Keshtu

"Look! The wife and the courtesan are important, but never forget your first crush!" Ajith (name changed) once stated, to underscore his choice of chai shops! He was just eighteen, but his philosophies were that of a fully-ripened grihastha, with rich (well, let's just say plentiful) allusions to women - especially courtesans and "jaaris" (his pejorative for women).

The "first crush" he was referring to was Keshtu, the tea vendor, the sole proprietor of the eponymously named chai shop, strategically located across from Hostel 1 and adjacent to the chemical engineering department.

(In the public interest of academic completeness, the "wife" was the college canteen, and the "courtesan" was Back Post).

Legend had it that Keshtu was antecedent to even the college and Back Post. For over four decades, he had survived intense competition and ran his operations with the efficiency of a munshi and the frugality of a bania.

His dingy chai shop sold chai and singada, the taste of which I cannot quite get out of my system, even today. It was that bad! But as if to pay off karmic debt from a previous life, we consumed the aqueous chai and the fetid singada every day.

Whether it was after a bout of basketball, or a difficult viva-voce session, or the rare relic called a campus interview, we washed down our vows with the watery mixture served in cheap glass tumblers, cleaned in a dirty vessel of slop.

Keshtu, with able assistance from "Butru", served his customers with solemnity, and was frequently rebuked for providing such horrible fare. The sport that he was, Keshtu took all that in his grotesque stride, slept peaceably at night, got up at dawn with resolve, and prepared the same concoction as he had done the previous day. To those that needed it, Keshtu offered the reassurance that things in the world would never change.

In summer, the industrious man that he was, Keshtu would shift to the Neem tree adjacent to the basketball court and serve sweet Lassi, which he garnished with cherries, and Bournvita. Even his biggest detractors had to accept that during the summer months when the mercury touched forty eight degrees Celsius, Keshtu’s delectable Lassi cooled their bodies and souls.

Tell me about your experiences at Keshtu or your own favorite "bunk" shop.

Interested in reading my other blogs?

How about my ode to old Hindi film music? Which is here --> THE GOLDEN AGE OF HINDI FILM MUSIC.

The first episode is HERE.

Or my eulogy to one of the greatest playback singers of India? SP BALASUBRAHMANYAM.

The Mother of All Hangouts - Back Post!

"Mystery for first years,
Tashan for second years,
Relaxation for third years,
Realization for final years."
                                          - Shashank Venkat Raman, NITR Alumni

I recently saw this lovely YouTube video of REC (now NIT) Rourkela's tryst with the famed "Back Post".

What can you say about Back Post that has not already been said in words and moving pictures?

If AV Hall was a letdown (initially), Back Post was the mother of all letdowns. Now, the manner in which the seniors had built it up to be the Elysian Fields of the college afterlife, even a modern-day Super Mall would have been a sore disappointment. In our fertile imagination, we had dreamed of a place full of exquisite possibilities - foods and wines, seventy-two virgins, sixty-four arts, nonstop entertainment and relaxation.

In reality, it was all of four kutcha bunk shops and a set of moth-eaten wooden benches, that passed off as seats. That's it. So what was the big deal? What sends the alumni, till this date, into a state of frenzy, and makes them horripilate at the very mention of those two words?

Well, the chai and alu chop at Panda babu's was, arguably, the best in town; Mahesh ji with his Maggi noodles and lucrative borrowing schemes and Gupta ji with his delectable home-cooked (but stingily served) food, helped us survive through four years of pathetic mess food.

And then there were the shops that sold Handia (country liquor), laundry services, groceries, and other accouterments.

But were these reasons enough to make Back Post the King of all hangout places?

Hell, YES!

You can't measure the importance of Back Post by taking it literally, for it was more than just the sum of its parts. It was a living, breathing, world of it's own, where the lives and livelihoods of people with different psycho-social underpinnings collided, rather gracefully.

It was the adda where people licked their wounds after a tough day at office; where love affairs, strategies for elections, and preparations for vacations, pungas, and campus interviews, were designed and consummated. It was where the very mission of REC - to bring peoples from all over India together - was realized, perhaps, more than at college itself.

Maybe that's why the alumni think back to it, so fondly. Back Post was akin to the attractive courtesan that we had our secret rendezvous with - some torrid affairs and others more platonic ones - while we cheated on the straight-jacket spouse, that the college had become. The library, classrooms, and labs didn't stand a chance, against her vivacity and compassion.

Watch this beautiful video (courtesy: Mahesh Nagwan), relive your Back Post days, and share your experiences on Back Post or whatever was your best hangout at college.

Interested in reading my other blogs?

How about my ode to old Hindi film music? Which is here --> THE GOLDEN AGE OF HINDI FILM MUSIC.

The first episode is HERE.

Or my eulogy to one of the greatest playback singers of India? SP BALASUBRAHMANYAM.