On a Shoestring Budget

That's what you are as an intern. Somewhere towards the bottom of the food chain is the fachcha. Below that may be found the phytoplankton, the amoeba, and the chlamydomonas. Then there are rocks and sand. Then you have bits of lint, and then you have the summer intern.

The easiest way to get by on an intern's stipend is to keep in mind that coming from Ahmedabad and its monastic architecture, you should be a firm believer in simple living and high thinking. But that sort of thing is easier said than done, especially when you have the ready excuse that company HRs would not be enthused by employees who come to work looking like they've stepped out of a picture of life at Nalanda.

So you don't have pockets bursting at the seams with hundred-rupee notes, and you do have a desire not to spend your summer subsisting on spinach and steamed cabbage. Even without complicating the issue with conservative ambitions of supping on fondue and Irish Cream (we'll get to that later), you have a poser on your hands.

Here, then, are some helpful and not-so-helpful suggestions for penniless interns in the big city.

1. Everything that the city guide says may not be applicable to you. If it is something related to the price of a meal for two, it is definitely not applicable to you. Providing dinner at half-price to the compilers of restaurant information probably goes down in the books as "Sales & Admin. Expenses". If you are not a card-carrying member of the Press, you are not a Sales & Admin. Expense. You are Revenue.

2. Be sure you're at work on occasions when there is a possibility of lunch being on the house. These include inductions, seminars, presentations and training programmes. It doesn't matter if the training programme is on another floor; judicious timing and a sudden and urgent need to speak to a colleague in the other department will enable you be a member of the luncheon.

3. There is such a thing as a free lunch, and it can be obtained by never doing anything else for free. Even so simple an act as looking up the address and telephone number of a restaurant can be traded for a meal at that restaurant if the other party is sufficiently desperate.

4. If you are at the receiving end of the above strategy, don't be dimwitted enough to concede to the first demand no matter how dire your need is. A bargainer who starts with a sponsored dinner at Mocha will almost certainly settle for a Popsicle.

For those whose list of needs includes abundant quantities of the blushful Hipppocrene, full credit for suggestions 6 through 10 (suggestion 5 is "Don't get sued if you can't afford the legal charges"; this is a practical illustration of how to go about it) goes to a friend who wishes, for the sake of his reputation, to remain nameless. My apologies in advance for any mutilation of his sentiments that has occurred at the editing table; please don't litigate.

6. Save all beer bottles, newspapers and mineral water bottles. They can fetch you money. For instance, our old beer bottles financed two bottles of beer at the fag end of the month, when money was hard to come by.

7. Make sure you exhaust all supplies of free snacks and coffee available in your office. Some offices (like mine) also supply neat stationery that you can use to doodle when you are jobless. (I am all set to release a graphic novel right now.)

8. Always check if your office phone has STD; if it does, stay late in the evenings and avail yourself of the facility to talk to family and friends or abuse annoying people. (Never use your own extension for that last, especially if the invective is aimed at a person in power; do it over the extension of someone who particularly annoys you.)

9. Never miss alumni bashes. Lots of booze is ordered and nobody boozes. You can get to be in charge of the bar and drink a lot of premium whiskey that you would otherwise not have been allowed to touch with a twenty-foot pole. The more enterprising can also siphon off four bottles of whiskey to be enjoyed at home in the company of friends.

10. Start playing poker with people who bet like mad despite having the worst hands imaginable, so you can make money despite lacking the ability to keep a deadpan face.
P.S. It helps if they are drunk and half-asleep.
P.P.S. Be careful; you could be at the receiving end.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any adverse consequences of following this advice. Please don't ask me to cover poker losses, negotiate with enraged employers or come to the police station with the bail money.