Junkyard

Yes, the title is inspired from Harry Potter’s famous tag line:

“The boy who lived”

Let me begin,

I had heard that, the only ones who took admission here were here because; they couldn’t ‘get-in’ anywhere else.

I hated being a part of this. I could get admitted in any college of “my choice”.

I opted all the best ones out and joined the college which I least wanted to be in.I thought I’d made the wrong choice back then!

I called this place names! I would say it out loud, even in the premises that I want to ‘just get out of here’ as soon as possible.

My favorite line last year was, “I want a button for a fast-forward this year.”

I was horrified by the ugly looking faces of other students in my bus every morning. The seniors (both students and other elderly people) were such that, there was no trace of smartness or a single glimpse of a scholarly or extra-curricular act on their almost-always painted clothes or faces.

About the Lecturers, I think, most of them (not all, but most), never knew the subject well. Sometimes, they confused us. They could never answer our queries. Well, eventually we stopped asking them any. (May be because asking them queries was like challenging them. And that would annoy them. And if we did that, we would not have left ourselves any chances of getting good ‘internals’ and we would be rather the target of constant humiliation , taunts , dark looks or what we call ‘khunnas’ )

What about the infrastructure? If you ask me that, the answer is: They promised us world-class infrastructure in those ‘glossy’ brochures. But, the building wasn’t/isn’t even painted. Sometimes in initial days, while entering we even had to make our way, on one leg, through bricks, big stones, cement and sand. And the Accounts Section, Students Section or Library facility almost would threaten/haunt/harass/bully us.

What else is left? The atmosphere was good only when it rained. Rest whole year we would be ‘ever shining’ with the scorching Sun rays.

Apart from this for past three years, (Yes! I have stayed (or should I say somehow survived) in such place for 3 long years), if someone inquired about my college and if I said polytechnic, their faces would invariably be ‘the look when one is disappointed, but doesn’t what to show that, and says, “oh!” The face is sympathetic.

So, It’s hard to describe in words, but I still am unable to resolve how did I manage to survive in this place, where I would be, for 6-7 hours each day, each week for about 30-36 months or what my friend calls : “1095 days”. In short nothing was, ever ‘cool’ or ‘nice’ about my college.

But, I don’t have second thoughts, while saying, Now that it’s all about to end,

“I miss it. I miss my college. I miss it all.

And I won’t mind spending some more time here.”

See, Datta Meghe ji, we are willing to stay here, but please don’t ask for more money. We have paid enough. But, we never have had enough.