My hostel days...

I stayed at home all the years through my schooling and graduation, and I thoroughly enjoyed those days. I was part and parcel of all the giddy celebrations, all the joyous homecomings of my NRI uncles and aunts, all the happy parties, and quiet, peaceful days of family bonding...( putting up with the dozen irritating relatives, and their views, on everything too..;-)

But after my graduation, I certainly didn't want to do my PG in the Women's College that was within walking distance from my house ( not after doing my grad at that unruly, boisterous, totally undisciplined, but totally lovely Co-ed college that I studied in..) I'd much rather have sat at home and learnt knitting!! No offence meant to all those people who knit so beautifully and laboriously, but that was how I felt.

This was because, at the time, my college didn't offer a PG course in Eng Litt. which was what I intended to take up.
Which was what I'd have taken for my graduation as well, if not for the 'well-meaning' advice of relatives who said that was just not done! That Science was a subject you could score marks in... that Science was what mattered.. .They brainwashed me and my parents, and so off I went, to study matter and atoms and particles, all the while yearning after Caesar and Shakespeare and the world of letters... I scored 65% in science. And was among the first 5 in my University, for my marks in English. Without putting in for English the efforts I made for Science. Bull for the scoring marks theory.

But the loss only made me more determined- to pursue my first love, come what may... The HoD of the English Dept at my college (dear man, he's no more now, bless his soul), came and recommended to my Dad, that I be allowed to do my MA in Eng Litt., that I would for sure be a rankholder... Aahh! how nice it is to be praised by a professor, no less than an HoD, in front of parents who were forever berating you for not studying...Divine justice, I called it then.. (I'm sorry, Sir, that I didn't go on to fulfil your prophesy, that I ditched MA in between...)

So I went off to join the University Department at Calicut. (at the time there were only 3 universities in Kerala- M.G., Kerala and Calicut) And thence started my voyage through hostels...

Calicut University Women's Hostel was a blast. Honestly. It was free like no other hostel- maybe because all of us were post graduates (how big that sounded till I became one myself!) and the authorities thought that we were all mature individuals.
In college, we' d looked upon the PG students as some kind of dodos- all studious and stuff...And there at the Uty, the PGs were the lowly juniors. There were bigger seniors, the second years, M.Phils, the research scholars..the JRFs, the SRfs...refresher course-takers...loads of higher scholars!

My Dad and Mom came to drop me off at the hostel, and tho I was sad, I managed to hold tears at bay, for I didn't want them upset/worried.
And then I was whirled into a life of
timings and
queues... (Queues! In every single hostel I stayed in queues were the order of the day- for bathrooms, for water, for meals, for coffee/tea, for phones...)
and girls!!
Inspite of having studied in a girls' convent and growing up in a family dominated by the female of the species, one thing that struck me that first evening was that there were so many girls! Everywhere you looked, you seemed to see only girls. So many girly attires, so many types of hair, so many girl voices, young girls, old ladies (yeah, truly, with old hair and all) thin girls, fat girls, pretty girls, not pretty girls, jovial girls, serious girls, girls from the North, girls from the South...so many girls
to be contd..

My dearest girls, where are you...

Some years back there lived 4 girls, in 2 hostels, in Cochin. Three of them in one and the one in a different one. And very good friends they all were.
One of them was me, of course. The other three are Ap, My and Ar. Ap and My were my roomies. Ar was my colleague in my first job. (I do not mention their full names for fear of intruding into their privacies, wherever they are now.)

We were such good friends that I have no idea what any of them are doing now.


The last I heard from them is that Ap was married to a guy P in Chennai. She subsequently had a child, dunno the gender, and knowing her, am sure she would have had at least one more. I am also sure that she would be enjoying familial bliss, she is the kind who would make an absolutely irritating,but adorable mother and wife. With an opinion on anything and everything, but who is a solid rock in times of need.
Ap, did I ever tell you how much I loved you? Am smiling now as I write this and wondering if you will ever get to read this. And if you would still be getting irritated over the thought that, though you were my friend before My, I got so much closer to My. I love you and My like a pair of sisters- equally in different ways.



My got married to B, her boyfriend of a few years, after overcoming much parental opposition. They were in the US and they had a baby girl, whom I think they called either Shreya or Shruti. This was before the dotcom bust, and B was a s/w engineer by profession. I have no idea if they had any trouble of any sort with the bust. I fervently hope not and if they did, I hope they are out of it and thriving now.
I especially bonded with My because both of us were in love with boys our parents didn't love and we were determined to bring them around, and wait till they did...
A priest in a local temple told her that they would get married, but would face great opposition and hardships before and after the wedding, she would be better off to marry the person her parents chose for her... But she stuck by B. That priest is why I wonder if she had problems in the dotcom bust.
It can't have been easy in a foreign land, with a partner you fought with your family over, with a kid, and no job... My, I hope you are alright, you and B and S and any newer additions to the family.



Ar eloped and married J, her boy friend of a few months( I will never forget the emotion in her mother's voice when Aunty asked me over the phone if I couldn't have given her some inkling of the way things were...we were distantly related...) and has a son, who is I don't know how old now. I met up with the husband J some years back (we were all colleagues) when he came over to B'lore and then I briefly got in touch with Ar, and then lost touch again... Her husband is diametrically opposite to her in so many ways, I think of them as the perfect example for 'opposites attract'. I can probably trace Ar out when I visit my in-laws' place. But I have not taken the pains so far. I wonder why I don't.

These are 3 friends, of whom I have the fondest memories.
There was the time when Ar related the way a passing motorist had squeezed his fingers in mid-air at her when she sailed past him on her Scooty. Who had persisted in the act even after she gave him a glare. She thought it was an amorous gesture intended at her breasts, and was fuming at his effrontery. But it turned out that she had her headlights on in broad daylight and the poor man was just informing her of the fact.

There were the times when Ap would be aghast at My and my total disregard for consequences... Whereas the truth was that we were as bothered as her and were just pulling her leg. To get her streams of abuse...
Ap would buy fruit bread on her way back from office and My and I would shout at her for buying something as ordinary as bread, and would then proceed to eat all the bread..

Ap and My and myself have shared 4 walls which were witness to plenty of laughter, some tears, some heartburn, plenty of curses for the establishment, and some wholesome bonding....for 2 years. I was the first to flee the nest.

And now long years later, am wondering what my dear friends are doing... Wherever you girls are, I hope you are all faring well.