3.5

a story where a boy confesses the happenings in his dual phased love story to his family....career intersects love and hence it goes on....a flashback story it is!!!

 

 

 

The first thing that I did before composing this document is that I removed my Dongle from inside the USB slot, removed my T-shirt as I was sweating terribly in this Guwahati Summer and finally disconnected the Internet as well, so that I can fully concentrate my mind and heart while I share some episodes of my life with you which has always been abstract to you and somehow hidden as well, given that only Londoners  at some point of times updated you about my life with lesser knowledge on the real fact but with added up spice on the subject!!! That’s absolutely fine. I have no problems with what misconceptions you people are having about me or my nature because  from the next paragraph onwards I will be just telling you what happened in my life during these 3.5 years and I will do that in details in my own style. So take out some time to read it and may be at the end everything gets tied up in a single knot and your misconceptions or harsh feelings for me gets a bit reduced, given that Ma’s call in the evening made me decide to write up a story of my own life and narrate each episode to you in details filled with vivid visualisations in it, and nothing else, but only the true facts………. and figures as well!!!  And, the reason behind this write-up is that, I think storytelling is the only thing that  I do with honesty and purity and hence I chose this way to make things simpler and clear to everyone.

 

Episode 1: Wait and Rain:

2009 Silchar

    It was a cold December, because as far as I remember, Christmas was on its way and it was possibly the 2^nd week of the month when local residents started setting up Tuni Lights and Star Shaped Lights on their balcony and entrance gates to welcome the festival. Chilly cold weather in Silchar has always been a charm to roam about in the place during winter. I think you too agree on that!!! In my case, this charm  got multiplied as I just finished off my BSc Final Year’s pre final exams . In other words, it was a short vacation for me after such a lengthy routine schedule of the pre-finals. I was in good mood, had literally nothing to do except enjoying the vacation with friends , roaming here and there in the locality, playing cricket at unusual times, getting into Kutush’s shop and hanging out there for hours with 3 of my closest friends in life, Kutush(the stubborn and rude shop owner, yet so good he was), Rajdeep(the long-slim, tall and fair  B.Com guy who almost looked like Shahid Kapur that time,yeah you are right, he was handsome and cool at the same time!!!) and Vicky(the dwarf,fat and plumpy guy, now in Jorhat Medical College, pursuing his MBBS.). Anyways, enough of the sidelines, lets jump into the episode. It was a cold rainy evening, umm almost 7pm or half past 7 it was, but not more than that. Well, we were waiting inside the 4 seater Alto car of Kutush’s Brother-In-Law, and  simply were observing the rain for almost 1 hour then. By ‘We’ I meant ‘Me’ and ‘Kutush’.The reason behind this waiting inside the car was that Kutush newly turned into a mama(uncle) and transitively me too!!! So, we were there with his sister and brother-in-law to help them  out with any necessities they might need during the check up of the newly born baby girl to Kutush’s sister, whom they aliased as Gungun later after her birth!!! Yeah, we were there at one of the local paediatrics clinic with them, given that we 2 were there just for help and mental support such that lots of waiting fatigue  came as a added voucher in reward for our so called ‘help and mental support’!!!! Anyways, it’s always a terrible experience to wait for someone for some indefinite and undefined amount of time where every minute seems so longer and irritating. So, in our case, it was no exception as well. We started listening random songs of various genre on the newly installed Blaupunkt, given that a car-like smell reserved our nasal senses all throughout this time. We were enjoying this wait actually ,as it was raining heavily outside added with lightning followed by low intensity thunderbeats at infrequent intervals. All in all, it soon turned up into an environment where we were relaxing, listening to songs, and sort of hanging out as well. Kutush took the front seat  and as  usual he operated the Blaupunkt and  the AC Remote at the same time!!! The Blaupunkt now started playing ‘Aye Kaash Ke Hum Hosh Mein Ab’ from one of SRKs mid 90 blockbuster ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’. And, I,as usual, took the audience seat and simply rested and almost leaned myself on the back seat and intentionally made my cheek caresse the cold glass window that became ice-cold due to the heavy rain outside. It felt really great to do so and that was when I realised that a  hindi film song , a nice ,pleasant and a rainy weather are one of the best combinations to relax yourself when you are not doing anything that’s productive. It is simply great!!! With the song on the background and the buzzing sound of the rain droplets that could be felt from inside the car, we started talking on various aspects, various topics, such as careers, academics, life and girls. Now, Kutush was more interested in talking about girls as his attitude was a bit of a Romeo who could almost flirt with any girl in the college, provided that, the girl must be beautiful, because according to his flirting theory he always said that ‘Beautiful girls deserve some flirting from smart guys like him!!!!’……. .And, anything or any facts or any natural traits about a girl was best known by Kutush in our gang, and so we had no other choice, but to believe him whenever he talked about girls in life, and somewhere it felt good as well to know  from him when it comes to girls. He never had a fixed girlfriend in life because he believed in flirting and not love, given that I personally did not like this attribute of him. It felt cheap to me, very cheap indeed. At that point of time almost everyone in our group and my other college mates at GC  had a girlfriend, as it was the age when ‘someone feels for someone’. But, it was an exception in my case. I was shy right from my schooldays till my Higher Secondary days. I never opened up with people much easily,had some distances with people around me whom I do not know better. Perhaps, this selfish and  shy nature of mine from my childhood prevented me in having a crush on someone or feel for someone till date. And, I was completely ‘Ok’ with that. Days passed happily for me, long day college schedule, Math on my mind, Tom and Jerry shows, hours of back to back Hindi cinemas, cricket, hangouts and good food were my best companions that time. Kutush and Rajdeep always teased me by saying that I reached B.Sc final year and till now I never had a girlfriend. I mean it made me so irritated sometimes,and somewhere made me think on it for a moment, such that I used to erase this thinking from my mind at the very next moment. So, it was like sort of a cron job for me which was often alarmed up by Kutush and Rajdeep.

