Ho(s)tel California!

Don’t be misled by the title! This is not the story of a Californian experience, nor is it a sequel to the famous song by Eagles…
This is about the place where I live, my hostel. The infamous OCSC Hostel at Palayam, Trivandrum. In fact, every time I hear this song (Hotel California), I’m reminded of my hostel. The song even tends to speak a lot about OCSC.

After I got admission at GECB, Trivandrum, the next thing in hand was to get a place to stay. Great is our college that besides being a Government College, and established 8 years ago, it still doesn’t have a hostel. In fact the college doesn’t even have enough classrooms, let alone the possibility of a hostel! To every senior that me and my dad inquired about the availability of a near by hostel, their suggestion was the OCSC Hostel. I wondered what the reason behind this hype could be. One reason a few said was ‘cuz it was most near to the college’- it is only a 10minute walk. There were a lot of other reasons. The hostel is well disciplined as it is run by the MGOCSM- ‘I still don’t know what the heck that stands for! All I know is, the hostel is run by the Orthodox Christian Community’. And besides all these, it is a Ragging free zone!

The OCSC Hostel(the blue 5 storey bulding)

My dad and I walked to the so called OCSC hostel. Fortunately, we were accompanied by an inmate of the hostel, so we didn’t have any trouble spotting the hostel. As we walked up the road beside the AKG Centre, I could see a five-storey building looming ahead. The view of the hostel was large and I felt proud thinking that I’ll be spending the next four years in this hostel. But little did I know about what awaited me inside. I walked through the portal to the hostel and followed the sign leading to the Hostel’s office. There was an eerie silence all around, as though haunted by an evil spirit. A few feet from the gate, there was a small passageway to the right. I could see a small door at its end. I wondered what hid behind it. I looked up and to my surprise saw a bell hanging seven feet in the air just next to the door with a string swaying in the silent afternoon breeze. I walked ahead and reached the office. I looked inside hesitantly to see a man in his fifties clad in a cream shirt and a dhoti scribbling something intently. On our arrival, he raised his head a bit and looked at us peeping over his glasses which were resting low on his nose. We entered into the office. There was an array of questions that he threw on us, from my native place to my school, family, interests, hobbies, academics (to which he seemed to give a lot of stress!) and everything else. It was like attending an interview to get into a prestigious company. He told us about the hostel, rules, restrictions and fees. I half-heartedly agreed I’d comply by the rules of the hostel and he handed me the application form and asked me to fill it up. I was filling the application form when I felt somebody behind me at the office door. I turned around curiously in the hope to see somebody -like me- coming for admission. Against my anticipation, I saw a huge man dressed in an all white dress. He was over six feet tall and stoutly built. Fair and bearded, his whole body was covered in white except for his face and arms. From the first look I could figure out this could be none other than the warden himself. His large figure contradicted his silent entry into the room. His looks were frightening but still appealing. He took his cell phone and a bunch of keys and left the room without a word. We finished the other formalities for the admission, paid the advance amount and left. On my way back home, my mind was filled with the memories of the hostel and fear of the unknown. Even though tired of a hectic day, I could not take forty winks in the bus.

Two days later I returned to Thiruvananthapuram with my belongings to start my new life. We toured the city in the day and reached the hostel by around 6:30 in the evening. I took my mattress and my bags from the car and bid farewell to my family. It was a long way back to the hostel from the gate. It was already getting dark and I could see a few inmates scurrying out of the hostel. All this activity coupled with the dark atmosphere surrounding the hostel made me feel numb. I was allotted room no: 35 on the second floor. I walked in and followed the long dimly lit corridor in the ground floor leading to the stairway. The handrails were shaky and the stairs dusty. I walked past the reading lobby in the first floor which had an empty notice board on its wall. I climbed up the stairs and finally reached my floor. It was a long dark corridor with rooms on either side. All of them were painted yellow with the room numbers etched in white in a black circular background. My room was almost in the middle of the corridor on the right side. I opened the room with the key the hostel caretaker had given me and entered inside. I was flabbergasted at what I saw inside. The room appeared a concrete cubicle with two not so wide beds and two tables. Mine was a double room which meant I had to share the room with one more guy. There was no space in the room except for the narrow gap between the two beds and I wondered how I would be able to adjust with another guy in this rat hole!

