Tales of food (or lack thereof) from an old hostel

Although I was a day scholar, whenever I heard the hostelers in college narrate their harrowing hostel food stories, I knew they were not carping about nothing. I could fully empathize with them because long time back I had the privilege of spending about 3 weeks in a private mini hostel towards the end of my school days. Had I spent more time there, I would have looked like a prisoner in Hitler’s concentration camp. The hostel was run by Chathan, Mathan and Pothan (or so we used to call them), Chathan being a grumpy old man who took care of the cooking; and Mathan and Pothan his servile minions.

Now, I’m a person who’s not that particular about food - veg or non-veg, spicy or bland, sugary or sourly - it’s not much of a problem for me; only that it should be edible. But Chathan’s food was outrageous even for my standards. You get something like black burnt bread with greenish brown butter and tea that tastes like buffalo vomit (not that I’ve tasted buffalo vomit, but you get the comparison right?); and the chicken curry whose gravy consisted of 99% water with a tiny little piece of chicken that can be viewed better if you bring a microscope along with you. And not to forget the murky water in the taps. The dinner time would be something like that freaky ‘Fear factor’ show, where Peejay, Chakka and I would struggle with ourselves in pushing and squeezing the gastronomic delicacies down our throat. Chakka was perhaps the most tortured with the food, and in fact the name ‘Chakka’ was now a misnomer; his weight plummeted from stratospheric levels to normal level by now, thanks to Chathan food. And Pothan’s occasional raids in our room put an end to Peejay’s reading of comics. Pothan’s remark “You brats reading dirty books??”, on seeing the bikini clad Betty and Veronica in Archie comics, made us go to the church and confess how perverted and filthy our minds are.

One evening as I was just taking a nap, Peejay comes to our room and airily says,

“You know, Chathan made burger today”

And I sprang up from my bed in shock and disbelief.

“What?! Burger!! Chathan? Here? IMPOSSIBLE!!”

“Go see for yourself. If possible, get me one more too. It’s lip smacking!”

I ebulliently jumped down the stairs and rushed to the mess hall. Yes it’s true, there’s burger. I don’t know what the criteria are for a concoction of food to be called a burger, but it somewhat looked like one for sure. But on closer inspection, it was understood that the so called ‘burger’ contained 2 pieces of bun (the cheapest ones you can get in a local bakery) and a cutlet sandwiched in between; the shape of the cutlet reminds one of the picture of amoeba that we studied in biology textbooks. In short, 2 buns + cutlet = the innovative post modern age yummy yummy Chathan burger (patented).

A crestfallen and disappointed me (you know how it feels like when they bring a plate of chicken biriyani right in front of your face, and you smell it, and saliva oozes down your lips, and then all of a sudden the plate crashes down to the floor, and rats and lizards start licking the biriyani on the floor right down you. Well, it was not exactly that feeling, but the impact factor of this scenario commensurate with my Chathan burger scenario) trudged back to my room with head down, only to see Peejay’s 100 Watt, old incandescent smile (old incandescent coz of his yellow teeth). Putting his arms over my shoulder, he slyly said with a malicious grin, “Come, let’s find our next gullible victim”.

And that’s when Chakka walked by the corridor.

“Dey Chakka, Chathan made burger today”

“What?! Burger!! Chathan? Here? IMPOSSIBLE!!”

Not a Guten Tag for someone

Many moons ago, that means so many moons ago, that means somewhere in the early 80s, which means before I even came into existence, my dad got a post doctoral scholarship in RWTH Aachen. Well, without knowing even the ABCD of German, he lands in Aachen and his professor arranges a temporary accommodation in a hotel. So he spends some time in the hotel and by evening decides to go for a walk around the city. Before he left the street where the hotel was, he carefully jotted down the name of the street, in case he got lost in the city.

So our protagonist enjoys the sightings and fountains and boulevards and cathedrals; oblivious as to how far he's away from the hotel; and keeps on walking admiring all the middle age style architecture.......until.....until it suddenly dawns on him that he has no idea where he is and absolutely no clue how to trace the way back. But our protagonist is a very cautious and proactive man; he had anticipated this predicament before he started out – he‘d written the name of the street, remember?? 

So he takes out the paper, goes to the man standing nearby and shows him the name of the street. The paper reads ‘Einbahnstraβe’. Dad tries to enunciate the name,

“Eyen – ban – straaabbe”

It’s actually pronounced ‘eyen-ban-strasse’. The man laughs. Some problem with the pronunciation, thought dad. So he next goes to a lady in the near vicinity, shows her the paper and gestures for directions (this time careful not to enunciate). Despite all that, the lady blinks and stares. Puzzled he is too, yes. He approaches several other people but the upshot is the same; people just give a perplexed stare, and some might blurt out a mild laugh. And finally one kind man explains to him what the real problem is. Turns out Einbahnstrasse is the German for ‘one-way road’. 

Epilogue

Fortunately, dad remembered that the hotel is near to the metro station and found out the route to reach the place. He never trusted street signs again.

P.S. I know you twisted bird brains might have expected some very embarrassing meaning for the word; maybe except for Belt Mathai, who the Germans are trying very hard to chuck out of their country right now; the govt. considers him to be a threat to the food security of the country, his neighbors think he's a source of noise pollution (read Mathai's singing in the shower) and the German chicks seem to be fed up of his constant ogling. God save the country.  ;) 

And one hot noon

And Shameen looked at me and barked “Nee Malayaliyo atho tholayaliyo?” You can’t blame Shameen though; I should’ve asked for more specific directions from that Malayali uncle I met. Oh, didn’t I tell you we’ve been trying to reach Mysore Palace for a long while? And didn’t I tell you we are stingy misers that it’s blasphemy for us to hire a rickshaw? Earlier another man explained some routes to reach the palace, but after 30 minutes of walking, we reached the KSRTC bus stand.

On seeing the long line of buses,

Shameen: Dubaiyil evideyada Bhagyarajum Radheem??
Me: aa kallan Gafoorka nammale pattichu!!

Well, now we have almost circumnavigated the palace and found 3 of the 4 gates, none of which were the entrance. So the remaining one should be the spot and boy! we could barely descry it. Jumped and hopped in, took out my old camera and voila!!, here we go:

Photography was not allowed inside the palace. Hence had to restrict the photos to its appurtenances and patios.

And one fine evening.............

Proportion that didn't quite work

During the Onam celebrations in the 3rd year of college, there were several competitions among the various branches and one of them (and the most popular) was the Athapookkalam competition. So every branch tries hard to design the most flamboyant and exquisite arrangement of flowers, and our batch wanting not to be left behind starts making a big round flashy Athapookkalam (well, not me though; I was a mere spectator or rather let’s say, a member of the morale boosting committee). But midway into the making, the flowers that we procured got used up. So we collected money from among ourselves and directs Keeri to go to the city (as he was the one in the immediate vicinity who had a bike) and buy some flowers. And out of our generosity, we told Keeri he may use the remaining money after buying the flowers for filling petrol in his bike. 

After a while, Keeri comes back with just a handful of flowers much to our disappointment and anger. On closer inspection we find that his bike, which had its fuel indicator needle close to the left before he left, is now in the extreme right position. 
What we directed: Buy flowers and with the remaining money, fill petrol.
What he did: Filled petrol and with the remaining money, bought a meager quantity of flowers from the cheapest shop in town. 

Epilogue: We had human tikka masala for Onasadya. 

Happy Onam folks!!