Food, as we gastronomes know, is much more than about sustenance. It has the power to bring diverse people together. It is also a nourishing source of meaningless politics. Earlier this week, IIT Bombay authorities imposed a ₹10,000 penalty on a student who ate non-veg in a ‘veg-only’ section of the common mess. The student was fined for ‘unruly behaviour’ and ‘flouting’ mess norms. Sure, IIT club rules apply, but it does show IITs in a very unSilicon Valley light, making non-IIT dunderheads like ourselves wonder what will happen when some of these bright sparks go to study or work abroad and be told to shift to another table for being, say, non-vegans. A couple of years ago, non-veg students were even told to use ‘different plates’. IIT Hyderabad has reportedly followed IIT-B in this ‘veg-only’ tables game.
Such segregations are not just wrong, they are also silly. It is absolutely a person’s business if she or he chooses to eat gobhi or gosht. Being a non-veg fascist is as baneful as being a shakahari supremacist. Eat what you want; don’t eat what you don’t want. But making students get hypersensitised to, say, ‘odours from the other plate’ should simply be dealt with ‘Then go sit elsewhere’. Producing oversensitive darlings is not really IITs’ remit. Eating with mates from different streams, cultures, palates is one of the things that makes campus life fun. Even for nerds.
