LUNCH

Thud! Thud!  Rahul suddenly awoke with a start. He saw the most contemptuous pair of eyes staring back at him. He shut his eyes tight hoping they would disappear. When he opened his eyes, they were still there. “Wake up buddy, or else you will miss your lunch”. It was the guy who was sitting near him, and felt it his responsibility to wake up the poor soul lest he should miss his lunch sleeping in the auditorium. Rahul sheepishly looked up trying to gather where he was. The scenes came flashing to him...'koi na duja bas tu pooja'...followed by those sessions by top honchos of the management team...and then somewhere he fell asleep without realizing the training session had started. Rahul really tried hard to concentrate on what was being told, but after a while he thought to himself that to make a boring topic interesting is a skill which can be developed, but to make an interesting topic boring, you got to be born with it. That is what he made out of the session taken by the General Manager Mr Chopra.

Wearily Rahul walked to the lunch room. He finds that most of his colleagues had already finished their lunch, and were eagerly listening to the never ending discourse of Mr Chopra. The lunch menu seemed boring to him, only continental stuff. Rahul was filling up his platter, when he was interrupted by the sweet voice form behind. With a pleasant smile Pooja enquires “so tell me buddy, do you really find we all people so boring”. Taken aback Rahul replies “not at all”. “Then try and keep your focus in what is being said in the training, its for you people only that the big shots are here today, don’t embarrass them” says Pooja and moves away. Rahul gets a little upset about his first impression, but he also feels good about the way Pooja had corrected him. He resolves that never again would he fall asleep in any of the training sessions. However after another look at Mr Chopra and the nonfigurative crowd around him, he amends his resolve to no sleep in any session not taken by Mr Chopra.

Priya and Sonia were quietly having their first lunch in the mess of their hostel. Priya wonders by what technology the mess cooks could make such a chapatti which was totally burnt from outside and totally uncooked from the inside. She also wonders if the sabzi is made out of all the rotten left over vegetable from the local market. She could also find that the mess utensils, the tables seem not clean or hygienic enough. In her utter disgust Priya, asks the mess waiter as to whether they had cared to put salt in the dal. But it was the senior girls who get to hear her comment. One senior girl yells out "phika madam to namkeen banao". Promptly 5 seniors spring upon and unload 10 teaspoonful of salt in the dal bowl of both Priya and Sonia, and ask them to eat the now delicious dal. Priya felt enraged and was about to start her arguments, but Sonia saved the situation by gulping the entire bowl content like one tequila shot, which was instantly appreciated by all seniors with a huge applause. The applauses continued with constant jeering during the numerous pauses taken by Priya while finishing her own bowl. After finishing, Priya rushed straight to the wash basin and puked off the entire content, much to the delight of the seniors.

Back in their room, Sonia watched on as Priya sobbed and wiped her tears. “For no fault of mine...how could they do this to me...to us”, broken words flowed with tears. Touched at this helplessness of her room mate, Sonia tries to comfort her saying "Priya, grow up. it is hardly a thing to cry about, such trivial ragging is common and expected, and there is still three full weeks of ragging left so don’t feel vulnerable the very first day, atleast don’t show it before the seniors or you will become their most favored target". Priya looked up and saw Sonia's eyes, full of concern. The absolute irony of human behavior struck her. "You are right, but I will never forget the incident and would never forgive those seniors", Priya tells Sonia. 

The first lunch for the fresher’s in the guy’s hostel turned out to be quite a nightmare for them. All the mess waiters and other workers were asked to step aside and leave the work for the fresher’s to complete. So it was the fresher’s who took on the aprons and were not only to serve their seniors on the mess table, but also to later clean the tables and the dishes as well the whole mess area.

All forms of abusive language flowed freely over the fresher’s during the lunch time, some of which were beyond any kind of logical representation, while some even Rajeev had never heard before. There was a total commotion in the mess, with the poor fresher’s just running and sweating hard to manage the show. Naturally there were lot of spillage and wastage of mess food by the serving team which only added to the burden of cleaning team.

The fresher’s took a sigh of relief at the close of the mess timings when all the seniors left. But they discovered that there was not enough eatables left for the entire fresher’s who were to eat now. The shared sense of brotherhood in common misery got the better of them, and they happily shared equally whatever was left. While having his share of lunch, Rajeev thought how life changes, and only till morning his mother would keep pestering him to take his meals on time and would always push him to have a little more, which he would always resist and sometimes even despise. He also takes note that surprisingly most guys did not criticize the quality of the food, given its insufficiency especially after such hard labor, and everybody quite relished their own share. Watching all the spill and waste lying around, Rajeev for the first time in his life realizes the importance of food and makes a resolves that never again in life would he ever waste any. He kept repeating his resolve in his mind for the next two hours that were spent on cleaning the mess area and also the dishes.