I have been thinking about writing this for months now. Anand – I don’t know how you do it. You are prolific and hope what I am writing is atleast little bit interesting as yours.
My engineering life started on a ராகுகாலம் …My father hesitated to pay the admission fees in the bank counter. But I told him that this is the best time as there will not be any queue!! Being a staff son, we had some advices from professors on which stream to choose and I somehow decided on E&I (Psst….Actual reason was, someone had mentioned that E&I is generally more colorful 🙂 ). So we started on an auspicious day in Aug with just 34 students in, I believe L7 or some lecture hall – front of the banyan tree. There used to be just 3 or 4 rows. We had a very cozy relationship with the first year lecturers such as English (Dhanaselvan?), Math (Balakrishnan/ALM), Chemistry(??), Physics (R Pazhani – I still remember his hand gestures) …Drawing(Chinnathambi?), and so on …
Within the first week, some of our seniors (Britto, Selvam, Pazhani) caught us (I believe Suresh was there as well) and taken us to their home to rag us.…But they were just too nice to be mean guys and stopped ragging within 10 mins and became great friends and sent us home after feeding us Dosa and giving us books for the 1st year.
Freshers welcome – our classmate Sivaraman (May his soul rest in peace) came to the function with a Turban looking like a Sikh (he had a dense beard as well) and got the ire of some seniors whereas some other seniors saw the guts and laughed at it and enjoyed. One thing I must say that stood out during this event was the skit by Kalyan with I don’t know who all … Pari – what were you doing lying on the ground? No idea what it was about …but it was funny and I remember the ‘Hello’ song by Lionel Richie!! That’s my life long affair with that song and My children know that song as well.
First class of Prof Balakrishnan (Math) began with a riddle – “A man walks 1 km south, then 1km East and 1km North. Finds himself in the exact location he started. Then there comes a bear and he shoots the bear. What is the color of the bear?” I will share the answer to those who don’t know in person.
Most interesting lab sessions were the Foundry, Smithy, Lathe and Carpentry – good relationship with the lab attendants went a long way in getting good marks.
The long year came to an end with the exams. I am not sure if anyone noticed, one very unique thing about our exams (almost all semesters) was that it will be 6 papers – start on Monday and end on Saturday – The agony never lasts for more than a week. Then came the summer holidays – which especially for the day scholars used to be a very boring time as most our friends would be gone …Self, Satish, Ramaiah, Raghu and bunch of others used to wake up and gather somewhere for long arratai sessions, then see a movie or two in our friend’s theater (Nataraja) and then close the day with cricket in front of Satish’s house.
Don’t remember if it was 2nd or 3rd year …One Holy Festival day became unforgettable …. Line up in front of Andiappan the dean…
I tell my children that I went through Engineering college with one word “How”- this used to be the most dreaded question by our class. I still remember, one day, just before Lunch, I had asked SPN something during a circuit theory class and SPN started explaining ….Balaji was sitting behind me and he kicked me hard for having delayed his lunch 🙂
2nd and 3rd years went by like a bullet train …Wanted to remember our dear friend Sivaraman who was the life of any gathering …We will forever miss you Siva.
Being a nerd, self and Satish started spending a lot of time with computers and spent hours together figuring out a non-descript computer named “HCL workhorse running a version of CPM oS called HICOS” in his father lab and to this day I do believe my interest in computers were founded based on that time spent. We typed the entire “notes” for “electronic instruments” class taught by Abraham Lincoln in that computer, printed and made copies and distributed.
Another routine I had during exams was to do combined study with Venkatesh R or with Satish at his place. When we study at my place, at our home in Mariappa nagar we used to go to the train station for Omlete and tea – we can only sleep after drinking that tea – go figure!
3rd year summer training was fun at Sriharikota with Satish – We watched first ASLV go into Bay of Bengal(No – சத்தியமாநாங்கஒன்னும்பண்ணலிங்க 🙂 ).
4th and final year came and life pressures and responsibilities were becoming real and present …On one hand we were enjoying the Le Phoenix and dance performance practices (In case some of you remember that கண்ராவிஆட்டம் by self and TT) and on other hand travelling for interviews and tests, competing final year project (work which was never done by us) and in general preparing for future …year went by like a whirlwind …
And finally the farewell party – ending up in Vaduganathan theater watching Apoorva Sagothararkal from Balcony – The theater guy obliged us and did a repeat of Annathe Aduran …a fitting end to a great chapter in our lives.
As a person with roots in Chidambaram, I go there almost every year …Even though it has changed a lot, in my eyes it still is the same …
Nanbenda'89 