College Memories

That day Amit came home early. He had made a plan for the movie. While coming from class he bought two tickets of Inox multiplex. I told him that we would watch movies on DVD but he did not listen to me and thus we went. That was ‘3 Idiots’. While watching the movie, at first, I thought it would be like any other Bollywood movie but it turned to be a laugh riot. In one of the scenes the lead actor of the movie, Aamir Khan, is asked by his seniors to remove his pants and salute them. The seniors are shown ragging the newcomers. It was a funny scene, I was laughing a lot. Suddenly the theater light went off.

We shifted from Bhagalpur to Gadachandur, a town in Chandrapur. Papa got a job in Manikgarh Cement Factory with the reference of my uncle. The company gave us a bunglow to live. It was a huge bungalow with a beautiful garden in front of it. Things were going nice. Now, I was in 11^th standard and education was a little different here.

That was one of the best phases of my life when we were in Gadchandur, Manikgarh Cement factory. We were living life like a king. Things were enough to make you feel royal. Everything was used to be ready for us. Breakfast, ironed clothes, a car from the school and everything. The school was just a kilometer away though we used to go by car.

I did my 11^th and 12^th standard from Manikgarh, Gadchandur, but for higher studies of graduation the college was not there. We had to go to Nagpur for further studies. I had to leave the house for my further studies. I got admission in Nagpur’s LAD girls college for B.Sc. but the problem was where to stay in Nagpur as no relative was there. So I decided to stay in girls hostel.

My sister, my mother and I took all my suitcases and went to Nagpur to search Girls hostel. We tried our luck in many hostels but all were full and occupied. So we asked a teacher of L.A.D. college for the accommodation. She saw my mark sheet with good marks and gave a room in hostel. If you are talented then the world is there to help, I realized this saying first time.

Hostel world was new for me but my passion to learn was enough to face this new world. Mom wanted us to learn a lot and be independent so that we should not face problems like my mum and dad. So I was determined that I had to learn a lot and get a good job. I was moving in that same direction for success. So hostel never seemed to be a strange place for me. But there was a strange thing which made me worried about my education; that was RAGGING.

Yes, though it was a ladies hostel, the senior students used to rag a lot. I had heard form one of my friends that these senior girls rag out of limit. So I was very scared. I had seen ragging till now in Hindi movies. Now it was time to experience that. The word ragging even gives Goosebumps on me. Ragging happened with me too.

It was 9 in the night. Everybody was in their room. I was studying in my room. I lied down on my bed and took a psychology book out of my bag to read. I was not feeling sleepy. It was my experience that if I take a science book to read, I would sleep. So I was reading my Psychology book. Suddenly someone knocked the door. Initially I got confused, ‘who would be there at 9 pm?’I asked myself. The door banged again and again. Garima, my roommate said, “It must be senior girls. Go open the door.” I got up and opened the door. Yes, those were senior girls. They were tall, wearing their track pants and t-shirts, looking less like a girl and more like a tomboy. One of the girls asked me, ‘B.Sc. first year kya?” I said “Yes” in a scared voice.

“Kal college ko aate waqt, mismatch dressing karke aaneka.” One the ‘tom boy’ girl said.

“I did not understand what you said. What is mismatch dress?” I asked them my doubt.

Everybody started laughing at me.

“Mis-match dress me kapde alag alag rang ke pehen ne ke, nahito…” and they all left the room. I locked the door from inside. I wiped the sweat on the forehead and started working upon my clothes for the next day.

Next day, I was ready to be ragged. Now, it was not like we were afraid of them but now we wanted to enjoy how exactly it is done so that even we could rag the next year’s students. I was ready with my dress and also with my mind. As I entered the college what I saw that every first year student was in completely absurd dress. The way they used their mis-match talent was terrible. A girl was in red shirts and yellow pants. One girl was in white shirts with a tie and red chudidar. I also wore a mis-match combination but it was still looking sober. I wore a red kurti and a white salwar with a yellow duppatta. I was enjoying myself. For me it was the most weird dress I had worn till that day.

But it was not the end of the ragging. The real ragging starts in the hostel. Seniors girls assembled in a room with a plan in their mind. All the new comers were really scared with the thought of what was going to happen with them. We juniors were asked to assemble in a room. We followed their order. All the juniors gathered in three different rooms. In my room, there were fifteen girls. They started gossiping with each other about the seniors.

“What will they do with us?”, asked one of the girls.

“I don’t know. They are going to do something but they can’t do something very bad”, other girl sitting on the bed answered her question immediately.

“Why did I come to such a bullshit college, I don’t know, where such episodes like ragging happen.” , one more girl dared to rebel against the system of ragging.

I was standing in the corner of the room, tilting my head on the wall. One of the girls asked me, “Don’t you fear these seniors?”

I smiled and said, “Troubles are there in life. They always come as life goes but it does not mean that we should run away from the troubles. I have learnt a thing throughout my life, if you face the thing you fear most then you will not fear that thing anytime in your life. So let’s face this trouble so that next time we should not fear them. Enjoy yourself.” But I know that my heart was also bouncing in my chest and it was about to come out of my mouth. It is always easy to sympathize yourself when you are in trouble. I was doing the same. That girl became relaxed after my filmy words. I had heard these dialogues in a movie. That time I realized that watching movies can never be waste of time. It made me being positive to myself through that dialogue.

The door was knocked. Garima, my friend, opened the door. A senior girl came into the room and said, “Who is Garima?” Garima was scared.

“I am.”, she said hiding behind the opened doors.

“You have to come in room no. 18 where all the seniors are waiting for you.”, the cruel girl ordered as the supreme court judge had given his final verdict of death to an innocent man.

