Back in hostel, we girls would sun ourselves on the rooftop terrace. Weak sunlight would filter through wispy clouds as we shivered in the chilly Shillong winter. On the pretext of studying for exams, we would sit there with our books, munching on stolen unripe pears, wiping the bittersweet juices on sweater sleeves and counting crows in the sky.
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for letters
Four for boys.
We would determinedly look away if we see a lone crow. If two came flying, we would squeal with joy, the very sight of two crows becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Seeing three crows was the best deal.
The poor postman was bombarded every other day with hordes of excited girls asking, "Letter for us?" God forbid that he should come with just a bill for the wardens. Then all he would get would be a sea of glum faces, all staring at him mournfully. But on the days he would arrive with a good load, there would be masses of excited, happy faces all beaming at him, as if he were personally responsible for our happiness. And should his arrival coincide with that of the sweet-man's, then he had his face stuffed with sticky jalebis, rosagullas and gulab jamuns. Funny thing is, for such an important man, none of us knew what our postman looked like.
'Four for boys' did not have much of an impact in our lives. We could go out of the hostel only one Saturday a month. Sundays we could go to our various churches, but our warden made it a point to know how long our church services lasted, so there was no opportunity for larking around after services ended. So even if a suitable boy turned up, there was never any opportunity to meet him. Having Church crushes that we never dared to talk to anyway were the height of our romantic escapades.
If only life was as simple as we made it then.
One for sorrow.
Two for joy.
Three for letters.
Four for boys.
And should there be more, than we would just start all over again.
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for letters
Four for boys.
We would determinedly look away if we see a lone crow. If two came flying, we would squeal with joy, the very sight of two crows becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Seeing three crows was the best deal.
The poor postman was bombarded every other day with hordes of excited girls asking, "Letter for us?" God forbid that he should come with just a bill for the wardens. Then all he would get would be a sea of glum faces, all staring at him mournfully. But on the days he would arrive with a good load, there would be masses of excited, happy faces all beaming at him, as if he were personally responsible for our happiness. And should his arrival coincide with that of the sweet-man's, then he had his face stuffed with sticky jalebis, rosagullas and gulab jamuns. Funny thing is, for such an important man, none of us knew what our postman looked like.
'Four for boys' did not have much of an impact in our lives. We could go out of the hostel only one Saturday a month. Sundays we could go to our various churches, but our warden made it a point to know how long our church services lasted, so there was no opportunity for larking around after services ended. So even if a suitable boy turned up, there was never any opportunity to meet him. Having Church crushes that we never dared to talk to anyway were the height of our romantic escapades.
If only life was as simple as we made it then.
One for sorrow.
Two for joy.
Three for letters.
Four for boys.
And should there be more, than we would just start all over again.
14 comments:
i wonder why all my best and worst years were of Pine Mount and Pine Dale.A run to the letter box was every1's immediate action on reaching the hostel grounds.
Remember Moush, U, and I had once written a letter each to 3 randomly chosen guys from Sun magazine with fake identities and fake stories?? i was Clara but i forgot ur names.
And i will never forget the pear stealing sessions and injecting the worms with water...aww!!! miss those days!!jindabad to NG Stars who entertained me throughout my senior year!!
a lil correction..we injected caterpillars not worms....and while im at it..our room was the best of the lot..my roomies were and still are the best of the lot too
Age, thy name is cruelty! lol This one definitely makes me nostalgic. Gone are the days when even a 5-rupee alu muree was pure bliss,uii ka chil a put...
The above deleted comment demands no suspicion, its just a technical error on my part, posted the same comment twice :))
@Grace: Hahahah, I had forgotten about the matrimonial ads! :D I think I named myself Ophelia or Desdemona or some other Shakespearean character, and Moush wanted to be Estella or something :D Shame, we never did get any replies, didnt we, and we crafted it so well. I remember we described ourselves as "fair, homely, pleasantly plump etc" :D
Of all the roomies Ive had, (and Ive had lesbian-wannabe-but-failing-to-be, and then girls who'd leave tiffin boxes of weeks old fish lying around in the room)you two were the best (hope Nunu doesnt see this :D)
@Jay-me: Rawn leng ve rawh, today! Inah ka awm nasa ltk a, npi and xaua mangangin min chhuahpui dawn. Wheeereee, i dunno. And we shall have alu muri this month, and we shall be happy and gay again.
The deleted comment has been retrieved and examined through brilliant technological know-how, and has been found to adhere to the explanation provided by the commenter. I release you.
ahhh everyone who's ever lived in a hostel knows the importance of the postman, he was the only man whose arrival was eagerly awaited by a hundred girls. No words could explain the joy felt on seeing a letter under your door, and there was no sound sweeter than the postman's knock on your door. But with the advance of technology, postmans are slowly becoming an endangered species.
Back in our Military Hostel, if a senior got hold of our mail before us, we'd have to give him a "treat" at the cafeteria before they handed it over. And it was not a choice.
Receiving mails were exceptionally personal back then cos' it was Hand-written. And I'd take great care to make sure whatever I'd sent out was written on a nice letter pad, with a matching envelope and double-checked to make sure no spelling or grammatical mistakes.
And in Wiki, its:
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
And four for death... so does that mean boys are as bad as death? hmm..
I'm very curious about the caterpillar injecting sessions from comment above :) I thought the whole 'one for sorrow' thing only applied to mynahs. And yes even now when I see a lone mynah I make sure I look away immediately. Those hostel days *sigh*
@Aduhi: I know, I would sooo love to recieve a letter, specially a love letter, complete with perfumed stationary :D
@Black: Wiki-Shmiki, this our version and we gwan stick to it :P Wooo, such fancy letters you wrote. Mine were slap-dash, filled with end notes and side notes and tiny pictures all over, written on notebook paper with recycled envelopes :D
@Jeru: There was this huge tree on which a huge nest of caterpillars would hatch every monsoon. So one time, we Science students decided to get experimental and we injected them with some stinky perfume given to one girl :D Funny thing, caterpillars obviously cant stand to have cheap perfume in their blood streams, they explode on impact :D
Ku - that has got to be one of the grossiest things I've heard recently. Just reading that tugs at my bile
I knowww, what can i say, we were young and stupid and hugely curious :( Pangang kha an taaam ltk a, and they found their way inside shoes and clothes, hence the butchery. We, er, didnt repeat the injections, though, heh :D
Thought i was gonna read bout the rock band 'counting crows'.! Lolx =p
neway, interesting!
I was actually listening to Counting crows, "a murder of one" when I got the idea for this post :D
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