Chapter 17: Library, Canteen And Lab!

“Hey guys! We are almost on the verge of completing our thesis, isn’t it? Let’s go for some snacks at a nearby foodstall and celebrate what we have been able to accomplish,” suggested Chitragupta. Everyone agreed because a break is always welcome. So we went out and ate some light snacks. Aditya was even lucky to get a couple of morsels from Veena’s hand. While we were returning home, Chitragupta received a call on his cellphone. He looked pensive after the call and declared, “Good we ate something, because I will have to log on to my laptop and do a Deed-analysis for an electrical engineer from Mumbai. He seems to have gotten an electric shock during his practicals in the lab.”

I felt glum because that was the same predicament with a lot of people and Aditya could see his history repeating and became quiet. Chitragupta further pondered, “Don’t you guys go to the library and study your subjects well? If only you spend lesser time in the canteen and more time in the library, you could as well avoid these kinds of electrical shocks or other such accidents.”

Vidya intertwined her fingers with mine lovingly and asked me whether I had ever been to the library or I was also the kinds who spent their time only in the canteen. It was time to unravel the truth for her.

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I had recently volunteered to be a member of a programme that required me to teach children from financially weak backgrounds. Against my hope of being teamed with some good-looking, young girl, a fifty-year-old librarian from a nearby school became my partner for the task. We were given a class of about seventy kids of VI and VII grade to talk to; we were supposed to counsel them on the benefits of proper education and such other stuff. The petite librarian Mrs. Verma started talking to the kids about how education is power and how even they could turn into engineers like me and take the country forward. Mrs. Verma was convincing in her argument till she was praising my being an engineer. After a while, she asked them, “Do you all go to the library every week?”

“Yes, teacher”, shouted the kids enthusiastically.

“Very good, dear kids. If you go to library every week, you will become an engineer like this uncle here,” said Mrs.Verma pointing towards me and beaming for some reason. I was lost in the thought that she had just called me uncle in front of all these kids when she signalled me to stand up and tell the kids about the benefits of having a good reading habit.

I stood up hesitatingly. Teaching was fine, but lecturing these young brains on something that I knew nothing about was a huge task. I looked into the eyes of a few students and waited for a few seconds, vaguely in the hope that words about good reading habits would come to the edge of my lips by divine intervention. After being stared at for thirty seconds, I abruptly blurted out, “Hurray! It’s 5 p.m. and you all are free to go home!” I somehow had to save my face, thus, the emergency measure of letting them all go.

While leaving for home, Mrs. Verma asked me whether I had been regular in my visits to the library during my graduation days. I looked at her with a blank expression and she got her answer. I had been to the library only three times in all the four years that I was there. I tried hard and recollected the three special occasions which had forced me to go to the library:

1)     During the Preparatory Leave of first semester. I was done reading Mechanics 1 from “Fanatics series” and was guided by a senior that if I wanted to clear my fundas of Mechanics, I will have to go to library and borrow the Schaum Series for Mechanics. I did as guided and after reading that book, realised that I had ended up confusing myself even more. I realized that my potential was limited only to understanding “Fanatics series” and the “LDR” (Last Day Revision) notes.

2)    At beginning of the third semester: After getting average marks in the first year, I pledged to start studying right from the first day of the third semester. What better place than the library, or so I thought. I set towards my goal and went to the library; fixed up a seat for myself too – the very last row, right hand corner. I sat there for a full two hours, out of which I spent only about ten minutes reading Electrical Machines; the rest of my time was spent looking at love birds chirping, giggling, and pinching each other. I stopped going to the library thereafter because it pinched my single status more than I could imagine.

3)    At the start of fourth semester: After watching the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother for a considerable time, I thought of implementing the impress-the-chicks tips mentioned therein. I thought of implementing them on my all-time crush Pradnya. She was sweet, fat and quite studious. These qualities made her an ideal student who frequented no other place more than the library. I observed her for a few days and found that she preferred to sit near the window on the right hand corner of the library. I talked to her best friend and got to know her love for cats. One fine afternoon, I went to the library and sat two benches away from her. While she was busy reading some book, suddenly she heard a cat cry. She realized from the volume and style of the cat-cry that the cat was in danger. She got up and so did I. Without wasting a second, I jumped on the parapet and brought that cat safely into the library. I looked around innocently to see if someone wanted to fondle the cat. I looked at Pradnya and offered to hand over the cat to her. She smiled; and finally, I smiled too. Although I am still not sure whether the cat was in any real danger or was it the call for her lover. For all I know, I could have been a villain in that cat’s love story! But who cared for someone else’s love story as long as mine came back on right track. After that neither Pradnya, nor I could be found in the library. We used to hang out in the canteen or a park nearby. So, you know, library is actually a place worth visiting if you have a proper goal in mind.

