“Hey, which college did you end up getting into?”
When I told my friend, “Dhaka Commerce College,” his eyes widened in disbelief. “So, you’re planning to become a big businessman!”
I smiled quietly and replied, “Not really, man. I’m thinking of becoming a scientist.”
He looked even more bewildered. “Can you even become a scientist coming out of a commerce college?”
With quiet pride, I retorted, “Why not? I’m studying science there!”
Back then, I had no idea that a simple admission decision would completely redefine the next two years of my life. Coming from the tranquil rhythm of Jamalpur into the chaotic arteries of Dhaka felt like stepping onto an alien planet. Only later did I realize that while learning the map of this city, I was quietly discovering who I was.
Around 2023–24, right after wrapping up my SSC exams, I left Jamalpur for Dhaka. The memory of my very first day of college remains vivid. My father and I woke up around 6:00 AM and left home by 6:45 AM. But Dhaka’s unforgiving traffic, gridlocks, and road snarls took their toll—by the time we reached the gates, the clock read 8:05 AM.
Ironically, our morning classes were scheduled to begin at exactly 8:05 AM.
I dashed into the room only to find everyone already settled in their seats. On day one, I had earned the unwanted badge of being the only latecomer in the entire room. The teacher snapped sternly, “Late on the very first day?” Swallowing my pride, I took permission and slipped into an empty spot.
Looking around, an unsettling wave washed over me. New faces, unfamiliar hallways, a massive metropolis—and I had no clue what these upcoming two years held in store. The city-bred kids looked effortlessly at ease, moving like they had lived inside this urban landscape since birth. And here I was: a boy from Jamalpur, still struggling to find the city's heartbeat.
Yet deep down, a quiet thought lingered: give it time, and maybe I’ll belong here too.
Our academic journey kicked off in Section R7. A few days later, when the official seating chart was posted, I was assigned to Desk 27. Desks 21 through 25 seated the girls, Mahin sat at 26, and right beside him was my spot.
Mahin was short-statured but possessed an unusually generous heart; we hit it off almost immediately. At the neighboring desk sat Arian—bespectacled, composed, polite, the quintessential "good boy." Siam was nearby too. Though Siam and I went on to share countless moments, our bond eventually frayed toward the end of college over misunderstandings and emotional distance. Not every friendship endures across time—a bittersweet lesson college gently taught me.
Desk 27 was never just a number to me. Perched right beside the balcony, it offered an open panoramic view of trees, green foliage, and natural light. Whenever a lecture turned excruciatingly dull, my gaze would wander from the notebook to the canopy outside. The teacher scribbling away on the board while I drifted into the greenery—those quiet escapes became foundational pieces of my college days.
During the initial months, I endured a grueling daily commute by bus all the way from Kurmitola in the Cantonment. I would rest my forehead against the vibrating glass window in gridlocked traffic, listening to music and watching Dhaka stream by. The city that had initially felt intimidating and distant slowly turned familiar through those daily rides.
Still, the daily slog took a heavy physical toll. Eventually, I took a seat at a student hostel located directly across the main road in front of the college. That decision opened the most transformative chapter of my student life: hostel life.
At first, living in the hostel still felt slightly alien. But within a month, that sense of displacement vanished. I was no longer an outsider looking in. The identical streets, the same campus, the corner tea stall, the hostel walls, and the familiar faces gradually fused into my daily existence.
Our hostel manager was Nasir. On rent days, when we handed over the 8,000 Taka fee, his face beamed with smiles. But the moment you brought up a blown bulb, water shortages, or maintenance trouble, his expression hardened instantly. Arguing with Nasir usually meant sacrificing the peace of your entire day.
The biggest grievance was the dining hall food—especially the fish. The pieces served on our plates often looked like whatever was salvaged at dirt-cheap rates from the bottom of the wholesale market. We complained to the hostel owner—who happened to be a faculty member at our college—multiple times. The quality would improve for a couple of days, only to slide back into misery.
Driven to a breaking point, I decided to air out our frustrations in a detailed post on the college’s official Facebook group, critiquing the hostel management and meal conditions. Once the post gained public traction, chaos erupted across the hostel. Nasir was infuriated, and an unspoken revenge campaign kicked off against me.
Any minor misstep on my part prompted an immediate phone call to my father. He claimed I was smoking, playing loud music, gossiping late into the night, and blowing off my studies. Whatever accusation could be conjured up somehow reached my dad’s ears. It felt infuriating then; today, it’s nothing short of comical.
Every hostel builds its own dialect and quirky characters. In ours, the ultimate universal term was "Vara."
The moniker originally traced back to two boys residing at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. One was Orko, a relentless topper who lived for academics. The other was Abid, an esports enthusiast so consumed by competitive gaming that textbooks hardly existed for him.
