56 Practical Examinations at NSSCE Palakkad

Another  engineering college where  I used to for conducting  practical  examinations was  N.S.S. College of Engineering Palakkad. I had a special affinity to Palakkad for several reasons. My brother Prof.K.P.Sasidharan   was a member  of faculty  in Govt. Victoria College till 1973  until  he  moved to Maharajas College Ernakulam. I did my Pre-University in Palakkad in 1962-63  since  my brother was  there in GVC. Even after completing  my  U-Pre, I used  to spend some  time with my brother during summer  holidays  while studying in TKMCE Kollam. In short, I was quite familiar with the dry and bothersome wind blowing through glen in Palakkad ghats, most of the time dry Kalpathi river and the stink of horse dung  and human faeces on the side roads of Palakkad. Therefore, if I was appointed as examiner, I would accept it happily.

We had a few friends in Palakkad, but rarely I used to stay with them. I used to take a room near  KSRTC bus stand  in Palakkad or Olavakkaot while  on exam duty. The engineering college is located at Akathethara about 8KMs from the  city and 5 Kms  from Olavakkot. Line buses to Malapuzha  goes  near the college, but from the  PWD road  about 1 ½ KMs  had to be  walked to reach the college. If some friend comes in his own car, I may get a lift. The college bus was available for teachers and students in the morning and evening, but not accessible to occasional guests like me. Moreover, External Examiners are not generally welcome guests in many colleges as they will be able to conduct  the examination  with their own staff as  Internal and External examiners in case  the External fails to report. Even among faculty, many were not having vehicles of their own. An alternate way to the college was through the Railway Colony on an auto rickshaw. But there was a level cross which may remain closed for half an hour or so and hence not reliable. As I have the unfortunate habit of being punctual, I was not ready to take the chance. I used to take auto only in emergency. Moreover, the remuneration or travelling allowance the university pays will not be able to cover the auto charges every day. Even that will be paid after an year or two at that time.

Profs. Sreekumaran Nambissan, Hariharan and Rama Panicker from Electrical Engineering department were regular external examiners coming to REC from Palakkad and they were my good friends. I had also a few friends in other departments Sri. Rajasekharan of Civil department and Sri.Kartha  from Mechanical department both of whom I met I.I.T.Madras  during summer school, Divakaran  former  student of REC, V.P.Mohandas and Rajanbabu who were  my students in REC  were  in the list. Rajanbabu and Mohandas were more than mere friends, they are like my brothers. Their better halves were also like my sisters. Mrs.Mohandas was the daughter of Sri. P.G.Purushothaman Pillai of Malayalam department who was our family  friend. Through my brother, we had some acquaintance with the family of Sri.C.R.Menon, elder  brother of former Chief Minister C.Achyutha Menon. For my wedding at Guruvayur, I had gone to Guruvayur  with my brother from Palakkad. My brother was staying in a house behind Udaya Book stall  in Sultanpetta in Palakkad town. Our first days of wedded life was in this rented house.

Let me share some memories of my examination work in Palakkad. One is about one of long-time colleague and former M.Tech student of mine at REC. He was a candidate for the practical examination in the final year and I was the external examiner. The exam was for four days and he was supposed to appear for exam on fourth day with just two batches from 9-12 and 11- 2 PM. On the last day, this one hour overlap was arranged by my Internal Examiner Sri.P.M.S.Nambissan sir so that I can reach home early. With three sessions, one-hour overlap is difficult. This re-scheduling was informed to all. Normally if a candidate   is coming late to the examination by more than 30 minutes, as per rules, he need not be admitted to the examination. The hero of our story was in the first batch and came late by more than an hour. I asked him why he is so late and told him as per rules he cannot be allowed to take the exam. He said he was coming   from a distance from Kongad and the bus he boarded broke down on the way and he could catch another bus and was delayed because of this. We were in a dilemma whether to allow him to take the exam or not. If we allow him, as per rescheduling, it may also upset other students in the next batch. I checked up with my Internal Examiner and he said he is a good student getting high marks but he left the final decision to me. Anyway, I told him that we will consider that your one hour from the examination is already lost and if you can do the experiment in 2 hours, we will allow you. He was almost on the point of tears earlier, but suddenly he got himself revived and said he will need only 2 hours. True to his word, he completed his experiment including 10 minutes viva  in one hour and 55 minutes and went away. If we strictly followed the rules, he will have to take  his supplementary  and was likely to loose  one year. This  person  has recently retired as professor in N.I.T.Calicut and presently  working in Manipal Institute of Technology. Later he did his M.Tech in Instrumentation and Control Systems in NIT  and joined as lecturer. We were sharing the same staff room for several years and he was a co-guide  of my  last PhD  student  who got her  degree  in the  convocation a few weeks back. His name is Dr.K.S.Sivanandan. I am not sure whether he remembers this.

Yet  another incident  is about  the valuation of an answer paper  of my own brother. He was a student of B.Tech  Civil  in NSSCE. During the first year, there was a common paper for all on Electrical Engineering. I was one of the additional examiners for this paper and Sri.P.M.S.Nambissan as my Chief Examiner. When the appointment order from the university is received, we are required to inform the university if any of our relatives are taking exam. I informed the university regarding my brother, but they never bothered about it. When the bundle of answer papers were delivered to me, I saw his paper and in spite of the false number given as I could easily identify  his hand writing. I thought it is not  fair  to value this paper and  sent the answer book to my Chief examiner  by Registered  post without telling the reason. Before sending it, I just valued the answer script as per the scheme  of valuation sent by the Chief Examiner and noted down the marks in my dairy. Later after the results were announced I asked my brother how many marks he got for the paper. He said he got 87 marks. I told him   the marks as per my valuation was 77. Obviously, he was happy that I did not value his paper.

 A third experience was regarding an additional examiner from NSSCE for a paper for which I was  the Chief. A Chief examiner may have 3 or 4 additional examiners and the Chief is required to revalue at least 10%  of the papers valued  by the additional and report any  discrepancy to the university. All the answer papers are to be recounted too. When I saw  the answer papers  from this particular additional examiner from NSSCE, I started  revaluing  the  papers. I found that the valuation work was thoroughly   lopsided with many answers not valued and there was lot of totalling mistakes. In fact, to protect the students, I had to revalue all the papers from this examiner, even though I was eligible for additional remuneration for the stipulated 10% papers only.  When I checked with some senior teachers in NSSCE about this guy,  they said  this young man is on the way to becoming a disciple of a woman god and he  was not regular  in his class work recently and the Principal has  issued several warnings to him. After a few months, I heard that this young man, hardly 35 years of age, had deserted his beautiful wife from an aristocratic family in Palakkad and a cute young child and joined the group and left Palakkad once for all. Recently I heard that he is now working as the Principal of a college run by the ashram under his guru. But his guru tells his disciples “Unselfish service to humanity is the best way to serve God”. How can a person who is not sincere in his work and devoted to his family reach salvation by simply renouncing his family or  escaping  from one’s responsibilities?