Once, I walked into a men’s hostel holding Papa’s hands.
It was not the hostel
of the college I graduated from. It was
a warm Saturday morning and Papa decided to walk into the men’s hostel in
Trivandrum, my hometown, to meet the warden for some reason. I also went with him, as it was
too hot to wait in the car. Not that I had any interest to go inside ;-)
As it was weekend the boys had gone home, just a couple of
them were walking around shirtless and clueless. I was amused, by the shock they got when
they saw me. We stood inside for like sixty
to eighty seconds, during which the guys were doing the ‘Hangover’ act trying
to recollect what happened to them the night before. Beyond that many seconds, anyone with normally functioning nostrils cannot survive in that
building. Magazines strewn about, shirts hung randomly without clips, and that
strong weird smell. The smell of a thousand cigarettes, stale food and dirty
socks.
We came outside with the warden and they continued talking,
while I stood beside Papa mourning my dying sense of smell. Then a guy came
outside, dressed in a crisp shirt and jeans, shoes polished to perfection. He
wore sunglasses that looked branded, hair wet from styling gel. As he walked
past, I knew he wore some expensive perfume.
How can a person emerge out of that foul-smelling germ-infested
building looking like he came right out of the Cinthol ad? Like hooooowww?
Let’s cut some slack here, it’s not just the men’s hostel.
There are highly educated people whose homes look like the entire city’s
garbage exploded inside it. You wouldn't believe the sartorial brilliance they impress
us with post emerging from that trash can. Whatever happened to good hygiene
and housekeeping?
Basically my Mom had an acute OCD condition. She couldn't
stand even a microscopic speck of dust inside the house. She used to go to her
Mom’s place, which also had pets gallivanting indoors, and start cleaning.
A real
life Monica Geller. But when we were younger, everyone we knew had well-kept
houses, I remember. Even if I walked in to my friend’s place unannounced it
still looked tidy. Her room may not be the best example for it but teenagers
are excused. We had a lot going on in our lives and had to please a lot of
undeserving people, so tidying up the room was the last thing on our minds. As
we grew older and had to marry, life got so boring that we thought we may as
well tidy up.
Life in a hostel gave me a realistic peek into the
upbringing of people in a bigger picture. Till then I had shared my room with
my sister who too had an OCD, I was generally messier than my family but when I went to the hostel I realized my self-worth. There were girls who left cooked Maggie noodles
in their rooms during semester holidays, and returned to a room of worms. There were others who dint mind sleeping with detergent powder, cloth hangers, books, shoes, water
bottles, plates, plastic containers on the same bed. And there
were others whose rooms looked like seven star hotels. There were rooms that smelled so good and stuff
kept so neatly even though none expected any guests in their rooms. The super clean
rooms did impress me, but God I could not believe that people can be so lazy
that they choose to sleep with a thousand random things on their beds instead
of clearing them! In comparison my room looked like one straight out of a Karan Johar movie. And my parents thought that I was the laziest and messiest one!
Parents were not allowed inside the
hostel so there was no way to prove otherwise. Sigh.
When I graduated college and started working in software
companies there were colleagues alongside who coughed nonstop and others with
conjunctivitis in closed cubicles striving to meet deadlines that
were more important than life. I graduated from messy, unhygienic
surroundings to a whole new level of contagious diseases.
Now where do I start?