One pushed studying to the absolute extreme; the other did the same with video games. Naturally, "Vara" morphed into our hostel’s catch-all nickname. Depending on context, circumstance, or someone’s latest antic, anyone could be dubbed a "Vara." To an outsider, the word makes zero sense; to anyone who lived through those walls, it was the linguistic seal of our brotherhood.
The easiest sanctuary from daily grind was the hostel at night. As midnight crept in, the entire space shifted rhythm. Someone would be binge-watching a series, others locked in multiplayer games, a few lost in deep conversation, while someone strummed a guitar in the corner.
My roommate didn't own a laptop, so mine became the communal entertainment hub for movies and shows. The eve of a holiday was always the wildest. We had an unwritten ritual: gathering on the floor, killing all the lights, and loading up a terrifying horror movie. Just when the suspense reached peak dread, I would let out an ear-piercing scream out of nowhere. Somebody would curse, another would jump out of their skin, and seconds later the entire room would collapse into uncontrollable laughter.
Once the film ended, the late-night jhalmuri (spiced puffed rice) session began. We sat together sharing stories, dissecting each other’s personal lives, giggling at nonsense, while chords from my acoustic guitar echoed softly in the background. Back then, it felt like those nights would stretch on forever.
Though my friendship with Tawsif Miran truly sparked in Section S20, our paths had crossed long before that.
After three months together in R7, we spent another three months as full-fledged classmates in S18. We shared the same four walls, attended identical lectures, and sat only feet apart—yet we never spoke a single proper word to each other.
Looking back, that silence feels bizarre. Because that exact same boy would eventually become one of the closest companions of my college years.
When we were reorganized into Section S20, I looked at Miran on day one and had an instant gut feeling: “I’m going to be friends with this guy.” I still can't logically explain why. Certain people just carry an immediate, unexplainable sense of familiarity.
Miran carried himself with an effortless swagger. He was entirely convinced that he was the resident crush of every girl on campus, and he never made the slightest effort to hide that self-assurance.
Miran was genuinely gifted on the fretboard and behind the microphone—a professional-tier singer and guitarist. Along with that talent came a wonderfully reckless streak. He also maintained an obsessive curiosity about my personal life.
There was a senior girl I secretly admired, but I lacked the courage to approach her in person, let alone send a text. One day, Miran snatched the phone right out of my hands. Before my brain could register what was happening, he had hit the dial button on her contact card. I went into an absolute, breathless panic while he stood beside me, grinning mischievously.
Only Miran had the audacity to pull off something like that.
Whenever we hung out, dissecting campus drama was our favorite pastime. We spent hours cooking up ridiculous discussions about Milon Bhai—scheming ways to flatter him with over-the-top compliments just to watch his priceless reactions. In hindsight, most of our conversations lacked any tangible substance. Yet ironically, it is those meaningless banters that I miss the most today.
Another staple of our late nights was OmeTV. Sitting side by side into the late hours, we connected with complete strangers across the globe, strummed impromptu acoustic sets, sang our lungs out, and engaged in hilarious, nonsensical exchanges.
Some folks paused to genuinely listen, some stared back bewildered, while others disconnected within three seconds. To us, it was an exhilarating game. One AM, two AM, three AM would tick by, and we’d still be parked in front of the screen.
Those late hours taught me a simple truth: genuine bonds don't require grand adventures. Sometimes, wasting hours together doing absolutely nothing creates the strongest memories.
One of the sweetest gifts of our friendship was my connection with Miran’s family, particularly his mother.
Aunty never treated me like merely her son’s classmate. There was a genuine, maternal warmth in how she spoke to me, checked up on my well-being, and welcomed me. That quiet kindness carved a deep place of respect and affection in my heart.
When you’re living far from your own family in a fast-paced city like Dhaka, finding authentic parental care from an elder feels deeply grounding. Before my HSC exams, when I felt the need for genuine blessings and prayers, I picked up the phone and called her.
It wasn't a dramatic gesture or a long conversation. But some bonds aren't defined by monumental milestones; they are felt through everyday sincerity and the effortless way someone makes you feel like one of their own.
Down below our hostel, at Boxirhat, Milon Bhai became a central character in our world. He was a deeply humble, grounded man. We often brought him onto video calls, serenaded him with songs, cracked jokes, and shared endless laughs.
Our late-night chats with him were utterly random, jumping from one pointless subject to another. Yet those unstructured hours linger sharply in my mind today—mostly because none of us had any inkling that these mundane evenings would one day become sacred nostalgia.
Miran also ran an informal guitar-flipping venture on the side. He would track down pre-owned guitars at bargain prices and resell them for a modest margin. Consequently, my hostel room served as his temporary, unofficial warehouse.
