5. Common Room

When I entered the common room it made me feel good, a few looked at me and others didn’t bother while my eyes looked at them freshly, trying to pick up a few, like a few, dislike a few, making opinions. There was a variety in here, some were watching television some playing table tennis some playing carom-board some were waiting for their turn for these games and talking about how seniors would be coming at night from their hostels and ragging the freshers; however the chess table was empty. I sat down on one side of it and looked down at the chess board, its squares were faded and some chessmen broken, in fact a piece of eraser was lying there that filled in for a missing horse on the black side. I sat arranging the pieces just to keep my mind busy and I intentionally did that slowly to pass more time doing it. Just when I was nearly done I realised someone was standing on the other side. At that time I just saw his that region, you know, the table was that high and I was arranging the board. A black short was all I could see. I looked up and saw a tall sardarji standing there; he was a fair gora chitta munda smiling at me. He was young about my age; the beard was just starting to appear on his face.
“Can I play with you?” he asked.
“No” I said, “Not with me please, but yes with the chessmen you can.”
He burst laughing, what I called gearan wali hansi, (gear laughter).
“Ha ha ha ha hee hee hee”
He laughed then stopped and then laughed again in a higher gear.
“Ha ha ha ha hee hee hee”, he sat down.
“So which pieces would you like” I asked.
“Leg pieces, ha ha ha ha hee hee hee” he started laughing again his gearan wali hansi, only this time I joined him. I offered him the white pieces and the game started, of chess and of knowing each other.
“So you are from which branch?” I asked.
“Metallurgy” he said and believe me it gave me instant relief, I am not alone, here’s another of my flock.
“And you?”
“Same” I said.
“That’s good!”
“What, the branch?”
“No your move, ha ha ha ha hee hee hee”
I joined him again, he was funny no doubt and he was happy to find me I could tell from his face. We played on and he started gaining on me, he had killed my eraser horse, the two elephants, an oonth and half the foot soldiers.
“Did you take up Metallurgy by choice?” he asked me.
“No, that is what I got, the last seat of our batch, the last seat of Metallurgy.”
He didn’t laugh this time; it seemed he was sad for me.
“Otherwise given a choice which branch would you have taken?”
“Computer Science” I said and he started laughing again.
“Ha ha ha ha hee hee hee, everybody wants that”What he said made me smile and I actually agreed with his statement because at that time the entire engineering youth of India wanted to become computer engineers… ha ha…