The passage to IIM-K
Before I begin this post, I’d like to take this opportunity to warn all the readers not to use the Indian Airlines service for the coming weeks. Thank you.
So I was all set to make my way to God’s own IIM. I was supposed to catch a flight to Chennai from Hyderabad and then catch the Mangalore express to Kozhikode (also known as Calicut) Unfortunately for me, the Indian Airlines ground staff decided to go on an indefinite strike. First I got an SMS from the Indian Airlines saying only hand baggage was allowed. And just an hour before the flight was scheduled for its departure, they cancelled the flight. Luckily I got on board the Paramount Airways’ flight to Chennai at 5:30 otherwise I'd have missed my train to Kozhikode.
I caught the train on time. The last few hours of the journey were quite memorable thanks to the incessant rains and the fisherman throwing their nets in the just-filled-lakes. Reminded me of the "chinna-chinna-aasai" aka choti-si-aasha song in Roja.. We reached our destination only to be greeted by some more rainfall.
All the students supposed to join waited outside the station for the other train to arrive from Delhi, the Nizamuddin express. However it was delayed by 2 hours and hence we decided to go have breakfast at a local hotel. I was warned about Keralite food long before I left Hyderabad but I comfortably ignored them. We found a certain hotel DEEWAR near the station and decided to have our breakfast there.
Now before I get into the details, let me make one thing very clear to all you non-Keralite readers of mine. Fish is considered vegetarian in Kerala. Repeat after me - fish is considered vegetarian in Kerala; just like potato is considered vegetarian in Hyderabad and the rest of the world.
Coming back to the story, we unknowingly stepped into Hotel Wall (also known as Deewar) thinking we'd have an unprecedent supply of idlis and dosas. However we were disappointed when we were told that only idiappams and vellappams were available. As for the side dishes we were asked to choose from 2 vegetarian and one non-vegetarian curry. Yes, fish was one of those 2 vegetarian curries. Thankfully, we realised it before we had ordered and went for the other one - a vegetable vegetarian curry. And not surprisingly, it contained the most important vegetable in the Kerala way of life - the coconut. The main dish also was a mixture of dosa dough and - no prizes for guessing - some more raw coconut.
In spite of repeated threats from our oesophagus, we managed to gulp down all the coconutty food. We then made our way to God's own Kampus, IIM-K. The campus looks heavenly! It is like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! :D The climate is pretty cool, slightly sultry; food rocks - it is of the non-coconutty type! And the people here are quite different. Can't wait for the classes to begin!
BTW it is yet to stop raining.. :(
PS1: This post was written quite a long time back on a wordpress blog. 14th June to be precise.
PS2: I had to switch to wordpress because blogger.com was not opening in the IIM-K labs.
PS3: Lately I discovered that blogger.com opens in the IIM-K library :D
PS4: Other posts will be added sooner or later.
PS5: Life is rocking! :D
PS6: We have a presentation to make tonight at 11:00. Excited! :D
So I was all set to make my way to God’s own IIM. I was supposed to catch a flight to Chennai from Hyderabad and then catch the Mangalore express to Kozhikode (also known as Calicut) Unfortunately for me, the Indian Airlines ground staff decided to go on an indefinite strike. First I got an SMS from the Indian Airlines saying only hand baggage was allowed. And just an hour before the flight was scheduled for its departure, they cancelled the flight. Luckily I got on board the Paramount Airways’ flight to Chennai at 5:30 otherwise I'd have missed my train to Kozhikode.
I caught the train on time. The last few hours of the journey were quite memorable thanks to the incessant rains and the fisherman throwing their nets in the just-filled-lakes. Reminded me of the "chinna-chinna-aasai" aka choti-si-aasha song in Roja.. We reached our destination only to be greeted by some more rainfall.
All the students supposed to join waited outside the station for the other train to arrive from Delhi, the Nizamuddin express. However it was delayed by 2 hours and hence we decided to go have breakfast at a local hotel. I was warned about Keralite food long before I left Hyderabad but I comfortably ignored them. We found a certain hotel DEEWAR near the station and decided to have our breakfast there.
Now before I get into the details, let me make one thing very clear to all you non-Keralite readers of mine. Fish is considered vegetarian in Kerala. Repeat after me - fish is considered vegetarian in Kerala; just like potato is considered vegetarian in Hyderabad and the rest of the world.
Coming back to the story, we unknowingly stepped into Hotel Wall (also known as Deewar) thinking we'd have an unprecedent supply of idlis and dosas. However we were disappointed when we were told that only idiappams and vellappams were available. As for the side dishes we were asked to choose from 2 vegetarian and one non-vegetarian curry. Yes, fish was one of those 2 vegetarian curries. Thankfully, we realised it before we had ordered and went for the other one - a vegetable vegetarian curry. And not surprisingly, it contained the most important vegetable in the Kerala way of life - the coconut. The main dish also was a mixture of dosa dough and - no prizes for guessing - some more raw coconut.
In spite of repeated threats from our oesophagus, we managed to gulp down all the coconutty food. We then made our way to God's own Kampus, IIM-K. The campus looks heavenly! It is like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! :D The climate is pretty cool, slightly sultry; food rocks - it is of the non-coconutty type! And the people here are quite different. Can't wait for the classes to begin!
BTW it is yet to stop raining.. :(
PS1: This post was written quite a long time back on a wordpress blog. 14th June to be precise.
PS2: I had to switch to wordpress because blogger.com was not opening in the IIM-K labs.
PS3: Lately I discovered that blogger.com opens in the IIM-K library :D
PS4: Other posts will be added sooner or later.
PS5: Life is rocking! :D
PS6: We have a presentation to make tonight at 11:00. Excited! :D
Labels: Khronicles, Life
blabbered by The optimist from utopia at 9:24 PM
7 Comments:
hehe .... Keep up the gud work gokul .. hope u keep postin regularly and not bcome one of those "I dont have time for anyth" B-skool grad types.
so not rollin over to wordpress , i presume. kindly update ur blogroll to
http://tealspace.wordpress.com
All the best for your b school stint. Have fun!
And why is everyone suddenly moving to wordpress?
:O , nice !! use lab and bandwidth properly..play lots of CS :) !!
lol@ gods own iim -k and the coconutty post!
u have survived err i mean arrived!
lol also @khronicles :p
god bless ur 'god's own journey' in k land!
thanks also for making me lol
been having a yucky day at wland.
hope u remain a faithful blogger unlike the other me-too-busy bschool ppl .. :P ..
and yeah fish is considered vegetarian even in japan and other places :P .. so on and so forth ..
'khronicles' - nice label :)
yeah, we'll be waiting for your blog posts ... by the way, it was good to see a new post on this blog after such a long time :)
hi there,
i happen to be in the opposite situation as u: i'm from calicut, and just moved to IIIT-H to pursue my MS degree... finding ur ramblings hilarious as it is, if u need tips on calicut, i'm ur man, and oh btw, if u are a pure vegetarian, ur screwed in calicut :) here are some tips:
1. no one ever goes to hotel deewar, the same way no one goes to hotels near the railway station in their hometown (they're meant to fool newbies who just got off a train)
2. U can try hotel dakshin in mavoor road, its pure veg (and not that great, if u dont mind stepping into a non-veg place, hotel paragon serves decent northie style food but is a wee bit expensive...
3. Calicut is dominated by malabar muslims (like myself), who go out so that they can gorge on meat :), hence the lack of pure veg places - they make very little financial sense as an investment (i wouldnt put my money on one)
4. If ur a coffee person, u could try out the newly opened coffee beans near tagore hall on beach road, calicut city
gimme a buzz if u need any more tips :)
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