“We want Justice”
My leaning was towards the kitchen as I had ample training at home in the basics of cooking, whether it be making the perfect circular dosas, or grinding the masala for the red fish curry on a grinding stone, making “phulkas” using a metal mesh and flipping it over a naked flame or baking cakes and goodies during Christmas. My nerdy looks with sunburnt skin and a shock of hair wasn’t going to get me a job in front of the house anyway so this was to be my career of choice in the professional course, or so I thought!
In this direction, I had hopes in the food production classes and my basic training kitchen in the first year was well guided by Mr. Ranjan Mukherjee. So I was pretty confident in scoring the 75 passing marks required and more out of 150 . On the exam day the menu that I had to prepare was one of twenty that we had practised during the year which was selected by draw of lots. On getting the menu, we had to write down the ingredient list and plan of work, go down to the stores, collect ingredients and start the cooking process. If you forgot to write something, you suffered the consequence. My three course menu with accompaniments were
Minestrone Soup
Fried fish with Maitre d’hotel butter
Bread Rolls
Neapolitan Mousse
The preparation done, the chef, a hard-nosed character from ITDC came around and asked me to demould the mousse. I did and it wasn’t completely set due to a shared fridge and multiple openings. He then asked me what was the cheese used in the soup. I answered that it was a grated hard cheese. He asked me to name A hard cheese. I answered “Cheddar”. He proceeded to the next table without tasting my food.
This clarion call was necessitated due to a skewed result at the end of our first year in HM. When we received them I was shocked to find out that I had been given undeserving marks (45/150) for my Food Production Practical Exams. On equiring it transpired that the external examiner from ITDC who took our practical had failed 80% of the class in this subject, me included, despite my scores in all the other subjects. In fact, as a science student I had scored 99/100 in Bookkeeping (Accounts).
All hell broke lose, there were loud protests and complaints to teachers and principal but they said their hands were tied. This led to a sit-in in the college. When we were asked to go back to the classes, the seniors called for a shut down of the college and all of us walked out and closed the gates as a mark of protest. This led to cancelling of classes. We used to assemble in front of the college and spend time sitting about. Graffiti came up on the walls, one of which was “We don’t need no education” by Pink Floyd”. Playing cards appeared, singing and dancing ensued in-between sloganeering and there was a stand off between the college and students.
A week into the protest, it so happened that the then Chief Minister of Bengal, Mr. Jyoti Basu, came to inaugurate the Spastic Society of India (Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy) that was situated opposite our college. On his way back, his motorcade was stopped by students and a memorandum was given to his secretary. Due to this intervention, a blanket instruction was given to provide 25 marks as grace marks to all students. With this most students passed but I was stuck at 70/150 which was still 5 short of passing.
The next year I appeared once again for the practical exam and scored 113/150 and cleared the paper. This was the only time in my entire educational career that I failed in an exam and it had done the damage of drawing me away from the kitchen dream and put me on the related food and beverage service career.
Thanks to this episode, I ensured that every exam I conducted as an examiner, internal or external, I ensured the students were made aware of their mistakes made in the practical exams and were shown the right way to do things at the end of the exam process, to change it from a fearsome to a learning one.
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