At present, I’m about 500 kilometres away from home, undergoing a summer intern-ship in an Oil Company. Few of my university seniors work in the same company. Today, as I was walking through the market area with one of my friends (Shantanu) undergoing the same intern-ship, I was suddenly greeted by a senior (Sid Da). It feels good to meet someone in a new place. We started talking and discussed about a few things. Sid Da got us a bottle of Coke each and as we were sipping it, he offered to buy mutton and invited me for dinner tonight.

Here, I am staying in a hotel and Shantanu is in a rented house. Shantanu visited me in the evening and then we decided that we would have dinner together tonight after a brief stroll in the market. Sid Da was friendlier with me for I knew him since the past few years as he lived in the same hostel of the varsity where I stay now. Shantanu has met him for the first time today. I accepted the dinner invitation but retorted that I’d go to his place along with Shantanu.

Sid Da seemed to accept that and then he looked at Shantanu and this conversation followed:

Sid Da: Okay, you can come. Where do you stay here?

Shantanu: Actually I stay here with three others in…

Sid Da: Okay okay, but the dinner invitation is not for all, guys…

The three of us looked at each other and we burst out laughing like mad men. What Shantanu said seemed like he was about to take those other three along with him for dinner, and thus the dinner invitation for ONE turned out to be an invitation for FIVE. Sid Da said that he lived with a roomie who would go crazy had he taken five of us for dinner. Yeah, he was absolutely true and it was very natural; two young boys staying together cannot really call in five for a sumptuous dinner or whatever. Actually Shantanu did not mean to say that he’d take in the three and Sid Da did not mean that either. It was the moment and the tone at which he said that that made all of us interpret his words that way. We all understood what just happened and then laughed again.

Another problem was discovered when I remembered that my hotel shuts the doors at 9:30 pm and cooking a meal before that time would be a task next to impossible (by then it was already 7:30 pm). So, I could not finally accept the invitation. Yet, Sid Da invited me for lunch at a later date and I cheerfully accepted that.

These funny situations that arise when boys meet each other and get going randomly are perhaps the best moments in the life of a boy – moments that can be cherished as memories forever..!

© Barnadhya Rwitam Sharma

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