I have been pestered by my "wife" to post something here for a long time. It feels so odd to term the best friend you had as a "wife" as if we are no longer friends; I am so opposed to the term, but having said that I can’t escape the social taboo I am glued to for life [I hope so - what say Mrs.Sarkar ;-)] This is a long one with a lot of grammatical mistakes, but still I request you to read till the end, it will not be boring I assure that.
Post IIT days life has been pretty dull for me, I feel that I am being stoned for having merried so much during those 2 years at IIT. Having said that, when I look at my pals who are now at various places on this Holy Earth, I see that they are having their share of bad luck as well. I am not here to discuss our miseries, but I want to share the dream; the dream I see everyday that we will get together again.
I dream of an early chilly New Delhi morning; punctual as usual, I am ready for our outing and am fretting at my roommate Aritra for still snoring in sleep (yeah he does that). The first thing I do is wake up my other buddies - Muksit & Soumik. Muksit is equally punctual and may be better than me. Soumik with as if drunken red heavy eyes wake up and ask what is the matter. I feel shell-shocked, that after so many discussions and repeated failures all of us had only yesterday agreed to hang around and now he asks what the matter is. I with all my patience narrate him our fairy tale and he gets back to senses by wrapping a towel (gamchha) around his waist and proceeds towards the toilet with a typical good boy gait. By the time return to my room, I still find Aritra's face dunked (as if slam dunked) in his pillow with his wrist watch still on. Aritra had a habit of wearing his wrist watch almost 24X7. Anyways, I remind him that we have to meet at the IIT main gate at 8:30AM as committed before and it was already 8. Oh, I forgot to tell that I am generally ready before 45 minutes of the rendezvous.
Next on my list was to call Ayan and wake him. Lovebird as he is, with a heavy and apologetic voice he tells he can't make it. I deduced that it’s obvious for him as he had nocturnal appointments with his lady love the last night which was signed off pretty late and he definitely has double crossed us with a physical appointment with his lady love later in the day at Noida. So, Ayan's cut out. Now I make a call to my wonder women - Amrita, Papiya & Madhurima. None of them picks it up. I have a bad habit of getting furious and losing my nerves when people do not receive my calls. Finally Madhurima picks it up saying she is ready and waiting for the other ladies to fall in line, who have just entered the loo. It is already 8:15AM.
Muksit enters my room all dressed up and tells - cholo jawa jak and then seeing Aritra all flat and Soumik with his wrap-around gamcha and a semi naked body with drips of water after a bath, running to get ready. Muksit sighs - "ei sob pola pain der niye kuthao zawa uchit noi". Its 8:30 and Amrita calls - "sorry sorry sorry sorry, amra ready hoe gechi tora main gate e aschish" - as if I was playing hadu-dudu all this time. Anyways, I can't fret at her knowing that I am going to marry her, so with a very polite voice I said - "ki korchili tora, bero ebar, ar chokhe kajol ta porte bhulishna, bhalo lage toke". So now all are ready with Ayan cut out and Aritra having just woken up after over-hearing my conversation.
Now, Aritra with a typical scratching of his buttocks and a tooth brush in his mouth sits on the bed browsing through the newspaper. Muksit & I get all cranky, Muksit fed-up with the vision leaves to hurry up Soumik. Finally Aritra enters the bathroom with a a very lazy gait and we of NilBullz (Aritra, Soumik, Muksit & Myself) are ready with 5 minutes to spare for breakfast yet 25minutes behind schedule. I think I forgot to point out that we were supposed to kick start the day with a film screening at Saket at 9:25AM and then see how the day spans out. I point out that we can skip breakfast as we are already late, but the other three BULLZ were verbose with alacrity and all sorts of logic. I though OK, breakfast for 5 minutes and then to the main gate in cycle in another 5 and with an auto from there we can still make it in time. We sat with our breakfast, as the term suggests - to break the fast is what I was aware of, but seeing Aritra with his platefull of the yukky food and us running out of time, I was considering what time zone does Aritra's watch follow.
Seeing we won't be able to make it in time I call up the girls to take a couple of autos and meet us at hostel gate, that way we can save some time. In all these commotion I decide to proceed towards the movie hall to take a position in the already formed queue. Anyways we did make it in time and did watch the show. After the show Aritra with his enormous knowledge on films (he would have been a better film critic than an engineer) throws his expert opinions and to back him up at stages he finds support in Soumik. All said and done now was the time to choose a restaurant for lunch. This time the gang of ladies with their tantrum put forth a lot of possibilities and me too throwing in a few absurd options in the hat. Lastly Soumik with his innocent doe eyes presented an alternative which we could not refuse only for the reason that he presented in a simple and polite way as if a cute dog is looking at his master for a bargain. With lunch done now was the time for some desserts, and now I ruled as if I am the lion controlling a herd lionesses, I love Chocolate Room at Saket well knowing that splurging there dig a deep hole to our paltry monthly income. Anyways though with the alacrity of the majority and support from only Papiya & Amrita we entered and got poorer. At this junction Madhurima pointed out a lot of other dessert options which all are sane and fitting to our current conditions, still we negated them; hell bent on splurging.
This was the plan of the day and then we were supposed to return to our hostels, then Soumik pointed out we can hang out a little longer and dine at JNU. Madhurima pointed out that she had some practicals (students of Basic Sciences at IIT are literally grilled) but would make it in time for JNU. JNU is our happy hunting grounds, there are a variety of food cuisines to choose from at a very paltry rate, the phrase “Beggars cannot be choosers” is a misfit there and we take every chance to exploit that. A sumptuous dinner followed by a fruit beer and happy smile on Soumik’s face to have met that somebody for whom the JNU trip was intended for. Now was out time to walk back and give ourselves a much needed rest. On the way back at the IIT entrance we decided to hang a little while longer at Nescafe, mainly because I wanted to hang out with my lady love, still all my pals supported me to be criminals in partner, though the crime is only mine.
Now was the time when Amrita and Papiya talk non-sense about filthy Bengali songs, then comes the heavy literature talks which only Aritra and Amrita enjoy, it goes over the head of the rest. Finally to sum it up comes the fantastic one liner from Muksit.
With this we enter our hostels and at times Aritra, Soumik, Muksit & myself indulge in TT.
Arneet is another person I missed out because we rarely used to hang out, our hanging out times would be at class breaks or during guide calls waiting at Nescafe. But I must recall what a sumptuous treat we were given by aunty at Arneet's home. Arneet is a fantastic goal oriented guy and he is multi talented. Just wish we could have hung out a lot more out of the insti.
This is the dream I see everyday, this is the life I miss everyday, you guys had made my life so full that spending it alone now is no longer acceptable, none of us knew each other before, but now staying apart in different countries makes me feel that I did have a life worth calling a life. Carefree, without any malice, without money, the only thing that bonded us together was our like mindedness; and now we have money but not each other. Miss you all a lot, only wish if life had a rewind button………
The rewind button with a few snaps of our yester years.
