Our surveying camp in 2nd year and tour.

It was 1965. After completing my schooling ie higher secondary from Patna collegiate school I took admission initially to 3 year B.Sc course in Patna Science college and a month later shifted to 5 year Engineering  degree course in near by Bihar College of Engineering, now NIT when thier admission merit list was out. I had not applied anywhere else as at > 15, I was under age except for Patna's Engineering college which had no minimum age limits then. During counselling I found that I had been selected for both Civil and Electrical Engineering courses. Getting  admitted to an Engineering college was an usual aim for science students then.  As a school student I looked at Engg students travelling in local buses with T-square with awe. During counselling I was asked to choose between Civil and Electrical. Some how I had the notion that Civil means corruption (Forgive me, my Civil friends for this notion of a teen aged mind then). Though most aspirants preferred Civil, I preferred Electrical.

Free from curbs imposed by guardians at home 1st year passed fast, hostel life and hostel food was just heavenly. I made many friends quickly went to see films without any restriction, sometime every evening. Here is a link to my old blog giving a story of 1st year. Study took back seat, still I passed with satisfactory marks, curtsey my good performance in engineering drawings.

In second year some of my colleague changed to Civil as few seats became vacant. When my friend and current room mate as well as room mate of 1st year, KK changed from Electrical to Civil, I too applied only to be denied on the ground that I had refused Civil at the time of admission itself and could not choose it now. Any way our hostel in second year was within campus, and as a relief we were not required to rush to college in the mornings. We always relied  on the old unbelievably accurate  in-campus sundial, which was on way to college main building then. Hostel ( now probably called Kosi Extension Hostel) was very near the Gandhi Ghat as well, where we spent most of the evenings on the bank of holy Ganga. Each college of Patna University are located on the banks of the Ganga, My pastime included reading Hindi books and magazines. I also played chess with room mates. I was however defeated in one of the games by one of my room mate Samrendra Srivastava who had just learned the basic moves, due to over confidence. Samrendra a brilliant student in Civil however did not get addicted to chess as we other room mates had become. I am still trying to locate these old friends now on FB etc of no avail.

In 1966 India suffered acute food shortage. Our PM then Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri had called for skipping one meal weekly. Jai Jawan Jai Kisan was the slogan given. We developed taste for rotis made out of bajra (millet) flour due to shortage of wheat. Hostel mess closed down, hotel food became too expensive and all mess contractors went back to their villages in North Bihar. They were unable to make meal available at Rs 0.75 per meal rate fixed by university for Engg and Medical college mess then.Initially we cooked our meal in room. We will cook rotis only and eat it with mangoes which surprisingly was very cheap that year due to bumper crop. Slowly we were able to open the mess

s as self managed one, where we hostelers had to chose one student each month as mess manager who made purchases of food items by himself or through committee members, paid salary to cooks and other staff, kept records of expenditure to be shared proportionately at the end of the month. Several political parties donated grains to each hostel mess. However we were upset when member of a political party sent rotten rice to us. Luckily this situation did not last long and we got used to managing our own mess. Some mess managers proved themselves good by providing good food at low cost, and such persons were selected more than once.

Our college then had a norm of optional study tour each year starting 2nd year. University paid for limited travel cost for this. Final year's study tour was however compulsory. Student of all discipline had to attend surveying camp a Civil activity in 2nd year. We Electrical boys were allowed to do survey work in Rajendra Nagar area of Patna (still under development then) so that our surveying camp visit may be used as pleasure trip. This allowed us to keep dumpy levels and theodolite ( types of telescopes) in our hostel. This gave students certain ideas. Next to our hostel beyond the boundary wall was GDS women's hostel of Patna College. Boys will position the telescope in first floor of hostel switch off all the lights and peep into the women's hostel.I kept high moral ground that year and I despised the idea. I will mention here that our college was not co-educational then. What you could see through the telescope was girls moving here and there speaking something which was not audible. GDS hostel was near that telescope provided only slightly improved view over what you can see with naked eyes. Some one (not me) complained to the warden, who incidentally was also HOD-Civil From next day we were required to finish field work by mid day and deposit all instruments to stores every day. Stories started getting round the hostel about some unknown love affair between wards of the two hostels in the past leading to suicide which prompted building of the boundary wall closing a gate between the two hostels permanently. We never knew the truth about this even our super seniors did not know. As far as I was concerned this year I was interested in reading Hindi literature as I have also explained in one earlier blog. I wrote some poems, stories etc this year and the following year.

