Some days are just bad days, that’s all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is! Happy Panda backpacker hostel, my first place of work was really a bittersweet kind of experience as well. I went to this place with nothing but a suitcase in my hand and no cooking experience (Except making maggi). In the duration of 20 days that I worked there, I met a versatile bunch of people, some of which were professional travelers, talented musicians, creative painters, an author writing his book and a passionate chef. Of-course let us not forget the crazy couple who had the courage to quit their jobs in corporate world in order to open this place. They truly deserve a special mention. Trust me when I say this that I have lived with a few remarkable gentlemen in my life but this was my first experience of living with such a peculiar group. This place holds such importance for me because I learnt the basics about cooking. Unfortunately things didn’t worked out as expected and I ended up leaving the place in 20 days. What felt like humiliation in those days now seems more like a lesson to me and I have no hard feelings about the whole scenario of leaving the hostel so early and I am still in contact with the owners. Though in that moment it really felt like I was thrown out because I was good for nothing. I learned my lesson about the professional world really early in my career, that rejection may be bitter but it just nudges you to get better and get back in the game once again until you become the best version of yourself.
Following are the extracts from my diary entries which I had written during my stay at the hostel i.e. during the month of June 2016.
Note: Please bear with the language, grammatical mistakes, incomplete description and other things wrong about these extracts. I was a beginner at that time. I have restrained myself from editing it in any form (Except at a place or two to bring more clarity) to keep the very essence of my boyhood alive. You might find the below content as too childish but I was just a beginner. This is again the proof of what I/HungryHitchhiker always say: ‘Every ordinary person can do it, let your dream be extraordinary.’ Everyone has to start from some place.
First steps
Right now I am sitting in a train and will reach Goa soon. I am so happy since this is the first step which I have taken towards my dream. Here I will be working in Happy Panda hostel which is a backpacker hostel located on the beautiful Arambol beach in North Goa. I have been assigned the task to manage cooking section of the hostel and also I will get the opportunity to work on a project in which the hostel founders are planning to open up a small cafe inside the hostel premises. A bit afraid since I really do not have much experience in this field and really excited over the opportunity I am getting. I hope I will live up to the expectations by performing the task that has been assigned to me and the most I am hoping for is, that this project gives a head start to my dream. Besides it will also be good for my hungry exploration for different cuisines as if there is one place a person can get the most variety of food in India, it has to be Goa. Another benefit of being here is with such a highly culturally mix hub I will get to get some idea about different cultures present in this world in a single stop. So with so much things that can be done in Goa, I hope it will be an overall really amazing experience.
Exciting world!
Job 1 day 1
So, as I told you before also I was supposed to join a backpacker hostel in Goa. This place is marvelous. It is a startup in its very early stage looking to establish each and everything. This place is basically white in color like a white house with a total 28 bunk beds divided in four dormitory rooms. Apart from the dormitory, there is a living room, kitchen, garage and a veranda. Veranda is covered with glasses so that this region can remain protected from downpour (as it rains heavily in Goa) and also can be served as a semi room. Each and every room will has various paintings such as Bob Marley, Panda, some foreign letters, quotes etc. Garage area has been converted to a small Cafe cum Bar, which is a priority for me for an awesome learning experience.
Here we have many people who are really artistic in nature, be in paintings, designs, typography, and calligraphy or just imagining things. There is a guy Abhyuday who is a complete gypsy from the core of his heart and an amazing guitar player who loves to do buskins and unfortunately doing engineering like everyone else in India. He is here as the content writer and for creating some amazing designs to be painted in this hostel. Then there is a guy by the name Joey, total Mumbai ka launda. Just graduated from 12th standard but already a rockstar. In his own words ‘I can drink limitless alcohol’. He is here for painting and stuff, he recently painted a really big Bob Marley over a wall which was incredible. Then there is Naseem, who is a bit serious kind of guy, who is committed to his work and has traveled a lot. In his own words ‘Given a chance to pick one of traveling or sex, I will chose traveling any day’. Can be seen smoking all the time. Arul, he flies drones as a profession. Yeah that is true, it’s a profession to fly drone and he is quite good at it, has been flying drones even for shows like Roadies. He has come here for some photography of the hostel. Daniel, he is from Afghanistan who along with Vicky (Naseem) is studying arts from past 4 years In Jamia University New Delhi. Gosh! you should see his calligraphy, all I can think is how can a person be so talented. Then there is another person who stays always on his own. His name is Gautam, he is creating quotes and designing posters to put at different places in Hostel. And finally there are two founders of this amazing happy panda backpackers hostel, Mansi and Parin. Mansi is a sweetheart, taking care of everyone like a mother, although a really cool mother. I am surprised at the amount of work she can do alone. Cooking cleaning etc., she can do anything. Parin is the guy who calls the shots here while making sure everyone is working, he is able to create an exceptionally chilling atmosphere. Amazing boss to work under and an amazing personality. So much to learn so much to explore. Extra exciting opportunities indeed 😉
Happy Panda 🙂
Job 1 week 1
So it is a weird world and I have made some great progress. Mansi is actually a great cook herself and getting to learn cooking in an ‘amazing feeling waala’ way from her is a good experience.
