I chatted with a friend from hostel today and realized I am not the only one who is missing the college days. Thought it would be nice to write a memoir of hostel/college days in India. It would be difficult too, but hope it works out fine. Ill try to go chronologically, but that would not be always possible. Also, Ill have to mention a lot of names, as mine was a college hostel and hence we bunch of guys lived together practically for 24 hours, (for 4-6 years, depending on who was fool enough to do mater's degree).
So, I begin with the first day. But let me make one thing clear. I come from very very conservative family, also a joint one, where one has to listen to one's parents, one's uncles, one's aunts, one's brothers, one's sister and finally is free to do what-ever he feels he wants to do, only to change it later according to the wish of majority. So after changing my decision couple of times, I finally agreed to take up sciences for my 10+2 (I initially wanted to take arts, but got good percentage in 10th, that ruined my dreams). After 12th, had the same dillema about what to do. One of the other characteristic of my Joint-Family was that boys, girls, brothers, sisters, aunts were not allowed to go out un-attended (I still remember that I had to call back to the uncles place, if I was to travel alone in Ricksaw, to give message that I have reached home safely, in addition, who-so-ever came to see me off to ricksaw, in variably took down the number of ricksaw, jsut in-case).
This back-ground might feel unwanted, but is necessary to give an idea how my mental state of mind must have been when I first went to hostel. My father came to drop me to the new city. Around 250 kms from my home place. I was not very keen on either hostel or taking plant science. We travelled first to my aunt's place, which is nearer to my college (around 60 kms) and stayed overnight there. In the morning took an early bus to reach the hostel. The college was in walking distance of hostel (3-5 minutes), with a big-big campus, located just outside the city. I was alloted the room, or rather my father was alloted the room for me (I was too afraid to go to assistant rector). I also contemplated the idea of taking a private room outside the campus out of fear of raging. But then father got me to consider living in hostel atlest for a while.
So, I finally entered the room. It was on second floor. About 20 sq. mt. The bathrooms and toilets were common. the room was originally meant for two persons, but more people were squeezed in each room as the other hostel was damaged in earthquake earlier that year. I had three more roomies. Mr. HP, PP, and CP. I felt that Mr. HP was don, as he was not accompanied by anyone to the hostel. Yes, he came alone. For me, that was the bravest thing one could possibly do at that time. Next, PP had both of his parents to drop him off. And I do not know about CP, has he was already there when I reached the room.
So, me and Popsy had lunch together in hostel mess. I was not used to eating in front of so many people and so much of noise. But, I did felt that food was nice. I felt that all the bad things that I had heard about hostel food were roomers. I was happy for atleat one thing on that day. Later, I tried to get my things organized while Popsy took a walk around campus, and later went to buy the things that I might need. All this time, I had only exchanged greetings with my roomies. I didnt even go out of my room for the fear of being caught by seniors. Popsy arrived with some stuff and told he would better return back to aunt's place. I was so scared after seeing so many new people on the same day that I asked if I could come with his and return the next day. But later changed my mind as I had college at 8:10 next day. That itself was too early for me, and did not want to make it any earlier.
As soon as Popsy left, I felt like a lost two year old kid (Yes, I was 18 year old kid then), not quite sure what to do. And incidentally all the 'bad' things started to happen. It was around 19:00 and the dinner was already being served in mess (which was just opposite to hostel), Was not sure should I go and eat or wait, as at home I used to have dinner with father at around 22:00 and was not particularly hungry. But then for the fear of remaining hungry for the whole night, if the mess run out of food, I joined my roomies for dinner. Looking back, it was quite funny scene. One could easily tell who the new-comer was. They all were in groups, usually of 4 people (the room-size :) ), very scared to look up. Hardly even talked within the group. All the ideas that I had during lunch, about hostel food being not-so-bad came shattering down. As all the parents had already left, the mess-contractor had wasted no time in starting to use maida and some weird-cheap stuff. I had to try real hard to finish what I had taken in first round. The dinner went on with out any incident, expect when my roomie Mr. HP shouted at the contractor for an extra 'papad' in front of all seniors. He got stern looks from most of them, but none created any trouble. My respect for HP grew 10 times more.
Later that night, my roomies started talking (I was still too shy and afraid to talk with anyone) and its than that I realized that HP has been living in some other hostel in the same town for couple of years. He had all sort of 'local friends', and hence he was not afraid of any senior. Now two incident took place that night. Firstly, seniors started visiting the junior's rooms. They came in singly or in group of two. One of the senior-don turned out to be from same place as HP (At this point I made a mental note of never to agonize HP). He comforted him (not that HP needed any comforting) and told him not to worry as he would take care of him from other seniors (this made me worried to hell, for I had no one to take care of me). After he left, we discussed our percentage from 10+2. It seemed all thought that he was worthy of becoming a doctor, but had got stuck with plant science, except HP. He told he always wanted to do plant science as medicine was too difficult for him.
Later one senior from my place came to my room. In spite of being so tensed and afraid, I immediately recognized that he was a big fool. He was radiating foolishness all over himself. But, I had no one else to support in hostel, so I did cling to him and was relived to finally find someone who was from my area. We talked for a while in room and he made a point to 'point out loudly' that if we wished to take a bath before going to college, we should be ready by 6:30, as after that 'seniors' were suppose to use the common bathroom-toilets. Also, he mentioned, just in passing, that we should be ready for an formal 'introduction' by seniors. Unlike the don-senior, he did not say anything about protecting me from other seniors.
As soon as he left, Mr. CP suggested that we should go to sleep, as we should wake up early to take shower. He could not digest the us going to college for first day without taking shower. Hence, we tried to sleep by 22:00, at my usual dinner time. I already was feeling hungry by then. This is when the second incident took place. It was early august (8-8-2001, to be precise), and hence it was quite cool in gujarat, with fine breeze. At the same time, there were quite a few mosquito. Popsy had already brought 'good-knight' for the room (he is a great planner-organisor). But the problem was HP wanted to keep windows open and fan close, to get natural air. While PP wanted it other-wise. Its then that I witnessed my first loud-voiced, intense argument in hostel. I was feeling nervous like hell. The loud voices made me more nervous and the fear also increased, without any obvious reasons. I didn't want to get dragged in the argument and hence I pretended to be asleep. For CP neither thing mattered, and he was enjoying the argument on the matter. At last they decided to take a vote. I was waken up from my pretended-sleep for vote. CP voted for keeping window closed. Personally, since I was prone to catching cold and was having my bed next to window, supported keeping windows closed. However, for me, cold had already taken a back seat to fear. I did not want to make HP angry, afraid of his local friends and senior-don-connections. So voted for windows open. The vote was tied, with this they deiced a compromise of windows open-fan running. A solution that resulted in heavy cold infection for me on my first day to college (Next day, we changed this rule and decided on a rotation policy: each day one guy gets to do what he wants with windows and fan; Next week, no one gave damm about windows and fan).
Usually I don't sleep so early, especially not with a running fan and open windows. But I guess fear and tension of waking early next day made me dose off. Thus ending the beginning of the biggest adventure on which I have ever embarked. The one which is greatly responsible for what I am today. I sometimes think that if I had attended a college in a bigger city, it would have given me more opportunity to develop myself, given me more opportunity to learn about things. But on second thought I don't think I would have been ever able to make the kind of friends I made living in the hostel of smaller town, where one is more connected to people, rather than things.
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