Watching instruments arrive in my room one after another, Nasir’s suspicions flared up again. In his eyes, I had abandoned my studies altogether to start an underground rock band. Inevitably, another formal complaint was lodged with my father:
“Your son has completely given up on his books and started a music band!”
I sat there shaking my head, wondering how trying to do a friend a favor always managed to place the target square on my back.
For a long time, Miran genuinely assumed I was an easygoing slacker. In his eyes, I was just a quiet guy who slept irregular hours and kept mostly to himself.
He had no idea that I was quietly hunched over my laptop, grinding away on programming and web development.
Then came the college IT Club competition—and out of roughly 1,800 students at Dhaka Commerce College, I bagged first place. Miran’s jaw dropped in absolute shock, and seeing his reaction was priceless. He realized that the quiet guy he thought he knew was operating in an entirely different orbit behind closed doors.
That moment shifted things. It quietly drove home a point: the person making the loudest noise in the room isn’t necessarily the one putting in the real work. Some people simply build in silence.
Our late nights also featured spontaneous midnight escapades. Around midnight or 1:00 AM, Miran would roll up outside the hostel in a car, leaning on the horn before delivering his signature line:
“Come on Said, let’s grab some chicken!”
Destination: KFC.
A bucket of fried chicken, hours of lighthearted banter, loud laughs, and a quiet ride back to the hostel before dawn.
Nothing extraordinary ever happened during those runs. Yet those are the exact nights that replay in my mind now. Perhaps because neither of us realized back then that we would one day ache for the sheer simplicity of those ordinary hours.
Directly facing our hostel room was an apartment in the adjacent building where a young couple lived. Occasionally, private glimpses of their routine drifted into view from our windows, turning into fodder for innocent teasing and laughs among the hostel boys.
Looking back, these were trivial, unremarkable occurrences. They weren’t grand events then, and they aren't now. But that was the peculiar charm of hostel life: within an otherwise monotonous routine, the most ordinary, quirky happenings became woven into our collective identity.
This journey was not solely paved with laughter and celebrations. Time brought distance into some bonds; misunderstandings drifted into others; certain friendships simply lost their old warmth.
Perhaps that is the universal reality of college life. You are thrown together with dozens of people, share every waking hour with them, craft unforgettable memories—and then life nudges everyone in different directions.
Some remain anchors. Some fade quietly into the periphery. Some never cross paths with you again, even though the footprint of the time you shared remains indelible.
Between Miran and me, there was never any bitter falling out. Yet, a tiny, unspoken hurt remained buried inside.
On his birthday, I had gone all out to celebrate him with genuine care and effort. To me, showing up on those personal milestones was an expression of true friendship. But when my birthday came around, not even a simple, passing wish came from his side.
From an objective viewpoint, it sounds trivial. But emotional weight is rarely measured by the size of the event. When someone occupies a significant space in your life, even their smallest oversights leave an enduring sting.
I never voiced that grievance to him.
Perhaps in every friendship, a few sentences are destined to remain unspoken.
When I first boarded the bus from Jamalpur to Dhaka, I had no roadmap of what lay ahead. All I knew was that I had to study, meet new people, and build a foundation for my future.
In the end, those two years became infinitely larger than textbooks and exam halls. They were made of walking into class at 8:05 AM on the first morning, Desk 27 in Section R7, gazing out the balcony window to escape monotonous lectures, building camaraderie with Mahin, the silent drifting away from Siam, watching the city drift past bus windows, the 8,000 Taka hostel room, warring over dining hall fish with Nasir, the absurd shared vocabulary around "Vara," midnight puffed rice, cheap horror movies, acoustic strings, OmeTV sessions, banter with Milon Bhai, and impromptu 1:00 AM runs to KFC.
And standing right in the center was Tawsif Miran—a classmate with whom I didn't exchange a word for six long months despite sitting in the same room, who later became the central architect of my fondest college memories.
The bitter irony of youth is that while you are living those moments, you never realize how sacred they are. A late night was just another night; a class was just another lecture; a friendship was just a familiar daily routine.
It is only after the dust settles and the clock runs out that you realize which fleeting seconds truly mattered.
Today, Desk 27 is gone. R7, S18, and S20 are empty chapters. The midnight chatter within the hostel has ceased. Yet the memory of sitting beside that balcony desk, staring past the sill into the open sky, gossiping with friends, the acoustic guitar chords, and the effortless laughter remain etched as sharply as ever.
Dhaka taught me countless lessons. But the greatest of them all was learning to understand people, finding my own voice, and realizing that life’s most precious moments quietly pass us by long before we learn to appreciate their grace.
Perhaps that is why my mind still catches itself wishing:
What if we could turn back the clock just once more?
I would gladly pull up a chair at Desk 27, look through the balcony window, escape a boring lecture to lose myself in the trees outside, while from somewhere down the hall, Miran’s acoustic guitar chords echo softly once again.