…….and then, Kutush popped out a motorola handset from his hollow denim pockets in style. In the middle of the conversation,he said “just wait bro, I am going to show you a picture.” I said “Okay.” .He quickly navigated to the specific functions in his handset and made me show that picture. It was a group picture of some of his friends. There I first saw the picture of Nandita, or more precisely ,he made me show her picture for the first time. I said ‘the picture is nice’ and he spontaneously asked, ‘and how is the girl?’ At this I asked with a grin on my face,’why is he interested to show her picture to me?’, and then I laughed and said,’I think she is your new girl, right.!!!’. At this he punched my lower bicep so hard as it was his habit to do so  whenever we irritated him with such stinky questions. We did that on purpose though, because he looked cute when he got irritated. I then quickly asked the name of the girl in that group picture. And, it was when I got to know that she is Nandita Chakraborty  a  B.Com 1^st year student who went to the same coaching classes as Kutush did and there was this photo recently taken on Teacher’s Day, given that her academic information came up as a free voucher to me along with her name as it was Kutush’s habit to speak more than required. The photo was digitally blur and zooming on to her face made it even more blurry as the pixels got cracked and de-pixalated from their positions, given that Kutush’s poor quality phone camera was completely responsible for such image distortions. But, inspite of that I could see a smile on her face on that blurry background. Yeah, she looked good was the only remark that I made to Kutush as I responded back to him and at the same time pressed the zoom-out button on his handset!!! And then he asked me with his eyes wide open,’Do you want her number? She is a nice girl, he added!!!’ I then asked him ‘what? Was this the only reason behind to make me show the picture, and why are you so interested in making me introduced to her,I integrated?’ At this, he said in a bit emotional tone ,’Bro, I flirt with girls who are just meant for flirting and not with those girls who are meant to be loved!!!’ He then said,’the reason why I want you to be friends with her is that we all know how well natured you are, and you would love to talk to her as a friend, I can bet you that’. In short, he meant ‘she is just the female version of me, naturewise- simple,quite, calm and polite, and hence he presumed a good chemistry between us, our mentalities etc etc’ All throughout the time, I listened to him with my mouth partly wide open. That moment I realised that Kutush really deserves a place in the list of my close friends who thinks about me to such extent that he analysed and matched a girl’s nature with me, only for the reason that they did not want to tease me anymore on this subject, which he added later on!!!. He was a rude guy from outside, but inside he was a gem of a human being. After all such description of Kutush about her, I could realise that Kutush seriously wanted me to have a friend who is a girl!!! He said ‘you can just be friends with her, take her number, if you want, chat with her, experience it once, it’s college life which comes only once in life, isn’t it??’ I was startled by such words of him. I wondered how this guy can become so serious all at once and utter so many intelligent sentences at the same time.  I then said  to console him ‘ok, I will take her number’, given that I was also somehow convinced about what he said. As soon as I said ‘ok’ , he quickly navigated to Nandita’s number in his phonebook, given that his keypads sounded like hell whilst he searched for the M-names in his phonebook. 9706602134, was the number, as he dictated it to me. I quickly saved that Vodafone operated number(with no-name) in my ‘just-bought’ B/W Sony Ericsson handset and quickly inserted the mobile ,back inside my pocket. Kutush again alarmed me, with a smile this time, in his face, ‘message her once, don’t just forget it’.It felt somewhere he was happy for me. All these ‘with a less important reason’ and ‘all of a sudden getting a girl’s number’ felt good to me that time, as it was the first time for me when I would be messaging a girl. Literally , it was the first time for me. Kutush’s happiness got exposed as he raised up the volume to the 90s mark in the Blaupunkt where a Enrique song was playing up then. The discussion and the number exchange done, and we could notice that the 3 hour long rain has stopped and a ‘after-rain’ light cold breeze and granular rain droplets were just left as  residues. It was 9 then, when someone knocked Kutush at the front window. Kutush slided the power window in style and it was his brother-in-law, Ashish Da,on the other side with a partly wet umbrella covering his head from the rain grains. He asked both of us to leave for home now,as they are almost done with the check up and they will be going home with an hired auto within 1 hour or so. In short he asked Kutush to have the car with him as it rained heavily and so he wanted his newly bought car to be protected inside Kutush’s father’s  rented garage as Ashish Da did not have a garage of his own at that time.  We said ‘ok’ in unison just after Ashish da finished his sentence. Actually, we were  happy from inside thinking of the fact that we are atlast free from this ‘waiting’ thing. In the meanwhile, Ashish da called up his driver, Nandu, a short, young guy of around 19-20 carrying a black complexion, and  accompanied with a moustache beard on his chin. The clinic was located at NS Avenue, which is one of the posh business areas in Silchar. And, me and Kutush lived in the same locality , which was Chandmari, where Chandmari  is one of the busy areas in Silchar due to the existence of  Doordarshan Kendra (aka TV Center) and Kendriya Vidyalaya there. It took about 15 minutes for us to reach Chandmari from the clinic. I was the one to get down off the car first, as my residence came before Kutush’s , such that it is only a 5 minute walking distance from my house to his and vice-versa. So, it was not a big deal anyways!!!! I went off the car and waved a bye and a good night wish at the same time to both Nandu and Kutush, and they did the same in return, given that Kutush once again additionally alarmed me up to message that girl whose number I saved earlier that night, and soon the car disappeared out from my sight as it took the right turn on the head of my lane. This was it, the wait and the rain stopped and I headed towards the main door of my residence. It was 10 then when I pressed that miniatured calling bell that was placed near the door, such that, at the same time, I was shedding off my hairs that got partly wet due to the rain grains outside, given that, during this process,  wet drops of rain directly traversed from my hair via my nose on to the white marbled floor in my verandah. It was my mother(Ma) who opened up the door after a couple of minutes with yawns in her faces and said ‘O, you came home’, at which I added ‘Yes,’ and straight away headed myself in to the bathroom, pulling out my jacket, jeans and mobile phone at the same time  near the adjacent table that was placed just near the bathroom’s door.Later that night, it was almost 11, I became fresh and finished my dinner, and was making preparations to go to bed as the next early morning followed my Calculus classes. And suddenly while packing up my bag for tomorrow’s morning classes, I remembered to send a message to that girl,’Nandita’ as asked by Kutush to do so. And, I just sent a ‘Hi, attached with a usual template of a friendship request along with my hi’, given that I had no bad intentions beneath. It was ‘just a message sent, just for nothing’. ‘Message delivered to 9706602134’ was the status of my phone that vibrated on my study table for a couple of seconds. I smiled uselessly seeing the automated response of my airtel operator, may be somewhere I was happy to perform what Kutush asked me to do and that was the reason for my smile, perhaps!!!..And then , I went to sleep………..and this was how I got the first contact of Nandita in my life!!!

