Casa de Cha

This is Manoj Uncle, owner, Casa

I never understood why we ignored this place in the first year. We always used this place for fags or simply chai at very irregular intervals. This could be due the fact that we weren't sure of such a place and since hardly anybody had meals there, nobody could know the greatness of the food there.

So what is so great about the place. Is it the food? Is it the place itself (almost on the banks of Mandovi and the view from the window seat was so serene!!)? Is it the service which Manoj uncle used to give. Why on earth we got so emotional and so attached with this place in the 2nd yr?

I think it all started with summers. Quite a few of our batchmates were doing their summers in Goa. And it was they who started having their lunch at Casa. And i think it was they who made the place so popular.

We tried. We liked it. We really liked it!! For the non-veg ppl, Wed and Fri was spl because chicken was prepared. And the best thing about the food at Casa was the simplicity. The simplicity was expressed in taste, in preparation, in serving.

And the lunch was usually followed by lime soda - "nimbu soda". This drink was a big hit. Everyone liked it. Everyone had it at least once. We used to have it after lunch. We used to have it after a match played be it Volleyball or football or cricket. This drink was consumed by all and it saw becoming a part of all the post discussions which used to happen after the matches or any other discussion - be it private or public.

Other items offered at Casa were nimbu cha (lemon tea), half fry, masala pav, samosas and MIRCHI PAKODA. This was one more item which was so popular. Prof Mirchi was asked my Manoj Unlce "Mirchi pakoda?" and Prof Mirchi used to say "haan..one plate". And then i used to ask Mirchi.."sir, u also come in plates???" and he used to laugh it away!!

So everyone was very closely associated with Casa. Be it us or Fac. CMR used to spend 1/3rd of his time at Casa out of the time he used to spend at the institute. Prof. Ranjini, Prof Sarita, Mukesh, Vivek the librarian, Prof Nagu, Prof Mihir, Prof Anand.

One fac which was never seen (or perhaps was seen only once or max twice) was Prof Parulekar. I still don't have any clue why he was hardly seen at Casa. Nina Jacob was one other person never seen there. But then HR ppl have their own creativity in explaining why they do things differently!! Sundaram would agree with me on this.

One typical habit we had developed in the 4th term was playing CS the whole night and then have breakfast at Casa. And then sleep the whole day. Visitng Facs were very kind enough to come in the middle of the term during the weekends. Hence we were vella the whole day.

This was followed by lunch at Casa. I always used to have Veg thali with more than 2 kappas in it. The typical ingredients of the thali were:
1) 2 cups of rice
2) papad
3) Salad
4) Dal
5) Bhaaji
6) Sol kari.
7) Kappa
8) pickles.

The non-veg didn't have Bhaaji and pickles. Fish (baangra or king fish and on very rare occasions prawns) was the regular feature in the non-veg thali.

As you can see, simplicity of the food was the biggest strength. But later on it was more of a hang-out joint. When we didn't want to be in the institute, we used to be at Casa.

Carlos and that lazy person (never knew his name).....were a typical feature of Casa. Carlos typical was hardly seen. But whenever he was visible, he was always on his toes. And that lazy person always used to forget the orders he took. Hence he always used to come the 2nd time to check whether he missed out any order. It turned out that he had to take most of the orders again.

I think this delay did a lot of things. It helped in oozing out all the fatigue we used to carry before entering Casa. I think it did a lot in building the bondage we share as a batch in a big way.

If one does an analysis on the time spent outside the campus, then Casa would have a market share of more than 75%. This means that apart from classrooms and hostel rooms, the no. of times we used to go out, we used to be at Casa almost 8 out of 10 times. This is huge. As daily crowding at Casa was so frequent.

This daily crowding got infected so rapidly to our junior batch as well. In that way, they are damn lucky as we never had such infections!!

The biggest day in Manoj uncle's life would be when he recieved 80 grand in one day. This was our last day at the institute. Uncle was so over-whelmed that he was treating all of us with beer and cold-drinks at Gene's. In spite of us not wanting them any more, he kept "dumping" those bottles of beer on us.

And he was in tears when we all were leaving. As Ishaan and Ashish had put it, he misses us as much as we miss him. I miss that beg thali. Those kappas. That nimbu soda.