The summer of 1997 was at its peak the day I first entered
Auxilium College, Katpadi (so that’s
what the ACK, stamped on the back of all the chairs in the auditorium, stood
for!) What was it about the place that made me decide to study there?? Was it
the fact that I was shunning city life after having had my heart broken? Was it
that I wanted to escape into anonymity after an academic debacle shook me to
the core and shattered all my confidence? Or was it that I wanted to show off
to my younger sister, who was now staying away from home in a hostel (all grown
up) … hah! what you can do I can also do … see?
I
missed my gang of friends terribly and thought that this beautiful college, nestled
among hills and tucked away in the middle of nowhere, was just the place for me
to mourn all that I had lost in life. Since I didn’t know the language I wouldn’t
have to make any conversation with anyone. Since I was so far away from home I wouldn’t
have to meet anyone I knew. All I was aware of was a sense of calm that had descended
on me as I looked up at the statue of Our Lady while passing through the
college gates.
How wrong I was!! Two weeks later, after having waved
goodbye to my father, one of the sisters introduced me to a dusky complexioned
girl with eyes that were just dancing with mischief. Sanuja was in my class, BA
English, and the next few hours passed by in a whirlwind of new faces and unpronounceable
names (Tirupurasundari, Vijayachamundeshwari, Shreevidhyalakshmi … I was lost
at the very first syllable!!!). Sanuja went on to become my partner in crime
for all time and life became one hell of a roller coaster ride.
I will never forget the first night I spent in the
hostel. My very first roomies – Manjula, Margaret and Bhavani – three of the
quietest girls in the entire college and me with my gunthroat voice!! In those
days the hostel rooms had NO fans and a big bright supposedly zero watt bulb in
every room. BIG problem!! I NEVER got sleep unless the room was dark. I tossed
and turned but was soon faced with a far more worrying problem. Forget lying in
the sweltering heat within a mosquito net, forget the absence of the fan and
the presence of the light, forget the fact that I was a thousand miles away
from home … I was hearing the sound of anklets!!! My mind raced to all the damn
horror movies I had ever watched and the night was spent in saying countless
Hail Marys!! The same thing happened the next night also. I finally asked Manju
one evening if she too had heard these sounds. She gave me a weird look and
then looked down at her feet and then at the feet of all the other girls around
us…all of them were wearing anklets!!!
How can I forget the midnight snacks,
the late night adventures, the whispered talking after the last bell, the wardens
(in their grey or white habits) appearing like ghosts for a final check before
they themselves retired for the night? What about racing to catch adjacent
bathrooms for myself and Sanuja, so we could bathe and still keep talking to
each other? Manju and the many times she came with me to the loo at night,
because I was too scared to go by myself? Maggie and her akshaya patra of a
snack bag?
The
very best thing about hostel life is that it functions as a microcosm of the
big bad world outside and is yet, in more ways than one, a home away from home.
Whether you are an only child or have a small army of siblings (like I had) we
are indulged in so many ways at home that we don’t realize that we are being
indulged in. But in a hostel one of the first things you learn is that you are
just one among many and that “I have never before” is a phrase that is of no
importance to anyone except yourself.
After my first night in the hostel I went to the
warden sister with a list of complaints about my room and asked for a change.
She smiled at me and said “There is no other bed right now. When I get a bed in
another room I shall let you know.” My room was changed, twice, when I went to
the second year and then again when I was in my final year. As was every other
students’ room. In the second year I went to the warden again with a request
for a change of room. My room was near the staircase and every morning the mad
rush of early birds who wanted to get ready at the crack of dawn, dropping
buckets and mugs and what else in their hurry, was not letting me sleep. Once
more she smiled and told me “Let me check. Come back to me in a week’s time if
the noise is still disturbing you.” Given time, one gets used to any and every
thing – perhaps one of the most important survival skills one can ever hope to
acquire, for life in a hostel and out in the world.
Another
fun part of life in a hostel is the infinite variety of people you get to meet and
know, who teach you all sorts of things, from how to be to how not to be. One
of my classmates was this extremely sweet girl who would beg others to act as
her alarm clock and wake her up, either to study for exams or to just be on
time for college and study time and meals. People would quail in fear when
requested to do so because she would abuse with the most colourful of regional abuses
and slang when attempts were made to wake her up. Once up she would be
mortified and so apologetic and contrite that it was a laugh just to see her apologizing
for what she had yelled out in her sleep. After seeing Manju in tears more than
once I took over the job. Since I didn’t follow Tamil it made no difference to
me whether she was abusing me or singing ragas and shlokas!!
College
life was equally fun because we would be seeing the same faces all over the
college – girls from other departments, the sisters from the convent, the support
staff who lived on campus, the teachers and students who lived in the vicinity
of the college and who dropped in on holidays and after college hours. As clichéd
as it sounds, we were all one big family. Amidst all the grumbling about the
rules the sisters made for us, the mess food which always HAS to be the worst
in the world, the salt water that we had to bathe in, the blanket ban on all
males between six and sixty from entering the campus, the sneaky efforts made
to smuggle in cameras and radios (hey, this was eighteen years back!!),
somewhere along the way I realized that my three years in ACK would soon be
over. And things hadn’t quite worked out the way I had planned.
I had
made friends for life (yeah, I’m still in touch with loads of my BA friends and
a reunion is in the pipeline), more than I had ever thought I would. I had
picked up a smattering of Tamil, enough to understand and be understood and
definitely more than enough to provide enough fun amongst my friends, even
today. I was in love with Ajith and had my classmates in love with Sharukh
Khan, after having regaled them with stories from his blockbusters (ostensibly
while doing group study of Milton’s Paradise
Lost Book 1). Twenty and thirty syllable names now rolled off my tongue
with buttery ease and I had even learnt to wear a sari all by myself! I was
totally able to rock the southie/madrasi look now, complete with flowers in my hair,
those infernal anklets on my feet, bangles and bindis and kajal and all!
Today
I look back at those years spent in ACK with so much of longing. Now married
and responsible I dream of turning back time and going back to the Auxilium of
my time. A time when I could be as crazy as I wanted to simply because I had
equally crazy friends. A time when I grumbled about the Saturday morning
cleaning, not knowing that, years later, I would still be following it like
clockwork in my own house. A time when following the dress code meant that
tee-shirts had to cover your butt and be thigh length. A time when there wasn’t
easy access to the internet and mobile phones and the highlight of the month
was the Tamil movie played in the auditorium.
I could
go on and on and on about my Auxilium, my college and my hostel, my teachers
and the convent sisters, my batchmates, classmates and roomies, the service
staff and the annas in the mess. From them all did I learn compassion, empathy,
friendliness, team spirit, confidence, humanity and, more than anything else,
acceptance. They all are my Auxilium. The Auxilium that was such an important
part of my past and an even more important part of my present and future, for I
am and will be but what I learnt from it, all those eighteen summers ago.
