You know you're in charge of your mess, when:
- you find yourself often lost in thought, wondering what to serve for supper the next day.
- your day begins with the watchman screaming your room number, while the cooks ring you up at the crack of dawn.
- you'd rather hide in the kitchen cutting vegetables than face the seniors' wrath.
Last one, I swear:
- Nothing excites you more than the sight of a cooking gas cylinder, all filled up.
What was that all about? Allow me to drag you to the very beginning.
It was a dark and wintry night, a light breeze wafting through the hostel's quadrangle. Thirty of us were gathered there, waiting impatiently for our ex-Class Rep to come to the point of this unforeseen meeting.
"Being in second year, as you'd all know, we've to take charge of the mess, since we'd be the only batch not having exams in December; now, you can form groups of two or three and either volunteer to be the mess prefects for a certain month, or we'll draw chits to decide."
A unanimous murmur rang in favor of the latter - nobody wanted to be left with the months we'd have internal exams, or in my case, holidays.
Seeing how we'd be required to interact with the workers a lot, the Keralites all teamed up with Kannada speakers. I joined Hita and Charulata, informing them I was ready for any month but December, as my parents would be visiting then. Assuring me of her good fortune, Hita grabbed a random chit and opened it to see "December" scrawled in it. Awesome.
A mutual exchange with the February mess prefects had us being assigned the shortest month of the year (sadly, 2012's a leap year)
Come January 31st and we were all gearing up for a crazy 30 days, not sure what to expect, self-assured enough to believe we could pull it off as good as we want.
A cheesy heart-shaped card on the notice board declared our names and room numbers to everyone in a neat font, not very unlike a bull's eye to the archer.
The other two had gone to collect a check from our warden, while I rushed to the kitchen, ensuring they'd clean out the store room. With awkward pauses, I tried making small talk with the workers, introducing myself. Looked like a long and winding Feb this year.
Now you'd think getting two days less than the other prefects was a major bonus for us, but think again. We had exams stretching over the first two weeks.
The month began with a crisis - that of cooking gas shortage. Running on one cylinder per day, we needed them delivered every 5 or 10 days. The problem started when there was a strike among the truck drivers, with deliveries for the previous week stalled, the fate of our kitchens left in suspense. The gas agency rarely answered our persistent calls, and a visit to the warden to map out the chaos was met with indifference. We had to beg, borrow or steal from the men's hostel or simply declare the mess off.
All just about the normal load a mess prefect has to shoulder. But the proverbial straw was having to run all around the place on the eve of our exam, apologetically telling everyone dinner would be served late, all thoughts about our paper out the window, while our batchmates were sacrificing everything from sleep to showers for a third revision.
The three of us just as well gave up on our studies, more concerned about our role as 'Prefects'. While the title made us feel like V.I.P.s initially, we were never informed about the other duties we'd land ourselves in:
Nobody told us that one of the evening cooks let his emotions decide whether to come for work, often being absent with no notice (and by some miracle, still surviving without any sort of phone in this age, much to our ire) giving us the job of preparing tea and milk for 200 boarders. We had no idea we'd be cutting vegetables, rolling chapatis and puris, flitting to groceries every half hour, all in sync with the cooks' whims, ultimately to be reprimanded for 'spoiling the workers by doing their work for them'. Who'd have thought of all the mental strain in convincing these Masterchefs to cook what we want, instead of something normally fed to cattle? I've lost count of the number of days dinner would be over before a quarter of us even got to the table, while other days the cat would already be devouring our would-have-been meals. Not to mention the
'un-Messy' work of taking care of the building's plumbing, electricity and other requirements, which included tiling and painting the entire hostel. The petrol and telephone expenses burnt holes in our pockets. We only have to thank our stars there was no water shortage to add to our woes.
But what takes the cake are the 'feasts' - mini-feasts given every Sunday and a major 'Monthly feast' any weekday of our choice. Unlike the other days, when we'd have vegetables delivered daily after texting them our list, we'd to go out ourselves and fetch the items we had in mind, serve everyone a fixed amount of sweets, ice-cream, drinks etc. In fact, half the time we were roaming the city buying stuff - from eggs and bananas twice weekly, again to be personally delivered to each student to hunting for CFL bulbs for the study hall - despite having to pay a fortune for our daily rations to be brought to the hostel.
The big one had us all pushed to the edge, as this was our chance to redeem ourselves for a month of bad luck - to treat them within budget, on time, taking care not to let our dampened spirits show through. For we were the last of our batch to remain in the city after the exams, as the free 2nd year kids all returned home for a week-long break. Nonetheless, as we approached the last of the 29 days, we were like exhausted athletes simply looking to finish the race, rather than aiming for a win.
Having made quite a lavish combination of items for the monthly feast, surviving flying tempers, empty petrol tanks and a race against time, the ending fared far better than the ill-fated genesis, but we'd already stopped caring.
What started out as a chance to revolutionize the whole system ended up with us being tossed up and down - we were no better than what we started with. Hygiene was still non-existent, the mess fees sprang to far greater heights, the workers grew even more autonomous, and we still have no wi-fi, heck even a functional TV remote, both which our male counterparts can easily boast of.
Still, I admit, it was a learning experience, with lot to gain from. I witnessed the power of a soft-spoken word over a harsh tone, when dealing with the workers. It was nice getting to know them more, enquiring about their state of affairs, though the constant demand for their wages prematurely grew tiring. My language skills rocketed along with this gregariousness. And oddly enough, all that dirty work we had to do ended up being a gratifying narrative in retrospect.
But, no way am I gonna ask for a revision of that lesson.
