FIRST ACQUAINTANCES

"I have come to see my daughter Priya getting admitted here. She did extremely well to secure an AIR of 20 and is joining the Computer Science department, and what about you". Mr Kumar replies "I have come for admission of my younger son Rajiv. Although his dream was to join CS, but with an AIR of 420 he could only get Mechanical" Rajiv had hated his AIR right from the day he had seen it. Although he was a computer wizard himself and had wanted to study CS, but his AIR could only qualify him for mechanical. It also reminded him of his own special fraudulent temperament of cracking exams without knowledge and solving equations without knowing its meaning. It hurt a little to know of the spectacular rank of his first acquaintance in college, but after a re-look of Priya he reached an immediate conclusion that rank (i.e. AIR) is inversely proportional to looks. The better the rank, the worse the looks, and just for once he thanked his AIR that he would not have to do his classes for 4 years with the not so good looking CS class. It also came to his mind, what kind of air the lonesome girl of his own mechanical class shall be having in the coming days, with the status of the 'Queen Bee'.

In the meantime, while Kumar and Vikas were being nostalgic about their own days in college and life thereafter, the budding mechanical engineer turned his attention to the computer science department.  He asked Priya about her first impression of the college. In her critical temperament Priya stared to blurt out all the deficiencies she could observe in the 2 hour she had been. Priya says "the huge main gate looks so very odd as if guarding some prison. There is not much greenery to be seen. The campus roads seem not to have been renovated since inception. The institute area is so very far off from the girls’ hostel. The girls’ hostel and the boys’ hostel are located at maximum distances at opposite ends, which gives a picture of some ancient gurukul rather than a modern technological institute....". She would just go on and on but Rajiv thought better to interrupt saying "whatever it is we got to study here for the next 4 years".

Rajiv could feel an immediate irritation for this be-speckled girl, and thought why at all girls talk so much. Priya, on the other hand being a thorough no-nonsense girl who'd won rewards all her life for unwavering discipline, had an intrinsic distaste for all disheveled looking young boys. Even before Rajiv opened his mouth to talk to her, she had in her mind a neatly drawn out character sketch of the guy. 'Must be some just-out-of-nappy sort of a guy', she mused. Priya felt happy that she would not have to spend her 4 years in the same classroom with Rajiv. She decided that she did not want to waste any more of her time on the just out of nappy Rajiv, but feeling that she cannot snub or ignore Rajiv in front of their elders, Priya smiled and said, "yes, we have to study here for four years.  I am eager to see my classroom and I want to go find my hostel room and unpack". She turned to her father and said, "Dad, lets' go".   Vikas then took Kumar’s' phone number and promising to be in touch, Vikas and Priya left the canteen.   

Two lives departed from the place that was soon going to be their life's turning point. As Priya set her eyes on the brick-red hostel building with its stern looks, she could feel a wave of excitement rise within her. Priya and her father went inside the office room of the girl hostel warden, and both of them were equally disgusted at the sight of the warden.

The warden Mrs. Braganza epitomized some eighteenth century warden burdened with the duty of protecting innocent maidens from the demons outside. Mr Vikas thought for a moment whether an addition of beard would do some more justice to the otherwise very tall dark and handsome Mrs Braganza. She literally threw the keys of the allotted room at Vikas, which made Priya resolve that she would have to take the warden to task in the coming days.

Priya went upstairs to her allotted Room No 56, while her father waited in the lobby with other parents who had come to see off their daughters. On finding her room Priya opened the locks and entered to see a small room with two wooden cots and two pairs of table & chair. Just when she was wondering who her room mate would be, comes a striking girl into the room. "Hi I am Sonia...mechanical" she says warmly. Priya reciprocates and tells her name, rank and branch. Sonia could not help asking her "were u so studious all your life" to which Priya says that studies are what students ought to do. Sonia again couldn’t help asking "Never had a boyfriend" to which Priya starts on her trail of lectures. Sonia thought "whatever".

Both of them unpacked for a little while and then went downstairs to see off their parents. With a heavy heart and best wishes all parents left their daughters. All the fresher’s were summoned to the common room, wherein after a brief round of introduction, the warden began to list out all the dos & don’ts and the rules & regulations of the hostel, and the dire consequences of breaking them. She also elaborated that ragging is banned in the campus and if there is any kind of misbehavior then the same be reported immediately.


In the boy’s hostels, there was no kind of any formal proclamation about ragging or misbehavior. It was commonly understood that such pleasantries would happen like every year, without the poor wardens having to explain the dire consequences of ragging in campus. While waiting in the common room, Mr Kumar found that there is hardly any change except for the addition of a TV. The wooden furniture, the newspaper rack etc all remained the same as he had left twenty three years ago. On one corner of the room was a chronological list of the hostel wardens and the hostel captains. It brought a smile on his face to see his own name there. Such glorious days were they, when he was elected to be the captain of the hostel. He thought how during student life it used to be so easy to prove one’s mettle and get the deserving appreciation, and how all of a sudden things change in the working career life, where just competency alone is sometimes not enough, more especially when working in a government organization. His thoughts get interrupted by his sudden remembrance of his elder son Rahul who was to join the MNC bank that very same day. Mr Kumar wondered how Rahul might be spending his first day at office.