MONKEYS IN THE ATTIC

And all around the place too. This post is dedicated to my hostel, where I spent three long years with audacity and tolerance. Tolerance not only from the monkeys in the attic but also from the monkeys running the hostel. Boys Hostel, stenciled atop a two storied building with the entrance on the extreme right and the rooms starting from the right towards the left. Each room had four windows, one pair facing the verandah and the other facing the college workshops. The first floor would be covered by the workshop ceiling so no sneak peak on the first floor. The second floor was visible from the college building, and as usual the windows were covered with washed clothes, clothes that are supposed to be washed everyday, I am sure I don’t have to elaborate on this one.
Ah! Tyson, the guardian doggy. Well it guarded its daily bulk of food all right, looked more like a cow to me; Great Dane they say is the breed. It looked ferocious but a cat could scare the shit out of it. Leave the doggy alone! Let’s shift to the other non human members of our ecosystem. Monkeys, I mean the real ones. These ubiquitous creatures were more in number, than the students in the hostel. These animals were intelligent; after all they are our ancestors. These monkeys just walked into our room, as if they were entering their bedrooms. Pick up what they liked, and made off with it. Its not just food that interests them, oil bottles, pens, you name it, were a part of their dynamic collection. Maybe they realized the importance of education and a good hair do.
They aren’t scared of anything, you shoo it, it shoos you back. And thanks to their anti birth control policy, the hostel was the epicenter of the ‘monkey bomb’. They enter the room through the sliding windows after we go to college, and god knows what they do. When I return to the room, the first thing that comes to my mind is an isolated tsunami or a twister.
Well enough of monkeys, too many monkeys spoil the blog.
We had to follow strict timings, A student is supposed to get up at 5am and from 6:30 to 7:30 he should indulge in studies, that’s written in the rule book, for many of us getting up is at 7:30.Everybody couldn’t do that because attending nature’s call would get a bit disastrous, owing to the number of restrooms available and of course their functioning. Who wants uncontrolled Kip and Haber, happening, the first thing in the morning? The mess was destination next after the intense sessions of coloring.
The mess was in a big mess, asbestos roofs and steel stools, with a lot of flies here and there. It wasn’t all that bad, the food was edible, and some times sumptuous. I am not a food freak so I will move out fast. The next stop was college, 9 to 4. I will describe the college in some other post.
After 4, it’s the canteen for the hot water with a hint of tea, and some snacks, that was hard to even look at, leave alone eating. After that it was sleeping, reading or playing,
The rules said 6:30 to7:30 was study time, and the warden used to go on rounds, penalizing any student who hadn’t put his nose to the book. I did that well putting my nose right into the book , and sleeping. The vacuum in my stomach, made me sleepy and at 7:30, I would race to the mess to fill my tummy. 8:30 to 10 was the night shift study time, Shifting is apt as we kept shuttling rooms in order to have a little gossip. 10 pm seemed to come within 10 minutes. And after 10 we were like free birds, in the hostel premises, some slept, and some watched movies. There were a lot of illegal desktop theatres running in the hostel, and the least crowded and my favourite, (Hindi and English only) was just a room away. The show used to go on deep into the night and then we all went to lie in the arms of Morpheus. (We went to sleep).
That’s my hostel and its monkey business.