 

 

Episode 2: Messages and  Replies

I almost forgot that I sent a message to Nandita. The reason behind this was that it was now 1 week after I sent the message, but no replies yet received. But as Kutush, Rajdeep and Vicky frequently kept on asking me everyday if she has replied or not, this increased my urge to message her once again and know about why she did not atleast reply, you know how male ego gets hit when a girl avoids him for no reason, so , same was my case here. So, I sent her a message again after 7-8 days , this time asking a ‘Why’ thing in the message. And to my surprise, she replied me saying that ‘She does not make friends with strangers and that she has a very selective group of friends within a selected circle’. OMG, her constraints of friend making were more complex than geometrically representing a circle in an Argand Plane. In reply, my ego spoke more than myself and I said ‘Do you think, you look like Madhuri Dixit for having such a condition while you choose your friends. You  could have only said a No in reply, without exhibiting your  friend selection procedure, and I would have stepped back. Straight and simple, and more importantly, I just wanted to be your friend and I am not Shakti Kapoor as well, I added to lighten up the initial segment of my reply.’ It was a long text message which I send in instalments from my handset as my handset only supported 250 words per message and I exceeded that range, and so I had to forward the last part to her, again in another message. This time I knew my phone would vibrate with her message within 5 minutes as I somewhere hurted her female sentiment!!! I did that intentionally. And I was right, she messaged me back with some defensive replies from her part, and me again replied back, and this continued for many days, umm, almost about 4-5 months. Like this, life was going happily with my friends,my mother and you people around me,and just like Hindi Cinema, it felt as if a fast paced music played in the background all the time, as time started to roll down faster to make myself meet up my desired career and degree, pursue and live my dreams for me, for my family,for you and JB, for people who loved me. We did not meet up any day during these long message conversations, we just chatted about uselessly , shared happy feelings, sad feelings, good news, bad news, even shared dinner menus with each other, shared about our favourite things, shared talks about our society, about India and about our careers and all, and in course of time we became good friends and soon I got addicted to her to share my all- day-stuff with her, at the end of the day. It felt great to do so. But, not for a single moment of time I felt that I was in love with her. No, I did never feel for her myself. It’s one of the stunning climax of this story ,I believe. But, somewhere I knew that during all these chat sessions she started liking me, and many times she wanted to tell this to me but failed, and I too feared of her proposing me, coz I was not ready for this and so intentionally avoided chats on those topics with her. But, yeah conversing with her was something like awesome, but not love it was.  I looked a thin lanky guy in my college days whom the girls rarely noticed and more importantly , I never had a permanent pocket money sanctioned from my home as my mother permanently  got some financial problems after my father’s death, so this was one of the reason to put myself back from all these stuff and so I feared to express my feelings, my wants, my desires, given that somewhere later I found my college life similar with the state  of that God-fearing and family-caring guy, Raju Rastogi in 3 idiots that later got released in winter 2011. But, you people were always there to help us in our needs and for these a ‘Thank You’ is not that enough. It literally ‘meant a lot’ is the thing I can only say to applaud your help. Thanks to JB specially, for always being there with us during the hard times. You are lucky, really very lucky to have him in your life and so are we!!!! Anyways, soon I got my Mathematics dominated B.Sc degree and there was this question at the very next moment-‘What’s next?’, which seemed and sounded more like a Samsung TV AD to me at that time!!!! And , finally we mutually decided that  Next I should do MCA, given that we did much discussions and talks on this matter with various other people before taking any step. And they also verified us that MCA is a good course to kick start a fresher’s career in a IT domain. And, it was more exponentially elevated by the fact that MCA is equivalent to Engineering, so it propelled us more to go for it. And, in the long run, I am happy with my course and I respect it and I  never have regretted myself on being coming into MCA and not Engineering!!! During this course of time and a preparation to leave for Guwahati for my MCA Entrance Exams, I was still in touch with Nandita, with only textual messages and sometimes a 2-3 minute long  phone call after every 4 -5 days, which was way too formal with her!!!!! But, yeah during all these, I shared my achievements with her, such as my getting hold of the B.Sc degree  , my segregated happy feelings as I was leaving Silchar to pursue my ‘recently-turned dream degree’ and hence to get a job. In the meanwhile, of  these discussions  and speculations regarding my career by my family and my relatives, I also got myself to earn some money as I started doing MS Office Jobs in a part time basis for a local PWD Engineer and at the same time gave  math tuitions to students of  classes 9 and 10, and sometimes to 11 as well!!!.All these life updates of mine were consistently shared by me with her, through text messages, at the end of each tiring day, and I felt good to do that. Really, Good to do that I meant..And, this was how, we became friends, and thence we started messaging and replying each other  and likewise the story went on further!!!!

