College days are definitely the golden moments of anybody's life. I also enjoyed some moments of my college life. ( June'97 to May'01 ) Lots of things happened during the time. I would like to share here few things which i always remember in my college life. Let me start the journey from beginning.

I still remember the day (Sunday morning) when i boarded the bus to join my college in Erode district of Tamilnadu. Distance between Erode and my native place (Kumbakonam) is approximately 230 kms. There was no direct train from my native to Erode. Only bus was available. The journey time in bus is 6 1/2 to 7 hours.This was the first time in my life i was moving out of my native to some other place without my parents. I started crying from my native and continued it through out the journey with breaks inbetween.

Our college was located at a distance of 11 kms from Erode. It is located in a place full of trees and plants.Lots of greens everywhere. On seeing this beautiful environment i thought that the college and hostel are going to be excellent. ( Only later iam going to find that hostel is like a Tihar jail ).  After walking for 10 minutes, we reached the administrative office, finished the formalities and started our journey to the ladies hostel. As gents are not allowed inside the hostel, my mother came along with me to my allotted room. After sometime, my parents started their journey back to my native place. As usual, i gave a crying send off to them.

Ragging

As we all know, ragging is a common practice in college life for the first year students. Actually there was little ragging outside the hostel and inside the college premises because a student committed suicide in tamilnadu because of ragging and strict rules are followed to avoid ragging at that time. But the ragging done inside our hostel by our seniors were not friendly. Some examples are below:

• When we come across any senior near us, we should bow our head down. Also we should not talk with our friends till the senior crosses us
• While standing in a queue for food in canteen or hostel mess, if any senior comes, we should give our place for them and we should stand behind them in the queue
• If any senior comes near us while we are taking food, we should stop taking food and allow them to take first.
• If there is no place in the mess for seniors to eat, we should give our seat to them and sit on the floor and eat.
• If we go to any senior's room, even if the door is open, we should wait outside the room and call them. Till they say "Come in" we should not enter their room.

Already i was crying most of the days because of home seek and these kind of rules made me feel more.

Hostel Rules

We should not leave the hostel premises after 6 PM in the evening. The college ends by 5.15 Pm and it will take atleast 7 to 8 minutes to reach the hostel by walk. So hardly 30 minutes left before 6. Also college is located far from the city. Where will we go in this 30 minutes? Nowhere !!! The worst case is that even during weekends we are not allowed to go out of the hostel. We can go only under the following reasons.

• If we have any local guardian in the town which is already informed to the hostel warden.
• If somebody is not feeling well and we have to consult a doctor.
  Even for these reasons, we have to get signature of our warden. On the other hand, boys are allowed to go out till 9 PM in the day without asking permission from anybody. So the only time i see the outside world is when i go to my native place for a weekend or a long weekend. I usually go to my native once in every 1 1/2 to 2 months.

Hostel Warden

I cannot forget this man who had no humanity. He used to shout and scold only the good girls and not the girls who will make him fool by getting permission to go out by telling lies that somebody is not feeling well. I never saw smile on his face during the whole period of my college life. This guy never likes to give leave to people. Usually if we need extra leave other than the declared holidays, first we have to get two signatures, one from our HOD ( Head of the Department ) and the next from our warden. Our HOD is a very nice humanbeing. He never says No for taking leave. Even if we get the signature from our HOD, this guy (warden) will not put signature very easily. He will scold us for taking leave times and we have stand before him long time to get the signature. While returning back, we have to get signatures from our parents to ensure that really we went to home.

One time when i went to my native, i was not feeling well on the day when i was about to start. So my parents advised me to postpone it to next day. So i returned to hostel one day late. And i went to meet the warden to explain this. (If we come late than the expected time, we have to get signature of the warden before entering the hostel ). He was not accepting the fact that i was not well. He told me to bring my parents. Then i called my father and explained him the situation. He called my warden and told him that i was not feeling well really and that's why could not return on time. Then only he put the signature.

Now you would have understood why i called my hostel as a "Jail". My hostel warden was the person hated most in my college life.

Theft

I was returning to college after the holidays in a government bus along with my senior. My sit was near the door on the bus. Bus reached erode by 4.30 AM in the morning. We went to the hostel in a bus and i reached my room. I was shocked to find that my purse was missing when i opened my bag. The purse was made of velvette and colour is red. I bought it only the day before i started. There was not much cash in that ( 200 to 300 rupees was there ). But the problem is that my suitcase key was in that purse. And the second key was with my aunt in my native who went for a tour at that time. Luckily it was the mid of the week. and i adjusted for couple of days. Then my father came on Friday and we both started to my native with that suitcase. Then we opened the suitcase with the help of a mechanic there and i reached my hostel back. After this incident, i did not buy any purse till the end of my college life. ( Now it is a different story and buy almost 2 to 3 in a year ).

Terrific Night

I had a terrific night experience of my life which happened during my college days. As our hostel rules does not allow us to start after 6 pm when we go to our native place, usually i will start by 5.45 pm. The direct bus which goes to my native was at 10.15 pm. To avoid this 4 hours waiting time, i used to catch 3 to 4 buses and go to my home that night itself say between 12 to 1. On the mid of my journey, i called my father's office. At that time there was no telephone in my house. My father was not available and informed about my journey to the office boy there and told him to pass the information to my father when he comes.

