A Place Called A Hostel

I came into this place usually called a “hostel”, two years back. I always had an option to go and stay in my college hostel but I didn’t want to part ways with my best friend from school for life, who luckily had also joined this private hostel. So, here we came with our eyes shining bright and the whole world open to us to explore and to enjoy. I had fantasised about my hostel life many times when I was young. Soon I realized that all my imaginations as a kid could not fit here because this was a world full of the unexpected. I made lots of new friends and later parted ways with many of them, not that they were all not good human beings, just that we were not compatible with each other’s perspective of life. I somehow managed to maintain some good friendships, which stand by me even today. They were the years, in which I roamed around the city, went out to see every second movie and bunked classes in my college just to discuss ‘something important’ over a cup of coffee at the newly opened Nescafe booth. I remember, sometimes we got so engrossed in our chatter that we missed our next lecture as well, discussing the same thing for over an hour.

And then came the night. The hostel nights are the most amazing part of life. You can be awake in the hostel till the wee hours of morning and still manage to attend a lecture at 8:40 am. And if you wonder what can somebody do in a hostel at night, let me tell you that the night is the most suitable time for you to do your studies or even to enjoy Maggi or mathri with your roommates while discussing all the topics ranging frompolitics to sports to the criticism of the girl who stands in front of the only full mirror for half an hour every morning and doesn’t let you take even a glance at yourself before stepping out into the world. And if on some lucky day, there happens to be an issue with the warden, that night is made all the more memorable with the continuous accusations from both, the lady and the poor little girl who got stuck in a quarrel only because she complained about the night bulb of her room. If still there happens to be a day in which you have nothing to do, just be patient and you’ll soon find yourself talking to your long distance friend who suddenly called up as if she knew you were getting bored. Another interesting task which almost every group of people perform and is worth mentioning is of making a virtual family with your friends in which everyone successfully manages to fit in the boy of their dreams.

Suddenly a time comes when you find yourself becoming the senior most in your college and so in the hostel as well and that is the time you start wondering about your career and your goals in life, which you had thrown at the back of your mind for over two years. You stop going out and try and put in every bit of energy left after college to prepare for your entrances for your Masters. And when you end up getting admission in the best University of the country, life goes the same full circle once again.

Sitting in my air conditioned office and looking out of the window at a group of college students making fun of one of their friends, I had a panorama of the whole of my life in front of me, the life which people usually call a “hostel”.

Aasita Gupta