REMINISCENCE

I knew I was late. I tried my best to reach on time. Getting up late always has fucked matters for me, even in the past. And I knew, it was also going to act spoilsport today. I left Sea Garden View at 12 p.m. sharp, in fond keenness of making it to lunch before 1.30 p.m. Besides, adding to my plight; I was genuinely famished and could have chomped through anything that could have been put in front of me. It may seem I’m heading for a time-bound wedding or a special invite to a celebrity’s clandestine revelry. But sorry to say, I was heading to eat lunch at my hostel mess! In fact, the mess customarily subjects you to the worst cuisine you can possibly imagine eating anywhere on God’s green earth. Amazingly all the same, I had developed an extraordinary forbearance towards it. But today was different. It was my last meal for a long time, if not forever, at H2 mess. The mess would be off for the vacations following which; I would have to be off with my baggage to H13.

I was half an hour too late. I entered the mess, panting like hell, noticeably hungry and thirsty. I saw the stacks of salad kept in front on me delectable as ever, waiting for me to be consumed. Lost in the thought of the carrot and cucumber, the vegetable kept ahead disturbed my tender reverie – “Get your ass here and put me on a plate quick, will you?” I took a plate and put all I could on it, and headed for a seat. I see, my wing mates, all together in the fourth row with a seat empty in the centre, perhaps wanting to feel my bum. I joined them, whilst they were in between a joke, laughing to their heart’s content. The joke quite obviously being explicitly related to the horseshit kept on the plate in front of us off course! I took the first bite. A current ran down my veins. God have mercy, is this food? I blinked my eyes. I returned to my senses. I opened my eyes. It was all gone!!

I was standing there, wondering in which world I really am. I paced slowly inside the mess. The manager, with dismayed vision told me that the food was over. It wasn’t special food by any means, but it was worth its time. The manager was alone in the mess, sitting on the remaining table and chair, eating away on some rice and pulses. H2 mess was not the same. The chairs and tables were stacked in the far corner and the mess largely clean and empty. It wasn’t the H2 mess I recognized and cherished. I had become schizophrenic for a moment. I left the mess, disappointed, sad and starving. I felt disowned. The place where myriad tête-à-têtes would take shape is reduced to a hushed dungeon of nothingness. Those mean seniors, who threw countless intro sessions at me, have all run away into the ashes of time. The ever ready mess workers assisting us in serving us food had, in their own way filled my tummy for a while, even though they weren’t there anymore.

I was finding the present tense and the past perfect!
The rough edges from the good old days seemed so much smoother. The mess gave way to the lounge. It felt sinister at first. It’s rather aberrant to find it empty first of all. Secondly, it was clean with all the chairs kept in an organized file. Nobody was there to receive a ‘hi’ from me. The newspapers, kept assembled in the tray for a change, were something paranormal. There definitely was a ghost somewhere, toying around with the hostel property. The fleeting creature even ensured no one was witness to his mischief. The music system was kept on the shelf, like in a coffin ready to be buried. The old newspapers kept next to it, intuitively inviting me to pick it up to clean my snuffles. The sofas weren’t seemingly alluring anymore, even though the dogs weren’t resting on it. The fans and lights were switched off totally nonchalant and blasé about my presence in the room. I didn’t feel invited anymore. A brief glance more was all I could endure, till I relented to head for my room.

The wings were abandoned. It seemed like a tsunami-prone area evacuated for impending doom. I entered my wing, the Frisbee ground to my back. The tranquility of the hostel actually gave me goose bumps. The cries of catching and throwing the disk, ringing in my ears, were acting like a seductive liar. The rooms from 12 to 6 were latched, locked or vacant, whichever way conveying the feeling of emptiness. The remnants ahead, were with heavy suitcases, on an unperturbed mission to leave. The place, so inviting for activity had been reduced to a desert of desolation. I entered my room, and saw Kartik’s stuff packed and ready to go home with him. I hadn’t even begun packing. I still felt a part of my home and didn’t want to leave so abruptly, even though I had to. Soon, even Kartik made a move and I was nearly all alone. Except for Ankur few rooms away, no sign of civilization in quite a distance. I packed, with some help off course, still in bewilderment and trepidation of what is happening around me. It was just yesterday that I could hear Sunmukh’s bawling and foul invectives coming from a distance. It was just yesterday, I saw a dog running down the isle, frantically trying to save his ass from a high-momentum slipper hurtled at him. It was just yesterday when Suchit came to my room to show me grimy videos of people at it in the toilet. Elixir was a team. Elixir was a family. Now, we fend for ourselves.

It is often said, that the world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past. Nevertheless, it's never safe to be nostalgic about something until you're absolutely certain there's no chance of its coming back. I could never have loved IIT as much if I wasn’t in H2. H2 became a part of me whilst I was there. The thought of seeing it as a dilapidated configuration will always hit me where it hurts. I loved H2. I will miss you H2. Here I come H13.