The Journey is my Reward

By Mr Tushar Dutt [1970-BTEE]

“ Zindagi ka safar,
Hai ek aisa safar,
Koi samjha nahin,
Koi jaana nahin”- from the 70’s movie Safar’
(Life’s a journey,neither understood,nor comprehended)

On another note…
“Jo sochta hai,wo hotha nahin,
Jo nahin hotha hai,usai socho,
Aur karo,….jo hotha nahin”!
(”What one expects, does‘nt happen,
So ponder on, what’s not expected,
And then,…..do the incredible!”)

On this positive,crazy ‘hotha hai’note,I embark on my enjoyable safar…...
It was mid ’65 when the news of my figuring in the IIT entrance list, was ‘broken in’ one evening whilst we were taking a walk on Park street, Calcutta. It came as a somewhat rude shock -I would soon have to leave St Xaviers’,the hostel, the idyllic settings, the evenings,the restaurants and the crooners of Park Street.

Life had to move on. At the interview in Kharagpur , despite the discouragement by a few seniors regarding the hectic ‘German’ workshop training, my mind was set on IITM--prime reasons being closest to the city and knowledge of the local lingo. Perhaps it was destiny, I had to return.

I happened to do the last few years of schooling in Nilgiris at Stanes, Coonoor and was ‘forced’ to learn Tamil in three months flat, prior the High school university exam-- tall order that. A pass in Tamil as a third language was must, failing which I would surely fail the whole exam! It was Tamil all day, lunch breaks,et al.I still remember my Tamil teacher, Ms James,sharing her upama lunch, just managing to scrape through the exam! But then Madras university would not accept me in college being underage and hence landed up at St Xaviers,Calcutta, age 14,where I did my Pre university and one year BSc,to come of age, to sit for the IIT JEE.

The ‘commissioning’ journey to IIT Madras began with the train ride from Howrah to Madras along with ‘illustrious’ Sanyal, soccer star Bana’ Bannerji and financial whiz ’Goofy’ Gulati. It was a long, almost two day run,so we had to do something about it. After the initial introductions, backgrounds, jokes, limmericks etc,,we finally settled down to songs with heavy ‘censoring’ to avoid getting thrown out even before we made it to the campus. On finally reaching Madras central, we enquired from our adjacent fellow passenger ”Sir, would you be knowing the way to IIT?” He calmly responded ”Please follow my taxi”! After sheepish introductions, it emerged that he was Dr Bannerji, Assistant Prof in EE, traveling back to the campus along with his wife and sister in law, who seemed quite amused at our expressions, at the recent revelation. Thankfully, Dr Bannerji would be teaching us only in fourth year!

However in his true ‘forgive all’ scholarly style, he invited us over for a home meal, after we had settled down. We did visit and sang a totally ‘new‘set of songs unheard during our initial journey. Bannerji family was impressed.

All the ‘freshers’ were put into Ganga and Jamuna,,both brand new hostels,built for us --we felt special! Ganga was for me. In no time, we got used to the hectic classroom alternating with workshop weekly routine along with sporadic ‘ragging’ and NCC parades, which later became a source of entertainment. By the way, we were the pioneers in the swimming pool start up, work done during NCC parade time. First year zipped past.

Holi on the campus was an enjoyable event along with the Germans participating. I also recollect an incident during the ‘practice’ blackout drills in the hostel prior the ’65 Pak conflict, when a few guys taking the drill rather seriously fell over each other in the dark. The yells and shouts that followed would have surely reached the enemy had we been close to the border.

Second year started with a bang-the very first week,I was warmly welcomed in the Smithy shop by my colleague, Yash Sodhi, who with all enthusiasm stepped on the bellows giving it the Deepavali ‘flower pot’effect sending smoulders flying high. One happened to land into my overalls,down my chest straight into the underwear. Ajoy Sircar immediately assumed ‘damage control’and downed the nearest water bucket to help douse my ‘fire’.I was truly ‘branded’ IITM!--the hot,current topic of PAN IIT.

We did have other anxious moments. In third year, we were summoned for ragging and during the interrogation, some of us could not help smiling ,when the warden, Dr Venugopal queried “ Did you ask him the length of his ‘kak’ in light years“?! We were promptly ‘fined’one cycle of periodical tests. With some thirteen subjects,,it was a big deal as we had to pass all the remaining tests without fail.

Despite all, the same year we formed a beat group initially named ‘Masterbeats’ hastily amended to ‘Masterbeaters’ owing anagram undertones and polite advise by our warden.The latter title had even a bigger impact. The same year, we also hit the stage and during one of the plays at the Open air theater, ran out of dialogue and tried clearing ‘doubt’ from my partner on stage -- none other than the singing sensation, local ‘Trini’ Murlidan, who promptly responded “How do you expect me to know yours, when I don’t remember mine?! We had no prompters as most of the dialogue was impromptu, anyway. For a while things looked normal to the gallery, but not for long. We managed to get away, it was saturday, vegan meal in hostels, thankfully no eggs or bumlimass (type of oversized sweet lime),in the menu.

The only tragic incident was in fourth year, at the Elliots beach, when we lost an immensely talented colleague, Ramasarma. A lot of us could have drowned that day.

The years at IIT were not a breeze, but enjoyable all through. We may have begun with a few hiccups like workshop, but got into the slot quickly, had little choice with one periodical after another followed by exams and vacations, traveling third class in dusty trains up and down, twice a year. If not ‘roads’, we had become ‘train’ed scholars. By fourth year when the semester system ‘relief’ came, thanks to the new Director, Dr Ramachandran,we had become a seasoned lot. Finally in the summer of ‘70, the batch of ‘70 was ready to step out, having completed the first 21 year cycle.

We all branched out, the normal distribution-US universities, management& industry I was tempted to join the industry,but then I decided no winding motors, selling soap, running banks or hotels for me. I needed to go some place where I would experience technology.I opted for the Indian Navy where this was available in all three dimensions--surface, air and underwater along with adventure and a full life, thrown in. Thus commenced my second 21 year cycle, like the others.

The years in the Navy were as good as it could get, eight years in three different front line warships, two operations-’71 Pak and ’87 Sri Lanka, a post graduate course, staff appointments in the ministry and dockyard and, last but not least, a work related, successful visit to the erstwhile Soviet union-I came back. Navy saw me through the full second cycle. It was curtains down for the next transition--the third cycle,circa’91.

My summer of ’42 and the third cycle commenced by moving onto ‘civie’ street into the evolving world of Direct marketing--warfare which I really enjoyed trying out many different products and services. After around seven years, in ‘97,it was time for yet another change, this time into marketing of Civil engineering consultancy, which I pursued until 2007.Now,I am ‘back to the future’ teaching Electrical and Communication engineering-Karma takes charge . Hopefully I can ‘give back’ some of the stuff which I tried learning at the IIT at the sweat of my teachers.

Some of us in the batch, have voluntarily funded / taken up a number of charity initiatives, which are in process eg,Envikal, Ecosan, Alamathi &Velacheri school education projects.

Life has been good and enriching, thanks to the incredible, meandering journey which Ganga has taken me through these years as we ‘close in’ on our third cycle.

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