College Life

Writing about a life that hardly existed is somewhat difficult, but still as it is one of the phases of life, I thought I should write something about it, now that it has reached its twilight phase.

First of all, can you believe it … the little kid called Teen is at the twilight of his college life … frankly speaking, I myself can’t digest it. I am undoubtedly very happy that a couple of weeks from now, I won’t have to go to college anymore … there is nothing really pleasing about it, but I am also feeling awkward that another phase of my life is coming to an end … have I really grown up so much? I don’t want to become so big so fast … I haven’t had a proper affair till now … disgusting!!!

Most of the early 1990’s movies and many of them even these days center around college students and their affairs … it is difficult to digest that these movies involved people who are supposed to be younger to me … really weird.

I think I am going of the track… coming back to my college life …

IT WAS BAD…

The worst part about it was the timing – getting up at 5 in the morning day in and day out was painful to say the least. Especially, reaching college before sunrise in January was a disgusting experience. (I really pity the profs)

Then, apart from a couple of teachers, none of the teachers were any good. They just delivered lectures and went away, hardly arousing any interest in the subjects. Special mention must be made of 2 teachers – Mr. Lobwo, who taught us Cost and Tax (200 out of 400 marks) and Mr. Roy, who taught us FMO (50 marks). If I would have studied what they had taught us and gone and given the exams, I would have got 38% instead of 83% in part 1.

In the 3rd year, the pressure of C.A. Inter was always there and going to college was a headache. On one hand we had to study for C.A. and on the other we had the problem of attendance. We could never breathe easy. All that was being taught in the college had already been covered by us, and hence attending college was wastage of precious time.

Apart from that, the administration block of our college was as good as a Government Department, their sole objective being how to make life more difficult for the students. There were always huge queues for stupid things and the attitude of the staff was anything but co-operative. The weirdest thing was that after paying fees in the bank, we had to get it verified in the office. It is difficult to imagine that a huge institution like ours does not follow a computerized system for recording of fees paid by students. There are no computerized records of the marks obtained by us in the internal exams as well!!!

Coming to the junta… I was a clear misfit among the crowd. I basically found that most of the students in my college are extremely self- centered. There is no urge for gaining knowledge … I mean the basic objective behind education is getting a job (or being qualified enough to get a good dowry). Inquisitiveness was completely lacking. I also felt that they do not have much respect for the world around them. I always found people criticizing or mocking others … the basic attitude was “I am the best … the rest are all fools.” Best example was one of my classmates showing off that he had never read a book even in his school library with an air that people who read have such lack in life.

At this moment, I am also criticizing but I can’t help it. College Life was a major disappointment.

[But, side-by-side, I had plenty of tuitions and there I found plenty of good friends, so I never really missed college life. None of my friends at my tuition had the above said characteristics so I got along well with them and had plenty of fun.]

At college, I found a very good friend in Varun and I am really grateful to him for all the company he gave me during those boring hours at college. I also made 3-4 other friends at college and though they are not very close to me, I did have fun with them during classes at times.

That, in a nutshell, was my life at St. Xavier’s College. Just 3 more days or regular class and 5 days of exams and then relief. No regrets that my college life has ended. I can just recall one moment that I shall treasure … the ovation I got when I walked into the class after my Part – 1 results !!