Dandia Bazaar, Vadodara.
Opposite the Navalakhi ground, facing a few flourishing Xerox and Sandwich shops, lies a massive garbage dump. Plastic waste, rotten fruits and vegetables accumulate and spill over on the road, much to the delight of stray dogs and street-urchins. Adjacent to the garbage dump, sprawls majestically, the massive campus of the Faculty of Technology and Engineering, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. South of the campus is the department that churns out men who, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to assert, are the prime movers of India, and indeed the World as we know it.
The Mechanical Engineering Department.
Yes, there are other departments on the campus: Electrical, Textile, Civil, Chemical, Computer Science, so and so forth. They are but peripheral.
They exist. The Mechanical Department lives.
Two huge wooden gates painted in white stand at the entrance. Their enormity, their wheel-shaped handles and their design make all entrants feel like a Maratha warrior riding past on a horse. It is a fitting entrance for a department that houses glorious boilers, vintage diesel engines, long wind tunnels and a non-functioning replica of a turboprop. The administrative office houses an eclectic mix of people. A true-blue padiki connoisseur with ironed clothes and copiously oiled Godrej black hair, an old lady stationed at a lone chair at the back, her old expressionless eyes transfixed straight ahead, overseeing the happenings in the office through a pair of 1960s spectacles, and a peon whose demeanor betrays the tremendous efforts it takes for a man to stay awake. The padiki connoisseur runs the show, chewing onto gutka in his mouth, and detests all queries that cannot be resolved with a nod or a shake of the head. For that means, he'll have to spit out the juice blissfully swishing around in his dental setup.
Efficient information sharing is the life blood of all successful institutions, and few do it better than the Mechanical Engineering department. Towards the left, one finds a notice board displaying data - in color paint - on sound pollution in decibels caused by different means. Towards the right, hangs a notice for CNG Rickshaw drivers. Quite the information that shall empower the Mechanical Engineers of tomorrow to tackle what farsighted MBA Finance students call the Volatile Complex Uncertain and Ambiguous (VUCA) world.
Further on the way are the workshops. Workshops are to the Mechanical Department what jewelery is to a bride on her wedding day. First one to the right is my favorite "Turning Shop". It has about 5 operational lathe machines out of 15 odd installed over a wide area. The Turning Shop has large drums meant for winding steel scrap, a product of turning mild steel jobs on lathe machines. However, what goes in along with the steel scrap is red-colored paan jets spat out by the lab assistant with a frequency that could put a lathe's rotating flywheel to shame. This noble activity renders the steel scrap thrown in the drum orange in color thus making for a visual treat unlike any other. In one desolate corner of the shop is a room for the workshop in-charge who prefers to consume his share of tobacco by smoking beedis in his wooden cabin. This cabin is a small area devoid of any ventilation, essentially making it a chimney closed at the top. Conservative estimates state spending 3 minutes in this cabin is equivalent to smoking a couple of 501 beedis.
Carpentry, Smithy, Welding and Fabrication. The hallowed places where freshers hack and polish wooden pieces into plus-shaped assemblies, heat and hammer cylindrical metal pieces into hexagonal objects and cut a U on biscuit thick steel jobs. The workshops instill a life-long respect for the skills in men they'll go on to supervise and lead. In today's day and age of 'engineering colleges' set up in few floors of a building, the Mech Department's extensive workshops are of great significance, standing tall as guardians of grassroots learning. And in desperate times of college fests and project submissions, the workshops turn into veritable divine shrines, where everyone goes for solutions to their myriad problems.
Further ahead on the way, at the centre of the department stands a Ganesha temple under a blue-colored dome structure. The temple is surrounded by tall lights powered by solar panels. Towards the left is our neighborhood. One finds unfamiliar students sitting on an array of parked vehicles. Boys playing cricket with girls, sharing lunch packs with one another. Overall a very amiable environment with lots of noise and banter. This is the Textile Department.
Towards the right, the 'core area' of the department begins. Tarnished brick buildings of the shape of buttress threads carrying long fink roof trusses run parallel to each other on either sides of the road. At the fag end of this road, to the left lies the room used least. A small wooden board bolted on its door reads 'Ladies Toilet'.
