There were five of us in the room: Chandy, me and three other blokes. Grewal asked me to shut the door. He made everybody line up and stand at attention. He asked us to rattle off our personal details: name, city, school, the course we had enrolled for. We were ordered to suffix each answer with the word ‘sir’. Before we could begin, there was a knock on the door. More seniors. The numbers were more or less equal now: four seniors and five juniors.

‘Alex Chandy, sir. Kottayam, sir. Corpus Christi School, sir. Chemistry honours, sir.’

‘Sumit Patel, sir. Ahmedabad, sir. K.V., sir. History, sir.’

‘Mayank Agarwal, sir. La Marts, Lucknow, sir. Physics honours, sir.’

‘Pratap Goswami, sir. Patna, sir. St. Xavier’s, sir. BSc Computers, sir.’

Pradeep Jha, sir. Benares, sir. St. Paul’s, sir. English honours, sir.’

The seniors found our answers extremely amusing. I knew from past experience not to smile at all. Humour was a privilege of the seniors, not to be encroached upon until given permission to do so. Sumit Patel had joined late and this was his first night in the hostel. When the seniors laughed at the way he pronounced ‘Ahmedabad’ he smiled nervously. Grewal bore down on him immediately: ‘Wipe that smile off your face, you little shit. Now.’

Patel stopped smiling. Beads of perspiration appeared on his brow. Grewal turned to me and said, ‘Tell this idiot how to do it properly.’ I showed Patel how to form a pair of imaginary scissors using the middle and forefinger of his right hand, then snip his lips, grimacing visibly while doing so. Finally, the offending smile—now trapped in a clenched fist—had to be shoved up one’s backside. Patel had to clip and shove again and again, until the seniors were satisfied.

Next, Grewal and his cronies asked us to strip. Chandy, Agarwal, Goswami and I were familiar with the ritual and went through the motions mechanically. Patel refused. He seemed livid at the suggestion.

Picking up a hockey stick lying in a corner of the room, Grewal walked up to Patel. Placing the stick horizontally across his neck, he pressed down on his Adam’s apple until Patel began gasping for breath. ‘You will do whatever I tell you to do. Get it?’ Patel managed a weak ‘yes’. This made Grewal even angrier. He muttered, ‘Yes, sir. You will always address me, or any other senior for that matter, as “sir”. Get it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I can’t hear you asshole.’

‘YES, SIR.’

‘Do what I tell you or I’ll make Delhi University living hell for you. Get it?’

‘YES, SIR.’