THOSE WERE THE HOSTEL DAYS: Part II: College Life (My Experience)

College life is completely different from school life. School days are full of innocence and pranks while we get into college we are mature and serious. The hostel life in school has its own charm and beauty. I was allotted accommodation in G.P girl’s hostel by my college Jamia Milia Islamia and I stayed in a room with two more freshers. According to the hostel rules, with one or two freshers, there has to be a senior. But ours was a lucky room where all three of us were freshers. In a gap of two months one girl came as a roommate but within a month she left the hostel, then another roommate came and she too left the hostel. The Hostellers had an impression that we torture our roommates that’s why they left the hostel. But it was all wrong!!

Our first roommate was shifted to “Womens Working Hostel.” Another roommate was too homesick so she couldn’t adjust in the hostel and she left it. But our third roommate was a troublesome. She used to keep her lights on the whole night with an excuse that she wanted to study. But at night she used to doze off on her open book. Whenever we saw her sleeping we would stretch our hand to switch off the light, but she would suddenly wake up and tell us to keep the lights on. Her name was Kahkasha, but her friends called her “Kaks.” Her another bad habit was, she would stand in front of the cupboard, hide her face behind her cupboard door and eat her snacks. She was one of the amusing characters in our room.

Another source of entertainment were the two greedy Kashmiri sisters, Rehana, Romahana. Without asking they would snatch the food sent by my mother which we used to heat on the heater. We had to hide our food from them. When we used to have jam sessions and farewell parties till morning 4 o clock were the other good memories of our hostel. I was always ready with a script of a play. Daily, during evening we used to have tea party. Next to my room was our caretaker’s room and her son, must be about 8 or 9 years old, was an eve teaser. He had the habit of giving flying kisses and eye winks at girls. Our provost office was located at the entrance of the hostel. Many times I had noticed a dark middle aged woman, with badly worn dull colored sari, and slipper, coming out from the provost’ office. I had the impression that the woman was a worker. We received complaints that we did not wish her at all. Like me, many freshers were curious to see the provost because none of us had seen her before. To our shock the provost was the same middle aged woman who often came out from the office. Whenever she called us for hostel meetings, she had the habit of giving long lectures which were off the topic. She had the habit of shouting too much at girls because according to many girls she was unmarried and she takes out her frustration on hostelers. It was winter, when I bunked the hostel with a group of six hostel girls just because I wanted to play basketball in my college. The college was some distance away from my hostel. But this could not continue longer and I was caught, and we all got a good bombardment from our provost. But by the end of our third year we wished to take revenge on our provost. We sneaked into our Vice Chancellor’s (V.C) office with a long list of complaints. When our V.C entered the hostel premisis he just taunted “Why don’t you record this whole incident.” We took it seriously and students from Mass Communication Research Centre, recorded the whole incident in their camcorder. It was an unforgettable incident of my life. Bunking hostel, loud music, birthday parties and wild behavior was one part of my life. When we are in the hostel we criticise everything but when we leave then we miss each moment that we spent there.

THOSE WERE THE HOSTEL DAYS….(Part I): School (My Exprience)

“Rules are meant to be broken,” is a very common slogan of hostellers. I had a wonderful experience in three hostels and each hostel has its own charm. Located on a hilly area “All Saints School,” in Nainital is dominated completely by girls. The hostel girls were famous for their tomboyish and aggressive behavior. The hostellers of class 12 had the full authority to rule the hostel premises. They maintained the discipline in dormitory, corridors or mess. Even the extra curricular activities were handled by them. School authority had never interfered in their work. Our matron Disouza, who was called Disco by us, was a good piece of entertainment. She had a huge manly personality with short curly hair. She was famous for hitting and banging the girls and her killing looks made every girl shiver. Our morning used to kick at 5:o clock with her impressive abusive language. Well, I can’t blame her because it was her normal language. Her dressing style was amusing. She never hesitated in wearing bright color T-shirts and tight fitting slacks though she was too bulky to fit in it. Her age must have been about 50 plus but she was expert in flirting with the young and old. Even middle aged office bearers were also not spared from her. At 9 pm when the lights of the dormitories were switched off, we used to scare girls with candles and “ghungroo.” Many a times we were caught red handed and bombarded but according to hostel norms it was cool to get punished. We were used to of getting punished for bunking PT classes or school classes. Whenever we sneaked into the dormitory to eat snacks we were generally caught. Prefects had full authority to give us any kind of punishment like, to kneel with one leg stretched out, or scroll down on the field full of small pebbles. If we still misbehaved we were made to take 20 rounds of the playground. The more we misbehaved the harsher punishment we got. It was a resident school and very often our class teachers used to get the home food for us.

