Cigarettes and alcohol

The frequent squeaking of the netted door hinges post sundown meant only one thing. That someone or many of them were cycling in and out of the common verandah between two single rooms of the hostel. That again could mean only thing. Another party in progress! The reason could be insignificant but the end result was always opulent. A group dancing as if their life depended on it, a set of attendees at various acute angles to the floor living out the effects of too much alcohol in too little time. PCs blaring out the music of choice, again an irrelevant choice once the participants were drunk enough. A lot of jousting would ensue at the beginning of every party over which song was cool enough or which was not. Towards the end any music that could drown the sounds of an over zealous drinker puking out onto the grounds would serve the purpose.

Nameless, purposeless parties ending in total mayhem were a way of life at RECK (Or in most other hostels of other colleges, if I am to believe others too). The funny thing is that no one and I mean absolutely no one ever carries an iota of guilt for the murder of time as they were. Youth they say was meant to achieve greater heights, but as far as I know most of them were too busy getting themselves up from the grass on the hostel lawns. Communal cigarette smoke rose up in mushroom clouds against the bug encrusted yellow lamps that exposed the doings on all verandahs. The tinkling caused by shattered glass as bottles launched into free space from the third floor was more like a distant melody for the alcohol amplified imagination of the revellers. The slurred conversations were always so other worldly that it would only be a fool who would try to distill a common meaning out of them. Every once a while, enraged voices would shred the "Peace, love, empathy" flavour of the evening indicating that two utopian worlds has run into each other's paths, either by virtue of a misdirected bottle or purposefully guided swear word under the cover of drunkenness. However nothing on earth no matter how shocking or off-putting could halt our forays into decadence. As we plundered through the 4 most important years of our lives, with every party, the drags on the cigarettes would only get longer and the pegs would only get stronger.