Gloria – To God Through Education

It was my first hostel life, Gloria Boy’s Hostel, the place from where I learned and enjoyed life.

Whether its summer or winter we had to wake up at 7 for the group prayer. Our warden, Josettan will play some devotional songs from 6am onwards with the intension to destroy our sleep. Some special alarms will ring at 6.50, oh it was horrible. Some of us don’t even hear this alarm. Josettan will come and wake them up.

At 7 we all should be present in the study hall for the prayer. Most of us used to pray with our eyes closed, supporting our head over the nearby wall. The next routine was, as usual sleep itself.

Our class used to start at 9. All wake up around 8.30 and there used to have regular fights in front of the bathrooms.

We all will be eagerly waiting for Sundays to come. Only on Sundays we had the permission to go to churches, temples etc. Please don’t misunderstand that we were eager to go to temples and churches. It was our only way to watch girls over there. If three hours are allowed for the outing, we used to spend 15 minutes in the temple and the next 2.45 hours in the City Centre. We used to go up and down in the escalators of City Center just for nothing.

There used to have a moral talk by our Vincent sir every day after the dinner. Those talks were really touching, inspiring and motivating. The most useful thought I learnt from him is, “God has a plan with me, you and everyone… The plan is for our good and not for our bad… Don’t be doubtful about his plans on you.”, the thought that leads me in sorrows and difficulties.

I remember the amazing Christmas and New Year nights… the birthday celebrations… the silly fights… the rush for food… the sleepless night chats… the night songs… the detailed description of girls by Johnson chettan… the scent of Saran Sarma… the advice and prays of Emal Thomas… the jakkichaan (Tojin)… the suspected Nithin Raj… comedies of Koshy and Arjun… the stories of Javaan and Heeman… Unni and the Ninja… the thoughts of Vaisakh and Unni… Deepak, the genius… the spiritual Ajish… dumble dooor… Sankar  and his autograph book (we both were in the same boat)… Mathew the neutral boy… Madhu and his Song “Kariya Kacharaya”… The BIG man Harish… the speeches of Rishiyas… Alias and the kadukka water story… Dhanoop the buji… The thattukada in Thoppinmoola… Memories… As my memory is poor, I am sure; I might have missed some names… Sorry and Thanks buddies… Thanks for adding some wonderful colors on the canvas of my life… Without u all, my life must be missing some special tunes…

Wished to become a doctor, but Biology was always difficult to me except some colourful pictures in the reproduction chapter of NCERT text. So, how come I be a doctor… Yes, that was God’s decision… That was his plan on me… Finally, Dipu Haridas, B.Tech Engineer… 🙂