Welcome To Engineering....

SS: The following piece of writing is purely satirical and hypothetical. It does not resemble any person/object or situation in reality, any similarity to real life person/object should be taken as a pure co-incidence.

Getting an over-head projector (OHP) in any normal college is one simple thing. Go and visit the staff room, and swap your ID card for the projector. Plug in the wires, adjust the focus and you are done. An excellent substitute for black-board notes, making lives of so many teachers across the globe easier. Not to forget the benefits of the same to the students who don’t have to burn their retinas in comprehending the caricatures, I mean diagrams, made by their teachers on the black-board.


When it comes to an engineering college in MU, there is a twist in everything, right from the first day in the college. You are made to sign a self-imposed imposition; I mean the admission form of course, of ‘Imprisonment in the institution for 4 years or more for some special out-standing students.’ Coming back to the topic of the overhead projector, I am just scribbling out what can be the procedure of attaining the partial rights of an over-head projector, rather using the projector for a lecture.

So Purushottam was sent out of the class voluntarily……not for misbehaving, but to fetch a projector from the I.T department during a CG lecture. He got one; only to realize that he had got the wrong extension cable, which meant a journey back to the I.T department to fetch the right board. Later he and his teacher understood that he had got in a non-working projector. (I wonder why non-working equipments are ever kept in the labs; maybe we can make our own museum of these ‘non-working equipments’)

His crusade was not destined to be over here. His second ‘acquirement’ had a loose knob, which was as good as (irony intended!) his previous achievement. 10 minutes of the lecture was over, a fact that kept most of the half-asleep students lively.

His third order was to get (or rather ask for a share of) the OHP of some other department. Mechanical department was chosen as the victim department for the fact that their OHP’s are seldom used (and why they should?). So Puru left for the ground floor into the Mechanical department staff room, like a prisoner entering the gallows. He asked for the OHP to a sir sitting idle over there; only to get his admonishment. ‘Where are you department OHP’s …?’.’In a non-working state, sir’ Puru replied.

After a couple of minutes of pravachan on why OHPs are required and why I.T department is one of the worst depts. in the college, Puru learnt that he needed a request letter from the teacher who wanted the OHP. He had to get the request letter signed by the Principal of the college as it was an inter-departmental transaction (oops!). After 5 mins or so, Puru was seen walking towards the Principal’s cabin. He was stopped by the receptionist, who demanded a receipt for visiting the Principal. It was customary in our college to get a receipt for everything that was required by the administration, actually everything. That meant standing in a queue to get a receipt of Rs.5 for meeting the principal for his signature. His turn came after 20 mins, including innumerous short breaks taken by the receptionist. Then the receptionist tore off a half a yard of paper after typing into the computer for about a minute. It read ‘Meeting the principal regarding OHP sharing.’ written in huge font good enough for a blind mind to read. Then he had to deposit, (literally) to the head-clerk of the administration. ‘Tomorrow you come’, said the head clerk. Only after realization that it was an urgent matter he responded ‘Ok, wait, wait for 10 minutes’. And quite literally after 30 minutes, Puru entered the cabin. The principal was more than eager to help Puru. ‘Good Morning Sir’, Puru wished. ’Whats gud in this mo(u)rning ?’, he replied. ‘Sir, haha, sir actually sir nothi…, sir… Sorry Sir!’, Puru nearly exclaimed. The next 10 minutes were very memorable for Puru. The Principal enriched his knowledge by asking Puru’s attendance, his marks, his address… perhaps the shoe-number and his relationship status were the only things that were not asked. After the session, which costed him his valuable 120 minutes, Puru returned to his classroom with an OHP with ‘MECH’ written on it. The lecture was nearly done, and he got a hero’s welcome.

What did he Puru achieve? Let me tell you what he didn’t get/achieve. Because of his delay, he was denied attendance of the 2 lectures plus creative wastage of time waiting for receipts or other authorities, not to forget the bashing of the CG teacher who rebuked all his explanations. He did lose about half a pound of weight; but most importantly gained an extraordinary experience of a journey through the impeccable and picture perfect administrative-functioning of the college.

Welcome to Engineering.