Vigyan Kunj Hostel, IIT Roorkee
Vigyan Kunj sits right next to the Civil Department. It's a hostel with single rooms, and most international students stay here. All IIT Roorkee hostels have laundry, canteen, mess, gym, and study room. But in Vigyan Kunj, we got the study room only at the end of our MTech. This is the only hostel at IIT Roorkee where boys and girls share the same sports room and mess. The only separation is inside the rooms, everywhere else, it's all common.
It was my first time living in a hostel. Before this, I stayed with relatives in Kathmandu while studying. Later, I moved to a private room. But hostel life? That was new to me. The good part was that almost all Nepali students lived here except a few from ITECH. That made it feel like home. More than 400 students from different countries, including India and Nepal, lived here together.
June 17. That was the day I first came to Roorkee. My first time in India. I flew from Darbhanga to Delhi, alone. You can imagine how tough that was. Then I saw someone using InDrive on their phone. Luckily, I already had the app. I booked a taxi to Kashmiri Gate, took a bus to Roorkee, and reached at 2 AM. Luckily again, I found an auto and reached Vigyan Kunj.
I had thought that at 2 AM, the campus would be empty. No one around. But it was completely different. When I entered, people were celebrating a birthday party at the canteen, right in front of the hostel. I took the room key from the guard and went to my room. Just then, it started raining. Good thing, I would have been fully wet otherwise. At 2:45 AM, I had only an empty bed. I knew no one. But I was so tired, I slept easily. Next morning, I went out and bought everything I needed for the room.
Ajay Madhwan came to visit me (2nd April 2026)
In two years, only one person came to meet me, Ajay Madhwan.
He came from China, where he is doing his PhD. He was on holiday, visiting his hometown in Uttarakhand, and he came to see me too. I had met him in Kathmandu first when I was working at Geotech Solutions International (GSI). He had come to complete his Master's thesis under Dr. Ranjan Kumar Dahal. He used to sit in our office, and that's how we got introduced.
Do you know what he brought for me? Chocolates and guavas. It was so nice to see him, he was the only guest I ever had here. We had snacks at CBRI canteen and lunch at Khosla, IITR. In the hostel register, his name is there as family. That memory stays.
Every year, there are elections. You have to vote online. The winners take care of security, culture, mess, and other things, separately for girls and boys. In the last election, I helped Abishek's team, and they won.
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