The first few weeks in R-land often tend to be overwhelming. In these days of ecstasy, the “quality” of mess food is quite easy to overlook. But after the three days it takes for the euphoria to wear out, it becomes increasingly clear with each passing day that sustaining oneself exclusively off the mess food is a daunting task, to say the least. Rumour has it that the delicacies served in RJB tend to depreciate further in flavour as time passes but the credibility of such statements remains dubious. While the canteens and eateries around the campus provide viable alternatives, most of them either lack the satisfaction of a full meal or aren’t cheap enough to not offset your budget.

Given these circumstances, food delivery services like Zomato and Swiggy, in addition to being a suspiciously convenient way to smuggle stuff into the campus, are also an imperative facility for blokes that want a cheap satisfying meal from time to time but feel like a 10 minute walk to the campus gate is too much work.

However, all such wet dreams were shattered when the administration issued an ordinance restricting the entry of delivery bois into the campus. With this tyrannical precept in place, Bhawan residents now have to travel all the way to a campus gate(which may or may not be the one closest to their humble abode) to collect their order on a scorching sunday afternoon.

A GB dweller was quoted saying

“This is the worst thing to happen to the Campus since the Lipstick brouhaha of 2010”

But underneath all the dissent and general dysphoria surrounding this decision, lie the makings of a what can only be described as a nefarious smuggling syndicate of sorts constituted by food delivery services as a means of retaliation. As Watch Out decided to probe further into this, we discovered something much more sinister than what we initially expected.

It seems that in order to meet the expectations of IITR students - their primary source of revenue in Roorkee -The food delivery consortium has decided to collude with insiders, i.e, fellow students of yours, to establish what is now being called Guide to Groceries, or GTG for Short.

GTG is an underground network of campus mules that have been coaxed,bribed,blackmailed or voodooed by these capitalistic food transporting conglomerates into doing their dirty work, i.e, peddling the deliverables from campus gates to bhawans for the convenience of previously dissatisfied folks.

Though they tend to be extremely secretive and suspiciously loyal towards the syndicate, WatchOut managed to get in contact with one of these “victims” and arrange a brief interview under the stipulation that their name be kept a secret.

Enthusiastic WONA reporter : So How exactly were you strategmed into becoming a nutrition mule for the armada of vespas with swollen behinds?

Trapped kid: It all started with a seemingly innocuous text that I got, offering an internship with one of the aforementioned firms. My chances of landing an intern had been extremely slim at that point and it seemed like something I couldn’t afford to miss. So I put aside my bong and texted back with a ‘Y’. It was a downward spiral from that point on, and I can’t really pinpoint what my breaking point was. Maybe it was when I realized that the employee-special app they had me install on my devices was actually a keylogger…or maybe it was the first time they asked me to shove a packet up a place that’s only meant to be treated nicely, but at this point, it doesn’t really matter. The workload’s light enough and the money’s decent.

Slightly worried WONA reporter : Does that mean you’re content with what you’re doing? Do you not feel duped by these evil malefactors?

Trapped(?) kid: Not really, and I wouldn’t really call them evil. My boss is an ass, yes, but is that really such a shocker? I also have to tolerate a mild lingering discomfort in the region where my legs meet, but it’s something I can live with.

The interview then came to an ill-timed end as the kid had to leave for picking up another order. “Got to Go. Duty Calls” were his final words as he walked away.

Watch Out therefore concluded that the administrators of GTG have managed to condition their victims beyond recognition, making them believe they actually liked doing their dirty work. We therefore decided to dig deeper into what tactics had been deployed to achieve this level of behavioral conditioning. Research however, came to a standstill after our theories about mind control started to seem unreasonable, leaving us with only one option, contacting an insider to get a look at this situation from the other side.

WONA: Tell us something about your job

Delivery Boi: Well, delivering food is our main job. Though we provide service to all of Roorkee, IITR is the prime hotspot. We get a lot of delivery requests throughout the day. and the thing is, to get a bonus, we need to minimize the number of rejects. And honestly speaking, considering all the hype around IIT, people here are not very bright. Once a girl from KB asked me on the spot, to alter her order. Part of my daily routine is dealing with these whippersnappers who apparently don’t understand the concept of “no cancellations” trying to cancel or worse, alter their order after I’ve been waiting a good ten minutes for them to collect it. It can sometimes be quite hard to contain myself and stop the altercation from turning into a fistfight. On top of that, these blokes aren’t generous,either. They just keep asking for “IIT Discount”. And that is after the 50% discount they already have. Sometimes they order food from the same restaurant they are sitting in. And don’t even get me started on how lazy they are. It was not enough to get food up to their bhawan gates. Now they want it up to their rooms, shoved up their….

WONA: Alright, alright. We get that you are fed up with your job. And now there are more reasons for that. You aren’t allowed to enter the campus now. What’s all that about?

Delivery Boi: Ah well, I don’t know. Maybe peeps at the admin wing thought that students were skipping mess too often or something like that. So they invalidated our ID cards which are necessary to get entry into campus. Now those brats need to come up to the college gates to get food, which leads to more rejected orders. And that’s taken its toll on the job ie. delivering food and you know, stuff. (He said this followed by a series of eerie and visibly awkward winks)

What stuff? Well, you can say it is food too. Sustenance of the soul, and if I may, it’s better than the normal food and it takes us to places. It’s like…

Lubricous WONA reporter : And where do you get this sustenance of soul?

*This question was asked solely for research purposes and the answer is to remain undisclosed until the interviewer’s wake from a deep slumber they fell into shortly after the interview concluded.

A Vice-style dive into this rabbit hole, among other worrying revelations, shows how alarmingly easy it is to influence students of R into doing stuff that’s less than virtuous. Estimates suggest as many as 70 students - give or take one - are currently trapped in this vortex. It could be your classmates, your roommate or even you. If you happen to know/suspect anyone stuck in this nefarious business, feel free to reach out at iamamulepleasehelpme@gmail.com. Your speaking up could save someone’s career or more. Just know that sometimes it takes more courage to ask for help than to act alone but it’s always worth it. The only mistake you can make is to not reach out.

Illustration credits: Sudhang Varshney and Ritik Mathur