One Year Of Hostel-Life in N.I.T. Jamshedpur...

Before entering this institution, the NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, JAMSHEDPUR, I was a person who had been used to having his own living space, and lived on my own terms. Although, I wouldn’t be really discontented, but also wouldn’t exactly jump around with delight on getting the news that hostel life was a obligatory part of an engineer’s life. My conception of a typical boy’s hostel was that of a ramshackle building overflowing with cigarette butts and beer bottles. Further unfolding the image in my mind, it was a place with clothes perennially drying on sagging clotheslines and rowdy boys with hair longer than that of Rapunzel’s.

My parents had to employ a little persuasion to make me accept the thought. More specifically, they had to use a team of wild horses to keep me from leaving the hostel, ever since I got my first impression of the infrastructure of this college and its professors, which wasn’t in resonance with my idea of those of a professional engineering college. That was fairly a year ago. I have today grown to love the airy two-floored hostel edifice, which has become my home away from home. And yes, hostel life has its own moments.

There’s the obvious soar in the decibel levels around you. Apparently, its illegal to go to someone’s room, if you have some work with him. The well-accepted practice is to screech at the peak of your lungs until the person hears you or the mirrors in the bathroom shatter, whichever happens first. And while the subject on bathrooms, here’s a tip. We men are generous to a fault, except when it comes to the question where the wing’s bathroom is at stake. I have seen instances of backstabbing, name-calling and bucket-grabbing that could cause you faint. For a hosteller, diamonds are not the most precious items in the world; but instead, it is hot water, specially during the colder months of the year when you have to struggle and combat hard to win a bucket of hot water.

Against this heightened concern for personal hygiene, the rooms come across as a rather curious contrast. There are teetering towers of books inclined at angles more precariously than the Pisa’s famed Leaning Tower, which mostly remain unscathed till the last day before exams when we slog hard to complete the portion of the whole term in a single day. The bed is cunningly concealed beneath personal artifacts like clothes, books, CDs, laptops and snoring roommates.

If one has to move around in the room itself, one has to skillfully dodge rickety chairs, fragrant shoes, messed up wires of laptop/mobile phone chargers, extension boards and numerous hazards alike. And colourful “dabbas”, once upon a time, full of delicious homemade food items, add the last decorative touch. There are refuges of lovable people who claim that they are too busy to clean up their rooms but jump into their beds for a nap at each available prospect.

Although the common conjuncture about a hostel-life is mostly bad, the residential life of N.I.T. Jamshedpur campus seems to be a little different. In contrast to the other campuses where the hostellers have to maintain a constrained lifestyle, here the college authorities generally don’t take “panga” by putting harsh restrictions on the hostellers.

Late night parties and loud music in the hostel common room may be blacklisted in the rulebooks, but doesn’t really face a “NO-NO” from the hostel wardens. The hostel boarders compel the gatekeeper to open the hostel gate during late hours thus enabling them to move in/out anytime, 24 x 7. The warden cannot implement his powers as the boys tend to ignore his existence. The rules and regulations turn impotent as no one follows them. The hostellers lead a life of their own choice. They do not have to seek special permission for allowing a guest to stay for a night unlike their female counterparts, as the hostel authorities there are strict enough.

All things put together, for a hostel life, fun and enjoyment dominate over hardships of an independent life, making hostel a charming place.

Just guard your ‘hot water’ with utmost care!!!