AT THE FERMENTATION LAB

I am living a dream,may be the hard way,but I am.Right after class 10th,i knew HOTEL MANAGEMENT was the thing for me.My father,a fourth generation army officer ,on knowing this was "SHOCKED",in every sense of the word.I had 94.2% in my 10th boards,I mean I was meant for "bigger things",that was what everyone said.So I decided against "SPOILING" my future.I started my preparations for IITJEE.In my country ,everyone who is good in academics does this.

But thanks to my dad's posting to Kolkata and my lack of knowledge of the good tuition centres there,i started a correspondence course.BUT as luck would have it ,I even cleared IITJEE.My dad was so "HAPPY",though, with a bad rank of 2593.

But due to a confusing system of counselling that incidently started in my batch itself,I was "ALLOTTED'' ,DUAL DEGREE COURSE IN BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOCHEMICAL ENGG.

First year went by without anything to write home about.Like any guy who got something more than he deserves,i spent my first year eating out,partying and bhaat(Baat +Chaat,a KGP term) maaroing .No wonder I could not manage a DEPT C(department change,another KGP term).


In case you are wondering how is this crap I just wrote, anywhere related to Fermentation Lab.Well!!the day starts now.

We were divided in groups of 8.My group had all five year students viz.Kamdar Moullic Rajender
(Ya thats the name of a single guy),Varun,Subhradeep Samaddar,Soumya Poddar(He is a guy,Incase you are wondering),Dushyant,Me and our "group leader" ,a girl .AND of course ME.We had seven members,so we were one down already.

This lab ,on paper, is of 3 hours,but it requires you to be "present" a day pre and post experiment.So for the lab meant to be held on Thursday we all were supposed to come to the lab on Wednesday.Our leader called in sick (Something that i think is debatable).Soumya Podadar
was unaware of the timing ,so he was not there as well .Moullick had a healing broken arm.The experiment was supposedly the lengthiest in the group.Varun,Subhradeep,Dushyant and ME left.We were required to do as many as three tasks at a time.
All these tasks are so much similar to cooking .I mean that was what we were doing,we were preparing food for the microbes,after all.So right from washing the cutlery ,ie .the Petri Dish,making Nutrient Agar for the microbes,prebaking (technically called AUTOCLAVING )the food was ,to making cotton plugs(similar to making Kathi Rolls) was to be done.I was in a gourmet kitchen ,the head chef was absent and somebody had to be the Sous chef,and we were really short of manpower.After 5 hours of work in the gourmet kitchen ,while everyone was cursing the absentees and Moullick's terribly bad sense of humor, I had a nice big smile on my face.Doing engg I worked in a kitchen,ok ,fine it was a lab but ,what difference does it make.

I lived my dream.But the work was not yet over.The next day we were supposed to put the microbes on the dishes.So I got to do the work of a waiter as well.the minor differnce being ,my customer was not placing any order,was not demanding great food and was a little smaller than an average sized customer.It didn't tip me as well,so it pretty evens it out.A dinner service of five hours and we were done.Our leader ,incidentally had to leave early,because she had an appointment with a doctor.

The next day.The colony counting part was done by Varun ,Moullick and (finally!!!!) OUR LEADER.But there is more to it.In any restaurant ,its not just cooking and serving that is required.You gotta wash the dishes as well.Dushyant and I were given this dirty work.

Nice three days.It made me a chef,a sous chef at that,a waiter and a dishwasher as well.

Looking forward to more such experiments.And yes ,would like the leader to LEAD this time.