By Raza-ul Mohsin of 2nd Year

Yesterday was a day of fun and frustration. Like the last year the hostel authorities again succeeded in ragging us .The students didn’t agree to their ragging and did a mock demonstration at the hostel office. Student representatives were chosen who talked to the authorities, but the authorities failed to convince them. Slogans were chanted. A resolution was passed that nobody will participate in this allotment and so the hostel authorities had to postpone the allotment. The demonstration was fun but inside everyone was frustrated. Those were the moments when I really missed the peace of being at home.

Many day scholars get fascinated about hostel life when they hear hostellites telling them their "full time masti non-stop fun” activities. But things when seen from far always look beautiful .The reality is always very real and not so beautiful.

Being at short distance from college with no surveillance from parents and the freedom to do whatever and whenever you want are attracting features of hostel life.
Living in hostel is a great learning experience .You learn to be independent, you make your own decisions and bear their outcomes all by yourself. You learn to manage yourself, your activities and studies. You learn to take care about and do things that at home you take for granted e.g. washing your clothes, keeping up your room and doing the dishes.

But there is a dark side of every story.

While you are in hostel there is always a constant base line tension, the difference you feel the moment you reach your home. Being, a short distance away from university the sense of being at university remains intact. Things making you feel comfortable are few. The environment is competitive. You see people studying all the time in their rooms and reading- rooms. You have to deal with a great variety of people including those who annoy you a lot. IF you dare to study at the time when other people are not studying you are tagged as a theta and in future you are bullied on permanent basis. The food given in mess makes your appetite run away. You can’t sleep at night or study during exams if your neighbor decides to have fun using woofers and cries out songs in beautifully annoying voice. In off days when you can’t go to home and are stranded in hostel it becomes very boring. So people go here and there to minimize this sense boredom. But the city seems to have only a few recreational places for students and you ultimately get bored by going to same places over and over again. All these things with the feeling of being away from your family and missing the family fun moments make you feel the true importance of being at home which day-scholars obviously take for granted

As Ghalib said ask a patient if you want to know the importance of health. Similarly living in a hostel teaches you to cherish the experience of being at home. The moment you reach your home and see your parents and siblings all the tension gets soothed. Your appetite returns and you forget the worries about the university things. All the depressive thoughts vanish. You can study peacefully without worrying and getting depressed of what other will say and how much others are studying. You can have the food of your want and you know that your mother will not let you sleep without making you eat breakfast. At night when you are unable to sleep instead of changing sides on your mattress you can go and watch television or read a book without having to worry to wake others by switching on the lights. In the end you don’t have to worry about anything including changing your room every year when you feel settled in the previous ones and bear the annoying attitude of hostel authorities.