Second Year Of Engineerings

As I mentioned in the earlier blog that the engineering students had to clear the first year in three attempt. If he had failed in two subject i.e. receiving less than 35 marks in the subject but passed in all others and the aggregate was more than 50% he was allowed to take admission in the next class what is called A T K T to day. This made a sort of screening in the process of becoming engineer As we both had cleared the first year in first attempt we continued in the second year and got automatic admission in second year. Unlike the class of more than 50 in the first year it was smaller section of thirty five students. The subject were Engineering Drawing, Mathematics in three portion Physics and Chemistry Workshop Practice, General Electrical Engineering and of General Mechanical Engineering. Though all students were supposed to mentioned the choice subject in the first year of engineering itself but the second year provided an opportunity to change the choice if he felt. Rarely did any body do this. Our choices were very clear mine was Mechanical Engineering and Ashok for Chemical Engineering. I continued in the NCC and was given rank of Company Seargent Master i.e. C.S.M. we used to enjoy the periods of Engineering Subject i.e. drawing workshop and the other three as it was something new in this subjects. I was a mediocre in making jobs in the work shop, could complete the jobs most of the time in the three hours of practice but the finish was not that good as it should have been As practice makes the man perfect, in the end of the session I improved in work shop practice. There was no particular uniform of the college but for workshop it was khaki trousers and white half shirt Our classes used to be on first floor that is on f-22 class room we were thought general Electrical Engineering by proof Ms Jadhav and the HOD of Electrical Engineering Dr Ekbote Civil Engineering by the reader in the department B.M. Thakre. Yes, He was our warden also in the ‘B’ hosted. We had shifted to the new hostel building the ‘B’ hostel. In this hostel the ground floor was occupied by the second year students and the first floor was occupied by the fourth year student. The provision of food were as it was in the first year of engineering. I remember the name of the ness contractor It was Bindeshwari and he remained our contractor for the rest of four years time. This Bihari gentleman used to cook good food with his team whenever we felt like having parathas cooked by him we used to provide our ghee to him and he favored generously Other wise the food was simple chapatti, one vegitable dal and rice, we used to take the ghee along with us in a small “katori” for the chapattis and dal The same system continued morning 10-10:30 Lunch before going to collage and diner between 7 to 9:30 in the night Saturdays the feast and evening Continued in the next blog.

Enginnering Education and English

The first year of engineering passed with without any major incidence to mention in personal or academic life with happy note, that both of us Ashok and me passed the examination with flying colors.In the five years integrated course of engineering in MP that time it was a rule that if a student does not clear the first year of engineering in three attempts he is debarred to get admission anywhere in M.P. in future that made the student concentrate on the studies.It was astonishing that students who had very high ranking in the admission merit list started failing in exams, the main reasons was medium of education Mostly students came from Hindi medium schools English was a subject which was not given its due attention in the student lives my those students and engineering being the whole English medium education, these students found it difficult to cope up with. We had advantage over such student because of our good knowledge of the language. This knowledge pays rich dividends even on today! Continued in next blog.

Ragging in the first year

Today we see very ugly ways of and some extreme result of ragging I checked the dictionary meaning of ragging it is teasing. That time it was called taking introduction of the new comers, in general a decent way of teasing. In our hostels it was done once in a year in the beginning of session in the mess hall. The students well called room member wise some general questions like asking names, hobbies etc. were asked by the seniors and the junior was asked to carry out some activity like, I was asked to carry our some dance pose Ashok was asked to sing a song a fellow student Subodh Patkar bit fat was asked to climb the mess table with out taking support of hands which the poor chap could never do. Some body was asked to spell out the whole title of the college if mistaken was asked to go running to the main gate of the collage to read the correct name from the sign board that poor fellow never understood that the same title is written on the hostel gate it self.
Any way it was enjoyable once the student knew each other just saying hello to the classmate and wishing the senior was a regular practice. Continued in next blog!

I am continuing with the engineering. The hostel life is really good if one knows how to enjoy it I remember being some of my hostel mates. V.V. Kekatpure well built and height of six feet plus He had a younger brother with the same initials of V.V. and senior to us infect the elder one joined engineering after completive BSc. I met VVK around 18 years back when me Ashok, P.K. Joshi, S.N. Maheshwari all had an evening get together at Bombay, his wife works with Air India. The other names above both belong to Indore and well room mates P.K. Joshi was a good singer. Some other mates I remember are Rohit Ghiya, Malvendra Badeka The most stylish of our batch. That was time of Parallel Bell-bottom trousers and printed polyester shirts they were always the first to bring the fashion to our hostel C.M. Vijayvargiaya. O P Vijayvargiya from Guna Surindersingh Bashir Surindersingh Majhu, Ashok Ahuja, Sudarshan Ahuja, Subhash Sharma Subhash Kanhe all of them were hostellers. The day scholars. Rajesh Sharma his maternal uncle Tiwari both were our class mates, that is why rarely we called him by his name and he became “MAMA” of all of us. Continue in next blog.

The Hostel Life In The First year

There were students from different background in our hostel. I remember about Rajaram Goswami of Rewa who had never boarded a train before coming to hostel mostly from middle class families there was distinct genuineness in their attitudes towards studies. Attending classes with a clear aim to make the dream of becoming an engineer. Main collage building was near to a hostel so attending the periods as per schedule was very easy.

