The Butterfly Effect

It is said that the flutter of a butterfly wing can lead to a storm at a completely different faraway place….

The flutters:

The first one was of course the mock fight between me and Sankar which destroyed the class furniture and almost made the only girl in the class to discontinue her course. This story has already been told.

The second one is a bit more interesting. Our first year class was in a long hall with asbestos roof and separated by 3 walls. The electrical Engg: class was in the room adjacent to ours. We used to enjoy ourselves during boring lectures by throwing chalk pieces and paper rockets to the electrical class through the gap between the roof and the partition wall. One day during civil class Venu threw a paper rocket to the next class. But it hit the partition wall and fell on the teacher. What happened next was dramatic. We have been doing this for a couple of months but this was the first time we were caught. Teacher picked up the rocket from the floor and turned to face the class. It was pin drop silence. Everybody was trying to figure out what would happen next. Venu started sweating. The teacher with a very angry expression came a couple of steps forward and asked in pure Malayalam “ aaranu ee Vanam vittathu”. The whole class was silent for another fraction of a second and then…everybody burst into loud laughter. The teacher was stunned and so were we, but nobody could stop laughing. This made her angrier and violent. She again came forward and shouted above the sound of our laughter” enikku ippo ariyanam…aranu ente methottu vanam vittathennu..”The sound of laughter only increased. There was utter chaos for the next couple of minutes. The teacher was standing in front of the class holding a paper rocket in her hand. The whole class was laughing, vegudu was clapping his hands due to extreme happiness, and venu who was ducking under the table to escape being caught, was lying on the floor and laughing.

In this commotion nobody noticed the teacher leaving the classroom. We really felt bad for her but any class full of teenage boys would have done the same.

The third one happened a couple of days later. After the vanam incident, throwing things to the next class almost ended. Venu used to throw a couple of chalk pieces just to show everyone that he wasn’t afraid. Now most of us resorted to the most common past time ..sleeping. In one such class, I, Sankar and Poocha were peace fully asleep in the last bench. One of our classmates was trying to impress the teacher by asking a lot of questions. He was interrupting the lecture and also our sleep. After a while I was completely irritated. I woke up Sankar and Poocha and said “ da oru Samshayalu irangittundu, we need to do something immediately or else my precious sleep for a good couple of hours is going to be disturbed”. Sankar looked up and said “athu nammude pashu alle, onnu paranjal avan mindathe irunnolum”. But pashu was not turning back for even a casual glance. He was sitting on the second bench on the left corner of the class near to the window and we were in the middle row last bench. Poocha tried throwing a couple of paper pieces but didn’t succeed. We were all looking for something else to throw and suddenly pasu stood up to ask another question. We were searching on the floor to find something to throw and through the corner of my eye I saw Sanker take something from a bag. I sat up straight thinking it was a pen or a piece of chalk. Pasu had finished the question and the teacher was just turning to the blackboard to explain. This was our moment. Sanker stood up and took aim and suddenly I saw what was in his hand. It was a small glass bottle in which somebody brought curd. Before I could stop him, he threw it..There was a large sound. I thought Pasu’s head broke. I didn’t have the courage to look but then I realized that the sound was of breaking glass. I looked up. Pashu was safely seated, his speed saved him, the glass window near him was completely shattered, the teacher was looking directly at us and … Sankar was still standing there in Parasuraman's pose enjoying the outcome of his throw. It took a couple of seconds for him to realize that the whole class was looking at him. He looked at everybody, then at the teacher, smiled and said “sorry miss, I missed”. The teacher couldn’t say anything and she quietly walked out of the class.

The storm

All these small innocent flutters (might not seem so innocent to others, but it truly was) was causing a great storm to build up in a place we least expected..in the principals mind. She was a task master and strongly believed that the Mech department was responsible for all the disciplinary issues in every Engg: college. All our senior Mechanicals up to the then final years were typical proof to her theory. The last two batches were relatively quiet and then we came. And all these incidents brought her violent attitude towards Mechanicals back with a vengeance.

