The Missing Hostel - Hostel F

by Cypher

Have you been wondering why there were hardly any new posts from us this last week? Well, we were on our mission to unravel what could be perhaps the mystery of the century! Almost every one of us would have noticed (DUH if you haven’t) that Thapar University has hostels named A,B,C,D,E,G,H,I,J. What happened to F? Why wasn’t a hostel F made? Well, if you think so you ARE WRONG, my friend. A hostel named F was indeed made! Hold your hearts and read on...

It all started in the 1960s soon after the ‘Thapar institute of engineering and technology’ came into existence. Initially 5 hostels, named A-E were used. Now we are all familiar with the Thapar grading system, with grades ranging from A-F, F being the worst. Well it wasn’t the case in the beginning. When it started, E was the worst you could get. However, with the passage of time, the authorities felt that the students who consistently underperformed needed to be punished in some way to motivate them to improve. It was then that the dreaded “F” was introduced. F stood for DETENTION (wow! We didn’t know it was called ‘F’etention). A new building (now known as the old girls hostel) was made. It was the original HOSTEL-F. It wasn’t a hostel off course. It was more of a detention centre. The students who scored below the cut-off marks in a particular subject were said to be given ‘F’ and they had to spend 45 days in the detention centre. It was from here that the term ‘I got an F’ came into usage.

You must be wondering what went on inside this ‘hostel’. Well it was nothing you could have imagined! The defaulters were locked inside the building for 45 days. They were tied down to a central pole in their room for the first 15 days with absolutely no human contact. There were only books in each room. Food was served in the room itself. The students who showed improvement were allowed to stay as such. Those who didn’t, however, were taken to the next stage. The students were made to eat food from Hostel B’s mess FOUR TIMES a day!! It was mandatory to finish the food every time. However this wasn’t half as bad as the third stage!! The students were made to attend lectures (of the subject they got detained in) from 8 to 9 everyday (even on SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS)! And it was mandatory for them to sit on the first bench! 45 days of this grueling treatment later, the students were sent back to their hostels.

This continued for many years. It was finally in March 1980 when the PETA was formed. (??) PETA activists opposed this as “treatment like this is a right of the animals and the animals only! We can’t allow humans to take what’s rightfully theirs from the animals”. It was then that the authorities realized that just RE-teaching the subject and making the students rewrite the exams was way more traumatizing than this. Hence, the current system of ‘summer semester’ was incorporated. Since the hostel was never demolished, the further hostels were named as G, H, I and J. although the building itself has been revamped but many people still claim to have heard the screams of those traumatized souls while passing the building.

Although the management claims that Hostel F was shut down, yet we still hear stories about an underground facility, still running somewhere near the current hostel H. It isn’t a mere co-incidence that the TANKI has become so popular. Stories say that the entrance to the underground building goes from the Tanki’s top itself (does that explain SOMETHING?)! We have been trying to get to the bottom of this (pun) and that’s what kept us busy. Stay tuned for more. We’ll be back as soon as we get something substantial.