Like majority of engineering students, or any college students for that matter, I also spent most of my free time in the canteen. In an engineering college, the canteen is a good place to study human behaviour. If you manage to plant a Close Circuit camera in the canteen without others coming to know, you will get a glimpse of the wide gamut of human emotions. Since students from all years and types of groups hang out in the canteen, a day shot or spent in the canteen is like a summary of students’ life. Here’s what a typical day in a canteen would look like through the lense of a CCTV camera.

1)     6.00 a.m.: All the chairs sit on top of the tables. Three fans out of the nine or ten odd fans are running at a speed enough to comfort the canteen staff sleeping under them.

2)    6.10 a.m.: The three dogs who are frequent visitors to the college campus and the canteen – usually either called anything that comes ot someone’s mind, or the ex-girl/boyfriend’s name – enter the canteen and wake the canteen staff by licking their faces.

3)    6.15 a.m.: The senior chef wakes up imagining his girlfriend raining kisses on his face, opening his eyes to find one of the dogs licking his face. He reconciles with his fate and plays with the dog, lets it lick some more before offering it some water or milk to drink.

4)    8.00 a.m.: The canteen staff wakes up for the day and the chairs are brought down to be placed near the tables. It is time for the owner to come, so the floor is also cleaned and mopped.

5)    8.20 a.m.: The studious brother duo – Ramesh and Suresh – reaches the canteen at their usual time. They come from a place two hours away from college and hence they prefer to reach college before time. The owner of the canteen looks at them and then at the staff, signaling them that as usual they will sit on the third table to the right and have breakfast.

6)    8.45 a.m.: Students start trickling into the canteen one by one, or in small groups. Girls talk animatedly about new haircuts and make-up kits, as also about handsome guys that they happened to bump into. Ramesh and Suresh glance at this group and go back to being silent. A few minutes later someone realises that it is time for a boring morning lecture and makes the mistake to remind others. Only to be snubbed and shouted at for having interfered in an extremely important discussion.

7)    10.15 a.m.: Two professors enter right after their bellies, discussing how the younger generation nowadays has been reduced to mere frivolities.

Prof. 1: Students from the current generation are a disgrance to the society. They don’t have the urge to understand the concepts. They just rely on crash course notes and other stuff. How can India progress if we have such engineers?

Prof 2: And to top that, half of these engineers join Software companies later, irrespective of their field of study. Why the hell take up a specialisation at all then? I am frustrated of teaching these students.

Prof 1: And to make the things worse, the college doesn’t pay us well. My wife cannot stop nagging me about the million saris that her friend buys with her husband’s salary! To mai kya karun?

Prof 2: (patting 1’s back with full sympathy): Let’s open our own coaching class. What say?

8)    11. 10 a.m.: The few who had somehow landed up in a class now come back realising what a big mistake had been made.

They end up discussing about books, of all types.

Richa: I am about to finish reading books by Voltaire.

Ramesh: Voltage is okay, what the hell is Voltaire?

Richa: ha ha hah… good joke Ramesh… Hey Sudha, did you finish reading Durjoy Dutta’s Of course I Love You? Someone was telling me it’s a nice book.

Sudha: Nice is not the word, Richa! I love Durjoy. I have read that book at least six times.

Rajesh (thinking): Am I fucking dead or what?

Sanjay: I am reading Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone. Very nice book!

Richa: Oh Sanjay! Have you just begun reading books? You should not even think about Voltaire or Shakespeare; you will start crying…ha ha ha.

Ramesh: Richa, don’t underestimate Sanjay. He is about to finish writing his first novel. He has already been signed by one of India’s topmost book publishers!

(Richa doesn’t know where to hide her face. Sudha keeps looking at Sanjay for a few seconds, wondering why she had refused him when he had proposed to her a few months ago. Rajesh is still thinking – “Am I fucking dead or what?”)

9)    11.40 a.m.: Vaishali comes near the water cooler to re-fill her water bottle. Raghav sees his chance and stands close to her, apologizing for what he did last evening. Vaishali tries to avoid him, at which Raghav turns violent and tightly holds her hand, ordering her to do what he asks her to. A professor having lunch at a nearby table overhears those words and wondering what he really meant by that starts slapping Raghav. Everyone around stares at Raghav being beaten, while Vaishali regrets at having acted smart till the professor grabs Raghav by the collar and drags him out of the canteen.

