This story begins when a collage starts. Collage being a time when there is relatively more freedom in life. Freedom starts with and is not limited to lack of uniformity of clothes and or of background. Different backgrounds and different schools of thoughts bring different people together to suddenly come together as equals under one roof and compete with each other to disprove or dispel the illusion of equality. It is one of the funniest dichotomies of student life.
This story starts with Kira, as she gets ready to hop on a bus to go to collage, the very first day. She is me. Or to be more truthful, she is who I wanted to be when I was her age. If you are not as confused as you should be then there is hope of not loosing you in the narrative. Anyway so she gets on to the bus she is one of the people who was on the waiting list to the hostel accommodation. She had the least priority as her family lived with in the city limits as described by some administrative buffoon as he seemed fit. Drawing a random shape on the map without any logic to the connectivity. So thanks to that unknown face, Kira had to get up early and leave 3 hours before classes began. She still had all the misgivings about commuting six hours in a day and still go on like this without turning into a zombie. Sooner or later she had to get a room in the dorm. She was so bent on the woes of traveling that she had not considered what all a hostel life entailed. All the things that were going to come her way if or rather when she did get her 20 sq.Ft of space that she would have to share with her room mate. Life she thought was best dealt with one day at a time. And sometimes even that seemed too big a deal.
Life had buzzed at such high a speed that she had not gotten any chance to enjoy or rejoice the feeling of getting admitted into the collage of her choice. Imperial collage or the mad cage as it was lovingly rechristened as by its “inmates”. She was soon going to discover how true to its name it was. And while she was at it she was going to realize that how freedom was nothing but an over rated illusion. That is what or how it is more often than not.
Just at the beginning of orientation, the dean said that anyone who feels that they can not go without sleep and can not do without food and water and need at least 7 hours of sleep everyday, do not have place in this batch of 2001, feel free to leave the the class right now. Ya like that was a real choice! So much for the freedom that collage life is supposed to bring for you. All her life she had heard new and updated versions of the line “just get through this one exam and then you will be set in life.” How life and destiny will just smile on you blah blah blah…Now finally it seemed to her that this was the proverbial carrot that her parents and her teachers held in front of her to lure her into the ratty race. Now sitting in the big tiered class room being bombarded with information in the name of orientation, she felt that she was already way in too deep to see a way out. Right now she did not even want a way out. But it will not be like this all the time.
She was never a dumb child but she was not very big on perseverance. Things had come easy to her in school. But this was a different ball game altogether.This story was not all about Kira, she did not know it yet but her path was going to be crossed with some of the most interesting people she was ever going to get an opportunity to get to know. The first of those was Kiran. Kiran was someone she instantly felt a kindred spirit with and seemed to instinctively share few of the slangs with! After the ominous warning by the dean as if on cue Kira and Kiran both exhaled all the air in their system with a very fearful and anxious “boy-oh-boy”! and with that pin drop of a silence, they both were instantly aware of each other's existence in the universe. Kiran as it turned out had his own crosses to bear. Yes you got me right Kiran was a "he" and that was one of the biggest and the heaviest if not the only one to bear. When he caught “Khosla ka Ghosla” years later he all too identified with the plight of chirounji lal. Life apparently could get worse, he was after all not called something as inane and depressing as that or for that matter Kunj Bihari, who was going to be his room mate. Of course he so far did not know that or for that matter any of the things that lay in his future.
From here to long lines of the different forms of plugging themselves in the system the first day pretty much kept them all pre-occupied and busy and away from the prying eyes of the predatory senior batches. None of them had any idea how bad or insane can the familiarization process get. Starting from finding out which class is where? What out of those can be bunked? Where to hide your hide while u are bunking and where to get food at 4.00 am in the night or day as you choose to look at it.
Right in front of the ticketing line kira spotted a familiar face Vani. Someone she knew peripherally in school. About whom she knew nothing more than the fact that if there was anything that happened around vani the first person to come to know had to be her mom. Vani was just the kind of person Kira was convinced that she could not survive around. She seemed to be someone who had not yet cut her chord from her mother’s womb yet. In the times of today that had to be just better off than being an axe murderer in hiding with bad breath to boot. Basically something that you would never in you life own up to in collage let alone flaunt; as she seemed to be doing in the full view of the entire batch!
“yes mom, we are almost done with the registration and I-cards...
Only the Library cards. Umm hmmmm and yes I know….
Alright, I will call and let you know later. Talk to you later Ma. Bye.”
This exchange to Kira and her code of life was nothing less than blasphemous. Kira rarely called home, when she was out and to reinstate her illusion of freedom she refused to carry a cell phone. According to her it was the way the grown ups pretended to give you mobility only so that they could trace your every move. Go through your contacts, read your messages and keep track of everything they have no business being a part of. She had however agreed to let herself be gifted one when and if she moved to the hostel, but before that it was just not negotiable. So for Kira it was a supreme effort to not snort and turn around in a huff in front of Vani. Vani as it seemed was completely unaware of this code of life and was equally obtuse to Kira’s intent to ignore and not acknowledge her and their prior association. Luck after all was not on Kira’s side as Vani, spotted her right then and gave her a cheery “hey”!
This was going to be a long day after all. She and Kiran were already making plans to go out after this long list of to dos ran out. Now she had this woman who seemed to pretend that they grew up together. Actually it was not such a bad thing to cross paths with her. But why did she have to give telephonic updates at all times to her mother. Anyway now was probably not a time to pose the question and may be not everyone was as tuned to such forms of parental control as her and had barely heard them. Before she realized what was happening she was a party to their plan to go catch a movie or a bite after this harrowing day was over.
