You might’ve heard of St. Thomas’ College, Thrissur!!! In my Pre-degree days (Circa 1994) it was the only men’s college in the town. So the first agenda of election manifesto of all parties were nothing but building a bridge to St. Mary’s college (a famous women’s college just 200 m away from the college). Our college was notorious for the student’s strike too. Frankly speaking, I should thank student leaders who made sure at least one strike per week. Yet our college produced rank 1, 2 or 3 in Engg / Med. entrance exams. “No. of ranks were directly proportional to no. of strikes”-just an unwritten law.
This college was famous for its state-of-the-art labs, which are modern enough to compete with those of IIT’s. Sorry… as pre-degree students we didn’t go anywhere near those labs. But heard that many equipments were in its “തട്ടിന്പുറം” (store). I remember that Science block was much stuffed with stinky smell of chemistry lab. But the college never produced an Einstein or Newton as far as I know.
Who cares!! take a look at the Art block. It produced a lot of poets, politicians (Quite a few Kerala leaders), script writers …etc…
But I don’t care that too.
I remember only one room in the college. Room no 101. The only class room with 7 doors in our college. Lucky boys... You might be jealous of us. What a facility to bunk the class to catch a movie. Oh… I forgot to mention, this college has no vast campus, no greenery .. btw, why a college without girls need all these stuff? But we were blessed with 5 theaters in the 2KM radius. (now, 8 I guess). So no wonder if you could see your lecturer near to you and don’t be afraid. They will not interfere in your business.
Ok back to room no 101.
Seven doors. Enough to tempt a teenager to slide through !!! isn’t it?!! but stop being jealous of us. Three problems were put us in a difficult situation.
First one was … all lecturers know about this facility. And they make note of the guys sitting at the door side. (override rule ..choose the penultimate position on the beginning of the class. And swap the position just after your lecturer read the ‘edge’ sitters)
Second. Room 101 is on the first floor. On whatever matter ..you have only one exit to downstairs which is right in front of the class lecturer. ( override rule. ‘Bribe’ your classmate on the other side to make some noise or to misbehave to disturb the focus of lecturer from the exit door.)
Third..sure.. I will revisit. Let me complete the facility of room no 101. And my first day at room no 101.
Did you know what a simple pendulum is? I am sure that your professors took the example of a real clock with pendulum… Am I correct? But our lecturer never used this example. They simply invite us to the bell-tower. Yes you may choose any one of 7 doors to reach at the window of bell tower. In fact room no 101 is in the bell-tower!!!
The advantage of this window is nothing but the road infornt of it heads to St Mary’s college and the right side road leads to Prof.PC Thomas’ entrance coaching centre. Did you get something?
Yupe… We just stand there and watch the ‘birds’. You may see hundreds of simple pendulums in motion!!!
Now, the first day in the college … yes first day in Room 101 :-)
A group of 100 teenagers...who don’t know much about a pre-degree college… eager to wait what is going to happen… suddenly our lecturer appear in the platform and all of a sudden everybody got up and said “good morning” to the first lecturer we ever saw in our life. (what we saw in the school were just ‘maash’ and ‘chechers’)
Anyway the lecturer didn’t bother to wish us back. Ohh…valya poss (serious guy). And he started drawing a table ..What is he doing? He started writing Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri in the first column. Suddenly a few of us got the clue? They started doing hullabaloo. Each one of us joined the party. (5 minutes later we heard the same warm welcome from nearer classes too)
Yes.. later he better known as “Verandah Principal”, in charge of scheduling time-table for the pre-degree students, very vigilant to catch class-cutting students, always roams around the Verandah of the college. He made sure that the ‘defaulters’ are getting enough punishment.
So concluding … our third bottle neck was to flee away from the sight of this VP.
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yetanother.softwarejunk
6 comments:
Haha... Really a great read and brought back some memories too! I could relate to this totally because I was also a pre-degree student in St: Thomas during this time! :-)
Nice one...Good old pre-degree Days..
We used to throw arrows(Rockets) and once it gone to the catholic Syrian Bank room..anyway that was golden days
Ur blog made me remind of my pre-degree days. I used to bunk the physics(I dont think that am a puli) but still the class was boring. Well when the time to get all the record book certified i was trapped. Bcoz he told me that u have to bring the parents and then only ur record will get certified. Well what to do... The next step was to catch an "Auto guy" far from the college. And criteria was there he should look like my uncle(ha ha ) and then i fooled my prof(well he might have met this auto wala after some days) and i got my record certified. But still remember i never bunked ur classes. ha ha ha. It is very sad that nowadays the students dont get the "Bhaagyam" to enjoy the pre-degree era...
@Jo:
Do you remember our VP's name?
@Anon:
Great !!! CSB target is too tough :-)
@Sujith: ninte anpukku njan adimai :-)
lol. bell-tower indeed. bet it'd get really crowded after class
Hey.. u made me think of my days in St thomas college.. I was also in St thomas in 1992 - 94 Pre degree.. 1st Group A Batch... hahaha.. what a class room...
still remember the great panthalloookkarans verbal jugglery..
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