Sunday, September 19, 2010

Return to hostel

Three months of complete carelessness and placidness, throughout which all that used to worry me were very trivial matters such as deciding on novels next to read, coming up with ideas to write new blog posts about, and getting together with old pals, passed away very quickly. And now it was time to get back to the normal routine, no more staying late at nights and waking up late till afternoons. It was time to pack up little of my belongings and get back to the wacky world of hostel life.

I go through the weirdest feelings each time I travel from home back to the hostel. And to put into words those feelings has always been the most difficult task for me. I am not sure if those feelings can be termed as anxiousness, excitement, enthusiasm or plain homesickness. But one thing is for sure that they have become integral and inescapable. Thus this time around as well, I experienced those same feelings with a bit of inquisitiveness, predicting and trying to figure out how state of affairs would be at the hostel. Some major changes were to take place. I and my senior roommate were shifted to a new room where another freshman was to join us. Countless questions stormed my mind during my two hours journey from Hyderabad to Karachi which seemed like an endless one. How is it going to be staying in a new room? Will I be able to get the corner bed? Will my new roommate be friendly and sociable? How is it going to be meeting my old buddies?

But one thing that hostel life is very closely associated with is homesickness. During my first year, I suffered terribly from homesickness. There weren't any familiar faces to be seen. You're all alone without family and friends in a world of strangers with no privacy of your own. You miss homemade food, and you miss out watching your favorite TV shows. Continuously trying really hard to form an intimacy with your seniors and please them, you try your level best to adjust to this place where you have planned to stay for at least a few more years. In the process, you sometimes feel extremely miserable that you even start wondering why you ever decided to come to this place.

But eventually, you learn to cope with the situation emerging as a more strong and independent person all together. And it is only then that the hostel life offers to you its real charms. These charms are the stories so exceptional that you will never forget them, experiences you're proud of having experienced, characters you have so closely observed, lives you have lived, surprised parties you have organized for your friends, quarrels you have solved, friends you are so fortunate to meet, movies you have watched till late at nights, deliveries you have made, and little life's lessons that you have learned. It's nothing less than an exceptional stay at a place where you get to learn a lot. If you feel school and university have taught you all that was required, hold back with this opinion until you get into a hostel. And honestly, you're surely missing out something if you've never stayed at a hostel!

5 comments:

Maryam said...

Hostel life sounds dreadful! Although I guess all that freedom i something you should be happy about :)

ashlaghari said...

these memories are life, and give different pleasure in old age

Yusra Zainab Laghari said...

@MK: It's a mixture of really good times and bad times. There are days when you are in really high spirits but there are also days when you feel completely dejected. But on whole, it's an exceptional experience staying in a hostel.

@ashlaghari: True baba, but I miss your company.

Paras said...

i liked the last paragraph...hostel life is such an experience that u are never goin to forget ur whole life.no one can snatch away these memories from u...the time we spend together yusra,is a truly amazing time.althogh it's never going to be same as home but we make our own family here, like we've made...and we live it so good,no one can imagine that...and especially the hostel life IBA offers, i dont think any other uni would ever offer us, ever!!

Rafia Unar said...

everytime we experience something new, sometimes we get amazed and sometimes it is too hard to cope with!! but eventually we learn to deal with it and those moments are then stored in our memory as the wonderful years of our life!!!!