Matriculation Dinner

These are my experiences at the matriculation dinner held on Saturday, 20th October. Read it in conjunction with the end of the previous post on "Mushrooms with a sprinkling of supervisions", for the beginning of this post to make sense.

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Arose at 7:30 and arrayed myself in finery. Black suit, white shirt and red tie. Wore gown for the third time tonight. Went for dinner. On my left at the dinner table was a Chinese guy called Xi (pronouced she) Tan. On his left was a german guy whose name I didn't quite catch. To my right was a chinese guy called K. K. K. Lee. I think his first name was Ke(l)vin. (Not sure about the 'l'). To his right was a professor, who had been dislodged from the high table. Not sure why there were professors sprinkled all over the tables, but I guess the high table can't accommodate all of them. The German guy is doing maths, doesn't like colours and failed the Turing test, Xi is doing computer science and sleeps three hours a day and the three of us were chatting mostly amongst ourselves. Didn't speak much to KKK Lee and he probably got a bit bored sandwiched between me and the professor. Oh and the professor was the Director of Studies (DoS) of the german guy, which means the professor was a maths professor. Deduction.

There was my name on a folded bit of paper that was standing on its legs at my place at the table. It said "I Laskar". There were napkins folded like flowers. Three different sizes of wine glasses (whose use became clearer as the evening wore on), two sizes of forks, two knives and one spoon were arranged as well. (Now that I think about it... were they silver?) There was also a folded menu card and a list of toasts on the table. The first course was smoked salmon in something sauce. Then a main course of steak, potatoes, mushrooms, then the "cheese board" and finally coffee and truffles. On the second page was a list of toasts (with "proposed by the Master" in brackets). The first one said "Queen" and the second one read "New Fellows". Quaint.

So the first course arrived and wine was served. They had both red and white wines and the waiters went about periodically refilling glasses. I didn't realise it then, but the wines that were being served had names and the names were written on the corner of the menu card. I read those and thought them to be names of people written on the menu in memoria of their recipes. Anyhow, I busied myself with the salmon. It was a thin slice of pink stuff and to my surprise, it was cold. It didn't have any salt either. Ate it nevertheless.

There were times between the courses when there was no food for long durations and then we would look around and smile politely at people. I did get a conversation going leftwards with the compsci guy and the german Guy (Labelled Xi and G respectively henceforth). Couldn't see the chap in front of me too well as he wsa obscured in glasses and water bottles. Oh and the water was "sparkling water", as opposed to the other flavour of water they drink here called spring water. On Xi's comment that he couldn't find any difference between the water and the wine, I decided to try out both.

So I tried the wine. The reason I did was because there was some in my glass. The reason there was some in my glass was because the waiter didn't listen to me when I said I didn't want any. The lady who served the row of people facing me across the table was asking each person if they wanted what she was giving. They guy who served my side didn't. With the result that I had some wine in my galss. Anyway, the point is that there was some wine in my glass, so I decided to try it out. If Xi couldn't tell the difference between the water and the wine, either the wine was watery or the water was winey. I thought the latter was unlikely and that what he meant was that the wine was watery. It turned out that it was the other way round. I sipped some of the wine. It made a burning sensation on the way down and was somewhat bitter. Not particularly appetising, but I did make sure I had enough of it to remember the taste afterwards!

Up next was the main course. There was steak and as the waitress brought it around, I considered it prudent to ask what it was made of. When she confirmed that it was indeed beef, I declined the steak, with memories of the fresher's formal still fresh. "Would you like a vegarian option? Are you a vegetarian?" I said yes and no in some confusion, then clarified that though I wasn't a vegetarian, I didn't want the steak. To that she nodded understandingly and vanished. Subsequently, the mushrooms and potatoes came around, but I wasn't asked. Everyone had their share of steak and mushrooms and potatoes and I waited with an empty plate until someone came and removed the plate as well.

I understood the concept when a few minutes later, a plate preloaded with food arrived and was placed in front of me. It had brinjal in tomato curry (ugh) and some little round yellow things, which looked like bajra. I'm not sure even now what that really was. I guessed that it was some cereal, like rice, but it wasn't rice or wheat or corn, or bajra for that matter. Or maybe it was bajra. Anyway, I tried it and it wasn't too bad. Then one of the waitresses asked if I'd like some mushrooms (yes please) and some potah-toze (yes thank you). So then I proceeded to polish off the contents of my plate with considerable relish. The most surprising thing was that there was some salt in the cereal, though none in the sabzi, mushrooms or potah-toze (and probably none in the steak the others had as well) Just to verify, I did ask G how the steak was and he said it was good. Anyway, I'm still sure I didn't miss having it, such is my faith in the British kitchen.

