ACT I, SCENE I-The Statue and the Streets (Paris, 19th October, 2023)

(An evening at the Place de la République. The square buzzes with traffic, pigeons and croissant crumbs. Enter the Narrator, carrying a box of Chocolates.)

A month in Paris, and I was still acclimatizing to her moods- cobbled tantrums and the way her facades frown in the rain. Salary day had led me to ‘Jacques Genin’- oblivious to the fact that this indulgence would bankrupt me in beauty (as usual). 

Slightly proud of the fancy purchase I’d just made, as I headed towards the République Metro Station, a visible tension emerged in the air. From laughter to lament- voices rising like scaffolds of fury. My heart sank as thousands pressed against the Monument à la République, its bronze Marianne soaring- liberty herself wrapped in protest. 

Palestinian Flags everywhere, siren’s wailing, chasing the crowds. Suddenly, the plaza had transformed itself into a stage for pain and rebellion. The monument stood there, unmoved, but somehow alive.

With 8% battery and chocolates sweating in my grip, I carved my way through the sea of humans (pretending to be Moses), walking 45 minutes past shuttered metros and sirens. As Paris locked down for curfew, my mind drifted to Gaza and Israel, and of how every city carries its wars, within its walls!

ACT II, SCENE I-The Underground Light (Kyiv, 2022)

(The radiant glow of a phone screen in a dim room. Silence, except for Netflix’s “tudum” in the background.)

That night, I watched Zelensky speak to Letterman from a subway station- a president (precedent) beneath the earth, his courage echoing off tiled walls. It was chilling, unreal- bravery compressed to 720 p in my trembling hand. The sleeping trains behind him, had turned into shelters now whilst every moment felt like a heartbeat; proof that even underground, a city breathes. 

ACT II, SCENE II-The Escape (Paris, 2024)

(A quiet cafe corner, the narrator and Tatiana gaze at war-torn canvases of Kyiv during an infamously long “French Lunch break”.)

When I brought up the Zelensky interview, Tatiana’s eyes hesitated. She told me of her escape through the sirens- a night packed in haste, clutching her mother’s makeup brushes, tiny spoons from her kitchen-set and a Jane Austen Novel. 

Now, before each ruined painting, her mind struggles constantly with the before and after, witness to the fact that even in ruin, belonging survives- Collages of architecture that was once familiar, but now stands covered in dust, to her dismay!

ACT III, SCENE I-The Wards of War (Jodhpur, India-Pakistan War, 2025)

(A dimly lit government hospital. Ceiling fans hover like weary hostel wardens. The phone rings in my hand.)

My brother’s voice trembled through the static- they had declared a lights out, curfew in Jodhpur. The city drowned in silence, only the hospital breathed; corridors thick with panic and antiseptic. 

People sought admission not for illness, but for shelter, walls becoming guardians when the streets could not. He spoke of endless nights on medical duty, of riding home through darkness, past the army airfield where war drills echoed like ghosts. The architecture of care had turned to confinement, the healers themselves became hostages of duty.

And as the call faded, I thought of how even hospitals, those temples of recovery, could begin to crack under the weight of survival. 

ACT IV, SCENE I-The Faith of Foundations (India, 2024)

(A temple dome gleams on a television screen; outside, a mosque lies silent in dust.)

The earth of Ayodhya has been turned, its memories rebuilt in stone. The Babri Masjid- erased; the new Ram Mandir- rises radiant, each brick proclaiming both devotion and division. 

Our skylines, once woven of many prayers, now echo only one!

ACT V -The Edifice of Empathy (Epilogue)

(A bare stage)

My escapades across several cities, as a young professional of design, have had the common tonality of wars and communal rebellion in the recent past, and more often than not, these incidents have been the most impactful ones in shaping my interests and approach towards architecture. Whether it has to do with owning or hiding my identity, more as a reflex action than as reference to context, one wishes that the future is that of inter-faith architecture- with spaces where faiths converse though light, and the air itself becomes the common sanctuary.

An excerpt from the past:

The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 led to a political turmoil in the country as religious communities began to question the expression of sacred architecture, and the traditional master craftsmen, a member of a hereditary occupation, designed and directed the architecture of the many temples that found itself sprawling throughout the country.

The state, although was failing on the front of providing basic amenities like housing to the public, did not let go off any opportunity to patronize religion or patron the many sacred spaces being built in the country. Hence, by medium of new sacred spaces like the Dadamiya Mosque in Ahmedabad by Hiren Patel, a new visual language had been developed, where, the spatial character of these spaces was a conscious mark to refrain from expressing the traditional garbhagriha and the symbolic gopurams, in turn giving it the modern approach as a new way finding in terms of traditional religious architecture. 

Perhaps, the future of architecture is not grandeur, but gentleness- the craft of sheltering differences. If we must build again, let it be thus: a monument that listens, a hospital that heels the unseen, a sanctuary without doors.

For in every act of sheltering one another, we raise the only structure that endures- The Architecture Of Empathy! 

(I am writing this on the morning of October 29, 2025, 9.30 AM, as Israel decides to break the Cease Fire Truce with Gaza “again” and Zohran Mamdani continues to contest for Mayor of New York city.)