The Foreign Exchange

The fan was swinging to its full extent, when Heinrich Wilmut and Abhinash Borah sharing one cigarette in their University hostel, Heinrich breached on the topic of the most attractive girl of their class saying “Where is Subasna from?” mispronouncing her name(“Xubaxhona”) every time in his Austro-German accent.
Abhinash replied curtly, “Diphu”. Heinrich took the last puff and discarded the remains in the makeshift ashtray of an old cup, and said thoughtfully, “I must meet her”.

Much to his class-friends’ astonishments, Heinrich was a carefree guy, roaming around the streets of Tezpur all alone bargaining with the vendors of Chowk Bazaar.
Yes! It was not even a month he had landed in Indian soil from Austria, he learned the art of bargaining even though the language barrier was there, and hand gestures were enough for them to strike a deal.
And on these Sunday outings, he always used to go to Ganesh Ghat after shopping for retreat every time using Navigation app to locate it.

It was only about a few weeks in the university, he already felt homesick and was longing back to go back Graz, his hometown. He was on a foreign exchange program to the university. He took a flight from Graz to London, and then from London to New Delhi and from New Delhi to Tezpur by train. It really was an excruciating journey; he never had travelled so far in his 24 years of life.

He didn’t strike any considerable friendship with anyone leaving his roommate though he was always busy with his fanatic computer games. One day when he and Abhinash were in their room after dinner, Heinrich said, “I want to make friends with Subasna, I like the way she does her hairs but every time I try to greet her to have a small chat, she finds some excuse or other to abandon it”. Abhinash was well aware of the culture of that part of the world from where Heinrich belonged and was also aware that he knew nothing of Indian or Assamese culture.
Abhinash was quite sure of the fact that much of Heinrich’s assumptions of India and Assam were based on few Bollywood movies he had watched back in Graz.
Abhinash tried to console him by saying that “This is India man! Moreover this is Assam!
Here people of opposite genders do not socialize that often unless they’re married or in some way related to one other. Let’s hope she runs out of excuses and spend some time with you”.

The very next day in class, Heinrich tried stealing glances of Xubaxhona and was making keen observations of her outline. She was dripped in sweat, which he found to be ecstatic. Her long hairs which were wet, as she didn’t get time to dry them before class, did the magic spell to him. Her small eyes with lesser eyebrows unlike most of Indian girl were pleasing him. She had resemblance to women he had seen in Chinese or Thai movies. It seemed as if his fantasies were coming true. This Mongoloid girl was driving him crazy. Her name and address reeled through brain throughout the evening, “Xubaxhona Sonowal from Diphu, Karbi Anglong”

Later that evening, he confessed to his roommate “I want to hold her and keep her tight by my chest”. To which his friend revolted, “Do you have any idea what you are saying? It is not possible! Why are you thinking to bring troubles to her and yourself? She’s a decent girl and hails from a very decent family”. Heinrich replied, “So what? No one ought to stop their inhibitions. I must confess my desires to her!” Abhinash unable to persuade his friend mildly protested, “This is Assam not Austria”.

The next morning when Heinrich reached class late due to a hangover as he had more beers than his usual quota, he found that most of them were gone. However to his delight he saw Xubaxhona in much beautiful attire than usual, was coming towards him. He greeted her “Hey, Subasna how’re you doing? It’s great to see you, you seem hardly finding any time to have a chat with me”. She said that she was waiting for him and inquired about what had obsessed him to come late. They both had a lovely time talking with each other and laughing at each other’s jokes.

Later in the evening, when both Abhinash and Heinrich retired to their room, Abhinash inquired about the piece of thread in Heinrich’s hand to which Heinrich showed off to him saying that “See this is what Subasna gave me today, she tied onto my hands! We both had a lovely time together. I felt like suddenly I had friend-zoned her”. After listening to Heinrich’s exploits of the day, Abhinash explained to him that it was the very day of Rakhi Purnima and the event being called Raksha Bandhan when a sister ties rakhi to her brother, eventually the brother promising to protect her. Slowly when the real part of the story dawned upon both of them, they both started laughing to their heart’s content. Heinrich felt as a brother he ought to protect her by holding her near to his chest.