Bose probably made the right decision. For it was common knowledge that it’s easier to escape the wrath of a spurned professor within the hallowed walls of the college, than to tackle an irked Arunda. His large authoritative voice would often reverberate across the corridors as he chastised an errant youngster for “bringing a cellphone to the canteen” or “talking too loudly”. “He was a very orthodox man. Modern technology unsettled him. He even hated the idea of installing vending machines in the canteen,” says Fr PC Matthew, principal, St Xavier’s College.

Thanks to Arunda’s phobia of modern technology, the Xavier’s canteen was a no-cellphone zone, in addition to being a no-smoking zone and “no fooling around zone”. “He was also very particular about the timings of the canteen. The doors would shut dot at 2.00 pm, much to chagrin of the students,” adds Fr Matthew.

Yet, the man was a hit with generations of Xaverians, dispensing slices of sagacity along with greasy chilli fish and rubbery luchi. “Sitting quietly in his corner, he would survey us and make mental notes. Every now and then I would spot an enthralled group of students around him,” reminisces Promita Banerjee, who passed out of the college five years ago.

The queue, however, has dwindled, and luchi and alur dum has been replaced with more upmarket substitutes like processed burgers and sandwhiches. With the departure of Arunda last year, a way of life, it seems, has come to an end. “He was not keeping well, and we mutually decided that it was time to move on. He resides in his Uttapara home now, but his loyalty to the college remains unquestioned,” states Fr Matthew.

Today, the canteen remains open till late into the evening. Vending machines hiss and steam while gushing out cups of coffee, and burgers are tossed into a microwave before being served in “eco-friendly” paper plates, but the man is sorely missed. “The canteen isn’t a canteen without him,” sums up Sayan Dutta, a third year student of the college.
— Premankur Biswas

Presidency College
You get a strange chilli-chicken that is sweet on days, and almost always so incredibly confusing that leaves your faith in cookbooks quite rattled. You get swirls of bright smoke that slither around the teeming tables like the dogs and their extended families. And you get these really fat fish fingers for Rs 4 and get speaking walls to lean on while trying to decide why you couldn’t live like this one big fat happy family and not vote. In Presidency College and Promodda’s canteen, this is routine. And you have brickbats and swords drawn out some evening, nervous laughs and last-minute touch-ups before some sadly-publicised fest the next. There’s noise and music taking a reckless trip down guitars, drums in the small room alongside, fists thumping on the table, and Kabir Suman’s trademark angst matching untrained vocals with Pink Floyd maybe.

And then the speaking walls. Walls where the CM finds his favourite poet frowning at him, walls where the divisions run so deep that mudslinging turns poetic. Walls on which, the other you, who have opinions and have feared dreaming about them even, lean on to wonder if all the blood, sweat and tears would make any difference.

Even a few days ago, you could sit around in the dark long after the present 6 pm-curfew, and feel happy, mushy or sad. All by yourself, or with your best-friend/boyfriend/just-a-classmate. Promodda’s delightfully pesky messengers will just ask you once for tea, and not come back. But then you all have to grow up some day.

It is always very flattering to feel that the boy in your class would be the last one to moodily strum the guitar and hum Fossils and Bob Dylan in the same breath, or the bespectacled neo-Marxian who you love to hate would be the last to put down the poetry classes in flaring they-are-useless-posters.

And yet,in Promodda’s canteen ,you just keep wondering!
— Piyasree Dasgupta

Jadavpur University
Dhoper Chop, for those who have not lived the epicurean pleasures of Milonda’s canteen at the Jadavpur University, is probably as tasty as ghorar dim. And it is classified information that dhoper chop, in its eatable avtar had long travelled beyond the Bengali colloquial equivalent for ‘rubbish’ and found itself in Milonda’s canteen. So, you assumed you got an egg chop but actually had just half-an-egg covered up in fillings incredibly misleading and also incredibly good.

This is just one of the stories that made the canteens of Jadavpur University what they are. As a student, I used to frequent Milanda’s canteen and Nathuda’s canteen which was called Ashirbad. The motivations were predictable. Unfriendly pockets and hunger. But then students have over the years ate food and friendship off the same plates in Milanda’s canteen. Milanda became friends with students as he usually got the hang of moods and knew how to warm up us.

Several years down, I am still a regular at Milanda’s and there’s no unfamiliarity still. But for a couple of coffee machines, plastic chairs, and canopies to fend off rain, nothing much has changed. Milanda and Nathuda still swear by the clock and drive students out after 7 pm.

Moreover, there are these young men who vend tea in the area. It’s ironical when we are reminded that these people used to be kids when we were greenhorns in college and we taught them regularly. Now they have chosen their paths in life, but somehow going back to them for tea is quite a trip down the memory lane.
— Rimi B Chatterjee
Professor, English Department, Jadavpur University