Goodbye friends, where do you get separated from memories...!
It was shocking and heartbreaking news. Within a few days, we lost at least three of our 1985–90 batchmates from Assam Engineering College (AEC), Jalukbari, due to illness. The news of his untimely death was shared in our WhatsApp group, which still keeps friends from this batch studying under Guwahati University connected. Messages kept coming, grieving, but the mind was not ready to accept that the friends with whom we had spent the happiest days of our lives were no longer in this world.
Those days spent in the quiet AEC campus in the hillside behind the Guwahati University campus are still alive in the memories. We all came to this prestigious institution with our own dreams and came out with the promise of responsibilities towards the family, society and nation. The classrooms, the mechanical workshops, the hustle and bustle of hostel No. 7 and the evening tea at the Sunderbari market — everything feels like yesterday. In those days, many learned professors, including our Principal Dr. Aparna K. Padmapathy, used to explain to us the complex problems of engineering.
After college, my path took a turn in a different direction. I started working in a daily newspaper in Guwahati. This sudden decision became the direction of my entire professional life and I immersed myself in the world of journalism. In the midst of this busy life, when the news of the death of my classmate Jyotiprakash Kurmi came in a social media group, my heart shook to the core. This tall, well-dressed and very humble friend was a student of my own branch. He lost the battle of life while battling a recently diagnosed kidney disease.
Shortly before Kamal Das also said goodbye to this world. His life journey ended after suffering for a long time after an accident. This ever-smiling friend suddenly turned into memories. A month ago, another of our colleagues, Sugyan Dutta, also passed away after battling a serious illness. Even in the last days of his illness, he called me, but did not talk about his pain—instead, as usual, he kept complaining about my journalism in a humorous manner.
Over time we lost many more AECian friends. Sandeep Goel, a brilliant student with a calm and serious nature, left us battling illness. The death of my hostel-mate Gungovind Buragohain (Gun) was also a deep blow to us. Gunn was an extremely friendly and optimistic person. During our college days, we used to go out many times to see Guwahati from different perspectives. Often our plans did not succeed, but Gunn would smile every time and say, "Next time we will definitely succeed."
Dr. Surendra Nath Medhi, Professor at AEC, and Chandra Prasad Saikia, the founding editor of 'Natun Dainik', were instrumental in my decision to join journalism after leaving college. In those days, my friend Pradeep Medhi would often visit me at the Guwahati Press Club premises and joke that I had chosen a profession in which there was little financial security. He dreamed of becoming a successful engineer, but a heart attack ended his life journey abruptly.
In the meantime, we lost many more of our peers — Prabal Chowdhury, Uttam Kumar Roy (talented theatre artist and director), Manju Borah, Swapan Kumar Das, Bipul Sharma, Kamal Krishna Gupta, Monilal Brahma, Imliakum Longkumar (Akum) and the introverted Parag J. Baruah. Pranabjyoti Bordoloi, an active student leader of our batch, died in a road accident during his college days. My friends Jayant Kumar Das, Kailash Sharma and Manoranjan Talukdar, who studied at Bajali College (now Bhattdev University), also said goodbye to this world prematurely.
Looking back on this long journey of life, it seems that the farewell was not limited to college only. My classmate Shiv Prasad Thakuria from my high school days in Makhibaha of Nalbari district also died at a young age due to serious illness. After this, many familiar faces from our locality also turned into premature memories — Mrs. Burman, Gopal Seal, Bhupen Bhattacharya, Fatik Thakuria, Mahesh Sharma, Ranjit Pathak, Dinesh Deka and Dr. Dilip Deka, who went missing in the turbulent days of western Assam nearly two decades ago.
But the darkest memory is that of childhood friend Prahlad Burman. That incident from school days in Bhojkuchi village is still fresh in my mind. He died at a hospital in Guwahati due to a heart ailment just before the Class VII examination. When we went to his house to see him for the last time, he was lying quietly in the courtyard with his mother and family crying bitterly. His family didn't even have a picture of him at the time. Later, a group portrait was taken of her—which was taken by the famous photographer Mahendra Baruah of Tihu.
Even today, when I go to my village, it seems as if Prahlad is somewhere around—laughing and smiling. Time may move on, but friendships and memories never end. Goodbye to my friends, but where do you get separated from the memories? Until we meet again, somewhere, goodbye, my friends!
