Today has been a relaxing day. The kind of day a Sunday ought to be. Wake up without the sound of the alarm clock, have the leisurely chai-paper, tune into the two World Cup games on offer today and have a princely lunch of Aloo Paratha, Pulao and Gulab Jamun. In between found the time to update my cricket blog as well. As I sit down to write, India is off to a good start against Ireland. All in all, it looks to be a perfect, relaxing Sunday. But the reason I write this is because the Aloo Paratha for lunch reminded me of Sundays in an era long gone by, Eight years to be precise. Sundays that were, just like today, meant to be only spent on relaxing and recharging, to be spent without a care in the world. It were the Sundays on the IIM Bangalore campus.
In fact, the stage for a Sunday on campus was set by what happened the night before. Saturday nights (most of them) were the time for the famous L^2 parties on campus. The action started before midnight on Saturday and went on (sometimes) till the sun came up. And even a person like me, who fell somewhere in between the retire-after-two-pegs and dance-till-you-drop categories, used to go back to his room not earlier than around 4.30am. With this background, the Sunday usually did not start till 10am. And the first thing to look forward to on Sunday morning was the aloo paratha for breakfast in the mess. Aloo paratha was the de-facto breakfast dish on most Sundays and served unlimited, and with dollops of butter, it was a great start to a lazy day. And accompanying it were cups of coffee and the Sunday newspaper. After this lavish breakfast, it was either straight back to bed (to catch up with the balance sleep) or take a stroll around the campus (especially during winters). By this time, the mates on the floor had also woken so it was just the ideal time for gup-shup.
Around lunch-time came the musical attraction. Every Sunday, between 12pm-4pm, Radiocity 91FM used to play old Bollywood numbers around a theme each week. For a musical aficionado like me, this was music to my ears. Hosted by the vivacious Sheetal Iyer, this was something to look forward to for me and my floormates. After the heavy breakfast, lunch was generally a light and sedate affair, though sometimes we would drive down to Jayanagar to have 'kheer' at a small joint simply known on campus as 'Aunty's place'. Afternoons generally meant either another snooze or a time to catch up on the latest movie on the campus network. Around tea-time was another trip to the mess, and this time it was (generally) sada dosa on the menu. By this time, the hard-core party animals had woken up for the day and would make their way to the mess for their first meal of the day. And finally, evenings were spent catching up, finally, on some assignment or the other and to prepare for the week ahead.
As far as campus memories go, a lazy Sunday was definitely something that I remember vividly, after more than 8 long years. Here's looking forward to one more such Sunday on campus !!
Cheers
Amit
2 comments:
Campus food makes my mouth water. Our campus certainly had excellent food.
45 years ago, i lived in the Fergusson college hostel in Pune. There was no Sunday syndrome. The water for bath was available till 10 am only. One had to walk down to the complex with buckets and soap, and someone poured hot water into the buckets from a huge copper nonelectric boiler(bamba). Noon meals had one "sweet". No dinner in the evenings as it was the mess weekly off. We'd walk down evenings to the local vada hangout. Sometimes pay and listen to LP's at a place called Swaravihar. All this business of sleeping till noon and 4 pm was unheard of , and never happened.
You IIM types dont know what you missed :-)
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