First day at my Thrid college

Everyone have their own fond memories of their first day at college. When me with my graying and balding head, weak eyesight, look back on the first day of my third college, all I can say that it was how it was during my previous two first days, almost…

I was welcomed by my advisor Tomas with a set of nice looking flowers, shown my office, where I was introduced to Elena, an Italian with whom I share my office and my advisor. Meeting her, little did I realise that she is going to be my knightess on a silver horse.. err..  bike twice in my life in Copenhagen (more on that in other story). Then there were a series of admin work – to get my ID card, my keys, my laptop, etc. Tomas accompanied me to all the admin places and saw to it that I got the stuff, which otherwise also I would have. Then we went for lunch, and this is where it was, what shall I say, different!

There was a huge spread of rows and rows of what I could see as fresh, cold vegetables, salads and fresh cold vagetables, salads. I just followed Tomas, took a plate, started stuffing it with vegetables, and as  I moved ahead in the line, could have a glimpse of the main course. Nearing the main course, as the row of people slowly trudged step by step, I felt the agony, pain and anticiaption of me moving towards my salvation! But then it turned out to be cold pork chops with boiled potatoes and suace, for all that anticipation of the Danish food. When it came to pay for the food, how I wished that we had something similar when I was in college for the first time, in Belgaum.

Two of my roomates were in constant strife over food. One, wanted food, large quantities of it, but cheap allowing for major adjustements with taste and quality. Other was the opposite stressing on the higher desire of human tongue over the need of the stomach. And the rest of us were caught up daily in this strife. I can only imagine how happy my friend would be, or for that matter even my younger brother would be, when they hear how my food is billed here at the university -its billed by weight! Yes, I just stuff my plate and keep it on a weighing machine, a weight of 500 grams of food, including salads, boiled eggs, boiled poatatoes and maincourse meat, will cost me 30 Kroners. I just kept laughing, imagining the things that my good friend or my brother woudl do hearing this story, all the way to the lunch table, prompting Tomas to ask me if the Danish cold has got to my mind…

Land! at last!

My eyes take a longer to focus, especially as I force them open in the mornings, than the average accepted time for human eyes. As they focused on the screen of my mobile phone, which I keep just about 5 centimeters away from my eyes before sleeping, the clock read 6:00 am! Why such a prelude to mention this? Because, me getting up at 6 am is like the sunflowers blooming at night, like Kolkotta Knight Riders winning IPL, like no mobile polyphonic ringing going on during a movie, like… okay, I guess you get the drift. (but just after two days of waking up at 6, my body settled down to its inertia so much so as to set me on a path to become a legend in the university history, which by the way calls for a separate story).

This is my first day and  I thought to walk up to the university, which according to my memory of the google map that I had seen in India should be about 2 kms from my home. I had also written down the walking instructions with the street names, hoping to ask people if I get lost. I set out after a breakfast of toast and eggs, with myself submerged in 2 sweaters over a pullover, over a tshirt, and of course my back pack. It was as if I was walking into the world of the 8 art movies from India, of absolute silence of 20 minutes between dialogue, a world of slow gray melancholy. The wind was cold and started seeping into my system, driving this melancholy deep within me, I could see the gray hollowness of my own existence and this got even more grayer with the fact of not having idlis, wada, sambar and the watery coconut chutney of the pervasive Bangalore darshinis.

I followed what seemed to be the shortest possible way to the university but soon realised that I had missed a turn. The seafarer in me told me not to worry, I knew the name of the street from where I coudl see the university, I just had to ask people how to get to that street. I met a man hurrying over and asked him how to go to ‘Amagerbroggade’. He seemed hit by a tornado, but recovered himself enough to run away. The same set of reactions followed , till I started showing people the written name of the street. Turned out that the ‘g’ in the first half, the ‘r’, are silent and the last ‘e’ has to be pronounced! As I finally saw the twin glass blocks of the university, after about an hour and half (it takes 25 mintues to walk from my room to the university now) of seafaring adventure gone horribly worng,  I just about shouted “land ahoy! land ahoy!”