My name is Arnob Bhattacharjee and today i want to share with you all one out of many memorable incidents that happened back in my engineering days.
Back in the day,between 2008-2013, i was pursuing my Mechanical engineering from MIET, Gondia (Maharashtra). Being from Tezpur, Assam how did i end up 2000 kms out there to pursue my graduation is a whole new story. Lets keep it to some other time.
Now, Gondia frankly speaking was not one of the easiest terrains to survive for 4 long years. It is a small township near the border of Maharashtra- Madhya Pradesh . At the first look we all had that doubt creeping inside our heads, specially the guys from north east as the heat was really unbearable in the beginning.
One aspect which we all were lucky and was on our side in terms of not feeling home sick is the huge Assamese population over there. In my batch of 2008 only we were more than 50+. You just name it and you will find students from all districts of Assam. The Assamese seniors were also there in abundance. So we had no trouble of getting along and it was like a one big family.
Now the arrangement was such that only the boys hostel was inside the college campus itself, each block housing different year students and we had this “ Night Canteen” (NC) running inside the campus just near to the hostel area throughout the night. It had a variety of items in its menu from custard, to coffee to shakes to poha to the limited edition FishFry.
Now the NC was a hot spot for all hostelers specially after dinner. The late night discussion hub, be it a birthday celebration, dinner after drinks or exam time quick snack break.
Now one night it so happened that as i was returning from another block i could not control my craving as i was passing by the NC towards my block and decided to go have a FishFry thinking someone from my batch will be obviously as usual seated there and i will pay him later as i was too tired to get my purse from my room and then again come back to the NC.
Also it was the only item which the NC owner did not provide us in credit. As i entered the NC my eyes fell on one of my closest friends “Manga”. I felt confident that i wont have to return empty handed, thanking my luck. He was about to leave for his room finishing his order.
I asked him casually to pay for a FishFry (’muk khuwa na maas eta” : In Assamese) and as was the culture among friends we say this most of the times, kind of party for no reason. But this time i was really in need of the money. Unaware he thought i was just kidding. So he bluntly denied and walked away.
Helpless now and a bit ashamed in front of the NC owner i too had to walk back to my room. At the entrance, Manga saw me following him and he was surprised to see me and he even addressed me as a glutton that i finished up eating so fast. I told him what happened and that i had no money with me then and went to my room to sleep. It was already way past midnight.
As i was about to sleep chatting with my room mates we heard knocking on our door. To my utter surprise there was Manga on the door with his room mate and guess what ....he had brought me FishFry. We all were laughing at the entire episode as we ate the FishFry sharing.
True Friendship is defined by moments as such-
The Maas(Fish) Kando(incident)
