Hospitality

There were three school friends who would sit together on the last bench in the class. Their friendship was famous in the school from top to bottom in length and breadth as well as in all corners of the town. Generally, they were seen together at all times and places except on a few occasions. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be together after their 12th board examination. They were separated for making their career. They had completed their higher education at different places in different colleges, for which they had left their native place. Career made them separated. They couldn’t meet each other for a very long time after segregation. They were busy making hay while the sun was shining. The old memories of their friendship were buried in the emotional soil of their heart as out of sight, out of mind. They got married having their own family. They were happy with their achievements and headed towards financial stability with their individual effort. All of them had wandered through out of their services in the country for most of the period. Unknowingly they settled in the orange city in the retiring decade which was fairly nearest to their birthplace.

One day, the two of them met in the mall incidentally. It was an utmost awaited surprising moment for them. They hugged each other and thanked nature for their re-meeting just after retirement. Since they were retired to do anything, they decided to find out their third friend. They got his mobile number when one of them met with his brother's friend at his native place where he had gone for his important personal work. There was just formal taking with him when his brother’s friend met with him at his home. As he got the mobile number of his missing friend, they made contact with him over mobile. They were extremely happy to meet with their segregated friend. In this way, they renewed their old friendship of schooldays. Since they were retired to spend a lot of time with each other, there was a master plan in their mind to arrange the get-to-gather function of their classmates. They worked hard to fulfil their dream project with aid of local friends from their birthplace. The local friends were of the same opinion as great minds think alike. Of course, they were awaiting the same opportunity that their friends gave them. All of them spent their optimum energy to get such a function in their school. They made it a grand success.

As they were retired to spare time and money for enjoying the rest of their life with their old friends, they decided to celebrate the anniversary of their get-to-gather function every year. It was the third anniversary in which they decided to honour their friend who was a poet as well as a writer. He had published one scientific book and a number of poems and stories in various magazines as well as on various available literature platforms. They had fixed the date, time and venue for the function. They started their journey from orange city to their native place. When they just covered half of the distance of their total journey, they received a call from other friends from their native place regarding the death of an active friend’s aunt. It was the indirect signal for the postponement of function. They decided to pay tributes to a friend’s aunt. There were many friends like them who heard the same news. All of them gathered at the sad demise place to pay their last tributes to her.

They were in the funeral procession and reach the funeral place before the arrival of a dead body. Family members and relatives made all religious acts and then the dead body was set on fire. By that time, there was a normal atmosphere at the funeral place. The group of friends was standing away from the burning dead body of the aunt. They started making light jokes among themselves to come out of the sad events. There was deep concerned among them about the cancellation of the proposed scheduled function. One of the friends just expressed his thought that the aunt would have passed away one day later. Then we would have killed two birds with a single stone. Another friend just asked with fun to him whether the angel was the boyfriend of his aunt. One of the friends said that the angel was his friend. Commenting on his reply, another friend said that the angle than would have reduced his life by a decade. He said that he was ready for that for sake of a friend’s enjoyment.

It was decided that the honour function of their friend would be held just after the departure of all the people who were present at the funeral. They had already used the bouquet flowers for paying tributes to their aunt. One of them suggested that we could use these lying chaplets for making the bouquets. They sent one of the friends to bring an overcoat, coconut and sweets from the car. Everything was made ready to honour their writer friend. They were just awed by a few items. When they saw their friend coming back, they all were excited about the unique historic function’s commencement. When they saw him with empty hands carrying only coconut, all of them questioned him about where were other items. One of the friends told that he had offered the shawl to his aunt while paying tributes and handed over the sweets to his sister-in-law. They were totally confused about what to do next. They decided to give only coconut to their friend as a token of confirmation of his hospitality in near future. Then all of them went back to their homes after offering him the coconut. In this way, they celebrated the historic honour function of their beloved friend.