Learning From the Periphery
Text and Photos: Nilima Jahan
"t's the 4th time I've celebrated my birthday without my family. I'm missing them, but I am so overwhelmed by the surprise that my friends here have planned! ," says Tasnim Ahmed Samee, a student of Jagannath University, who lives in a girl's hostel at west Tejturi Bazaar, near at Farmgate. Samee has been there since four years ago, to pursue education, as her family lives in a remote village, and she has no such relatives in Dhaka where she can stay. But she is completely at ease with her 'second home' that gives her the actual meaning of life with proper freedom, opportunities, newness and sociality.
Like Samee, there are a many girls/women in Dhaka living in hostels for educational or sometimes work purposes. Basically, the progressive parents of the villages or outside of Dhaka, who are very devoted to their children's education, send them to urban areas for good quality of education, and hence, they are bound to keep their children at hostels. As a matter of fact, a hostel is a place where a person can explore a variety of arenas with proper freedom, which helps one to grow as a person.
According to many hostel students, a hostel is one of the best atmospheres to study, where one can do his/her work with the inspiration and help from roommates. Apart from studies, living in hostel can give a person a chance of participating in versatile activities with a maximum level of independence. Most of the students are of the same age and they can develop intimacy among themselves with a good sense of cooperation.
In order to maintain one's safety, one is his own master here. One can study when he/she feels good, sleep when he/she wants; hangout when he/she needs and confabulate with others when he/she can manages time for it. Also, the immense amusement, day-to day merry-making, story telling, special meals in the weekends, discussions and criticism of latest movies, morning exercises, exploring in occasion etc. make the hostel life a all the better.
You will be quite astonished seeing the mutual cooperation, sympathy, bonding and love for each other. Especially when one of the roommates is sick, the rest try their best to serve him/her. Mabia Mir, a student of Sonargaon University, a hostel girl of Farmgate area says, "As we live here, far away from our family, we try to help each other in times of illness. We eat together, study together, sleep together, and that's why we feel it's our home". Kori Gomez, the hostel superintend of the same hostel says, "A student can get the opportunity to develop his/her personality living in a hostel. They can learn how to fix their own doings, how to adjust with others, how to attain maturity and so many important things which helps them to be an all-rounder."
In a hostel, as they come in contact with a huge number of people, they share their feelings, emotions, disappointments, heartbreaks with each other. If one is sad, the others leave no stone unturned to make him/her laugh. Leading life in a hostel teaches people to face the real world where parents can not be there at every stage.
Sufia Mosaddeque, a mother of a student, appreciates her daughter living in a hostel. "It's true that sometimes we feel bad or miss our child. But it is necessary to give them space; otherwise they cannot adapt to all situations", says Mosaddeque.
Though hostel life has some drawbacks too, like bad company influences, bad habits due to excessive freedom, it's one's perception on how one can utilise the freedom and keep themselves away from the wrong path. But in reality, a hostel is a positive place where a student can learn how to face the real world with proper freedom and extended experience. It is a boon for the students to live in a hostel at least once in their whole life so that they can feel a part of the real student-world.
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