By : Tarangam Deka
It was three years back, when I got newly admitted to my first year of graduation. I do not exactly remember the date but what I remember is that it was a holiday and my dear friend Hrishikesh had suggested that we should go out somewhere. I cashed upon it since the day had been boring and finally we decided to visit Dona planet, the local shopping mall. The reason behind our visit was that Hrishi finds a girl operating in a mobile store there extremely beautiful .We went there and before entering, something that caught our eye was the board that says that we can get a 3 course meal in pizza hut only for Rs. 99.We looked at each other and our non-verbal communication came to the same conclusion that we should go for it. Interestingly, we both had Rs. 100 each with us, not a single penny more or less. Well, we entered pizza hut store and ordered for the Rs. 99 magic pack.
We were capturing photographs of the things that were present there. As we were carrying on with our fun, we were served with two big glasses of soft drinks. I was about to finish the whole at a single go. At that point something suddenly stopped me from doing so. I was awestruck when I came to know that Value Added Tax was to be added up with the price of the meal that we ordered for. Within a minute I started sweating. I brought the matter to Hrishi’s notice. Hrishi seemed terrified and so was I. We were checking out our pockets if there was something in it, but on that day we had the perfect definition of bad luck. We were searching for options and running away was quite a big joke. Then came the starters and pizzas were still to come. On a normal day I would have finished those starters in two or three crunches but that day we were taking as much time as possible but we were running out of ideas. At that point of time we thought we should call someone for help but then again I felt like crying when I noticed that there was no network in my mobile phone and it was out of service. Hrishi was trying again and again and I gave up hope as we had the same network provider. Suddenly Hrishi screamed that his sister’s phone was ringing. My heart lit up at once. He told his sister about the problem we were facing and the misfortunes and by his reactions anyone could say that he was being scolded from the other side. Finally, she agreed to come and help us from the situation and that meant we would have to spend another two hours there until she had arrived.
We were done with our starters and were having our pizzas. Our faces were worth looking. We felt that time had ceased moving. Finally his sister came and he went outside. Luckily he did not get a smack on his face. She paid him the money and went away. That was a great relief and even then we had some of the stuffs still left to enjoy, after all that was our first pizza hut visit. We were done, the bill came and yes there was V.A.T included in it. But to our amusement, it was priced Rs. 94 a meal. We acknowledged the reduced price and the money Hrishi got from his sister became an addition to his pocket. Well, that was indeed a terrible mess we had experienced and still today, we both laugh remembering those moments. From then onwards we were very careful before entering a restaurant and made sure we have enough money to pay for it.
