Living Now and How

I have lived in  hostels for fourteen years of my life. Every year, your room would be changed.When we were in college, after the first year, you were given an option to choose your roommates. It was a big political exercise. Each hostelite was given a form. You had to write your preference of room mates you want in the order of 1,2 and 3. The number of room mates would be 4, 3 or 2, depending on which year of college you were in. We filled this form with lot of secrecy if we were unsure who our real friends were. Some times, there was a lot of clarity that we four want to be together and then all of us would fill the form and put the same sequence and same set of friends. The hostel Warden was the ultimate decision making authority. You never came to know till you came back for the new academic year, who your roommates would be. If you reached the hostel before your friends, you got to choose your bed, desk and cupboard. Whether you got the bed near the window, sticking to the wall or under the fan, would decide how your siesta and night sleep would be. If the room was Central Lawn facing, you got the afternoon sun but a spacious feel. If the room was facing the canteen, you got the smell of beef wafting through all the time. For a vegetarian like me , this smell was nauseating and I got back facing rooms for two consecutive years. It had greenery and canteen view and maybe it meant the Warden did not like us. 

The '40' corridor was premium . It got its name as it was on a higher floor and the intercom number was 40. The premium rooms you got in your final year of college. I loved the floor, fewer girls and most of them were friends. No nuns staying on our floor and no over smart freshies. Freshies were juniors who joined the hostel, new. Some were quite cheeky or over enthusiastic. By the time, we came to TY, that is the final year of your graduation, in Mumbai it stands for Third Year Bachelor of Arts, Science or Commerce. By that time, we had matured and calmed down. The Mumbai air which hits you , when you are new in the city, had settled down. " Hawa main udti hai, Bambai jaa ke" was a phrase I heard a few times in Dhanbad. People would say ' Bombay ki Hawa lag gayi hai". My relatives would say the reverse that she has been in Mumbai for so long but "Zara bhi Bambai ki hawa nahin lagi". I get so excited to share some phrases verbatim. Basically, 'Hawa lagna' is a phrase which is a bit difficult to explain but when has that stopped me. It means, you have not picked up the bad things from that place/ area/city. Each place gets associated with certain value systems and behaviour patterns. What you co-opt in your life is the 'Hawa'. 

During our Hostel life, we paid hostel fees and not rent. Friends who stayed as paying guests in other people's apartments, paid rent. Hostel fees gave you lot of rights. Paying a rent, one was always at the mercy of the landlord or the landlady, in most cases. You had no rights as a PG ( paying guest). PGs were depressing places. The rooms were small n dingy in most cases and the bathrooms even smaller. The Landlady was always old and weirdly strict. My friends had horror stories to share about their PG experience. You are new in the city, new area, new language n food for most of us, new people and then this uncomfortable place to stay with really uneasy vibes. I truly pity all the people who stayed as PGs as they definitely knew what tough life was. Tough life has different meanings for each one of us. Whenever I try to tell my children how life was then, they cannot be bothered. They say that "That was those times." I don't even know if they know what I am talking about. Actually half the time, even I don't know what I am talking about. Am I trying to say, "Look how tough my life was"? Am I saying " Look, how well I have turned out"? Am I saying, "You guys have got it easy"? What am I trying to prove, first to my parents and then to my children? This glorifying of the past is good for History books. For life, it is all about Living Now and How. 

Notes to myself:

Am I living now or living in the Now?