 

Episode 3: April, Entrance and Excitement

It was April 2010 now and my MCA entrance examination was scheduled to be held in the mid week of the month at Guwahati, given that the venue happened to be Assam Engineering College aka AEC Guwahati. I have been to Guwahati  only for a couple of times earlier in the last few years. So, I did not know much about the streets and the addresses there,that is, in a word I was not all acquainted nor accustomed with the life and people in Guwahati.  The only address that I learned by heart that time was Jalukbari, AEC, Guwahati-12, as it was my venue for the exam. And, soon the day came when I left for Guwahati along with my mother because she did not want me to go there alone and appear at the exam. And it is quite obvious as well, as most Bengalee parents won’t allow their children to  be  alone in an alien place, and I was no exception as well. And hence we boarded off the Day-Super Deluxe bus that routed me and my mother from Silchar to Guwahati and finally we were there in the capital of Assam.

Guwahati:

 I with my mother boarded with our baggage in one of our relatives home there at Beltola, so far as I remember, it was somewhere nearby Beltola. The place was good, filled with mostly nice and helping people all around the place, it seemed to me; given that the language there was a bit tough for me to understand initially. Yes, I am speaking about the local dialect, Assamese aka Oxomiya, which the local people in Guwahati generally speak. It sounded sweet, nicely versed, but I could not understand every chunk of a sentence in a single time. So, I opted to go for Hindi and started conversing with people in Hindi if any conversation was required. In this way, in a couple of days, I got a bit familiar with the place and also updated my knowledge about various other places at Guwahati and not only Jalukbari!!!!! And, finally, the day came when I was to sit for my MCA Entrance Exam and obviously I was super-excited to give my best in it, as usual. Moved on to the exam venue a bit early , because Beltola is diagonally about 20 Kms distant from AEC. But, this time I moved myself alone upto the exam venue boarding a local bus that routed me from Beltola to AEC Guwahati. It took me about 35 minutes to reach there and finally I was there in front of the room where my roll number was benchmarked. It took me about 2 minutes to navigate to my seat. I was ready with all my ‘during-exam’ necessities and fully charged up. And, finally the exam started and I got busy with the Aptitude test paper first, then with Reasoning and Verbals paper, then with Math and Physics paper and finally I was up with the most easy and comfortable- English paper. And this was it, the reason behind coming to Guwahati was partly accomplished as the results were not declared, given that the Exam Committee scheduled to announce the results in the month of June 2010. So, it was useless for us to stay in Guwahati  for 2 more months.It was simply meaningless, as we could wait for the result from Silchar as well!!!!! So, we moved back to Silchar after a couple of days. I gave the exam but somewhere I was not satisfied with myself as I somewhere felt that ‘No, I am not going to make it out this time!!’ But,I went on updating all these updates about my life to Nandita as well during this process, and she kept on replying too.  But, please do not misunderstand or speculate that.. from this point of time….. I actually fell in love with her and that was why I was updating her every moment about myself and my whereabouts. No…..A Big NO is my answer if anyone makes any such  speculations by reading this episode. I was in no way in love with her even then as well. It was just like that it felt good, really good to share my life events with her, and the reason behind that was a simple, neat and clean friendship between us and nothing else!!! And, then April ended and we were back in Silchar in the 1^st week of May with reduced excitement and tension as well!!!!

 

Episode 4: Rajdeep Me and Nandita:

Silchar:

Back to Silchar felt great , felt awesome. I was away from my hometown for almost a couple of weeks and then when I came back it was just a fantastic feeling of being at home, I experienced that for the first time in life. I hope you people have experienced that too, when you land in India after an interval of every 2-3 years and feel the same as I did . I was happy to be back at Silchar is what I meant in the real sense. Again life took its usual speed in Silchar as my mother rejoined her work in her school, where she has been working as a Teacher cum Administrative Supervisor, almost since when I was an infant….. And I rejoined doing MS office stuffs for that semi-bald Engineer uncle of my locality and at the same time resumed with my tuition classes as well. Life started again, and it was going good with the same old-routine protocols that I mentioned earlier. And among all these, Nandita was there in my life as my best friend (you can say now). And then one day in the month of June we met up, and by ‘We’ I meant Me,Her and Rajdeep (whose description I have mentioned earlier). Rajdeep was a mutual friend of mine and Nandita actually and they shared the same ‘Commerce’ stream, and so , it was the prime reason for him to be with us!!And, more importantly Rajdeep’s newly bought Fazer F5 motorcycle was another reason for him to be with us!!! The blue metallic color on the bike was just awesome to watch that time, because at that point of time, there were only a limited number of blue fazers that roamed in the consistently-uneven streets of Silchar. Rajdeep’s father was in the Custom’s Department,and so a bike worth Rs.80k was just a trivial bonafide for him and somehow we friends got this advantage of having a ‘bade-baap-ka-beta-wala’ friend!!!! But, he was a good guy who always laid a helping hand to his friends,’always’!!! He made me learn and improve my dressing style, customized my looks in the local Saloon and I too loved to improvise my looks according to him. I loved that because he was damn stylish and so, I enjoyed such small-small customizations of him on myself!!!..And, meeting up Nandita was partly Rajdeep’s plan as well. And, I agreed this time quickly, making no tantrums, as I previously did whilst taking her number from Kutush last December. That time I recently bought a ‘Levis Strauss tagged’ red t-shirt for myself from Guwahati, and so it was now of great importance to me in Silchar as I used to wear it and show it to my friends and tell them ‘See, I bought this t-shirt from one of the big malls at Guwahati,Hehe,Hub it was actually, the only mall in Guwahati!!!’ So, without any difficulty to choose from the ‘what to wear’ thing, I dressed myself up in that red tshirt and one of my favorite fade-blue-denim-jeans and a black summer kito. We scheduled to meet up in the evening at about 5’o clock or so while she returned from her coaching classes, given that the complete meeting thing was directed and screenplayed by Mr. Rajdeep!! We rode up in his motorcycle and I tried to look as good as possible because presenting myself in front of a girl for the first time was not that tough for me, but it was Rajdeep who looked so damn cool and handsome that I envied him sometimes on that respect and so, I was a bit occupied with  ‘am I looking good and all’ types of feelings somewhere in my mind as we approached the meeting point  to meet Nandita. And finally we reached there. We reached there late even with a motorcycle, and we could see her standing in a light pink salwar and a off-white designer dupatta on her, a bright bindi of some unknown color texture. These are the things which I first noticed in her as Rajdeep was busy in parking his motorcycle. We 3 waved ‘hi and smiles ’ to each other in unison, as she was standing on the other side of the road. It was Nandan’s at Premtola where we first met up, given that Premtola in Silchar is famous for its couple-oriented restaurants like Daddy’s , Nahaaz etc etc and also that Premtola is a unique name in the ‘World Places Nomenclature’ and a very few people know about it. I guess you did not know it as well. Google it for details .And about Nandan’s at Premtola, it was more of a ice cream cum  foreign chocolate parlour which was new in the town then, and was gaining much attention gradually. Hence, we talked there for about 2 hours or so, and I gave her a greeting card(a friendship card) as it was our first meet, and she gave me a key ring. I remember, we had a pastry kind of a thing there which was tasty as well. She looked beautiful , yeah she was beautiful, but that does not meant that I am in anyway going to fall for her. We met up on 14^th June a day before her 21^st birthday,and that is why I also gifted her with a chocolate later on, as I quickly remembered that tomorrow is 15^th, given that I remembered about it whilst we were talking about some birth dates of other people!!! And, so this was it, I met with her, talked with her on various abstract topics,asked her what did she have at lunch and some more useless and random stuffs, and the best thing I found in her was that ‘she was not somebody else in messaging and not someone else when I met her in real, in short she was not fake!!!’ ..and I loved that in her!!! And, then finally after a long conversation of about 2 hours or so, we did say ‘Let’s go now’ at the same time!!And then we again waved each other, but this time with a ‘bye and a long persistent smile in our faces’. Yeah I got more familiar with her now. She took a share-auto to her home and we choked the motorcycle and drove back to our den as well. This was how we first met up and the story rolled down hence further!!!!

Episode 5: Results

Results of my MCA Entrance Exam came up in the 3^rd week of June 2010. And, as expected I did not make it up to get admitted in AEC. I knew it, that somewhere I have not given my best in it. However, my name was in the 17^th waiting list, so there were 20% chances to have a breakthrough there in AEC. But, it did not work as well. At that time I wished I were a SC category student or belonged from a minority community because in India reservation of seats in Govt. Colleges and Govt. Jobs seems as a birthright for the SC’s and minorities. I am  not a casteist by nature, but discriminations like this, when it comes to studies and jobs, really stinks. It is not that all SC’s or minorities are not getting good marks or scoring high percentages. They obviously are making out brighter brains in India  and abroad as well, but there are many instances where the genuine talents get ignored in the waiting list just because we belong to ‘General’ category. And that is perhaps the reason why, the movie Swades has left a mark in my mind so deeply, given that its subtle caption,’we the People’ do mean a lot of things if observed and thought carefully. Anyways, there’s no reason of getting into a patriotic scene over here. The thing was that, ’I was sad from inside’ and this time too I shared it with Nandita. She also felt sorry for me;and what else could I expect her to do for me, apart for being sorry on the fact!!!It was who I was to be blamed and completely responsible for my failure. But, life did not stop, working for the Engineer at late nites, drawing engineering diagrams in Adobe Smart-Draw  and stroking the keyboard to finish up his project report in Microsoft Word were still going on and I was getting handsome amount of money in return for my work to him as well. In parallel my tuition students got promoted from Class 9 to Class 10 and scored good marks under my supervision as well. Parents of students got satisfied with my way of friendly teaching in Math and they bought me more students to my class. All these  ran parallel in my life; mixed emotions of earning small amounts of money and helping out my mother  at times of  her need felt great. A divine achievement it is for any person when he/she gets to help their parents with his/her own hard earned money. So, this achievement of mine gradually made me forget about the failure in MCA entrance exam and I started to be more optimistic in the belief that..’there is always a next time!!!’ and I started to focus on what I really have at present!!!I soon became the boss of my gang as I was the only earner. By boss I meant I often spent a lot of my own money on our daily small-small needs such as Chicken Momo at Jhalupara and some of such things that made our friendship memorable and gave us something to be nostalgic about when we get old and rest ourselves in Ezee Chairs, given that I can bet all 3 of them would be smiling if they would someday get to see this document!!! And by Jhalupara, it is one of the suburb in Silchar which is famous for its neatly cooked momos and a Shillong like environment where you will most often get to see people with chinky eyes!!!!In short it’s a teenager’s place to hang out after their coaching classes, for debutant smokers ,and especially for momo lovers, and we were there especially for the 3^rd reason in this list!!! This was how I recovered myself up from the strain of not getting into AEC and at the same time went back to normal life… with much optimism this time, given that I should thank Nandita for fuelling in large quantity of optimism in me since then. Yeah, she was getting closer to my heart now!!!But not it was Love even then!!!

