Tag Archives: College

Food & Beverage

An Ode to Coffee

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I love coffee. In fact I love it as much as I love beer. However, unlike beer, I need coffee. I need it desperately to start my day and function as a human.

Part 1: Cheap disgusting Coffee

The earliest I can remember drinking coffee is during college, to stay up at night to pretend to study. Since we were poor, it was Nescafé Instant coffee that we had. It was disgusting, but it was stimulating enough to keep one awake. The cold coffee at Anna’s was slightly better, although he didn’t put enough of the powder in, unless you nagged him. Anna also used the same Nescafé instant shit, so there was a theoretical limit to how good it could be.

Now, I would rather have an injection of caffeine directly into my veins than drink this cheap shit.

Disgusting Coffee
Disgusting filth, PC: gtPlaza

For the real brewed version, we went to Café Coffee Day or Barista. My favourite drink at Café Coffee Day was Iced Eskimo, a kind of slushy which took a long time to melt and finish. At Barista, I almost always had a Vanilla Frappe. Needless to say, we couldn’t afford this regularly.

During the first few years of work, I alternated between Nescafé instant at home and the office coffee machine. Around this time I also went lactose intolerant so started having my coffee black (Americano).

Part 2: Switch to Brewed Coffee

Eventually, I bought my own cheap brewing machine. I used to buy beans from Barista and used a grinder to grind the beans. I remember once I got coffee beans from Brazil and they were amazing and strong. After I switched back to my regular beans, I had caffeine withdrawal for a week.

Soon, I started suffering from acidity from the strong black coffee.

I read about cold brewing and how it is easier on the stomach, so started doing that. The results were great, but the prep was too troublesome and messy.

I also stopped having coffee after noons, as it didn’t let me sleep at night. I also discovered that the Chinese don’t really drink much coffee and view it as an unhealthy drink; preferring tea instead.

Eventually, we almost stopped going to Cafe Coffee Day and almost always preferred Barista.

Part 3: Sleepy Owl Cold Brew

I came across an advertisement for Sleepy Owl cold brew on Facebook one day. I read that they supplied cold brew concentrate in boxes and immediately ordered some. Soon, I was hooked. It was everything I always wanted:

  1. It was delicious.
  2. No prep required, all one had to do was mix and drink.
  3. It was easy on the stomach, while still packing a punch.
The best coffee I ever had, PC: Simpl

For the next few years, Sleepy Owl poured over ice was all I had at home. I remember during the COVID lockdowns, I was once almost out of it and had to ration till I could get another box delivered.

My Sleepy Owl recipe (after a lot of trial-and-error) was:

  • 225ml water
  • 2 cubes of sugar
  • 75ml Sleepy Owl Cold Brew

I carried Sleepy Owl’s brew bags when I travelled, too.

During this time, I also developed a morning coffee ritual. I wouldn’t look at my phone after waking up. Instead, I would make myself some cold brew and then sit next to the window with my coffee, looking out. I would do nothing else during this time, except sip slowly on my cold brew and savour each sip. I would do this for up to an hour before I would check my phone and start my day. It was beautiful.

Alas, it was not to last forever.

Eventually I moved to Thailand, along with the last 2 boxes of my Sleepy Owl cold brew. They lasted over a month, but eventually I had to look for alternatives.

Part 4: Thailand and Nespresso

I looked for Cold Brew in Thailand, but it was rare and not easy to get as concentrate. A fiend of mine suggested Nespresso; so I got a Nespresso machine. It combined the advantages of freshly ground coffee (pods are sealed) and convenience (just pop a pod in and press a button). To keep my acidity in control, I stick to pods with strength levels of 5 and below.

Nespresso, better than nothing, PC: Nespresso

It is no sleepy owl, but at least it tastes good and I can have different flavours every day. My favourite pods are Tokyo Lungo and Shanghai Lungo. My recipe is:

  • 320ml water
  • 2 cubes of sugar
  • A shot of Nespresso Lungo

There’s no Cafe Coffee Day or Barista here, but I love Cafe Amazon, a Thai coffee chain. I love their Iced Espresso.

