There are nights in hostel life that begin as ordinary and end up etched in memory — not because something grand happened, but because something ridiculous did.
It was around 8:30 PM in our engineering hostel room — our 'mini theatre,' where that CRT had played everything from Chak De India to Troy.
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| Below the book is our 'mini theatre' CRT |
That night, someone had passed around a pen drive with a fresh copy of Jannat 2. I just came back from dinner and thought, 'Why not?' My roommate joined in too, saying he'd watch for 'just 15–20 minutes' before heading to dinner.
Well, that '15 minutes' turned into the entire movie — and dinner became a distant dream.
By 2 AM, Nikhil realized he was starving and our room had zero food stock, not even a forgotten Maggi packet — the kind of crisis every hostelite understands.
He looked at me with that engineering hostel emergency face and said, 'Rohan, chalo, let’s go to the dhaba near the medical college.'
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| The Hostel |
Now, this dhaba was about 5 km away — 4 km on NH3 highway and then 1 km inside a smaller road.
At 2 AM, that distance feels equal to an expedition, but somehow, in hostel life, such plans always sound exciting.
So, we rode off into the night. Cool breeze, empty highway, and the thrill of a secret food hunt — life was simple, and happiness came fried with extra onions.
My roommate finally got his midnight feast while I sipped chai, watching truck lights fade into the distance. Life was peaceful — until karma asked for its cut.
While returning around 3 AM, Just a few minutes into the highway, the bike started coughing.
He looked down, paused, and muttered the words that can drain your soul at 3 in the night: 'Petrol sampla.'
Perfect timing!
We were about 3 km away from the hostel. Thankfully, the road tilted slightly downhill toward campus — so for the first 1 km, we coasted smoothly, powered by gravity and regret.
After that, it was manual labor — pushing the bike through the silent highway night.
Now, here’s where it got funnier (and scarier).
If we took the main highway, there was a chance patrolling police might spot two engineering students pushing a bike at 3 AM — guaranteed drama.
If we took the service road, it was home to the street dogs of doom — the real kings of the night.
We looked at each other, laughed helplessly, and kept pushing — whispering 'please don’t bark' every time we heard a sound in the dark.
We chose a mix of both — half caution, half stupidity — and kept pushing, whispering prayers and laughing at our fate.
