Naeem Bhai ki Biryani!

Amongst all the faculties and centres of Jamia Millia Islamia, the Faculty of Engineering and Technology will unequivocally serve you the best biryani! That is where all the students turn up when they feel like having Chicken Biryani! Yes..! At the engineering faculty canteen run by Naeem Bhai. He and his crew dole out plate after plate of this mouth smacking delicacy every afternoon during lunch time ( till whatever time the stocks last.. Experience says that they usually don't!)

The last time we had biryani before we graduated.

So its been what.. like 4 years.. that Ive been hooked onto this rice preparation. Its a sinfully rich preparation I tell you, with all the masala and the flavours that it embodies..

I remember the first time that I had biryani at the canteen. I was pretty ignorant of its existence in the 1st few weeks of my college. Only somewhere in October did I come to realise that there was this one corner of the canteen where there was always a mad gathering. Not like my catneen was huge or anything.. but this corner was always noticeable with its mannerisms.
And this used to be the one catering the Chicken Biryani.

A stout guy, we lovingly addressed as 'Montu Bhai' was there with a saucer in his hand to dish out the rice preparation from a huge 'pateela' ( hindi for container used to boil milk in) and hand it out. And the junta was jumping over one another to get him to hand out a plate to them before the stock got over.
So I thought.. "I need to try this out." I purchased a token and got into the crowd just to get my hand onto a plate of biryani. It was the October of 2006 then and it is going to be the October of 2010 now and Ive never ever gotten over its taste. It was 15 Rs. then and it is 25 Rs. now. But it has always been one of the best things Ive had at my canteen. The helping was so decent that one plate was all it took to satiate your taste buds. And it was hot as hell! You could opt for a less spicy version as well, but you had to tell 'Montu Bhai' before he started moving his hands inside the pateela. Because once he began, there was absolutely no stopping him. His speed used to amaze me. 10 plates dished out in 30 odd seconds. This guy was fast.

Being a Muslim university, it was normal for almost all faculty canteens to be serving biryani. But it was the Engineering faculty canteen and Naeem Bhai's biryani that was famous. We had people coming in from far and near. And if you were late to arrive , you always knew it was over. 300 odd plates dished out in less than an hour.

Infact, I got my gang hooked onto Biryani and "Meetha samosa".
Anytime I was out of class, my friends knew where to find me. I was in the canteen hogging biryani or meetha samosa. Ohh I so loved it. It was just one of the many things that I loved about Jamia.
Naeem Bhai is still there running the canteen and so is Montu bhai dishing out the ' chicken biryani' to the junta at the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia. Go try it out!

P.S. Maybe you'll still find me there, in formals though, taking a well deserved lunch break from office, reminiscing all the good times over a plate of biryani.

The Pony goes under the Axe.

My pony...oh my ponytail...why o why did it have to go??

I cannot see myself in the mirror anymore.Makes me break down.

I had made sure that I grew my hair for atleast 5-6 months ..My last haircut was in the first week of April before my submissions in the 4th sem and the next visit to the barber was scheduled to happen sometime this year but was definitely nowhere in sight..

There was no chance that my mom asked me for a haircut during my sem exams in April and May and so I managed the first 2 months. After that I managed to give my mother the lame excuse that there was no barber at the place I had gone to for my industrial internship during the summer vacations. And she fell for that. So another 2 months of long hair..

Joined back college and people started realising that my hair was terribly long...considering I had exposed them to too much of my crew cuts in the 1st year. I had good amount of hair in the 2nd year, but nothing compared to the present state of my head.

Now that mom was seeing me everyday...I knew the 'call of duty' was nearby. And so it came..the 1st one.I don't exactly remember the date though (..there are just too many to remember anyway !!) ..It must have been somewhere around the last week of July. It was rather mild.. this one.The next one came rather too soon. Got 2 'calls' in the 1st week of august. Tried appealing to Dad..he managed to get me some time. Approximately 2 weeks , during which all that mom did was to keep giving me a thousand mild reminders every other day.

Now August almost got over in these milder versions of the 'calls'. 

29th August 2008, and Rock On was released. Went and watched it First Day First Show. When I came back I demanded a head band a la Farhan Akhtar . I was so much into the movie that I didnot realise that I was asking for trouble. Well everybody at home just laughed it off as another of my frivolous demands. But September came and mummy dear started to realise that now I had hair long enough for a head band atleast. During the meantime my hair kept falling onto my face. Every day when I used to sit at the dining table , mom would be the first to notice my mane and try and extract out a date from me. A fateful date when I would make myself look more 'civilized' ( ...in her words..). She even insisted on calling a pandit for fixing up a 'shubh' muhurat for this immensely important activity.

The only time that there would be some peace at home would be when mom would see me coming out fresh from my bath, looking neat & tidy. September came and went away. Tests and fests kept me occupied the whole time and so I had little time to worry about my hair.

October 1st and 2nd. The only two days when I had a ponytail. Some of my friends who saw me with the pony were suprised at me being able to carry it off so well. They wanted me to keep it. I wanted to keep it too. But then when have things worked your way...Murphy's Law always beats me to it. "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time in the worst possible way."

I never had a slice of bread

That did not fall upon the floor

and always on the buttered side.

--KS

2nd October, a Mahatma was born to liberate the people. Well, I got the ultimatum to get rid off my long hair. 

The date : 5th October,2008. The smile on the barber's face. The smile on my mother's face. And the expression on my face...they said it all. My 2-day old ponytail went under the axe, gracefully.

  RIP : Here lies a loved pony.

For those of you who never managed to see my pony...I'd say BAD LUCK.