The current wave of Covid in India hasn't left anyone untouched. Everybody of us has lost a near and dear one, a friend or a relative. Today, I lost a friend.
Satyajit (Papu) Jena was my classmate in REC (now NIT) Rourkela. Unlike overwhelming majority of us who lived in the hostel, he was a Day scholar at that time - a term used for the locally based students who didn't live in the hostel.
The homesick in me used to be jealous of him, for he lived inside the Campus, a stone's throw away from the college and more importantly he didn't have to go face the ordeal of the horrible ragging we had to go though in our batch. (The scourge of ragging got drastically reduced from our batch).
I being an extrovert and perennial leg puller used to poke fun at him when he came to our hostel. He would never get annoyed or irritated at me - responding to my banters with his characteristic smirk. We weren't very close, but that didn't prevent us from being mutual admirers. I used to do participate in Quiz competition in college and he was lavish in praising me for remembering so many stuffs. Couple of afternoons I had visited his home with other friends to savor some freshly home made Pakoda, followed by tea - which we hostel dwellers accustomed to dull, repetitive foods cherished a lot.
I passed out from College, never earning any further degrees. He did his MBA at the Xaviers Institute, followed by degrees one after another. Last time when we talked he started telling me the degrees he earned in sequence until he got tired and I lost my count.
Something inside me snapped when I got the news of his passing away after a long battle with Covid. Our REC friends tried their best and were planning to airlift him from Durgapur as his condition was fast deteriorating. Before he could be shifted, he breathed his last this evening. RIP, my friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment