(Temporary Backup) Early days in the Department

We did not know it then, but were handed a lemon by the Institute’s committee that dealt with hostel allocations. 2 of our 4 years were spent at the Dhanrajgiri Hostel, which , quite in contrast to the baroque sounding name it bore,  was actually a vermin infested 200 roomer that had the record of the poorest hygiene amongst all such enclaves. Poets at the institute have long waxed eloquent about the particularly singular features of its toilets subjecting  them to a host of opprobious adjectives and not an insufficient amount of verbal and tonal aggression. And deservedly so. With the fall term kicking off, we had had to suddenly deal with the Metallurgical Engineering department. Second year was here and that meant all courses were at the department and related to the discipline.  It was no cakewalk making the second year adjustment.  The third semester was like a bad omen unfolding before our very eyes- the relative outright dismissal of academic rigour of year 1 was replaced summarily by a palette of fears surrounding any form of misdemeanor within the metallurgical engineering department. Simple and cliched activities like “giving proxies” that were pervasive for our class in the first and second semesters were suddenly out of bounds in semester 3. If you were caught , the vindictive lecturer would pour forth his wrath and, generally speaking, not the best things would happen to you subsequently. The incidence of a “mass class bunk” , wherein the entire class as a veritable cartel decides not attend a class, was never common even in year 1. But from year two onwards it was regarded as if we had collectively committed a violent sex crime against the lecturer’s fair offspring. We had our very first lesson in understanding the tradeoffs between the individual and collective, when working out a mass bunk. While most of the class was favorable, it was extremely rare that all were favorable. The odd chap always held seditious views around this and for a variety of reasons. He wanted to ensure full attendance and thus increase his chances of a good grade- and it would particularly help if he showed up by himself while the others didnt- it made for differentiation in the eyes of the teacher- and in a noticeably positive way. The guys who ended up either not agreeing to the pact or surreptitiously breaching the pact were the guys that were destined to go far- as again, we did not know this then.

Only a few months ago, at the beginning of the second semester, our class had orchestrated rather succesfully its first and what would be the last Mass Bunk. It was difficult to find alignment across 31 students on a good enough reason to do this. And this is where it had all come apart until then. “It is raining heavily”or “the lecture is one which does not add any value anyway”, or “lets all go off to sarnath for a picnic instead”- these just did not hold water for all- always only some or sometimes most but never all. Until we read in the morning papers one day that Divya Bharti, that buxom bollywood doll-face, had  jumped off her balcony and taken her life. Whatever one might say about the misfortune of having no girls in your class- one had to admit that it was easier to align empathetically around events like above in an all- boy class. No matter who you were, you were sad when you heard this. Very sad indeed. And no further coaxing was needed by anyone to ensure no one attended any afternoon class that day. It was the least that could be done to pay our last respects.

We were in the department now- all of this had to stop. And we found this out rather the hard way. You see, there was an implicit 10 minute rule for a no-show in class by the lecturer before we would call the class off and walk away from the lecture theatre to the nearest tea and samosa shack. GMK Sarma was the man scheduled to take us through the Iron - Carbon phase diagram one morning but was absent for around 10 minutes. Some of us insisted that this was enough to start walking away and we had begun to do so. However, as you can imagine, it was not a discrete process but a continuous one- with the nonchalants leading the exit and the grade- conscious good little boys making up the incredibly sluggish vanguard. So much so that when GMK Sarma did eventually show up to teach he spotted one of the studious boys still standing outside the classroom unable to make up his mind-  which had been vacillating to The Kinks hit “ should I stay or should I go” . The rest was history. Sarma called everyone back with some vociferousness. Everyone. The chaps still outside the theatre. The chaps walking towards the tea shop as well as the precious few who had already started munching on their illicit samosas. Once everyone was in, Sarma began a tirade the likes of which we had not seen before. It went something like this- “ who has seen me coming towards the class and still decided to go away?”, he bellowed. Silence. He looks at each of the front benchers one by one in the eye. “ did you see me?”, he asks Rama. No sir. “Did you see me?” , he asks Badri. No sir. “Did you see me?”  He asks annamalai. No sir. And on and on and on for 10 others. Then drawing back says “sooooooo.....(long rage-ridden sigh)” , “ No one (shaking his head sideways here) has seen me ( nodding his head repeatedly here ..even after completing his sentence). Then casting his gaze towards the back bench and resting it specifically on shetty and menon-“ I know there are some goondas in this class” ( pause and turning back to the front benchers and breaking into a sly smile) “ Academically, I will see that they do not go beyond this semester”. ( long pause and silence). “ We are not here to only teach you Metallurgy but also decent behaviour”. Pause. “  Now then, Annamalai, what is the Solidus temperature of a plain carbon steel with 1.6 percent Carbon?”...and luckily for all of us, Annamalai god bless his clever soul had the right answer and off we rolled into the lecture. However, we were all left a bit shaken by the episode and it became clear that nothing remotely close was going to happen again. And that is when I realised that everyone in our class was essentially a decent, grade and reputation fearing mortal fighting their own specific battle.  And it is for this reason that our class is still very close after all these years.

While Sarma was a crabby 51 year old in general, he did teach well. I recall remaining fairly attentive in all his classes which is more than can be said for most of the other Professors. Sarma was only a Reader and not a full professor- which was attributed to the fact that had no doctorate degree. Rumour had it that he had been caught cheating at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and they had thrown him out of the graduate program- no doubt an aspersion cast and then solidified by some student of yesteryear that had been a repeated object of his tyranny. 

Apart from Professor tyranny there was also course tyranny to grapple with.  An innocuous sounding three credit course that had been thrust upon us in the third semester was “Elements of Materials Science”. This was partly Crystallography  and partly Quantum Physics but wholly imcomprehensible. We were lectured in each part by two remarkably intelligent and halo-endowed professors one young and one senior.  And yet I can speak for the entire class when I say that aside of Annamalai, no one understood a thing. So all that was left to do is to memorise  material and put it out on the exam answer sheet. Except good professors set exams with a sense of pride- and the questions on these exams were not of the ilk where you could mentally paste some dense text.  In retrospect, it was also the first time I realised that the fault lay not in our stars but in the poor quality of teaching. And that being a good professor and a good teacher were altogether mutually exclusive- because, clearly we could have been accused of many things but could not be accused of being imbeciles. Or could we?

Back at Dhanrajgiri there was an outbreak of Jaundice initially and subsequently Chicken Pox. One by one several boys got taken ill. The ones with Chicken Pox had to be evacuated as a quarantine was simply not possible. They we t off home fot a week or so right in the middle of the semester. In some ways this was a welcome break from the travails of the department anyway. The mess service had a special cuisine for the inflicted. They would prepare a light soup of rice and lentils and serve some bouled vegetables on the side. There was no fat used. Many after having recovered from jaundice looked really slim and shiny. One in particular,  chose to be put on the sick meal routine permanently. Not only did you taste the vegetables from the fertile gangetic plains around the city, but you also warded off stale spices and questionable hydrogenated vegetable oils used for cooking in bulk. 

The only dish that I didnt decry

Was chawal anda makhan fry

No potato mash not lentil pool

That emanated from his school

Could make even the starving drool