Hostel Tales : Chapter II

Never ending waiting lines! An everyday scenario of my hostel life. I sighed as I saw a long queue of girls waiting for the dinner. I checked my phone. It was not even the dinner time yet! No matter how dreadful the mess food tastes...There will always be someone waiting to swallow the heart rending stuff. The dining hall was flooded with hundreds of girls making it difficult even for CO₂ to escape.

Though this is nothing unusual but today there was a special reason for the chaos inside the dining hall. It was our hostel feast. The rare occasion when the cooking staff realizes that they cook for humans and not animals!

There is a strange ritual followed by the kitchen staff here. The ritual of starvation. On the day of feast, they starve us during the whole day until the feast begins from the evening which includes a budget-midget DJ night followed by a lavish dinner. We get leftover food in the breakfast, lunch and evening meal and by the time dinner is served which is served usually late on feast days, we all are almost dying of starvation. Even the stray cats residing in the hostel feels frustrated of the untimely, unhygienic food they provide us with their constant meowing during the meal times. Who said animals don’t have class?

Bored, I went back to my room and began shuffling through my playlist and played any random song. Soon Ellie Goulding’s ‘Love me like you do’ began to fill my ears and an ecstatic delight enveloped me. I went to the door and locked it as I knew Saswati was in the common room enjoying the Dj night. There was no chance of her coming any sooner. I increased the volume of the song and began to sing aloud along with Ellie.I find it damn refreshing. Gradually the songs changed and I continued singing or at times lip synced (when the pitch was too high for my grumpy voice to reach) along with them. Finally after sometime I stopped, tired yet refreshed. The moment I stopped the music player, I heard loud knocks on my door. I connected my phone to the charger which was already hanging to the plug point and hopped towards the door. As I opened it I saw an unexpected and disheveled Saswati .Her eyes had swelled and her delicately done eye makeup smeared on her face.

As she saw me, she began to cry more. I tried to calm her down but all in vain. She was out of control, crying like a maniac. Finally after comforting her for 2 hours (Till then let me tell you, that strangely the waiting line was still in the same condition, I checked) She told me what actually caused her to shed gallons of tears which could potentially trigger flood in our hostel if not Burla!

My stomach had began to ache by the time Saswati finished narrating me the whole incident. No I didn’t have food poisoning cause by then I had not had my dinner but the whole incident was way unbelievable and hilarious.You wouldn’t even believe it!

In the common room everyone was dancing including Saswati. DJ nights are the specific occasions when girls dance freely without caring about anyone else watching. She had recently purchased a brand new smartphone, a Google NEXUS 6. She loves it more than her life and thus takes it everywhere with her. As obvious as it was, she took it to Dj night with her and while dancing she kept it safely in the pocket of her trousers. But unfortunately, the pocket had a big hole in it (Must be the blessings of the notorious mouse venturing in our room).Her phone, boasting of its slim and elegant figure fell prey to the mice’s nuisance and fell on the ground. The room was dimly lit with disco lighting. So the cries of her beloved Nexus fell on deaf ears. Girls danced to the rhythm of the beats and on her phone literally. Some kicked it while some gave it the shock treatment, smashing its screen into pieces. When Saswati got tired of dancing and went out for fresh air. The next thing she knew was she inserted her hands inside her pocket only to find a hole with her phone missing! She felt like a black hole had engulfed her, her NEXUS 6. She rushed inside, panicked. But the disco lights were almost making her blind. After struggling for a long time, she succeeded in finding her phone which no longer looked like one. Her heart sank on seeing such a dilapidated sight. She became really depressed and thought of checking through the feast preparations, being the mess secretary. What she did not know then was that there was more in store for her.

There is a staircase connecting the inner gallery of the kitchen and the first floor. In the evening, one of the cooking staff had spilled oil on it and not surprisingly, had bothered to clean it. Totally clueless of lurking disaster, saswati stepped casually on the greasy surface and lost her balance. By god’s grace somehow she managed to maintain her balance by holding the railing. But unfortunately her phone did not have the same luck. It sprung out of her hand and fell into a big utensil containing hotly cooked chicken curry which was aligned in a row with other dishes meant for being served in the feast. Firstly it floated for a while; waiting for help but eventually bowed down to Archimedes’ rules and sank deep inside. Saswati was flustered. She requested one of the kitchen staff to help in retrieving the cell phone or a late cell phone. Now her phone looked nothing more than excrete marinated in chicken gravy.

I laughed for more than half an hour but finally stopped, looking at her solemn face. I pampered her and gradually convinced her. She smiled after all and saved Burla from the potential flood.

I went out and sighed in relief. The waiting line had minimized to negligible. I dragged Saswati to the dining hall despite her continuous depressing tantrums. But as I stood in the line waiting for my turn, I looked at the chicken curry and I could visualize small bits of plastic parts swimming inside it. It felt itchy. Right then Saswati nudged me to move ahead in the line. I took the polystyrene plate in my hands and made a mental note to spare the chicken curry at peace for a night!