The Mesmerizing Night

It was October 2007, at around 3p.m. in the afternoon, news broke out that Kolkata was under the grip of a communal riot. The T.V. set was switched on in the Research room. It was learned from the bulletin that a strike was called the next day. This was not an exciting piece of information for the employees in XYZ Enterprise (company’s name changed). The company was a stock broking firm and so it was difficult for the authority to keep it off the next day, while the share market was on. It was decided that some employees whose presence was necessary the next day would stay back in the office itself and the company would provide them with lodging and food facilities.

Dipak, Sekhu and Amal, impulsively took the decision of staying back in office. Taj was new to the company then; he was hesitating to stay back as he was not very familiar with the rest. However, the other three insisted him to stay back. After lot of discussions and negotiations, Taj agreed with the three. To avoid any unwanted calamities because of the riot, most of the employees left office early that day. It was absolute freedom for the four guys. The first thing they did was to order some evening snacks from the nearby eatery. By six, the fourth floor, where these four had their workstation, was absolutely vacant. After food it was music, one of the computer speakers was turned to the highest volume and the research room was turned into a dance floor. None of them was a good dancer, but the feeling of liberty put them into a disposition of merry making. Being untrained dancers, their legs did not support them for long, they were tired. They decided to go out for an evening stroll after taking rest for a while.

It was end of October; the outside weather was pleasant, and acted as a medium of pranks for the four. Amal was a soft spoken guy, his innocence was the main cause of his getting bullied by the other three, but he used to take them sportingly. Sekhu plucked few wet grasses and put them into Amal’s shirt. His face was worth watching then, as if a thunder broke on his head. ‘You rascal, what do you think of yourself, wait, I will show you,’ growled Amal and chased after Sekhu. Taj and Dipak were being amused by the whole scene. Dipak was passionate about reading books and had an intellectual bent of mind. He often came up with his ‘typical philosophical’ notion about life. Amal and Sekhu were jaded with this aspect of Dipak, but it was new to Taj.

Amal’s chase was over with Sekhu’s fall on the wet field; Amal managed to get a grip of Sekhu’s shirt and pushed him, Sekhu fell over the wet grasses. Amal’s revenge pacified him and soon both were friends again. The four of them sat on a bench in the park; for a while they were quiet. The silence broke, when Dipak quoted, ‘the sky is so clear, spotless, hope if our lives would be same………….’ He was about to speak the next word when Amal and Sekhu started hitting him on his head. ‘Will you keep quiet; we are not ready to hear any nonsense philosophical stuff.

After spending an hour in the park, they returned back to their office. The dinner was ready and while going upstairs, they collected their dinner packets from the canteen in the ground floor. Sekhu after having dinner urged to sleep, he was always early to bed. Sekhu’s initiative of going to sleep was blotted by the rest three. ‘Sekhu, this is not fair, you just can’t go to sleep so early, let’s have fun,’ said Amal. Sekhu growled and said, ‘I will kill you, let me sleep, I am not…..’ Sekhu couldn’t speak any further as Taj and Dipak fell on Sekhu deliberately. Sekhu was a thin lanky character and the other two were twice the size of Sekhu. He was about to choke, and finally decided not to sleep early. Sekhu said in a depressing voice, ‘Ok, agreed, I will not sleep now, but what shall we do then?’ ‘Let’s go to the terrace’, said Amal. He was the one who came out with all funny and weird suggestions. Amal was in bare body then, as he was trying to be freshen up. The eyes of Taj and Dipak glowed, which indicated that they were ready with some pranks. These two were more powerful than Amal also, they grabbed him and took him to the balcony, adjacent to the research room and locked the door from inside. The cold wind pinched Amal to shiver, but the door was opened soon and he was allowed to get in.

One of the desktops was their next target, Dipak said, ‘Let’s watch a film on the net.’ A film was played, probably, ‘Batman and Robin’. Sekhu, Taj and Dipak were quiet, as they were enjoying the movie, but not Amal. Now he was with a prank to disrupt the whole show. Amal started disturbing the rest, sometimes he was standing infront of the monitor and sometimes kicking each of the three. Dipak decided to switch of the computer and chose to chat. By then it was 12:30 a.m. The chat continued till 2:30 a.m., this chat was the turning point; the guys shared not only their happy moments among each other but also shared some of their problems, which could be disclosed to a close friend only.

At around 3 in the night, they decided to sleep as an arduous day was waiting to welcome them the next morning. Sekhu was the first one to wake up that morning, next was Taj and then Dipak, Amal was still sleeping. The faces of the trio was worth watching then, half slept, they were discussing something amusing among themselves, listening to which Amal started giggling. Actually, he was not sleeping, but was pretending to do so. As usual he laughed in a weird manner, a shrill voice. Sekhu had a bottle in his hand; he instantly threw the whole water on Amal. This scene was amazing and hilarious.

The day started and they got into their daily work, but what was new, was a strong bond of friendship among them, which they still cherish.