What the Hell!
Why me. I’d had enough of trauma already. Shifting between cramped rooms. Do they realize I have to shift with all my stuff. From Bedding to pencil. Everything and if you reading there has never shifted with all your luggage, then you have no idea what it feels like. Specially if you do it yourself without those manly workers shown in cartoons. Now I had to shift to a wing with only few people I know. I had few options. I considered each.
Why me. I’d had enough of trauma already. Shifting between cramped rooms. Do they realize I have to shift with all my stuff. From Bedding to pencil. Everything and if you reading there has never shifted with all your luggage, then you have no idea what it feels like. Specially if you do it yourself without those manly workers shown in cartoons. Now I had to shift to a wing with only few people I know. I had few options. I considered each.
- Nitin – Nah, he’s a drunkard. Cant have him coming back at night all drunk to irritate me.
- Utkarsh – Nice fella. But isn’t he gay?
- Sagar – Sabu. 6’5’’
- Tanmay – Nice guy apart from the fact he cant speak without slangs.
Ultimately I settled for Sagar, ‘cause he’s a nice guy plus he chose me and I thought its better to shift before he invites someone else. I took the decision. Sabu clearly stated he was not going to help me shift as he was ‘not well.’ So I shifted all by myself again. I’m getting good at this. This time I took only four hours. And there I was. B-104. My new adobe for the rest of my stay in this hall… hopefully.
Now this new roomie is cool. Is 6’5’’ tall but acts like a kid. He’s a tech freak, almost all IITians are which makes me feel they’re from a different planet, or maybe I am. Anyways he learnt it real fast that I really don’t care if google launched a new plugin by which I can see my emails on my mobile phone and he found this really odd. Almost all IITians found me odd in this respect. Like I had no ‘passion’ for new technology. Hell passion. These people don’t understand the difference between passion and frenzy. So here I was, sharing an internet connection with Sagar through a wi-fi network created by his computer. I thought I had a problem with a small bed. He used to sleep with his legs falling at the edge of my bed which was 3.5 feet away from his bed. Plus, the unbelievable feat – this 6’5’’ monster took a bath everyday. EVERYDAY. And people find ME odd! In case you don’t know, most IITians will not waste precious water in something insignificant as bathing. Twice a week bathing was found sufficient. Some people find that grouse. But when you have four bathrooms for fifty people sixty meters away from the room with damped walls, cold water whose color is anything but transparent and a variety of rare living creatures bathing with you which are found only in the intellectual environment of IIT, you don’t consider bathing as an everyday part of your IIT existence. But this guy, who could use the whole tank of the hall alone for bathing once; bathed everyday. No wonder we have water shortage here. But he was a good guy. He had made up all the patches on the door to our room by simple glue and did it all in one night. He had smuggled out an extra tube light for the room which came quite in handy when we needed to block the windows from opening as they had no hooks; and leaving them open would give the mosquitoes luxury of enjoying the ostentatious room we paid for. So there I was. Living with Sagar. Life was peaceful once more. Until, the inevitable happened.
…
It was a headache. I couldn’t take it anymore. After a heavy day of labs and classes, here I was trying to tell my roomie that I was least interested in knowing if Bill Gates had stolen all the ideas of Windows 7 from Apple. But it seemed like he had spent three hours collecting information and videos about Bill Gates’ perfidy and believed I had no right to breathe without knowing the ‘facts.’ I was a bit relieved when Tanmay came running to us. Due to public readership, I cant tell you his exact words. But between all the curses I just understood that there was a new notice which I should’ve seen by now. He was looking real worried and practically dragged us out of the room. Almost all the first years were standing near the notice board. I spotted it at the first sight.
“All first years are to be shifted to MMM Hall of Residence before the commencement of Spring semester 2009-10. All the keys of the rooms are to be given to the Warden before shifting and meals shall be provided in MMM Hall of Residence from the next semester.”
I was too shocked to think about my own feelings. I looked at Sagar instead. He stood as if he’d been slapped in the face. No reason stated. We had to shift and we could do nothing apart from shifting. Well, we could go on a hunger strike, or commit suicide, or make a rally or protest, but it’d be easier to plainly shift without speaking a word. So I went to the Warden of my Hall and spoke.
“What are the new room numbers?”
“That is a matter of concern of MMM. Go there and ask.”
That was done. Now I had to go to MMM. I had avoided it once but as they say, bad luck is like a importunate unsolicited guest and if that was too much English for you then understand that bad luck is just like the HMC, which won’t leave any chance of tormenting the students. But there was nothing I could do about it and I was getting used to this shifting business. Yes, I was hurt, but that doesn’t matter to the people who matter. I’d worked for this Hall, participated in events, people recognized me from the Hall and I was having a great time here. Well, no use ranting over what’s gone. When a bird pisses over you, you don’t go to sue the bird. You curse it and run to wash yourself and move ahead. I too had to move ahead. So I had two more weeks and then my winter vacations would start.
The new semester began on 30th December and I had to shift before that. After much thinking I decided to comeback and then shift. Having my home in Kolkata I could bring my car along for a day and it’d be helpful when I’d have to shift to a hall around a kilometer away. Now just one kilometer may not sound that much but when you are taking everything from your bedding to your alarm clock along, you cant do it on foot. Somehow the HMC believed that relocating was a part of everyday life of IITians and we’d be more than glad to experience it every chance we got. So at the end of the semester in November, I packed my bags, left some at my Hall (if I could still call it mine that is) and took some home.
