C-311
I liked the sound of it. 311 was the number of my previous room too and now in IIT Kgp I was again given this number. Perhaps just a coincidence. But whatever it was, I liked it. I signed the register for room allotment and asked for the keys. The gatekeeper of the hall looked at me as if I had asked for one of his lungs.
‘Your room partner has it,’ came the straight reply.
Now where did that come from? I haven’t seen my room partner (or roomie as I now call it) yet. I asked where was he supposed to be. Again I got a frown as large as the Huangpu Bridge. Something told me that this gatekeeper wasn’t very much used to questions.
‘Gone for the registration,’ another flat reply.
My IITian brain started to tick. The registration started at 9 AM. Mine was over by 10:30. Now I’d even had a small chat with some teachers (which I later realized are to be called Profs) in my department and wasted a lot of time finding this hall. For some reason, everyone who heard I was a first year and was trying to find out my hall was guiding me to a hall named triple m hall of residence though the website clearly stated I was not going there. Finally I’d found my hall. It was 12:30 PM now and this guy had gone for registration! With my keys! I knew it’d be tough to share a whole room with someone. I asked the gatekeeper if he had the phone number of this guy. He looked as if he was going to freak out now. How dare I ask such a personal question. Had I no ethics. He looked as if he would have smashed me with his palm. He lifted it up and took out another register. God he had so many registers. I wondered if the gatekeeper was on leave and the accountant had been made to sit in his place. He opened the relevant page and put his hairy finger on a line (yes his finger was hairy). I saw the name. Akshay Goenka, 09AE1034, 09747217986. I dialed the number. A voice which could have easily been personified to the Arbanian mountains replied.
‘Yes. You must be Vishal Gupta (how did he know!). Yes, you must be wanting the keys to our room. Yes, we are coming. We are just having lunch. Yes, we’ll be there in a while,’ and he hung up. I was like, ‘……’ What was I supposed to say. In all that running around I simply forgot I needed to have lunch too. Well, you are reminded of lunch only when you have your keys.
After around one hour, I was walking towards C-311 with Akshay Goenka and his chachaji who I realized had talked to me on the phone. ‘Thank God,’ I thought. Else how could one have lived with Mr. Arbania for four years! Chachaji unlocked the room. Well, he didn’t have to as the door had enough cracks and one punch would have knocked it off its hinges for good. And that’s one punch by me, I wonder if a fly would be scared when Akshay slapped the wall next to it with his skinny hands. Finally, after three attempts, the lock guarding Ali Baba’s treasure opened and we were facing… an end. The room had ended before it began. 10 feet by 6 feet, I estimated. Two beds, one chair, one table, three cemented door less racks, hanging plasters, posters of nude girls from different parts of the world, graffiti, broken window panes, dust all around and no bathroom in the vicinity. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I wasn’t shocked. I was traumatized and I use that word just to make you feel the gravity of my situation. So here I was. One small room, one skinny roomie, one ton of dust, one lan port without a laptop and the nation’s best engineering college. My life had begun.
