I still remember that day when I first ushered into the gates of lush green campus to complete the admission formalities. As I went to the Dean office with all the papers, I politely asked the in-charge " Sir, would i get an accommodation in the hostel?" He looked at me with raised eyebrows " You're not eligible for hostel, didn't you read the prospectus?" I said in tumbling voice "Okay sir, sorry sir". Then I turned up to my father with a despair look on my face. He said "Don't worry, I will arrange some PG for you." But then I thought I shouldn't give Papa any trouble, he had already been in enough stress due to my lacklustre performance in IIT-JEE. So I said "Papa, I think I can manage from the home, it's only under 35kms". Though in my mind it seemed like I'm going to be travelling from some barren village in Bihar to Delhi every day. He looked at me with his shiny eyes and said" Theek hai Beta!!!" He was also enquiring students about the placements and packages, and somehow try to imagine how much would I get after 4 years; that rang some serious bells in my mind and I guessed it's going to be a new rat-race from now on.
In first year, I started with full boast of motivation and curiosity; enjoyed each journey to-and-from the home and university. I used to attend 5-day lectures every week with utmost sincerity.I made some beautiful friends, even though initially they struck me as weird nerdy guys but later became really special to me. In order to reduce the travelling distance, I started living at my relatives house:though they were quite modest with me in sharing roof with them; but that eventually began to unravel as months gone by, and the wrath underlying within those calmly faces busted out and finally erupted at the time of my end semester. So then I finally decided I would certainly not live anywhere else but at home.
In second and third year, I fully utilised each and every means of public transport in the city and over the course of time I began remembering the faces of local bus conductors and drivers. I could easily point out which person travels regularly and which doesn't. I also knew the boarding and de-boarding stops of most of the girl passengers. But couldn't gather enough courage to make any conversation with them. I was on the verge of becoming a potential stalker. On the work-front, I was just doing fine but unable to distinguish that how my college life is different from school life. It only felt like as if the school hours became longer and location is shifted to some 2 hrs away from the home. Gradually, I started losing confidence in lectures and reduced the working day schedule to 3 days per week. My other non-hosteler friends were facing the same scenario. It just did not made any sense that I was spending 4-4.5 hrs in travelling for the sake of 7 hours of sub-standard level of teaching and below par laboratory exposure. But who really cares, there are only handful number of students who used to be day scholars in a public university.
FINAL YEAR, this is the time of pinning down all the hopes of a family possesses of securing a well-decent job. From the beginning of first month of penultimate semester till the final month of the year, their tally of questions remain intact " How many companies have visited so far?" "How many students are placed in X,Y and Z company?" "What is the maximum package drawn by a candidate from your branch?" " When will that company release the list of selected candidates?" I kept them informed about the status of each company but there are always some things which are way beyond our control which shifts our prime focus and left us being shattered, lonely and demotivated. The only driving factor which kept me motivated to sit in those interviews is to make myself realise that I have spent these last three years measuring the length and breadth of roads connecting Delhi and Ghaziabad. That hardship effort must not go in vain or otherwise I would feel real devastated that I couldn't grab the opportunity on time.
On the brighter side, the life of a day scholar made me to develop a character of pure resilience and independent behaviour.