28th June, 2010
I arrive at the Bhopal railway station. A 14 hour journey from Mumbai. We reach our hotel. I rest my dust-covered face on the pillow as I hear my Ma telling me to pee before I sleep as I always get up in the middle of the night and disturb her. Irrelevant detail, I know.
29th June, 2010
I get up in the hotel room at 7 am. Bhopal. It's Bhopal. We take a cab. I see Hindi signboards everywhere. And Hindi is not Marathi. Greenery. Lakes. Women with scarves hiding their faces and gloves that reach uptil their elbows. Even in the Bhopal heat. Billboards about educational institutions instead of semi-clad women with enviable statistics endorsing so and so brand. I check my facebook page. 12 wall posts. All on the lines of the following : I wanna poke your eyeballs out and feed it to the wildlife of Madhya Pradesh for leaving. And so we reach the campus. A vast stretch of land with pretty buildings and a beautiful establishment which turns out to be the library (meaning I would have to make regular visits to avail myself of the air-conditioning.) Then there is a long admission process, with lots of formalities that totally freak me out and make me worry if I would actually get admission here or not. But I ultimately do. And thank God for that. I won't end up staring at the peeling paint of GLC's walls, afterall. I am allotted my hostel. New Girls' Hostel, formerly Second Boys' Hostel which still has the urinals in the bathrooms as proof. I arrange everything that I got from home - my pink curtains, pink bedsheet, lamp, teddy bears, travel-sickness bags, a life vest that I once stole from a flight et cetera. I eat at the mess that afternoon. Food's tolerable - that's my verdict. And then I head for my hotel and watch tv the rest of the day.
30th June, 2010
Television. Food. But mainly television.
1st July, 2010
We get up late, like real late. Classes start at 9 and it's 10 alreadly. I skip my bath (but not my breakfast. never my breakfast.) I change and rush to the campus accompanied by my Ma and Dad. They drop me at the Academic Block. I enter and see a professor teaching 'Common Law' (which i deduced from the following written on the board – ab+ac+ad+ae, so a[b+c+d+e] Yes, I am legend - wait for it - dary.) He asks me if I was prepared to attend class, which was a very valid question as I had come with my sidekick - my blue handbag which had around ten keychains hanging from it. I answer something very stupid and apologize profusely, while he and the future lawyers and judges of this country just laughed at me. I take my place and the rest of the lecture drives past me. I find myself daydreaming about Jude Law.
After the lecture we enter the auditorium to attend our induction ceremony. My Dad comes in and says "We are leaving" and sure enough he and Ma exit, leaving me all alone in the state of Madhya Pradesh for an entire trimester without even saying a proper goodbye. Soon after the ceremony, all the first years are gathered around and given a very casual pep-talk by the honourable seniors. I would love to expand, but am not at liberty to do that. We give our introductions in the following format - Name, City, School, Hobbies. And hobbies is where I got stuck, as unlike my worthy batchmates I was neither good at singing nor dancing. I just happen to be a simple girl who buys thermocol, cuts them into small pieces, colours them, keeps them in boxes and stares at them adoringly whenever she gets the time to do that. And she also likes to whistle when among a huge crowd and then look here and there like a baffled innocent person. Anyways, I make up a very sad hobby for the first day – reading books.
I go back to my hostel and change into my salwaar-kameez with a borrowed dupatta. It's a personal choice. Really. I take a walk with my friends in the campus and give introductions all along the way. “Why did you choose law as a career ?” I like Boston Legal. “How do you like the campus ?” Insects swarm my notebook screen all the time. Otherwise, its awesome. “Have you made friends here ?” Yes, I have found a few friends who are interested in reading. And so we complete our walk and get back in time for dinner.
We hang out in a friend's room till 2 p.m. talking about anything and everything. We talk about love, home, hajmola, moot courts, movies, vomit, torts, religion, nailpaint et cetera. And then we doze off.
2nd July, 2010
I get up at 7 a.m. I brush my teeth and spit toothpaste all over the basin. And then spend 15 minutes cleaning the mess. I diligently wash my clothes and hang them up to dry. I have a bath, wear another set of salwaar-kameez and eyeliner and head out for breakfast. Bread-butter, bread-jam, milk and paranthas. Good enough. I go to class. On time. I attend all the lectures and come back to the House, as my friend Jonny suggested we call it “to give the hostel an air of hospitality, instead of hostility.” We make a list of all the things we wish to do on the following sunday that included – parlour, movie, lunch, shopping and shopping. I google all the places of interests in Bhopal and we promise each other that we will visit all these in our five years of law school. We stay inside to save ourselves from another introduction round. We stay up till 2 p.m. And then I go to my room (Without making a visit to the toilet. I am independent now, Ma), lie down and look forward to another very similar day.
- Akansha Singh
No comments:
Post a Comment