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On a garden path
Photo: R.V. Moorthy.
FOR A MOMENTARY FEEL: Students at the open-air canteen of Delhi School of Social Work.
IF YOU happen to have an unfinished novel in your handbag, a couple of hours to spare and the spirit to take pleasure in reading it, the quiet open-air canteen at the Delhi School of Social Work is perhaps the best place to be. Lined up with thick patches of seasonal flowers in their bright reds and yellows and with huge neem trees offering shade to the blooms, the full-sized lawn behind the main college building has pairs of tidily laid out chairs and tables. No, they are not particularly intended to be an open-air extension of the department library but meant seriously as a stopgap arrangement for a canteen since the actual canteen space is under construction for nearly a year now!
Makeshift kitchen
The hole (literally so!) that supplies the food and drinks is in the crammed one-roomed outhouse at the end of the sprawling lawn. Freshly white-washed. Two or three puny-sized boys as canteen helpers scurry the place off and on asking around for orders. `Tea or coffee? There are soft drinks also.' `Roti, dal and kathal ki sukhi sabzi for lunch today.' `We also have chawal, mixed vegetable sabzi, chole and raita.' `For snacks, there is hot samosa.'
And all at "Students' rate," as the canteen manager Vinod Mathur would put it.
Vegetarian fare is the order of most days unless there is a staff get-together, says Mathur. A former employee at Delhi's Taj Mahal hotel, English-speaking Mathur is understandably not quite in high spirits about the state of his kitchen. "The college administration told me it is a temporary arrangement, just for a month, and now it has stretched to a year. I really long to get back to the actual canteen space. I just can't offer variety to the students. I feel bad about it," he pours out his desperate reflection.
Ask around students for comments to second it and most would grumble about `the slow progress' of the construction but add nevertheless that they are `enjoying' the ambience. "But what happens after a month? All the flowers will go, it would be too hot outside," asks a student.
Well, over to the head of DSSW now.
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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