Kishore (April 2000)

College days always remain forever in memory. Recollection of the same is a pleasant experience. Staying in hostel with friends has been a really wonderful experience.

One major timepass at hostels is playing games and chatting with friends. Discussions last for hours and all kinds of topics get discussed.

Playing games was a major thing. Everyday evening the 'Volleyball' game starts. Though I rarely played the game I enjoyed watching everyone play the game. The passion the game generates makes the atmosphere lively. Sometimes the games used to be hot contests. C.Prasad, Venu, Durga Prasad, Veerabhadriah , PBS, Rama Rao and others are always there in the game. If we get any session at college cancelled because of some reason, even day scholars join the game. T.Srinivas, Pyla, Shyam, Sudhir and others join the game. The game is very addictive and even in dimmed light the game used to go on.

The games take a different dimension when it is 'contest' for Hostel Day Celebrations. The play ground is lit with flood lights and the game will go on into midnight. Though the game hardly has 12 players everyone in the hostel will be watching the game. The cheering, the noise was wonderful.

The other game that is popular in our hostel was 'Shuttle'. It is because our hostel ground has a court for this. Relatively this was less engaging because at any time only 4 people can play and there is always competition for the place on the court. Even for this game the contests on the Hostel Day were filled with thrill both the players and spectators. These games used to go till midnight. I think on one occasion Veeru and Udaya (am I right?) played throughout the night.

Cricket the most favorite Indian game used to have a season. College Competition, Department competition, hostel competitions are the events that used to make the cricket ground the center of attention. There were occasions we bunked the classed to watch the game. Once the college ground was used to conduct some special tournament (I don't recollect the name). During that time not just our department every cricket enthusiast in college was there and the steps were full to capacity. It was one of the rare occasions that the ground is full to its capacity.

Cricket players from our class had nice time in the cricket field. C.Prasad, Venu, Dhanda and others playing majority role on behalf of hostel team and Pyla, Shyam, T, Prem, Sudhir and others leading the team of day scholars. Wicket-keeping was one of the tough jobs in these games as the ball will go way all the way to boundary line once the keeper misses it. Dhanda's fast bowling was tough for any wicket-keeper to tackle.

Memories related to cricket matches we used to play can go on and on. But I will leave this to memory of my friends who can recollect those days and cherish the memories. I have mentioned names of classmates that came to my mind when I was writing this. But almost everyone in the class used to play cricket one time or the other and had their own personal memories to cherish.