My morning coffee is still the best part of my day. I can’t wait to return to India once again and get myself some Sleepy Owl & Barista.

Nostalgia

I Miss College Days

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I frequently dream about my college days in Nagpur. Although most of those dreams are actually nightmares with a recurring theme, some are actually pleasant. Last night I dreamt that my daughter took admission in some Nagpur college & me and my wife also moved there to be closer to her. There, I was roaming around on my motorcycle and made acquaintance of some college students.

Although I have been to Nagpur many times since I graduated, it is not the same going back as an adult.

College days in Nagpur
Nagpur, PC: Kayak

What I miss about college days

  1. Seeing my friends everyday.
  2. Going to college but not going into the classroom.
  3. The widespread excellent food cheaper than anywhere else.
  4. Finding a new bar to drink for cheap every day of the week with friends.
  5. Once in a while staying at home blogging while friends are outside partying.
  6. Going to Buldi to buy cheap clothes, drink fruit juice and buy mobile phones.
  7. Drinking beer with Sood sahab at home listening to music while it is raining outside.
  8. Riding around on my motorcycle (RIP).
  9. Going on dates with my girlfriend (now wife) & spending hours talking on the phone on the terrace.
  10. Filling ₹10 worth of petrol in my motorcycle.
  11. The feeling of returning from holidays at home.
  12. Not having a single female friend.
  13. Hanging out at Shanky PP with friends and drinking coffee.
  14. Going to Pyramid and not buying anything.
  15. Our very first home.
  16. Going to Westside and not buying anything.
  17. Going to Poonam Chambers & playing video games.
  18. Knowing exactly what 2-wheeler everyone had & judging them for it.
  19. Attending college rock concerts without being judged for being single and poor.
  20. Sitting at Cafe Coffee Day staring at girls without a single worry in life. Also purchasing Q-Jam coupons for ₹5 and playing our favourite songs.
  21. Going to localites’ house and not relating to their culture, but appreciating a home cooked meal nonetheless.
  22. Consuming cannabis with friends at the hostel on Holi and then spending the next few days wasted.
  23. Drinking beer at Telangkhedi lake and pissing in the lake standing on the retaining wall.
  24. Watching English movies with shitty Hindi dubbing.
  25. Sleeping in on exam day.

What I don’t miss

  1. The sweltering heat & the ever present dust.
  2. The constant/ever present lack of monies.
  3. The shit fountain at the hostel.
  4. My immature behaviour.
  5. Exam result nights.

For anyone else feeling nostalgic about college days, suggest watching this excellent show on Prime.

Nostalgia

Our first home

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For the first 17 years of my life, I lived with my parents. When I went off to college, for the first time to a different city (Nagpur), things changed a bit. I started living with some seniors at a rented apartment. I was living without parents, but I was still living at someone else’s home. When these seniors passed out, I lived for a few months at the college hostel, which was, again, a different experience.

When the toilets at the hostel turned into shit-geysers, I knew I had to leave. I started looking for a new place to stay at and a roommate to stay with. The excitement was palpable; this was the first time in my life I would stay at a place of my own choosing with people I chose to stay with.

Eventually, I found a roommate in the form of a creature known as Whoreko and a nice, independent place to stay at Verma Layout.

The time spent in this new place were one of the most blissful years of my life. We had our own place, we could come and go as we pleased, we setup our stuff the way we wanted and we both had our own rooms. In short, we had our own place and we were masters of this little area. We even had our own terrace, where we perched in the evenings and threw water on Halud when he came to visit us.

We both had a computer of our own and we connected them using a LAN cable for multiplayer gaming and file sharing. We listened to our own choice of music (Which, thankfully, matched) in the mornings when getting ready for college and in the evenings, well into the night.

Our First Home
My Room

Once, we even setup a fireplace in our kitchen sink by burning old clothes, books etc. Flames were leaking out of the kitchen ventilator and the neighbours gathered around to watch. Everyone dispersed when we threw a pressurised deodorant can into the fire and it exploded, rattling doors and windows nearby.