Besides the place, a great deal of the department's character comes from the strength of its people. The staff in general and lab assistants in particular are a fascinating bunch of people. One of them with build of a bouncer doubles up as security during Vadodara Marathon events. With mouths stuffed to the brim with Rajshri, the lab assistants maraud across the department, hurling the choicest of expletives in Gujarati at each other. Even in good, friendly moments, they refer to each other as thokiya and keep reminding one another of the beedi or cha the other guy owes. Nonetheless, their ingenious ability to come up with practical solutions to problems is stuff of legend. Ever so often, students would walk up to any one of them. A non-functioning rope pulley mechanism, a shaft that doesn't fit well into its hole, or a car with faulty braking system. Chewing onto gutka, the lab assistant carefully listens to every problem, nodding and thinking hard. Deep in thought, he spits out the contents of his mouth with a violent force, as if disgusted with the fact that textbooks failed to teach us to solve such simple problems. And he would go on to explain the solution, practical and detailed to the extent of the exact shop in old city that 'll help out with the material or workmanship.
They do not hold a degree in mechanical engineering, but the degree of their hold on mechanical engineering in true sense of the word is superlative. In a department with disproportionate male population, they are the men.
Finally, a narrative on the department would be incomplete without a mention of the teachers. Perhaps it comes from studying and practicing the subject for long years, but the Mechanical Engineering department houses a motley bunch of teachers, practical in their outlook and relaxed in approach. An Engineering Drawing professor travels to the college on a cycle and crafts isometric models from chart paper to explain the terrifying subject to terrified freshers. A Thermal Engineering professor draws parallels between mechanical engineering and Navaratri in his class, claiming, and with good reason, that both after all revolved around the worship of energy (E). A young teacher, in his first lecture, ridicules all numerical questions as impractical for it isn't possible to measure quantities as determined on a calculator. In their free time, they congregate at a spot called 'bakda' and discuss, in loud voices, issues of national significance.
Nestled within the campus, the mechanical engineering department is a world unto itself. A world one occupies for four years, only to become its lifelong admirer.
Opposite the Navalakhi ground, facing a few flourishing Xerox and Sandwich shops, lies a massive garbage dump. Plastic waste, rotten fruits and vegetables accumulate and spill over on the road, much to the delight of stray dogs and street-urchins. Adjacent to the garbage dump, sprawls majestically, the massive campus of the Faculty of Technology and Engineering, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. South of the campus is the department that churns out men who, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to assert, are the prime movers of India, and indeed the World as we know it.
The Mechanical Engineering Department.
Yes, there are other departments on the campus: Electrical, Textile, Civil, Chemical, Computer Science, so and so forth. They are but peripheral.
They exist. The Mechanical Department lives.
Two huge wooden gates painted in white stand at the entrance. Their enormity, their wheel-shaped handles and their design make all entrants feel like a Maratha warrior riding past on a horse. It is a fitting entrance for a department that houses glorious boilers, vintage diesel engines, long wind tunnels and a non-functioning replica of a turboprop. The administrative office houses an eclectic mix of people. A true-blue padiki connoisseur with ironed clothes and copiously oiled Godrej black hair, an old lady stationed at a lone chair at the back, her old expressionless eyes transfixed straight ahead, overseeing the happenings in the office through a pair of 1960s spectacles, and a peon whose demeanor betrays the tremendous efforts it takes for a man to stay awake. The padiki connoisseur runs the show, chewing onto gutka in his mouth, and detests all queries that cannot be resolved with a nod or a shake of the head. For that means, he'll have to spit out the juice blissfully swishing around in his dental setup.
