Yes! I am talking about hostels and hostel life. When I look back and recollect the time spent in my hostel in Delhi, I realise it has been an experience of its own kind. There have been good as well as bad times. There have been those hours of burning the midnight oil when we were busy preparing for our examinations. Nerves were cracking, lot of tempers flying, everyone snapping at each other and moving about the corridors like zombies. But then one always remembers those short and sweet breaks for a mug of coffee and a few snacks which on many occasions, turned out to be a prolonged chat-sessions ending abruptly when someone usually screamed and scurried away with a ``I have to study!''

And then there have been those little moments of sharing something or laughing and shouting or creating a racket over some anecdote which seems so inane today. Fooling the warden to skip off to rock shows, cultural evenings and dance parties was sometimes done with glee, forget the thunderous sense of guilt.

How can I ever forget the rumble in the middle of the night? You see, there was a leather designing student on the floor above me who used to express her creativity when I wanted to rest. If you have ever seen the tools used by leather technology students, you'll understand what I mean!

An inseparable part of the hostel girls was the phone. The moment the phone stopped functioning, some kind of tension paved its way immediately. "Is the phone working?" "No yaar, I had to make such an important call to .....''(this important person could be anyone from local guardians to boyfriends to classmates depending upon their ranking in the priority list of the girls). Did Graham Bell ever imagine in his widest dreams that his invention would create such a major upheaval in the life of the hostel girls? I doubt so.

We girls used to be perpetually hungry. Within an hour of having our meal in the hostel, we were rushing off to the nearest joint for a burger, a fudge or even one full pizza if we were feeling too gluttony. As a result most of us were broke by the end of the month and used to eagerly wait for that coveted bank-draft from home. Infact, a friend of mine was amazed at the frequency with which we hostel girls ate and one day he quipped, ``Are you girls starving since weeks or what?''

The television was a major source of conflict amongst the girls. Whether it was the Philips Top 10 or Picket Fences, major camps were formed in support of a programme with the remote finally going in the hands of the majority party.

But believe me, these were the very things which made hostel life so different and exciting. With the support of each other we could could face all highs and lows in the hostel. Most of us remember the hostel days with deep fondness.