Mess Food Saga

There is something about mess food that makes it beyond comparison to anything else of the edible variety I know. After five years of living in a hostel for my undergraduate and master’s degree, I thought I had undergone every kind of torture possible. But then I arrived at IIT Kanpur GH (girl’s hostel). Here the mess food was in a different league altogether.

I don’t know how they managed it but the roti (flat bread) would always be kaccha (uncooked) at the end and burnt in the middle. There would be a layer of oil, two inches thick, floating on top of the yellow dal (curry) that looked almost black. The rice would be half cooked and every damn vegetable would have aloo (potatoes) in it. The only salvation was curd, and omelet or butter that were ‘extras.’ How many times I managed with curd rice (no, I am not a South Indian, and curd rice is not my religion, unlike H) or omelet and roti. When all else failed, I would eat Maggi noodles in the Hall 3 canteen along with my friends. Later it almost became my staple diet.

One afternoon after finding the food quite unbearable I requested our cook, Rji to make an omelet for me. I almost always managed to get hot rotis courtesy R1ji, a member of the serving staff. You see, talking politely to mess people (or for that matter anyone) pays dividends in unexpected places. So to make my meal complete all I needed was that double omelet.

I did not have to wait long, within a few minutes the object of my desire arrived. I took a first small bite from one corner and it was bliss. I was about to take a second and bigger bite but my attention was caught by an unusually long piece of onion. I hesitated, and for a while I thought it was not an onion but something else altogether. But then my mind balked at such a possibility. I tried to dismiss the nagging doubt about the onion. I willed myself to take a second bite. By then, the doubt took further hold of my mind and I braced myself to take a closer look at the object of my attention. On second inspection, I identified it correctly and I of all people, was rendered speechless. I just walked to the food counter, called Rji and told him there was a baby chipkali (lizard) in my omelet in a very quiet voice and walked off.

I need not add that this incident put me off food for many, many days. Poor Rji came running after me and apologized profusely. He pleaded with me to come back and take food. I had to convince him that I was not angry with him but I just had no appetite left. I do not know how I did not ended up with food poisoning. And after this entire episode one person told me, “It is better to have a full lizard in an omelet you nibbled at, rather than having only half of it there.” Yuck, yuck, yuck is all I can say.

The First Few Days

The predominant feeling after getting into IITK Ph.D. was of relief. I was finally out of the unemployment trap. The scholarship was small, but it felt like kings ransom at that point of time and it was a great feeling that I would not be taking money from my parents anymore.

I think for one year at least I remained in awe of that place, frequently I would think, “Wow, this is IIT Kanpur!” It is another matter that the feeling later changed to, “Oh God Is this all to IIT Kanpur? But after working at other “academic” institutions, once again I feel, well, there is a lot to the IIT system.

Two things you learn very fast at this place. One is the presence of the swear words, feels better if I say gali, in Hindi and of the worst kind that keep flying in the normal conversations among guys, and I feel part of it to show off or shock if a girl is passing by.

Two, there are very few girls on the campus (must be changing slowly?) and you constantly have a feeling of being watched, and you have to learn to live with it. I later developed a philosophy that even if I do nothing, people will discuss my behavior, so why not go ahead and do whatever I please?

Three, that post graduate students are the lesser mortals and the under graduate students Einstein.

Day 1: IIT Kanpur

I still remember my first day at IIT Kanpur so clearly. It was a cold Christmas day in XXXX when I landed up there. Many people find the city of Kanpur unbearable but I come from a place that is even smaller and lacking in ‘happening’ things.

I had left my hometown after school, only to land up in a women’s institute where social life resembled more to a jail or a lunatic asylum rather than a college. The next five years were unimaginable, even though they did a damn decent job of educating me. I still remember the graffiti on the desk in one of my classrooms: ‘Anywhere in the world it is great to be young except XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX.’ But I will talk about it some other day.

Coming back to my first day at IIT Kanpur, I ended up at the girl’s hostel (what is called old GH now) and being a P.G., I was promptly allocated a single room. Having spent the past five years in a hostel, staring at a bare room with blank walls was nothing new to me. After a few hours of careless work, the room had acquired a touch of my individuality (read untidy and scattered).

I went to the mess for dinner later that day and found the food sad and pathetic, in other words the usual hostel fare. I think I did not do anything too important afterwards. At 10.00 pm I decided it was time for bed. The rooms in the ‘old’ GH have huge windows and on my first day I had no curtains to put on them.

And that was the beginning of my difficulties. I wanted to put on the lights and read for a while before going to sleep. I also wanted to change into more comfortable clothes. You my dear reader will say, so what was stopping you? You should just go ahead.

But my answer to you is, you may not know something that I did. Even before coming to IITK, courtesy my cousin, a Hall 3, boys hostel resident, I knew that guys could visit any room in the girls hostel from 6 in the morning to 12 at midnight and vice versa. Yes you read it right. In middle of Kanhepur, there exists this little utopia where there are no resident wardens for boys or girls hostel and both the genders can freely enter the rooms of each-other.

From my curtain-less room, the hostel at 10.00 in the night resembled a railway platform more than a girl’s hostel! I had not foreseen this scenario while building my plan for reading and changing into comfy clothes. Imagine no curtains on huge windows of my room, guys moving freely in the corridors and me slopped on my bed. Even though I would be wrapped in the razai (quilt), I still did not like the scene.

Finally, I read the book sitting on a chair and switched off the light before going to sleep and with the noise of feet, guys and gals in the air, I finally fell asleep with the railway platform feeling quite intact.