Dib

This is just a narration of what all i have done in the last few years of my life - every part of which includes Dibyendu.

Abhay’s Part

Someone told me a few days ago: “You have been with him for 8-9 years and you can’t even write 4 lines about him?” I replied: “I can write a few pages but I can’t condense it to 4 lines.” So here is my attempt although it corresponds more to what all we have done together than to what he is as a person.
The first time I saw Dibyendu, he was leaning on the balcony of his first-floor quarter – a chubby kid with a square face. We were in 6th or 7th then. The person next to me said: “He is in your class. Don’t you know him?” and I replied: “I have seen him in school but we have never been in the same section.” Who knew then that we would be spending the next 9 years of our lives living close to each-other !
The next time I saw him was on our first day in std. 8/B when I realized that he was in the same section as me. We used to sit at almost opposite ends of the classroom and for the first 1-2 months we never even talked. Dibyendu used to be a quiet guy who generally wouldn’t start a discussion but would have a lot to say if you managed to make him join in. One day, I went over to his table once for some reason (I don’t remember what) and we started talking. I had lunch with his gang of friends that day because my gang was absent that day. This was how I came in contact with the others – Raj, Ravi, Drolia, Sid – to name a few. I came to know that Raj n Dib were friends from std. 1 and it made feel a tinge of jealousy.
Dib was a highly emotional person then. Even I made him cry once over something very trivial although I had not imagined the effect it would have on him. I felt guilty the whole day. We would hang out together during the breaks, used to play our version of squash (with our legs and a cosco ball) during lunches. We even used to gossip sometimes during class – by signaling each-other from the opposite ends of the classroom.
I started going to school with him, mostly because his house was on my way to school. Raj did the same because he practically lived next door to Dib. Dib was the quintessential late-latif. We would reach his home and call him so loudly that the whole block heard and after a delay of a few minutes Dib would come out: “Ruk,joota pehen rahe hain.” If we didn’t call him but went to his house in stead, he would invariably be having his breakfast and we would have to sit and watch his eat, coaxing him to eat quickly. Despite all this, we somehow managed to reach school in the nick of time, everytime. After school, we would cycle to his house and the three of us would stand there talking for a long time. Sometimes our discussions got so prolonged that my mom got worried about my safety.
We used to look forward to eating at Dib’s home because his mom is a wonderful cook. I still cheerfully accept any offers of eating at his place without even the requisite decency of saying: “Mummy gussa hongi. Unhone khana bana rakha hai.”
In std. 9/D even Raj was in the same section as us. We could be found sitting and talking in class throughout the year. Raj and Dib were always arguing about something and I mostly used to be the referee. This scenario is true even today. I was always the bookish guy who scored the best marks in class while Raj was the walking encyclopedia with a few facts and an opinion about any damn thing under the sun. Dib also had his opinions but they were not so rigid although he tried his best to defend them. None of us in 9/D will ever forget the day we were suspended and how much fun we had that day and the next. The first time I celebrated my birthday was in 9th, just because these guys used to celebrate theirs and I used to be invited.
In 10/A I was pleasantly surprised to find Dib by my side again, although we were sorry that Raj wasn’t. Dib seemed to be living in another world and his entirely misdirected statements at random moments of time gave him the nickname – Bewda( Drunkard) in 10th. He acquired this nick courtesy Mantosh during our geography project in 10th.The name stuck for the remaining time in school and some people still refer to him as Bewda. We used to play foolish games in our English class. One of them was to try and hold your breath for the maximum possible time. Others included Hangman and pen-fight. Then came our board exams. None of us knew exactly how important they were or how far they would help us in getting a good career. We just knew that we were supposed to take them very seriously. So during our winter vacations, we started joint studies – which continued upto our 1st year in Kgp and still take place if we have a common course. We would be sitting in Raj’s home most of the time and solving last year question papers (most of the time we simply talked) while Raj’s mom would bring us something to eat. Till 10th Dib had a bicycle that would break your back if you rode if for even 15 minutes. Dib was always looking for an opportunity to grab your bicycle and make you ride his.
We broke quite a lot of things at each-other’s place in those days. I remember breaking Raj’s spectacles twice and Dib’s watch once. Raj broke Dib’s magnet for which Dib is yet to forgive him. And the three of us together broke Raj’s old bed.
