Adda

8-
Most of us walked in small groups to the tea stall run by Ramdhari. The tea stall had cemented walls with thatched roof ,a peeple tree in the close vicinity, the rustling of it's leaves created an ambiance, quite conducive for intellectual exchange “adda”. We sat on the cemented platform built around it and began the idle talk about the happenings within the campus. Tea and cigarettes were served, the cigarettes begun changing hands till the filters were sucked. Incident of once cigarette filter catching fire while Bindu sucked it heavily was reported creating immoderate laughter amongst us.
Nagesh read out, from a handout, the names of the members belonging to different groups and the assignment given to each group. Group presentations had to be made the following day for which lot of time and effort preparations had to be done. Sandeep suggested visiting the library to collect relevant data and information inviting a heave of sigh by Dipanjan. To everyone's utter surprise and laughter Rahul suggested going to watch a new movie of Amitabh Bachchan in “Payal” cinema. “Kush to bahut hoge tum...” blurted Rahul intoning the great actor with gesture of defiance. More tea was ordered and more cigarettes were lit. A leaf from the peepal tree drifted and fell beside Dinow, he picked it up holding the stem, twirled it with his finger and launched it like a paper plane while walking away towards the hostel.
Chotu, the tea stall in charge for all services wore shorts and a loose fitting round neck T shirt which had a printed quote “ Intel Inside Idiot Outside”. He was bare foot and must be around 12 years old. He could be a little older as poverty makes children look younger and the young, older. He asked while collecting the lipped tea glasses “Aap log nayee ho”, “Are you all new”. Bindu nodded and asked “ Who gave you the T Shirt”. “Engineering wale bhaiya ne”, “The brother who studies Engineering”. In that very moment Ramdhari hollered “Chotu kahan mar gaya”, “Chotu where did you disappear”. Chotu turned around and ran towards the counter where Ramdhari sat cross legged behind the glass showcase on a tall stool.
The washer man had his shop beside the tea stall, he was a middle aged person who wore well ironed dress perhaps for publicity of his ironing abilities. It was a small hut with heaps of clothes all around, some waiting to be smoothened and others for laundering. A local made ironing board beside a coal stove acted as his work station. Three flat irons struggled on the mouth of the stove to extract the maximum heat.
The only saloon of the campus stood next. It had large wall mirrors with facing tall chairs. Posters of actors sporting latest hairstyle hung all around along with a rate chart approved by the barber association. Rumpled pages of “Prabhat Khabar” lay on the benches. A radio hung on the wall updated its customers with the latest news along with purani nagme.
We walked toward the hostel for lunch while Nagesh stayed back and was seen handing over something to chotu.