Kitchen, forever charred by the fire

The place was at an awesome location. T-Point hostel and Shankar Nagar chowk were nearby, so was a Cafe Coffee Day and Ambazari lake.

After Whoreko, roommates came & went, but I will forever remember and cherish the time I spent staying at this house, our first home.

Below are some of my earlier posts about this place

Education, Rant, Work

Recurring Nightmare

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I have been having this one recurring nightmare for years. There are different variations, but the basic theme is the same.

Theme – I have not managed to graduate from college, because I haven’t passed anywhere between 6-14 exams after my last semester. Now, I am at a stage that I have to clear all my remaining subjects in the next exams, or I have to do my graduation all over again. Also, I lose my job if I don’t produce a valid degree.

Variations – In some of these nightmares, I am determined to study hard and pass this time around, but when I open my books, all the pages are blank, so I cannot study. In some variations, I do manage to study, but end up sleeping through the exam day, waking up in panic in the evening. In some cases, I am not even aware of the exams till the last moment and I end up rushing to the exam centre with no preparations.

In real life, I did manage to graduate almost 14 years ago, but by the skin of my teeth. I passed some subjects (EMF) by some fluke (I studied only a few topics and those are the ones which appeared on the exam) or after multiple attempts (Mathematics-1 took 5 attempts).

However, when I I truly lucked out was during the 8th semester exams. I had appeared for both 7th (failed subjects) and 8th semester exams during my last attempt and had only attempted the bare minimum questions in some of them. I was more surprised than relieved when the results were announced and I realised I had passed in all of these exams and graduated successfully. Later, when the mark sheets were released, I realised it was another fluke.

Nightmare
Fluke!

You see, I had actually failed in Subject 5 above, but, our university had a provision of grace marks. However, the rules were very specific and I had never received grace marks ever, before this. Some rules

  • You would get up to a total of 10 grace marks per semester only.
  • You would only get grace marks if it enables you to pass in all subjects in that semester
  • You would get grace marks only in certain specific denominations
    • Exactly 10 marks in one subject (I would get grace marks only if I score exactly 30 in that subject. 31 would also not do)
    • Exactly 5 marks each in 2 subjects (Need to score exactly 35 in 2 subjects)
    • Exactly 2 marks in 1 subject (which is what I got)

Even though I failed in Subject 5, I was awarded 2 grace marks and I passed that subject and graduated. If I had 1 mark more or less in that subject, I wouldn’t have graduated when I did. Maybe the fact that I graduated because of such a fluke is what triggers these nightmares. Strangely, when I wake up and realise it was all a nightmare, it still doesn’t make me feel better. What a nightmare!

The kicker? The subject that I couldn’t even get passing marks in was related to Computer Networking and I am now a network engineer.

Education, Motorcycle, Rant

My Worst Purchases-Honda Activa

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So, I was “studying” in my first year of engineering (around the year 2002) in Nagpur and living with 2 of my seniors in a rented apartment. For those not familiar with Nagpur, public transportation was almost non-existent at that time and 95% of the people rode 2-wheelers (Motorcycles, Scooters & Mopeds), remaining 5% had cars.

I had nothing of my own and soon started to feel the heat of wanting to go everywhere but not being able to go anywhere.

I wanted to buy a bike, but the aforementioned jealous roommates didn’t want me to have one, so brainwashed my father into buying me a Honda Activa. I was desperate for anything, so didn’t argue much and greedily accepted it.

The Activa is by no means a bad scooter and it is quite handy for middle age men/women looking for a quick trip to the nearby stores or for kids who are just learning to ride. For a college freshman however, it was the social equivalent of walking around college with “dork” written on the back of his head in Bold letters.

As if the social ridicule wasn’t enough, the scooter was also not suited for a hormone ridden teenager riding around town “trying” to show off and competing with motorcycles. Inherently unstable, it caused me to have numerous accidents within the first few months itself.

Eventually, it was either continuing to ride the monstrosity or drop out of college, so I chose the former and sold it before it had completed one year.

It took 2/3 years, the manliest bike available in India at that time and a year away from college for people to forget I had one.