First Night at BIT

All right. The time had finally come to start our Hostel life. I arrived at Room no. 101(To be Named R101 from now on) on the evening of August 16, 2010. After settling down and meeting Nirmal, I set off in search of some food unsure whether or not food would be provided in the mess as it happened to be a Sunday.

Well, our classes had began on August 12 itself but I didn't attend the 1st two days due to the fact that Aug 14-15 were holidays owing to Janamashtami and Independance Day. 

Anyways, it didn't affect anything.

After finding some stale looking Samosas along with some apples and bananas, I returned to R101. In the end, the samosas proved to be a bad investment as I didn't touch even a single of them. Since the remaining two inmates hadn't arrived, I had positioned our room cooler inside on one of the 2 spare beds. 

Ironically, I hadn't  brought along even a single "object to record, edit, modify, consume data supplied by perplexed, bored, tired , lame, sometimes new & sometimes old forms of life existing in this mason-created epitome of knowledge; The object having different forms, colours, hard or soft bound, 40-60 GSM, 0.01mm in thickness, 140X200mm, comprising of a family of about 180-240 occupants, the one and only" - NOTEBOOKS...

And deprived of any books too, I looked like Ishaan Nand Kishore Avasthi of Taare Zameen Par fame lost completely in wilderness - Only he was a little smarter !!!

Actually I had planned to buy those ancestors of manuscripts a day later through the kindness of the "Student's Store", but learned later that its working hours were from 10.00-17.30(Sometimes 18.00) only - which obviously deprived some perennial late goers like me to purchase last minute supplies as the college started dot at 10.00. 

Anyways, going back to the story, the kind-hearted Nirmal lent me a notebook of his, which I have still preserved as a token of friendship. So, as evening progressed, we both had absolutely nothing to do except shoot at mosquitoes - YES, ITS TRUE. Even the heavily studious Nirmal Kumar Jha didn't do anything on day 1. Knowing no one else nearby -I mean, neighbours, we were confined to our room until someone came to signal that dinner was ready and would be served in the 1st year hostel itself  - Very grateful of that. So, here we went empty-handed near the warden office to pick up a dinner of Rice, Dal and Aaloo Bhujiya(tasted nearly like McDonald's french-fries, seriously). We looked like criminals that would've easily outdone their Tihar Jail counterparts. After eating pretty much in silence, Nirmal collected the plates and placed them near the door.

So, with nothing to do or talk about, R101's inmates slept as early as 21.00, after Nirmal had helped me with setting my Mosquito-net.

First Scare...

Well, we were sleeping away nicely when suddenly at around 23.00, a loud bang at the door rattled our spines. Ragging time, your guess ? Well, maybe not. Nirmal promptly responded by locking himself in the Bathroom while I answered the door, unsure of the outcome.

But Alas, it wasn't a devil ready to pounce outside, it was just the security guard in charge of keeping the freshers safe from seniors. Well, apparently, a whistle goes off at sharp 22.30 here, signalling all hostelers to go to their respective rooms - though this rarely takes place; insomniacs can be seen loitering around all night and the guards merely sleep.

Anyway, after this so-called whistling ritual, one of the two guards set off with a notebook to record the daily attendance. Its a bit like tiger-census - which is a mere formality to count the missing numbers of tigers. Same way, this practice records if any students are missing from their rooms.

A word of caution to 100s wing occupants - You're the last wing where the guard arrives, so unless you're a late-sleeper, you would suffer as the guard arrives here normally after 23.15. In any case after coming here, barring the exception of a few people like Jadoo(Actually Rohit A. Jajoo, Room.-102)  or EG(Vikas Sahu, Room-103), most develop a taste for sleeping long past midnight - Keeping with the Pt. Nehru words,

"At the Stroke of the Midnight Hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom"

Anyways, after declaring that we were present in the room, the guard left. The rest of the night was spent peacefully in sleep as our bodies prepared themselves for 4 years of suffering...

PS - If you're one of the first to bring along a cooler - which i recommend you do after contributing money, particularly if you plan to spend the entire 4 yrs with your 1st year roomies - then it would be a good idea to grab two rusty metallic chairs lying about anywhere and position your cooler on it outside the room.