College Days Experience – Episode 6.3 – Way More Than a Hackathon

This is another episode of the series College Life. This is College Days Experience – Episode 6 – Part 3. Enjoy Reading!

Marriage Function Experience

Now to mention, one of my classmates invited our group(my friends’ group) to his big sister’s marriage. So, we decided that we will go after attending college, as we didn’t want to miss the classes.

Some of our friends skipped college that day. As we also needed to give a present to the Bride & the Groom. Those friends took the responsibility to buy the gift. Come to think of it, marriage functions are pretty much exciting. Whole night thrills with cousins, doing all the chores, preparations and all those yummy stuff to eat and all(it’s the best part btw 😋).

The Travelling

So now we headed to the station. As usual, but this time we were on the opposite platform. We were gonna catch the same train, the one in which our friends were coming. Our train arrived and we stepped on it, the friend who invited us lives in Memari btw. So it almost took half an hour from Adisaptgram(where our college is) to reach the destination by train. After that, we booked two ToTo and headed for the banquet. All of our friends were in one. Munshi & I were on the other one. Luckily there were two uncles on our Toto they were also going to attend the marriage.

We Were Shocked!!!

We reached the banquet. But it was almost like an abandoned place(don’t get surprised you will come to know). A lot of chit chat, music and a lot of people should have been present over there in beautiful clothing. That was the image I had in mind. But to our surprise, we were way early over there than the others, not even a single guest had arrived😶.

Anyway, we waited a bit and then we went inside, sat in one place and started chatting. After a few minutes or like an hour, our friend arrives in a traditional look. As one is supposed to wear during a marriage function.

About Our Culture

He introduced us to his father, we paid our respects to him. To Note: In India whenever we meet someone elderly we either join our both hands and say “Namaste”, which means the Divinity inside me salutes the Divinity inside you or either we touch their feet. After some time our friend escorted us to the backyard kind of place. Where in our country so-called famous snack pani-puri or in Bengali, people call it puchka stand was there. The guy was still prepping his stand for the guests. We were feeling hungry. To speak the truth we guys are most of the times hungry. And as I mentioned before the best part about marriage, apart from the groom and the bride being sentenced upon to live their life together in this life and for the next seven lives (we like to think so), people enjoy food the most.

Experience, Food & Fun 😋😋😋

After a few minutes, he opened his stall. All of us rushed together (like a predator when it sees its prey) towards the stall. We started eating. The custom is like we stand-in a line such that, all of us at once face the stall. And from one side the guy starts distributing the pani-puri. As soon as he reaches the end of the line he again starts from the beginning. The ones who are not willing to eat in between can step back from the line. And we again reposition ourselves accordingly and this goes on and on. Sounds like a lot of work right! But we Indians are used to eating pani-puri like this for a long time.

There are also varieties, of which kind of pani-puri you would like. And how much you would like to eat(kind of). You give the order and the guy prepares all that and serves you all at once in a medium-size or large-size plate(depends upon the size of your order).

An Eating Competition 😅

We started eating and it kind of turned into a competition. It was like the last man standing match 😂i.e., one who can eat the most. As we were eating in a line, so the one who leaves the line, at last, is the winner. One by one everyone fell, except Munshi & Me. Everyone was watching who’s gonna win. It had gotten pretty much intense. Even the one who was serving us was amused, but it was going on & on. In the end, Munshi & Me decided let’s give up together. As we knew none of us would back off(we also had yet to eat the main course).

After all this, still, a snack was left to try pakkodas i.e., fritters. We ate that too and had a cup of coffee. After that, our friend escorted us to the area where the main course was being served. U guys must be thinking what monsters we are that we were eating on & on without any kind of break, especially Munshi & Me 😂. There was a reason why we were early on each & every place of eating. The reason is that most of us came from a very far place so it would take a lot of time to get back. And if we were to sit and eat with all the others as because the groom still had not arrived for marriage, we would reach home pretty late.

Getting Back Home

This part is getting a bit long. I will skip right to the part where we finished the meal and said goodbye to our friend and left for the station. The groom had arrived by the time. Oh btw the main-course was lit. And in Bengali one likes to describe it like, Bhai “Shera” 😉, meaning, brother it was superb 👌🏻.

Anyways we reached the station and the train was late, it was happening exactly what we were afraid off, but what to do now except to wait, we were enjoying ourselves as we could on the station, singing and playing songs. At last, the train arrived and we got on board, the train was what one would say almost empty. As it was getting late and this side was like a village area so most of the people in the village side don’t travel after the sunsets.

A Stupid Game 🤦🏻‍♂️

Suddenly came the idea to play truth and dare within the train, so we decided that each one of us will choose truth only, no dares. We joined our laps and placed our bag upon it and it was almost a place for a bottle to be spun. I won’t give you the details of the game like what questions were asked and what answers were given😏. That would be the violations of the rules of the game 🤷🏻‍♂️(can’t break this rule btw 😂, as it would open up a lot of secrets).

Totally Tired

Anyway, our stoppage came and we stepped down. It was pretty late at night so I decided to stay at Mayukh’s place. And we decided that we will head towards the college from over there the next day directly.

We took an auto from Chandanagar station and reached the locality where Mayukh’s place is, while we were walking from the main road to his resting place I got a call from Ankit. Abhinav and Ankit were preparing the documentation for the project which we were going to present in the Hackathon. I was very much tired. I asked them to complete the general stuff and when I will get time I will complete the Machine learning part in it.

Anyway, we reached Mayukh’s place. I was too tired to do anything else. We just saw some photos from the IIT Kanpur event which were left for editing and I fell asleep. Oh, btw Mayukh lost his Mobile Phone on the Day 2 of IIT Kanpur event so today his phone was delivered. He was pretty much excited about his new phone and he was setting it up. I don’t know when I fell asleep, I woke up in the morning directly.

To be continued…

To read part – 2, Click Here.