Hostel Mess

Lifestyle Parenting, Household Affairs and Cuisine corner
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Not the mess … this is food wala Mess … its a secret code used to define hostel food :snooty: …

How many of you had the horrible pleasure of living in boarding? what was your mess /kitchen like? were you allowed to cook? were you given food like jail mai distribute hota hai ?

Did you arrange your own food? What was the experience like?

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Re: Hostel Mess

Jee. I have lived in the boarding for 6 years...4 years of college and 2 after that.

College in Shimla, we had amazing food. Well balanced great tasting meals. But after that, in Punjab Univ, Chandigarh, the 2 years I was there, I was sick with all kinds of stomach issues...:( Regardless, I had a great time!

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Nikki , you sound like a pakki hostellite :hayaa:

We used to have jail type hostel mess .. a bit of salan ( chicken cockroach karahi etc ) with naan :frowning:
So to escape the torture day in and day out , we found easier ways to tackle pait pooja … we secretly kept a coil heater … and would use steel plates to make our own little fried omelette … for that we had to occasionally steal eggs and onion, tomatoes from the kitchen … rest was easy :yummy:

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Yeah I had one of those...we'd plug them into the light bulb fixture and cook Maggi noodles, boil potatoes and make chat!

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sabash , you are making me proud :cb: …

Here’s another thing from the hostel mess I remember … Our cook wouldnt let us have cold water … basically wouldnt let us use the fridge .. and the water coolers were almost always out of order … so we used to collect the pepsi/any soft drink glass bottles we could find in the college ground .. take then back to the canteen and get the refund … buy samosa chat and thandi pepsi bottle and enjaaaaaay :e6:

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the chai time was the best :hayaa: garam garam chaa, tey samosey…pakoray…chaat…chutney sandwiches…to die for!!!

Best meal was karhi. With an inch of tarka floating above it!

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What :eek: you got all that? no way … we didnt get anything :crying: .. no wonder we were always found acting like bhukkar’s :naraz:

we were given one cup of tea at 4:00 .. ask for another one and you would get a slap rather then tea :no:

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Chai was a big thing. In the Univ, we'd mainly skip lunch and go to a univ dhaba on campus and make all the boys pay for our channay bhaturay. So yummy! But in college, skipping lunch wasn't allowed.

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I lived in the hostel for about 6 weeks...and then used to spend a few nights there sometimes if we had something at the college in the evenings.The food was ok....but maybe that was also because I always knew I was there for just a few weeks.
If we were working nights then our food used to be delivered to us by a 'cycle walay uncle' in plastic kay shopping bags...god that had to be the most miserable form of food being served I have ever witnessed....and if it were rice they expected us to use our hands to eat out of that 'thaaila'...needless to say,we kept spoons in our bags.

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Chipsie , you just reminded of rice in thailas :no: … ewwwwww … yeah we used to get em too … and we used to eat with hands coz our spoons and kantaas always got stolen or were never with us when we needed them the most !

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Umm... where was this hostel?

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Never lived in a desi hostel so no mess experience for me. Our uni had a refectory which did halal food so that was good enough for me most of the time. Other times I used to have a whole stock of processed food, so I’d whip out a can of tuna, ready made mashed potato or instant noodles/pasta whenever I was hungry. Ate a lot of fast food too, fried chicken, doner kebabs etc. Very healthy diet I know. :hehe:

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**YES, i stayed in a Hostel Called Sir Syed Hall at AligaRh Muslim University and the ‘MESS’ was really a mess. the eighteenth century food is still the rule. The recipe prepared by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan himself is still being used and the food is shoved down the throats of students who they think will turn out to be geniuses. :cb: i think the students lreturn to their homes ALIVE is a miracle in itself :smiley:

i also stayed in the residence at Memorial University in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada and the food in the University cafeteria wasn’t too bad as compared to the food we had at AMU and survived…at least, we had choice, NOT like AMU where we only got ‘1 roTii and 2 boTii’ and 2 gulaab jaamuns twice a week. that treat kept us going from week to week :)**

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Which reminds me , it was Ramadan … me and room mates had stolen some food from the kitchen … punishment we got was to wake up at 1 in the night and start making parathas for 160 plus girls for sahoor :hayaa:

Imagine measly little me standing on a stool infront of a huge karaha and frying paratha’s poori style :no:

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LOL cb… lets talk good about our hostel!

  1. I absolutely miss the kabab, naan, raita on Wednesdays.. do you remember that? seriously it was my favorite!!!

  2. We never had to do our dishes.. we stood in a line and khala jee did our dishes for us??? I was her chaheeti for some odd reasons :smiley:

  3. I thought you could use the kitchen stove because I remember i saw masters students bajis making chai or sometimes nashta on that stove.. I just never dared to ask for it.. I was such a polite bachi :smiley:

umm i guess thats all :d

remember the big fat “taala” on the fridge in the dinning room? gosh that used to irk me sooooo much! I thought bajis had access to it.. looks like you didn’t either :smiley:

honestly I sometimes miss amma jeee.. remember her sitting on a chair outside the hostel door and chatting her evenings away? i heard she passed away :frowning:

ok now I miss home… :smack: