A typical weekend in a girls' hostel

In the shower , she scrubbed and scrubbed . Her hands , face , arms , legs . It was not that she had waded through a swamp to get here , but the dirt that stuck to her was more of an invisible kind . She had grabbed strange , muscular , sweaty arms and taken bp recordings . Trying very hard not to look into those eyes. Trying not to hear the heavy , tobacco -tinted breaths. “Professionalism , professionalism , concentrate .” The wiry ma’am would scream in the classroom , when she taught catheterization of the male to a bunch of giggly , red-faced girls . She would clap sharply to break teenage reveries. 

She wished the ma’am was there, when the b.p. recordings and pulse had to be taken . Some times , her eyes would stray to the patient’s face from the watch , and she would find a pair of dark , brooding eyes staring soulfully at her . Scrub the face .Scrub .Scrub. 

M , two years senior , would start banging on the shower cubicle door -“Taking too long ,girl . Others waiting in line .”

Everyone adored her . It was strange. Any one remotely aggressive and a shade scholarly was immediately adored in the campus . Those two qualities transformed you into a demi-god . 

She would emerge dripping , in a nightie , hitched up  to the knee , wet all over , averting gazes and apologising . Lugging a heavy bucket full of washed clothes , she would make a dash for the terrace to find all lines full. "Damn, where should I dry my clothes ?" 

Sundays were bad days for washing clothes . Especially uniforms , as they could be mixed up with million white uniforms fluttering in the noon time breeze. And stockings ,caps . anything white for that matter. A lost her white hanky in a specially sweltering day in May, and discovered it in the month of July , in the kitchen , being used as a dishcloth , to wipe thousands of steel plates ,by an assiduous pantry boy called M, who had no idea how the cloth happened to be there.

Anyway, flapping in her wet nightie, she dragged two plastic chairs from the verandah and draped her wet things , still smelling of Ariel excelmatic , the only detergent made for washing machines ( as the ads claimed), and prayed that may her clothes dry in peace .

Having changed into something dry , she rushed to the dining room , where the early morning crowd had already decimated everything edible . She was left with a cup of seriously luke warm tea , two dry tenacious toasts, and a boiled egg that had exploded in the boiler , and had lost its yolk, somewhere on the way.

Library was  bereft of the weekend crowds ., except for a menacing looking senior , who gives an absent nod to her cheery greeting , and later disappears behind teetering piles of books .She saw crowds of freshly bathed people surging towards the gates , and felt grateful.

 Half an assignment later,smell of fresh pakoras hit her nostrils and , plonking down the books ,  she walked into the dining room to have a cup of really hot tea . As the hall was deserted except for two more juniors , she decided to have one more cup of tea and took one extra pakora. She might as well make up for lost yolks.The pantry boy gave her a bleary eyed look , but said nothing.She knew she was taking someone else's share , but most of those girls are already hogging dosas at Riya's on the M.G.Road , so what about it ?

Reentering the library , only sound would be that of furious scratching of pen. After a little while , she feels the intense gaze on her . A pair of glasses on top of a now shortened pile , would be staring at her. Peering closely , she saw the rest of the tousled head and eyes, "Is there some tea left for me ?" She looks guiltily around . She should have said-"Go and see for yourself ." But that would have been denounced as cheekiness and in subordination . She dumbly nodded and went back to her book.

Afternoon , 3pm , having finished two and a half assignment , and having stuffed oneself with vast amounts of chicken biryani (No crowds , hence picked all the chicken pieces off the 'parat')

She would be out till 5pm. She would have napped further, hadn't it been for her noisy roommates coming breathlessly in ,hysterically discussing the movie they had just seen , in loud shrill voice , and  showing off the clothes /shoes bought.A carelessly thrown sandal rolls over to her and deposits generous amount of mud on the stone floor . 

Evening dinnertime , the shoppers would be in a state of panic . Unfinished assignments , uncleaned uniforms and unswept rooms would pile up. Shouting matches broke out . 

Then she would remember her uniform . racing to the terrace , find her uniforms had been sat upon , as callous sitters do , and was crumpled . Partially wet too. For ironing your clothes , you stand in a queue. You stand in a queue for practically everything. Her turn came , she pressed her uniform , and one set of coloured clothes , put them out to dry by her bedside chair and raced to the kitchen , to catch a bite . There , some one will offer half their burger -king burger , in exchange for letting them copy your assignment .

Finish a letter to your mother which you began last friday , seal it and try not to crumple the uniform drying on your chair-back.

She takes out her best bedsheets and counterpane ( a new word , meaning a bed-cover ,not related to the windowpanes , by the way ), folds them , trying to make them look new . Her fiesty room -mate is painting her presentation charts , so naturally , she sprays watercolour onto her pristine white bedsheet . 

Another  girl ,in a frenzy of unfinished assignments ,  leaves her felt pen sets , markers, half finished chart papers and books , open on the bed , and saunters off to the next building ,to chat about movie stars and gobbledygooks till kingdom come . Nightfall , she would still be missing , and her felt pens would be drying on her bed.

Morning , she would be ready before others , bathed , resplendently white, in a borrowed uniform , and spreads an expensive , white embroidered counterpane on her still open and drying felt pens . The result appears as if some one has tried to cover a scale model of himalayas with a pretty fabric.Eight hours later , all the himalayan peaks have assumed multicoloured hues from open felt tip pens .

Room inspection on Monday morning. Iron boxes , and all even remotely electrical gadgets are concealed with care . In bulging suitcases, on cupboard tops , where they are less likely to be bayoneted by prying eyes of nosy "room inspectors". Hoards of magazines , novels , foodstuff, anything out of the ordinary , is "suspect" and likely to be confiscated . Even letters from home are not spared . In some cases, they are read , re-read, layers of hitherto concealed meanings discovered , and again confiscated. Nothing is sacred or private . This is police state, and the "big brother "is forever  watching you.

In a haze of perfumes, talcums , and "ariel excelmatics", roll calls are conducted , and all sigh. Thinking of carefree walks on promenades , movies and burgers. Looking forward to another weekend .