Bishu’s… A legacy

Imagine this… you wake up at midnight, ravenous after a hard day’s work lying in bed, pull on your winter gear and make the long trudge from your room across hostile terrain to GH1… only to find the mess lights off and the area deserted. You blink in disbelief—are your eyes deceiving you or is it just a bad dream? What happened to the XLers usually hanging around, sipping endless cups of tea and zealously guarding their plates of cheese maggi? What happened to the night canteen? What happened to that familiar face behind the mess counter, patiently flipping an endless number of aloo parathas and tolerantly reminding yet another XLer to clear his credit?

Worry not, nothing has changed…not yet. The Night Canteen or Bishu Da’s as it is more commonly known, has been in existence for the last 8 years. It started with students bringing food over and casually asking Bishu Da to cook it for them late at night. Then Mess Comm provided supplies for a while, with Bishu da being given a salary for his services. Over time, Bishu da was asked by Mess Comm to set up and run a night canteen. From then to now, he has been running the night canteen in much the same way, improvising on his offerings based on preferences and selling on credit to a large number of students.

Bishu Da’s isn’t just a quick-stop snack bar. It is where birthdays are celebrated in true XL style, where we take a break when the pressures of a Pray project or an impending Gango quiz become too much, or when we simply want to catch up on the latest grax. Most of us cannot imagine night life in XL without Bishu da and his daily offerings—noodles in soup
and egg-aloo paratha are just some of the quirky combinations he prepares on demand. Many will vouch for the lifesaver that his nimbu pani is during particularly thirsty times, when laced with a little something. But that is an altogether different topic of conversation.

Most of us, at some point of time, have carried on a conversation with him that goes beyond “Bishu da, ek bread omelette”. But how many of us really know the man? Ever wondered what his story is? Each time I’d see him settling in for the night in one corner of the mess I’d wonder what drove him to live such a life. What forced him to make those choices?

Bishu da has been working in the XL mess since 1980. His two sons are in school while his 7 yr old daughter was born deaf and dumb and needs special attention, besides medication and hearing aids. As with most families, he is the sole breadwinner for his family. It is a tough life he leads, but he is by far not the only one. All around us, there are people who have no choice but to push on in order to make ends meet.

As the offsprings of a premier B-school, we are expected to understand what corporate social responsibility is and to practice it. It starts with being sensitive to one’s immediate environment and to the people in one’s immediate vicinity, understanding their needs and motives, seeing beyond their functional use and acknowledging the individual.
Bishu da and the many other residents of XL aren’t just sources to fulfill our needs…they are individuals who have seen XL grow, have grown and changed with our alma mater, and are the link between XL’s past, her present and her future. They are XLRI’s legacy to us…part of the kaleidoscope of memories we’ll carry with us that identify us as an XLer. So the next time you have a craving for some cheese maggi, or just some midnight grax over a chai and sutta, remember the people who make that possible…..

Author: Abhilasha Krishnan, IR 2006.