The hostel messes in IITK are lately being refurnished and they have got this new self service system in place now. Also the old row based sitting system is gone and there are many smaller tables. So u are free to sit wherever u want and with ur friends. I find it a welcome change from the regular sit-in-the-order-eat-in-quantums style.

During summers, students from other hostels (Hall 5) are also eating in hall 2 mess. Now there is a strange thing I have seen. Some of them just leave their plates on the tables after eating and since I have heard this myself, it is not that they forget to do it. For some of them, it is an unacceptable idea that they are supposed to pick up their plates and put them to sink/trolly. I am quite amazed since I have always felt that the old practice of leaving ur plates on the tables in the mess was actually pretty bad. Since my childhood I have learned to go and put my plate in the sink. In fact letting somebody else pick up my plate (read my mom or my sis) actually feels so bad.

Infact a very positive effect of putting down ur plate urself is that u tend to waste less food. It seems quite humiliating to pick up a plate having food and dump it. U are forced to think about that wasted food for sometime (read 15-20 sec) atleast and believe me, it makes a difference.

Another related aspect is that in some of the families, women of the house are supposed to clean up the table and put away all the plates. May be the number of such households are decreasing but they are still there. I think the first lesson of feminism should start right at home may be? :P I hope when our generation starts their families, they teach their children the right attitude.

In good faith :)

Comments

Mahesh Reddy said…
true..its a good habit to put away the plates and glasses after u eat and it won't be easy to waste food..its a good thing to do in Hostel too. We tried it in Hall-7 but the problem with this is the trolley or basket has to be deep, which makes puting ur plate in that pretty unpleasant..
i hope u got what i mean...

coming to wastage of food the idea of putting some posters in the mess to prevent wastage of idea worked...but slowly people got used to those posters ;-( Maybe one thing that might work is..display the amount of food that went as waste yesterday...
I'll try thing in hall-7 coming Semester..

-Mahesh
celebrating Life...
June 4, 2004 at 7:57 PM
Saurabh Nanda said…
I never thought about this aspect.... throwing food actually does make an impact.

I tried persuading people not to waste food in the mess... and they come up with answers like - "It's so fucking pathetic - not worth eating"... I mean "Duh! You didnt have to load your plate even before tasting it!!"

Some habits die hard, I guess.
June 9, 2004 at 4:21 PM
Anonymous said…
my roommate was doing a project in summers . he found that on an average food wastage per day is 800 kg. per mess.We should think atleast twice before wasting food .
I have also changed my habbit and whatever i take i finish nehow.
ashish
August 1, 2004 at 1:22 AM
Anonymous said…
>Infact a very positive effect of putting down ur plate urself is that u tend to waste less food.

> U are forced to think about that wasted food for sometime (read 15-20 sec) atleast and believe me, it makes a difference.

let me tell one thing,no one over here in iitk goes thr in mess with even a smallest thought of leaving or wasting food over thr.everytime we go in thr with the hope that atleast this time we will get something which has a better taste. believe me that we take only that much, we require. but if it tastes like shit then what can we do.
and the thing about making difference, it would be better if thats made in the quality of food. and hall-7 is a living example in front of us.

> Since my childhood I have learned to go and put my plate in the sink. In fact letting somebody else pick up my plate (read my mom or my sis) actually feels so bad.

grow up man, these workers over here are not your mom, she does it for you becoz its her love for you, ofcourse then its ur duty to do it urself,please don't degrade it by comparing it to the workers over here.

for gods sake they are being paid for it,its their job to do work, they are not hired for standing idle.

> I think the first lesson of feminism should start right at home may be? :P I hope when our generation starts their families, they teach their children the right attitude.

come on man what do you want our generation to teach to our children.
# hire a worker, pay him, and then go and work on his place.
#get a sweeper, and then give him a sofa and television to watch, and sweep the house on your own.
whatever the hell you want better keep it to urself, becoz no one else would like their children to do the job for which someone else is being paid
August 1, 2004 at 1:37 AM
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