Placement season started and suddenly all my confident hostel bravado has left the building. Everyone's comparing packages and I just want a job that doesn't make my papa's trucking pride feel small. Behind every loud hostel boy is a scared kid Googling 'aptitude test tips'.

Semester exams in a week and I've opened the textbook exactly twice, both times to press a moth out of it. Not proud, just honest — the panic study montage starts tonight for real. If you're also starting late, oye we suffer together yaar.

Whole wing gathers around one borrowed console for FIFA and the trash talk is louder than any lecture hall. I lost 3-0 and blamed the lag, the controller, and Mercury being in retrograde. Cope level: engineer.

2am, four broke engineers, one packet of Maggi, and somehow it fed everybody plus the guy who 'just came to talk'. These midnight kitchens are where all the real friendships get cooked. I'll forget calculus but never who added the extra egg.

the ground beside hostel

There's a patchy ground beside our hostel where a 'six' means hitting the mess wall, and I swear those matches feel bigger than any IPL final. Yesterday I hit the winning run and my whole floor carried me like I won the World Cup. Chak de, best feeling in the world.