A Leaf From My Memory (GBS Part 2)

-Santosh Koirala

Daal, Daal and more Daal
(Although I could have said pulses for daal, I have used the word daal to make the story more interesting)

I am not so sure whether it was the beginning of the first or the second term of Class 5, we 4 close friends were having our discussion of how we had spent the recently finished month long holiday. In middle of the discussion one of the guy changed the topic to "daal". He told us that if you drink lot of daal then your height increases.Nobody believed him. He even gave the example of one of the senior guy who had increased almost a foot in couple of months.Remaining three of us made fun of him, but surprisingly we were wrong.We were the last one to know the fact,every single student of Gandaki Boarding School knew about it and had started trying their luck already.

To be frank, I was the smallest one in the class and most of the time I used to get humiliated by big students in regard to my height.I had tried different liquid medicines, calcium tablets to name a few, but all went in vain and I still was only 4' 7''. When this new medicine was proposed by my friend, I was totally excited and started thinking myself as being an "Undertaker" or other big wresting pros and taking revenge against my villians( bigger boys).

But, I was not the first one to do that.After having a serve of Bhaat Daal and Tarkari, most of the junior students used to raise their hands to get the second serve full of Daal only. The students made Daal of different flavours as well. Some used to keep the seasonings of noodles, some went for ghee and some used to go for lemon flavoured ones by squeezing lemon on top of it.

And there was a special thing about the Daal that used to be served as well.The Mamas (we used to call mama for kitchen staff)used to cook only two tubs of daal,one for the junior and the next for the senior. You may be thinking how big that tub used to be,but to tell you the fact the tub used to be a normal size about 30-35 litres. The quantity in the tub never decreased even by serving around 200 people. The reason was that, when the Daal's level reached almost half, one of the mama used to come and fill the vessel with a bucket of hot water.The mama serving the height increaser Daal used to stir the mixture with the ladle and then there was a vessel full of Daal again.

As everyone was interested in increasing their height, mostly the guys like me who were just above the level of dwarfs, used to have around 3-4 serves of Daal everyday. I recall once that I even ran to the toilet six times during the night due to problem with digestion, but who cares, I was having the greatest medicine I ever dreamt of and without extra bucks. Every single guy who used to stand in the assembly line like me had their tummy full of Daal only. The Daal mania went to such a high limit that the mamas plan of adding water failed, every daal used to be consumed and kitchen started running out of Daal.

With no hope of feeding the students in the current scenario, on one of the Saturday morning assembly, the Hostel Supervisor made an announcement that having a serve full of Daal only is prohibited. Although the statement issued, made an impact to most of the students, I used to manage having lots of Daal anyway by taking a small serve of rice and a full big ladle of Daal on the first serve itself. This continued almost for one year but this didnt help me either.I used to check my height once or twice every fortnight then by stretching myself to the fullest, but I remained the same everytime.

Although more than a decade has passed now, I still remember those moments. Those moments have been a history but my desire to become a tall man still haunts me every now and then.

(To read "A Leaf From My Memory(GBS Part 1)"click here. Part 1 was written by Durga Pandey)