Krishna Dwaipayan Sahoo

The hostel, in which I stayed, was away from the main campus of my college. As the college was new, the authorities had taken a floor on rent. The hostel overlooked the dumping ground on the opposite side of the road. It was adjacent to a variety store. I remember that night. I had slept early so that I could wake in the middle of the night to complete the assignments. After all, I needed to meet the expectations. After waking up, I went to the balcony. One of my mates was already there. On the floor, there were empty cold drink bottles. I don’t know, if it was some part of male instincts, I picked up one bottle and aimed at the dumping ground. ‘Dho!!!’ – there was a noise of bottle breaking. It had rather hit the asbestos roof of the shop. Me and my friend ran inside and switched off all the lights in the room.

Just like every other night, almost everyone was awake in the hostel. They were shocked. “What happened? What was that sound?” From the narrow opening of the window, we peeked outside. Nobody in society had woken up. We didn’t see rooms in any of the house lightened up. As my friend revealed my foolery before others, everybody got excited! It was obvious. They were holding a grudge against the owner of the shop. He used to charge us extra money for the cold drinks, and food packets we bought from him. Sometimes when we were not able to pay, he used to note them down. From our end, we had our calculations. But when the time came to pay him, his and our calculations mismatched. His calculations were always elevated. We had to pay a lot more than we were supposed to. 

To my utter shock, everyone left their studies and picked up the remaining bottles. “What have I done?!” I thought. One guy wrapped his face and body with multiple towels to avoid being recognized. He looked like someone from a different and weird universe. 

The next two days, being the weekends, I was at my home. When I came back on Monday, I got to know that they had continued their assault. On Tuesday, I was sitting in the hall with my friend, when I heard a loud noise. I kind of knew what it was for. I looked in the direction of the balcony. One roommate came running towards us. “Fod diya” (Broke it) he exclaimed. I was puzzled. When I checked, I was rolling on the floor. On top of the shop, there used to be a huge poster of Ranbir Kapoor holding a cold drink. That night, in place of Ranbir’s face, there was a big hole. Everyone in the hostel noticed. Some laughed out loud and some became angry. “Tomorrow, in the morning, we won’t get tea. We won’t even look at it. We will go straight to the college”, my friend suggested and all of us agreed on that.

The next day, we did as we had decided. By noon, they had discovered and as expected, they had doubted us. Like brilliant liars, we had denied on the face. Somehow, we got off the loop with a decision that we were never going to throw bottles again. When our studies got over and we left that place, we had established good terms with him.

Those were the memorable days. When I meet my friends, we always have a good laugh and share jokes, remembering the events, thinking we were kids and whatever happened shouldn’t have.

Total Work Experience : 4 Years (Capgemini, Infosys)