CHAPTER TEN:THE MESSY MESS

May I ask you a direct question? What is importance of taste and flavors in your life? Have you ever lived at least 15 days without food of your choice? I guess, like me, most of us think we can greatly compromise on taste of food and live. It is not a big deal. One has to eat to live and not live to eat…huh?

Take a challenge. Come to our student mess and eat for a couple of days only, I mean, go to any student mess run by contract system and then look in your mind. Definitely you would find a great change!

In the new class room of the college, students had to face stresses of medical studies with hell of vivas and exams now and then, out side the classes there were challenges of living alone in the hostel making new friends, and when their stomach demanded fuel to take on the world with all such problems, the students had to face one more challenge-the special food of student mess!

The mess was, none the less, one of the great places for student interaction. You would get all kind of campus news and gossips there. The activity would start daily in morning with breakfast and tea. However, I hardly went to the mess in the morning for that luxury as I belonged to a group of rare human variety which hated even smell of the tea! The activity was highest in the 10pm night tea party. (I have heard a lot about 10pm tea but I never had been there, so I expect others to comment on that.)

After a session of torture of lectures we were set free to fill the stomach in the afternoon at about 2pm. The time was such, function of our brains were taken up by hungry stomach. Even if you blind fold our eyes, urge from stomach would take us directly to the mess building. The building was situated between nursing hostel and the old boys’ hostel.

Mostly we were greeted there by raju bhai, the mess contractor. There were enough tables and seats but sometimes we had to wait for the turn. The service was usually prompt. The servants there were uniformly ugly. But eyes did not see that when stomach demanded its due.There were many servants but rameshbhai was perhaps most popular as he was very fast in serving rotis. One would hear ‘e ramesh….e rameshbhai…’etc as soon as one entered the mess. The kitchen was a ‘sacred’ area and no one was allowed there.

The menu was usually same. We were served roti, rice, gujarati daal (with jaggery) Punjabi daal(same as gujarati but without jaggery) onion salad, papad , sabjee of potatoes called sooki bhaaji and buttermilk. Even though each item had its own negative merit, roti was standing out more on negative side. It was made in such way and such a flour; it needed both of our hands to tear it off. I wonder weather it would have been easier if we tried to use the bone cutter to cut and tear the roti! Moreover, it was smeared with a kind of sticky oil they claimed it to be ghee. After anatomy practical class, one needed to rub off the formalin in order to eat and after eating one had to wash off the pungent oil- so called ghee!

Wednesday and Sunday were special for mess. On Wednesday we were served bits of apples, few grapes and bits of banana in milk containing probably 50% of water, making a special dish called fruit salad. Sundays were the days for feast. Our friends from nearby cities would flee to their home, leaving us alone to enjoy the feast. Apart from deep fried and oil soaked items, we were served sweet dish of gulab jamun on Sundays. Some of the students were having voracious appetite and they would challenge each other with number of gulabjamuns they eat. Since my stomach could hardly bear 5-7 gulab jamuns, I really envied those students which had capacity to eat and digest 70-80 gulab jamuns! (Some one can tell me the highest record of gulabjamun eating competition!) However, I could take good amount of routine food in those days and my good friend bimal used to say “Abe e macrophage (A kind of big whit cell having great capacity to eat micro organisms) …now its enough! Get up and wash your hands!”


All the messes, including ours and those at vallabh vidya nagar, as a general rule, were remaining closed on Sunday evening, giving us compulsory chance of eating outside. Karamsad was not much developed when we were there. We had to go to vallbh vidya nagar or anand on Sunday evenings to fill the stomach. Apart from dhabas and gallas, there were only two good hotels in vvn- avre and avkool.

We gujaratis are world’s most fanatic vegetarians. I also am such. We would not eat even cakes and pastries containing egg! We would not like to kill any animal for our food but we might sacrifice ourselves on the dining table eating oil rich dishes! Gujarati jains and swaminaraniyans would not take onions and garlic even. However, in theory, I never ever had opposition for non vegetarians, since I believed all lives equal be it veg or non veg.

Most of my friends were veg., however, samir was a non vegetarian. He usually would go to his home every week like other amdavadis. But one Sunday, due to some reason the stayed back with us. We both went to karamsad that evening to eat something from laari-gallas there. He chose to eat non veg.

The laaris were situated on the highway connecting karamsad anand and vvn. He chose one cheap laari selling non veg stuff, just for fun. As we sat down on the table, samir ordered an item. I did not know what it was, but within minutes, it was ready. This was very first time in my life I saw some nonveg stuff. The place was fairly unhygienic and there was typical non veg smell in the atmosphere irritating my pure vegetarian nose. As I saw the dish, a fresh medical student living in me recognized few of the anatomical structures in it.
“Hey samir, let us play a game.” I proposed.
“What game?”
“You go on eating and I will give commentary on what you are eating.”
“But what game?” He said.
“Despite hearing my commentary, you should not stop eating…whatever kind of ugly words I use.” I explained the single rule.
“Ok” he smiled and agreed and picked up the first morsel. “this is easy man!”

“Now... Samir starts eating...” I initiated my running commentary. “ He picks up one bone that looks like a part of thoracic rib…he looks at the lower groove from where the neuro vascular bundle passes….he takes it in his mouth and sucks the bone marrow of the rib…is that tasty?”

Giving me smiles in between, samir was enjoying my commentary and the food.

“Samir now picks up a muscle bundle… separates the fibers … and they are gone in his wide open mouth. He also takes now the blood admixed with spices with the spoon.”

Samir was a jolly guy and he had a great sense of humor.

“There is some round small globe like object in his spoon…he looks at it to decide from where to eat. It has a cord like structure attached… he picks it up from the cord….takes it to his mouth…. The structure is difficult to identify… perhaps it is a testicle with a cord attached to it...”

“What?” My last words had immediate effect on samir. He took his hand swiftly away from his mouth in lightning speed. He stared at the stuff for a moment.

“Oh yaar, it really seems one!” he threw the part back in the dish.
“I genuinely feel so.” I gave my honest opinion.
“Neh, I am feeling nausea.” He stood up very next moment. “I may vomit…let us go...”

The game was over.