Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part VI): How I Met Aneesha

It was around October, just before the Puja vacations that one day I met Aneesha. We just went to college to take a last glimpse of college building before about a fortnight of holidays. The hostel go-ers went to their homes and the air was free of tension of the usual studies and the newly born Autumn air blew lightly and refreshed us with more and more sense of holiday coming. I was in high spirits coz I was about to have the best Puja vacations of my Calcutta life, and the first one with my friends. We were all together and Aditi was a little angry over me and Arka for some reason and was sulking somewhere around library, when a girl named Debopama introduced us to Aneesha.

Aneesha looked like a girl anyone going in the street or meeting her for the first time would mistake her to be a fourth grader. She had little eyes, little ears, little other parts like every fourth grader had, shoulder length hair, and wearing a baby top and like fourth graders, wore her first pair of jeans with a back-pack which looked too heavy for her.

We roamed a while in college while Pratip picked up books from the library, and Aneesha accompanied us till I asked her to add me in Orkut and she bade goodbye to us all and parted in the front gates of the library. But this was not just yet.

Later that night, Aneesha did add me on orkut and we were online together that time. She had some cute Anime as display picture, like all girls do. We talked for a while like the first talks every newly met strangers usually have, and we exchanged phone numbers over Google Talk too.

The real fun started next morning, when Aneesha and I were online again. We were having the same lifeless conversation when Arka buzzed me on chat. I told Arka that Aneesha might be getting bored by me coz her replies were the usual, and they came in late and we didn’t have anything new to talk about. So, Arka decided to spice things up a little bit. He told Aneesha from his side of chat that, Samik’s Orkut and Google Talk account are sometimes used by his elder brother just for fun and to spy on Samik. And the game kicked off.

I should have seen her face but I can very nicely imagine that it was drained of all the blood she had, coz she had quite a decent conversation, however boring, and exchange of phone numbers, and she was scared like hell. When Arka told me this, I started forcing her to talk like “Hey, what happened, why aren’t you replying” etc... and she was all silent and won’t even return any of my chats or texts. After sometime she went offline maybe thought of never coming online ever for security reasons.

Arka and I had a laugh over it the whole afternoon till we both decided her to feed her the truth. After all it was just meant to spice up the boring talk, and then we both texted her which she returned that night with a lot of life threating threats like “WILL KILL YOU BOTH” ... Arka and I laughed more on this becoz we are both nearly six feet tall and she was a fourth grader. She did finally hit Arka and me when the college reopened after the vacations and I mistakenly reminded her of hitting us.

Meeting with Aneesha was this fun, and we came to have more and more fun later on. On Aneesha I REALLY need to write this – It was just a few weeks we have known Aneesha, we were walking a road behind the college which lead to the old school, when a cow was coming towards us. She was leading the way previously when suddenly she cowared (probably coz the size of the cow was much much more than her own size) and ran to hide behind us. Suddenly I shouted – “Aneesha is hiding from Aneesha.” Now, at first Aneesha didn’t get the statement but Arka did, and laughed out loud, and after five minutes or so, when Aneesha finally came to realise what it was and she chased Arka and me down the street all the way till she was out of breath (trust me, she has a lot of breath). This "Cow = Aneesha" thing went on for many days including a text session between Aneesha and me.

Aneesha came to become one of us in the time to come, and she is still sticking. Its good to have a baby girl around us who is as much innocent as a baby just a few month’s old. And this was all how it started, How I Met Aneesha...

Yet To Come: How I met Pritam... Stay Tuned...

To Be Continued...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part V): How I Met Pratip

It was that strange Wednesday when I met Pratip. Now, every friend group has guys and girls who are one of their kind. Pratip is the “Brilliant” guy among us. You can never predict what he is gonna do next. He can crack the worst PJs that can drive the most patient mind in this world go “GAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” in no time, and he would have more of those up the sleeve. He is some guy who would do something with so innocence that you would lose track that if he doing something wrong. A heart with no complications (but his brain overflowing with it).

