Memories – My Sincere Classmate

A cute and short story that I am gonna share with you people. Well, this story is about one of my classmates. During our Post Graduation, he was probably the most sincere student who had never missed a single class, especially “African Literature” classes. I was a student of Comparative Literature and I had thoroughly enjoyed studying the subject. I wish I could have attended all the classes. Alas! It remained a wish only. But Peet, our classmate was the one who would have got 100% attendance award, only if JU would have introduced such an award.

His good name was Pitambar, but we used to call him Peet. Now let me tell you a little about him. As I have said before Peet was very sincere, though it is a different story that he never took any notes the way we did. I think it was because he had a sound memory. He could remember everything said in the class. At times he used to sit right beside the table of our teacher and used to look at the teacher with an “expression” on his face as if he was internalizing each and every point made by the teacher. Peet was a little moody. At times he used to sit or even lay down on the last bench. He gave it a damn to what our teacher had to say, he hardly noticed the black board. But yes, he was very particular about one thing, about attending the class no matter whether he was in a mood of listening to the teacher or not.

At times Peet used to join us at “Bedi”, the famous tree shade of JU. He didn’t participate in any discussion but yes, he gave us company. He also used to accompany us to the canteen and we used to miss him a lot during holidays. I think the teachers also felt the same way.

Peet’s name was not there in the register but the teachers were simply impressed with his dedication. I remember what Epsita di, my favorite teacher used to say right after entering the class “Peet, achis to baba” (Peet are you there in the class). So you can imagine his popularity among teachers and students.

Now let me introduce Peet to you. He was a “street dog”. We used to call him Peet because of his yellowish color (Pitambar in Bengali means someone who is wearing yellow dress). So that was Peet, our most sincere classmate and companion. :-p