My roommate arrived in a few minutes and as soon as he arrived, he took his bucket and rushed to the bathroom. I unpacked my mattress and was settling down when I heard a loud bell ringing. At first I thought it was the church bell in the nearby church. It was only when my roommate told me that I realized it was the ‘Hostel Bell’. He told me the reason he rushed to the bathroom- ‘everyone has to take their bath before 7pm, that’s when the bell rings indicating the commencing of the so called ‘study time’. It is weird to have a prescribed study time when you are no more school going students. I was reminded of the ‘mission bell’ described in the song by Eagles! After an hour, I heard the same bell ring once again- it was “prayer time”. Fear of getting ragged by seniors I joined a silent group of guys which I figured was the freshers in the hostel. We walked down, past the office and turned left to the dark passage way. The door to its end was open now and I could see inmates sitting down on the red coir mat in the hall. It was the hostel’s chapel. The evening prayer took 15 minutes to end and all of us walked to the mess hall for dinner. The bell rang once again indicating dinner time. It was needed to inform those non-Christian students to down for dinner. At 9, the bell rang indicative of the second session of study time. The hostel has a prescribed “mandatory study time” in the night. It is in two sessions- one from 7pm-8pm and the other from 9pm-10pm. During this time no inmate is expected to see outside their allotted rooms. Even though it is also forsaken to stay away from the allotted room after 10pm, it is a bailable offence!!! The Hostel Bell also rings at 7 in the morning- not as a wakeup alarm- but to beckon the believers for the Morning Prayer. This is compulsory too- for Christians. But since we being nocturnal, don’t even get out of bed unless it is 7:30.

The time for food is when the so called devils (inmates!) of the hostel ‘gather for the feast’. Well, we don’t have steely knives to savor our food, but instead we have to get it down our esophagus with our bare hand – which in itself is a tough job! OCSC is the best place to shed some fat. I personally have lost five kilos in the first week of my stay! The only thing that is eatable is ghee roast, which is served on Monday mornings. And the worst? Idlis – in order to keep the idlis soft, they don’t even cook it fully! What a tactic! After the sumptuous banquet :D, the devils return to their cells. Yeah, cells here refer to the rooms of the inmates. As I mentioned earlier, they are four walled concrete cubicles, which give a perfect Hell in a cell experience to the ones inside. And as always, hell is inhabited by devils, and we devils are a great community never observed in any other hostel.

The hell would be incomplete without the Leader – Lucifer! None other than the warden himself! He’s the one who reins supreme, the one who controls the three floors of Hell under his watchful eyes. Clad in an all white outfit, with a hood laid back behind his neck (I don’t know what purpose it serves!), the huge six foot figure prowls outside the cells of the hostel at night – in search of prey, literally. He’s on the lookout for some mischievous souls which roam around in the hostel after 10pm. He lurks around with his hands crossed behind his back (The Sethuramayyar CBI style!) and appears out of nowhere. Its only when the busted soul turns back that he realizes he is face to face with Lucifer. That’s when ‘he’ crosses his fingers!!! Once busted, they are given two more lives. The devils are given three excuses, and if busted a fourth time, the convict is penalized (fined). After that its sudden death – he can either be booked again (with fine) or exiled out of Hell (thrown out of the hostel, literally!). With the frequency of captures on the rise, each floor was assigned a watcher-cum-informer, who’d find out if Lucifer is on the prowl and pass on the message to representatives of the other floors. There has been a substantial decline in the number of captures since then!

A word on OCSC:

“You can’t check out any time you like (there are strict timings)
But you can always (at anytime) leave…!!!”

The legendary hostel is known for its three ‘-ells’. Bell, Cell and Hell!!


Epilogue
Nonetheless, the hostel in itself is a good one. And it is not a real Hell as it used to be a couple of years before. And the present warden – he’s the least strict in OCSC’s 32 year history. He’s one who understands the cry of the devils – probably because he is way younger than all his predecessors. And even though I hated my hostel in the first few months, getting busted thrice in a week, I soon got used to both getting busted and evading capture! But now, sometimes, I miss the place and the inhabitants more than my home.