Upon her return to India in 1986, Nalini Thakur recalls facing a challenging situation at the hands of SPA, in regards to getting into the conservation department, even though she had gone for higher studies with a different understanding with the School. He expresses her dejection at the situation at the time, and moves on to talk about her professional engagements outside the academic world, with organisations like Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), the Heritage Trust of Baroda, and others. She details her professional journey working on different projects at the time and describes the project details and challenges faced. She mentions working at the National Archives of India and comments on the Central Vista Project. She provides details of this project and talks about other engagements that followed. 

Coming back to her association with SPA as a teacher, she talks about her journey there and how she retired in 2017, as well as shares details of her work with the Conservation Department. She recalls how she kept an ongoing engagement with her students and was very tough when it came to mentoring them, and recounts the various ways in which she tried to instil her own values on conservation within the department and faculty. She notes how at the end she was a recipient of immense love and respect from her students. As a response to whether or not her gender played a role within her professional journey, she notes how she faced a lot of hostility from male peers and goes into detail about the various challenges that came her way.