All professors were asked to teach us a lesson. Anything and everything we did ended up in suspensions. In total 23 of us (out of 40) got suspensions that year. She suspended 5 of us for unruly behavior, then 17 for disrupting a lecture, 5 of us were suspended for copying in the series test. Our session marks started touching single figures. I and Poocha were among the lucky ones who got 2 suspensions during the period and our parents even considered taking season tickets to meet the principal. This continued through the first year until the Principal was transferred.

Tail peace: A notice on one of our suspensions was put up on the notice board and while I was passing that way, I saw oolan staring at the notice board. I thought he was depressed because of the suspension and went near to console him. I told “Da this is nothing..don’t worry, I have been getting suspensions from 4^th standard and so don’t feel bad about this”. He gave me a strange look and said “ poda m***e. I have always tried hard but this is actually the first time I am being officially suspended from college. I was thinking about how to open the notice board lock so that I can take the suspension notice with my name on it and keep it as a souvenir”.

An invited supple

Supple aka ‘supplementary paper’ is a friend, most of the engineering students carry alongwith during their course tenure. Though mechanical engg students used to have enough such friends, we Rumboys never liked them to be with us during our first three semesters. Later we became used to it and our aversion to "supple" was totally taken away by MOM-II (mechanics of machines -2) where only 7 people got passed that too with marks between 40 and 45.

Many of us, who preferred to stay out of classrooms, bunked series exams and never submitted assignments, studied hard at the time of exams to obtain good grades. KD was one such guy who never attended the classes but aspired to get good marks. For him supple was considered an insult to his manhood.

It was the electrical machines lab of fourth semester. As usual, KD could not get enough time to study all the tests and hence was forced to skip two experiments; one, load test on three phase induction motor and second, OC and SC test on transformer. Being a mathematician who scored 85+ for both S1S2 and S3 and an adept in probability theorem made some calculations and found that the chances of getting these two experiments was less than 12% and with much confident on his probability calculations, marched happily to electrical lab.

KD was the tenth candidate as per alphabetical order and was the last one in his batch. When he approached the desk, there were three folded papers lying in the table which determined his fate in the lab. He looked around and saw no one standing near the 3 phase induction motor and transformer. He was now sure that the three papers lying in front of him had the two experiments he skipped and his winning percentage dropped down to 33 % from the earlier 88%. With trembling hand he took one paper and it read “Conduct Open circuit and short circuit test on transformer and comment on its characteristics”. KD, who didn’t know the primary and secondary of transformer, earnestly asked for a change in experiment. For him, as per the probability theorem, his success percentage would raise to 50% if he is allowed to take a test from the other two.

Seeing the sad looks of our KD, the external examiner agreed for a change in experiment. KD again with trembling hands took one paper. With high expectations he read “Conduct load test on three phase induction motor and plot its….”. He couldn’t complete as his eyes got soaked with tears. Totally ditched by the probability theorems, KD moved towards the three phase induction motor and stood there staring at the motor. It was the first time he saw a three phase induction motor in his entire 20 years. KD drew a circuit diagram based on his logic by connecting a voltmeter, ammeter, load, AC source, a switch and off course a motor. He also started writing a procedure which he believed to be the procedure for conducting the load test. As he didn’t know how to conduct the experiment, he was forced to stop after wrote how to give connections as per his circuit diagram. With this our KD felt sure of getting a supple for this lab. Deeply frustrated by the thought of his first supple, he went to the examiner and confessed that he didn’t know how to do the experiment and asked her to mark him absent. As the attendance was marked and experiment being allotted, the external examiner informed her inability to mark him absent and requested him to do what best he know on the load test.

After some more time, KD again approached the external and said “Madam, this is the first time I am facing a supple. As you cannot mark me absent, please be kind enough to give me zero for this exam. For me getting a zero is better that failing”. Examiner didn’t understand KD’s logic. Still in a composed tone, she checked the circuit diagram and little bit of procedure written on the answer sheet and told KD that the answer sheet in its present form itself will fetch him 25 marks. Upon KD’s silence the external added “Please go and make the connections as drawn and try to do something and depending on how u perform in viva I will try to make you pass” KD had learnt from his past not to trust anyone from electrical dept. Be it the girl who comes in her typical black jeans on all Mondays or a faculty, everybody had equal stand in his mind.

