MY LIFE IN THE D HOSTEL AT REC NIT CALICUT

I lived in the C hostel of  REC Calicut for more than a year and it was time for change.At the C hostel my room mates were Binodanand Mishra and M M Shajan.The brother of M M Shajan M M Paulose was a senior IES official in Air India.Opposite to my room lived Gautham Hendre and Prem Vathore my senior in the corner room.

We had a lot system and the lots were picked in the ground floor of MB and within ten calls my name surfaces and was asked to go to D-312.This place called Calicut has always been lucky for me.I could not have asked for a better room.The view from this room was the MC.Opposite to my room came PVK Mohan who later went to IIM Bangalore and Girijesh Prasad Pandey was another neighbour.

In the C hostel we had shared rooms but the D hostel was single room and the single room meant a lot for me.The good or bad of this room is that I could see who was walking on the main road and the giggle and laughter of the students on this stretch and also the fights between student groups I could see.I can even now hear the loud and thundering laughter of my senior Khurana from this road.

In this hostel I befreinded two people.Deeptarka Deka who was an MTech student from Assam and my senior Sunil Khanna from Delhi. Sunil was a person with a boyish charm and I used to meet him often in this ground-floor room in the D hostel. I must thank Sunil because when he left he gifted me one of his arm chairs which I used to use in my room during my stay in the room. Sunil had a music player and his favourite song used to be "Rocky Mountain Music" by Eddie Rabbit. Another frequent visitor to Sunils room used to be Moza.

Whosoever designed the D hostel must be given praise for its succinct and compact nature ..excellent single rooms with two floors with broad corridors and stairways. The most relaxing thing used to be coming to the D hostel mess after lab work and sipping tea and biscuits. Gautham Hendre also used to live near to my room in the D hostel. Hendre used to be my room mate in B-315 and thereafter we were for all practical purposes living near each other.

Since the Mini Canteen was close-by most of the time was spent in the MC.The MC used to close at 12pm and we used to still hang oround in the moon light and the view of the D hostel from the MC with moon light in the background was something ephemeral.

There was a Table Tennis room in this floor and we used to unwind here after exams. Indradeep Singh also could be seen in the TT room. Sometimes all these persons used to be in my roomto play cards. My project -mate S R Sampath used to come to my room often during project work. Suresh Chandra Sathpathy is another friend I had here. Suresh is from Orissa. We used to go to Kettangal for tea often.

Somehow a year and a half went-by very fast and I remeber exitting this room on course completion to the Calicut railway station for all practical purposes my course here was completed.All  REC NIT students who lived in this room later can comment their experiences because this room shaped our psyche.