The famous American cartoonist, Matt Groening, once said, “Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?” He was true as it was raining donuts in our very own city on Saturday as Chennaites geared up for the city's first donut eating contest.
This unique contest was organised by Chennai's only exclusive donut makers, The Donut House, who hosted the event at their outlet on Ethiraj Salai. The event promos began on Facebook and the newspapers a week ago and received an incredible response as close to 100 people responded within the first two days itself.
The D day came, the clock struck 11 and the crowds walked into the venue. The contest had six rounds of 15 minutes each and every round would have a winner in the men's, women's and kids' categories and ultimately, the person who ate the maximum number of donuts in their respective category during the entire contest would be crowned the “Don of Donuts”.
Tight contest
With the spirits high, the first round began with eager participants trying to work a strategy for a delicacy which wasn't their forte. The rest of the rounds followed suit with slight variations in the top score. Round three saw cricketer Arun Karthik, the one who hit the last ball six to take RCB into the semi-finals of this year's Champions League, improvise by scoring an eight.
The men's contest was scintillating as Rajath, a student of IIT-Madras set an imposing score of 18 in Round three which was eventually matched in Round five by donut enthusiast Bruce Miller, who ironically, is an IIM-Ahmadabad alumni and also the only American to study in the esteemed institute. This paved way for an IIT vs. IIM tie-breaker which involved the stacking up of donuts and the one left with the highest number standing sealing the victory. Rajath triumphed in the cracking contest to become the first “Don of Donuts”. He said that he was feeling great and his strategy was to soak the donuts in water as it could be taken in easily.
He was well complemented by Ekshikaa who went on to be titled the “Lady Don of Donuts” by eating 11 in Round three and Arjun who secured the title of “Little Don of Donuts” by scoring 16 in Round five.
There were loud anthems and cheering by friends of the participants making it a contest within, where the team which cheered the loudest went on to win gift vouchers. The winners bagged Titan and Fastrack watches and the round winners walked away with the rest of the 16 gift vouchers that were given during the presentation which closed the memorable event.
Staggering stats
It was a laudable event which saw people from the ages of eight to 61 come together. Bhuvanesh Subarayan, the owner of the franchise, was ecstatic with the success of the event and said he was motivated by a similar event by the Bangalore-based The Donut Baker which made an entry into the Limca record books with a record of 44 donuts being eaten in 12 minutes.
He provided some staggering stats that 950 donuts were baked and 878 donuts along with 109 bottles of water was consumed by the 86 participants during the course of the event. He also hinted that new outlets are going to be launched in Annanagar and Adyar very soon. Looks like the donut fever is hitting the city.
Bhargav is a III Year B.Tech Civil Engineering student at SRM University.
