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Life as a hostelite in any hostel can be an experience. There are days
that can be remembered, and there are those that are best forgotten. There
are friends that one keeps, and those that one avoids. There are those
special moments that one can bring back to memory, time and again, like
playing back a tape recorder. There are those that can remember life especially
if the hostel is attached to a college, and that too in the same campus.
This sums up, freedom? you go to class, you come back and you still are
where you are because you really haven't moved. You are still at the point
you started.
There are times that I can remember at the Jesuit run Loyola College, Madras, now Chennai, at the 'C' Mess, eating on plaintain leaves, and one learns very fast how to scoop the 'running' sambar which flows down from the rice like lava of a volcano, only its like quicksilver, mercury on ice!! Then you know how to keep the banana for later times when you are hungry at night. Those days 'smoking' was the only past time becides a little sing-song, or playing cards. Smoking was my favorite, and there was a special 'kraft' tin kept in the corner that was a source of 'inspiration', one never threw out the 'butts' of 'Charms' or 'buckshot' , ofcourse those were the days, with the 'Woodstock' influence, and music to follow with the mood. There were many 'Rock' groups at college in those days I recall the Pharaohs, Madhukar Chandradass' band, The Silencers, Spartans, and a few others. ( I may have spoken about the music scene in my music page ). There used to be lots of competitions and MCC used to have good bands also. The music competitions were usually held at the 'Music Academy'.
There were times that the 'seniors' had the advantage of beards and
moustaches to frown down at you, and drawing their 'lungi's' around their
waists exposing their hairy legs, sexy!! ha! Men so they called themselves.
We being 'freshers' to the slaughter house. There was once incidence that
I remember till this day, during the 'ragging' period. I was called
to one of the rooms on the upper floor in the Third Block so that the
view was covered from the warden, and the usual process was on , kiss the
door imagining your are kissing a beautiful girl (one did not need much
imagination to carry this out, as coming from Bangalore and seeing the
Madras girls in their 'half skirts' desperation really was the motto, I guess the scene has improved!),
diving into a puddle of water on the ground and swimming for dear life.
One senior had the brilliant idea of asking me to polish his shoes. I agreed,
he provided me with the polish and brush. I did remember that he wore
immaculate white cotton socks, and he was from Mauratius, I forget
his name.
I took the pair of shoes and did a good job of polishing
them, but I could not hold myself back from doing some mischief, and so
I liberally applied polish inside the shoes on the upper sides and returned
them with a smile. He took them and bragged to all the 'big' guys that
he got a job done from a 'young squirt', and they all nodded with held-back
smiles and some of them were from my school in Bangalore and my pranks
at school had preceeded me to the college, my 'gift' of a 'bloodsucker'
to the girls of Sacred Heart Girls High School getting 22 of them temporarly
suspended, and the only person who had a 'Mohawk' haircut in Bangalore
in 1965 and managed to convince the Principals of the schools that I was
pardoned by the other and so 'all ends well that ends well'. The next morning,
there was lots of confusion and a red faced puffing-billy of a fury came
to my door and threatened me that he would beat the living daylights out
of me, and by now the whole block was awake and all were roaring with laughter
that the 'old boy' was conned. Apparently he did not get on with them and
so this was a great pleasure to them. I told him that I had polished
his shoes and accidently polish may have got into the shoes, he then tried
to get me to wash them, and it was at this point that I told him in no
uncertain terms that I would throw him over the balcony if he did
not get out of my way. He was so astonished at being challenged, and I was
also quite surprised at my 'bravery' and seeing the stillness, got into
one of the 'Bruce Lee' poises and the guy retreated, much to my relief!!
There were many ingenious ways that guys got out of their rooms closing
it from inside with pulley devices that would draw the bolt open or shut
from within. Hostel life had it's own life-style. There were times that
the 'bell' was rung to get the Catholic boys up for Mass in the morning,
the poor boy who did the ringing stayed at a safe distance from the blocks
else he would have got a dousing of water on him. We all did look forward
for 'Mail' which was generally dropped through the ventilator over the
door, and if you had a leaky 'mudka' or earthern water container, you could
have a time trying to read it. Money was a source of desire more than women,
and anyone who had even a little was 'king' because he generally had the
funds to buy the 'fags', I mean 'Charms' or Charminar cigarettes,
and we would go and 'bum' them off him if he was a smoker, as that was
the bond amoung us smokers (Now it's over 20 years that I have given up smoking, and I guess
that because I smoked the real raw 'buckshot' that the after affects don't seem to show, except
for a slightly pregnant 'pot-belly'!!.
There was one particular end room on the top floor I think, that we always
frightened the inmates that it was 'haunted', as the roof was of pre-fab cement
slabs and one of the slabs had a child's footprint imbedded into the slab!!
College was another period of life that was so stereo-type and the only kicks one got out was to make fun of the pronunciation of the lecturers. I remember good lecturers also like Santiago (Maths,Astronomy), Ramaswamy (English), Fr. Gerviere the French Tank Commander, and many others whose names just slip my mind.
After all these years, Loyola must have changed, I really wish to visit
the place and go around the hallowed grounds where we spent our 'teething'
days. The other day I did come across some photo postcards from France,
and these were probably taken by one of the French Jesuits or the Paris
Mission Fathers, as they also covered other Jesuit Institutions like St.
Joseph's College, Trichy. These were probably taken in the early days of
the College, and I feel around the 1930's . There was no photograph
of the beautiful spired Chapel of the college, so it was before that was
built. Mathew Paul, Batch Commerce 1967 - 1970 Hostel, passed away 3 March 2004.
If anyone has some newer pictures of the College or from a different
era, please put them up on the Net and send
me a mail giving your URL (page address) and I will give
a link to the page. I will not ask you to send the pictures to me,
as they would be precious memories, plus I may not be able to download the files.
Cheers Ronnie Johnson, the Bangalore
Walla at Bangalore!
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