Portrait of a Mechanical Engineer

1. The Zeroth law.

“Dude, I think…..…” Tarun murmured as the thermodynamics class was progressing in a high tempo. It was the first hour and almost 70% of the class was filled, doing various jobs other than listening to the boring lecture.
“What?” I asked, then Vishal caught my left hand and he showed his face down the window. I raised my face and looked through it, one cutie was walking towards the main block, and I looked at Vishal, and raised my eye brows.
“Seven” he showed his fingers with a smile. “WTF, no way.” I shake my head and showed five with my fingers.
“Go to hell, it’s my mistake that I showed that girl to you” he said in a very low voice with a “grrrrr…” in it. And I mocked him with a big silent laugh.
“Dude..!” this time Tarun’s voice rose a little bit and nearby guys tilt their head and looked at us.
“What? Yeah you were telling something” I asked him. There was a big lengthy pause from him, and I was staring at his face. He took a long, I mean a very long breath and told, “I think I am in love”, and he smiled not pleasant though. I was surprised for a moment, and then I turned to Vishal and told, “Dude, did you heard what he told, he is in love it seems”.
“WHAT?” he screamed, “With whom, our strength of materials ma’am from civil department? “And we both burst in laughter in fact we couldn’t control it, Tarun was still in the embarrassed state, he might be thinking that he had just made the Himalayan blunder of his life.
“Last bench, last two, stand up”, a voice echoed in the class and our laughter had disappeared, the whole class was looking at us and we stood up.
“Is there any joke I’ve made that only you had understood?” Mr.Pillai was not in a good mood,” I have been noticing you guys from the beginning; you are not at all interested in the class”. We bowed our head down and said nothing. Tarun was still in a dilemma, and he was strangely looking at us.
“Don’t you speak or you open your mouth only for laughing in class”, we still kept silence, pin drop one.
“You may please vacate the class; I don’t want any disturbance in here. Tell your roll numbers. “
“Sir, thirty”, Vishal told, and mine was twelve. We took our bags and went out of the class, except Tarun everyone was looking at us and smiling, we smiled back and now we are out of the class.
“What’s next?” I asked. “Well, there are many options, either we go to canteen or go to the tea shop in front of college or ….” Vishal stopped for a pause. “What? Now don’t tell me you want to go to the library”
“Exactly, how come yaar, you are a pretty good mind reader”, he laughed as we were out of the Mechanical Engineering block.
“Fuck off” I told him “I’ll go for the second option, no girls will be available in canteen now, and facing that canteen manager at this time of the day, it really sucks dude”.
“Dude, what about library, I was serious. Didn’t you saw, the girl we saw earlier went inside the library” and he giggled.
“WTF, check the time now, is this the time to go to library?”
“There is no specific time”, he said and walked towards the library. And I followed, cursing him.
We kept our bags in the shelf and I moved towards the reading room, he to the lending section. I took the chair and went through all the news papers.
“Hallaa”, a voice wake me from the newspaper and I saw Vishal standing there smiling.
“Did your dreams fulfilled?”
“Yup, and you know she was my senior in school”
“In that girl’s convent where you studied only up to 4th standard?”, and I looked in his face, the most surprised form of facial expression I have ever seen was there.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Also, her name is Anju, S5 Electrical, E2”. Vishal’s mouth was still open in the most surprised state. “How the hell?”
“Dude, she is my cousin’s classmate and we are from the same bus stop. “ I smiled.
“Is it, I was surprised, that’s not a big deal “
“Oh that I know, I didn’t tell it’s a big deal”
And we left the library building and walked towards the college front gate. And then Vishal spotted a girl, “do you know her?” she was in a light blue salwar, college bag in her shoulder and a couple of books she was holding towards her chest and walking slowly towards the civil department, looks cute, yeah she is cute.
“Nope”, I replied.
“Ehhh, very good, I know her”
“How? Is she your neighbor or something or same bus stop?”
“Nope, she is our Abhay’s friend”
“Cool, so she is not your friend” and I laughed.
“Dude, don’t you know the zeroth law of thermodynamics, we are friends according to it” and he started laughing
“Fuck off, don’t you have any other business”
“For time being, yeah I don’t have any, could you give me some”
“Oh my god, you won’t change, get lost”
“He he, ok what do you want, tea?”
“Yeah, I’ll have one”
We went inside the shop and sat on the chair and ordered for two teas.
“What about thermodynamics assignment?” I asked him. “Eh, so there is an assignment, I didn’t know about it”, he said and laughed.
“ Is that a joke, I didn’t felt like one apart from that he will screw us for sure, btw how much you got first series.”
“Well, I think 29” he said
“Hahaha, cool, you think, I know you got 29 and I had 27 and that too out of 100, if we are not submitting assignments also surely he will make us under sessional, and getting 40 is a tough task above which I can only dream of”
“Hmmm”, he made that one as lengthy as possible. “What we have to write, let us do one thing we will submit before everyone does and that will make an impression”
“Killer idea! But I don’t think it will work out, do you got the text book or anything, then we can do it”
“Nope, but we will buy it today”, he was confident.
“Then, the assignment is the 7th chapter I think, properties of gases, and the last date is 27th of this month”
“Good good, so we are submitting on 26th morning, better keep this as a secret”
“Yeah, we will, but what about tarun, he should also write”
“Yes yes, we can ask him also to write down and submit”
And we finished our tea and left the shop and walked to nearby bookstore. Bought the thermodynamics book and went to class as it was almost 10.05 am.
We reached the department and found out there was a huge noise coming out of our class, that’s good this hour may be a free one. We entered the class and there was a total mess, is that a market or what, everyone was happy, joyful, enthusiastic and more, expect one- Tarun. He was still in a dilemma, and was looking out of the window on the side seat, may be counting the number of cuties on the way below. As far as we know him, he may be in a plasma state, thinking, thinking and thinking of which he only knows, may be with variety of ideas and thoughts.
We went near to our bench and sat there. Some of our class mates came to us and asked about what happened earlier
“We were discussing about the global issues regarding Osama bin laden and Bush, and also will Monica Lewinsky will get justice, and why Kerala is in such a worst condition.” Vishal told
“And yeah, about women’s rights, should they be given 33% or 34% in parliament” I added and found half of the guys surrounding us disappeared, and those who were left shook their heads and laughed, as if they have enjoyed that crazy joke.
When everyone left, we turned to Tarun, he was still looking out of the window. Vishal tried to catch his shoulders, but I caught his hand and said no. Let him be like that for some time. And we left the seat.