10)12.10 p.m.: Seema and her friend Gayatri enter the canteen with a bunch of certificates and Seema sits down on the third table to the left of the entrance of the canteen while Gayatri gets some lunch for her. Seema just appeared for an Aptitude test for the biggest Indian IT company. But she was rejected. “My father wanted me to get into this company. Now my papa will be disappointed”, Seema starts crying. Gayatri explains to her that it is not the end of the world and that she would get a better job than that! Seema smiles as Gayatri gives her a tight hug.

11) 1.00 p.m.: A group of friends shout their lungs out at Mangesh to get samosas, cold coffee, Limca, misal pav, and moong-bhaji for them. It is Mangesh’s birthday.
“Uncle, do plate vada-paav bhi add kar do,” Mangesh requests the uncle at the cash counter. The cashier is just about thirty years old; but he was ‘uncle’ for everyone who came in, nonetheless. Mangesh brings all the items to the table and his friends attack those plates like vultures! On a nearby table, Sunidhi’s birthday is being celebrated by her friends. A pink cake with seventeen delicately melting candles sits on the table, waiting to be devoured. Sunidhi does all the regular “Aww”s and “you are sho shweet”s or “I wasn’t expecting this”s, etc.! Mangesh looks at his friends and says, “B$#$@@d, you misers didn’t even get a small cake for me!”

12)2.00 p.m.: Rita stares at the “The College Queen” competition banner with great interest. She has been staring at the banner for a minute now, but she is still waiting for her friends to prod her to participate; upon which she will first refuse with excuses like, “Oh, how can I? I am not that beautiful. I don’t have that ability. I don’t have the necessary looks to be the college queen”. Her friends know her well and so they plan not to boost her ego and simply say, “Yes, that’s true.” Rita looks at them angrily, and then they all burst out laughing!

13)2.15 p.m.: Vikas, adjusting his specs every thirty seconds as if on cue, notes down the details of the Intercollegiate Technical Paper competition. Akhilesh sees Vikas noting down the details frantically, taps his shoulder and says, “Jeetega tu. Sure!” Vikas smiles because he knows he will win.

14)2.19 p.m.: Omkar signals Rahul to bring Siddharth to a tea-stall near the back gate of the college. Apparently Siddharth had given Omkar’s girlfriend a love letter yesterday.

15)2.25 p.m.: Vedant consoles Jayanthi on table number twelve.

Vedant: My shonu, my baby! Ek kiss se kuch nahi hota. Trust me! I know that very well.

Jayanthi stops crying and looks at Vedant with anger.

Vedant: I mean I know it as much as I should know, dear. For ‘that’ to happen, we have to do something more. Kiss se kuch nahi hota, shonu!

Some boys from the adjoining table hear this conversation and laugh their asses off!

16)3.00 p.m.: Students from third year Electrical come to the canteen after a practical and indulge in a meaningful conversation:

Sudhir: I always stand three feet away from the equipment, the way I stay thirty feet away from cars driven by women.

Maanav: I have a premonition that I will die in the electrical lab re, B$@$##$d!

Ravi: Same here! Our souls will keep floating around in the college then, entering rooms of girls who otherwise don’t even look at us! We can also act as good ghosts who will save innocent engineering students like us from dying in labs!

Shrikant: Shubh shubh bolo haramkhoro!

17)4.00 p.m.: Sandeep enters the canteen with a moon walk. His friends are shouting slogans “Hamara neta kaisa ho, Sandeep Mehta jaisa ho” and “Sandeep Mehta aage badho, hum tumhare saath hai”. Apparently, Sandeep has won the General Secretary elections and they are going to party that night!

“Uncle, jo chaiye inko wo do aaj… bindaas”, Sandeep tells the cashier, making everything on the house.

18)4.45 p.m.: Vinay, Uttam and Rajesh are waiting to hear whether Sankalp got selected in Infosys. They are most certain that Sankalp will get through; hoping the same, they have already reserved a table and thought what allt they are going to eat to celebrate his success.

19)4.58 p.m.: “Hurray! I am now an Infy man,” shouts Sankalp on reaching the table where his friends are waiting. “Name the place you wish to have a party,” declares Sankalp.
“Taj,” suggests Vinay.
“You deserve to beg in front of Taj Mahal and want to eat at Taj hotel. Saale, I have just got a job, not the salary, jokes Sankalp and they all start shouting for the canteen boy.

