My room was in the D-Wing of the boys Hall of Residence on the 2nd floor of the wing. It was on the top floor of the wing as the buildings cannot be of more than 2 floors.
This Room and Room No. gonna stay and linger a long time in my memory. I know within a mere few weeks after leaving the institute, I’m gonna start carve like hell for my room. This room has been everything for me for more for 3 and 1/2 years - Fucking 4 years. Things have changed so drastically during my stay here. Life has changed so much. Petrol used to Rs 32 per liter before coming here and now it’s around Rs 52. I had spend so much time in the room and learnt so much in the room that it would be a very difficult for me to leave the room. It’s the only place where I don’t have to pretend what I truly am. It’s only here, where I came to know to myself better and tasted absolute freedom and freedom. Its here only I formed the greatest bonds of friendship of my life. It’s from the room only I looked at the world and experienced it. To me, my room is the most sacred place in the insti and its will be my home forever; wherever may I be in the world.
To describe the room gonna be a bit tricky for me. A medium sized rectangular room, much like if we joins 3-4 compartments of a train boggy; with 2 single beds of plastic type special fiber, Two decent and spacious PC table with additional space and drawers with locks, (whom I never locked), Two chairs one for each and two sets of racks for each one of us on each side of the room directly opposite the door with a huge window in the middle with three partitions and without any grill. The amount of air which rushes into the room during windy days just overwhelms us. For each one, Separate almira is also provided on the two partition made by the door. The almira were made in the wall itself so moving them was never the issue (the only thing which remained in its place all 4 years). After sometime the insti also provided us with curtains for the windows. They were also made of some kind of plastic or fiber and sort of dirty milky white in appearance and rough in texture. They design, quality and the color was really too awful and very appalling mismatch for the room and the overall infrastructure of the hostels. I don’t get to know which one of the idiotic and fool administrative guy, has ordered them? and how the insti allowed it? My roomy had brought the curtains with him and so we used them. There were two tube lights on the two side of the room, again one for each. And one common fan. One fan was enough for the room as the room are not very spacious and only as my room was in the 2nd floor did we used to feel the need for something better during summers, but all the others floors were quite comfortable. Near the racks, few sockets were provided for pc and also for connecting LAN. The Walls were white washed with some mild cracks here and there and the floor was of quota stone.
I don’t think, the things we are so used to do in our room and consider them as normal, we’ll be able to do and enjoy them ever again. Things like sleep at anytime (generally after morning breakfast) and just sleep without any botherations and tension (minimum 10 hrs and believe me 14 hrs is a very normal figure with most of the guys), Smoke infinitely and without any fear and drink also as we like. There was just absolute freedom being imparted to us. There was no one to watch us, control us or to stop us from experiencing life the way we wanted. There were just no rules, no guidelines and no laws. As there was no senior in our wing and all the rooms were occupied by ppl of my batch -- the “Senior-Junior” issue was never raised. There had been infinite sessions of movies many times alone and many times in groups. I remember very correctly me making a full semester break of 10 days into a movie bonanza with 3 shows everyday. In DAIICT LAN there are more than 200 good movies are share always and so I copied all and made a good movie fare. Watching American series are also one of the favorite time pass of us. I had once watched a series named “Smallville” which has 5 seasons that time with each season containing 24 episodes and each episode was of 42 min, in just 7 days; straight 7 dazs, no lectures, no labs, no studying just sleeping, watching and eating. Watched all the seasons of friends, Lost, Prison Break, How I met ur Mother, Joey, Kyle, House etc etc and the list is to much……..
The condition of my room generally tends to be on the messy side and credit goes to both me and my roomy. We usually used to be very lazy abt keeping our stuff at their places and all my stuff like cloths, books, novels, dictionary and me used to occupy the bed together. We used to be so lazy that even f any of our cloths used to fell from the bed; we never bent and picked it up. We used to pick it up only when we needed it to wear it. Newspapers used to be all over the room and in every shape they can take. The room is decorated with many-many cigarette stubs and empty cigarette boxes. Only once a month or two we used to clean the room and in just 2-3 days the condition gets back to normal. Most of our stuff was very carefully placed and on our hands reach; so that we don’t have to move to far from our bed. Even though we always keep 2 bottles for water, we use them only during summers and all the other time they are just thrown on the floor and let them take their place on the room. We both are also great animal lover so we always welcomed spiders and their cowebs along with all other kind of bugs--who used to demand equal share in the room. We used to keep all our foot wears in the space between the beds because of easy accessibility of them from there. No need to keep them under the bed and bend and get them next time! Too much pain for both of us. All our daily itineraries are placed just near our PC again for accessibility issue. Who will open the drawer of the cupboard every time and for every small thing?
Consider the scenario of our room when I was writing this blog:
The Window is closed and curtains are unfolded over the window. My PC table is just infront of the window, horizontally and covering the whole window. Rommy’s PC table nears mine but vertically and ½ m from his side racks. Both the CPU are open from both sides and the side part of cabinets lying somewhere on the ground. Mine has just started working after the harddisk crash in my PC and Roomy’s PC dead due to overheat and is very injured as all his vital organs (parts) being used by other people CPU’s. Me using his LAN Card and LAN Cable, Jainey using his RAM, Pamba using his USB Mouse. His CPU is lying flat on the table with no sign of life and every transistor of both the CPU’s is clearly visible. On my PC Table there also is the messy speaker with a big and entangled web of wires , an empty cigarette box, a Mirror with support of wall, a pair of combs, an Axe Powder box, Deo Spray, Wings of fire-autobiography of APJ KALAM, A mug for drinking something (Roomy’s) and my Specks. Roomy’s Table totally devastated and ruined and like a collapsed building with pc and a broken speakers and its wires, a pile of books and papers , lock, Toolbox, a broken speck, hair cream and more books on the top of dead CPU. Cuming to my bed, in which my bed sheet as normal- is straying half on air and occupying only the half of the bed. The other half is occupied by all sorts of things. 2 pillows-one leaning against the wall and other lying horizontally over the pile of cloths and bed-sheets; A shawl and a blanket spread over the bed in an haphazard way (I usually used to left it the way it was when I wake up), Few thick books and novels, today’s paper (generally used to be of minimum 7-10 days, paper started only today), my towels, woolens and more than 50 % of cloths (all ready to use). My roomy is sleeping so he is on his bed. I our room we had 3 chairs. Actually my roomy’s cousin who was also student here left one chair to my roomy while he left and on two chairs are my roomy’s cloths and the heap is as tall as can be sustainable on the chairs. All my roomy’s cloths. One chair is placed in the space between the two beds and other near my almira. One extra bed is also near my almira and where one of the chair is placed and its just dumped there as there was no place in the room to accommodate such a big stuff. On the space between the beds my roomy’s suitcase is also placed and he used to take out cloths from it and wear it as he has no space in his almira to keep them. My almira is open as usual. Some empty plates, some old cloths and some shoes are gallantly occupying the little space left in between my bed and my almira and same is with my roomy’s. Cigarette buds and half burnt matchsticks are in every corner of the room with many papers and bits of papers on the ground. I’m sitting infront of my pc just in line of widow and a bit on the front side in the space between the beds……………
