23

Hunger Strike


“Grrr… today too, the same old brinjal curry?”
“No; it is smashed potato …errr I think!”
“Perhaps you should swim in it to find at least a bit of a potato!”

If you were (are) a hostel being, umpteen number of times, you would have had the above conversation with your friends! The best days of my college life were supplemented by the most atrocious food ever!  Memories of the infamous dining hall bring nightmares to me even today! There were days when I was served leftover rice, sour curd and potato chips for dinner! ...and all I could do then was to weep, thinking of mom-cooked food! 

Once, when we felt that the quality of food was deteriorating from bad to worse, we decided to protest! Few of our Tibetian friends suggested that we will go on hunger strike. Yes… not a bad idea, I felt. After all, it was about skipping just one dinner …and for a good cause! I thought, “Before getting back to the hostel in the evening, I shall refill my stomach from college canteen so that it will not wail in the middle of the night!”

Few of us, the most concerned citizens of the hostel thought, discussed, ideated, planned and finally chose the next Saturday to be the “Go-Hungry Day!” Why Saturday?? …because it was on Saturdays that we get the so-called chapattis which were more like flying discs! We could actually play Frisbee with them! Not at all an exaggeration!!

My most enthusiastic Tibetian friends went from room to room campaigning against bad food, thus promoting the protest! Felt really proud to have extremely powerful influencers amongst us! Who knows... in future we might see them stay hungry for farmers in Andra Pradesh or for students in North East! J

However, to our utmost shock, we were welcomed to the mess hall on Saturday evening by the aroma of masala-dosa and variety chutneys! None of us could believe our eyes nor nose! 
"Huh?! Bloody spies inside the hostel to ruin our plan??!" Look at how we poor souls were being bribed! But to be very frank, those dosas were just too inviting! At the end of the day, we all are just emotional and expressive human beings! ;)  

Yet, we decided to be very firm and tried hard to not get carried away by any of these cheap tricks! But, even before we could make our point clear, the warden announced, “Special masala-dosas are being served in the mess today. Mind you - this is just a onetime affair!”

These bloody people exactly know what our weaknesses are! And see… how they have dealt with it, tactfully! As I didn’t want to be a traitor, I went back to my room, fearing I might fall for the dosas! That is when I noticed post-its stuck on all the doors, which said, “Girls, due to some unexplainable reasons, the Hunger Strike Committee has decided to postpone the strike to next week. Will keep you updated. Please enjoy the dosas in the kitchen and Thanks a lot for your co-operation!” 

Wow..!! It was such a great relief to see that! My taste buds made my legs run to pass on the news to everybody! And in half an hour, the dosas were emptied by the ravenous tummies in-house.

At late in the night, I heard ‘this’ girl speaking on her mobile, “…and I couldn’t resist. I thought this was the smartest thing I could do! Believe me; had loads of fun. Anyways, the idiotic girls in the hostel are blaming those poor innocent Tibetians …that too after gobbling down all the dosas! They should in fact thank me for everything! Ha haa haha…!!!”

A note to ‘this’ girl: Thank You! Yes, the dosas were indeed yummy! But, probably you don't know that amongst the spies, also live detectives!! 

Past/Current hostel dwellers: Do you have any memories to share about your hostel food, hostel life and the pranks you enjoyed?

23 comments:

lostworld said...

Have never lived in a hostel. Was a pampered, spoilt day-scholar!:-) Mals & strikes - synonymous (continuing from your previous post huh?!) Grin. Have a good weekend!!

Haree said...

Plan the strike each day and let somebody in the group to leak the idea to warden! ;-) Yes, she wont be making masala dosa everyday, but you will surely get a chance to make the strike do happen!
--

Swaram said...

Hv never been in a hostel but hv heard a lot of such stories!
Traitors r everywhere though! In the training period of my first job, there ws this boy who used to secretly note down the names of ppl who used to come late and hand it over to the HR :P

Shameel said...

oh yea... u kno hw my hostel ws.. oops i mean u were there for a month n we had food frm outside on almost all days rt? so u can imagine..

anyway, our group of close friends had a really cunnin way of gettin good food frm the hostel.. whenever we wanted somethin, we buy the chicken or watever n a pint of rum for the chief cook Mr.Potty n we had our dish ready in one hr and trust me it ws damn tasty.. really miss those rare chicken fries n chillies n gingers..

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ lostworld - But trust me, hostel life is so much fun! BTW... I didnot study in Kerala, so all the inmates were not from God's own country.

@ Haree - Yeah... that was an idea!! :)

@ Swaram - At work... informing late comers?! Grrr... and YUCK!!!

@ Shameel - Eda, don't make medical hostel secrets public! Ahem ahem.. should I pen down your adventures that I know?! :) May be your principal will faint, if at all he comes to read this section! ;) ;)

Nona said...

Angane samaram polichu! Anyways, hope the masala dosa was worth it!

Anil P said...