 

Episode 6: MCA Calling

Life was passing nice and good as well. Mother in good health,  you people in good mood. And everything else was just working like cream in my life!!! We were happy in short!!!It was July 2010 when a sudden call from AEC vibrated in my ‘newly bought’ Colored  Motorola w5 handset (that I bought from my own money). I was playing cricket in the locality then, when the phone rang up in my pocket and tickled my thighs with its sudden vibration. It was a unknown landline number, given that the ‘0361’ thing at the front of the number made me realise that its surely a call from Guwahati as 0361 is the area code for Guwahati. I picked up the phone by pausing myself from the fielding position at short cover and employed a kid-substitute for the time being!!! And, then I conversed with the person on the other side for about 30 minutes. Understood the whole thing that he narrated me in Assamese at which I responded back in Hindi whenever required!!! The call was from AEC- MCA selection branch. They said that your name has been upgraded to   12^th waiting list from 17^th and so you have no chances now to get into AEC, the loud sounding man on the other side confirmed me. But, then he said that, for you not to lose your 1 year we are making a parallel admission process in GIMT, that means he was telling me that -for those students who are in the waiting list in AEC are selected for admission into GIMT directly without facing any other Entrance Tests there. And, then finally he said the ‘business thing’, he said… you can just go there and show your MCA entrance marks in AEC and get admitted there, but as GIMT is a private college, you would have to pay the semester fees as mandatory for every student there. And, then I said, ‘O, so this is the catch. You are letting waiting list candidates of AEC to GIMT so that they do not waste their 1 year right? I grinfully and ironically added that.’ At this the man replied ‘Yes’ and then hanged up the phone. It was a simple reason behind such a great allowance of AEC to their waiting list candidates. And the reason was simply ‘Money and Commission’.  Anyways, I had to share this to my mother and you people. I finished off my fielding and did some last minute batting as well and returned home!! And, then told about this call to my mother and then mother intimated this to you and I again intimated this to Nandita this time too;  the best use of information sharing is what I learnt during that period of time!!!!. And then again this research on GIMT started and it ended up in a good note. And, at last yeah, GIMT was proved and verified as a good educational institute of the Northeast as many of our Guwahati relatives and Google said the same thing!!! So, it was time to shift gears as we quickly decided some life changing plans together in my life given that JB took all the backend responsibility of me getting into GIMT and studying there. I am so grateful for that, I cannot express this gratitude in words, and I do not want to do that as well, because if I say a ‘Thank You’ to him, it would be his insult. He has always been so supportive with me and he always had the same opinions as mine when it came to my career.He is so analytic and strong in logical thinking and that’s why perhaps he has achieved a great feat in the present day. I like his ideologies in life more than myself. I wonder if one fine day I could also be like him, with some of his attributes in me, and that would be enough for me!!! He always mend things my way more than my sister. He is really a honest human being I have ever seen after my father and some of the attributes in him really match up with my father. It’s not just because of the support that I am writing all such adjectives to his name. It’s because of the ‘We are there’ feeling that you people boosted in us whenever we were in difficulty in India. We do love you a lot, ‘really a lot’. Mixed emotions often makes my writings lengthy, I know that. But anyways, it was then I was all ready to go and get my admission into GIMT Guwahati and set my MCA footprints there. So, this single phone call in the cricket ground changed my life at that point of time. Changed the routine of my life, working for the engineer, gossiping with friends, tuition classes and many more such things disappeared from my life in a snap, as I started preparing myself up to go and get settled in Guwahati for the next 3 years till I complete my MCA degree and get a job!!!And, about, Nandita , the status of me and her was the same like as before. I kept on updating her about myself and she kept on updating me about her life and moods and we were just enjoying this. We were really enjoying this ‘Silence between us!!’ .It was not love even then as well. Let’s now roll down to the next episode!!

