Free Someone Like You by Nikita Singh, Durjoy Datta Page A

engineering preparations, and how and why we couldn’t get into IIT. That is one topic every engineering student can use as a conversation starter.
How and why I could or could not make it to the IITs.
Soon, we reach the college and ask for directions to the hostel. The boys’ hostel is closer to the main gate of the college and Tanmay gets off there. He tries to offer me money for the taxi we just shared, but I refuse, saying that we will meet again soon and he could treat me then.
    The campus is huge. As I look around, I feel a little lost. There are loads and loads of people moving around, and I am just one of them. Remember the times when you stand on a beach and look at the never-ending expanse of water that stretches in front of you? And you feel like the world is so very big and you are such an inconsequential part of it? Well, this was one of those times.
    I enter the Administration Building and ask for the way to the hostel. The hostel warden, an old lady, takes down my details, checks the payment receipts, cites a few basic hostel rules, and hands over the key to me. It takes me three trips to get all my luggage to my room. Once I get everything there, I’m just too tired to do anything. But I’m too excited to relax either. The room is at a bare minimum, but thankfully, I had prepared myself for that. I arrange the lamps, the curtains and the bedsheets and the room starts to look a lot better than before.
    It strikes me that
I’m finally in college
.
    I look around the room—now much smaller after I unpacked my stuff. It’s not too small, actually. My room in Kota was way smaller, but then, I lived there alone. I have a roommate here. Which makes me think—where is she? Who is she? I hope she’s not too messy. I’ve never had much patience with dirty roommates and that was the reason I lived alone in Kota.
    After admiring what I have done to the room, I lie down and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. My last thought before sleeping is one of Simran and Akshat, and I find it hard to push it out of my head.

    It’s already eight in the evening when I get up and hear frantic footsteps outside the corridor. It takes me a few minutes to get accustomed to the new surroundings. I recall the wordsof the warden who had said that dinner would be served till eight thirty in the common mess. I get into half-decent clothes, splash my face with a little water and start to look for the common mess.
    It’s a five-minute walk from the girls’ hostel and my stomach has started to growl. I have hardly eaten anything since the long and tortuous train journey and I need to eat. I find my way to the common mess and I can hear a clamouring noise from far away. I enter the mess to see table after table filled with students—mostly guys—eating and chatting rather loudly.
    At one end of the room, I spot a long line of students with big, steel plates in their hands. I pick up one too and stand in the line. I wonder where the juniors are, since everyone seems to know each other. I start to feel a little lonely and curse my roommate—who hasn’t yet turned up—because had she been there, I wouldn’t have been alone at least.
    The line moves at a snail’s pace and I have barely reached the salad counter when I hear a voice behind me.
    ‘This is like the worst day of the year. All these freshers with big stomachs lining up for hostel food. But at least the girls are better this time. Good for all the juniors who have found their way to this shithole,’ the voice says from behind. There is a certain careless disdain in the voice. I wonder if he’s talking about me because it sounds like he is right beside me. I raise the plate up to waist level and look at his reflection in it. I can’t make out much of him, just that he has slightly longish hair that curls at the ends.
    He keeps talking and I no longer listen to what he is saying. I can feel him towering over me. For a moment, I feel like hitting him for