Men’s Hostel had a very dull menu in those days (I don’t know what the situation is now). You go to the table you could be assured that there would be three vessels full of Sambar, Rasam and Rice. We had to stand in line and were dished out a plate with vegetables and beef or just vegetables. The only variations in the week were some days when we got Bhaturas other days Barotas and on other days Chappatis. The Barotas (I suspect this is a corruption of Parothas) were unique in the sense they seem to have been made by pulling the Maida into a string then laying it in a spiral fashion and rolling it into a circle and then roasting it on a Tawa with oil. When you tore the Barota it would unravel in a corkscrew pattern. Surprisingly my son who is studying Architecture in Mumbai was taken by his Malayalee friends to a typical Kerala eating joint and he was describing the Barotas and how he enjoyed it (I suspect that it is his Malayalee blood). I told him “I have eaten enough of those in Men’s Hostel”. What really surprised me was that during our reunion in 2003, Priyo Sada wanted to eat Barotas and we had them ordered in Darling Manor.

The Chappatis were as someone rightly described ‘bullet-proof’ because the cooks did not know how to place them on the fire and inflate them (phulkas). In order to make them chewable a generous dose of oil was added to it.

One day when we were returning from the dissection to the mess for lunch along with B. Venkatesh, he said “De let go fast da, sexy grub today”, to which we asked “what?” he replied “mor da”. To this all of us said “what shit Venky whats so great about mor”. But I guess that was another treat to some ‘mor’. (Reminds me of the Dicksonian character Oliver Twist who went up with his plate and said “please sir may I have some mor-e”. Kai thook!)

However sundays was a treat for the carnivores, chicken with the mandatory ‘chip’ (or should I say ‘sips’). The resident used to line up to get the best pieces, the most popular where the leg and the breast. Some of the residents were more graphic when they requested for breast piece, “Thambi nalla breast piece” and they would squeeze their own breast to emphasize the point.

In our routine dull cuisine there was a single silver lining of a ‘muttai’ which we could order as and extra by paying with coupon of course. The muttais available were:-

1. Kanadi muttai=Plain old fried egg because of it glass like quality was called Kanadi.
2. Omlette
3. Podimas=Scrambled egg
   The variety in Podimas was legendary and had names:-
   Some were named after famous personalities like ‘Ninan Chacko Podima’ (Who the Eff is Ninan Chacko?)
   Others were patriotic like ‘All India Podima’ (This sometimes was corrupted to sound like ‘Olinda Podima’, again I wonder who is she?)
   Then there was the name which call a spade a spade, ‘The All Shit Podima’ (apt description of the cooking in Men’s Hostel).
   The there was the graphic name of ‘Sexy Podima” (perhaps the original name may have been ‘Check-sy Podima’ but got corrupted to sexy!)
   These Podimas had one thing in common all of them contained thakkali, kotmali, vengaayam and pachai milagaai in varying proportions. Which one contained how much of what was known to no one! Sometimes as David Srinivasagam described if someone was served what he thought was a Ninan Chacko Podima rather then the Sexy Podima that he had ordered, it could land on the face of the Thambi. Some residents tried to win immortality by attempting to devise and popularize a podima named after themselves. However after Ninan Chacko no other personality managed to garner that amount of fame and no two podimas were ever the same.