X for Xmas

After thinking for one complete day, on what my title could be with X here I am, with one of the easiest words that come to mind when you first hear the word X. It was so simple like I already knew what I wanted to write on, but I made it more complicated looking for a better option. Anyways, that's what we do with most things in our lives.

So this post is a tale from a time when I was in 12th grade. Just stepped out of home, staying in a hostel with a completely new bunch of people, in a new school in a new city. 

A little background on my hostel life would help you connect better. After completing my 10th, for the forthcoming education, I took a scholarship test, through which they were supposed to hunt the best 15 students from the state and provide them education, and related facilities for two years completely free of cost. By gods grace, and my good luck I managed to peep into the list, and there began my life enclosed in a big boss-like hostel. "With great power, comes the great responsibility and also great pressure". Of all the people selected only those who choose to stay either had the resolve of steel or the ones who knew the actual price of steel.

I will tell you some of the normal activities of my mates. It was common for an inmate not to take a bath for days on end, some people counted the days and competed on the length of the streak, the hostel record was a modest 46 days. If you took a bath regularly you would be looked down, upon as the one who is wasting time. On wasting time, my tribe skipped breakfast, willingly and frequently, because the twenty minutes you spent going to the kitchen, taking breakfast, and then cleaning your plate after that could be productively added to the 5 hours of sleep, which was the maximum you were supposed to take. Some people locked themselves in the washroom with their books and notes so as not to be disturbed, for 8 hours at a stretch. Redbull seriously gave wings there and people flew for 48 hours at a stretch without dozing off even once.

As hyper as the competition was, similar scares the money was. The Internet came too costly at that time, the most feasible Internet pack was 29 rupees which offered unlimited use between 12 to 3 nights. Once in a blue moon when a few people agreed to watch a movie, we would go and plead with one of our seniors for his laptop, where he would charge a cut of five rupees to lend it out for a movie. Then go to a handful of people who agreed to watch to collect their contribution, which would most be 2 to 3 rupees. Even then, most people won't have the money and they would ask somebody else to lend him his contribution, and then the other person would remind them of the 34 rupees they already owe and then they would fight for some time before they gives in.

So when I look back at my hostel life today the two sentences I use to describe it is "No time, No money". 

But when I tell you all this don't assume it was boring, it was super Interesting. The intellectually superior beings living with me had intellectually superior ideas to keep them entertained. Physics got so high on people that they name the girl who was supposed to be the hostel crush "SHM (Simple Harmonic Motion)", and they made her so annoyed shouting SHM whenever they spotted her, that she came with her mom once too complain about the three magical letters that she couldn't comprehend.

Fast forward, when our tenure of two years was coming to an end we realized that we should do something normal which people call having fun, and making memories. Winter was on its full throttle, and going out was a daunting task, and the time and money richness of our group just made it more possible. But it was Christmas time we could just go out light a candle, click good pictures and come back, and going out on Christmas would make us appear interesting, accepting, and broad-minded. But, as was the record it seemed like most people would deny it, and so did nobody. 

Everybody agreed to join in. Surprises were the most expected thing with them, we wore our best clothes, borrowing shirts from one, jeans from another, shoes from another, deodorant from another, and creams from somebody different. Stuffed in and out we were on our way. Things went according to plan, we reached the most famous church in the city, lighted candles, offered our prayer and demand in the best English we knew, took a lot of pictures, and were satisfied. On our return, the roads were jam-packed and we couldn't get an auto back to the hostel. So we decided to go to the next crossing to check for them, and unfortunately or fortunately we spotted a small restaurant with a part of it extended till the road.

We were already super hungry, and the place looked affordable. So we slowly snuggled in took a corner table carefully scanned the menu, choose the item which was lowest in price, and placed a couple of orders. We could all share and eventually everybody's cut would be lesser. Once the food was served it all disappeared within a minute. Hungry animals in us drew their first blood. We ordered a repeat of the same, and it all disappeared again in the next minute. The monster of hunger inside us reformed itself into an unpleasable giant of size ten times its original. And the orders from our table never stopped for the next hour, while one of us was meticulously making a note of what each one was ordering. We all ate to our heart's content and came out only once a few items were completely sold out.

When the bill came, and we had a chance to glance at it, it shook the floor below our feet. We clubbed up all the cash that we had in everybody's purse, and still couldn't make it to the complete amount. That's when one of the richer guys stepped in, and agreed to swipe in his card, which saved the day from being more memorable.

When we came back to the hostel and figured out the math my share was 169.10 rupees. It took me 3 months to return the entire money, but I have never felt so rich sitting in a restaurant ordering all the food with people most of whom never went out to eat in two complete years.

That was the only day, when I went out with them for food, or even a self-planned trip. We always faced the "No time, No money" scenario every day, but not that just one single day. Since that day, I have had food in restaurants multiple times costlier than that, but I never felt richer. 

Cheers to my tribe in the hostel, who I considered geeky and boring, but they ended up giving me the only story that X word could fit in.