The First Night

No Chemical Locha tonight. Just not in a mood for any gibberish. As I had told earlier, I have had an awesome time in college. The 3 Stooges had always been together since day one. I'll just introduce the guys tonight, actually I don't know whether they will pool in money to get me killed once I am done but what can I say, these are stories that just needs to be recorded in some form or other. I'll try to keep the names secret while sharing some (umm....) embarrassing stuff but then again they weren't really embarrassing when they happened.

The year 2000 was probably the worst for students in Maharashtra applying for Engineering. There were thousands of students applying, the authorities had no clue as to what they were doing and the Mumbai University (MU) top brass was going cuckoo with their plans to increase seats. I think a lot of students spent the first year hoping that seats would increase and they would leave the god-foresaken college that they had foolishly joined under the pretext of joining a Mumbai University College. But then we were from a category, which was basically hopeless. Its the fabled OMS (Out of Maharashtra State) category. The OMS students basically get all the left-over seats after all the students of Maharashtra got some sort of a seat.

As is the trend, MU always runs late. By the time we joined college it was just a couple of months before the first semester examinations began. I came from Hyderabad, cause Dad was working there and that's where I had completed my class 12. I was the first guy in the room (26) and I had come in with just a suitcase. The first day I had reached there, I was shit scared. The place seemed pathetic. It was near a village called Aloré (ya it has that é). Chiplun city was quite a few kilometres away.

The thing I was really scared of was the ragging part. I have spent my younger years in a PG with lots of kids, so I wasn't really bothered about living alone. But ragging was something that I had no idea about. My Dad thought it would be a good idea that I stayed with him at the hotel on the first night and wait for the other students who were expected to come the next day. The problem with that was I was just pushing the inevitable. I knew I had to face my fears (seniors :P) that day or the next. So in spite of the fact that I had no bed, mattress or pillows, I opted to stay back in the hostel room. I had the stupid idea that I would be able to acquaint myself better alone.  A few guys I had befriended on the first day thought I was crazy (guys from room number 9 I think, I shall introduce them later) to miss out on Shalom (the hotel where Dad had put up) and spend the night alone in that state. I later realized that one of the guys was actually scared of staying alone in the night in a room, hehehehe!

Anyways I wanted to keep things quiet. The seniors were already sniffing around for juniors. They had heard that the last round of admissions had completed and students were coming in. Well I think I had switched of everything by 9 that night and was trying to convince myself not to show any sort of disappointment cause if I did, my Dad would have immediately taken me away. (He was pretty pissed off with the college on the first day itself). Not that I didn't want to run away myself, but it was my decision to join a MU college right from the beginning, though I wanted to join Computer Engg (another story) and not Electronics.

I think it was around 11 or so, there was a loud knock. I knew that my time was up :) And I also knew that resisting would just delay the process and make it more difficult. So opened the door and saw a bunch of guys standing outside. Asked me a few questions, realized that I had just arrived and probably felt pity to see the sorry state I was sleeping in (A bed-sheet on the floor with my bag as a pillow). Told me that they would be back again. My heart was racing the whole time but I was pretty happy with the turn of events on the first night. I had no more disturbances that night. The next night though was a different story all together... :D