Being new to the city, I had no other option but to take help from my dad’s friend to find out a good place to live-in. After his a few days of constant search, he found me a place close to my office, which was more of a house than a hostel, where the ground floor was occupied by the house owner, and the first and second floors by us. By ‘us’ I mean ten or fifteen working women from various parts of the state. I moved-in soon, but was surprised to see the ‘kennel-like’ room that I was allotted, with no door lock. When I asked the reason behind this special ‘construction’ of the door, I was told that the bathroom attached to my room was actually meant for five, which includes me and my roommate, along with three other girls from the dormitory, and the door lock was removed for the sake of everyone’s‘convenience’ to use the bathroom whenever required. Although the dormitory and our room had a common door which could be locked safely, I never wanted to take chances, and hence used to lock our room too, by tying the door to a nearby iron window, using a very tight rope. To assure my safety, I also used to keep a sharp knife under my bed.
We were two in the room, and my roommate was someone whom I would call the queen of flirts, as she had almost three to four boyfriends at a time, and spend the whole night chatting with them, taking turns every two hours or so. Initially this didn't hurt my sleep, but there came a point where I started getting troubled, and had to tell her on the face that she was getting on my nerves. That didn't stop her from the daily ‘night shifts’, but she stopped disturbing me with her gibber jabber.
After a few days, a girl of the dormitory, with whom I had little interaction, told me something about our house owner, sending shivers up my spine. The fifty plus man used to show pretty high interest in women. He invariably joined the inmates gang in evenings uninvited, flirting outrageously with everyone. Though I kept a safe distance, I never took him to be a womanizer. Later I started noticing his manners closely, and was taken to surprise when I saw him getting ‘pallier’ with a few inmates. A self proclaimed Reiki specialist, Reiki was just an alleged reason for him to touch the hands and shoulders of the inmates.
We had a hard faced and uncouth maid who used to decide the daily based on her likings and the likings of the house owner’s family, or in short, we were the ones who were paying money, yet were denied even the right to have the kind of food that we wished for. Kitchen, a pigsty, was maintained as that, the reason why I was once badly infected with food poisoning and was bedridden for almost a week. I was in my room tired and exhausted of constant vomiting, with no one to take me to the nearby hospital. My mother had to travel long two hours to reach the city to take me to the hospital, and till then the house owner and his ‘dutiful’ wife were keenly watching the one international cricket, and the maid enjoying some classic songs.
House owner a 'wrinkled Romeo', a ‘kennel' for room which lacks every means of safety, an in-hygienic kitchen managed by a rude maid, with a few cantankerous inmates; failing to take in all these anymore, I vacated after three months.
Thus I moved to the third hostel, which is my present abode.
Live in various hostels Part 2
I am back with the continuation of my hostel saga! Here goes the second part of the story! As I said before there was a danger lurking near the window of my hostel room. Want to know what it is?
Exhibitionism is an incurable psychological disorder, and there was a victim close-by our hostel, who used to jump the hostel wall and roam around freely in the premises, especially in the evenings. This made it difficult for us to freely open the windows and enjoy fresh air from outside, as we feared the ‘porno’ effect of watching a half naked man standing in front with his shameless glee, and at times throwing stones at our windows whenever he had the ‘uncontrollable’ urge to make someone enjoy the ‘beauty’ of his weak and wrinkled ‘manliness’. Our constant complaints about this were never heard and police help not sought on time as our warden wanted to ‘safeguard’ the reputation of the hostel and not us. Situations went so bad someday later, and one among the girls called police men from her mobile and cried for help. Although they couldn't arrest the ‘porn star’, he reduced his visits to our hostel. Yet, we lived in fear and never bothered to open the windows, fearing he would come back again.Life in that room was nothing less than hell, but we were fifteen to share our joys and sorrows. Extreme heat, limited power supply, scary surroundings, and no proper food; I stopped revolting against the endless number of struggles, and instead, started adjusting myself to tackling them all to the best of my effort. Injustices were common to all and there was no one to hear our voices, which made me go subtly submissive.There’s yet another shocking fact, and that’s the unreasonable doubt that arouse in our warden’s mind whenever she saw two women walking hand in hand or sitting close by. I think she had this very bad misconception that no two women can be intimate friends unless they are lesbians. I can say this as I have heard saying this about a few girls who were pretty good friends.
I never raised my voice, but started thinking about going back home, and opting for a daily travel, which I knew was not going to be easy. But I felt travelling back and forth in jam-packed buses for about three hours every day would be much easier than living in the hostel.
I went home for a one week vacation, mainly to get my dad’s permission to shift from the hostel. I came back the next Monday and found that our warden had given my place to another ‘favourite’ of hers and kept my bed & other stuffs in a damp place, which made it a cosy home for fungus and mould to live in. When I asked her the reason why she almost destroyed my bed, she said she wanted to give me a ‘better’ room, but didn’t have a place to keep my stuffs until I reach. I couldn’t take-in anymore and vacated on the same day.
Exhibitionism is an incurable psychological disorder, and there was a victim close-by our hostel, who used to jump the hostel wall and roam around freely in the premises, especially in the evenings. This made it difficult for us to freely open the windows and enjoy fresh air from outside, as we feared the ‘porno’ effect of watching a half naked man standing in front with his shameless glee, and at times throwing stones at our windows whenever he had the ‘uncontrollable’ urge to make someone enjoy the ‘beauty’ of his weak and wrinkled ‘manliness’. Our constant complaints about this were never heard and police help not sought on time as our warden wanted to ‘safeguard’ the reputation of the hostel and not us. Situations went so bad someday later, and one among the girls called police men from her mobile and cried for help. Although they couldn't arrest the ‘porn star’, he reduced his visits to our hostel. Yet, we lived in fear and never bothered to open the windows, fearing he would come back again.Life in that room was nothing less than hell, but we were fifteen to share our joys and sorrows. Extreme heat, limited power supply, scary surroundings, and no proper food; I stopped revolting against the endless number of struggles, and instead, started adjusting myself to tackling them all to the best of my effort. Injustices were common to all and there was no one to hear our voices, which made me go subtly submissive.There’s yet another shocking fact, and that’s the unreasonable doubt that arouse in our warden’s mind whenever she saw two women walking hand in hand or sitting close by. I think she had this very bad misconception that no two women can be intimate friends unless they are lesbians. I can say this as I have heard saying this about a few girls who were pretty good friends.
I never raised my voice, but started thinking about going back home, and opting for a daily travel, which I knew was not going to be easy. But I felt travelling back and forth in jam-packed buses for about three hours every day would be much easier than living in the hostel.
I went home for a one week vacation, mainly to get my dad’s permission to shift from the hostel. I came back the next Monday and found that our warden had given my place to another ‘favourite’ of hers and kept my bed & other stuffs in a damp place, which made it a cosy home for fungus and mould to live in. When I asked her the reason why she almost destroyed my bed, she said she wanted to give me a ‘better’ room, but didn’t have a place to keep my stuffs until I reach. I couldn’t take-in anymore and vacated on the same day.
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