Prologue
People often ask me, “What’s a chicken day?”
I don’t know, really. It depends. It is a multifaceted term, something best experienced rather than explained using adjectives. In the school I grew up in, it was a highly-revered thrice-occurring weekly phenomenon. In the realm outside, it would seem little more than a made-up word. What I do know, however, is that it meant the world to our table captain.
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So big was he, the table captain, perhaps the biggest in our house. From where I stood, I believed it would take even an adult five karate kicks to put so much as a scratch on him. That size gave him an edge over all of us. It gave him authority. He entered the school’s dining hall like a lion ready to nab little creatures who broke the rules of his forest. Oh, and nobody dared to touch the edibles in his absence. The fragrant fresh finger chips, yellow paneer curry, gravy, boiling hot soup, delicious juicy brown chicken pieces floating on the surface of steel bowl. Until the captain was seated comfortably, though, nobody dared touched any of it.
For students on other tables, chicken days must have felt like national holidays. I know. We heard their cock-a-hoop stories all the time.
Yesterday, our table captain did not want to eat Rushvari. So he gave it to me. How generous of him!
Four guys at our table have not returned since the leave weekend. Our table captain has planned something special for tonight!
Even though tomorrow is a non-chicken day, our table captain is going to treat us. It is his birthday.
Well for us, our table captain was unpredictable; our table itself no less than Hitler’s bunker.
We did not have birthdays and celebrations. There was no guarantee of even our legit share of Rushvari, let alone expectations of extra favours. Each chicken day that we entered that dining hall was like being made to participate in a game of snakes and ladders, real-time; only there were no ladders for us, just the vipers.
We did not have birthdays and celebrations. There was no guarantee of even our legit share of Rushvari, let alone expectations of extra favours. Each chicken day that we entered that dining hall was like being made to participate in a game of snakes and ladders, real-time; only there were no ladders for us, just the vipers.
Once inside the dining hall, the table captain would perform three things. First, he’d check to see if anything had been smuggled out of those bowls. Then he’d serve each one of us half rations—half paneer, half rice, half yogurt, a few finger chips—almost everything in half. Then on his own plate, he’d pour double of everything. Except the chicken, that is. For the chicken bowl and delicacies floating therein, he’d make us play a game. The Hunger Game.
So how did the table captain institutionalise this game?
A semester ago, he’d planted a ladle in the rice, making an acute angle so the tip of the ladle touched the utensil’s brim. The utensil had a spherical base, which on a slight push, spun endlessly on the table. Like a spinning lottery trick, only with the world’s weirdest rules, invented by our table captain.
“The game is simple,” he’d said. “There is one rule that’ll apply to everyone. When this utensil spins, it will rotate the ladle. When it slows and stops, the guy towards whom the ladle points in the end will take away all the chicken.”
We were excited. The prospect of having a whole bowl of chicken all to ourselves drove us mad! And in that first month, we had a total of 12 chicken days—three every week. I got the ladle four times. My best friend got it twice. The others did, too. To his chagrin, the table captain himself got none. That was a good month, no doubt about it. On the days I won, I guzzled as if there was no tomorrow. I fed until my teeth couldn’t chew anymore and my tongue couldn’t tell the difference between yogurt and water.
But the table captain was not some random ruler, and he wasn’t about to just give up. He soon realised that if the ladle game was to go on this way, he might never get access to any chicken. Naturally, new reforms were tabled. You could tell that these were designed to benefit the captain, but not us. Never us.
In the second month, the captain called for a table meeting. “The rules of the game have changed slightly,” he announced. “The winner must now split his win with any two other table members.”
We assumed the table captain had learnt his lesson. After all, sharing is caring, right? Wrong. The next part of his rule made things a lot clearer.
“These splitters and the winner will be barred from consuming other delicacies. If you win, you win only the chicken. You lose paneer, chips, curd, sweets and other things. The two other guys whom you chose to split the chicken with—they lose their goodies too. And the rules don’t apply to me.” He shot a cunning smile at this, “I can still be the winner and not have to split.”
This went on for a while, with us facing a win-die situation every time the ladle spun. Meanwhile, the table captain looked on, smiling, with his plate ostentatiously full. But we couldn’t complain about this to the teachers. Who in high school complains about chicken anyway?
Luckily in a hostel, there are tricks to crack everything. There are tricks to finagle extra biscuits, tricks to borrow five books with a single library card, tricks to bypass punishments, tricks to capture better cubicles—you name it. It just takes time to figure ‘em out. But once you have a strategy…bingo!
When word got out, boys from other tables devised a risky plan. We set up a decoy to lure the captain with the aid of what he loved most—chicken. We proposed that following the spin, the receiver of the ladle would have to leave the table forever and go find another table. It would reduce the table population and ensure better rations. The table captain was a math whiz, and so the bill was promptly passed.
Next thing I know, the table captain was pointing straight at me. “I can’t wait to see you kicked out of this table,” he said. There was little I could say in response. After all, I’d been his very main target since the beginning.
Eight pairs of eyes were glued to that ladle as it spun and spun on the sunmica table. My choices were fairly limited. I was either going to be the winner, or I’d lose the dinner forever. The same applied to each of us. But boy, while the ladle spun, I was scared out of my wits. My whole consciousness was hinged on that moving object on the table for what seemed like a silent eternity, until it finally stopped. Golly hell, OMG! It was, the ladle, steadily pointing at the table captain himself! We had won. I had won!
The table captain rose from his seat and walked out of the dining hall. We didn’t hear from him for a whole semester. Even if lions are big and scary, if jackals want, they can pull the big cats down. Perhaps the captain forgot to account for that. There were rumours that he became captain at some other table and was exercising his despotic rule over some other poor kids. But that didn’t matter to the seven of us. We were one now; we had all the chicken to ourselves.
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Epilogue
So what is a chicken day? You see, it is more than just a meal plan. As the years draw on, it becomes a tradition for some, or a requirement, or in some cases, even an obsession. For some it represents a good time with friends, wistful memories and a way of life. This was how I saw it. If the table captain could tell it his way, I guess it would be a different story altogether.
As to why the ladle fell on the table captain that particular day, and not any of us, it’s something of a mystery. I did hear that some of our friends had rigged the gadget beforehand. I don’t know how they did it. But well, in a hostel, there is a trick to crack everything.
- Anik Yadav
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