Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Dhanbad Tales

I had to wake up the next day due to the commotion caused by Nidhi and Iti. They are usually up by 6 in the morning. I remember my school days when I too had this habit. Although now waking up at 6 seems a bit out of question, I still miss my school days and want my childhood back.

The whole morning we chatted on various topics including our current lives and future plans. It was more relevent for their side as Iti has just passed 12th and Nidhi is in 1st year. I had not much to say. I happened to know that Nidhi too is an avid Harry Potter fan and for the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon, it was the topic of discussion. Iti couldn't comprehend much what we said, but pretended to enjoy it too. I came to know that Nidhi has "Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix" book and I immediately mentioned my wish to read it.

She said : "If you are going to read it now, when will you talk with us?". So sweet of her. She gifted the book to me so that I can read it in my free time in KGP.

In the meanwhile Iti showed some of the greeting cards she had received for her birthday, new year, etc. She also showed the diaries of a few friends she has taken to fill in. For those who couldn't understand what it means, here's the explaination. As against the usual Slam Books we have to be filled in by friends, it appears that the girls use diaries as a substitute. It has its advantages and disadvantages. While the advantage is that people can write as much as they wish to (the entries I saw were easily 8~9 pages with 30~35 lines per page) , the disadvantage is that you might me at a loss of words to write anything as there's no guideline.

After seeing those, I must say that girls are a lot more sensitive and romantic than I thought. Even if writing for another girl, they have used such a great degree of emotion and romantic language that I couldn't have imagined of. Same was the case with the cards.

I wish I had a girlfriend.

In the evening we went to market but were disappointed to see very few shops open. Even the ones open had Holi related stuff to sell, so we had very few alternatives. We settled for eating Chat and Softy. The rest of the day went rather eventless.

The next day we woke up to say hello to Holi, the festival of colours. Nidhi and Iti planned to not play it initially, but were later forced to play when their grandfather insisted. In the meanwhile I learnt that long time back, my only Mausi died due to people recklessly playing Holi with all sorts of stuff like mud, cow-dung, cereals, etc. Since then onwards, thet didn't played it with that fervor. I also learnt that my Mamaji (Sunil Nandan Sahay) had worked in GE before moving to US.

By the time my Nidhi and Iti were back, they were unrecognizable and spent the next few hours cleaning themselves. We ate the customary Meat Curry for lunch. I played the Abir Holi in the evening as it is harmless to skin, easy to wear out, and people play it with decency. Nothing much happened the rest of the day.

The next day I started preparing to leave. Mamaji had gifted us (me and Ankur) a Leather Bag each. Nidhi and Iti were very saddened to learn that I am going. Nidhi didn't even eat her lunch that day.

I had to catch the 1455hrs train (Bhaga Adra Passenger), so I left a bit earlier around 2pm. On my way, I saw places where the gound level has dipped 4~5 metres owing to the fire that has been raging inside the grounds for the last few decades.

I caught the train and the journey to Adra was very comfortable. I reached Adra on time at 2pm. Here I found another of my friend from Kharagpur, Sudeep Banerjee. As I had no time to call Dhanbad, I took his help to send an SMS back.

I caught the Rupashi Bangla Express which leaves at 1620hrs. It was also full. I had to stand till Bankura station when I managed to get a seat. I reached Kharagpur by 7:30pm, but another surprise awaited us.

We decided to take a Taxi as there were many people. But we found that none of the taxis has any driver in them. Neither were there any Autorickshaws. The Cycle-rickshaws were also very few and they demanded obscenely high money. I was fortunate enough to manage getting a rickshaw, and there were three of us on-board. But the man was professional. He steered the rickshaw even faster than the ones carrying 2 people and we safely reached IIT. I was relieved to be back in RP Hall.

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