The innocent Garima went wiping her tears. She came back and there was a big smile on her face. What was that about? We were surprised. I asked her, “What happened?”. She told me, “Now I don’t fear them because I have faced them. They asked me to sing a song for them and I sang…”.

“but why did you come with a smile on your face? Are they really good people pretending to be bad?” I asked her clearing my doubts about them.

“No, they are not good at all. When they asked me to sing, I sang in such a bad voice that one of them asked me to go and said sorry to me for being called.” Garima answered and the whole room burst into laugh. Yes, she was very funny. That incident made us a little relax till the door knocked the second time. I remembered the scene from Mahabharata where Bakasur was given food by each villager every week. The villager used to go to Bakasur with the feast and he, himself used to be feast for Bakasur. The knocking door reminded of that Bakasur. Now who would be the next villager for that Bakasur?

“Khushboo Sharma…” the killing voice shouted.

I raised my hand. “Tumhe bulaya hai, chalo.” The devil girl asked me and took me to room no. 18.

I entered the room. There were almost 12 to 15 senior girls waiting for me just like a group of lioness waiting for a buffalo to come and eat. I was scared. They were standing in a circle. I was told to be in the centre. That time I also realized one thing, that watching movies does not help you when you are standing in front of trouble. We can advice other people through a movie dialogue but we can’t help ourselves in the same way when standing in front of a dangerous situation. I was praying God that they should also ask me to sing as I was very good in singing.

“So, Khushboo Sharma,” one of the girls said stretching my surname Sharma like a taan in classical music. “What do you want to do?”, she asked me. I felt that my spine was numb with cold and my legs were leaving the ground. But I somehow managed to dare and said, “Shall I sing a song for you?”

No. Not at all, we have enjoyed song from the previous girl and are thinking not to listen to any song from now onwards.”, the girl said in an irritating voice. I thanked Garima for her buffalo voice.

“You better dance for us”, other senior devil commanded.

Yes, that was what I wanted. I was very good in dance and they asked me to dance. Now it was my turn to enjoy and not ragged, as dancing for me is my passion and they asked me to explore that passion. Yes, I wanted to dance eagerly.

There was a cassette player in that room. They played the cassette and I was ready to dance. The song started. “Le gayi le gayi, dil le gayi le gayi” and I was so very happy that past six months I have been choreographing this song only. I was dancing on the floor thinking that nobody was standing in front of me. The only person who was there was I, me and myself. I was dancing and also enjoying my dance. Slowly and slowly some of the seniors started tapping their feet, they also came and joined me in dance. The whole room turned into a disco. We danced and danced. They all enjoyed my dance.

“Khushboo Sharma,” the girl sitting on the table said, “We liked your dance. You are a great dancer. You can go now and enjoy yourself.”

I went into my room and I was very happy. People waiting for their call could see the happiness flowing on my face. I was delighted that I had faced one more trouble in the life and was ready to face many more like that. That day I realized one thing, that watching movies is not waste of time. They teach you to dance also. Life is also like a movie where you see many phases like love, emotions, actions, dance and drama. I have been experiencing those phases till now.

From the day of our ragging, the senior always respected me as one of the great dancers in the college. Whenever they used to meet me, in the canteen, in the parking, they used to request me to dance and I used to dance there without looking where I was dancing.

Days passed. Now all the hostel girls were good friends of each other. We used to do a lot of masti together in the hostel like dancing, singing, playing as well as studying. I was the intelligent as well as the most lovable ones amongst the group. Hostel days were golden days of my life.

During the night time, after the dinner we used to play ‘truth and dare’. The hostel in-charge was a lady and she was very bad. She used to close the door before nine in the night as it was a rule. She did not accept any reasons or excuses. She was our favourite target of while playing truth and dare.

There was a fountain in the middle of the ground in front of the hostel. The dare used to be climb on the fountain and to shout loudly “The warden is stupid and mad. She is a Hitler”. It was dangerous to perform that dare but we girls used to enjoy daring that. As the dared ones shouted, the lady used to come with a long stick in her hand but nobody used to get caught. The lady used to roam around the hostel and search various rooms to find out the pranksters but we always used to pretend that we were sleeping.

The hostel used to get closed at 9 in the night. We were so crazy that we used to go to watch late night movies. The show was from 9 to 12 in the night. When we used to come we used to bribe our door keeper, watchman, of the hostel. He was a good man but he did not know that we were bad girls. We used to talk sweet to him and he would think that we girls liked him. He would allow us to go out of the hostel. For us he was a fool who could be fooled anytime.

College and hostel life is all about friendship, parties, dances, songs and of course mischievous. I am glad that my friends and I had completely enjoyed that beautiful phase of our life. But we did not forget our studies . We used to study together in the hostel. I was the most visited person in the hotel as I used to help everyone in studies. I used to study late nights till 2 am and used to get up at 5.30 am in the morning. That helped me in achieving my goals.

The electricity came back in the theater after five minutes as generator also had some problem. I was back from my past. Hostel, college, ragging and everything, I left behind to watch the movie. Aamir Khan was being ragged by his seniors.

Movie got over. We were on the way to our home. While passing from Tilak Ayurvedi Mahavidyalay, there were some girls sitting in the gallery of their rooms at 12.30 am. I asked Amit about it. He replied that the building is a girls’ hostel. They were studying late night. All the hostel rooms lights were on. I wished them good luck in my mind and went on.

Hostel life teaches you many things. It makes you independent. It helps to try your best and most of all it always reminds you that you are here, far away from your home to be something. My hostel has always been an inspiration for me. Whenever I pass by any hotel in Pune, I miss my hotel days even today.