If I’d thought that was bad
enough for a start, I couldn’t be more wrong. Three days into my IIT life and I
was approached by this senior who asked me to shift. I had been allotted the wrong room and as they are running
through a management crisis I’d have to be shifted
to another room on a temporary basis till I get my final room. For all
non-IITians reading my article, it should be understandable that it is not an
everyday affair you shift all your
luggage to another place just waiting to be shifted
again. Plus, it wasn’t my fault that they were facing a crisis. You have a
problem – you sort it out. Why bother me? But that’s one of the first things
you learn in college. Seniors are always right. A senior’s words have to be
followed by anyone willing to stay alive till he gets his degree. I did not. I
went straight to the manager and told him my situation. He looked
sympathetically at me, picked up his phone and called someone. Within five
minutes the senior appeared inside the manager’s room. I later realized that he
senior is the hall’s maintenance in charge and who goes to which room is his
decision. So the manager didn’t have the ‘power’ to oppose the decision and I
was given a time of 36 hours to shift.
Now I had two options, either to shift
as they say with all my luggage, or don’t and wait and see what happens. I went
to check out the new room. It was double the size of my current room. Double
the amount of dust. Both window panes broken. More graffiti and more nudity.
But what left me bewildered is already some luggage was kept in that room. That
room was meant for four people, not two. My immediate reaction was that four
people cant live together! Its against humanity to make four people live in a
cramped situation like this. Plus one roommate was bad enough for me. I don’t
think I’d be able to take on more. I talked to my roomie about it. We decided
to wait. The next day morning the senior came to check if we’d shifted. We had no option. We started
the procedure which took five full hours. Finally, we had packed again, shifted
from C-311 to C-334. This, when I was starting to get attached to C-311 which I
thought will be my new home for years to come. Thankfully, the new room was on
the same floor so we didn’t have to take the suitcases and bags through the
stairs. None of the seniors which made us shift
came to help us. As seniors, they were already helping us, by teaching that we
will have to carry our loads ourselves in life. What they forgot to tell was
that it is the seniors themselves who bury us with that load.
We never got to see our new
roommates ‘cause as soon as we’d shifted
to the new room, the senior told us that since we were so keen on getting a
permanent room, we’d been finally allotted D-121. D-121! Right now I was on the
2nd floor of C wing. Now I’d have to take all my stuff to the ground
floor of another building 50 metres away. You’ve got to be kidding me. But they
are seniors. And seniors don’t kid. They order and we have to obey. After 6
different hours, we were finally in our new room. D-121.