Efficient information sharing is the life blood of all successful institutions, and few do it better than the Mechanical Engineering department. Towards the left, one finds a notice board displaying data - in color paint - on sound pollution in decibels caused by different means. Towards the right, hangs a notice for CNG Rickshaw drivers. Quite the information that shall empower the Mechanical Engineers of tomorrow to tackle what farsighted MBA Finance students call the Volatile Complex Uncertain and Ambiguous (VUCA) world.
 |
| The Main Campus (Courtesy ftemsu-placements.org) |
Further on the way are the workshops. Workshops are to the Mechanical Department what jewelery is to a bride on her wedding day. First one to the right is my favorite "Turning Shop". It has about 5 operational lathe machines out of 15 odd installed over a wide area. The Turning Shop has large drums meant for winding steel scrap, a product of turning mild steel jobs on lathe machines. However, what goes in along with the steel scrap is red-colored paan jets spat out by the lab assistant with a frequency that could put a lathe's rotating flywheel to shame. This noble activity renders the steel scrap thrown in the drum orange in color thus making for a visual treat unlike any other. In one desolate corner of the shop is a room for the workshop in-charge who prefers to consume his share of tobacco by smoking beedis in his wooden cabin. This cabin is a small area devoid of any ventilation, essentially making it a chimney closed at the top. Conservative estimates state spending 3 minutes in this cabin is equivalent to smoking a couple of 501 beedis.
Carpentry, Smithy, Welding and Fabrication. The hallowed places where freshers hack and polish wooden pieces into plus-shaped assemblies, heat and hammer cylindrical metal pieces into hexagonal objects and cut a U on biscuit thick steel jobs. The workshops instill a life-long respect for the skills in men they'll go on to supervise and lead. In today's day and age of 'engineering colleges' set up in few floors of a building, the Mech Department's extensive workshops are of great significance, standing tall as guardians of grassroots learning. And in desperate times of college fests and project submissions, the workshops turn into veritable divine shrines, where everyone goes for solutions to their myriad problems.
Further ahead on the way, at the centre of the department stands a Ganesha temple under a blue-colored dome structure. The temple is surrounded by tall lights powered by solar panels. Towards the left is our neighborhood. One finds unfamiliar students sitting on an array of parked vehicles. Boys playing cricket with girls, sharing lunch packs with one another. Overall a very amiable environment with lots of noise and banter. This is the Textile Department.
 |
| Not the gate to Mech Dept, but indicative! (Courtesy ftemsu-placements.org) |
Towards the right, the 'core area' of the department begins. Tarnished brick buildings of the shape of buttress threads carrying long fink roof trusses run parallel to each other on either sides of the road. At the fag end of this road, to the left lies the room used least. A small wooden board bolted on its door reads 'Ladies Toilet'.
Besides the place, a great deal of the department's character comes from the strength of its people. The staff in general and lab assistants in particular are a fascinating bunch of people. One of them with build of a bouncer doubles up as security during Vadodara Marathon events. With mouths stuffed to the brim with Rajshri, the lab assistants maraud across the department, hurling the choicest of expletives in Gujarati at each other. Even in good, friendly moments, they refer to each other as thokiya and keep reminding one another of the beedi or cha the other guy owes. Nonetheless, their ingenious ability to come up with practical solutions to problems is stuff of legend. Ever so often, students would walk up to any one of them. A non-functioning rope pulley mechanism, a shaft that doesn't fit well into its hole, or a car with faulty braking system. Chewing onto gutka, the lab assistant carefully listens to every problem, nodding and thinking hard. Deep in thought, he spits out the contents of his mouth with a violent force, as if disgusted with the fact that textbooks failed to teach us to solve such simple problems. And he would go on to explain the solution, practical and detailed to the extent of the exact shop in old city that 'll help out with the material or workmanship.
They do not hold a degree in mechanical engineering, but the degree of their hold on mechanical engineering in true sense of the word is superlative. In a department with disproportionate male population, they are the men.
Finally, a narrative on the department would be incomplete without a mention of the teachers. Perhaps it comes from studying and practicing the subject for long years, but the Mechanical Engineering department houses a motley bunch of teachers, practical in their outlook and relaxed in approach. An Engineering Drawing professor travels to the college on a cycle and crafts isometric models from chart paper to explain the terrifying subject to terrified freshers. A Thermal Engineering professor draws parallels between mechanical engineering and Navaratri in his class, claiming, and with good reason, that both after all revolved around the worship of energy (E). A young teacher, in his first lecture, ridicules all numerical questions as impractical for it isn't possible to measure quantities as determined on a calculator. In their free time, they congregate at a spot called 'bakda' and discuss, in loud voices, issues of national significance.
Nestled within the campus, the mechanical engineering department is a world unto itself. A world one occupies for four years, only to become its lifelong admirer.
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