By Yashna Paliya, Batch of 2017
Note: This article was written in the Metro (with an auntie peering into my phone), because I spend a major chunk of my life in it.
The life of my kind is not an easy one. It’s not all fairy glitter, and to be honest, Paris Hilton’s dog probably leads a better life than a dayski engineer. But life has given me more lemons than this.
The hostels that everybody thinks the day skis want more than their long lost love, aren’t the best things in the world. We all know how the day skis have an upper hand over them.
Be it a hosteller or a day ski, food takes precedence over everything. I don’t have to seek solace in the food from Zayca. I eat food with ‘maa ke haath ka pyaar’. Everyday. Jealous yet?
I don’t have curfews over anything and everything. If I wish to take my plates, spoons, and filth with me, and watch TV while I eat my tasty food, by god ki kasam, I will. And I am pretty sure, my Dal was cooked TODAY. Just saying.
Also, I don’t have to share my room with a random female and have her put up with my ungodly ways of living (or vice versa). How else am I going to put up my posters of half-naked Beckham and inexplicable ones of Ryan Gosling? Ah, sweet freedom!
The Metro is an integral part of my life. Yes, I partly dwell in the Metro, and yes, I hear the announcer’s voice more than my mother’s, but the Metro has taught me a lot of things. When I stand there waiting on the platform and the screen shows 11 minutes for the next Metro, I learn patience. When I am sitting next to two Tibetan women animatedly discussing John Abraham right before my Physics exam, I learn perseverance. When people stand in the doorways and don’t get down, I learn to be calm. Hence, the Metro has not only been my travel buddy but also has made me little better, as a person. Though, I still snigger at people who scramble for seats. It’s hilarious.
We day skis (this strictly comprises hardcore day skis who live more than 20 km away and not the farce ones living in Dwarka Mor itself) are actually quite perplexed. You bombard us with “Ruk ja, ghissu” and “Itni jaldi ghar jaaker kya karega?” while the hostellers and pseudo-day skis run off at the first call from their warden or parent. What these people don’t understand is the sheer amount of time it takes us to reach home. It saps a large part of our energy and time. Please, do keep in mind the next time you roll your eyes at one of my kind.
Not everyone shares the same views on hostels though. God alone knows that some of us have tried to get a hostel, but all that our life has become is this Linkin Park lyrics,
“I tried so hard, and got so far,
But in the end, it doesn’t even matter…”