By the end of 10th we had decided that we would be pursuing mathematics with the aim of appearing for JEE and enrolled in tuitions for the same. We used to have physics tuition at 5 in the morning for about a month and Dib used to be late for that to, making us late as well. Even in those classes we used to talk a lot. Our physics sir still says that we were the most talkative people he had seen in his class who were able to clear JEE in their first attempt. We attended the same tuitions for those 2 years. We even had a single set of books from which we prepared for JEE. If a new book was to be bought, we would contribute equally to it and most probably all three of us would go to buy it and name it RAD !!
The travel to-and-fro tuitions needs some explaining. All three of us could drive a two-wheeler but the problem was that we had at most one two-wheeler among us at any given time (sometimes it was zero and we had to rely on our bicycles). So 2 of us would be sitting on the vehicle while the third would be on his bicycle, holding the hand of the pillion rider and going at the speed of the vehicle without pedaling. We did this for 2 whole years without any accidents and God only knows how many kilometers I have ridden that way. I remember once I was on the bicycle when Raj told me that we were going at 60+ kmph. Also, while returning from the tuition we would stop at the Ram Mandir (a nearby market) and have snacks like samosas, egg rolls, chowmein etc. This was an everyday event and soon all the vendors knew us by face and by name. Even now, when we have been out of Bokaro for about 4 years, they recognize us when we go to them.
Dib was in my section in 11th and 12th too and Raj again wasn’t. Those 2 years at school rank high among the most memorable times of my life. We had a lot of fun in school as well as outside school. We made many more good friends like Shanky, Roop, Nidhi, Payel, etc. We had a lot of parties in those 2 years – leaving home at 9 in the morning and reaching home at 5 or 6 or even 7 in the evening. Our moms used to have a field day scolding us. Dib and I used to sit side-by-side and we would be solving mathematics in physics class or physics in the english class or just sitting and talking – disturbing the others and the teacher. One of our teachers even scolded us, saying: “You are good students but it doesn’t mean that you have already secured seats in IIT. Behave properly.” We had a good laugh about him after that class. We took to playing badminton in the evenings with other friends from school and used to play late into the night, lingering around even after it was too dark to see the shuttle. We usually studied at Dib’s place because he had room for his own and spent many of our nights there too.
We wrote our JEE mains exam on the 22nd of May and the next two months passed in a haze of peace. With nothing else to do, we usually ended up sitting and chatting at Dib’s place. We had decided that we would join the same institute if all 3 of us qualified. When the results came, we decided that Kgp would be the best option for us because I could get a good department at this place only given my rank was much worse than Raj’s or Dib’s.
In the 1st year, Raj and Dib were allotted MMM while I was in MS. MMM didn’t have net or a mess at that time. So, these guys used to be at my room most of the time. Sometimes, when I entered my room I would find a total stranger sitting there and then Raj or Dib would come and introduce him as a friend of his. Dib and Raj started learning tennis and guitar while I did none of these. Dib seems to have outgrown the guitar now but his dedication to tennis is still intact, in fact it has increased. I did more work for MMM illu than I did for MS because of these guys.
In the 2nd year, Dib and I were allotted the same hall – Azad while Raj got RK. Naturally, we became roomies. Dib worked a lot in illu even in that year and the 3rd and 4th years although his statement after every illu is: “Agle baar to hum poora peace maarenge. Kuchh nahi karenge.” He worked so hard in the 2nd year that he fell ill on the day after Diwali and I had to get him admitted to BCRoy.
In the 3rd year we got separate rooms and he currently lives in the room beside mine. We have spent a lot of memorable times since then too.
Dib is always ready to help anyone. He cycled all the way to Gopali to confirm a rumor that a blood donation camp was going to be held there (although he has never managed to donate blood for different reasons). He was the most active guy in the group when we were collecting funds in the institute for a leukemia patient. He was with me whenever I needed help – from emotional to financial. If you are a friend of his, he will never let you down – whatever the circumstances. Even his judgment has improved over the years.
His favorite pastime at home is sleeping throughout the day. There has not been a single time when I reached his house in the afternoon and he was awake. (A note to would-be girlfriends: He sleeps with 4-5 pillows around him so unless you are as soft as a pillow, you might get kicked out.)
Now he has been placed in NTPC and has less than a month before he leaves Kgp. I have seen Dib grow from a chubby boy who was a little low on common sense to a grown-up with sincerity, determination and a way of accommodating himself to almost any circumstance. I have not only watched him grow, I have grown up with him and everything I am today owes a part to him.


