The ordeal of Rs 600

Let me start by confessing that I’m out and out spendthrift, with constant supplies being demanded from my personal bank (my father). All was well until I became aware of spending habits of everyone around me vis a vis my budget. I would spend anywhere around 6000-8000 bucks a month compare to the relatively less 3000-4000 bucks everyone spent (monthly). Even guys hooked onto money squander habits like smoking and drinking could manage with a far smaller budget. I knew where my load of finances went, for those of you who know me it was the restaurants and food joints.

So there I was a virtual cash dispensing machine, ready to spend on any item which can be ingested without causing deathJ. Just to give you an idea of my habits, I remember going off campus at 10:00pm in the night all alone on my bike just because I felt like I needed a snack. Once over a conversation I just happened to mention my monthly budget everyone seemed to be stoned on hearing it, some of them even went on and said he’s bluffing right in my face. The conversation was some food for thought, so I sat down and decided to cut down on my spending and by cutting down I meant a heavy cut down. They say in companies a 5% reduction in the expenditure is a cause for company wide jubilation and takes over 2 years (i.e. if it succeeds) to achieve, to my dismay I was looking at a cut in the range of somewhere around 70-80% just to prove to my self that I was not a waster.

So I set my self a target get through the month on a maximum of Rs600/- (300 resto’s + 300 in account at local shop ) apart from the usual laundry, Newspaper and mess bills. I would call it absolute stupidity that one’s brain comes up with while trying to be optimistic. The first few days I stuck to the mess (was a change for sure) trying to eat to stay alive, (here I have to mention the amount of potatoes I consumed in these few days was staggering) After the first week I felt like I was a prisoner who was being served food at the mess instead of the prison cell. After a fortnight I was doubting my sense of taste, I thought that I lost it and there was a good reason for me thinking that way, by then I was so overwhelmed by the bland taste of the mess food that I couldn’t differentiate between the vegetables cooked there and all of them tasted like pumpkin porridge (no taste what so ever). I thought to myself, A few days more and I could see my self turning green and developing my own food through photosynthesis! For the first time in my life I felt how addicted I had become to outside (food from resto’s and junk joints) food, and now I was facing withdrawal symptoms (some thing similar to the ones faced by drug addicts in a rehab center). Every subsequent meal at the mess pushed me.

Finally with just one week to go for the Deadline I cracked, I said to hell with and zipped off to the city to have a good nourishing and scrumptious meal, It felt like the best meal I had in a long time and blew out around 400 bucks in a single day. “ Ahh finally! Why did I come with this stupid plan anyway?” I thought to myself, and ended the long battle with an elongated burp (sounds gross). After the battle was lost the lone soldier returned to his cabin not in jubilation but with a feeling of content defeat (Content because of the meal). I lost the battle but won the war that month I survived on a mere 1200 bucks an exultant victory considering my previous expenditure.

The sinful kababs of lucknow