How I Met Anjali - 1

Entire Hostel was empty as everyone was enjoying their semester break that time. We had a minor problem, as our (I, Mehboob and Dhiru) 7th semester project was not accepted by our guide. Although he was generous enough and gave us another one month time to complete the project. Initially we thought to stay in hostel during the semester break and seriously work on our project. But Dhiru had to go home and we were really upset with him, as we wanted at least Dhiru’s moral support to have completed our project. Now in order to stay in hostel during the holidays, we had to address certain basic issues. Most of the dhaba’s within the campus usually used to remain closed during the holidays. Also, our hostel was located at an isolated area. Actually it's in a small hill and our hostel used to be the end point of our college campus and is at a distance of  around one km from the college. It would have been a little scary to have stayed alone in the hostel. My roommate Nair, told us that he didn't have any plan to visit  his home town, Kerala that time. Sinha and Tarok were also interested to stay with us for few days. So finally it was all set and we decided to stay back in the hostel.

Now our AEC (Assam Engineering College) is quite far from Guwahati city. AEC bus service was excellent and all the buses used to go to the heart of the city and even the bus frequency used to be quite decent. Well, during the holidays the frequency was not that great (after every 2 hours). But as far as I can remember, in the evening one extra bus used to be functional. Those few days we had a typical daily routine. We all used to catch the evening bus and few of us used to get down at Sundarbari (just outside the college campus) to buy chicken and 2 movie CD’s on rent. Remaining guys used to go till Maligaon (some 5-6 km from Sundarbari) to buy our stuffs. After buying our stuffs, we had to wait for some time for our college bus to go back to hostel. Our friends who got down at Sundarbari, were also used to wait for the same bus and we used to go back to our hostel together. We fixed “Ghottu”, one temporary hostel boy who stayed nearby our hostel to cook dinner for us. We used to pay him 50 Rs per day.

By the time Ghottu prepared food, I and Mehboob worked on our project and the remaining guys used to spend some time in the common room. There was some problem with the TV we had in the common room and it was not working that time. Once the food was ready, Ghottu used to have his dinner and before leaving he would give the mess key to us. He prepared very tasty dry chicken and we used to bring some of it to our room. By 9:30 PM we all used to say “CHEERS” and enjoy one of the movies we bought on rent. We tried our best to sustain our stuffs till the end of the movie. After completing the movie, we used to go to the dining hall to have dinner. After dinner we used to spend an hour in the common room and then everyone used to go to sleep.

The dhaba nearby our hostel was closed, so we had to go to a different dhaba near the college for breakfast and lunch. After breakfast we used to work on our project for few hours and then go for lunch. After lunch we used to watch one more movie and again in the evening we used to go out. Two of us would return the CD’s and used to take 2 more new CD's and of course the chicken. Other guys would bring the stuffs and we all used to come back to hostel by the same bus. For 3 days it continued just like that and then one night something happened that completely changed my life.It was a stormy night and it rained heavily, we could hear the lighting thunder sounds. There was no power that night and after we finished our stuffs to the last drop, we literally had nothing to do.We had already shifted the hostel land line phone from common room to one of our friend’s room. Keypad of hostel land line was usually locked but since we were just few guys in the hostel, so the key was with us. Those days we had to rely on land line, as that time mobile phones considered to be a luxury and very few people could afford it. Out of boredom I and one of my friend thought to make some prank calls. We had a look at the telephone directory and dialed our engineering girl’s hostel. It kept ringing for quite some time and then got disconnected. We tried one more time and the result was the same.  Now, why should any girl would stay in hostel during vacation? Once again I had a look at the telephone directory and that time I tried to dial “Ayurvedic College” girl’s hostel. Ayurvedic College is just near our engineering college.

Someone received the call and said "Hello.. Hello !!"

I was not sure what to speak and just said “I am calling from engineering college and I have a very serious problem. I am suffering from severe insomnia. You are a doctor right? Can you kindly treat me?”

She replied “Yes, of course, kindly come to our hospital tomorrow.”

We talked for few minutes and as soon as she realized it’s a prank call, she said “there is lots of grass in your engineering hostels and you better start to clean your up hostel by cutting those bushes for 2 hours a day. You would definitely have a good sleep after that."

We continued to talk like that for few more minutes. I asked her name and which place she belongs?

She replied “I am Poonam and I am a north Indian, born and brought up in Shillong"

She also asked my name and I replied as "Rajiv". Her voice was very attractive, but who the hell had the slightest idea that in future we would be staying together for our entire life?

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