There is a certain quality—one quite unique to this time in life—to those few weeks between receiving your admission letter and going to college for the first time. So, you wrap up your last bits of shopping and packing and meet your friends for that one last magical hangout before you all go your separate ways, at least for the next six months. 

You make your way to the little town of Pilani. You leave home on a car, a bus, a flight, a train, whatever. Your head is full of ideas and expectations about college and how it is going to be some magical experience, expectations shaped—in whole or in part—by movies like 3 Idiots or by that annoying relative who just cannot stop reminiscing about the ‘good old days of college’. 

Then, you actually get to Pilani. You see the absolutely underwhelming gate. Maybe you realised a little earlier in the five-or-so-kilometre stretch without a single streetlight or by the general lack of urban amenities that you are in the middle of nowhere. Then you see a camel, and that snaps the last hope you had of that much-vaunted collegiate life. 

You roll into campus and open the doors of your air-conditioned car; you step out, and it hits you. No, not the smell of freedom, not the feeling of a new chapter in your life, and definitely not the excitement of a world full of opportunity. The heat beats them all. It is oppressive, it is prickly, and it is horrible. The sun is out in full force, and the hot, dry winds so characteristic of Rajasthan blast your skin—not unlike an air fryer, in principle. 

After the initial shock subsides, you reach your allotted hostel. Between the chaos of everyone moving into their rooms and the crescendo of excitement finally dying down, you start to notice your neighbours, your wingies. They will be some of the most important friends you make, since, by default, every triumph and sorrow of each inmate is one that the wing collectively celebrates or mourns.

While you are moving in, you realise that you do not have a mattress to sleep on. That is when you go to Akshay, the on-campus departmental store, to buy your essentials. You will find just about anything here—all the way from electronics to underwear. 

After a sapping day, your parents leave for home, and you are finally able to experience the luxury of your accommodation. It gets boring fast, and since the first week is just you getting up to speed with whatever the campus has to offer, you head out to explore a bit. There is a very good chance that you are invited to an interaction somewhere on campus. It sounds intimidating, but that is just the seniors’ way of saying hello. Most departments recruit this way, but more importantly, it will help you socialise and know your way around campus a bit better. Your wonderful seniors then treat you to a veg cheese burger at ANC, and you call it a night.

As you will soon realise after a couple of days on campus, mess food gets boring fast. So, you take time out to explore all the eateries on campus, and figure out healthy options that you can fall back on. Healthy and palatable do not exactly go hand-in-hand most of the time, but eventually, you might find something that you like.

A lot of the campus around you may not feel like the most ideal place to spend the next four years —the four years that will perhaps be amongst the most definitional ones of your life. Some of your expectations might find themselves staring a bulldozer in the face while others might be proven true. Maybe you will settle into a routine of classes, personal work, socialisation, and ideally more than just a few shenanigans. Maybe you will not; maybe it will never feel quite right for you. 

But, what this college does guarantee is a place of permanence in your life. You will not forget it—for what we hope is better. You will meet friends who will shape your twenties and, more likely than not, be there in the following decades as well. You will make memories that will entrench themselves into your mind with surprising firmness, and you will change in ways that nobody will be able to predict.

So, when you curse the weather and the food in the mess, bemoan the lack of air conditioning and rush to the library during your exams, make excuses to yourself about going to class, and romp about the campus with your friends, allow yourself a little stolen smile. The ride might be rough, but it is one that you will one day look back on—with a fondness that might annoy even you. You are through the breach now, and what awaits is of your making alone.