Living with artistic people is really helping me to open up my mind. Besides other things about artists I realized that an artist is smooth and has a relaxed personality who loves to work in a flow. Cooking also being an art should always be innovative and inventive. No matter how many times you have cooked a dish before there is scope of a change in it and a chef should always cook according to the flow, even if it means changing the recipe.
I have prepared few dishes till now such as Manchurian, Pav Bhaji, biryani and the amazing part is I am gaining confidence in cooking. Worry over cooking simple things is now thing of the past. Cooking in large quantities is also taking its toll on me as well, hectic schedule and chopping my nails is now kind of a regular ritual for me. But everything is totally worth it.
Main skill that I have developed in this coming week is of Chopping, I have learned how to use a chef knife and chopping has never been so fun (and classy). Another good skill I have developed is the art of making omelet. Whether to add water or milk (or cream), butter or oil, how to rotate the spatula on a frying pan to make it fluffy and tasty. I guess that is it.
Happy Knife chopping!
Job 1 week 2: entry of Simon
It was a dull week indeed, with nothing exciting happening around me. Same old schedule like last week. There is one accomplishment I achieved in the form of Pasta. It was amazing and it was just my first attempt. Even Mansi said she was proud of me for it. But other than that it was kind of same old repetition except one big disaster. Would you like to know about a combination of Tomato soup with rice? Oh! That will never be forgotten. Surprisingly all my hostel mate still ate it with such kindness. They are always encouraging me to do better.
A twist in the tale came with the entry of Simon who is a Professional chef and he has been cooking since his childhood days. Amazing part about him is that he has taken no professional course and has learnt on his own (from experience called life). He was indeed a delight to work with and I got to learn a lot of things from him in a little time span of 4 days. Everyone was happy because they were getting to eat real amazing quality of food. We even celebrated Eid and the sewaiya was a delight to eat. Mansi taught me to make that.
I can now definitely say I have 2-3 good quality dishes on my hands with more to follow. I am enjoying cooking and I think my path of learning is the right one.
Baby steps!
Job 1 week 3
Well, as it turns out I tried but failed and before I could recover from the shock of previous week, I was given a bigger shock of getting to know they have changed their plans for the cafe and I was no longer a part of it. So to put it in simple words, I was fired. It has been 24 hours since I got to know about this and all I can think is what went wrong. I mean the way I wanted to experiment were different from the perspective of Mansi and Pareen. Also for some reason, we didn’t had that sync with each other which was leading to quite a few problems. But I had a long analysis of myself because I felt something was missing. I was working hard (like 8-10hrs a day) but I was missing the thing called professionalism. I need to work over it. Should I feel that whatever I am doing is nothing but some bullshit and I am not good for it? This was another question that troubled me a lot today. And something struck me, anything can happen if I really work hard. I would like to take positives from this thing. Professionalism is my new target in life. I know I am at right path. Just work in a better way. Also I will always cherish the way I got to live with so many creative people. The way they thought and reacted was extraordinary. Today I lost a battle but it’s a long war and I am going to keep fighting to be who I want to be.
Fall and rise again.
As I go through these extracts for the first time after writing them down 16 months ago, I realize how much I have grown, both as person and as a cook. Although still not a good writer, my writing skills have also been part of improvement process. Reading and remembering the things I have done at my first journey makes me wonder how naive I was, like a small kid. And to go through what I went during that time, makes me wonder if I was really that crazy? I didn’t even know how to cook anything before except maybe maggi. Whatever I am today and whatever I will be in the future is and will be because of this place.
