MIT II &III year
An important incident that took place in the final practical examination of III year.
During the final semester Control Engineering practicals examination, we have been asked to write the theoretical aspect of the experiment first before actually undertaking the practical aspects. That day the question was - Define the Time Constant. On that the entire class was very clear and confident and thorough about its definition- be it in writing or its graphical representation.
When it came to my classmate Sh TN Somasundaram, the institute topper whose marks were a record which was not broken until the DMIT system was in vogue, was given '0' by our lecturer Mr WC Chitra. The explanation given by that lecturer was that Soma missed out to put 'to' , though his graphical representation reflected it right. The real background to the case was that Soma never bothered to treat him with respect and he wanted to take the revenge on that score. He was looking for an opportunity to teach Soma a lesson by disqualifying him from getting honours grade in DMIT ( In MIT , one loses his honours gradation if he happen to undergo a re-examination in any paper). But when Sh Chitra read out the marks of all students including Sh.Somasundaram, the whole class including Prof.Sharma who was present then could not believe that. The whole class got shocked and questioned- how can it be? Mr Chitra attempted to explain; the whole class in an unanimous voice protested then and threatened to walk out. At that moment Prof.Sharma intervened and overruled Mr Chitra's decision. Prof. gave a cent percent to Soma as his graphical narration of Time Constant reflected it right.
At the end of the course Somasundaram scored an overall 86% aggregate in DMIT,an honours grade , which was not broken by anybody until the DMIT system was in vogue.
Having seen a lot about the subject matters & examinations etc. let us move to look into the other aspects of MIT life. As the institute strength was only 300 students out of which about 20% day scholars, except the first year students all others were allotted single room occupancy in the hostel. Those days not many girl students were there- in our time there was only Ms Vasantha, 17th batch Electronics and she was a day scholar. There were overall 3 hostels ; one vegetarian and non vegetarian mess for all students. Practically speaking that non-vegetarian mess was non existent. The mess was contracted to one Mr Nambiar, a Keralite The mess was practically managed by M/S Narayanan, Raghavan & Padmanabhan and the mess secretary for all three years (1966-69) was our classmate Sh R Narayanan. RN had the say and complete control of the mess running at any given time.
When it comes to serving the tea/coffee and snacks during intervals, it was the responsibility of Sh Padmanabhan for Inst.Technology faculty. Sh.Padmanabhan was so involved with his duty & responsibility he remembered each student's T No. , shall not require one's utterance and he shall note what each one has taken.
Our mess was so good that even students from neighbouring colleges- Madras Christian college,Tambaram &AM Jain college Pallavaram used to crave for entry in our mess. Many of them used to come as guests to our hostelites and enjoy the food whenever feasible. Here it is important to mention one thing. An Actual Story
Our lecturer Sh Sambamoorthy was a gentleman and somewhat a timid soul. One Tuesday when he was conducting the morning last hour class before lunch break, one of our classmates Sh USS Murthy raised his hand. The lecturer thought that the student had some doubt. He asked the student 'what?' Syam responded 'Sir, it is urgent that you end the class immediately and let us go for lunch' The lecturer got surprised and asked why it is urgent? Syam responded- Sir,Today is Tuesday and they serve special morkhozhambhu with vegetable bondos floating along with ethapazham ( kerala banana) chips. We can't afford to miss them by not taking them in the first batch as they have to be eaten hot. Taken aback the speechless lecturer waved his hand and said 'let us go'. After that day, the morkhozhambhu exchanges became a regular feature on every Tuesday.
Other Pastime & entertainments
As we came to our second year in MIT, most of us felt relaxed and took our leisure time granted. Our classmate Anne Arunachalam's room became the centre point for playing rummy with playing cards 18 hours in a day. At any given time, at least 4 players used to be present playing cards. During any major festival time, instead of rummy they used to play 3 cards with barest minimum stake. During one such occasion a real challenge took place. Two players had 3 A & 3K and they went on competing with each other. The rest have scooted and waited for them to close. The challenge went on for hours which made others lose their patience. After 3 hours or so the witnesses interfered and forced them to open. Anne had 3As and Auto Satyanarayana had 3Ks; the accrued amount was Rs 1100/- ! That was the closed indoor entertainment we used to relish. Other than the cards group, many used to go to Vetri theatre in Pallavaram for night movies. It was a perfect Tent Kottai rather than calling a theatre.After the night show at 2.30 am, they used to walk back all the way to the hostel.
When we were in III year, Sh Senthamil Arasu of 20th batch IT, himself a good singer & later DD Tamil newsreader took the entertainment secretary's responsibility. He had organized the music programmes of M/S Balamurali Krishna, a famous Carnatic musician & SP Balasubramaniam, that time upcoming cine musician. SPB & Arasu were close friends and for that sake SPB did not charge any amount for that program in MIT.
Added to these, under the leadership of Sh. R Narayanan , our classmates did a village folk skit- named it " Theru Koothu" ( street entertainment) which became famous in that circle. Even the neighbouring colleges were asking us to conduct that programme in their premises which we could not oblige due to paucity of time.
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