The Hostel Diary

“Abey beep, sone de na!!”.That’s how theunfortunate day begins in the hostel. You realize you have overshot the limitset yesterday night by the alarm, by at least forty minutes, and now you haveto take a call between having a bath or the breakfast. Food is a basicnecessity, the obvious choice.

The numerous clothes hung out to dry, but never picked up,the sheets that are never folded and beds never made, because you anyway haveto mess it up the following night, suitcases, that weigh heavier by a kilo forthe dust accumulated on them, all this would give your mother heart attacks,but that’s how we stay in the hostels. The sweet watery daal, the burnt black rotis,the limited edition rock hard rasgullas,oh, and the inevitable, perennially undercooked rice, that’s how we eat at thehostels. The snakes, the cows in the hallways, the crows, the flying ants andthe lightning fast giant spiders, make us feel at one with nature, don’t they??

Well I must tell you there is more to the hostel life thanwhat meets the eye. The tension during exams that unites us, the feel of thatONE common room that everybody likes to sit in, the beating one receives on hisbirthday, as if it were a heinous crime he committed by entering this world,the endless pursuit of money, which is always scarce and the heated discussionsyou enter into after you’re a few pegs down, as if it’s YOU that’s going todefine strategic relation between India and Pakistan, or lead the falteringIndian Cricket Team, or how you ditched your last girlfriend(or was it viceversa?).That’s how we do it, that’s how we roll. For more, I’d say, become anIIT-ian, and see for yourself.