Well, I did it; not coz it was the right thing to do, but it was mandatory for all the inmates of the reform school they call institute of technology! Identified as ‘Practical Training’, I rather like to call it, ‘Summer Internship’.
So there I was, 180 kms north east of
If you’d look up for this holy city at wikipedia, you’ll find such soothing words, “…..The "Wine Capital of India", or the "Grape City", as it is popularly known, the city is located in the Western Ghats, on the western edge of the Deccan peninsula on the banks of the Godavari River. The city is known for its picturesque surroundings and pleasant climate.”
So there we were, in a pleasant and picturesque land. And as we stepped out of our rickshaw, we witnessed company campus, with northern and eastern boundaries lined with towering asoka trees, which elevated and heightened our spirits. A huge lush green lawn greeted us from the western side behind the company’s main building. We were guided to our guest house rooms on the southern side of the grounds ( don’t get fooled by my misguided sense of direction, it’s not that big a campus). I’d rather skip the graphical introduction of our rooms and move on to the next 8 weeks.
Next day, 14th of may, we were handed over to the R&D head of the co., Mr.Bhat, who was very cordial, enthused and confused to us. After getting familiar with the wierd IIT system (and 2 weird IITians too) he let us loose in the co. library, just to buy some time to figure out what was to be done with us. We were then escorted to the technical director and the managing director, who were siblings too. It’s a family owned co. with different branches of the co. running into the family tree.
So the library was destined to be our sanctorum for the next 56 days (except the Saturdays, which were weekly offs as the government had imposed a power cut in lieu of the subsidised electicity they so generously provide!).
We passed the first week in a thorough literature survey of the possible projects we could undertake. In this pursuit we rummaged through the 6 cupboards which constituted the library, with the help of a meticulous catalogue which ironically just listed the missing books yet to be found. It was rather ammusing for the books to go into hiding partially due to the fact that nobody ever made access to the library during our stay. Anyways, the first Sunday brought the much needed computer and our research was simplified manifolds.
But rest of our worries still held the castle, that is how to kill time after six. With the much awaited tube not showing up, I buried myself into the inimitable fables of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. After stuffing myself with pattice and pastry at the closest heaven( given the kind of meals we were consuming, the bakery was no less than heaven!), I would delve into the impeccable and majestic stories of Wodehouse, the greatest humorist of last century! I was intrigued by his wizardry so much that I had to scrape a thousand bucks for a Jeeves omnibus(sniff)! But it was worth it (as I’ve rummaged through it and taken the ride on the ‘omni bus’ twice since then). Then there was Vikram Seth’s much acclaimed ‘An Equal Music’, which I found quite unequal to Wodehouse, albeit being writers of different genres and generations, but somehow Seth couldn’t take me through the joy ride as P.G.W. During this period of forced abstinence from the outside world, I was also able to flip through a long pending novel, acquiring dust at my home liby, Hemingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’, which left me completely famished and rejuvenated for more of Wodehouse at the same time. Yeah, there’s something about fiction that sucks out all my energy and imagination, which I anyhow possess in miniscule amounts!
So, two very eventfully unhappening weeks had whizzed past and we already had begun our countdown back to our base (at least T.M.P had by setting a weekly countdown which would go on at every Friday evening!). But I can’t thank my stars and lady luck enough that the following weeks didn’t prove to be the same drudgery as the initial ones; prominent reasons being, we picked the projects of our choice, idiot box showed up and so did another idiot- Spidy! So life got picked up where I had left it at
So, the hell started freezing over and we overtook the DTA lab. On second thoughts, only T.M.P did. I was a happy camper squandering in the liby while my ceramic powder was being grinded and milled, meanwhile T.M.P would synthesize nanopowder chemically in the lab (yeah, I’m shrewd!). So, it was then that I started playing scrabble online and improve upon my rating before the ‘foren’ junta would appear online, after which it was lengthy discussions on why Boda’s failing in Italy on his ultimate mission or Ballu’s misdemeanours or rather Viju’s misadventures! (And yeah, Kauwa was pestering all the time in the background).
Despite all this fun, we had already declared tea-time the best part of our stay at the wine capital. During the initial weeks, a cuppa tea was the only factor that kept us going! So, if you ask us, It was Babban bhaiya, our tea angel, who was the dearest of all.
Concluding part to be posted in near future, may be next summer!
