A Note: This was the article I talked about in my first blog post - the one about my first day at ISM which I sent as an entry for Mailer Daemon, eventually making me realize that blogging is the thing for me :)
Now read on...
It was a red-letter day. After a month long struggle of filling out forms and applications, setting and submitting them in order, I was finally at college. College. The word got butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I was going to be away from home for so long for the first time. It was a highly awkward feeling – not knowing what to expect – the classes, the seniors and – the hostel, something I never figured joining even in my wildest daydreams.Anyway, I was on my way into the campus, nervously tucked between both my parents in the the auto, going directly to the Penman auditorium, to complete the admission procedure. ‘This is it,’ I sighed.
Okay – big gate with security guards, I registered (pardon me, but I was one of those idiots with ridiculously low expectations from ISM at the time). I smiled at the ‘No Parking’ sign – not that it was pretty, but that were about a dozen bicycles parked right next to it (they still are). I took in the road sidelined with big old trees, their canopy almost blacking out the sky above. No pollution here, I thought, mentally unchecking the ‘Mines – danger!!’ box in my brain, not particularly noticing the people walking along the footpath, mostly staring in our direction, as though saying, “Here they come”.
As we approached the main building, I remembered reading that ISM was built in the 1920s (part of the background research to ‘size up’ my college). Looking at it in reality, it did seem pretty old, with the red bricks and all, standing next to the modernly constructed LHC, which I hardly noticed, being too busy calculating the size of the main building, making statistics and comparing it to the one I’d seen in IIT Madras.
After having been dropped off at the main canteen, we made our way towards the Penman Auditorium. There was quite a rush already, though we were quite early. As we walked closer, I stopped in my tracks. Damn. No way. I looked around again – my parents realising it too. There was not a girl in sight. I panicked. But then, we were really early and shook it off as no big deal. However, it was a big hint that the female population here would be astonishingly low, which was a shock to me. I hadn’t known that it was usual in the IITs – back home, there was no such situation in the colleges there.
As predicted, my future hostelmates turned up one by one, dotted here and there among the male-dominated auditorium. After making friends with a few and completing the admission procedure, I took a look around the campus , rating the different places on a scale of ten.
The main canteen got a four – it was untidy (littered with dung, to be specific) and the food inside doesn’t tickle any taste buds. I gave the library an eight – liking the peaceful looking building instantly. We proceeded to the Ruby Hostel, having been (wrongly) told that it was going to be our abode. ‘Its quite big,’I thought, trudging towards the gate, silently thanking God that it wasn’t a 1920s building. Then came the blow. “There’s no water in the taps Ma’am,” said the girl, obviously my senior, to a sulky faced, elderly lady (apparently the caretaker) standing with her hands on her hips who subsequently fired a volley of statements in denial. The rooms inside too gave no hope – we were just going to be stuffed like hay on a truck, I realised. “How am I ever going to adjust to this place?” I thought. As my temper built, I internally ranted about the low standards of “my college”, comparing it to the ‘grand’ IIT Madras, and then bitterly blaming myself – after all, if I’d gotten admission in this place, it was all my fault. I went back to the hotel with my dejected parents, all happiness drained from my face.
One year on now, I sometimes sit back and smile about my behaviour that day. After all, I didn’t know anything back then. I didn’t know the fresh feeling of independence one felt on being away from home, I hadn’t made such good friends with whom you joke around and hang out with all the time – be it in class or late into the night in the wee hours of the morning. I hadn’t been part of fests like Oorja or Srijan, to really get a taste of college life. What I had seen was only the shell, not the heart of the matter. After all, everything is not actually what it seems to be.
