Canteens at their service

Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, is located 34km from the city. All the masti that happens here happens only on campus. They have two different canteens — one for the staff and another for students. First and final-year students have lunch together, followed by second and third-year students. The canteens offer healthy options for breakfast and lunch — north and south Indian meals, roti and vegetarian dishes. Since students spend hours on commuting, fun time is limited, but there’s definitely no dearth of options to eat out.

“Coffee Day (just a coffee shop), which is centrally located and is near the basketball court, draws the crowd. It has tasty and affordable options to pick from. Six friends and I opened an Aavin outlet as part of our e-cell activities. It is run completely by students and the profits are divided amongst us. The college was kind enough to give us the space. There’s tea, coffee, flavoured milk, icecream, etc. We work and have fun here,” says final-year civil engineering student Gulshan Iyer. Aavin has now been passed on to juniors.

Students claim that the canteen is a great place to hang out till 8 am and during lunch. Although bunking classes is a strict no-no in this college, students have a great time teasing the disciplinarians by staying out and running to class in the last minute.

Iyer says, “It is fun to meet our friends from other departments and share food and gossip. We get 15 minutes after college hours since our buses back home leave immediately after. But the variety of food across the vast campus keeps us happy.”

Unanimously they agree that the best time on campus is when the college canteen supplies hot and yummy samosas at 10am every day to most blocks.

Iyer’s friend Santosh remarks, “The melting point and tea point are also places where we like to go to for gupshup.” Hostellites too have a fun time. There is a red light on campus where everyone sits down to chat after dinner. It has been christened the ‘red light area’ as a joke.

With students of many disciplines including engineering, MBA, MCA and architecture, the students have an array of people to interact with and learn from.

—preethi@newindianexpress.com