All the hostels in IIT had their personal canteens which were open almost whole day in order to facilitate people with edible items even when mess is not active. H7 also had a small canteen with a whole lot of things to eat. I wonder how the canteen staff used to keep all the items as well as cook all the stuff with literally just 10 X 5 sq. ft. room to roam around. But, they somehow managed to maintain the food quality well. They kept a variety of items like biscuits, fruits, packets of all kind of "Haldiram" stuffs (Unanimously voted GOD of favorite timepass throughout IIT....IIT ke har student ne Haldiram ka namak khaya hai :D), an all time supply of milk, tea and coffee, a variety of fruit juices and coldrinks, and apart from all these, a long list of freshly preparable items like noodles, maggi, rice, parathas, chapati bhaji etc. The hostel inmates used to hang around in the canteen area all day ordering tons of items from the menu. In all, this parallely running mess was the lifeline of our hostel.
The six of us also used to eat and drink a lot in the canteen whenever we got bored of the mess menu. And when it came to canteen, our demand of food usually went out of control and every time, we ate almost triple of what each of us used to eat in the mess. Kedar and vinay usually ordered parathas, Kaustubh went with the noodles most of the time, I used to order cheese maggi and sandeep always used to go a step ahead and order "DOUBLE" or "TRIPLE" cheese maggi (God knows how much cheese sandeep ate during that period :-o). Sachin wasn't able to decide what to eat and usually joined with anyone of us. Sandeep was the king of all times when it came to eating at canteen. His monthly bill alone used to be equal to the sum of all our monthly bills. So, we all were enjoying our lives at hostel - the runtime tea/coffee sessions, the lunches, tiffins and dinners in the mess and the khadadi at canteen - yup!!! that's what we used to call it - THE KHADADI.
One day, the mess was closed due to some maintainence work. It was not a weekday but some submission deadlines for assignments were close. So, all of us spent the whole day in the department lab completing the assignments of scripting and latex having no idea about lunch and dinner arrangements without mess. After eating things like dosa, wada and stuff like that at lunch time, none of us had eaten anything for a long time except some tea/coffee breaks in between. We all tried hard and completed our assignments till around 9 PM. We were exhausted and in full enthu at the same time. We came out of lab and started cycling towards our hostel. Suddenly, vinay came out of the nautia of overwhelming joy of assignment completion and yelled in full sound - "Arreeyy!!! Mala bhuk lagaliye!!!". With the end of his sentence, the air around us changed and each one of us felt a very strong irresistible appeal of hunger from their stomachs. With God Speed, we headed towards the hostel and came to realize that the mess is closed. So, it was unanimously decided it was Khadadi time. We went to the canteen to have a look at the menu and started ordering the first time that eyes could read without even thinking how much we are actually ordering and whether we will be able to finish it or not. The canteen staff felt as if they have got and order for marriage reception or something. They hurriedly started preparing all the ordered items while we sat in the TV room consoling our stomachs to wait for a while. Finally, when the canteen manager shouted that our order is ready, we all ran towards him like hungry wolves ready to attack. What happened then is now an unforgettable one hour in my IIT life. We ate and ate and ate and we realized it wasn't enough and ordered again, then ate the second order but still we didn't feel satisfied so we ordered for the third time and ate all that too. I bet the whole canteen staff must be thinking of us as middle age beasts who haven't seen food for a century. This khadadi session was written in Golden letters in the memories of lives of all of us. I am not able to find words to descibe the amount of food we ate that day. Let's have a pictorial view of what actually happened at that khadadi (Only half the dishes are present :D).
The six of us also used to eat and drink a lot in the canteen whenever we got bored of the mess menu. And when it came to canteen, our demand of food usually went out of control and every time, we ate almost triple of what each of us used to eat in the mess. Kedar and vinay usually ordered parathas, Kaustubh went with the noodles most of the time, I used to order cheese maggi and sandeep always used to go a step ahead and order "DOUBLE" or "TRIPLE" cheese maggi (God knows how much cheese sandeep ate during that period :-o). Sachin wasn't able to decide what to eat and usually joined with anyone of us. Sandeep was the king of all times when it came to eating at canteen. His monthly bill alone used to be equal to the sum of all our monthly bills. So, we all were enjoying our lives at hostel - the runtime tea/coffee sessions, the lunches, tiffins and dinners in the mess and the khadadi at canteen - yup!!! that's what we used to call it - THE KHADADI.
One day, the mess was closed due to some maintainence work. It was not a weekday but some submission deadlines for assignments were close. So, all of us spent the whole day in the department lab completing the assignments of scripting and latex having no idea about lunch and dinner arrangements without mess. After eating things like dosa, wada and stuff like that at lunch time, none of us had eaten anything for a long time except some tea/coffee breaks in between. We all tried hard and completed our assignments till around 9 PM. We were exhausted and in full enthu at the same time. We came out of lab and started cycling towards our hostel. Suddenly, vinay came out of the nautia of overwhelming joy of assignment completion and yelled in full sound - "Arreeyy!!! Mala bhuk lagaliye!!!". With the end of his sentence, the air around us changed and each one of us felt a very strong irresistible appeal of hunger from their stomachs. With God Speed, we headed towards the hostel and came to realize that the mess is closed. So, it was unanimously decided it was Khadadi time. We went to the canteen to have a look at the menu and started ordering the first time that eyes could read without even thinking how much we are actually ordering and whether we will be able to finish it or not. The canteen staff felt as if they have got and order for marriage reception or something. They hurriedly started preparing all the ordered items while we sat in the TV room consoling our stomachs to wait for a while. Finally, when the canteen manager shouted that our order is ready, we all ran towards him like hungry wolves ready to attack. What happened then is now an unforgettable one hour in my IIT life. We ate and ate and ate and we realized it wasn't enough and ordered again, then ate the second order but still we didn't feel satisfied so we ordered for the third time and ate all that too. I bet the whole canteen staff must be thinking of us as middle age beasts who haven't seen food for a century. This khadadi session was written in Golden letters in the memories of lives of all of us. I am not able to find words to descibe the amount of food we ate that day. Let's have a pictorial view of what actually happened at that khadadi (Only half the dishes are present :D).
Ha asa photo kadhana (tyachyasathi pose dena vagaire) mala ani sachinla teva patala navata. Pan ata itakya divasanni he pahun bhaari vatatay.
ReplyDeletePan ajunahi ashya odd goshti public madhye karana
bahudha nahich jamanar!!
Canteen chi khadadi...one of the things in IIT I miss the most!
ReplyDeleteNachi, Anoop and me pan bharpoor vela khadadila jaycho...kamal athwani ahet!