Ragging Days, Part-1

Within a few days I realized that our ragging was not an act of aggression or any kind of "Vulgar Display of Power” but it was actually some ways to open us up perfectly to the seniors. Our ragging period is one of the most memorable phases of my life. Every hostel/college has their own set of ragging rules and in our hostel also we had certain simple rules. 

1) Entire 1st semester batch  need to wear complete formal all the time.

2) The entire fresher’s required to wake up early morning by 5 AM and had to go for jogging.

3) We  had to introduce ourselves to each and every senior and that too in their own room and not anywhere else.

4) We had to memorize “full name, semester, block number, room number, branch, which place he belongs” for each and every hostel boarder, including the fresher’s.

5) Cigarettes and alcohol were strictly prohibited for the fresher’s during the ragging period.

Those were the basic rules and anyone who violated any of the rules had to face some kind of music.

It was quite painful to wake up early morning but once I woke up and got ready, I really enjoyed it. We all used to gather near the hostel gate and for the initial few days some seniors took the responsibility to escort us and also took our attendance. During jogging time all the 1st semester guys would be together.For the first time I experienced how does it feel to be a part of  such a big gang. We had the opportunity to know each other much better and during the initial days quite often we used to see some new faces. The landscape nearby our hostel is just awesome. The "Deepor Bill", one of the largest lakes in the Brahmaputra valley of Western Assam is very near to our hostel. Also the road from hostel to Saatmile pass between two hills and early morning it's too green and quite refreshing. Some of us used to hide cigarettes in our pocket and that was the perfect time to have them.

Now the level and type of ragging varied from senior to senior as well as the fresher to fresher. From my experience I think  it more depended on the fresher.  By talking to a fresher any senior would know very well about his personality and attitude. Some of us had some kind of attitude as well as ego problem. Seniors usually have hell lot of techniques to deal with such fresher's which effectively  lowered  their attitude and ego. I can remember one simple but very effective technique, the seniors used to send such guys to the nearby shops very frequently to bring their stuffs. Some of my friends were able to dance nicely and during entire ragging period they danced in one room or the other. Some  used to sing quite well and they had to sing many times. Not only that, the seniors even encouraged them to dance and sing during the college week on stage in front of the whole college and  the guys managed to gain some kind of crowd appreciation.

Some of my friends were too shy, decent and reserved kind of.  For those guys they had different kind of treatment. It usually started with the basic question “Do you use your hand?” Sometimes some seniors even asked to demonstrate, not the actual demonstration but only the expression part and they would not satisfy if the expressions were not candid enough. Now my good friend Prasu was quite shy initially. One day one of our senior asked him the same question and Prasu replied “I don’t do such things”. The senior was decent enough and only asked him to try it out that night. That day Prasu discussed with us regarding that and Nair immediately suggested him not to give such replies. Nair already had some prior hostel experience but of course not up to engineering standard. Nair and Prasu were from the same school but Prasu never had any hostel experience. Nair said to him “Look Prasu, even if you don’t do such things but whenever any senior ask you, you should always say yes. By the way, you really don’t do it?” Prasu replied “of course I do it man, who the hell doesn't do? We had a little laugh and felt good that Prasu was opening up gradually.

One afternoon I was in my room and all of a sudden Nair came inside with a new guy. Looking at him I understood that he’s our batch mate and might have joined hostel that day itself.  As I was in my shorts, he assumed me to be a senior and he had an artificial expression on his face, the kind of expression some fresher’s usually had in front of seniors. Nair said to him “No need be afraid of man, he is also one of us” The guy asked me “you are also a fresher?” After my confirmation he said in a very weird way “Bhaaaak sala” with an amusing expression on his face.  That was my introduction with Bhushan and I can never forget it. I was totally amused that time and thought the guy would definitely give us some entertainment in hostel and I wasn't wrong. 

Bhushan was one of the most entertaining guys in our hostel during our entire stay for 4 years. One evening one of our senior asked him the same question “do you use your hand?” Bhushan said that he doesn't and he even had some sort of argument with him and said he would never do such thing in life. The senior was very upset with him and he gave him a tiny bottle and asked him to fill the bottle latest by next morning or else the consequences would be very severe. That night Bhushan literally approached each and every fresher in the hostel and asked for contribution. He looked very tense and  said “Please contribute a small amount yaar, otherwise tomorrow they will beat me like a cow” We all were shocked and Bhushan got the same kind of reply from every one “stupid, are you mad or what? How can you ask such a thing to any one?” Next day we asked Bhushan “Dude, were you able to manage last night?” He replied “None of us helped me, I managed it  by myself” We asked “but you said you don’t do such things” He replied “what option I had? I don’t know what more things they will ask me to do?”

The jogging helped me a lot. Since my childhood my mother used to have a hard time to feed me breakfast. I just couldn't take anything early morning before going to school, sometimes I even puked. My mother used to give me heavy tiff-in and usually I and my friends used to finish it by 2nd or 3rd period. But during my ragging days, after jogging we used to have breakfast and I enjoyed it graciously and could easily digest 10-15 puris. During my first vacation one morning my Mom was so happy when she saw me having breakfast without any problem.

It took us a long time to memorize “full name, semester, block number, room number, branch, place he belongs” for each and every hostel boarder. Once we memorized that, to be honest we used to remember them all throughout the four years of engineering. Many of us still remember part of it even today after so many years. Whenever any guest used to visit our hostel looking for someone they would ask any guy they encounter. Say for example a visitor came to hostel and ask anyone of us “Can you please call “Nibaran Wari” The guy would usually escort him to Wari’s room.  On the way he might ask "Are you Wari’s father?" If the visitor would reply as yes then the guy would ask "so, you are coming from Barpeta?" We felt the kind of satisfaction and comfort on the visitor’s face.