Aniket Kamde

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered this incident. It happened long time ago. Lot of things happened after that. I experienced so many other events, some good and some bad that, I scarcely had time to keep this event in mind. But today, while coming from gym I remembered that event and realized that it’s worth writing because I learned a lot from it.

Aniket Kamade was my classmate in 6^th grade. I am not sure if I can still call him my friend because after certain incidences I stopped considering him as my friend. It was immaturity and silliness of me but I guess for him I continued to be his friend because he always used to talk nice to me.

Usually students complete their education up to 10^th grade in ten years. Few students complete this journey in 11 and rarely some requires 12 years. Aniket was one of those few but the way he was going he was sure to require lot more than twelve years to cross 10^th grade. He was already in school for at least eight years. But he was still in 6^th grade. And when I entered 7^th grade he remained loyal to our 6^th grade teachers.

Academic success was never an integral in my definition of a good person. So Aniket was my good friend. Though I used to stand in top five ranks in class, I was a back bencher like him. Another point that made us friend was that we used to live in same direction so sometimes we used ride together.

Once I had a fever for almost a week. Not to say I missed whole week of school but when I joined school I was very weak. My father or brother used to drop me to school and while coming back I used to come with one of my friends on their bicycle. One day there was heavy rain. I forgot my raincoat at home. I didn’t want to get wet as I just had lengthy fever. Then Kamade came and said let’s go home, I will give you ride. I told him that I can’t come as its raining pretty heavy. So, he offered me his raincoat so that I won’t get wet. I asked him what he is going to do. He gave me very funny answer. He said “I live near medical college so if I get fever I will have few injections and I will be just fine.” it was funny because even I could get few injections but I didn’t think that way and I took his raincoat. I was riding with him on his bicycle wearing his raincoat and he was paddling fast so that we can reach home (my home) early. By the time we reached my home he was soaked but he looked so happy and content because I was completely dry. And I was happy too because I was dry. I was so engrossed in myself that I didn’t look at him.

May be this incidence isn’t that great. But living in U.S. gave me plenty of different or weird experiences. It is hard for me understand someone in US. Granted, I am from totally foreign culture. But still things did not go as smooth as I expected. Selfishness is paramount behavior trait here. I am not saying that people in U.S.are worse or better, but it’s just different. And in such environment I certainly miss people like Aniket and I wish I could make more friends like him in US.