Mess fed
Our college hostel dining hall in India was called the mess, a term that is probably only used in the army in America. When I first started eating there, I liked the food more or less. ("Don't tell anyone that you like hostel food!" my mom would say, "people will think your mother is a terrible cook.") Other than the vegetarian curries (every one an unidentifiable blob) the thought of which took away my hunger at dinner time, everything else was passable. Lunch would have a decent fish, meat or egg curry along with a blob. For tea, we had 2 samosas and a sweet for the longest time - not exciting but acceptable. Only in our fifth and final year, more substantial and appetizing fare such as alu paratha, chana-bhatura and dosa was introduced for tea.
My most favourite meal by far, though, was breakfast with toast and eggs. We would line up with our eggs (and chopped onions, tomatoes etc. if we wanted them) in the kitchen while the only male cook fried, scrambled or made omelettes to order on a coal-fueled clay oven. I particularly remember how he made omelettes - I make them the same way myself and, every time, think of our hostel cook. He would tilt the pan in all directions to get the egg to spread, and as it cooked with liquid remaining in the middle, he would lift one edge of the already cooked part and tilt the pan that way to get the liquid under the cooked part. Sadly, I've completely forgotten his name although I remember exactly what he looked like - a very dark, stocky man with curly hair and a thick moustache, probably in his forties.
I remember him particularly for a specific reason having to do with the mess workers strike. I remember the strike vividly, not because I had any interest in the fortunes of the mess workers but because it was a miraculous event in my life (unconnected to the cook story that I will come to later). I used to be one of those students that studied (more like memorized notes) the night before the exam. Most of the time that worked out because the questions came straight off the notes - derive something or the other. On the day before the elementary particles exam, horror of horrors, I opened the notes and found them impossible to memorize! The teacher had introduced so many new notations that it might as well have all been Greek. If I had taken the test the next day I would surely have failed ...but I didn't - because, in one of those rare coincidences, in which something you are desperately but hopelessly wishing for actually happens - hours before the exam, the mess workers went on strike and all exams were cancelled. (Instead of pushing back the exams and upcoming holidays to an uncertain resolution date, the authorities just rescheduled them for after the holidays. You can be sure that I made good use of every one of those vacation days and eventually passed that class.)
The first day of the strike dawned with the excitement of exams cancelled but also with the realization that we, the hundred odd girls in the hostel, were going to have to cook our own meals. With so many hands, the task was going to be a breeze and kind of fun even, except - as anyone who has been a witness to a clay oven lighting knows - it's a delicate task requiring a high level of expertise and experience without which one is doomed to smoky, sweaty, teary, coal-stained failure. That's when the second miracle of the day was noted. The lead contingent of older girls, walking into the kitchen with grim determination, found - wonder of wonders - the oven all ready to go with a roaring fire burning. Our cook, knowing full well how not up to the task we were, had felt sorry for a bunch of coddled girls who had never gone hungry a day in their lives, and had secretly crossed the picket line early in the morning to get the fire going.
We were, in the main, clueless / uncaring about the lives of the visibly poor people who served us (not in a mean way, worse, in a taken for granted way). Our cook, on the other hand, looking out every day at girls lined up with food trays in the dining hall or eggs and onions in the kitchen, had seen not spoilt and entitled upper class people but children that he cooked and cared for and that were his responsibility to keep fed.
My most favourite meal by far, though, was breakfast with toast and eggs. We would line up with our eggs (and chopped onions, tomatoes etc. if we wanted them) in the kitchen while the only male cook fried, scrambled or made omelettes to order on a coal-fueled clay oven. I particularly remember how he made omelettes - I make them the same way myself and, every time, think of our hostel cook. He would tilt the pan in all directions to get the egg to spread, and as it cooked with liquid remaining in the middle, he would lift one edge of the already cooked part and tilt the pan that way to get the liquid under the cooked part. Sadly, I've completely forgotten his name although I remember exactly what he looked like - a very dark, stocky man with curly hair and a thick moustache, probably in his forties.
I remember him particularly for a specific reason having to do with the mess workers strike. I remember the strike vividly, not because I had any interest in the fortunes of the mess workers but because it was a miraculous event in my life (unconnected to the cook story that I will come to later). I used to be one of those students that studied (more like memorized notes) the night before the exam. Most of the time that worked out because the questions came straight off the notes - derive something or the other. On the day before the elementary particles exam, horror of horrors, I opened the notes and found them impossible to memorize! The teacher had introduced so many new notations that it might as well have all been Greek. If I had taken the test the next day I would surely have failed ...but I didn't - because, in one of those rare coincidences, in which something you are desperately but hopelessly wishing for actually happens - hours before the exam, the mess workers went on strike and all exams were cancelled. (Instead of pushing back the exams and upcoming holidays to an uncertain resolution date, the authorities just rescheduled them for after the holidays. You can be sure that I made good use of every one of those vacation days and eventually passed that class.)
The first day of the strike dawned with the excitement of exams cancelled but also with the realization that we, the hundred odd girls in the hostel, were going to have to cook our own meals. With so many hands, the task was going to be a breeze and kind of fun even, except - as anyone who has been a witness to a clay oven lighting knows - it's a delicate task requiring a high level of expertise and experience without which one is doomed to smoky, sweaty, teary, coal-stained failure. That's when the second miracle of the day was noted. The lead contingent of older girls, walking into the kitchen with grim determination, found - wonder of wonders - the oven all ready to go with a roaring fire burning. Our cook, knowing full well how not up to the task we were, had felt sorry for a bunch of coddled girls who had never gone hungry a day in their lives, and had secretly crossed the picket line early in the morning to get the fire going.
We were, in the main, clueless / uncaring about the lives of the visibly poor people who served us (not in a mean way, worse, in a taken for granted way). Our cook, on the other hand, looking out every day at girls lined up with food trays in the dining hall or eggs and onions in the kitchen, had seen not spoilt and entitled upper class people but children that he cooked and cared for and that were his responsibility to keep fed.
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