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'Ekush' I did my best to intimidate him, but to no avail it seemed.

'Baish' Peter was brimming with confidence.

'Pass…Double!' It could be the last hand. It's always fun to raise the stakes in the last hand.

'Re-Double! You guys are toast!!' he was bidding like there was no tomorrow.

It was 2:30 in the morning of an otherwise eventless Friday. The air inside Room no.33 stank bitterly of burnt tobacco & sweat. Only God knows how many seconds we waited for Isaac to make his call. This only added to the multitude of his sins, as he just let it pass after keeping us in suspense for so long and after a final long puff he stubbed the filter into Peter's bed sheets. Peter howled an array of Bengali obscenities while Isaac tried to fix up the mess only to make things worse. What would have been a solitary aperture got transformed to a gaping cylindrical hole, thanks to Isaacs's flimsy reflexes.

Anjan & I employed our greatest powers of resistance to save Isaac from Peter's hard clenched fist, but without much success. Isaac ducked instinctively which probably saved a tooth or his whole jaw. The next 5 minutes elapsed as we wrestled the 6 footer from tearing his partner to smithereens. Being able to forgive and forget at last, Peter distributed the next 4 cards.

A flicker of hope rekindled Anjan's expressions after glancing through his second hand. Isaac lit up his 20th stick for the night and started to stare at his hand like a consciencous student of literature engrossed in Shakespearean tragedy. The bet was on again, the tension was getting on our nerves and silence probed the atmosphere like an evil virus infecting mutilated bodies after a bloody war. After all, losers pay for late night boat ride and breakfast.

The first few hands of the last frame went on without either team winning anything of considerable value. The big boys (ace, jack...) were now battling for supremacy. We won the fourth hand with 4 precious points, moving us within 1 point of victory. From now on Isaac and Peter would have to win every hand. Peter nailed the next three rounds with his cards.

Then came the most anticipated-last round of the deciding frame. Confident as ever, Peter played his trump. Having blatantly displayed mine I reached for my wallet. An awe of disbelief swept across the room as Anjan showed his card which had more powerful than Pete's. Rejuvenations and screams broke the silence like the clatter of pouring rain in summer, and rightly so, as we hadn't won in a long time. Peter broke into one of his tantrums once again, while Isaac decided to stay quiet.

Now it was time for us to venture on with the remaining plans for the evening. Soon afterwards we were walking gingerly towards our hostel's main entrance. No one wants to wake our hostel superintendent at this ungodly hour. I was the first to go over our 9ft high gate while the others followed.

The street lights caste long shadows of our imposing stances and the cool night air whistling through the concrete jungle occasionally interrupted the ceaseless silence of the night. We ambled down to Sadarghat's boat jetty. After coaxing one of the sleep driven rowers for a 200buck ride from Sadarghat to Postaghola Bridge and back, we boarded the little dingy boat.

Buriganga having absorbed all of our sludge and filth for the day was now flowing slowly and ceremoniously towards oblivion. The pitch dark crests and troughs of the river gleamed softly to reveal alabaster white images of a gloomy moon.

All the frustrations and worries of a whole week of nerve wrecking questions in one viva board and then another; the endless hours of meticulous preparation only to mix up a few stupid details, was really starting to get me down. It was funny how the mind resorts to music under a starry sky marooned by fathomless water. Mother Nature's uncanny sense of balance saved us once again from losing ourselves into the abysmal depths of desperation. A whole night of singing our favorite tunes (or rather screaming out loud) induced a sharp upsurge in our appetite. Boating down the old river for another hour or so we got off a few yards from where we started.

A radiant spectrum of colors soon began to illuminate the night sky. The cool morning air beckoned the advent of another morning. The Aazan hallowed the Almighty's name, with divine efforts to salvage the lost soul. The ordeal of the workers of our City Corporation soon commenced as they tried to uphold the standards of our city's cleanliness (!!!)The reluctant diabetic was warming up again.

'Boshen mama!! Ki Khaben? The face of the waiter flashed to reveal a set of ivory white teeth bordered by a red carpet, the remnants of an age old chewing habit. After feasting over a gourmet of parathas, eggs and curry we were washing for tea when one of the sleep driven waiters bumped into Isaac. The resultant an all authentic 'Isaac Dail' with a few drops of the sticky yellow foundation over his cheeks. Peter had probably never been so jubilant; it was as if he had unraveled the Crown of Jewels. But Peter wasn't the only one in the party. Thanks to technological advancements we were able to take the first and probably the last snaps of lentil soup - 'Isaac Dail'.