College days....

College life is drawing to an end. It is very hard not to look back at college with nostalgia even though I have cursed it to no end and continue to do so. It just feels like yesterday that I stepped into the mysterious grounds of SRM as a fresher forever looking behind my back in the fear of being confronted by rowdy seniors and being forced to part with even a fraction of my very limited monthly allowance. I was fed with horror stories about ragging by my school friends whose elder siblings were studying in medical colleges and Delhi University.

The first thing I learned was that the seniors were bunch of cowards who kept their ragging activities off campus for the fear of heavy fines by the management. Mostly seniors just wanted to know the names of the so called "hot" girls in our batch. I made up most of the names, which satisfied the dimwits who walked away with their faces beaming with pride as if their sole purpose in life had been fulfilled due to that useless piece of information.

College was mostly a pleasant surprise. It was much better than I had expected it to be. It was by a stroke of luck that I missed getting admission in the architectural course at Sathyabama University because of the seats getting filled at the last minute. Someone up there sure likes me. God knows how I would have put up with that modern day Nazi concentration camp filled with Idi Amin clones where living is worse than being gassed to death. Till date, I thank my stars for landing in SRM where freedom was not a scarce commodity, and making my college life worth remembering.

The college was good, granted. But obviously the worst was saved for the last. These were the dreaded corridors of K.R.S hostel. Where, four students were cramped into a room so small where you couldn't even turn without bumping into someone else. To spare you of the discomfort of throwing up all over your computer screen, I shall restrain myself from describing the horrendous common bathrooms and toilets at K.R.S.

I had always wondered why a dining hall was called a mess? It was after seeing the K.R.S dining hall that I discovered the reason. I can safely state that, if Oliver Twist ever had the misfortune of eating in the KRS mess instead of the london dining hall, he would have never asked for more. Even if he did, he wouldn't have lived to tell his story.

The breakfast was the sign of what to expect later in the day. Served Idlis were so hard that you could break windows with them. Idiyappam was quite colorful but not at all digestible. The Upma tasted like mud. And, I have never seen water added to jam except in my mess. Merely looking at it rid me of whatever appetite I would have had left. One of the biggest mistakes I committed in my first week was to drink the coffee that was served with breakfast. And It didn't take long for me to realize that, at most 5 minutes. The speed at which I ran out of the mess, there could be no prizes for no guessing where I was headed....

Disclaimer: The pics posted of the dishes are purely of an indicative nature. They have absolutely no connection with the stuff served in the hostel mess.

TO BE CONTINUED......