CONFLUENCE

 

A very important issue faced by the students of government medical colleges located in cities is the lack of privacy in the campus. No matter where one goes one is bound to meet friends, seniors, teachers, menial workers and most importantly patients and their families. It feels weird to discuss your personal matters with so many people around to overhear, especially for certain pairs of ‘friends’ who need lots of personal space.

The hostelites also have to face other problems like extreme heat in the summer where the slow-moving ceiling fans provide little relief or having an extremely popular room mate whose friends come up to gossip every evening rendering the room unfit to study in. Some people also crave the space to have group study sessions with their batchmates which is difficult to find in the hostel or common room, while some others just want a proper internet connection for their online activities which is again not available in most places in the campus.

There is only one place in the entire campus which provides the ideal solution to all these problems- THE CENTRAL LIBRARY.

 Welcome to this wonderful, fully air-conditioned place with large reading rooms which allows one to escape the heat as well as study in peace without having to listen to their room mates’ constant chatter. Want to have a group study session with your day scholar buddies? Then Central Library is your go-to place. Want to enjoy a cricket match, or a movie or some online tutorial videos on your iPad? Even then, this is just the place for you. Want to spend a sweet couple of hours with your very special friend every day? Well, then also go to the library without a thought. Want to take a refreshing nap after a long day? No place is better than the library with its quiet, cool environment and big, fat, sleep-inducing medical books.

All kinds of medicos are seen in this place- the serious studious ones who do not look up from their books, the mobile addicts who do not look up from their phones, the gossip mongers who sit down and spread all the hot gossips of the college among themselves, the jobless ones who just sit and stare at others and out of the window and the lovers who go for library dates.

As the summer temperatures achieve new records every year it becomes more and more difficult to find seats in the library during summer months. Some of us thus go to the library early in the morning every day and keep our bags and stuff on some of the seats thus marking our territory. This is done as a precaution in case seats are not available once we come back from the classes and wards. It is also a challenge to find the ambient temperature locations in the library. Though centrally air-conditioned, the cooling is not uniform everywhere, some locations are extremely hot while some harbor Antarctic temperatures. On the other hand, not all mobile networks offer proper signal everywhere in the library. In short it requires several days of trial and error to find the correct location for yourself, in terms of temperature and network connection. And if one morning you find that location occupied, then you have no option but to sulk all morning and secretly curse the intruders!

Some people maybe of the opinion that despite all its benefits the library is a distracting place with its awe-inspiring sunset scenes outside the window and some diabetes-inducing romantic scenes within its four walls, but such opinions vary from person to person. For the regulars, the library is a beloved place where they love to spend most of our day cocooned away from the heat, the worries and the troubles of the rest of the college. It’s a place which offers one the chance to be with their beloved……subjects or people.