Sweet memories of a “Day scholar” – K.Natarajan ( E&E)

I was born (and so got my name 🙂 ) and brought up in Chidambaram and knew a lot, good and bad, about Annamalai University unlike some of you. During school days I had heard stories of how vibrant the student community had been all along, including the infamous student strike in late 60s and the closure of bachelor degree arts programs that followed.

   As a school kid I used to ride a bi-cycle once in a while to the university and to the engineering campus, used to look in awe at the majestic buildings and always wanted to study there. Still remember the visits to the science exhibitions that were held for the 50-year golden jubilee celebrations (if I remember right). I had a great admiration for the well established engineering college which had a good reputation of its Alumni. The college’s investment in the laboratories was well-known.

    Private engineering colleges were starting to spur like mushrooms in that year for the first time in Tamil Nadu. I had already joined  the Pollachi Engineering college through DOTE. I had paid the fees too, a big portion or all of which I eventually lost 😦 .  When Annamalai admission came through, it was a dream come true for me and to my parents. Although we talked about the importance of gaining the experience of the outside world, they rightly decided I was not ready yet. After all, I was a soft-spoken, studious kid (so they thought), had not travelled widely and so it was a good decision. Thus was born a “day scholar” for the next four years!

     I got admitted to Civil first and within the first few weeks met an E&E student who expressed his interest to exchange the branches mutually. We two went to Dean’s office and politely expressed our wishes and the Dean quickly got our study disciplines swapped. Win-win situation huh!

     Life was different for the day scholars with its own pros and cons. Though Chidambaram is a small town, I lived in a diagonally opposite corner of the town and pedaled on my cycle for about 3 km to college one way along the car streets of the calm temple town, crossing the Gandhi statue and another half the distance crossing some quiet roads daily. Many of you envied the home food part and I learnt the value of it hearing how quickly you all got fed up with canteen food and were ready to visit home on the weekends or on the first chance. Our classes were painstakingly long starting at the wee hours of 8:10 am and ending at 4:50 pm and the lunch break was less than an hour given we couldn’t get any classes cancelled in the 1^st year 🙂 . I used to ride back home often for lunch in the scorching sun which never bothered me actually thinking about it now.

    I was also worried about ragging those days though day scholars were supposedly less targeted. I had a backup plan. The advice to me was to “tell the seniors that I knew people from Kavarapattu”.  I knew no one from there and the seniors could find that out by conversing with me for few minutes 🙂 . I never had to use my plan and there was no ‘ragging ragging’ I came across. The seniors I met were quite friendly though the first meetings intimidated me for my own reasons.

    I profoundly thank the institution for the education and the experience it gave me thus providing the foundation for the rest of my life.

To be continued…