Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
It was a long time since I had visited my alma mater located in Shegaon. It was more than three decades. The saga of my re-visit to the Shegaon engineering college began when my friend popularly called Leo in our circles came to my house. He had a request. “My son has completed his diploma in electronics and he wants to join a degree college. I want him to get admitted without wasting any year.” It was somewhat late into the academic year and prospects of getting admission looked pretty bleak to me. I called up my friend in Delhi, Devesh Bhargava. He passed on the number of our Nagpur-based batchmate Ajay Tinguria who had graduated from Shegaon along with us.
Ajay told me it’s a very tough proposition as all colleges have filled their quota nearly a month ago. I and Leo were in discussion, when my mobile rang. It was Bhargava on the line. “Shegaon college principal Gaonkar called up and told me there is a single seat vacancy in the second year. Contact him fast.” We got in touch with Gaonkar and the admission was fixed in next to no time.
Leo along with his wife and elder son Angad went and visited the college. A few days later, Leo came home and told me, “It has excellent facilities. It has very good labs besides sports facilities and a full-fledged mess catering to our palate. Besides, I am happy with the culture of the college as they begin the day with yoga and prayers before graduating to the proper classes.” At that point of time, I surmised that our Shegaon college had come a long way from being a cluster of tin-shed classrooms and lab areas. Subsequently, Leo engaged my services in tutoring his son in second year engineering mathematics.
In addition to my journalistic efforts, it required me to do a lot of revision and rework of calculus and trigonometry. The problem Angad faced was, he had no exposure to mathematics of even junior college level, being a diploma student. In addition, he had no exposure to first year engineering mathematics that commenced with the rigorous partial differential equations. It took me nearly two-and-a-half months to update him with the three years of mathematics curriculum before I could bring him to cope with second year engineering mathematics.
At the end of the semester, Leo and his wife walked into my home. “We are faced with a crisis. Angad has flunked in almost all subjects. We feel we should visit the principal and have a talk with him for giving Angad personal attention.” I acceded to their request. I along with Leo and his wife Anita set out for Shegaon on a train journey. Anita kept talking about her taking a private accommodation and being present in Shegaon to supervise Angad’s studies. Personally, I was against such an approach as I felt micro-monitoring does not yield good results. We landed in Shegaon early morning at around 7 a.m.
All three of us reached the campus within 20 minutes after hiring an auto-rickshaw. We hired a cottage that adjoined the famous Gajanan Vatika that was located a few hundred yards behind the campus location. It was 9.30 by the time I, Leo and Anita got ready to visit the principal Gaonkar at his office. After the initial exchange of pleasantries, Gaonkar asked me, “Have you visited the temple?” I answered, “Once we finish with our college visit, we will be headed to the Gajanan Maharaj temple. We are now concerned about the grooming of Angad in the various engineering subjects.” Gaonkar assured us that if need be, Angad can take private tuitions with the college lecturers. We chatted with Gaonkar for nearly 15 minutes before we three took leave of him.
As I walked down the stairs, I was greeted by a person whom I could not recognise. He said, “Venky, I am now a lecturer in our college. We were in the same batch decades ago.” I politely acknowledged his inquiries before we set off towards the temple. It was a long ride and as we passed through the village landscape, I noticed a lot of changes had taken place and the village too had come up with high rise structures just like in townships. The Sant Gajanan Maharaj temple was very efficiently managed and despite heavy traffic, our “darshan” was managed within 15 minutes. I then told Anita, “We must savor the kachoris from the local hotel as Shegaon was very popular for this dish.” Two kachoris and cups of hot tea later, we headed towards the college for having a chat with Angad. Anita persisted and asked me whether I could arrange for accommodation near the college to stay along with her son. I took both Leo and Anita to my trusted friend from our college days by name Dilip Mane. Mane informed me that it was rather difficult to get accommodation near the college and we could try somewhere in the interiors of the village. During my college days, Dilip Mane was the owner of Gopal Tea House located a stone’s throw from the railway tracks that led to Akola. Mane informed me that the Tea house had shut down long back. “Right now, I am running a lodge for tourists.” Mane offered to accommodate us in the lodge. I however, politely declined and told him we will be returning to Mumbai on a night’s journey.
The last part of my visit to my alma mater was something like the first thing that happened after I landed in Shegaon station decades back. I went and sat on the wheel-barrow that is located at the edge of the platform and smoked my cigarettes. This was bidding adieu to my memories that I had at the earlier four-year stint at the college.
