Of Paranthas and Pepsi!

Recently , I had a talk with one of my seniors who  had just been introduced to the wonder-combo = paranthas+pepsi! The way he talked about it got those drool organs all worked up (and this should sound strange because that is the next best substiute to edible stuff in college and I am presently enjoying the comforts of home sweet home!!) .
My love for food can only be rivaled by my love for sleep (which happens above all else to be my first love) .So, you can pretty much imagine the torture I was subject to when I had to actually face the fact that I would have to eat in the hostel mess a.k.a 'Eat and Die Outlet' . The first few days were normal.I endured the food and the food endured me.It was all I could do to look at the piles of rice and daal with miserable eyes and if you had looked closely you would have observed the curses that slowly formed in my mouth and the spiteful look that plastered itself over my face.It was trying!
 Our first break from mess food came on the day of our Freshers' Party (Well , that is what the name said.It looked like...ummm....forget it!! ) .With official restrictions on us , we sneaked out and had our first brush with magnificence .The sight of the unkempt , filthy  by-the-sewage canal ( Not Karnal as some presume it to be , but that is another story) 'khokhas' was a treat to the eyes. My head was filled with dreams of the times I would spend there just eating.....and eating...and eating).The smell is not much to talk about (yeah...seriously) . But the sight of cooked chicken dishes , butter naans straight out of the tandoor and all the variety that they had to offer took some time getting used to .It was the first 'utterly delicious' meal we had in our college .
We stuck to these normal dishes for sometime and enjoyed them while we could though our wallets had certainly grown slimmer now. Then, magic happened . We were introduced to the pride of the khokhas.....the king of all dishes... the STUFFED PARANTHA!!
Even though I would be doing severe injustice if I compare it to the other extravagant dishes, yet, it was the only thing that the khokhas offered that was soft on the pocket. It was our ' happy meal' .Our escape to the land of bliss and satisfaction. It was the dish of the people.Had it not been for the stuffed paranthas , students at my college would have suffered an economic crises worse than the 2009 meltdown!
So , this is how it was. We shifted to paranthas.A regular bite daily was almost certainly on the cards. I on my part , always asked for four stuffed paranthas (large diet.... i know! ) with four sticks of butter and it remained this way throughout the first semester.Whether you saw us at the khokha or paying for the food delivered to our hostels (Yes !! the khokhas at NIT Kurukshetra provide a complete hostel delivery service which happens to run round the clock 24x7 ..... can any multi-national food chain beat that??) you could be dead sure that it was paranthas.
 So much for the paranthas (mind you I can go on and on and on about them) .I HATE carbonated drinks.That is the reason you'll rarely see me with that stuff.It is on rare occasions that I actually give in to these abominable concoctions."Then , the pepsi? " you may wonder or even dare to ask.Well , it so happened that I had usually avoided the "pepsi/mountain dew" extravaganza for the entire time that I had indulged in the paranthas but one day I happened to have the urge to take a sip from the bottle that was being passed around and then I succumbed. I had hit ecstasy! The combination was too good for words . I fell for it head over heels. It was the best experience in my foodie journey so far.From that day onwards I (as I remember) was the first to order pepsi with paranthas and to this day it remains the best dish that the college (or rather ..the khokhas) have offered me so far.
So , if you happen to visit the NIT khokhas anytime , you know what you'll ask for first and as you enter the world of boundless joy you'll definitely hear me say .Bon Appétit !