What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
Living with my parents during under graduation only meant that I could always depend on them to bail me out of situations. Food, clothes, and stay were taken care of. I never had to worry about basic things. I even learned to con my parents into giving me a little extra for photocopying notes that I used to handwrite and make copies of. So when I moved to the hostel for my post-graduation and was told to live on a budget of ₹500 per month, I considered it an easy possibility. I had made a lot of assumptions about this amount. I had assumed that my travel expenses would be extra, and my expenses (toiletries, pads, personal items, stationary) would be extra, and the money I spent on snacks would be extra, and if I stated that I had to photocopy some notes, I would get some extra for that as well. The reality was the exact opposite. I had been given that amount to ensure that I learned some important lessons, the most important one being, budgeting.
When I relocated to Mumbai for my post-graduation, I was told to move into the hostel. I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect, but I agreed since it would be a new experience. My college hostel could accommodate roughly 200 students, so relatively it was a small hostel. There were 5 bathrooms and 2 washrooms attached to the end of the hallway. Each room accommodated 3 students and the room allocations were random. The entire hostel had one payphone attached to a wall and you had to wait your turn to use it. The living/lounge had a couple of couches for all the students and there used to be one Television for all of us. It was always on a first-cum-first-served basis. The kitchen had no staples, apart from the gas burner and the refrigerator. You stocked your staples in the common kitchen or refrigerator at your peril. You usually stocked your snacks in your room, under lock and key. At least after the first month, I got myself a lock and key. The hostel was a lot of fun when you did not lose anything. I lost a couple of tee shirts, a few packs of Maggi, and Parle-G biscuits in the first month. Thinking nothing of it, I went back home to get more, when I got my first shock.
The reason for the hostel was to teach me budgeting. When I left for the hostel, I was given Rs 500, which was the amount allocated for me and my expenses for the entire month. While I had been told so, I had not understood the fine print. This stated:
- All my expenses for that month, including snacks, (even the replacement ones, which I would not have had to replace had I been careful in keeping it locked in the first place)
- Toiletries, or pads (I should have taken them from the house irrespective of the fact that it was not my brand or preference)
- Travel (public transport [read: local trains and buses] was affordable when compared to the cab that I had used to come back that first weekend).
If I had followed these instructions then the allocated amount of Rs 500 would have also had some amount saved. I had been remiss in my carelessness.
While I had finished my graduation at home, I remember getting back from college and my dad handing the TV remote to me, letting me watch anything I wanted while I relaxed. To my parents, my comfort was important (as it usually is for most parents)and I was so used to this, that the idea that ‘what I wanted did not matter’ to my peers at the hostel was a tough lesson to learn. They were as exhausted and bored or both and the unwritten rule was, if you wanted to watch something, you needed support. And at that point in time, everyone wanted to watch serials. Dramatic long drawn out episodic sagas. The kinds that would make you want to gouge your brains out with the cringe dialogues. I’ve watched back-to-back Hindi serials, full of drama and emotions (the girls in the hostel that watched them used to be bawling as well!!) When I did eventually get that remote that evening and did make the change, the reaction it caused made me just that much more homesick. It took a lot of effort and eventually, I was able to break out of the requirement for a TV to relax and unwind. I ensured I always had a storybook that I could read and unwind over.
The weekends were the toughest. I didn’t have my family around me for conversations, the TV was not mine so the odds of it being used as a distraction were low. My limited budget did not allow me to ‘hang out’ with my friends due to my inability to afford any unanticipated expenses. So, when I was told that I could go back home and after that first weekend where I messed up my expenses, I ensured that I was at home on Friday evening. This meant that I had three dinners, 2 lunches, 2 breakfasts, and all the milk/coffee I would like – at home. There was a TV at home, and there were instances when I did get to watch what I wanted, but the conversations and camaraderie were something I started to value and anticipate.
After a couple of misses, I even managed to live on my limited budget. I not just lived, I also ensured I had some extra, to be able to go out and hang out with my friends. It was a rare enough opportunity to ensure that the experience was a pleasant one. Moving to the hostel was a big change for me. Living on a restricted budget was even more so. Accounting for my expenses down to the last paisa, was chaotic, but it taught me to value what I had even more. I learned the importance of making lists, based on priorities and categorizing based on wants. Learning about Maslow’s hierarchy of wants and living it, are two different experiences, and the latter, actually made a big difference to how I have lived my life. This has been my biggest learning from my days in the hostel. I still make lists, I still prioritize purchases and I make the effort to make a change, so I don’t get into the rut of monotony and habits. My stint in the hostel, although comparatively brief, allowed me to evolve and reacquaint myself with the fact that ‘it’s the smallest things that make the biggest impact’.
Just a little more 