As Rajnandgaon just apart by 60km from Raipur both of us used to come on weekends to Rajnandgaon whenever we felt it convenient and get our stock of snaks prepared by mother. I continued with my morning exercise and playing Hockey and Volley ball I was not very good at Volley Ball but excellent Right - Half Hockey player swift movement, good stopper and expertise in defending penalty corners and striker in penalty corners.

The love of National Cadet Corps (NCC) continued and I joined Cadet Corps. That time the uniform of National Cadet Corps was Khaki Full Pant and ash colored shirt. The parades used to twice a month. Continued in next blog

The Hostel Life

· Our Prefect, i.e. the student incharge of hostel was our senior Mr Kharvate of final year Mechanical Engineering and warden was Dr Telang Superintendent of of work shop. The Principal of collage was Dr V.V. Saravate a legendry acadamacian in technical education of Madhya Pradesh later on he retired as Director of technical education at Bhopal. His son Ashok Sarvate was also student of final year Mechanical Engineering and frequent visitor to our hostel. Astonishingly I am able to member my roll number in the first year class and it was 11.
Breakfast was not served in the mess there was electricity in the hostel but no ceiling fans. We had to use table fans. For preparation of tea the electric heaters were used. Jagdishan was egatarian we used to object about disposal of the egg wastes to him initially which he took care off and avoided boiling eggs in the room. Bread, cream rolls biscuits were the eatable delivered to us in the hostel by a regular cycle hawker.
There was small canteen across the highway near Aurvedic collage called Mani canteen run by some Bihari Gentleman called Maniram The batatawada of that canteen was very tasty and believe me it cost just 20 paisa a vada and tea was just 25 paisa, but to take taste of this wada we had to walk down for more than a kilometer and it was worth. Continued in next blog.

The First Year of Engineering Collage

We were very excited to become engineer. We went to the city and bought the instrument box the drawing board and also the slide rule In my blog yesterday I forgot to wrote about subject of Engineering Drawing the foundation of engineering. I First year it was like drawing a straight line proper use of proper pencil like H, 2H, AH, and HB all specification used for particular use while marking drawing e.g. the border line in the drawing sheet by HB the bottom rectangle in the right side of the sheet to put your name, class etc. then in the next stage it was hyperbola parabola etc. learning of projection the projections specifics four quadrics of two crossing each at right angle and any object placed in this quadrant seen from the top is called PLAN and seen from the front called ELAVATION. This is core of engineering to effectively read the drawing. Mostly used projection that the third quadrant of the cross if you start from top left side clock wise.

Our classes started from around 10am in the morning in the initial days of the session there used to be no much pressure of exam but attending all the classes religiously and making revision by discussing with follow student in the evening was regular practice. I would say this paid me rich dividends through my a cadence carriers.

The hostel mess used for be sum by contractor the monthly mess charge was rupees 60 per month. This included two turns meals and feasts on Saturdays after noon Saturday evenings it was- off from mess and we used to spend the evening in city either with Shanti Bua Family or eating at same restaurant will continue in next blog!

Admission in Engineering Collage

July 1971, me and Ashok along with Dadda (Taujee) went to the engineering collage after ensuring our names in the admission list. The tuition fee that time was Rs 200 a month we had to pay Rs 1800 each for the nine month session and Rs 5/- per month as hostel fee the total came to around Rs 1850 per annum, The hostel was ‘c’ hostel only for first year students of the collage, each room had three occupancy We both were allotted room no 16 in the upper wing the third partner was K Jagdishan, south Indians from Bhilai. That was five years integrated course after eleventh standard unlike to days 10+2+4 it was 11+5 The first two years were common for all the students, In the first year the subjects were English Mathematics (in three parts ie Arthmatics Algebra and Trigonometry) Physics, Chemistry subjects taught to the science students in the first year. Three were no subject of engineering in the first year
My first day in the collage was very interesting both of us in search of the allotted class room S-11 (second floor eleven number) were passing through the corridor, some senior student standing in the corridor called as, we were wearing slippers we had heard about the ragging perhaps it was the first “kyon bathroom men aya ho kya” we both stood in attention position looking at our feet without saying a single work. Then one of them said “Kal Aakar Apane Pahne Huai Jute Dikha kar Jana”
That evening we both on the green color Rally cycle given by my father to me in school went rushing to the city double seat to buy the shoes, those were shoes made of rubber, it was raining cats and dogs and next morning putting on those shoes we went to that seniors class S-1 fortunately for us that was off period for seniors and it was Final year Mechanical Engineering. Continued in the next blog.

Last few weeks have been busy keeping targets of Beyond LPG sales in the year end and related activities. The year has been extremely good for business and family as well, good rather handsome profit both in the industry and distributorship. Yesterday a very old friend from Basant Rubber met me in the shop, offered us good business of booking their rubber tube as product.

Once again back to the Rajnandgaon days entrance to the engineering collage. Me and Ashok my cousin but more than that good friend together filled application for engineering in 1970 I had passed with first class 70% marks in the Matriculation exam and Ashok also we gave preference to Raipur out of the six collages of engineering that time it was centralized admission process without any pre engineering test. As we both had good marks we got admission in the first preferred collage of engineering that is Government Collage of Engineering and Technology Raipur (MP),yes that time it was in Madhya Pradesh Once again in section A if First year because of our status in the merit list continued in next blog.