So, the first day of mine with them, I was all hesitant that they accepted me or not, we all went to that place that was our ‘Spot’, and there was all Clicking noises of the Camera that Aditi always kept with herself. So, among those clicking noise, there were occassional experiments. There was one time, when we handed Pratip the camera and asked to take a picture of all of us. He tried to click the picture, but it was after a while we realised that something was wrong and the next thing followed was cracked by Pratip (I will Quote the exact words): “Achha eta Video keno hochhe?” (Ahem, why is it recording a video?) and we all burst out laughing who were all sitting still a while ago posing for the supposedly Perfect shot. This was the earliest memory I have of Pratip.

Whenever Pratip calls any of us, this is his punchline: “Hello, I am Pratip Aditya speaking, may I speak to Samik Bhattacharya?” and our punchline used to be “I am so sorry, but you can’t speak to him.” And his next line will be “Oh, Samik, I was saying ki...” He is full of ideas and sometimes he would also speak things anyone would mistake as if he is drunk to the full, and would sometimes apply theories of Physics in almost everywhere that would drive almost all of nuts, but still, there is something about him that we never want to exclude him from anything.

Excitements never cease to show themselves when Pratip is around, but its usually Pratip who ends up getting bored. Memories with Pratip is nothing too big but, its strengthened by small bits of of innumerous pieces (of memories) and little events. He is very special to us, and when we made friends with him, we made friends with his silly temper rising jokes and his innocently caring nature too. There are not many things that happened the moment I met Pratip, but so many things that followed down the road, would sometimes make you kick him in the butt while make you burst your stomach with unstoppable laughter in the next, such that when you remember that incident one week later, you will burst again into that sort of laughter again. Pratip came to become one of my Best Friends and will always be even if I have to bear some of his annoying PJs most of the time...

Next Time: How I Met Urmi... Stay Tuned...

To Be Continued...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part IV): How I Met Aditi

It was the August of our Freshmen year. I was already familiar with talking to Arka and being a comfortable part of that Freshmen Community he had created. There used to be several posts including some of girls’. And among those girls was the profile of a girl, Aditi.

In those times, she had the most attractive Display Picture among us (she still has). She was rarely online and her posts in the community were very few, unlike Arka, Polo, and me. I was really impressed by the choice of her Display Picture and that encouraged me to add her in my Orkut Friendlist after several days of hesitation.

Now, the first impression of Aditi came to me as her response to my friend request. I didn’t quite expect that she was going to accept the request, but the next day I logged into my Orkut account as usual, I saw the most unusual thing one can come across in any Social Networking site. It was a friend request from Aditi with a message that said she had accidentally rejected my friend request and asked me to add her back.

I really don’t think that Any living thing in the history (or in future) of mankind (social networking) might have possibly done a thing like this, given the fact that I was a complete stranger to her then (and also my display picture was SLASH, so it wasn’t remotely impressive). Most people don’t even care who adds them or not in social networking sites. But this thing she did stunned me.

We had a few brief chats on Orkut Scrapbook after this, but the actual “meeting” came about a fortnight after college started. In those days she was friends with a guy who happened to be in my class. One day, he asked me to accompany him to someone’s Hostel room to pick up his clothes. Meanwhile Aditi called him and they were supposed to meet as the college hours were over. That guy asked me to wait for her around the bend of the alleyway to his friend’s Hostel till he returned.

So, I waited. I already had an idea what she might look like with reference to her display picture in orkut, when the first glimpse arrived. A short, pumpkin shaped girl, dressed in black, with frizzy open hair which almost covered her face, hands folded and wearing a black backpack below the waist.

She already knew I was going to wait for her so when I waved, she started walking towards me. Now, usually, when two people meet for the first time, they exchange “Hi”s but the first thing she said to me was “Are you guys performing in the Freshers’?” (I replied “Thinking of something like that, lets see.”) She was real Crazy...

What a first meeting it was! Aditi, me and ‘that guy’ had a few more minutes of chat after which Aditi and ‘that guy’ parted. That night, I had some quality conversation over Google Talk. Turns out that, when you actually meet someone in person, conversing becomes a lot easier. And then there was the “Rai” incident which I will come to later.

As the time passed, the friendship between us kept growing. And she and Arka came to introduce me to the others. Today Aditi is one of my Best Friends, and she is a proud owner of many nicknames that I gave to her among which, one of them is just AWESOME.

Further: How I Met Pratip, Nirmalya... Keep Reading

To Be Continued...