Jamshedpur, Jan. 12: Seventy rotis a day, around two kilos of rice and a kilo of vegetable — that’s what 43-year-old Subhash Mahato considers to be two square meals for the day.

A resident of Patamda some 20 km from Jamshedpur, Mahato, a first-class first student of Ranchi University and a B.Ed from Burdwan University, is a geography teacher at SS High School, Padamta.

For a man who is so well known for his capacity to consume that he is slowly losing out on all the neighbourhood invitations, Mahato remains undaunted. “I do not think that my appetite is abnormal. I know what my body needs and have my meals accordingly,” he says.

In fact, at a marriage reception Mahato ate seven kilos of fish and three kilos of mutton. At another party he had over 70 puris and 100 rasgollas.

“Had it not been for our 40 acres of ancestral land and four ponds it would have been very difficult to make ends meet for my five-member family,” says Bakul Mahato, wife, who spends hours at the kitchen everyday preparing the meals.

Land reform and revenue minister, Dulal Bhuiyan, who has known Mahato for years said: “It’s unbelievable the way the man eats. The joke in Patamda is that no one dares to invite him to a function. They are scared that he would eat up almost everything.”

Jokes apart, an astonishing fact is that he has never fallen sick in his life. Recently he contacted ZEE Telefilms for a slot in the popular Shabash India series.