A Hostel Tale

The clock struck five in the evening, and yet they were not tired. It were being twenty years since they left the engineering college. Many of them had lost connections with their classmates, yet the organizers of the reunion managed to connect with them and persuade them to join the reunion celebrations.

The most interesting part of the party came when each of the students of the batch of 95 was asked to tell the weirdest story of their four years in the engineering college and hostel. It was a good way to keep the stage occupied, and a source of good humour too. Mohan was the first to come upon the stage, and what he narrated was really weird:

It was his first day at the hostel. Being tired of a long ride, he took a bath, put the towel around his legs and walked to his room. As he entered the room, the scene almost gave him a heart attack: a girl was sitting upon his bed. 'Probably I have stepped into girls hostel', he thought. He felt ashamed as he imagined himself walking from the girl's hostel to his own, all in the towel. The girl shamefully stepped out of the room. Just then a boy entered. At once, Mohan asked him,

"Brother, where am I?"

The boy was confused, and so he said,"Bhai! Have you lost your memory while you were bathing?"

"I mean, what is this place?", said Mohan.

He got a sigh of relief when the boy told him that it was a boys hostel. Later he discovered that the boy was his roommate and that the girl was his sister who had come along with her family to drop him to the hostel.

The audience had a belly laugh when Mohan ended his story.

Well, that was the first day. But it is the last year when the bachelors collect most of their memories. When you step into the last year of your bachelors, the stress of studies, fear of exams and the fright of teachers become null.

Sanjay, Aniruddh and Laxman were much popular among their hostelmates. They were known to be the most mischievious students of the fourth year hostel. Whenever there was any scandal in the hostel, the doubt would go to them only. Some day, they would steal some studious's textbooks, the other day they would hand over some porn magazines to a sincere, pure student. Since they were childhood friends, the group of three was known as 'Langoti Kamine'. Unlike other students of the hostel, Sanjay and Laxman were financially better, and they and Aniruddh took its full advantage. They used to escape from the hostel to watch a movie at the cinema. For a day or two, they took the permission from the warden on the pretext of buying some text books for them. But it was difficult to convince him every day. So they found other way out:

The building of the hostel was not in a good condition. The paint was peeling off the walls. Spiders had been the permanent residents of the hostel, and even some stray dogs were also trying to get a green card of this place, as the back wall of the hostel had a small hole in it, big enough for a dog to enter. And if some more bricks were removed from there, a full size human could pass from it. The Langoti Kamine used it as a secret portal to escape from the hostel without getting into anybody's knowledge.

Every night after dinner, they would pretend to go to their beds, and at eleven o'clock, the three of them would escape from the secret portal, watch a movie at the cinema and come back at nearly three o'clock from the same door. Since they could not sleep well at night, they would bunk their first two lectures and get a good sleep.

But things never go so smoothly. One night, as they entered the hostel from the secret portal, they got stunned. The principal of the college, the warden of their hostel, vice-principal, and some third and fourth-year students were standing right there as if waiting for them.

"Where were you been?", asked the principal.

The three stood silent.

"I'm asking you something. Where were you been?", this time his voice had an angry tone.

"Sir, morning walk...", Laxman tried to build an excuse.

Some of the students standing there started to laugh, but at the warning of the principal, got silent.

"Morning walk, huh!", the principal exclaimed, "You three went for a morning walk at this hour of the night?"

There was nothing more to say. Rahul Singh and Tiwari, the third year students, had already informed the principal about their outing to the cinema.

Rahul Singh and the fourth years were arch enemies of each other. It had all started with the elections held in the college, when Rahul and his party 'stole' the elections from the Machhar Party of the fourth years, by preventing the whole first-year students to vote, using their physical power. However, the fourth-years got revenge by winning The Best Team Award at the Culfest. Rahul and his team were seeking opportunity to avenge since that day, and they got one when they saw the Langoti Kamine escaping from the hostel.

The Langoti Kamine, as per the hostel guidelines, were evicted from the hostel till the final examinations. The following morning, the three packed their bags and went out. The whole fourth years batch was angry with them, not because they had violated the rules of the hostel, but because they had not given the opportunity of watching a movie to any of them. Thus, no one came forward to help them and they had to settle in different apartments on rent, away from their friends.

Exams were approaching. The whole fourth year would have been enjoying their last days in the hostel, there would have been antakshari, dance parties, debates and much more, they thought. And they were away from all those last month celebrations. They had no one to talk to, but just some books to pass their time. They would never forgive Rahul and Tiwari for complaining the authorities, they thought. Yet, having no other option to kill their time and remove frustration, they relied on books.

As the superintendent pinned the result list on the board, the whole herd of the college students started to run towards it. Some were happy with the result, others were sad, while most of them were neutral. The Langoti Kamine, who had not taken any lecture seriously in the last year, was shocked with their results.

Rahul and Tiwari, seeing their shocked faces, approached them and asked,

"Aur sunao, Langoti Kamino! Did you get even passing marks or not?"

Sanjay got Rahul into his arms and hugging him, started:

"Thank you, yaar! You saved us."

Before Rahul and Tiwari could ask them anything, Aniruddh spoke,

"Hm, yaar! Hadn't you stopped us from going to the cinema, we would have failed the exam. Thank you, yaar! Bacha liya tune."

Rahul and Tiwari remained standing there for a long time.