One more appeal from KD made the examiner angry. She shouted at KD which ignited the bruised feelings inside him. Suddenly everyone in the lab saw KD snatching the answer sheet from examiner and made a glamorous ‘strike through’ on the circuit diagrams and procedure. With the entire expectation of obtaining a zero, he handed over the paper back to the external and told “Madam, now you may please give me a zero”. Seeing this the externals’ face got red and she in a very scary tone told KD “You will get zero for this answer sheet, but I will give you 15 for your record and 5 for attendance and make your marks 20”.

KD was dumbstruck. Though the external was happy on not giving his desired ‘zero’, KD was disappointed with the examiners last words. If she told about the 20 marks before, he would never score the paper and would have passed with the 25 marks he deserved for the diagram and procedure. First ditched by the probability and secondly by the examiner, KD walked out of lab, face down, into the world of supple.

Two Sherlockhomes

Every Thursday morning begins with a cup of tea and reading "Malayala Manorama Weekly" in my room. Discussions on plots, twists and future course of the story follow. That day the hero of one of our favourite novels "Prabalan" by Josy vagamattam was sentenced to life imprisonment. This saddened us immensely and I said "Josy cannot keep him in jail for long".

"In Josy's previous novel 'Thadangalpalayam' the hero had escaped from jail and proved his innocence. This time Josy will go for a different treatment", Achachan pointed out.

"I think good conduct will reduce his term. He will not serve more than 5 years in jail" I concluded.

Bosh was listening to our conversation with great interest. He took a deep breath and started to talk in a faltering fashion, fumbling for words. "Would you people consider (pausing for a moment), just consider, solving my problem".

It was totally unlike the Bosh we all knew. I composed myself and replied "Why not"? I looked at Achachan and he nodded his head in agreement.

We met at Hobnob that evening and made ourselves comfortable on the seats. We both sat in silence for a few minutes, as we waited for Bosh to explain."Yesterday I received a package by courier", he said and handed over the package to me. I unwrapped it and found an attractive cover inside with the handwritten caption 'I Love U'.

Achachan snatched it from my hand and observed it carefully and commented "It is posted from Kottayam".

Bosch looked at him in astonishment."Just check the stamp man"! Achachan yelled.

I intervened: "you are quite famous among the girls in RIT.One of them must be playing a prank on you".

This forced bosh to make the stunning revelation that it is not the first time he is receiving the cover. This statement was followed by complete silence.

Finally after two long unbearable minutes achachan said."You cannot rule out the possibility of a male fan". Bosh looked angrily at achachan and he softened his words with a smile and continued. 'For the time being we will concentrate on RIT girls."

Bosh went into deep thought. Meanwhile I ordered for tea and cakes for all.

"Do you doubt anybody"? I asked.

That question brought him back to the present and his answer was "No". Hobnob uncle brought tea and cakes and Bosh told him "Today I will pay for all"

This gleeful announcement added fresh life to the discussion, and I said: "We can rule out juniors. They will not dare for such an act. Concentrate on girls from our batch. Civil, Electrical and Electronics."

In his enthusiasm to contribute to the search Bosh muttered "Mech Rani". She was the only girl in our batch. "No", Achachan screamed, "leave her. She knows you very well. It is impossible for her to do this". I could only move my head in agreement because my mouth was full of cake.

"Most of the electrical girls are out of Bosh's league and that leaves civil and electronics girls in the race for bosh's mystery girl" Achachan was resounding.

"Why can't we check the handwriting of all the girls?" it was Bosh's query.

"If the person really knows to keep the secret, he or she would have written on the cover with fake handwriting" Achachan was not ready to leave his 'he' theory and that further frustrated Bosch.

"Bosh is pretty close to civil girls. It must be one among them."I concluded.

With left eyebrow arched Bosh asked: "Are you sure?"

"Yes I am"! I winked my eyes.

