She was in a hurry. She said she’d make me a fried egg. I said fine. Then she screamed her disappointment from the kitchen. What happened, I asked. The yellow is running, she wailed. No problem, I said reassuringly. Just make it a double fry. An indulgent smile, a grateful hug and she was gone.

But the gooey crispy taste of the double fried egg made me nostalgic. And I slipped back a few years and began to trace the culinary journey that school and college had taken me through.

The first time I was pampered with school lunch was at the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet. HPS had legendary lunches and those of us who put on weight during school were often teased about ‘School Food’.

Lunch at school was a kind of formal affair. With teachers at the head of the table and the ritual of grace. Everything went by the bell. When to start. When to finish. And the kids, almost all of us wanted to rush out of the dining room to go spend the rest of lunch hour doing things that we enjoyed.

In my case it was running to the Library so I could lay my hands on a favourite author. And it was this rush perhaps that triggered off the invention of the HPS Mash.

There was bread, there was rice. There was dal, a curry or two. Even a fruit or a dessert. To go through all this, course by course was too time consuming. So we used to mash a couple of dishes together and speed up the eating process. Dal, Curry and Curds mashed up into a messy gravy worked perfectly with the two slices of bread that we wanted to eat. And it is a combination that I find I still use when I am in a hurry, or on a diet.

Being day scholars we were exposed only to the lunch menu and therefore did not have any great stories to tell, but when I went on to Loyola College, Madras the scene changed drastically.

The College had four different Mess Options. NV1 and 2, V and 2. The difference being the quantity of food served…limited vs. unlimited and the varieties provided. Needless to say I opted for the higher end unlimited option.

That was convenient for many reasons. But the most important reasons had to do with the informal competitions that were regularly sparked off…the chapathi eating competition, the idli eating one, the dosa championship and so on. I remember my father came to visit me one day and was surprised not to find me in my room. A neighbour told him that he would find me in the mess. A Chapathi eating competition was underway…and I so loved the Madrasi Chapathi Kurma dish. Preferring them hugely over their Borotta. I was on my 30th chapathi or so when he walked into the mess and dragged me out of there admonishing me soundly for indulging in such orgies.

My friend, and now brother in law, used to study at AC Tech in Guindy. And their hostel used to serve amazing dosas, so I used to go there at the drop of a hat and gorge on the delicacy.

My short stint at the IIM Bangalore Hostel however was unfortunately not so inspiring. In all fairness, we were the early batches of that institute and the hostels were nothing but large houses taken up in different areas of Bangalore (ours was in Banashankari) and the ground floor hall was everything from Community Hall to Dining room and the fare was very average and eminently forgetful. Perhaps our batch remembers more of Jayanagar 4th Block restaurants than anything else.

The only thing I remember from the hostel was how I used to ‘borrow’ the Kitchen Tri-Cycle that was meant to bring in the stores and take my room mate Rajnikanth for a drive around the colony in what can be compared to later day ‘Cruizin’. I am amazed that I had the strength in my legs those days to power this front ended rickshaw of sorts.

The only other time I had a chance to sample college food was when a few years later, as part of one of my first jobs, I had to visit the Gachibowli Campus of the University of Hyderabad. It was still being set up but they had a canteen that served subsidised meals at Re. 1. UoH became as a result of this perk, one of the most over serviced clients I have ever handled.

I have had chats on different occasions with my friends who went to schools like Mayo College, St. Lawrence, Doon School, Rishi Valley or to colleges like IIT and so on. Almost everyone had a tale to share. About how one dish was legendary, about how one was lethal. About one they often tried to replicate at home…and so on.

Sometimes I think food stories may be healthier to talk about than the drunken soirees that we have all had or the wild trips that many of us have come back from… unharmed.