147

When I started college, I had a roommate. Actually two. The first one moved out after six months, to a different hostel building that had single-occupancy rooms. A new roommate took his place, a carefree type who was gone most of the day and often most of the night, hanging out in other people’s rooms, sometimes just bunking in someone else’s bed. I never gave it much thought, whether that was on me or him.

At the end of the first year, we all got single-occupancy rooms. There was a long list to pick from, mostly adjacent rooms along a long L shaped corridor, with a few scattered across different floors and corners of the wing.

I was known as a loner, and by the time I got to the administative office to pick a room, my whole batch had already blocked out rooms for themselves or for friends who wanted to be next to them. Turned out I was one of the few people left that nobody had claimed as a neighbor.

I was genuinely happy to end up away from everyone, so in a way, the feeling was mutual. I picked room 147. Second floor, overlooking a sports field, a palm tree right outside my window. The room sat at the extreme end of the wing, away from all the noise and chaos. I still remember how the corridor would turn dark and gloomy in the early evening, almost depressing, until the lights came on.

I lived a floor above the rest of my batch, and living further up meant I got forgotten whenever people gathered for some spur of the moment plan. But my nights were quieter, and my mornings started later.

Turned out the rooms next to mine belonged to loners from the senior batches too. So I was in good company. Everyone kept to themselves. I stayed in that room for almost three years, and eventually carved my name into the bed frame, like everyone who had lived there before me.

That room felt like home. It grounded me, a safe place to retreat to whenever I was upset. People left me alone there, and that was never a bad thing.

After years of living with cousins, and then years more in a hostel dormitory shared with nine people, getting a personal space finally felt unreal. I could just be me. Having a corner of my own meant a lot to me back then, and I couldn’t have told you why. I realize now it was the first time in my life I’d ever had a space that was mine. I’d simply never had the chance before.

Room 147 was the closest thing to mine, even though it never really was. No wonder I still remember it so fondly.