The Oil Wells

Today, at the mess where I eat, we had something which the cooks lovingly call “Dry Dinner”. This is not to be confused with Dry Day, when [much to the chagrin of many alcohol lovers] the state of Maharashtra declares a ban on alcohol sales. In my opinion, the dinner derives it’s name from the fact that “dry” is exactly how your throat feels after having consumed about three hundred litres of oil. Really! The dry dinner menu consists of the following:

• Fried rice
• Tomato Soup
• Fried Bread Crumbs
• French Fries
• Potato Chips
• Toast
• Rose milkshake
• Tomato / Egg Omelets
• Salad

If you notice, the only item which doesn’t have any fat calories is the salad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste remotely as good as the rest of the stuff. I think the dry dinner is sponsored by the new gymnasium that has sprung up near the mess where I eat. If this dry dinner stuff becomes a regular feature, we are going to have oil - dependency issues. Pretty soon, you’ll hear about muggings in IIT for “oil - money”. Basically, this would mean that someone would get robbed so that the robber can get his oil - high!

On a slightly sober note, the cholesterol that one will derive from this lone meal will be enough to sustain several lion seals throughout the long winter months. However since the average IITian has the IQ of a lion seal [or less] when it comes to selecting food that is good for health, this dry dinner thing has become a kind of a rage. This has caused some concern to the parents of the students studying here, as they now have to book two train / aeroplane tickets to get their darling child back home for the vacation! Also, due to the recent increase in incidences of heart attack in the student community, questions are being raised about the oil use in the hostel kitchens. A study is yet to be done to correlate the heart attacks to the oil consumption [There are people who believe that sudden excesses of emotion can also trigger heart attacks: such as avoiding failing in some subjects, happiness because the girl said yes, dejection because the girl said yes] Overall, there is a gloom spread over IIT because of this oily mess. [pun unintended]

Only the Middle - East is rejoicing!

The World's Exploding

The World's Exploding [with people]

For as long as we have been on this beautiful planet Earth,
Mothers to children, have been giving birth.
And till such a time as we find a substitute for copulation,
We are never going to be able to lower the world's population!

- Govindraj

The good ole' days!

On days such as today, when I chanced across some school kids eagerly on their way towards the sports day pitch, I get reminded of my own school days in Indian Education Society's English Medium School of Ernestville. Oh! The magic in the air, the adrenaline pumping in the blood and the eager look on the onlooking parents' faces! I am, of course, lying. Neither was my school located in Ernestville, nor did my parents look on eagerly as I prepared for races. The reason for this is that, and pay close attention here, I am revealing a secret, I did not participate in any!

Not that I was a slob or a lazy bones. I weighed only about a quintal and I usually finished my work about two weeks after the deadline had passed. Of course, you are bound to ask the question: Radgovin, how did a brilliant mind like yours sustain itself through the mundanity and banality that passes for school these days. To this, I will reply: I am not in school these days! When I was in school, way back in the 1800s, school was a fun and a hip place. Except for the lectures, sports and the laboratories, school was a really cool place. We learnt a lot many things that would mould us to become the human beings we are now (which, considering all the facts, is not a good thing)

An important lesson we learnt as kids in school was that you should never throw a chewing gum at the professor when he is writing on the black board. This can have serious repercussions such as you failing in the Professor's subject as well as dropping out of school. You should get rid of the chewing gum in the socially and politically correct fashion. You should stick it to the hair of the kid sitting in front of you. And that too only if some seat / table is unavailable. Another thing we learnt is that canteen food is not a good substitute for good wholesome home food. Especially if you want to smack someone with good wholesome food in the face, the soft "rotis" prepared at home are a better weapon than what they serve at the canteen. Some of my friends are still serving time for when they attacked the canteen owner with some of his preparations.

So you see, as compared to the kids of today, we were quite a lucky lot. And I say this because I never had a chewing gum stuck to my hair for all the years (seven zillion quantimillion, and that is just the time spent in the first lecture of the morning!) that I spent in school.

Those were the really good ole' days!