By the time we finished the discussion everybody had their stomach full and Bosh paid the bill. Bosh was assigned to get the list of civil girls and he obliged.

Further discussions continued for 6 more days in Hobnob and Bosh was more than happy to pay the bills. Circumstantial evidences and logical conclusions led to one among the several names discussed. Bosch was calm and composed than I had seen him in a long time. The girl was a stunner and Bosh had a crush on her. As I announced her name I could hear his heart beating wildly against his chest.

"Actions we take in a rush will haunt us forever. As soon as we get anything concrete on this, you will be the first to be informed" I assured Bosch.

Next day was Thursday and as the streams of sunlight woke me up in the morning, I saw a 'Malayala manorama weekly' lying in my table. Achachan was snoring in next bed. I went on to read my favourite novel in which our hero decided to complete his reduced sentence of 5 years.

After sometime Bosh entered the room like a bolt of thunder and caught me by my neck and kicked Achachan on his ass, landing him on the floor. I was devastated and taken aback by such an act. It took couple of minutes for Bosh and us to regain normalcy and he told "This morning I bought Manorama and read the story. It went as you guys predicted. It motivated me to go forward and propose to my girl. It was a total disaster. You morons...she is not the one. Everybody is making fun of me because of you two sherlockhomes".

That girl or boy is still an enigma!

Basic Electrical Engineering and its importance

Electrical branch was somehow close with Mechanical with regard to classes and course curriculum. But electrical girls were not that close to Mech boys. Be it the teachers or students, the feminine gender of electrical never showed any compassion to us.

A high display of this annoyance was shown during the electrical lab exams. The external teacher who came from another college demonstrated a high level of exasperation to us resulting in supple for many hardcore Rumboys during their S3. The supple exam in S4 was also not different. First day witnessed 3 “Criti” which we felt as the sign of disaster that will fall upon the supple candidates in the next two days.

Something needs to be done to postpone the Lab exams. Discussions started from Hobnob, continued in the LH steps, mess room and ended late night in Room No 407. Someone even called the ‘DC office’ of the prominent students union to enquire on the chances of calling a strike next day. Somebody contributed the wildest idea of even planting a bomb in the lab.

By this time Googly came with a great idea to generate power failure in electrical lab. All of us was thrilled by this idea and decided to throw chain or rod into the electric lines so as to blow off the fuse. But the electrical engineers who designed RIT were shrewder than us that they routed all the electric lines in RIT, underground.

We decided to call an electrical expert who could help us in blowing off a fuse outside RIT so that the KSEB authorities can only fix it. Thus the representative of S4 Electrical came as a consultant. Based on his guidance we located the Main receiving station of RIT which was at the back side of Electrical lab. Detailed plan was choked out and the time of attack was planed at 0600 hrs next day morning. Pothan, Poocha and our rep Bosh were assigned the task and five alarms were installed in their rooms to wake them up at 0545 hrs.

Morning I woke up early at 7 am and saw Pothan, Poocha and our rep Bosh walking towards hostel from the canteen side with cycle chains and iron rods in their hands. I understood from the smiling and happy face of the trio that they have accomplished the task. As they entered the hostel, they told us the numerous unsuccessful attempts of throwing the chain into the wires till the chain did its work and the street lights went off. Though satisfied, they were unhappy that the chain was reluctant to come down and it hung in the wires above their heads. Numerous attempts were made to bring the chain down but all in vein. Poocha was seen very delighted while he narrated how he climbed the ladders and brought the chain down.

We all were happy that the chain, the only evidence of our prank is now safe in our hostel and the fact that there will be no experiments to do made us even happier. Merrily we all marched to our lab much ahead of time and waited for the invigilators to conduct the viva and make us pass. But to our surprise, we saw that the papers containing title of experiments to be done were neatly arranged in the table and all the lights in the lab were ON. RIT never had a DG at that time and we were puzzled how this could happen. KSEB people, through some political contacts were asked not to come to RIT till 2 pm.

While we stood puzzled, the internal examiner said to us “There will not be any experiments in 3 phase motors and transformers as one KSEB line is at fault. You may do all experiments with single phase.”

We stood desperate