My colleague mentioned to me about “Chhichhore” and how it is reminiscent of hostel days. Instantly I got into a rewind mode thinking of my engineering days. I can bet my life on this, anybody who has experienced hostel life, will never forget it. It gave you invaluable life lessons. Your roomies tend to become your brothers albeit from different mothers. Not to mention the number of embarrassing skeletons we carry in our bags. Its been 29 years since my first day at hostel and till date it evokes nostalgia.
Back story is, even if you screw up your 12th and get basic marks, there is still an engineering seat available to you for somewhere …without donation…yes you heard it right. You have to be a South Indian to know the pressure of becoming an engineer; even if your parents are ok with you not becoming one. Then comes the time when you have to pack your bags and inform everyone that you are off for four years (at the minimum), in my case 5 years because I wanted to be thorough in my 2nd year though it has no bearings on the 3rd year and final year year…for that matter life thereafter. Advertising taught me you can say flunked, creatively. My future advertising prowess was on display, when I convinced my parents that I fell short by one mark, so I lost a year! Post my graduation, I did tell them that waiting for the eternal call from NDA was the real reason. The only regret that I carry till date; not becoming an army man.
Coming back to hostel days, I reached Osmanabad (…for the nth time it is different from Osmania, a place from a different state!!)…I went looking for my friend (let’s just call him US) who I met while taking admissions. Suddenly I hear someone calling my name from behind; the dude(US) with long hair and an attitude then; was now with a close crop haircut, rubber chappals, jeans with the shirt hanging outside – a uniform code for freshers and I followed suit. I met up with the other folks from Mumbai on the same day. However my first roomie for first few days was a guy (JS) from Kerala. My dad dropped me off and left in the evening to catch the train back to Mumbai. On the dinner table that night, at a dhaba, while having “chole”, wrapped in my first bite was a big bug. I quietly removed it and continued eating; at the behest of my seasoned roomie. Needless to say, from that moment I had also become seasoned and thereafter food in any format always found its way to my stomach. The first night at the hostel, after my dad left, in few hours I was already home sick. I was quietly shedding few tears in the dark and so was my roomie; and that’s when he told me he wanted to cry out loud and I said I wanted it too. So, both of us howled away to glory for the rest of the night.
In the following week, my roomies changed and I was finally with the Mumbai gang, with US, my other Mumbaikar roomie DM and VR from Hyderabad completing the number. In a month we were a gang of about 15 with SM leading the pack. SM, a senior who told us, because we looked like all other juniors with a dress code, “Gaa***log tumlog Mumbai ka naam kharab mat karo. Kal se hero jaise aana..koi chu*ya senior puchega toh bolna…SM ne bola hai”…I kid you not…I have never seen any averagely built guy like SM wield such absolute power.
Over the years, off the entire lot, 8 of us stuck it through thick and thin, and we still do… forever young SP, gentle giant RM, deceptive VB, casanova SK(who we lost to cancer), intelligent gaan*u PG(the only non-Mumbaikar), the ever dependable US, total dhamaal DM, now the Paris import leader SM and I with the nickname Tarzan (that’s another story). After 29 years, we still laugh, cry and debate over the same stories(even our wives know them byheart now)…and we still have the skeletons hidden in our bags which come out when it’s just the 8 of us holed up together and then it’s a riot. If I ever revisit this blog after another 30 years….I am pretty sure it will read the same. I could easily write a series or a book on this. Nitesh, in the remote instance of you ever reading this, should you want to do a sequel to “Chhichhore”, you know who to ping.
PS: In the interest of safeguarding my health, names have been replaced by initials.
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