Raj’s Part

Now reading all this by Abhay has made me a bit SENTO and though my English sucks in comparison to Abhay’s I will have to write something.
Now writing about Dib is a bit strange partly because I have never attempted this before and partly I cannot even think of a time when I was not with this guy. To make things clear I have been with this guy for last 16 years of my life !!! So what I am, who I am and what I do are all in some ways related to Dib.
I first knew this guy in standard 1 when I got admission in St. Xavier’s school, Bokaro. He used to live just next to my block in sector 1/C but we used to go school in different rickshaws in the beginning. So Dib was this chubby guy, looked very studious and was sincere and clean urban kid. I had come from a village recently, I was dirty, not good in English and an outspoken kid and evidently I was not very good in studies!! So I knew this guy, used to talk to him sometimes but we were not very close until we were in the standard 3. He lived so close to my house and we played together in the evenings and it so happened that he played in my block more than in his own place and also played cricket matches as a player from my block, so living near and playing together brought us quite close and by std 4 we used to spend all our time in school together. I remember in std 4 how I used to rush to his class every break time in school and we would eat together and the play together. By this time we were already the best of friends spending a lot of time together and influencing each-other , I think I started to study a bit because of him and my results dramatically improved from standard 4 .
I have so many thoughts when I think of him so many that I myself cannot recount all of them now. In middle school we spent time like this together - going to school together, playing together in breaks and them coming back and playing again together in my block or in the nearby fields. I went to his home regularly and ate in his home a lot of times and sometimes stayed whole day there and still we were so different in many respects and its true still, the main thing is that though we influenced each-other a lot we never tried to change each other, we always accepted the ways we were and accommodate to it. It was so simple to do this with him and now when I think of it it’s so amazing.
We were growing up together and thinking about talking about our dreams and aspirations and sharing all our thoughts. I started going to school on a cycle by end of std 6 and he joined in soon with his antique hero ranger. We formed our own cricket team in the school. He started taking more interest in sports and other outdoor activities with me and I was doing better in my studies. By the time we passed our Middle school we had been in the same section for last 3 years, we both were considered to be good in studies, we both were improving in sports and we both were closer than ever.
We entered High school in different sections but with same dreams of doing well in studies and achieving something in our life. Dib was always more moral than me , he always has had a sense of responsibility and his firm resolve to be correct and do good has always influenced me a lot. This guy was getting an imposing character with an imposing physique. He soon became one of the taller guys in our school and also one of the most respected. At this time we found some new friends who came as close as we already were, Abhay and Ravi. Ravi was different, very different. He had a charm about him, very sophisticated yet very humble, very intelligent and yet eager to learn more and more. Abhay was different from all of us , he is the most modest of us and yet the most intelligent , not very assertive yet very firm in his believes and his deeds. We became really good friends especially Abhay, Dib and me partly because we shared so much with each other, all our thoughts, all our feelings it was just amazing. High school was great. We had lots and lots of fun but strangely no girls were a part of this :P. Dib and me had decided that girls are just a distraction and waste of time so we hardly talked to any girls though lately I have come to known that a lot of our batch mates had crush on Dib.  .
After this it’s now a Raj and Abhay story and my story would be same as been told by Abhay.
There are a few more aspects from my point of view.
After board exams we had just one goal and that was IIT and we were going to achieve it together. We started studying for it in just a few days after our board exams and I remember that we got the books together from Rita madam’s house and studying H.C.Verma in my house together. We took all our tuitions together, we went to school together; we ate in Ram Mandir together, we would hang around with our friends together, we went to buy books together and also studied together. It was just great, all the time spent were together it was so much fun. Even studying was fun and even in that we three were so different. Abhay was inarguably the sharpest among us, he would just do a problem Dib and I would be trying all that and get the answer but then Dib would question his about how he got the answer and always Abhay would fail to tell, and at last when we three would have spent a lot of time on it and broke our heads on the problem it would turnout that Abhay was correct, just that he was not able to explain :P . Group study was great, it combined the strength of the three of us and weeded out our shortcomings. I really think I would never had made it to IIT without them simply because I am so restless and cannot concentrate for long.
It was not only studies, we enjoyed our time in junior college a lot. I became the Vice-Captain of school and we made a lot of new friends. Actually we formed TTA and we are still good friends with a lot of them. I learned how to talk with girls and fell in love. We always kept each-other in balance and always complemented each other and Dib was like the most stable version of the three of us - would keep us grounded and focused and rarely was seen excited.
All the time that we spent together brings a smile to me and really makes me believe that till now I have had a good life because I had these friends. I certainly owe a lot to them and even now when we don’t spend much time together and will be separated soon I feel they are always near me because they are so close to my heart. I hope both my friends are successful in life and make me proud. Though we will be together for all our life.