B.Tech. Haridwar Dost aur bas Yaadein!!!!!!

Hostel life after 11 P.M. !!

My first semester results were overwhelming. Dad was getting a little optimistic about me. As good as it was, guilt tends to wear off soon. I was back to square one. I bunked classes, started taking tests lightly, and so, my basics of engineering were built upon pretty much loose soil. I scraped through, semester after semester, through courses whose relevance beyond the final exams were a source of mystery. There are hundreds of students studying ECE with me. I’ve spent countless nights trying to understand the universe’s motive behind throwing us in the ‘ECE’ pool. There are guys who would have been excellent cooks, managers, business owners, writers, ad film makers, animators and musicians, had it not been for the four-year engineering course.

This reminds me of a few lines of a shayari-

“Zindagi ke chand lamhe, khud ki khaatir hi rakho,
Bheed me jyada rahe to khud bhi gum ho jaoge.”

Well, well whatever fate might have decided for me. Let us see the inside story of engineering hostels.
“Hostel  Life” the term gives us goose bumps because of various reasons that are all known to almost all of us. Whenever we think of this place, a tsunami of thoughts comes into our mind and makes us think, how is it going to be?

I have lived in a hostel when I was in school, so this term never haunted me and believe me; I have experienced the deadliest intros and fagging by seniors. I have spent 4 years in a boarding when I was very young. I had faced all the tantrums and mood swings when you are in hostel. The worst part about this life is “seniors” and “rules”. As they say, “Rules are meant to be broken”, well, that’s an eternal truth. When I was in a boarding school, rules were very strict and we had to be under our bed covers by 9:30. But time has changed!

This college life is something else, way beyond my expectations and imagination. There are some restrictions (which I find quite silly) but the fact is I have actually become a nocturnal. There are no fixed sleep hours. One can sleep as much and whenever one wants to and the best part about it is the cacophony of your mom’s or warden’s irritating voice will not be there to wake you up on time. “Eat, sleep, study whenever you want to”. Hostel life, the least I can say is, changes like a weather cycle. There are different moods and atmosphere throughout the year.

When a new semester starts, there is a lot to catch up with. Gossip sessions with friends,  all the half-watched movies, which you couldn’t see because your parents didn’t allow you to go to a multiplex and that’s where the college LAN comes into play. There is no limit on the number of games (counterstrike being a popular one among the boys), movies and other stuff that one can watch back to back and of course a lot of facebooking!  Most of my friends are “on call” with their dear ones the whole night.

Another thing that makes your hostel life most memorable is, late night birthday parties. Whenever it’s your friend’s birthday or even a person about whom you don’t know much, you’d work on so many things just to make that day a memorable one for him/her. Yes, the amount of labor being put into it sometimes exceeds the hard work that we do to keep up with our own studies. Oh, those late nights cake facials, and that spirit of dance away to the glory on the music at the highest possible volume and unlimited number of photographs (which are uploaded on Facebook the very same day, no matter how bad they are!) to etch the memories in your brain and heart. And last but definitely not the least, the EXAM time! Oh God, what a dilemma. You can literally see everyone running around with notes, incomplete practical files, assignments and other stuff to ensure that they submit it on time. A whole lot of students are busy in group studies with midnight munching and gossiping. Some of them sit alone in their rooms (the so called, batch toppers) to ensure that they do not lose their position in the batch. And some could be found surfing Internet, watching movies and having all the possible fun just to ensure that the dilemma doesn’t strike them. Those days when we have our assignments, a month before the end term exams are like most tiresome part of hostel life. But, once you’re done with the exams, you feel like the king of the world and are ready to kick away everything that comes in your way.

“As they say, you cannot bring back the good old days like your school ones, the same is applicable for your hostel. Make it as awesome and as memorable you can, because these days will never come back!”

Priyanka Gupta
Sir Padampat Singhania University, Udaipur
priyankagupta202@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/priyanka.gupta.manu