My hostel life - Visakhapatnam, India (Part 1)

I still remember that February afternoon when my dad came home from his office and said "Son,  you will be going to Visakhapatnam for your higher studies". I was in standard 10th, preparing for my board exams and this news didn't have any effect on me, as most of my friends had already decided to go outside for their higher studies, so I had also thought of doing so. Soon my exams got over and it was the end of March and the thought of going outside my hometown for 2 years started to set its foot into my brains as I was the only one among my friends who was going to Visakhapatnam. April came, my dad went to Visakhapatnam to check the Junior college where I was going to study and came with a good report. During this course of time, some of my friends came to know about this college and they also became ready to join me. Now I had 11 members from my hometown out of which 4 of them were from my school. 

It was 7th of July, all of us 11 friends, accompanied by our respective parents, were at the railway station ready to board the train to Vizag (shorter name of Visakhapatnam). Must say, we had too many luggage with us, imagine 11 people with 3 luggage each, along with 3 parents per head who had 2 luggage of their own, so totally we had around 50-60 bag packs, God bless Indian railways. Vizag is about 1000 kms from my hometown so it was an overnight journey. This place was completely new for all of us, as we were from Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) which lies in the eastern part of India and Vizag (Andhra Pradesh) lies in the southern part. Major problem was the language barrier, none of us knew Telugu and it was very difficult for us to communicate with the auto drivers as their Hindi was quite weak. Somehow we found a hotel about 3 kms away from the railway station. The auto drivers were very polite with behavior and in no time we were in our hotel rooms unpacking our luggage. The first day was mostly site seeing. Vizag, as you know, is a very beautiful place. It has a magnificent coast line and the whole city is surrounded by hills, the sea beaches are very rocky though. As all of us were very tired with the train journey and the day long city tour, so we returned to the hotel early. The next day, 9th July 2007, was going to be the biggest day of my life, as this was the day which was going to be the first day of the rest of my hostel life. We reached the college at around mid-noon, the college was 18 kms away from the City.

 As our cab approached the college, we could see 2 tall 5-storeyed buildings and that’s it. Yes, there was nothing, completely nothing. It was as if someone had dropped 2 huge buildings in the middle of nowhere. The top floor of the building in which we, juniors, were supposed to stay was still under construction. The place was very crowded, with 100s of like-minded students like us, who had come to this prison to study. I was very excited, yes very excited, maybe the thought of staying outside with a bunch of friends was the reason behind it. Our campus was a complete boys’ residence and the classes to be held were also to be only boys. The buildings had mess in the ground floor, classes were on the 1st floor and the rest of the 4 floors were hostels. We were allotted a room on 4th floor, 3 floors above the classrooms. The room was pretty big as all 11 of us took the same room. We bought all the necessary items from the canteen and within couple of hours the room was ready. It was around 4pm and parents were supposed to leave after 6 pm as the next day was an induction program for the students. Still now I was completely fine and was laughing at my friends for getting emotional. My dad as he is, a bold man, was completely normal, he was just very pro at hiding his feelings or he didn't want his son to see his old man getting emotional. But then I saw my mom, saw her eyes, they were red, were very blur due to the tears they were holding and I couldn't hold myself and hugged her tightly. Tears were rolling down my eyes, making my glasses wet, thus making my vision blur. With those numb eyes and wet glasses, I said my final good bye to my parents.

It was around 8pm in the night after we had dinner, we were in the room chatting amongst ourselves when we heard some loud noises coming out of some rooms to the left of our room. All of us went outside and saw one guy, who had fainted, being carried by his roommates to the hostel sick room. The students were angry with the management as the hostel warden behaved quite rudely with the students when they approached him for calling an ambulance for the sick guy. The ambulance arrived but a couple of hours late. Everyone (students) became very angry and started to damage the hostel property, everyone was howling and were throwing things from the top. Soon, the principal arrived and someone threw a big cake on his face from the 1st floor and all of us started abusing him and the institution. This was the first night away from my home and this happened. Next day in the induction program we were given a circular stating the rules and regulations of the college. And I must, they were very strict and finding a loophole was tough. We were not given any holidays, even Sunday was assigned as an exam day. The classes were to commence at 7am in the morning, with 50 mins duration classes. At 1pm the classes were supposed to get over, followed by a lunch of 1 hour and then the study hour began which would end at 10 pm in the night. We were given an hour break in the evening for refreshment. But the time after 10 pm was very fun. This was the time when we used to chat with each other with no warden watching us, made new friends. This was going to be my life for the next 2 years. Once in a month we were given outing, the timings of which was fixed till 6pm in the evening and the late comers were strictly punished. I remember the first time when I went for an outing, it was about 2 months after I had joined the college. We went to the sea beach, took bath, fought with the waves, watched a movie and came back before 6 pm. I know rules are supposed to be broken but this was the first time and I personally didn't have much guts to do so. In my school days,  I was a nerdy kind of guy with big power glasses, who used to get bullied more often, so breaking rules was the last thing on my mind. But who knew, things would change here, would change drastically.

To be continued...