 

Episode 7: Life at Guwahati

Guwahati: July 2011

This time I set my footprints in Guwahati all alone. I packed my baggage from home and came here to obtain my long awaited MCA degree from Guwahati. Initially, I resided at my Aunt’s(Rangamashi’s) residence at Athgaon, which is primarily a Marwari dominated area with tall buildings every here and there but very unhygienic at the same time , given that plastic wrappers, torn clothes, and animal excreta  lay here and there quite often in the streets and lanes of Athgaon. But, initially, I had no other choice but to be with them because they are our only close relatives at Guwahati, and also they have been staying in Guwahati since the past 30 years. So, in short they were my caretakers in Guwahati. Soon, I got admitted into MCA clan of GIMT. Now, GIMT also known as Girijananda Chowdhury Institute of Management and Technology is  quite famous in Northeast as the one of its kind Engineering cum Management College for its outstanding results from the students of various branches that the college offers. It was about 30 kms I  had to travel everyday to move from Athgaon to the college and 30 kms back again on my return. I was half sliced as a bread crumb within a first few months of our 1^st semester classes due to his travel overload 5 days a week, and at the same time, loads of class assignments added up my pressure!! But, I was enjoying it and regularly was in touch with you people, my mother and Nandita as well. She was happy that I got admitted to MCA and we normally chatted over text messages after each tiry day. But as my semesters took more pace in them, I got more involved in my work to score good marks in my 1^st semester, we totally lost contact somewhere, and she too never asked me back and it was just like ‘Gone with the wind’ case. She somehow understood that now my priorities have changed and maybe for that reason she did not disturb me. I do suppose that. And, Yeah,I somewhere intentionally cut contacts with her, because I realised that if I carried on this friendship anymore, it would turn into love as Nandita often tried to express it during our chats. So, the thing is- by the end of my 1^st semester, I never chatted with Nandita again, nor did I inform her about my life updates. I thought it’s like ‘ok’, hota hai yaar types. But, then somewhere around just my 1^st semester finished , then one fine day, Nandita called me up and asked me directly why I am off in contact with her for so many days? Is there any thing wrong? She added in her query with almost a crying tone.I was totally amazed to see her call in my handset. But, then I explained her that I thought you were busy and you thought I am busy, and these thoughts happened in unison and so it might be the reason for our sudden disconnection. Anyways, after a 20 minutes call from her, we mend everything nicely saying sorry to each other and again regained that ‘Best friends wala’ freshness in our relationship. And then times passed, I passed out my 1^st semester with flying colors and Nandita and me were till now close and best friends but not love it was from my part. Everything going right like as before and in the meanwhile my mother also left Silchar and came here to live in with me as she thought my health would be detoriating more and more if I stay there alone. So, she came to me packing up things at Silchar ,leaving her job for me and her memories there, all for me. I love her a lot, but she does not know that. And when it comes to my mother, I fall short of words to describe the goodness in her, which I think ,can be only best seen by me after my father and not even by my sister!!! In short, I loved her and we were together in Guwahati now like we did at Silchar. She cooked for me, I ate ,went to College and life was full on busy. She soon got herself a job and she had no problem getting herself a job because she had a 17 year long working experience in an academic institution at Silchar. So, finding a academic related job in Guwahati was not a big deal for her. And life was now accelerating day by day as my 2^nd semester was way too tough than the 1^st. Mother and me both got busy. But at the end of the day I still shared my life events with Nandita and she shared her life events with me as well, and by life events I meant each and everyday event. By this time she also passed her 2^nd year in B.Com and things went ok with all of us in both the families. And this is how, life at Guwahati went on till my 6^th semester here,with some mishappenings in the middle as well which I would be describing from the next episodes.

 

Episode 8: Hospitalised Emotions

When my mother shifted to Guwahati to take care of my health, we shifted to a rented apartment at Adabari, which is just 20 minutes from my college if you prefer a local cab from Jalukbari. Adabari is purely a Bengalee dominated area in Guwahati with fun-filled people all around. With shops of various genre at equally spaced intervals lined one after the other ,it often seemed as if it is the New market in Baguihati, Kolkata where I have been a few times and that’s why I could make this comparison of Adabari with Baguihati!!! I started learning about the city more and more as I discovered new streets and addresses everytime I roamed around Guwahati. I started learning computer languages and Assamese as well. Everything was going good and I soon got promoted to 3^rd semester that time. It was June 2012 now when my mother got suddenly and seriously ill that she needed to be hospitalised immediately. I was in the college when my mother informed about her sudden downfall in health and asked me to come back home soon. That day, coming back home, I almost saw death in a closer version!! I was scared , so scared seeing her condition that time. Phone Calls from relatives, free advices to do this and that started within a couple of hours, given that within these couple of hours I arranged an ambulance, took her and admitted her to the Hayat Hospital at Lalganesh Guwahati under the supervison of our family doctor who practiced there. You people called up later in the evening  to know what is the matter. I explained it you people in a detailed mannerism and I too hope that you could well imagine my condition that time. So, I will cut short about this tragic episode that happened to us last year, because you too know that!!! All emotions of life were quickly hospitalised there; and all aims in life got a pause for sometime and I too turned so low from inside as I was somewhere worrying about my 3^rd semester exams which was then knocking at the door. My mother had a potassium imbalance in her body and that was the reason for such a serious downfall in her health. But, all is well that ends well, she cured up and got discharged from the hospital soon and her health got in place again,given that since after, medicines support her to keep her in the right place everytime.  I finally won over the big challenge myself all alone in Guwahati ,as I brought her back to home after a couple of weeks treatment at the hospital. And obviously, you people always were there with me at such a situation of my life. You provided me the moral boost and made me learn the protocols on how to take and manage things up in life when it comes to practical scenarios. A big ‘Thank You’ for that!!! And about Nandita, yeah I did inform her about all the mishappenings in my life suddenly,and she was there with me to moralise me time to time, to understand me,to care for me and lots more. She was there for me at my bad times and my happy times as well. I realised it that time and for that I owe her a lot. But,it was not love from my side , but yeah she started loving me then, which she expressed up by herself to me that time, yeah!!she sort of proposed me that time!!!Later what happened is in the next episode!!

