CHAPTER 37: 4 Students, 2 Lecturers and a Food Court

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Had lunch with the rest of the brotherhood and we were accompanied by 2 lecturers, Kalai Anand and Mrs Sunita.

After the DotNet annual general meeting (with a ‘phenomenal’ attendance record), the homeboys had already planned to have lunch with the two lecturers. As I also attended the DotNet meeting, afterwards I sort of tagged along with them.
Before going however, dr K took a sort of swipe at Shounak, saying that he should go with Mrs Sunita. He was adamant about it, and called for Harvin and Afzal to follow with him. Shoun was like …….
I had no choice. I followed him with our triple D lecturer.
She drives a Kia Spectra. It was very cleaned on the inside. My first time that I rode on this car. Felt quite cozy, the seats had leather cushioning, but sitting on the back it was too much a space, so I was like sitting ‘wide’. Shoun chatted with Mrs Sunita, I just listened. Among the chat we had with Sunita was that she had bought her car with a loan.
Anyway, Sunita got this small tupperware box that’s full of the sweet HACKS inside her car. She said she loves them, and said that if she couldn’t eat lunch or rice she gotta eat HACKS.……

As we were on our way to Carrefour, it was kind of a ‘car race' between Kalai Anand and Sunita. They were like driving side by side at quite a speed and were honking at each other, as well as opening up their side car mirrors and criticizing, each other’s driving. Through all that, I was like thinking :”what the hell is this?...”
Anyway, as we head to our destination, she put on Punjabi music, and I believe that at one time there was also a song from a film called Salaam Namaste (saw the commercial of that Bollywood movie on TV, but never saw it). As we reached Carrefour, finding parking space itself was crap. We managed to find one, in a secluded, glum lighted area. Afterwards (as we had caught up with the others), Sunita continued argued with dr K, just ‘cause of battle in getting a parking space (of course, throughout the day both lecturers kept arguing against each other in a friendly and amicable way).

As we walked up to the food court, everybody (except me, even Afzal didn’t say much) talked on. Laughs and stuff like that. Still, dr K was kinda making Shoun uncomfortable, what with the fact that Sunita was there. Shoun kinda got pissed, so he went and talked to her in private, venting out his displeasure. I just walked on. That moment, Kalai Anand, Afzal and Harvin were looking at them, but they already entered the food court (fourth floor if I’m not mistaken). Everybody had Malay food. Afzal had nasi goreng, Kalai Anand, Harvin and Shoun had rice with sizzling chicken, Sunita had nasi goring paprik.
I had Kuey Tiau Goreng.

As we had lunch, they chatted some more. At this moment, the major chatters involved were the two lecturers, and Shoun and Harvin. The topics we heard and spoke were diverse. But it was also during this moment that sparks were ignited as Kalai and Shoun kept hitting back and countering against each other as they argued over some things. There was this moment once that Shoun said he’ll be loyal to his girlfriend, then Kalai spoke back to him that that won’t be the case, as he says :”…..life is a contract. It finishes……..”. He was meaning that Shoun couldn’t possibly stick to his gal. They kept on talking back at each other, and at a moment Shoun said to Kalai Anand “You’re nothing but a kid”. Kalai then talked about his collection of his favourite TV series, saying how 24, Lost and the CSI series are all very good series. He went on saying that he got them all on original format, bought from Bangsar (if I’m not mistaken).
Kalai Anand was really a lively guy throughout this period. It was a side that I rarely know or came face to with dr K, considering the fact that when I first came across him in my first WDI class , he was not like anything today.. Besides, everybody was sort of treating everybody like friends, not lecturer-student relationship ERD. Heck, Harvin even went and called Sunita as Sunita (not Maam or ms, haha).

Well, talks kept on going, as we all devoured our food (and thanks to Kalai Anand for belanja makan and Sunita for belanja minum). Among the other hot topic that came up was when Harvin recounted his working experiences back at Genting.
He was telling all sorts of stuff related to his time back at the casino, like how he and other gambling dealers had already had the habit of keep checking their hands (so to show that they do not cheat themselves), the stories from Genting, and telling how that Genting got control of all media as they didn’t want to leak all those nasty news out to the public, the gamblers habits and crazy behaviors while gambling, the many security cameras, suicides, and so on. As Harvin was telling all this, Kalai Anand was like agreeing totally to everything to what Harvin said, and dr K himself was saying some stuffs related to Genting as if he really got experiences with them. Hmmm…………..
As he kept on talking about Genting, Harvin told this fact, that the people powering Genting had bought ‘Seven Brothers” (spirits…..things like that) and planted them underneath the casino for the casino’s own good fortune and the so called spirituality to make customers keep coming back to the casino. At this point, Shoun made an argument, that he didn’t much believed in this kind of stuffs (spirits, spirits, spirits). Both Kalai and Harvin counter back, saying that they had been some phenomenon’s that had been occurred at the gambling tables where nobody could explain how stuffs happen , but still Shoun couldn’t accept it. Those two kept on hitting back at Shoun,…haha….even dr K sort of challenged Shounak to come with him to prove that these stuff were for real. He was saying something like :”Bring two black chickens, seven threads, and follow me when there’s a full moon. I tell you, you will piss in your pants and run”.
………All these talks on these spirits’ stuff make my head dizzy, and my mind kept shaking sideways, as I also find it hard to believe that these sorts of stuffs exists on this world (of course these kind of things happen, but to Islamic perspective, it’s already wrong to be part of it). Afzal also was …so so.

Hmphhh,…… Got back at APIIT around after 3 pm. But before that, me, Shoun and Sunita went in a merry-go-round at the parking lot, ‘cause we all forgotten the parking space number. Bloody hell, all that crap itself took at least 20 minutes, walking, walking, then turning back, then went on walking again, completely lost. Arghhh.
Of course, we found back her car. We all thought the parking number was ‘B 1’. However, it was a ‘I 8’.

As we were inside the car on the way back to APIIT, Shoun again spoke to Sunita. This time he was sort of asking for an advice from her, as he told her about his dilemma between the two women in his life. Shoun was split between Lydia and his mother, and then asking our triple lecturer what he should do. She went on saying something on the line that Shoun ought to get a stable career first, then he can really decide what’s best for him.
I kept on listening to them talking…………and the music that was blazing out on the radio.
As we reached APIIT, Shoun, Afzal and I proceeded to LAB 2, trying to finish up and submit our WM tutorials online.

So it was a day my friends and myself shared lunch with two of our lecturers. Have to say, that it was for me, a kinda unique experience, as I never had this sort of interaction with friends and lecturers together before.
And it all began after theDotNet SIG annual meeting, where at the end of it I got elected for the post of VP (Vice President).

Great, now I have to learn DotNet.