It's my last night in the hostel. The place where I have spent the past four year of my life...and I won't be wrong if I said that those four years were the ones that helped shape me into a more mature human-being. These will undoubtedly be the most cherished years of my life.
I have been trying to sleep since the past one hour but sleep has been fighting a loosing battle with my memories of the hostel. Now my mind starts thinking of all the wonderful,funny,sad, heart-warming,heart-breaking,long-lasting memories i have had in this hostel. This very room OC-105 and my two wonderful roomies - sujeet and shashank will always remain a topic of discussion in the future whenever the conversation moves to 'our college days'. It's like, I have a zillion memories attached to this place.
I try opening my laptop and browsing some net to pass the time until sleep sets in....but it's of no use. The feeling that I will probably never sleep on this bed- in this room- in this hostel strikes me with a force that saddens me.
I decide it's time I had a final round of the hostel..including the parts I have never been to, in the past years (ie. the other blocks with the guys from branches other than mine). I put on my slippers , slip on a shirt and am on my way for the 'last round'.
I start with the A-block and climb up slowly to the fourth floor of that block. ALL the rooms sport a shining Godrej lock on their doors. The students have long vacated the hostel as their 4-year 'tenure' came to an end about two weeks ago.
The same block where i stand now held the mechanical, electrical and the civil branch guys. Our hostel (like most others across the country) had the reputation of being a 24 hours masti haven. No matter what time of the night or day one chose- he would always hear noises of all kinds - ranging from wierd laughters to loud music from some room or the other. But today it was different- a deadly-silence hung around in the hostel...no noise whatsoever and no one in sight. Honestly, it was a bit scary. We weren't used to this kind of spooky silence in the hostel man.
I started moving towards the B-block on my way to the C-block (where i stayed on the ground floor). The specialiltu of our hostel is that--the construction of the A-block and the C-block are a mirror image of each other.
I finally reached the ground floor of the C-block after descending 4 floors. Reached my room...my roomie- shashank was still fast asleep which is quite unlike him as he's a known nocturnal homo-sapien but he's had a long day owing to the fact that he had to run around for most part of the day for the correction in his passport.
The square space outside my room - where the guys of our block pioneered and created the sport of Floor-cricket and went on to hold tournaments that gave us as much entertainment as much as noise and disturbance now stood lit in the moonlight filled with stillness and silence.
It wasn't as if the complete round of our hostel had satisfied my inner wish of some kind or anything...but then i climbed onto my bed to get some sleep before my last Day at the hostel starts. As i was doing so - i also (and quite naturally) realised that this would be my last sleep in the hostel. Everything i did the next day kept striking me as 'The last time I did it ' in the hostel/college/Bhubaneswar. And I felt 'nostalgia' slowly creeping into bed with me ....
It's been really a great learning experience living in the hostel - KING'S PALACE 2. I got to learn so many things ...made friends irrespective of their geographical origin, learnt to adjust, to share, and most importantly - to love my student life.
I salute the Kings (we- the studtents/residents)of our hostel and hope and wish that eveyrone attains the pinnacle of success in their lives ahead.