When the main course was over, waiters issued forth once more from their recesses and cleared the table. Now I realised what all the glasses were for, for port was then brought forth and poured into the third glass, the first two having been used for white and red wines respectively. I declined the port (and the red wine earlier). Apparently, the port glasses are different and are the ones used for toasting certain members of the royal family. Suddenly a gong rang. All conversation ceased and the hall fell silent. Their was an enormous rustle as Everyone stood up. The master bellowed something. Everyone lifted their glasses and drank port. Their was another enormous rustle and Everyone sat down. Converstaion resumed normally. The entire episode lasted about fifteen seconds. It dawned on me several seconds later that what the master had said was the phrase "To the Queen". So everyone had just toasted the Queen. Hmm.

Then we had the cheese board. What that means is that there is a plate with a variety of new and young as well as old and stinky cheeses pasted on it and you can take as much as you like, with the idea of having it with biscuits. I'm not sure how universal this idea of cheese-and-biscuits is, but it was fairly new to me. It's when I saw that there were biscuits placed at the head of the table that I made the connection. Further, the head of the table was occupied with students of somewhat unsocial nature (or of obliviety to the fact that there were no other plates of buscuits on the table) with the result that whatever was placed there never made it down to the rest f the table. The truffles met a similar and unfortunate fate. They were put down at the head and the head got pretty merry on them, but they never arrived at the middle of the table. As far as the biscuits go, we just had the cheese with knives. As regards the truffles, someone from the next table finally took pity on us and passed us some of their truffles.

After the cheeses, there was another gong, followed by the same rustling and ovation. Then the voice of the master was heard over the PA system, which is pretty impressive, given that you can't locate where the speakers ar and he bade everyone be seated. The first thing he said in his speech was "I have two bits of some not so good news" and then he proceeded to elaborate. The first bit of bad news was that South Africa were beating England in the ongoing Rugby match and that while South Africa had scored fifteen, "England's score differs from them by a perfect square", as told to him by professor something. He then followed out the calculation and informed us that that meant that England had scored six. Though how he figured out which perfect square to take away from fifteen, there being three of them below that number, I still haven't discovered.

The second bit of not-so-good news was that of all the free dinners hosted by the college in our honour, this was to be the last event and that we had already met the people who were going to be important in our student life here, the tutors and the dierectors of studies and that he now had pleasure in being the last one to welcome us to Trintiy and that he was the Master. He then said that the primary duty of the master was as custodian of the Master's lodge and mentioned the Grandfather clock of Newton which is housed there and which he showed us when we went for drinks there on the 15th. The next thing he said was somewhat of a surprise. In welcoming us to Trinity, I imagined he would quote illustious stalwarts of yore who had brought fame and fortuen to the in ages past. What I was not expecting was for him to begin his solitary list of eminent members with the comment: "It has been exactly hundred years now this matricualtion dinner that Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the former Prime Minister of India entered Trinity and was seated at these tables just like you today"

The rest of the speech was a general and humorous welcome to the college and what one must and must not do, punctuated with ceremonial polite laughter and ending with the traditional clapping. As the speech came to a close, the master requested all the non-first year student (and I got confused whether it included me, not actually being a first-year student) to please rise and to drink a toast to the new members of college. A few scattrered people all across the hall rose as if on a pushbutton and toasted those who remained sitting.

The last thing on the menu was coffee and truffles. I decided to try the coffee out, making sure I got a lot of nice white milk, only to discover that therewas no sugar in the coffee, nor anywhere else on the table. So I didn't drink it. That was it for the party. Everything was eaten and all the drinks had been drunk and it was a quarter past ten and everyone was just sitting and chatting aimlessly until someone from the high table actually got up and bade us go forth. Then there was the familiar rustling and everyone lined crowded the doors.

The event was followed by departmental drinks. The Natural Sciences staff had cordially invited Natural Sciences students (affectionately called Natscis) to after-dinner drinks in the Allhusen room. I asked a porter where that was, discovered it was right next to the hall and then made my way there. That's where I found a number of people I knew, along with my Director of Studies, Prof. Malte Grosche. I got myself a glass of orange juice and stood near the door welcoming people in. That's when David Yu (The MIT exchange student who's doing Part II Physics and is at Trinity) came in as well and waved characteristically at seventyfive degrees to the vertical. We spent the rest of the evening chatting and also roped in my DoS, who later turned out to be David's DoS as well. The evening ended with the three of us being the last people to leave. As we went out, the stars were shining brightly and I enquired of my DoS if there was any Astronomy Club operative in Cambridge. He mentioned somethine, which I haven't tried to look for yet. He then pointed out the pole star and Cassiopeia and I was quite impressed, considering the fact that he's a Quantem Mechanics Prof. We said goodnight for the night and the revd. prof made his way to the bar.

So this is how we dined and sup'ped
Apologies for taking s'long to put it up!
Many more stories to come, so do read!
And I'd like to get some comments as back-feed