The following day we had our second series examinations. Unlike the first series vishal and I tried to sit inside the hall for more than 45 minutes, but sitting simply in the hall was a boring business and we left before one hour. There are more things in this world other than writing the series examination. And about that more things, we are searching, could find any other than having a tea in canteen or the nearby shop and chit chatting, gossiping and mocking others, while others struggled to pass for the series and get good sessional marks.

2.

“Did you saw the sessional marks?” Tarun asked me. Vishal and I had just arrived to class. It was exam season and we had no regular classes, just some report submissions, assignments and some other extra classes.
“No, did they publish, when and where?” Vishal asked in surprise.
“It’s on the department notice board, they might have published yesterday”, Tarun answered.
“Ok, fine, what about yours, any under sessional “
“Yeah, I saw and I have one under”
“Ehhh…” me and vishal said at the same time.” Which subject?” For which Tarun didn’t tell anything and started looking out of the window. We waited for a couple of minutes and ran to the department notice board. There was a huge crowd in front of that. But we managed to peep inside and wrote down our marks.
Well not bad, we didn’t have any under, four subjects less than 40; yeah that’s a good mark. And found out that tarun was under in thermodynamics, for which I got 41 and vishal got 42. We got surprised. How can it be possible, I think he got more than 70 in his first series and second series also he wrote well. When 27 can get a 42 why 70 got less than 35, to be precise 27 marks as sessional.
“Dude, what happened to Tarun?” Vishal asked me and for that I have no answer. No wonder why tarun was in a bad mood. I shook my head and we went to class. Tarun was not there in the class. And then Deepak told that he went to see sir about his under sessional.
Deepak was Tarun’s good friend, they sit together, and Tarun shifts his seat near to us only during boring classes. And I guessed Deepak knows why he got under. And I asked him.
“Yeah he got under for TD, he didn’t submitted the assignment”, Deepak told and we got surprised.
That is the same assignment which we had a plan of submitting one day before and we spoke to tarun and he told that he will submit along with others. We didn’t have the slightest idea about him not submitting the assignment.
Actually the story goes likes this- Tarun had 78 in the first series and 73 in the second series, our marks were horrible, first and second series together less than 50. And because of that we submitted the assignment one day before. That made some impression upon him. So Tarun was in dilemma during those days and didn’t care for submitting the assignment, he thought of getting good sessional considering his test marks. But Mr.Pillai screwed, and he got 27.

Later that day during the lunch break we saw Tarun walking furiously towards the staff room. We left the class morning itself and went for a tea, some chit-chat, gossiping and came back to class, that time Tarun was spotted by Vishal.
“Tarun” I called him loudly. My voice wasn’t enough for him to look back.
“What do we do?” vishal asked me. “Let’s go to class, he will come there”, and we walked towards the class. Class was half filled, everyone was having their lunch, and we took our lunch and started eating. After lunch we went for a walk to other departments, and apart from that the first years had joined a couple of weeks back. Our intention was to have a look at them and they should know we are seniors.


...to be continued