He also informed my father about my journey but he made a mistake in the timings. So my father came at the time to the bus stop, waited for 1 hour and left. How do i know this mistake? I was travelling relaxedly by hearing the music in the bus. When my native was nearing, the time was nearing 1.15 AM. You won't believe this. A thought appeared in my mind like a sparkle. The thought was " What will i do if my father was not standing in the bus stop?". Before i got the answer for this, the bus stop came and i got down. My thought became true as i could not see my father and the time was 1.30 AM. I don't know what to do. But i was not afraid as i already got this thought. A person with a hand rickshaw asked me where i need to go. I said no to him and started walking. At that time, i thought walking was the best option.

Our house was located in a place little behind the main road. It will take approximately 15 minutes to reach my house if we walk with normal speed. There was no trace of people in the roads. The roads were very lonely and luckily some light was there. While i was walking in the road next to my street, suddenly a dog came from a house and started barking at me. Fortunately it was tied and gate was also locked. So i escaped. After few minutes of walk i reached my house. We have two gates in our house, one in the compund and other near the building. Calling bell is available only in the inner gate. The height of the gate and compund was twice that of the average height of a person. So i didn't have any chance for climbing. So i started making sound on the gate and calling my father and mother. There was no response for them because the distance between the two gates may be more than 200ms.

Suddenly i found the gate was not locked with a lock. So i opened the front gate, went to the second gate and pressed the calling bell.

My father opened the door. He was very shocked to see me. Even i cannot say what i have done is the best way but i did not have any option. I escape because of two reasons, one is people used to say "Blind faith" and the second is definitely none other than God. After this incident, my father strictly told me not to come like this. He told me to come by the night bus even if i have to wait for 4 hours. So after this, i used to come by the night bus after giving send off to all my friends.

Pass or Fail?

Two memorable events happened during examinations in my college life one during the first year and the other in my final year. It was the last exam of my first year and the paper was Engineering Drawing. From the beginning itself, i could not understand this subject well. As it was related to drawings, theory part is very less. The day before the exam, i studied till 9 pm. After that i slept and woke at 1 am. I studied for some hours and again slept at 4 and woke up by 7 am. When i saw the question paper, i lost the hope of clearing it as i did not know much of the things. Somehow i finished the exam, gave the papers and started to my native place.

But my mind could not remain calm during these days. I felt bad about myself. I scored 90% in my SSLC and HSC examinationa and now i was thinking of clearing a paper. How can i tell these to my parents? With this thought, i could not enjoy my holidays fully. Then i prayed to God to help me by clearing this paper. Finally the results came and i cleared the paper with exactly the mark needed for it. I can say the term "Just pass" for this.

Hospital

It was one day before my exams are about to begin in seventh semester. I was not feeling well that night and my hands and legs were shivering like anything. My roommates applied some balms on my feet and palm. But it was in vein. Also i was having fever. The next day, i somehow managed to write the exam by wearing sweater. As the fever has not decreased, i called my parents and told them about my health. They started immediately and reached my hostel  by evening. Then i got admitted in a hospital and i was diagonised with severe typhoid and advised to take rest for 2 weeks. I was in the hospital for three more days. Then i got discharged and we went to my native place.So i could not write the exams in my seventh semester. It took almost 10 days for the fever to reduce and almost  one month for me to eat normal food. I lost half of my weight during this period.

During my eighth semester, i have to write also the seventh semester examinations. When the eight semester examinations were over, all girls in my batch started packing things as that is the last day of our college life. But not for me, as i had three more exams in the seventh semester. When all my friends started and said good bye to me, i felt very bad and started crying because i was the only girl in my batch staying there although the juniors were there. That last one week was very difficult for me to stay alone in the hostel. The final exam was a great comedy. I was the only student writing in the whole examination hall. Nobody else was there. So the invigilator also went out of the hall after sometime as there was no need for supervision. So that's the end of my college life and i started my journey back to my native place.

Moments of Joy

Till now i have described only about the sad / difficult moments in my college life. There were also many enjoyable moments. New year is celebrated inside our hostel in a grand manner. We used to have competitions, dance, singing , fashion parade etc. The programmes will go till 12 am in the night. College day is also a good occasion every year. Orchestra will be played at the end of the function and the scene of final year students crying and hugging each other was a heart touching one.

As there was no cable television in our hostel, the only relaxation for us is to talk...talk.....and talk. Definitely i cannot forget those happiest moments. In the first year, i did not mingled well with people. It started growing slowly and reached the peak in my final year. I enjoyed my final year than the rest of the years in my college life. During the eight semester, we will have only classes till 2.30 pm. Me and my friend used to get up from the classes after 2 periods if bored, will go to the hostel and take a short nap. As there was no strict attendance followed in our department, i used to cut lot of classes especially in my final year.

So this is the story of my college days. I feel i could have enjoyed more if the hostel rules and the warden were little more lenient. Even though i have contacts with few of my friends, i don't know about the status of many people. It will be always interesting to find out that. I hope you will remember your college days after reading this article.