The Year As a Freshman

August 25^th, 2010, if I’m not wrong with my statistics was the day I set foot on Lucknow, for the zillionth time, but for the first time as a would be civilian for four years. This place was home to my maternal aunt and my holiday destination for the winters for years. So, technically, I wasn’t new to it. My dwelling was about twenty five odd kilometres away from my university. So my only plausible option was to be a hosteller. There are some things common to all freshman hostellers. For first, you start feeling homesick and secondly, the food. There’s no extra strong coffee (like the ones you got at home) to open your eyes really wide, but a dismal breakfast, different for the entire week, with a pathetic tea, which one could relish only if he made it to the mess(swear to god, the name was absolutely apt)before 0845. The tragic food that we got is worth a vivid description, but more on that later. For now, its just that had we not found the ‘Step In Café’ at the right time, life could have been hell. Apart from the messy mess, the hostel was worth a stay. Basketball courts, badminton courts, table tennis tables, wi-fi(which was a pain in the butt) and spacious rooms. And with all the foresaid, laid a threat, the seniors’ wings across the block. Though the university boasted of being a ‘Ragging-Free campus’ for the past fifteen years, the fear of being ragged always lurked at the back of our mind. We eventually realised that it is indeed no big a threat. As some of our seniors were far too obsessed with being 'the senior ones' to even think of ragging us and the remaining special ones were so caring that you coulkd put their names as your local guardians. They immediately made us one of their own and their company is what we looked forward to.

 My university campus was enormous, with half a dozen different colleges for different streams; all collaged in a haphazard way, as if the architect planned to make a graffiti on the campus layout. The most important thing with any college is that one gets to meet various kinds of people, with different intellectual levels. And as and by you find people of your kind, you start making friends, more friends and still more until you have a gang worth boasting off.

My year as a freshman was a witness to many important prospects of my life. For, instance, I thought I was a very short-tempered, nosy, and potentially pathetic roommate. But I eventually found out that I wasn’t that bad. I had lost all my self-belief due to the way the course of events turned out to be academically for me over the past year. But those small incidences that made my mark in my class made me regain some of it. There were many events that let you prove your worth to the crowd. And just like a hyperactive hornet that sits on every flower, I participated in most of the events. I shed all my inhibitions, whatever there was, and I feel benefitted. On the emotional forefront my life proved to be bittersweet, as for the first time ever, I experienced how it was to feel emotionally attached to a special girl. And it felt great. (though that ‘great’ feeling was only short-lived). My sister, the one whom I enjoyed quarrelling with, came to a very essential stage of her life, marriage. She found a second family, the one of her soul mate’s, as loving and caring as she could have ever imagined.  It also proved to be the time when I started writing for my satisfaction. Whenever, I felt like, I started scribbling on a paper, whatever that struck my mind. And just as accidental as it sounds, I ended up with my first poem ever, at 3 am in the night, just before a Physics exam that was to follow that very morning. And when I was acclaimed by my family and friends, I found my love for writing evolving to an all new level. The things I wrote about might not make sense to everyone, but each one of my posts were dedicated to something (or someone) really influential to me. Having late night coffees in the secretly sneaked in electric kettles, Maggis and all the home-made snacks (which hardly lasted for an hour after they were let out) became a routine. And just as we started enjoying the life, the semester exams shot right at our forehead, knocking us down. And then began an era of brave One-night soldiers who tried to fight their way through the brainstorming subjects. And as per the exams, ‘they came, they saw and they conquered’. Its like every time I took the exam, I decided I’d use the next two days to the fullest extent and prepare for the next exam, but I ended up doing nothing else but dwelling over the same thought all over again, sitting in the next one. And just like that, in a blink of an eye, the year comes to an end. The only word that can describe the mental sate of any freshman at the end of the year is dilemma. The elation of no longer being a freshman, visiting home for a month and the simultaneous sadness of not being able to see my friends who had become an inseparable part of your life creates a dilemma in your mind. You try to figure out where time actually flied. But then, time (as my dad said), has its own state. Its gaseous in nature, expands when you’re bored and condenses when you’re enjoying it. And as you leave, you hope that the year that follows goes as smoothly and proves to be even more joyful and at the same time, be a learning experience to remember forever. And amidst all this, there’s another thing that every freshman prays to god for, a ‘back-free’ semester to follow… ;-)