In class 12 when we did hunger strike just because the principal was against the celebration of the friendship day. According to her, the friendshipday was cancelled because there was no school unity. Our head girl had the guts to ask the principle to write the reason for not celebrating the friendship day on a piece of paper. She had put that piece of paper on the notice board. Class 12 took the decision for a hunger strike and the announcement was made by the head girl and by all the prefects. Not a single girl ate the food. Our principal got furious and suspended the batch holders. For at least 2 months not a single class was held. But when we apologized for our behavior, the batch holders were given back their position and the situation was under control.

The incident of our PT display was also unforgettable. That day it was raining heavily and hostellers on their own went to the PT display Ground with their buckets and towel. We soaked the water from the PT ground to make the place dry for our parents…. The school Principal was impressed by this act of ours.

Celebration of our atic was a 3 day event. First day was tea party; second day was dance party, third day we used to show scary movie to our juniors. Class 12 girls had to wear in the scariest attires. We were in class 12 when we got the opportunity to scare our junior’s .We made our Ghost mask with rice, dal, toothpaste, and paints. At 12 in the night, the main switch was put off. One girl had lied down on a stretcher, with a skeleton. We carried the stretcher on our shoulders shouting the slogan, “Ram Nam Satya Hai, Ram Nam Satya Hai. Each ghost had a torch, we made a group of four or five girls to crowd and scare the juniors. Pyjamas were pulled down, quilts were snatched away, T-shirts were torn, and girls were thrown in the buckets full of water. We had scared the hell out of them.. The ghosts had to stay in a group in order to be protected. if any of the ghosts were caught alone then they were attacked by the juniors. It was a completely jungle night. If the junior shouted loudly or they pretended to be very scared then they were distributed sweets and chocolates. Everything was forgiven for that day. We had to stay awake whole night for the jam session.

It was a completle girls hostel so guy were a unique piece for girls. We hardly used to go for a town walk. Many girls had a crush on our maths teacher and many were heartbroken when he got married, some of them had even cried. Though he was our teacher but he was also not spared by anyone of us. Our classmates had Sread gum on a sheet of paper and kept it on his chair. Without realizing, our maths teacher sat down on that chair and as he got up to write something on the board, that paper got stuck on his back. On that paper it was wriiten “If you have guts, kick me on my buts.” When everyone giggled he was able to make out that there is something wrong in the class. We were told to vacate the class for some time and he closed himself in that class. But when he came out he was fuming with anger. He did not teach the class for at least 10 days until we apologized.

In our school there was a trend of bullying juniors. I used to make the juniors stand next to me and ask their classmate to get some snacks for me. There was a cycle of bullying. If I would bully a class 9 girl then that girl would buly her junior and that junior bullied her junior. But if you won’t bully your juniors then your junior would bully you. Running, hitting, taking panga, was very normal in hostel. But the farewell was the most touching moment of my life. That was the only day when my juniors had forgotten all their grudges, they became too emotional. I passed out from that school 5 years ago but still those wonderful memories are fresh in my mind. As the years passed, everyone started settling in their life s smoothly. My classmates grew matured and changed with the time. Those tomboyish girls became sophisticated but whenever we meet we forget our sophistication and behave likle old hostelers. But I wonder, for how long it will remain the same. As the time is passing, life is changing and everyone is accepting those changes. During my school days I use to think that there the college life and school life are similar. But I was wrong.
(Soon u’ll get part 2)