Hostel मध्ये पाहावे राहून

Last night, my roommate returned to the room exhausted by the efforts of breaking a lock in her friend’s room. The rock had hit the cupboard more times than the actual lock and finally they had given up. Just then, I recalled that I have an iron rod, preserved specially for this purpose. I offered it to her, told her the technique that worked for me twice and she was back in two minutes rejoicing that finally, the lock had surrendered.  This made me think about what are the new experiences that hostel life has given me. Here are a few of them:

1. How to break a lock: In fact, one of my classmates was such an expert lock-breaker that we used to tease her that we need to inform her employer about this skill which she hadn't mentioned in her CV. ;)

2. How to locate, identify and kill a bedbug: Bedbug was a creature, which had met me only through stories. In fact, I didn’t know what a bedbug looked like.  In earlier days, we had a roommate who used to examine each and every insect found in our room and would give her verdict on whether the suspect was bedbug or not. Later on, all of us acquired the skill of locating the bedbugs, tracking down their habitats, destroying their colonies by using various weapons like candles, pesticides, heat, water, cement and what not.

3. How to repair a drenched laptop/cellphone: Just open it up, try to clean the wet portions by a dry cloth and then put it below a working laptop until it gets dried completely. It recovers pretty fast and gets back to work, except for a few minor injury marks on its screen, which get cured with the passing time.  In case of a drenched cellphone, use the laptop adaptor as the hot bed. (Practice at your own risk ;))

4. How to sleep on newspapers: This was a really rare experience. You cannot claim your own bedding kept in luggage room, just because you couldn’t complete the technical formalities of hostel admission. So, you are forced to sleep on the newspapers, though it’s cold outside.

5. Lazybones may help: This is in continuation with the previous one. You spend a night shivering. Next day, you manage to complete the admission procedure and return to hostel to collect your luggage, only to realize that you are too late. That is what happened with us. Eight of us had slept on the newspapers, the earlier day. Next day, we requested for the luggage, but were told that as it was already 4.30pm, only two of us can get their bedding. Then suddenly we recalled that, two of us had kept two mattresses each (one their own, one their roommate’s, as their roommates were too lazy to take care of their own belongings). So, we got four mattresses though we were allowed to take out only two. In this way, the lazybones, who didn’t take care of putting their things on their own name, helped us.

That’s enough for today. There are still many more. Will write about them at some later date…..