The hoary question

Dr Fahim Chand | Tuesday December 2, 2025 08:24

My eyes slowly adjusted to the blackness as I looked through the window, the sounds of shuffling students gathering around me and filling the quiet.

My internal switch flicked, pulling me back to the moment, and I gathered my books and tucked them safely into my knapsack. I pulled the sturdy zipper closed, the kind of dependable engineering I had come to expect from Timberland, a brand that remained one of my steady favourites. It symbolised durability with a touch of style, not unlike the version of myself I still hoped to become. Laughable, perhaps, but everyone needs goals to move forward. I zipped up my navy blue Gore-Tex winter jacket and prepared to navigate the cold walk back to the warmth of my residence.

My friend, Mark Body, waited patiently beside me. Tall and fit, with platinum-blonde hair and clear blue eyes, he always stood out without trying. He lived in the room directly across the hall from mine, making him both a convenient companion and a familiar presence as we stepped out to begin the winter journey home.

We had just wrapped up our Physics Lab, thoughtfully scheduled to finish at 5 p.m. on a Friday, no doubt by someone who believed character is best built through mild suffering. Mark and I wandered down the hallway and pushed open the heavy double doors to greet the darkness outside.

As they swung open, a gust of Arctic air slapped us across the face. The icy shock erased any lingering laziness, ensuring we were fully awake for the long walk home. A handful of students scattered in various directions, presumably headed toward warmer, more sensible destinations to begin their college weekends, places where frostbite was not part of the RSVP.

Though the sky offered no light of its own, the glow from the campus buildings and overhead lamps painted the snow in soft golds and silvers. The pure white blanket gleamed so serenely, it almost made us forget it was trying to kill us. As the cold wrapped around us, we slowly acclimatised, taking in the winter scene that stretched in every direction, quiet, still, and breathtaking in that “I can’t feel my face” kind of way.

There was no wind as we made our way toward our residence, Medway Hall, and the few people we encountered were bundled in layers of jackets, scarves, and thick woolen hats, looking like mobile laundry piles walking through the night. Mark and I, however, wore no hats.

Not because we were brave, bravery has limits, but because we refused to flatten our carefully maintained hair and sacrifice our cool factor. Image, after all, is everything in university. Even if it costs you a bit of heat loss and the occasional brain freeze.

We dropped off our gear and headed toward the dining hall, where hopes for a decent meal often went to die. Fridays, however, held a faint glimmer of optimism. As none of the meat served was halal, my culinary salvation came in the form of the weekly fish and chips, an event modestly worth celebrating.

The fish tended to be on the firm side of “well done,” and the chips rarely achieved that perfect crispy-outside-soft-inside balance, but compared to boiled vegetables paired with something that only vaguely resembled bread, it was practically a feast. On other days, depending on the severity of the menu, we were sometimes forced to abandon the safety of campus and trek to Little Caesars.

There, the sacred 2-for-1 pizza deal awaited, provided one could assemble a squad of fellow sufferers to share the cost. As students living on budgets, value wasn’t just appreciated, it was a survival strategy.

One couldn’t help but wonder: did the children of the ultra-rich face such dilemmas? Or did their trust funds gently guide them toward dinners composed of lobster, caviar, and ethically massaged truffles?

The debate about inherited wealth had once again flared into public view. Music mogul and television personality Simon Cowell recently reaffirmed that his estimated $600 million fortune would not be passed down to his 11-year-old son, Eric. Instead, his estate would go to charities dedicated to children and dogs.

“I don’t believe in passing down money from one generation to the next,” Cowell explained, according to the Tribune. He did note that Eric’s college education would be covered, but after that, the lad was expected to blaze his own trail.

Other wealthy giants, including Bill Gates, have endorsed similar philosophies. The irony wasn’t lost on me. As I stood in line at Little Caesars, counting coins with forensic precision to determine whether extra breadsticks were within reach, I had a passing thought: perhaps some of the other students doing the same were actually heirs to filet-mignon households, silently hoping no one recognised them while they calculated the cost of culinary mediocrity. At least they were learning an essential life lesson early: no matter your background, everyone must one day grapple with the age-old question, breadsticks or no breadsticks?