Bleh

Some may jump for joy when they hear that Anoorag/Tuku has been granted admission to Vellore Institute of Technology, but I am certainly not one of them. Maybe I am new to this hostel business, but it seems a rule that people in the room are not allowed to communicate in English. It's not personal, I quite like Hindi, but speaking it 24/7 is something I'm definitely not used to! We're supposed to sit for an exam through which they evaluate our fluency in the english language, but I swear atleast 50 % of the questions in the paper itself were grammatically incorrect! Then there was this guy seated beside me whom I decided to start an idle conversation with.

Me: "Hey! Which batch are you in?"

Random guy: "Hindi mein baat karo...mujhe angrezi nehi aati!"

Me:"Err...isn't this an 'angrezi' exam you're sitting for?"

Random guy: " Kya angrezi mein bake ja rahe ho??"

I am not saying it's compulsory for someone to know english to study in this place, but why humiliate them by taking an exam on it? In fact, why humiliate yourselfves by setting questions that break all rules of the language anyway? I mean, it's definitely not a necessity to know a foreign language to earn a degree in our own country, is it?

Somehow, I always assumed that people anywhere in the country would be familiar with Hindi. The indigenous people here seem to be oblivious to the fact that a language called Hindi actually exists. And the people who do know hindi, do not know english. It's a very hard problem to solve. My roommate today spent 10 minutes trying to explain to me that he had a game on his laptop called "Tom Rad". I naturally assumed that it was some lame-ass game with a beach guard named Tom Rad....It was later that I realised he was trying to pronounce Tomb Raider.

Then there is the staff who work in the stores, shops, etc. The only way to get their attention is to call them 'Akka' or 'Anna'. Anna means brother and Akka means sister. And the people get offended if you call them one in place of the other. I don't know, somehow Akka sounds more masculine to me than Anna. In any case, if your bill amounts to something that can be rounded off to a higher number, they don't bother with the change. They'll just hand you five toffees instead of giving you your 5 bucks! I don't even like toffees.

Then there are restrictions! Restrictions everywhere you go! Which means inside the campus as you're not allowed anywhere outside. You're supposed to be in the hostel by 9 at night, which is cut short to 7 on Sundays. Way to ruin my weekend! Then there are the other 5 clowns who share my room. They're decent clowns, but I need my space. If there are two things I ever wanted in my life, they are privact and a life. Is that too much to ask for? And yeah, grades! I'm never gonna get those here, especially since I can't get head or tail of what the teachers talk about. The only words I could catch so far are 'Permanent Hardness' and 'Temporary Hardness' in chemistry class, both of which I'm pretty sure I have lost by now!