Haha. You're lucky to be in a hostel where protests work :-)

Dr Roshan Radhakrishnan said...

I dont wanna add insult to gastric injury but.. honestly, I stayed in a medical college which had a God awesome mess ( hence my size :D ).. we used to have chicken 3 nights, fish most lunches, breakfasts unlimited ranged from bun n jam to dosas.. friday after prayers lunch was this awesome KFC style chicken.. ah !! heaven !!
Infact, we were so spoiled on veg day, we'd put big grumpy faces and walk off in hunt of more meat !!
Sigh.. from that now to twice a day dabbas of chapati and dal..

Dr Roshan Radhakrishnan said...

and totally agree with you.. hostel life is tooo good.. ultimate fun.. so many good memories

lostworld said...

Yes I know.. Have always had that teeny weeny regret that I missed hostel fun :)

Athresh said...

Classic Shalini!!!

Reminds me of my short hostel life in cbe in my 7th std, when I found an eecha lying on the idly like a cherry topping, n I pointed out. The lady said,"Vennuna saapudu!!". I felt like oliver twist!! And I used to run away wid a frnd 2 his house 2 eat wid him!! But somehow they wud serve chicken biryani every sunday 2 pacify us!! And we used 2 fall for us. It seems like a trick mastered by CBE hostels!!!

Shameel said...

uh oh.. i better dont provoke someone who knows almost all of my hostel life 'extracurricular' activities'.. hee
njaan onnum paranjillleeeeeeee..

Vidya said...

U know what Shalini, i used to tell acchan 2 things....If i get into a professional college, i need 2 promises from you....
1) i want to stay in hostel.Self disciplining and becoming independent were the 2 reasons i used to state for that...and one more hidden aim was that i will become slim due to the food there....lol
2) I want to go for all tours arranged.....

2nd one was fulfilled...
but 1st one never happened....one experience which i will miss forever....**sob*sob**
ur post is sprinkling pepper on it darling!!!lol

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Nona - Yes, it was indeed worth it; but just for the day! ...but pinneyum sankaran was still on the coconut tree!

@ Anil P - Not exactly... This was the first and the last one we tried... :(

@ Dr Roshan R - How I envy you! Perhaps... you are the ONLY hostel being I know who has praises for hostel food! May be we will give more publicity.. What say?

...and yes, hostel days were few of the most beautiful days of my life, so far!

@ lostworld - OOpsss... :(

@ Athresh - This happened in Mysore. ..n I guess most of the wardens are Masters in bribing and brain washing!

@ shameel - yeah; u better be careful! ;)

@ Vidya - Chechi.. still u experienced staying away from home! :)

Vidya said...

hmmm thats true....i came to know the joy of living in a joint family, learnt the art of preparing for exams with 100 people around....
saw some of the best and worst films ever....mastered baby sitting....

overall it was an experience of a life time......

Anonymous said...

hehehehhe..that was d most different hunger strike , when the protestors were fillign their tummy with tasty dosas !! :P:D

Sid said...

Ha Ha superb story... Enjoyed it :)

Maverick Dev said...

hostel life is fun.. even i miss those days... late nite card games and ragging...
anyways cming back to ur post..
Temme the story behind d curtain, i mean "how did u people deal with that girl aftr hearing her conversation"!!
;)

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Vidya - yeah... i totally totally agree! :) :)

@ adreamygal - heheh... though we did not anticipate to end it this way! ;)

@ Sid - Thanks Sid! :)

@ Maverick Dev - Later we saw a note on the notice board which read, "Robbers and Traitors have no place here". However, donno the artist behind that!! :) Anyways, glad that the message is conveyed! :)

Tan said...

I still have hostel food :( :(.... The food they serve is not worth the money we pay them... Sometimes, they give us leftovers of the previous night. I was planning to write a post on similar lines... Will express myself completely in that post..

Unknown said...

ah, another person who has had to endure the frisbee rotis.. and then they have the gall to tell us not to play with our food..

thankfully, i've never lived in an actual hostel for too long.. the place claimed to serve 'chicken curry' twice a week.. it turned out egg also counts as chicken, technically..

Sumod said...

Haha... Hostel Food was GOOD !! Believe me... Yeah, I too used to complain about Hostel food all the time, till fate put me in for a Permanent Head Damage (aka PhD)... Yeah we too had mess with oily food (guess the owner was the co-founder of all the oil wells in Gulf..), so we had to search for the curry in the oil. +the occasional non veg we got (in forms on what not) with so called vegetarian food. But all that had not prepared me for the tale of a vegetarian out here ..boring subway + pizza out here...Not that there is not good places to eat, I guess this explains it the best..
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1272

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Tan - Looking forward to that post!

@ Jackson - hahah, that is a good technical point - Eggs, after all are futuristic chickens! :)

@ Sumod - Hehhee, so that moral of the story is, there is nothing which could be termed as 'worst'! :P

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