite taken with the houses she saw- and once in a while she was stumped by a question asked of her. “What makes the acoustics so good in this house”? Why don’t the stairs have a bannister to hold onto? She thought she knew the answers to the questions, but wasn’t ready to answer—there was something in each question that she questioned. For instance; “why wasn’t there a bannister for the stairs? She could not (yet) understand why an architect would forego practicality and safety for beauty of line and aesthetics. She mentioned that to the head architect, who erroneously told her she was stupid to worry about a left out bannister, she was nowhere ready to become an architect! She took umbrage to that and decided to leave his apprentice and apply to join another. He was angry, or rather his ego was hurt, that he let her go without writing a recommendation. She left, and in a week, she was snapped up by her former bosses rival architectural practice. That very day after a breakfast meeting of coffee (delivered from Kopi Kade) and donuts: glazed, sugared and in a multitude of colours) he told his students that he was taking them to visit some houses that he had designed along with his partner. Standard practice she thought and on her very first day as well. They drove down the streets of Colombo, until they were in Colombo 3. The driver turned right on Damien place and pulled over to the right halfway down the street. That was the defining moment when Julie saw her dream house. She could tell by the quake in her knees, the butterflies at the pit of her stomach and the goose pimples all over her body. She got out of the car and closed the door and walked slowly to the front door.