“Rat”tling Memories....

It has been almost a week since college reopened for this semester. And as usual at the beginning of the semester there was a lot of free time which was whiled away in chatting on and on about things that happened in the holidays and in the previous semester. This incident then came up.

The previous semester exams were going on then. It was the night before the second exam. As always we had opened our books only to discover that it was too late to do any sort of justice to the paper. Giving it up as a bad job I slept off that night. Suddenly, I heard a series of bangs and thuds in the room. I thought I was dreaming. But when the noise persisted I woke up. Both my room mates were up with broomsticks in their hands and they mouthed “RAT!!!” I was very groggy and so I felt I did not hear properly. When I asked them they confirmed.

Before I proceed further, there is something that one has to understand about our hostel. Even if you are not the kind of person who does not believe in peaceful co-existence with animals, you will have to change your mind as soon as you step into the hostel! Seeing dogs running around in the corridors, lizards going across the floors of your room and finding your room floor covered with many insects of different shapes and sizes (researching those would be a dream come true for any entomologist) is a very common sight. But rats?

Getting back, I sat up with a start and asked them as to where the rat was seen last and other details. It was a very small rat and had come in while the door had been opened. And it was somewhere inside the room. We tried to make it come out by tapping the corners and the bed with broomsticks. But, all was in vain. After waiting for a while we concluded it had left the room and closed the room. It was all quiet again when again my room mate spotted it running near the door. But before we could chuck it out it went and hid somewhere else. Again this time we could not find where it was hiding at all. Already it was pretty late in the night. So we just removed all those things which a rat would love to play with and went to sleep with the doors open hoping that it would go out of the room.

Next morning we could not find any signs of the rat being inside the room. We were glad. But, that night a loud scream of “RAT” echoed from one of the rooms in our wing and I thought well here we go again!!!