The New Year's night at Hostel

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Hostel life can be so much fun. It has not only given me a sense of freedom and has made me independent and more responsible but it also has taught me how to have a little fun in life and that is all due to my friends. Initially I didn't like staying at this unfamiliar place,  away from home, among strangers. I had never lived away from my family before. But gradually as time passed on and I got to know my classmates, I settled down and started to feel better as I made quite a few good friends here. Even then,  during the semester breaks, usually I used to leave for my home. Prior to this, I had never stayed back at the hostel. However this time around, things were different as I had my semester exams coming up in the first week of January and since I had fallen sick a few days earlier and had missed quite a few classes, so I felt my preparations weren't that good. I was nervous and I feared that I won't be able to clear my exams. So I thought it better to to stay back at the hostel and prepare rigorously for my exams rather than going home during the winter vacations to be with my parents. Being a book-worm all my life, it didn't matter to me much whether it was Christmas or the New Year's night, I would have anyway remained lost among my books. My friends were actually true, that I was very boring. This year too, during the winter vacations, I remained busy with my exam preparations even on the Christmas night. The last few days of December were spent with my study books and shuttling between my hostel-room and the library.

My room-mate Priya, however is so unlike me. She is a free-spirited and a fun-loving girl, she is such a live-wire that she can bring energy to any dull room. She never misses an opportunity to enjoy the happy occasions. Though there were times when from inside, I too was wishing to join her, but my shyness used to hold me back and somehow I would decline her invitation every time. This time too, she informed me that she along with some of our other classmates were keeping a costume party on the New Year's night to welcome the New year and asked me if I would like to join them. I was reluctant at first but I don't why, I accepted her invitation. May be because I wanted to see for myself, how they used to enjoy. Because back home, I always used to have a very quiet new year's night with my parents. Momma would prepare some Bengali dishes for the night and sometimes even used to bake a cake, if she was in a good mood. We all would have an early dinner and then would sit together watching the new year programmes on TV. Just as the clock would strike twelve, we would wish each other and would make a few phone calls to our friends and relatives too to wish them, before going back to sleep. But here, at New Delhi, I had no idea how these girls celebrated a New year's night at the hostel.

As the evening approached, I could hear some faint music coming from the downstairs, some of the girls had probably already started their party but they were my seniors and so I was too fearful of them to go and see what all they were doing. Priya stayed back and didn't come to the room after our dinner, but I knew that she would be busy preparing for the party. So I remained in my room and continued studying. A few hours later, I heard a few knocks on my door. When I opened it, I couldn't hold back my laughter after seeing Priya and the others dressed up the way they were. They all looked like vampires and ghosts but rather than feeling scared, I found them very funny to look at. They had all sorts of colours on their faces and they were hardly recognizable. They told me that we were all going to have a costume's party that night, on the hostel's terrace, to celebrate the New Year and also asked me to get dressed as a ghost. I had never celebrated a New year's night outside nor had ever spent it with friends. So though I was feeling nervous, fearing the punishment that would have been given to us if we were caught by the hostel authorities for spending the night on the terrace, but I couldn't resist the temptation either. The idea definitely seemed exciting. So I too joined them, after getting dressed up as a ghost wearing white clothes and smearing my face with the colours that they had brought. Smriti, another classmate of mine and the smartest of us all in the group, had made all the arrangements for food - she had bought eatables from the money that we all had contributed - there were pastries, cakes, samosas, packed biryanis and roasted chicken pieces too along with a big flask of hot ginger tea. She had also brought a few crackers like anars and colourful rocket bombs. Now winter remains at its peak during the months of December and January in Delhi and that night too was freezing cold. The girls had even managed to bring some firewood, we lit it up and sat around it. But it was so cold that night that we all were still shivering, and clattering our teeth. We could hardly keep ourselves still in our costumes given the bitter cold that had engulfed the night. However it all changed in the span of a few minutes when the party began. We got so absorbed in the party mood that we forgot about the cold. In spite of the chill in the air, we had a wonderful girl's night on the terrace. We danced together, we ate together and we even played a few games. For the first time in my life, I had so much fun. Then as the clock was about to strike twelve, we all got ready with the crackers. Exactly at the stroke of the midnight, we lit them up. We all then looked up, gazing open-mouthed as the horizon came alight with colourful fireworks. The sky looked so beautiful that night with the sparkle of the fireworks. We hugged and wished each other, we also made the customary new year's resolutions (knowing fully well that they would get broken only a few days later) and we danced again for a few minutes more. before going back to our respective rooms.

I had never had so much fun before. I never knew that a new year party that too spent at a hostel, could be so much fun and exciting. But more than the occasion, it was the time I spent with my friends that made the night so memorable. I got to know each of them better that night and in a way, I too opened up with them for the first time ever since my admission. I remained totally oblivious of what would anyone think of me if they found me dancing wildly on the terrace. Owing to my shy nature, I could never express myself freely before but that night I felt so unburdened, I felt like a bird. Prior to this girls' night out, I was feeling so tense about my exam-preparedness but the fun-time that I had with my friends that night, the few hours that I had away from the books, acted as a medicine and cleared up my cluttered mind. I felt so relaxed and happy from within that I was no more scared about my exams. I felt so positive. That was all because of my friends, I can never thank them enough. I hope I will have many such happy times with my friends in the coming days too.

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