 

Episode 9: Forcible feelings

I avoided her proposal indirectly. I did not say a Yes nor a No to her at that point of time. But then she raised the proposal again after everything was set to normal in my life. And, it was then when I was literally touched by her feelings for me and eventually agreed to her proposal in a finger snap. I thought may be God has kept her as a friend of mine so long, so there must be some reason behind that and hence we people finally turned this friendship into a relationship, a neat and clean relationship. She was happy with every instinct in me, she loved me like anything, but I never had that ‘O yes, she is the one’ wala feeling for her. I always respected her  a lot, and even now I do respect her, but could never love her from my heart. Yes, it’s the most surprising climax of this story. But, I never showed her that I still do not love her. I was sometimes bored of this fakeism in me that sometimes I looked at myself in my wash basin’s mirror with so much disgrace and fear. Infact, I started hating myself for all these eventual happenings and me coming into relationship with her after a 2 year old friendship. I thought it was perhaps my fate as I have no right to hurt her, no right to reject her,coz I owe her a lot of things as I earlier mentioned, I owe her the moral boost, I owe her the unconditional support that she always fed into me. She is a lovable girl but was not made to be loved by me. I never exploited her in any sense, I never did. And you have to trust me on that rather than thinking that I am characterless and all. You have to trust me on this, because it is me who is writing only the truth and nothing else!!!  And, finally after a few months when I just got into 4^th semester I expressed my inner feelings to Nandita being relentless and restless in my mind thinking about this relationship which has got no future. I confessed her the inner truth in me -that I am not being able to think of her as  my girlfriend. She cried, cried for hours, but she could not blame me for that as well because she too knew that I agreed on her proposal with a bit hesitation in my mind. And, we separated mutually when I was in my 4^th semester and finally she too understood my point.We are still friends but definitely a distance has been created amongst us and it is quite obvious. But, she is happy now and have engaged herself in a school where she is working actively as her B.Com is over and she is now a fresh graduate. As far as I know, she will do good in her works and her life and I too want that!! Afterall, she is my friend till now, but we seldom contact each other. This episode has portrayed on how ‘Love can sometimes happen with forcible feelings’. I hope you too understood what I meant to say. For me , it was not love, it was just a payback to her for her unconditional friendship to me, which I thought initially would be easier to cope up, if I agree to her proposal, but later on, I found it difficult to be with her, as my heart did not allow me to do so , and also that I have no right to destroy 2 lives at the same time. The thing is ‘Do tell Ma that her son is not characterless as she thinks of me now, Please do narrate this episodes to her’. I love you people…a lot.

 Episode 10: A New Beginning

The episode is intentionally captioned as ‘A new beginning’ because there is something new in it. Something fresh in it. I actually had my first crush on her in MCA 2^nd semester, when she first came to the college. She also got admitted in MCA but she was our junior. She was in 1^st semester that time. We  never talked, never did exchanged any gestures in the college. Maybe I stopped myself talking to her much, because I knew if I started talking to her, I would be somewhere not doing good with Nandita. But it was all eventual with Nandita as I said earlier, and that is why only when I separated myself up from Nandita I sent her a friend request in Facebook for the first time after my 4^th sem exams were over. It all really started with a friend request, but you cannot orthodoxically blame Facebook for making us be together. This time it was really a new beginning, a true beginning, an honest beginning. I would not write much in this episode as from this point she would integrate our mutual feelings and complete up the whole story that happened to me in these 3.5 years. But, still I will brief you a little bit on her basic info. Her name is Kalpita Goswami, she is an Assamese, but watches Bengalee TV serials to learn how to speak the language!!!,and she is a Brahmin like us. I am not forcing you to like her. Read her lines about what she wants to integrate into this story and then make whatever remarks you want to make!!!And about my goals in life, they have always been primary to me more than anyone else in life, and they are till today static in my life; what keeps on changing dynamically is the time. And as time moved on, so did I. I hope you people after reading this  story of 3.5 years would try to understand its root context!!! Nothing much to say.The best of my feelings are expressed in this whole document, what more can I say,I hope you understand what ‘a new beginning means!!!!’…and read her lines only after you read this episode1 to episode 10 completely, or else you will be getting confused about the screenplay!!! Make ma read it and understand it and tell her that her son’s ideologies may not be as good like her husband as she said to me last day over the phone, but her son is not so characterless that he keeps on switching girlfriends like this!!!..In a true sense, Kalpita is my first love that’s real and not eventual this time!!!!

 

***It’s just a small try from me and her to make things clear and good between all of us…And, rest depends upon how you take this up on your mind and heart after reading  this short story of me and her, from our side, given that we composed it in 1 single day  and the reason behind that is ‘To speak out the truth, needs no rehearsals’….Love you all!!...

 

NB: And an important point to make, neither did she help me with her words in composing mine, neither did I help her with my words in composing hers!!!!It’s not like that we are into some revolution like Amir Khan and Juhi Chawla in the film ‘Qayamat se Qayamat tak’.. It’s just a true new beginning, a true new love,and once again we do respect your emotions , your parenthood , and we assure you of not hurting you by going against you people in any case!!!, ‘really, in any case, we are not intending to hurt you or doing things that’s not right!!You will understand and relate everything from this  episode after you read her document, only after completely reading all my episodes!!!...Bye for now!!!’