“On 11th September HMC representatives will have a meeting with the first years of the hall with regard to relocation of first years to MMM Hall of Residence. All first years are to be present at 9 PM on that day in the common room without fail.”
This was one notice which shook every first year in my hall. Even my roomie was back into his body and was going to different rooms to talk to people. There were many questions floating in air.
“Will all first years be made to shift?”
“How many first years will remain here?”
“Is this a better hall or MMM?”
“Should we revolt? How?”
“Is there any female among the representatives of HMC???”
Numerous questions stayed afloat. The seniors called a meeting of all the first years of the hall and gave an undersized lecture. “In this hall, you’ll face many problems. Illu is coming. There all first and second years have to work till late at night and no one takes any action against it. All management bodies want that to happen. This can affect your grades. No such problem is there in MMM. MMM is a very lucrative offer to you. We were ourselves residing in MMM in our first year. Here you are bound by rules. There you have a free rule. You do whatever you want without any interference. But yes, if you have any talent you want to bring out, you can stay here. Also you must know MMM has rooms 2.5 times the rooms we have here. Here 50 of you share a 4 bathrooms at the end of a wing. There 2 rooms, meaning 4 people share one bathroom. It’s a bigger hall. You’ll find most first years there. If you don’t want to move tell us. We’ll ask the HMC for time to make you shift and stretch the time till next year by asking for more time and then your second year will come and no second year is kept in MMM. It’s a government job, we can ask for as much time as we want and ultimately the case will be forgotten. You are being asked to shift because here even the third years are living in single rooms on a sharing basis. So we need some empty rooms to adjust the third years. But they can live like this an year more (these are the fourth years speaking, who live in single rooms) as they’ve lived like this for over two years now. They are used to it Your shifting is totally optional and upto you. If you don’t want to go then no one can make you leave. Don’t get tempted by what others are doing. Think on your own. What you want to do. If your roomie is leaving and you don’t want to go; then let him leave and you stay. This hall will prove to be better in anything you want to participate in…”
He continued for 45 minutes. More than anything I was amazed at his ability to keep the topic on for so long. So I’d got all the points and had made my decision. I was not leaving my hall. For one thing, I wanted to participate in events, for another, I’d had enough of shifting for a lifetime. My roomie was going to MMM. No, he was staying. Nah, he was leaving. Well I don’t know. He changed his decision every two hours. Even if it meant waking up in the middle of the night and asking me, ‘Should I go?’ I’d made my decision. It was a binary question. Every time I said it’d be better not to go, he’d ridicule me by saying that seniors will make life hell here. If I want to take care of my grades then I should invariably shift. Plus we’d get a bigger room. Every time I said it’d be better TO go, he’d ridicule me by saying that we won’t get seniors there to give us “funda.” If I want to take care of my life at kgp then I should NOT shift. Plus we get better food here. I’d thought a lot. I had listed down the points.
Advantages of going to MMM:
- Free rule. No irritating seniors
- Bigger room
- Better bathroom facilities
- Better academic conditions to improve my grades
- Two lan ports so no more haggling for internet (we both had bought laptops now and often fought for internet which we had only one connection of)
- Almirah with doors
- Balcony
Disadvantages:
- No seniors to give fundas
- No participation in extra curricular activities
- Living with same roomie
- Worst food in the campus
- Less interaction with batch mates
- I’d have to shift again
- Lack of information about campus events
I’m a person who doesn’t think after he takes a decision. My roomie, he doesn’t take a decision after he thinks. So I’d decided. I was not going to shift. It was me who’d gotten this room in proper shape. Got it painted, got it cleaned, added racks to the cement, shifted the beds, called friends to help in shifting, got the windows made up, bought extension cables as we had only one plug point. One plug point for two laptops, two cell phones, one mosquito repellant, one detachable mouse, one detachable keyboard, one detachable webcam and mind you these detachable things were my roomie’s who still thought that these detachments made him very attached to his laptop. I often wondered what would have happened to him if laptops weren’t invented. There would be a very big void in his life since his laptop covered 26 hours of his average day. Yes, he managed to use the laptop 26 hours a day. So it was decided, I was staying and he was leaving. I still remember the date, 18th September 2009. He shifted and I celebrated. I was overjoyed until there was a knock on my door. A familiar voice said, ‘This wing is to be given to the third years. You’ve got one week. There are many people left alone in B wing. Shift.’
