It was a great relief to me and my friends when we came to
know that we got over with our masters! It was a long wait for this day, the
day when our final semester results would be announced and indeed we all passed
out with flying colors
This journey wasnt as easy as it seemed to be, neither for me
nor my friends, say my hostel mates! When most of the mba colleges in the state
had their own hostel, we had to share space with other UG, Law and CA students
from different educational institutions! That was my home for almost 2 1/2
years and it was called Vimalalayam!
Vimalalayam was a girls hostel run by convent sisters and it
had a legacy spanning 5+ decades! We weren't allowed a mobile,though we secretly
owned 1 (sum had 2) and our curfew was fixed at 6pm! We needed to be inside our
hostel compound by 6, at the most 6:15pm, else we need to prepare ourselves for
a verbal shootout from Sis. Maggie (our warden). The worst part was she used to switch of our
room light sharp at 10pm, which made us difficult to do our assignments and
presentations within our room and had to walk out to the corridor holding
sheets of paper or laptop!
Initially all this was difficult and we didnt have power
socket to charge our laptops, so in case u needed to do a presentation, u had
to either finish ur work before the lap battery shows 7% remaining or else pay
10 rs/hr to charge our lap in the
warden's office! Most of the time we had to ask each other to borrow their lap
if they had any charge in it!
Assignment work was great! One among the 11 of us would
write it by referring 2 -3 jumbo course materials, and the rest would just copy
it down, sometimes forgetting that our faculty knew each of our handwriting,
sply the 11 hostel girls! Sometimes the person who took the effort to find and
write assignments would get the least mark among those who copied it from her.
The night before exams were horrible, i used to sleep the
most! I made it a point to go to bed at 10:30 pm when others would sit till
1am! The reason I had to say was that after 10pm, when the current goes out in
the night, studying in corridor wont be easy 'cos of mosquitoes! Yeah, n
muttering such a lame excuse, i would be off to sleep.
During exam days, hunger used to be on the top and apart
from their respective rooms,ppl chose to study in the study room, terrace,
stairs etc. But at a particular point , say 5 minutes ppl used to come to
either room 14 or 17 (my room) to munch something. Some days we didn't have a
single snack with us and some days, we were in a confusion as to which snack to
munch in first! Thats how my friend n myself decided to open up "Alynn's
Cafe " in our room serving cappuccino and mocha! One night I even melted
my precious galaxy bar (just a small portion) on a spoon with a lit candle so as
to top our chocolate drink! Believe it or not, it was yummy n everyone who had
a sip,loved it.
We also had group study sessions, mostly for statistics,
maths, production management and accounts. i was a regular listener and a
member in these sessions 'cos I never could study any figure and number
oriented subject or rather something which involved calculations by my own. We
would sit out in the corridor blocking other hostelites access either to
toilets or the other end.
Another important sight was in the morning, when 11 of us
clad in black suits used to have breakfast in the mess hall and how we used to
dash to college before 8:30 am! On rainy days, we used to get all wet, cos a
single umbrella would be used by 2-3 people … and not to forget the speeding
vehicles passing by who used to splash muddy water on us. This reminds me of
getting into private buses to get rid of all this hassles. Initially we didn’t have
a ST card (student concession) and we used to show our identity cards to those
conductors. Those rude khaki men used to mock us in front of all the other
passengers and used to kick us out of the bus… and I could many pairs of eyes
glaring at us… But it definitely was fun…cos we would cover half the distance
in a trip like this…
All this and much more was my experience in Kerala…. And it
cant be described in a single post…. !! 2 years of my studies have made me
independent and capable enough… and I loved every bit of my stay here!!!! My
advice to people living abroad…. And who haven’t got a chance to study and live
in India… u surely must.. cos this was the best 2 years of my life :)
