Hostel Life

FREEDOM

'Our life is easy coz we let it be.

phaltu ki tension nahin lete hain hum,

Food and friendship keep us alive,

Hail the hostlers, here we come'

If one has never been a hostler, life is indeed incomplete. I am sure our hostler alumni, as happy as they may be in their present lives; get all ecstatic on recalling their hostel life. Those days spent away from home, away from a shouting dad, away from an over-affectionate mother, away from the gully cricket with colony friends, away from that small room where we spent the two years of our lives studying hard and dreaming big; those days are just too difficult to forget. And believe me, nothing much has changed today from your time, about what hostel life used to be.

So what is hostel life all about?

It’s about four buddies sleeping on the same bed. And that being brotherhood and not gay-pankti.

It’s about staying awake late till night. And not letting anyone else sleep either.

It’s about getting up late in the morning. “Saale tune uthaya kyun nai? Grrr! Late hogye ab!”

It’s about the morning run from hostel to college to catch a lecture. "Shit yaar, aj phr se bahar nikal diya! attendance to short ni karega?"

It’s about borrowing money from a friend to pay for Ice Teas. "Kal de dunga bhai, pakka!"

It’s about boozing on the hostel terrace with your best friend. "Yaar my gf has dumped me (sobbing), it’s just you and me now.”

It’s about betting money on Poker and losing every time. "bhai mai to mazak kar raha tha!"

It’s about losing room keys. “Shit ,yar tere pas tala todne ke liye kuch pada h??”

It’s about studying together before exams. "aaj to pakka night out marna h! Don’t worry I’ve got something to keep us up!(winking)"

It’s about sitting blank in the exam. "Bohot ho gaya, no masti from tomoro”

It’s about locking ourselves inside the room when seniors came. "Abe tu jaa raha hai, to bahar se taala laga diyo"

It’s about researching new ways to smoke more stylishly. And teaching the non-smokers how to do it.

It’s the place of realizations. A place to learn how to deal with friends, good friends, not-so-good friends, best friends, bad-friends and even I-don’t-know-him friends. It’s a place to learn the realities of relationships, families, career and what not. It's a place to experience "life".

I don’t think I said enough to describe the profusion of events and experiences that hostel life has to offer. For our alumni, it might be some time since they left college; the postfix to BH might have increased from 1 to 4; the roadside noodle vendor might have given way to branded eat-outs; but the spirit of hostel remains the same: "FREEDOM"

- Roopam, 3rd year, ECE