Corporal Crap and Sergeant Shmuck
Manish's father had insisted that he would accompany him for the admissions and ensure that he was settled into his hostel room. The usual fill forms in triplicate took them to several parts of a pretty large campus, spread over several acres (source: pan-chewing admin clerk). On their way to the University office adjoining the college campus, Manish saw a bunch of almost dilapidated buildings, not dissimilar to the chawls that one notices - with a bit of sympathy and embarrassment - while moving around Mumbai. Must be the servants' quarters, Manish dismissed them, eagerly awaiting the allotment of his hostel room.
A couple of hours later, the hostel office peon led Manish and his father to the first of the chawls. "This is First Hostel, all the first year boys stay here," he said, sending shivers and other inexplicable pulses down Manish's spine. He stared at the row of grim-looking, crumbling structures - his home for the next four years! I just hope that everything else compensates for this.
Manish squinted through the thick lens of his specs, trying to estimate the distance between where he was and safety.
"Corporal Crap! Be alert! The security of Kashmir is in your hands," bellowed Thug#1. "Yes Sir, Major!" replied Manish from above the cupboard in a room in Third Hostel.
"But I hear that there are explosions in Srinagar," countered Thug#2 as two other freshers shook the cupboard violently. Manish hung on for dear life and attempted to deflect the attention, "Sir, the Intelligence Bureau report has warned of terrorist attacks in Lanka, Sir!"
His Major answered, "Is that so? To the count of three, I want you to fly down to Colombo. You can join Sergeant Shmuck. Three! Two! One! Go!" Taking a deep breath, Manish landed with a thud and crawled under the bed to join Sergeant Shmuck, whose name he would learn later was Swami Iyer.
A couple of hours later, having defended Maldives from a coup and raided a terrorist camp in PoK, the brothers in arms walked back to their hostel. "That wasn't bad, in fact I was beginning to enjoy it," whispered Swami. "What! we were getting ragged there and you were enjoying it?" Manish retorted. "Boss, it could have been far worse. We were not hit and we were not made to strip. Today we are lucky," explained Swami. "What is your room number?" "AS4." "Wow! we are neighbours. I am Manish." "Myself Swami."
Here, a brief explanation of the hostel structure is called for. The first three hostels, that housed the first and second year students, were three storied buildings (ground + two), with four blocks each. Each block had five rooms per floor, making it sixty rooms per hostel. The rooms were designed to be occupied by three inmates, but many had been converted to four-seater rooms. Only the third and fourth year students had the privilege of single rooms to themselves, in the fourth, fifth and sixth hostels. The Seventh Hostel was special - on the other end of the campus and surrounded by staff quarters, it was home to the fifty-odd female hostelers. Male entry into the Seventh Hostel grounds was restricted to the watchman and the hostel warden. Unless of course, if you could prove that you were the brother of one of the girls, in which case you could stand close to the hostel building, look up and wonder what was happening inside.
Back to the First Hostel, each block of five rooms had common toilets in the center: two bathrooms, two loos and two urinals serving between fifteen and twenty students. One of the two bulbs illuminating this essential infrastructure was usually fused, but more about those things later. Since the rooms were designed for three, there were only three cupboards - so two of the four roomies had to share a cupboard. In order to make this very democratic, there were only three desks and the other two had to share a desk. Fortunately, there was space for four cots.
An hour later, in Manish's room:
Swami: "You know da, we should go to the same seniors for ragging tomorrow also. They made us do some fun things, na?
Manish: "Well, last night that ugly fellow wanted to see the colour of my undies. Luckily he forgot that desire today.
Swami: "That's big deal, da. As long as he did not want to see something else, it's OK.
Manish: "Woh bhi hai. You said something about being hit. Is that true or were you just scaring me?
Swami: "No da, one of my room-mates was slapped twenty times today by some seniors. His face was swollen when he came to the room. It could happen to us too.
Manish: "Oh God! Lets go back to the same seniors tomorrow, but how?
Swami: "First of all, if anyone calls you for ragging, tell him that you have already been called to Third Hostel DF2. That will give you an excuse. By tomorrow, I will find a way to get invited back to that room. Hey, your room is empty - where are your room-mates?
Manish: "There is one guy Thomas - some seniors came and took him before dinner, he hasn't returned till now. The other two guys are totally vague - I have not seen them around much.
Swami: "Cool. Arre, I need to go now. Have to wash my shirt. I have just one full sleeves shirt.
Manish: "So what?
Swami: "What da, you don't know any of the rules or what? Till ragging is over we have to wear full sleeves shirts only, when we go out of the hostel, sleeves down. And shoes and no shorts. You have to be careful, da. Make sure you are in uniform tomorrow, else some stupid senior will pick on you and make you spend the night with him. Without the undies. Ha, Ha, Ha.
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