A full meal sure is peaceful

I am satisfied. It was like a torrential shower flooded a place reeling from drought. In my case it was the clampdown on eating meat. Due to the bird flu scare chicken, virtually the one non veg item we ate was off our menu. So it was a welcome change when there was a plan to cook some mutton. Three kilograms between 8 guys. The chef was naturally Suman who has gladly done this job since our first year. And as usual there was nothing to beat the taste. You could have missed it and said that you were eating it at home, except that we had to adopt some pretty unconventional measures owing to the shortage of space, utensils and fuel. That said the meal was a great success and everyone had more than enough. to sweeten the deal, each of us had one rosgolla and gulabjamun each-two types of sweets favorite with the Assamese.We even had shared between us a full bottle of cold drink and heartily drank it ,pretending that it was red wine- with due apologies to sommeliers and gourmands. My stomach is full, that is what it matters. I can sleep in peace-kapdaa and maakan I already have. Mutton took care of the roti part.

Avian influenza.. no chickens for you,idiot!

I ought to have written about it earlier, but to write late is better than not to write at all. Bird flu has come to India. While it had first surfaced in places like China and Thailand a few years back people raised quite a hue and cry about bird flu in India and what we should do and what not. As a serious chicken eater I was naturally concerned. But the crisis seemed to blow over and everything was hunky-dory, that is from my point of view. I went on eating chicken and eggs and the veggies, Lord bless them, continued with their ghas pus.Even though chicks started dropping dead in thousands from Vietnam to Turkey to Africa (maybe Uganda, I am not sure), the virus seemed to forget that there was a place called India. Until Jan 17.

The next morning when I woke up the first thing I heard even before I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes was that virus H5N1 has struck big time. And the place where it had surfaced was about 5 hours from where I live. I don’t want to be too dramatic but at that moment I felt as if I had bee kicked by a mule. That was because we had a party the previous night and for me, a party means chicken .The only symptom of bird flu, as far as I know, was fever and even though I did not have any thermometer, I seemed to be fine. Finally after four or five days of scrutiny I concluded that there was nothing wrong with me. In the meantime there was a call from home forbidding me not to go within ten feet of chicken. Dad also asked if I had eaten in the recent days. Like a wimp I lied because telling the truth would only worry them and would do nobody any good.

Meanwhile eggs also started disappearing even as I watched glumly the visuals of them being destroyed by gowned and masked men in the quarantined area. Even though the government tried to assure that it was safe to continue as usual and the agriculture minister went on the warpath scolding municipal authorities who had prevented fowls from entering their jurisdictions, he was not helped in his cause by reports that one or two persons had died near the epicenter.

As far as I see this situation is going to last for quite some time. It always takes time before people will recover their confidence enough to touch chicken. And for people who don’t take after mutton or fish or pork or beef like myself it will be a tough wait. Maybe I should start eating soyabean.You know, with proper seasoning it tastes just like a piece of boneless chicken. Coming from a hardcore non veggie, I can almost hear the veggies and the PETA people chuckling.Sigh! Every dog has his day.

Fresher party '06

Yesterday was a blast. There is no other way to describe our freshers party. I went into the party determined to work off every rupee of my contribution of 460 bucks, and boy, didn’t I.I went into the party wearing a clean and pressed shirt and tee. I came out with a completely sweaty and crumpled one. Remind me never to wear so clean clothes. They are gonna get dirty anyway.

So here is the rundown of the day. Scheduled to start from 6.30 pm, the party got off after one hour because as Indians, we are real suckers for punctuality. Formal introductions with the juniors over, it was time to start the party proper. After steaming soup and starters, most of the folks spilled out into the dance floor. Some guys had dosed themselves with too much alcohol so all they could do was barely stand still. One of them was so stoned that no amount of rousing woke him up and at the end of the party he had to be practically carried between two chaps all the way to the hostel. But more of that later.

So there was everybody on the dance floor, free for all. It was sort of improvisation whereby you danced according to the music belting out from the speakers. After a particular vigorous bout of hip shaking, everybody would stand aside to get a few moments breadth, and then would again plunge headlong. To cut a long story short, everybody let their hair down, myself included even though I had shaved off my hair .Soon it was only the adrenaline that sustained us, as we were pretty inexperienced and out of practice at this sort of thing. Any decent party ought to have food, and in my mind I had not yet worked up all the money. So I sat down and began to shovel in till it was bursting. Even though I had focused my attention on food, yet I spied some people who seemed to be crying. Alcohol and emotions sometimes loosens up your tear glands.I have seen it happen before.

To cut a long story short, the music, food, everything was superb. The 3rd yearites deserve our appreciation for organizing such a wonderful party. And speaking of myself, I soon began to feel the effects of overexertion on my seldom used muscles and joints. After trudging back on foot for more than a kilometer, when I reached my room bone tired and threw myself on the bed, the blasted electricity went off. No fans and no mosquito repellant. With mosquitoes practicing their singing I had to hunker under a blanket, which left me stewing. I drifted off to sleep when it was 7 in the morning and woke up at noon, whole body aching. And a shocker of news awaited me-bird flu had come to India and the place of outbreak, I heard someone say was only four hours away. This scared the living headlights out of me when I thought about the chicken I ate yesterday. So no chicken until this threat goes-I think I am going to be a veggie for the time being. And eggs are also banned.  Wonder how long this ache lasts?