Oil- The great leveler

18 years of my life i spent training my body to wake up a little later than the usual on that day of the week which is the result of paganism evolving into neo-christianity(did i come off as too Dan brownish?...no offence meant), little did i know that one shabby sheet of paper would change it all- The mess menu, that torn-up,oily,smelly piece of paper which looks like a collage in which someone used clippings from a news paper called" The aloo and puri daily" , And the one dish powerful enough to make such an impact : Chole Bathura on Sunday mornings, The oilier,tastier,unhealthier bada bhai of puri, a melt in the mouth delicacy that makes little boys who miss ghar ka khana forego sleep and hangover remedies(at times, even taking a dump).

Wars have been fought, families and countries have severed ties, blood and sweat have been spilt (enough to drench any small nation), but that is not the aspect of oil i wish to talk about, the time has come for me to introduce you to the protagonist of this story, he goes by many names(all of which were provided by me): Tel man,fry-man, bhujiya-man, wok-man and my personal favourites- bandli-man or yenne-man. Ill use text from the respective languages in the future or italicize them, i promise(pinky-swear).

There may be one or more tel-men (dudes in-charge of frying stuff) in every hostel mess, but this is my blog, hence my subject shall be the Tel-man in my hostel mess. I'm sure most of you either watch or have heard of the NDTV travel/foodie show called "Highway On My Plate", anyways quoting Rocky and Mayur(the awesome hosts) while they were in Jharkhand (Episode aired on Jan 9th,2011), "keep in mind , good(food) in Jharkhand means, has excessive oil" and mess food is no exception, that makes tel-man a celebrity chef of sorts, it matters not if you're the most popular kid on campus or if you're a goon surrounded by 8 minions at any given time, he cares not if you're listening to bieber or mohit chauhan or floyd while waiting, but wait you shall , and its each man for himself, because when it comes to the golden brown piece of sunshine that is the chola bathura , there are no compromises.

Note to self: Find out Tel-man's name next Sunday.

Appendix-1(accepted usage of the word :tel(oil)):

1. "machi, see machi, how much tyel is there in this puris*squeezes a handful of puris like they were made of sponge*"-regular oil .

2. "viva kaise gaya?""*makes rude hand-gesture*, bina tel ka le liya bhai!": "How'd the viva go?""They did not even provide us lube bro !"

3. "CS jaaye tel lene, chupchap padhai kar" : "Balls to Counter-strike, cock-up and study"

And finally one last shout-out to the dude who makes us smile once a week and gives our sunday a fitting start. Go Tel-man !