18 A few individuals and incidents in our life in I.I.T.Madras

As summer schools were only for 8 weeks and we were accommodated in some of the undergraduate hostels far away from the academic blocks, we could not get much time to familiarise with the people around.  But as we joined for the second year M.Tech as full time students and were  to stay in the same Krishna hostel  for the full term of the course, we could  get to know a few persons.

Let us start with the friends in the hostel mess. There were quite a few mess employees from Kerala including one supervisor. Among them, I remember one Narayanan Nair from Ottappalam who was close to us. He used to borrow some small amounts from some of us who promptly repaid after getting his salary. There was some benefit in making friends with him as he was the person serving us chicken curry for us. Chicken curry was served twice a week in the evening and we used to get good fleshy pieces from Mr.Nair. Moreover, after the main pieces were cut from the chicken, they used to make an extra curry with the smaller  left over pieces. Nair  being our friend, we used to get some good pieces  from this  curry which we  jokingly called ‘feather curry’(poodakkari  in Malayalam). We used to collect some money from amongst us when our  mess employees went home for Onam or Vishu.

Another person whom we could never forget was our postman Vellachaami. Mr. V.George and myself were two  enforced bachelors who could not bring our families with us. As our children and  wives were in our native places far away, the only way we could know their well being  was through  letters we received from home. Remember, it was 1972 when there were  no internet, no Google talk, mobile  phones, emails or messengers as of now.  Vellachaami used  to come  with the mail   between 1230 - 1300 and we used to wait for him before going to the mess for lunch. He  knew that we are waiting for him. On those days when we don’t have a letter, he used to come to us and say with great sorrow or sympathy “ Dear Sir, I am very sorry,  today  you have  no letter, definitely I will bring a letter for you tomorrow”  as  if it is his fault   that we do not get any letter.  On days when we have letters, he appeared to be very happy and used to come to us and hand over the letter telling “You are lucky today Sir, you have two letters today”. Probably he could understand our happiness when we received letters from home describing trivial things like how my little  daughter of 3 years used to  snatch the letters from the post man at home and keeping it to her chest go round telling everyone that it is my dad’s  letter without allowing any one to  read it. If she saw some photos of a young person of my age  with  spectacles in the Newspaper, she  used to tear it away and go round telling others that this is my dad studying in madras  in her own broken Malayalam.  People  like Vellachaami makes our life  worth living. Vellachaami  was pitch dark in complexion but his  mind was  super white ( as his name in Tamil  implies – vella  meaning white), we used to say. I take this opportunity to salute this kind man who sympathized  with us  when we did not get a letter  or was equally happy  like us when we had a letter  from home. 

Another person whom we met in the Electrical Machines laboratory was   one Mr.M.N.Harifin who was our  workshop instructor in T.K.M.College  of Engineering. He was very helpful in our workshop classes. In our TKM days,   he tried his best to explain  many things in his English sometimes telling that transformers are used for ‘stepupping’ or ‘stepdowning’  voltages. He had resigned from TKMCE and joined IIT  Madras as a Foreman .

Another thing I remember was about our little daughter’s fits or convulsions when her body temperature went above 100 or 101 deg C. The reason   was not known, but someone said it may be due to the mild brain injury during child delivery as some kids may not have the capacity to adjust with higher body temperature. Once or twice, my wife’s father had to take the child and run almost a mile to the nearest doctor while she had this problem. After one incident, our family doctor advised to bring her temperature  down by  using ice or by giving her aspirin and do not allow the temperature to go up. If these convulsions repeat, there is a possibility of the child suffering some permanent brain damage and therefore it should be avoided.  Our family doctor in the village, Dr.Krishnamurthy, was not an  MD  or MBBS but had  the adequate  knowledge and experience to  give us the right advice. Fortunately for us, she did not suffer any damage to her brain, but has grown to be an excellent software engineer after her B.Tech  from REC and M.Tech from IIT Bombay and is  currently working in USA, with two lovely  kids. 

 Another thing that I remember about our life in the IIT Campus was the Saturday evening  movie in the Open Air Theatre(OAT). Dinner on Saturday night was a dry one with French roll, Curd rice  and fruits. Some of used to take a little curd rice and carry the French roll and fruits to the OAT where the movie used to start at 8PM. More than watching the movie, it was just spending part of the night till 1130 in the  open air, chit chatting and enjoying the sea breeze from the Bay of Bengal. Very rarely did we watch the movie, but this one evening in the OAT used to drive away all our tiredness of the week and refresh us for the next week. I remember when the  movie ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’  was screened, it was raining heavily but the  movie  continued and we could see water dripping from the  hunched back of Quasi Modo, the immortal character  of Victor  Hugo on the  screen. Even though we have an OAT  in REC, it is unfortunate that  it is rarely being used   except for the annual convocation  or some such  rare  occasion.

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