Hostel Nite

One of the most eagerly awaited events of the even semester, the hostel nites generally take place during the first half of April. This year Saraswathi's hostel nite was held on April 18.
Each hostel nite has a theme ... i have no idea why. The decoration is done keeping in mind the theme. This year it was ROCK ( i guess it refers to some kind of high volume music). So all the seniors had to pose with guitars in hand. These would be the photos that would be put in the Rogues Gallery (RG).
The hostel nite begins with a few lectures ... by the warden and the chief guest ... followed by the reports of the various secretaries. Then some awards are presented. All this while the hostel residents and their guests are busy consuming the starters ... nobody ever looks towards the stage. This boring period is followed by the dinner, after which the students present some programmes, like songs, dance or play. Again, very few are interested. People are waiting for the most important event of the evening, the Toast.
The toast is actually a formal farewell to a senior, and is presented by some junior. It contains some funny incidents and anecdotes from the senior's IIT life. Some pleasant and not so pleasant memories. Since IIT Madras has very close knit wings, toasts to an entire wing of seniors is presented by a wing of juniors with whom these seniors have interacted the most. Of course the information has to be collected from the seniors themselves ... who else would know. Preparations start days in advance. Stories about someone is given to the juniors only when that person is not there ... you are not supposed to know about your toast until the very last moment.
The material is divided into two parts. One part is presented in the Rogues Gallery ... which is a profile of the senior and is hung on the walls of the hostel during the event. This is for the public to read. Some of the more embarassing portions, which profs shouldn't read, are omitted and are revealed in the toast itself, which takes place later at night.
Our hostel nite was a chaos this time. Guests had started arriving and still the RG's hadn't been put up. It was put up late. Then we had a counter for Indian food, and a counter for pizza. Chaos again ... people literally had to fight a war for each pizza.
Anyway ... after the grub was over ... we were waiting for our wing video. This is a rather new phenomenon. Wings prepare short videos about themselves and show them. They are really nice. But ours took too much time to render and couldn't be shown before midnight, by when many of the guests had left.
No hostel nite is complete without drinks. But spirits seemed a bit subdued this time as some drinks were confiscated during the Mandak hostel nights two days ago ... and the hostel administration was up in arms against the students. But still ... the drinks had arrived.
Boys have this amazing habit of being extremely decent in the presence of girls, even though they may be quite unruly otherwise (reminds me of Ryan ... ). There was a girl among my guests ... and some 6 or 7 of us, including her, were in my room. The booze party had started outside on the corridor ... but most of us (that is, those in the room), waited till she left. After that the real party started.
I have never liked the taste of alcohol. Its repulsive, disgusting. But it has this amazing quality of freeing your mind from all sorts of inhibitions. You feel free and relieved like you have never felt before. All the worries and troubles of the world seem to disappear. You do and say things which you would normally be embarassed to do ... but now your real feelings are exposed. Some four or five of us spent the entire night discussing the love lives of some of our friends ... a topic that would possibly be taboo at any other point of time.
My toast was read out at 2:45 AM. After that we spent a lot of time gossipping and singing loudly. It was fun. At 6, we went to taramani to have tea ... and slept only after that. The last saras hostel nite ended ... but it was a night whose memories i would endear forever.