“Jhuggi”

All college passouts have one thing in common and that is weird pet names for their favourite hangout place in college. In my very first week of college, the friends I had accidently stumbled upon on the day of orientation and had thankfully matched frequency with – had called me up after class to meet them. They had asked for a meeting point. I just said “jhuggi”. And somehow, without any extra information whatsoever, I saw both of them standing near one of the many admin booths in front of the maggi point. Somehow, they had understood that at heart, by “jhuggi” I had meant to say the area with the sheds. It was one of those “ah! These are probably the people I would like to spend the rest of my three years with” moments.

I was, of course, ridiculed for that but then from that day onwards, we have been calling it nothing else but “jhuggi”. Over time, it became one of those inside jokes that no one else understands — like a codeword that binds a group together without any extra effort. It becomes inconvenient at times when telling our location to someone apart from the three of us and all we get as a reply is a very confused “HEIN?” to “jhuggi”. And then we have to awkwardly backtrack and say “near the maggi point… the shade area… But despite all the confusion, it has stuck. And honestly, the fact that it still makes no sense to anyone except us makes it even more perfect.

This area is the most scenic during monsoon, when it’s already 3 in the afternoon and all the classes are over but no one can go home because it is pouring outside. The smell of wet mud mixes with the steam rising from the noodles and for some reason, even the most chaotic Delhi day starts feeling cinematic. One such fine day, we managed to secure one of the “jhuggis” at 2 o’clock before it started to rain. We left the spot at 5. In the span of these 3 hours, all we did was take turns going to the maggi point, each one of us getting a different flavour from the various options, having coffee and just enjoying the beautiful rain while struggling to keep our umbrellas intact with one hand and our coffee plus maggi with another.

The coffee cups kept piling up around us and so did the conversations. At some point, the guy from the maggi counter stopped asking “kaunsa flavour?” and simply looked at us and smiled, because clearly we weren’t going anywhere. We spoke about everything, from the professors we were terrified of, the subjects we had chosen impulsively, and the bizarre DU crowd that somehow feels both intimidating and comforting at the same time. It was such a beautiful, peaceful day in the initial phase of college when we were just starting out without much of the academic pressures that were yet to come.

Now it is understood where everyone has to collect once the classes are over. No one even says it out loud anymore. Someone just texts “where?” and the reply is a single word -“jhuggi”. No matter how stressful the day has been, the moment we reach that familiar shed, the world slows down a little. We still laugh about the fact that the name is stupid and makes no sense, but maybe that’s why we love it. Because it’s ours, a bit messy, funny, random, but ours.