20)          5.40 p.m.: Students slowly move out of the canteen. The studious duo completes their assignment in the canteen itself for they do not have the capacity to do anything when they reach home at 9.00 p.m..

Laboratory (or lab as it is lovingly called) of any college is a place where students gain practical knowledge. Teachers explain the practical use of the theory that they have explained in the classroom. Practicals in the lab are like cricket matches. Let me tell you how.

Parameter	Cricket	Practicals
Groups	Each team has eleven players	Each class is divided into groups of eight
Leader	A captain is appointed	There is always one unappointed leader who takes the initiative to lead the group in the practicals
Followers	The rest ten do as the captain suggests. The captain takes the responsibility for anything that goes wrong in the matches.	The rest want someone to fall back on. They don’t want to get burnt alive in their respective practicals! The leader takes the risk for the whole group.
Twelfth man	There will be someone who gets the drinks, bats and pads for the team. Doing this will also make him happy and give him a feeling that he did something for the team!	Out of the remaining members in the group, there will always be one who will be very proactive in bringing all the essentials for carrying out the practicals. He will bring wires, thermostats, voltmeters, etc., for the group. Doing this will also make him feel helpful and happy
The fielders	The ball would roll towards one or two players most of the time, and others would wat for it to come to them!	The remaining members will just keep looking at the set up and nod in agreement to whatever the professor explains. To avoid being asked about the experiment, they will try to avoid eye contact with the professor.
Test match	In a Test match that lasts for five days, the fielders know that the batsman is not going to hit too hard for the ball to come to them. So, the fielders have ample time to relax and day dream about many other things!	The students are not much bothered during the normal practicals as they know that the leader of the group will somehow come to a conclusion and the rest of them will just copy from him/ her.
T-20 match!	In a T-20 match, the overs are less, the pressure is more and every fielder has to be very alert. This is the time when the eyes of selectors will be on you. If you perform well, you will get more in the next season of T 20.	The main practical exam is the time when the students have to be alert and try to recollect what they did during their practicals throughtout the semester and now it is time for them to perform! Results are what the examiners want! If you can’t deliver results, you are gone!
Fixing!	By bribing or fixing up a deal with the right person, many have earned millions with this wrong practice.	Students try to build a good rapport with the Lab Assistant so that he can help them in the main exam.

This is how a practical exam goes:

1)     You are supposed to pick a chit from a bowl. That chit will decide which experiment you are going to perform. You pray to god that you get the easiest of experiments to perform.

2)     As per Murphy’s Law, even if there is a tiny probability that you are going to get screwed, you will get screwed. Ultimately, either you end up getting the most difficult experiment to do or you find whatever practical you get to be extremely difficult.

3)     You stare at the chit as if your eyes will emit superhuman radiation, miraculously changing the experiment you have to do.

4)     Since you were a mute spectator during the experiments performed during the semester, all you recollect is what FB statuses you were busy updating on your blackberry and how many likes your comment had got.

5)     You go and collect all the things necessary for the practical. Since you don’t know what all things are necessary, when you go to the Lab Assistant to collect these things, you look at his eyes and convey your helplessness, “Sir, please help, sir.”

6)     You come to your table, try to assemble something and wait for some magic to occur. You look around and find a scholar classmate performing his experiments with great ease and wish to burn his set-up with sheer jealousy or helplessness.

7)     You look at him with pitiful eyes and ask him if he can help you. He shooes you away saying that he will help you after he completes his experiment.

8)     The external comes on a round to see how the practicals are coming along. He comes to your table and wonders if you are doing the right experiment. He stops wondering and actually asks you if you know what you are doing with all the paraphernalia on the table.

9)     You fidget around with the things on the table to show that you know what you are doing. Few more minutes pass by and you are still at the starting line of the race!

10)The scholar classmate completes his experiment and goes away. You look at him and wonder “Kya hua tera wada…”

11)You again head to the Lab Assistant and look at him the way a dog looks at a fat man desiring a bite of what he eats! “Five hundred rupees,” he says. “Two hundred,” you offer with a look of helplessness and bankruptcy. “Three hundred and fifty,” he gives his last offer and your “done!” seals the deal.

12)Then you go to the external’s cabin and try to divert his attention by talking some crap. By that time, the Lab Assistant comes to your desk and arranges everything properly and also gives you the graphs from last year’s batch!

13)You come to your desk to find everything ready! You smile at your faith in the adage that money can buy anything.

14)You come out of the lab smiling. You are surrounded by your classmates who are eager to know which experiment you had to perform and how you performed. Suddenly you are the center of attraction, totally enjoying the moment.