1.From T K M College of Engg to R E C Calicut

Hailing from a small village  in Kuttanad, in the  backwaters  of Kerala, I had  my  Pre-University education  in one of the  oldest colleges in Malabar, Govt Victoria College, Palakkad. Then I joined  T K M College  of Engg(TKMCE)  Kollam as a student of Electrical Engg. After five years of study, I continued as  a lecturer  in TKMCE  immediately after passing out in 1968. During this time, I had the benefit of taking classes for my immediate  juniors. It was  a very pleasant experience  to be a teacher  of my junior   friends  and their  constructive  criticism  by way of a student  feed back was very useful for me  in correcting several mistakes  in my method of teaching. I do understand defects and inadequacies still exist after 45 years in teaching, but I do understand that at least a majority of my students has been benefited from what I could offer them in the class.

Immediately after passing out in 1968, I had registered my name in the  Professional & Executive Employment Exchange  in Kerala  University  with my address, care of one  of my former teachers G Madhusudhanan Nair (father of famous music director M Jayachandran ) who was on deputation from Kerala State Electricity Board  to TKM for teaching. As appointment  to RECs at that time were through employment exchange, I was called for interview at REC during the summer vacation.

Calicut or Kozhikode was a town totally unknown to me. I started from my home near Alleppey in the early morning and reached Calicut city by 4PM  changing several buses  from Alleppey to Ernakulam, Ernakulam to Thrissur and Thrissur to Kozhikode via Perinthamanna as the  road through Edappal was commissioned only much later. There was a small lodge  called Imperial lodge (where a branch of Indian Coffee house is located now) on Kallai Road  near the Palayam bus stand and I took a  room there and slept off for the day.  

In the early morning took a bath and started to REC which I was  told is 22 KMs away  from the city. Paying  just 40 paise as bus fare, I reached the campus in about 40 minutes. Interview was held in the office of the Principal in the  main building (MB). As I was already teaching  in TKMCE   for the final years, a subject on Generation Transmission and Protection,   members of the  interview  panel started asking questions  on that subject  only. If I remember correct, most of the questions were on methods of circuit breaking, rate of rise of recovery and restriking voltage etc. Difference between Oil Circuit breakers and Air Blast circuit breakers  naturally came up. As this was one of my favourite subjects during  my studies and had almost taught the  full subject, I was sure  of most of the topics and so I could do well in the interview.

Three candidates who appeared for the interview along with me were already working in REC provisionally and another was one Mr.Reddy from Andhra Pradesh  who had already completed  his  ME.   I was fortunate  to be ranked 1^st  in the interview followed  by Reddy and others in that order. All the three working in REC were from North Kerala and I was the only person from South of Kerala. Some one had told me that  people from North Kerala  do not normally like those from South, the reason  for this being the mistrust  of the people who migrated from South  to North. These  ‘migrants’ with their  meagre resources bought some  waste land from the locals and converted this to very good cultivable  lands by their sheer  hard work.  The waste land was transformed to excellent agricultural   land  in few years. The famous  novelist S.K.Pottekkad  has written about these people in his novels and narrated how some of these migrants lost their  relatives affected  by Malaria and small pox. However, the locals thought that is by some sheer magic and could not believe it and thought they had done some   cheating in the process. It was probably like this, the people from the South became persona non grata in Malabar.  As years went by, I and my family were more and more aware of this  discrimination as  very few  from North liked  to have  marriage alliance from people of the South. Moreover, originally Malabar was a province of Tamil Nadu in British India and when Kerala state was formed adding Malabar to  erstwhile Travancore Kochi it was  not liked by a section of the people. As Communists were strongly rooted in this part of the state, the Communists only liked  the change, it seems. Naturally  they came to power in the first election after formation of Kerala state.

As soon as I got  my letter of appointment, I approached the Principal of TKMCE  for relief  to join REC, but he said as  per rules I have to give one month’s notice or pay one month’s salary in liue of that. As I had  no money to pay, he advised me to meet the Chairman  Board of Governors of TKMCE Trust. Hesitantly I approached the Chairman and requested him to exempt me from paying the amount. He asked me : “Why do you want to leave this institution which has  made you what you are”. I replied: “Sir, REC is an institution under Central  Government and they are starting  post graduate course soon and  my intention is to do higher studies at the earliest I may get a better chance  in REC  for  improving my career”. Without any hesitation, he allowed me to leave TKMCE without paying any notice salary. In fact,  I was relieved on a Friday after collecting salary  till Sunday (31^st Aug)  so that I could join  REC on 1^st Sept 1969. Thus I joined REC Calicut as an Associate lecturer in Electrical Engg  on 1^st Sept on a total salary of Rs.375/ pm while I was getting Rs.300/ only as Lecturer in TKMCE. There was also a chance of promotion to Lecturers post within an year.