Back to surveying camp. Being a Civil oriented college since 1900, sixth oldest in India, our college organised yearly surveying camp where Civil were first to go followed by other 2 disciplines. Having completed our surveying assignment in Patna itself, this camp was to be our educational - Industrial tour. As was usual a tent colony was established In some vacant field near the town of Dehri-on-Sone with roughly 30 tents with camp cots and all surveying equipment. Mechanical boys went after Civil but ran into problem when some student made unwanted comments on women working in near by field. In no time whole village came with lathis and other lethal weapons to take revenge. They demanded that the erring boy be handed over to them. Some students also took our camp cot rods, offset rods etc and seemed a deadly fight will break out any time. Camp helpers who were seeing this all rushed to Professor in-charge to inform him about the happenings. Sir (sorry for forgetting his name) ran to the scene daringly stood between two grossly unequal armies and made truce, by way of forcing the timid erring boy to beg for forgiveness. Probably some monetary compensation was also done. Incidental same Sir once came to rescue of Mechanical boys during 5th year tour too. When the group was boarding train at Vasco-da-Gama railway station in Goa. Electrical boys suffered then too since , they were forced to skip Goa. This story in brief is that while electrical being a small group could stay in the bogies since we had carried camp cots and used ropes to converts side seats into berths, seeing all this innovations hardly any outsiders peeped in, anyway we all were always there sleeping or sitting on our make shift beds. Our bogie was simple II class bogie with no berth at the sides. When we reached Londa Jn (where our bogie was to be attached to train to Vasco da Gama) from Bangalore, some one saw a telegram from our principal on notice board which said "mechanical boys had trouble in Goa donot go to Goa". Our professor in-charge Sri PK Singh sir decided to skip Goa and requested station master to couple our bogie to train to Mumbai as planned after 2 days. We spent 2 days in the obscure place. We later found that when mechanical boys were boarding their reserved bogie after Goa trip, they found it occupied and they tried to force-ably push such the occupants out, however when they tried to force an old lady they were enraged and violent scuffle started some camera etc were snatched and the bruised boys were arrested. They were presented to a court and could obtain release after writing a bond. Our learned professor sir pleaded the case in the court.
Back to surveying camp again,after few days of delay due to above, finally the college management allowed Electrical group to visit and stay in the same camp colony. Number of students in Electrical was less further being optional many students were to skip the visit. We presented lower risk of erring behavior.

Finally we packed for the first outing with college friends. Took a train and reached a famous station named Dehri on Sone. By evening we found our selves in cozy tents one for each student. Like royals our group had 2 attendants and mess boys to our service. Cleaning of tents including making our beds was part of there work. They also obliged serving tea in tents. We had one and half day tour here with 2 intervening nights. Next day we went to see factories of Dalmiyanagar. Our Sir arranged gate pass for paper, cement and sugar factory situated in this small town. Cement factory with rotating kiln and conveyors were our first real life visit to any industry. We looked at what we saw with some engineering oriented eyes. Some students were interested in under standing the process, but the person explaining this was not very audible due to noise of kiln and other machine. No one was interested to see the sugar factory so we went ahead to visit ill smelling paper factory. Here we could understand the process of cutting of raw material ie wood into small pieces by machines and then these were crushed and allowed to rot which converted it to lugdi. After few more processes the lugdi was rolled into different varieties of paper and card board. One rolling mill made long paper sheets and coiled them over spools. This was the final product. I did not know then that later in life Rolling mills albeit for steel will become my bread and butter. Next day we visited Sone barrage and for the first time learned that Sone river were one of few rivers flowing from South to North. We even were not aware then that Sone meets Ganga near Patna.
Back in Patna we made representation that it was no tour and proper educational tour needed. College arranged visit to Barauni thermal power plant and oil refinery. .We did visit but it was not as enjoyable as the camps at Dehri. We had now had to wait one year for next college trip. May be next blog on that.