Home away from Home

The day begins with a surprise! Well, for starters this is not your room!? why are clothes hanging from the cieling on a nylon rope!! why is there a window on the wall with your bed??!! The brain after getting a hang of the surroundings realises, Dude, You are in your hostel!!
The last time i was in a hostel, it was in pune 3 years ago. I lived in a properly painted, with a cupboard, study desk, storage area a bath room toilet between 3 guys [including the neighbour-single occupant] AND wait for it, a wall away, GIRLS HOSTEL...! legendary. The first checklist of a hostel was cleared in my brain and my parents were happy with the cleanliness as well. Everything set, the next big question was the room partner. The "what if" list began; what if :

• He stole money, clothes, valuables!
• HE was a drunkard
• He was a Drug addict
• Gay! [honestly, it was my what if. Dude, you sleep at night with that guy, on a different bed of course!]

The other problem was that guy was yet to come from his native place. o i had a good 1 week before i met him. So the suspense began, the what if list, me getting ready for the worst of the kind etc. My neighbour was a not tall, really dark, and not the best looking, family-packed [not six-packed] malyali from jaipur. Samson Verghese. We clicked as good friends from the moment we started talkin after the akward pauses that you have when you meet someone for the very first time. We had a another set of neighbours with whom we[me sam and my roomie-whos' about to come] had a tough time dealing with for illogical reasons. The remaining hostel was full of boys from various colleges and wer about 3-4 years younger, but overall an awesome lot. we had a lot of delhites and couple of haryanaites,so therefore lot of parties and good times. The day of my room partners arrival came, everybody was tensed at home, me and my other friends. He arrived, behind him came a tempo! all the guys of the hostel were bent over their balconies and sticking their faces out of their windows. I never knew this guy is going to be one of the many great friends that i will know.

My roomie was Devanshu Aggarwal, from chandigarh. That guy was a rich baniya, but a spendthrift baniya. Tall, fair and north-indian good looks, he was a soft-spoken but street smart fellow. THe moment we started talking I realised we both had our own "What-if" lists and we were trying to gauge each other in terms of actions and talks. Post a week we were cool with each other and started our "shikari" phase. We used to come back to the hostel chat about chicks and the way pune was sad i nterms of the girl popultion. We did not know how wrong were we and what was in store for us...

(to be continued)